RIP Dad

My dad passed away July 26, 2009, exactly one week before his 59th birthday. I don't know if I have to words to express the pain I'm feeling right now. I feel such a hole inside of me now.
He got sick at the beginning of July, at the hospital in his town, they said he had gallstones. Because of his other medical problems (liver cancer, kidney failure, Hepatitis C etc.), the hospital in Carlsbad sent him to a bigger hospital in Lubbock, TX. At the hospital in Carlsbad, he was having trouble breathing, so they put a tube in to help him breath and put him in a medically induced coma. Once he got to Lubbock, they found that his gallbladder was very infected, they couldn't do the surgery immediately, they weren't sure he would survive it, so they inserted a tube into his gallbladder to drain it. My sister, husband, oldest niece and I went to Lubbock to see him and to see how he was doing. While there, he didn't even know who we were, or even that we were there. It was horrible seeing him that way. The doctors has stopped the medicine to keep him sedated, but he wouldn't wake up, and they had no idea why. We eventually had to leave, and the surgery was done. He came out well from the surgery, and was waking up slowly. I was in contact with the hospital every day, all day. He started getting very confused, tearing out his IV's and trying to get out of bed. The doctor called me and said basically there was nothing they could do for him anymore, we needed to make "end of life decisions" for him. This threw me for a HUGE loop, as far as I knew, he was only in there for his gallbladder. My sister and I went up there July 23. When we got there, the doctor said there were no more options for him, his cancer had spread, and dialysis was only hurting him at this point. We elected to stop dialysis and move him to a hospice there in Lubbock in hopes of getting him in hospice in Carlsbad when he was stable enough to move him. At hospice, the doctor there said my dad probably wouldn't make it through the weekend, his whole system was just shutting down. We called our brother to come. On Sunday July 26, my sister was in the room with our dad, I was resting, when she noticed his breathing was getting labored. She called the nurse who called the doctor and then myself and our brother. The doctor checked his vital signs and told us that this was it. We all said our goodbyes, told him we loved him, and he was gone. His passing was so peaceful, he just went to sleep. I can't help but selfishly wish for just one more hour with him. I miss him so much! We had a beautiful funeral service for him, so many people came. There were people there I didn't even know, it really showed me how much my dad was loved, not just by us, but by so many people. I know my grief will never fade, but it will get easier to deal with in time. If I had known we had so little time left with him, I would've talked more with him, asked him more questions about his childhood, his hopes and dreams for himself. I have so many regrets now. I know this is very cliche, but you just never know when someone you love will go, I know now that life is too short to not say I love you to anybody in your life that you do love. I know my dad knew I loved him, I told him all the time, but at this moment, it doesn't feel like I did enough to show him just how much he really meant to me.

Home!!!

Wow, it's been a looong time since I've posted anything on my poor forgotten blog. A lot of stuff has happened, the most important is that we came home to Albuquerque! I'm so happy to be home, I can't even verbalize it. I absolutely HATED it in Amarillo. Another big change in my life is that Matthew and I aren't living with my sister and the girls anymore. I miss my girls so much, but it was time for us to be by ourselves again. Well, we're technically NOT by ourselves yet, we moved in with Matthew's sister & brother-in-law. The main reason for this is that we don't have to pay rent, and we can try to climb out from under this debt we have. It's taken some getting used to, not living w/my sister and getting used to someone else's habits and stuff, but so far it's going ok. I've also learned to knit with needles! I'm so excited about this, I'd tried to learn so many times before with no success. I don't know what was different this time, I just watched some videos on Youtube, and BAM, I got it. So far, the only thing I've made was a dishcloth. I'm working on a scarf for my sister right now. I'm making out of a pretty brown Alpaca/acrylic blend. It's a really neat scarf, it's not a traditional winter scarf, it has an open weave so I told her it would be a summer/fall scarf. It's really more of a "fashion" scarf, one you would wear almost like you would wear a necklace. I'll post pictures of it soon, so everyone can see what I'm talking about.
Another situation in my crazy life is my dad. He went to the ER in Carlsbad almost 2 weeks ago for pain in his side, the same pain he had in Amarillo when he got diagnosed w/the liver cancer. The doctors in Carlsbad found gallstones. Now normally, gallstones aren't a life or death thing, but with all of my dad's other health problems, it got pretty serious. When he went into the ER, he was having trouble breathing, because he's in Renal failure, he retains water a lot and this makes him short of breath. The doctors decided to intubate him, they put him into a drug induced coma, and sent him to a bigger hospital in Lubbock, TX. In Lubbock, they found that his gallbladder was very infected. They couldn't do surgery immediately because he was so ill, so they did the next best thing. They inserted a tube into his gallbladder from outside his body, to drain some of the infection. Once they did this, they took him off of the drugs that were keeping him unconscious and took the breathing tube out. Well, my dad wouldn't wake up. The doctors had no idea why he wouldn't respond. It got pretty scary for a minute there, we actually thought he wasn't going to make it. My sister, husband, niece and I went to see him on Thursday the 9th, he looked awful! It was so hard seeing him like that. I think the worst part for me was the thought that he might die without knowing we were there. The last time I saw him, in May, we didn't part on the best of terms and I hadn't spoken to him since. He finally woke up a little, but he was very confused and didn't know who we were, or where he was. Last Tuesday, they were finally able to do the surgery, the next day he was sitting up in bed. I got to talk to him on the phone, since we had left by then. He's slowly getting better, and if he continues, hopefully he'll come home soon.
My life has been very hectic this past month, and I hope it will get a little more peaceful in the months to come.

Moving.....Again

After only 3 months here, we're throwing in the towel and going back to New Mexico. Personally, I just couldn't adjust to Texas. I don't know if it was just the city we're living in, or Texas as a whole. I really, really hated it here. I just felt so lost, and uncomfortable here. I found it kind of funny, because I lived here as a teenager, and I loved it! As a matter of fact, when we moved back to New Mexico, I cried for about a week. Maybe it's because I'm older and more "mature", and maybe it's just that New Mexico is just in my blood now, and I can't live away from there. Whatever the cause, I'm ecstatic to be going back. My dad decided to go back to Carlsbad, where I grew up, he didn't like it here either. My feelings are sort of ambivalent about him going back, it was a lot harder having him here then I thought.
So, right now we're trying to pack up everything and get it all together. We're also trying to get rid of extra things that we just don't need. I've posted a lot of things on Freecycle.com, people on there are great, and I know the items I give away will have a great second life with their new owners. Well, that's about it for now, the next time I post, I'll be back in Albuquerque, where I belong!

Cancer

On Friday, my husband and I went to Carlsbad, NM to pick up my dad. A little background on my dad, my parents were divorced when I was around 3 years old. We had the normal weekend visitation for a while, I was always such a daddy's girl. My father wasn't always a responsible parent, but I never doubted he loved me. Over the years, we weren't really as close anymore. Around 2000 he was living in California, and he got hurt on the job. He came to stay with my sister and I in 2001, when we moved to Albuquerque for a few months, he then went back to Carlsbad. Well, since that time, he's become much more ill. He first got diabetes, which he didn't take care of at all! He was a drug user for many, many years, and he just didn't really care. As a result of the diabetes, he went into renal failure, and had to go on dialysis. He's been on dialysis for about 2 1/2 years now. I noticed that he wasn't doing too well, he wasn't eating right, he started having heart trouble, and sometimes he would forget to take his medicine when he was supposed to. About 2 years ago, I told him I wanted him to come live with me and my husband, he always said no, because his home was in Carlsbad, he had all his friends there and his house (which was my grandparents house before his), and he always said that Albuquerque was too cold for him. Well, a couple of months ago, one of his really good friends called me, she was very concerned about him, she said he would forget things, he was basically having memory lapses, and he wasn't eating right. That's when I really, really knew he had to come live with me. My brother and his girlfriend and their 2 little boys lived with my dad, but my brother, unfortunately, is also a heavy drug user, and instead of helping my dad, was just making his life more stressful. Well, I finally got my dad to agree to come here to Texas with us. So Matthew and I went on Friday to pick him up. We got home to Amarillo Saturday night aroung 10:30, my dad was pretty tired, so he laid down. At around 2 a.m., I went to get a drink of water, and he called to me. He told me that he was getting a sharp pain in his right side. I asked him if he wanted to go to the E.R., and he said yes. That's when I knew it was a bad pain, because usually, you have to drag my dad to the doctor. At the E.R., they were thinking it was probably gall stones, they ran some bloodwork, and also took a sonogram on his belly. I noticed it took the technician a long time to do the sonogram, but I just figuered she was having a hard time finding his gallbladder. We then had to wait for the results, at around 5:30 a.m., a doctor came in, I asked him, what's going on? What were the results of the sonogram. That's when he drops the bombshell, he said "We found a mass in your fathers liver." I didn't know what to think, what to say, I really didn't know anything. They admitteded him into the hospital that morning, and ran some more tests, that eventually showed that he definately has cancer. We go see the oncology surgeon tomorrow at 2:30, and he'll tell us what our options are, whether he can do surgery or what. When the radiologist looked at the sonogram, it was found out that there were 2 other smaller tumors, besides the larger one. The largest tumor is 14 cm, and I don't know the size of the smaller ones yet. I'm so scared as to what the doctor is going to tell us tomorrow, I almost don't want to go, as they say, ignorance is bliss. Everyone keeps telling me to take it one day at a time, and I try to do that, but all sorts of thoughts just run through my head. When I hear the word cancer, I just associate it with death. I don't want to think the worst, but I also want to be prepared. No, what I really want, is to have never heard the word cancer associated with my daddy. But there's no turning back now. Some way, I try to keep strong for him, I don't want him to see me cry, I just want him to fight this thing and get better. He's only 58 years old, and I don't want to loose him now.

Loom Knitting

Hello all! Well, I started on the blanket again today, and this time, I think I've got it right!! Yay! I'm going to do 2 panels with a garter stitch edging. I'm using a pretty blue and white varigated yarn and a plain white yarn. I wanted to do the 2 strands as 1 because it'll give me a tighter knit. When I finish this, I'm going to try to make an afghan for our bed. I belong to a loom knitting group on Yahoo, and some wonderful women teach different classes to anyone who wants to join, they did an afghan block class last year, and I saw some block patterns that I like. The class did a "crazy block" afghan, but I'm going to do my afghan with all the same type of block. I just need to figure out what color I want to make it. It can't be too girly or too masculine. I'll know the perfect yarn when I see it, I hope!
On another note, my best friend Kevin and I made up! I'm so relieved!!! For the past 6 months or so, we had grown apart, life just seemed to happen. When I left Albuquerque to come here to Amarillo, we got into an argument, and just decided we were better off not being friends at all. I thought it would be best, and I guess he did too, but it didn't take too long for me to realize that I needed him in my life. But, unfortunately, one of my many faults is that i'm stubborn! I was scared to contact him, I didn't know what he would say, or if he felt the same way. :( Well, early this week, he sent me a message on MySpace apologizing! I was so happy!! Kevin was the first person I met when we moved to Albuquerque, and we've been friends ever since. We've shared so much, and been through so much together, I had a hard time thinking that our friendship would end on such a bad note. But, thank God, we both came to our senses. So now, I have my very best friend back, and at least THAT part of my life is good!

Monday

April 16 was my niece India's birthday, we went home to Albuquerque this past weekend so she could have her birthday with all her friends and family. We had her party at Peter Piper Pizza, lots of noisy kids!! LOL. It was a quick trip, we left on Saturday morning, and came back Sunday night. I stayed with my good friend Marion, she's always ready to have us stay with her. I had a good time with her on Sunday, she wasn't feeling to good, so I just watched "Keeping Up Apperances" on Netflix instant movies. I just love that show! It's so hilarious. So, I was working on a baby blanket for my friend Jennifer, she's having a baby boy. Well, I've started this darn blanket 3 times,the first 2 times, I didn't like the way it was coming out, the 3rd time, I was making good progress, and I forgot to add the 4 stitches of the garter stitch to make a border. I was so mad at myself!!! So, i'm gonna try again tonight, let's see if this time, I can finally finish it. I also have a new addiction! I found a networking site, kinda like Myspace, for knitters and crocheters, and really any crafters. It's such a great site! I find myself spending hours on the computer looking at this site! The good thing is, i'm not the only one who does this. I've seen alot of people on Ravelry who also spend hours on the site! :) I feel kinda bad, because i've been on the site so much, I neglect other things that I have to do. I'm just learning so much, and meeting so many cool people, I find it hard to tear myself away from it!! Well, that's it for today, I'm really gonna get working on the blanket, I really need to finish it before the baby is too big to use it! :D Have a great week!

Knitting

I've always been into crafts of some sort, I tried to teach myself to knit and crochet, but could never get the hang of it. Last year, I discovered the Knifty Knitter Looms, and I fell in love with them! With this loom, you can knit, without the needles. I've been experimenting with them, and looking at a lot of websites to teach myself, and I've finally got the hang of it, sort of. So far, I've made a few hats and a scarf for my niece. I love the thought of making something with my own two hands. I joined a Yahoo group called Loom Class, it's a series of classes taught by volunteers. I made the cutest bunny hat for my great-niece a couple of weeks ago, and I'm SOOO proud of myself! It came out much better than I expected. I really enjoy loom knitting, and now I'm obsessed with it! I find myself on the internet for hours looking at tutorials and how to videos and different patterns. It's so much fun! Right now, I'm making some baby hats for my new neighbor, who's having a baby boy. I finished the first one tonight, and it came out so cute. I'm also working on a baby blanket for an old co-worker of mine from Albuquerque. I started the blanket sometime in the last month, but i've already unraveled it twice because I didn't like the way it was looking. :( But, I'm gonna keep on trucking.