How I Feel About Doing a Charity Walk

My husband is a Type 1 Diabetic (juvenile onset/insulin dependent) and has been since the age of nine (he's almost 46). He suffers from many of the complications associated with the disease, including kidney failure, for which he has been on in-center hemodialysis for the last 12 1/2 years.

And that ain't even the half of it!

Over the 20 years we've been together I've had myself quite the education on Diabetes. Heck, I even had Gestational Diabetes (very similar to Type 2) in both of my pregnancies.

But I've also built up a bit of a hard heart and even bitterness toward the idea that the "powers that be" could actually be trying to find a cure.

To me it feels like Diabetes is thought of as just a "condition" MILLIONS of people have to "deal" with, it's completely manageable and "if you just keep your blood sugars in good control you'll be fine".

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but that simply hasn't been what I've observed about the disease.

The View From Here: What We Think We Know

Welcome to the last View From Here guest post!

Today I bring you Shell of Things I Can't Say, which was one of the very first other blogs I discovered when I finally noticed that blogging was such a big thing. Since then, Shell has been a bit of a bloggy mentor to me, just by doing what she does, by her example.

In fact, she's such a cool blogger that, with help from a few other bloggers, Shell recently launched The Soccer Moms, dedicated to parents of active kids. Really great idea for a blog!

I think Shell's post for us is a perfect note to end The View From Here on.

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What We Think We Know

It’s so easy to make assumptions based on what we see of someone. The way they look, dress, the car they drive, the house they live in, their kids, what we see them doing.

We think we know.

10 Things I Think About When My Husband is in the Hospital

My husband has been in the hospital for a week now. He has had two procedures, one leaving an 18 inch incision running down his chest, and several cocktails of antibiotics.

He hopes each day might be his last (in the hospital, I mean), but then something else crops up.

Today is a regular dialysis day so they took him for the treatment....but his Quinton catheter is running slow now. Are they going to have to put a new one in? That's another procedure. Sigh.

I feel so badly for Mark. He isn't getting good sleep and he's hardly eating. A plastic surgeon was supposed to come see him about that chest incision, but just didn't over the weekend.

So yeah, hospital stays pretty much suck. And every time, there are many things running through my mind.

Life is Too Short

Life is too short for....

Beating your head up against the wall, never to accept the things you can't change.

That last phrase obviously refers to the serenity prayer:

I live by it. I have a small printout of it in a cheap blue frame on my bathroom wall.

The View From Here: Blended Family Bliss

For the second to the last week of "The View From Here", I bring you a man.

Lance Burson is a writer living outside Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and 3 daughters.

He's a published author of 2 books, The Ballad Of Helene Troy and Soul To Body,

available on amazon.com for kindle and lulu.com in paperback.

He co-runs the politics and pop culture site, Lefty Pop - Suckers For Politics And Pop Culture

and blogs at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog.

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Blended Family Bliss

I'm terrible at taking compliments, but my favorite one is when people find out my wife and 3 daughters and I constitute a blended family and say "oh, wow, I could've sworn you guys had been together from the start."

The Ninth Day of 9th Grade

I'm a late with this.

But ya know, husband in the hospital and all that....

Also though, the teenager leaves for school at 6:15 in the morning.

Ain't nobody in the mood for picture taking at that hour!

So I give you....

On the 11th day. Whatever.

Admitted to the Hospital

It may seem silly for me to think about blogging when my husband has just been admitted to the hospital to treat an infection....

The thing is, he and that are a huge reason why I blog. It is my desire to blog my way through the craziness that is Mark's chronic illnesses. For me/us and for others. It's our story, our journey.

So I will keep writing.

The View From Here: An American's Reflections on England

The View this week is coming from Jill Robbins of Ripped Jeans and Bifocals.

(Great name for a blog!)

She is RIGHT NOW in the process of moving from England back to Texas.

I wonder if the two places have anything in common....?

I don't know, but Jill is sharing here with us today what she

will and won't miss about living in the UK.

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Reflections Upon Leaving England

I’ve lived in England for almost four years. Today, I’m writing at my dining room table instead of my usual corner of the family room (my normal practice is to write while keeping one eye on what everyone else is doing, which is my standard disclaimer for anything I write that might suck). I’m displaced because today is moving day. I’m surrounded by chaos and packing crates, watching two moving dudes named LeRoy and Steve touch everything I own.

My Anxiety

For me, anxiety manifests in mainly two ways:

1. All the terrible, awful, scary things that can happen flash in my head.
2. I become Chicken Little crying, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

Ask Jen: On Motherhood, Caregiving and Time Off

Reader Question

Asked by Peggy, a fan of the Dancing in the Rain Facebook page: How do you deal with being mom, wife, caretaker, etc, with little to no time for yourself?

My Answer

I saw this on Facebook several months ago:

To which one person replied, "Not if you are a mom!"

It kind of annoyed me.

The Third Day of 3rd Grade

Again this year my son AJ was thoroughly into summer and enjoyed it just as much as he absolutely could....

All the way up until he met his new teacher and saw his new classroom. As he was looking around the portable, he stopped and said, "I'm kind of excited for school to start."

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather!

The View From Here: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Kayso, this week's View will be perfect after the heaviness I posted yesterday.

Because I snagged the one and only Darcy Perdu of So Then Stories!

The name is fake, but her funny writing is so NOT.

She has been selected as a BlogHer Voice of the Year the past two years, as well as

1st place in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in the blog category.

Here ya go!

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Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – In Fact, Don’t Sweat

  

So then…Jennifer Hall of Dancing in the Rain invites me to guest post for her series The View From Here where writers share their “unique perspective on life”.

My immediate thought is, “Holy Cow! Does Jennifer’s website have enough ROOM to print my voluminous LIFE philosophy? I could go on for 47 HOURS on this topic!”

I'm Having a Hard Time

This is going to be a completely selfish and self-serving post.

I haven't let on much to anyone, but I am having a really hard time lately.

Because my husband is having a really hard time.

The cumulative effect of all he's been through this year is weighing on us heavy right now.

No, there hasn't been any one BIG thing. It's been a bunch of small-ish (compared to, say, being in the ICU with a tube down his throat being told he was going to die) things.

You guys -- you lovely people who read my words here -- know this. You know this year has been all kinds of up and down (and upside down)for my family.

At this time, Mark feels like it's all just down.

He is so frustrated. Downright angry sometimes.

Best Instagram of August

I did not take very many pictures in August.

Let alone any that were very good.

I don't know what happened.

So....

I"m just going to share the best ONE this time for: