My Bipolar Life

A GUEST BLOGGER..........THIS IS BILLY'S ESSAY FOR HIS SCHOLARSHIP TODAY.  I LIKE IT AND I AM VERY PROUD.                                                              -L As a Christian, the values laid out within The Bible are very important to me and its influence carries over into many facets of my life and the lives of others. However, when contemplating my response to the prompt, The Bible was taken off the table. This caused me think about what other values and ideas I hold and what in turn influenced me to possess these ideas. Immediately, I thought of the ideals of freedom and equality. Then, I knew by being brought up in the United States that these thoughts had been instilled within me since a young age. After realizing this, however, I was still unsure of what truly influence me and others with like thinking. I...

Tomorrow afternoon my firstborn child is applying for a huge scholastic scholarship to a small private college in New York City.  There are so many problems with this scenario.  The main being that I am simply not old enough for this to be happening and I am not ready.  I know that this isn't about me, but today, I feel so many emotions that make it about me and those emotions.  My son is almost a full grown man and that scares me shitless. As parents, we all spend so much time questioning our decisions and wondering if we are doing the right thing.  I still wonder that daily.  As qualified as my son is to earn this scholarship, which I don't know that I can take any credit for at all, it is painful to watch him try for something that he might not get.  It is hard to watch your child soar and fail because at this moment, I don't know if it will be a soar and succeed  or a soar and fail.  The mommy in me wants to protect him from any disappo...

Today is Valentine's Day and it is not a day that is generally celebrated in our house yet "cupid" left a box of turtles on my pillow tonight.  Why this year?  Why this day?  Why does my normally less than romantic husband have the urge to be spontaneous and romantic?  Well, if I am honest, I think it less about Valentine's Day and more about the scare I gave him last week.  Oh, and maybe the ease in which he can find heart-shaped candy on February 13th. Marriage isn't always easy and a happy one is no exception.  Add to that the toll that my health has taken on both of us and we have changed over the years.  I have become scared of every little ailment, terrified that I am always dying, more demanding and whiny and just plain difficult.  Dan for his part has shut down some, has stop being romantic and has become short-tempered. I am sure you are wondering why I would share the bad of my marriage but the truth is that out of the bad comes the go...

Today I did the FASFA for my son to go to college and the ball is rolling.  All of his applications haven't been reviewed yet but it seems that he is leaning towards The King's College in Manhattan.  That is where I filled out the fasfa for.  The most amazing thing to me after I figured it all, it looks like he will be getting a $178,800 education and all he will owe is $22,000 in loans.  He would pay $22,000 to go almost anywhere. Billy received a $61,000 scholarship from them (yes I know is said $64,000 on Facebook but that was wrong).  He got a Presidential Scholarship in the amount of $60,000 ($15,000 per year) and a $1,000 donor scholarship for his freshman year .  (This is the discrepancy because I thought it was $1000 per year.)   I guess it was an innocent enough mistake. I desperately need some good news and this is helping A LOT.  We work very hard as parents to help our children to succeed and I hope that this is Billy's succes...

This blog is not called "My Bipolar Life" for no reason.  I am bipolar and with that you should expect some amount of crazy.  I lost my shit yesterday and that was just the beginning.  Sometimes you should expect the entire crazy train, that is what you are getting today.  The most interesting thing about bipolar, at least in my opinion, is things that are entirely logical to me make entirely no sense to anyone else.  NONE!!  But yet, I keep on keeping on, in what I think is a perfectly logical way (which apparently it is not) and doing the best I can to keep calm and carry on. Well on the crazy train, there is no calm, there is just a bunch of basket cases and I am one of them today and probably will still be tomorrow.  I went to see the best cardiologist in Milwaukee today, Dr. Port, and luckily he is my doctor already so I have a report.  Coincidentally, he has worked with my cardiologist at The Mayo and he wondered how I did with him because...

You have all been sitting on the sideline waiting for the blog when I lost my shit and went bat shit crazy. Well, wait not longer, my friends, you have found it.  Today is the day I lose my shit.  Yesterday, I almost died.  Not in the way that teens "like omg I like almost died" die.  But I like the in the real way that people almost lose life, a code blue was called on me, my heart had a dangerous rhythm, I passed out and the shocked me back to normal with the paddles.  It was the best moment of my life and the worst all at one second.  I have so much to be grateful for but why in the hell am I the rarest of the rare exception for everything?  I'd rather not be. I would rather it all go away.  I would rather have been able to eavesdrop on the male nurse's whole story about his lesbian sister in law's wedding in West Hollywood.  I will use quotes as they are exact quotes and from what I think, pretty offensive.  But the wedding was in ...

The stress test final results turned out to be normal on the films but they are not thrilled with the extra beats my heart had during the test so to the cath lab I go.  The test will be on Monday. It seems like I may never be leaving The Mayo.  I was admitted to the hospital on Thursday night because they need to take me off of my blood thinners, my heart medicines and one of my migraine medicines so the potential for me to get very sick are real and they do not want that happening while I walk around Rochester unsupervised.  They want me to be under medical care at all times in case I have a heart attack, I stroke or I get a clot anywhere.  They think these things are unlikely but they could and have happened (when they were, also, unlikely) so they are not taking chances.  I guess this is the best hospital in the country for a reason. Thursday when I got here and they went over my wishes should I code during the procedure, it was a hard conversation but an e...