First Cleveland Clinic Visit of 2023

 Each year either myself or Bobby takes Sarah to Cleveland, Ohio for her twice yearly Cleveland Clinic appointments. She usually has a slew of them on back-to-back days and sometimes has multiple appointments on the same day. 

The first week of January brought Sarah and I up to the Clinic for 5 appointments spanning over the course of 3 days. On the first day, she had her infusion which is an all day affair. We usually get there around 7:45 am and leave somewhere between 3-4 pm. On the second day, Sarah had a cognitive evaluation and an ophthalmology appointment. The cognitive evaluation was had to give Sarah a baseline as to her cognitive brain function - as her disease is known to cause cognitive decline over time. The ophthalmology appointment was to check on the condition of Sarah’s eyes and to have the required visit for Sarah to qualify for services in college. On the third, and final day, Sarah had a long EEG to determine if she could come off of her seizure medication (she can) and she also met with her neurologist. 

She had a good visit. She got the news that because she has been in remission since 2019 and because she hasn’t had any seizures since then either, she can come off of her seizure meds (which she was stoked about) and also prolong her time between treatments, so instead of coming up to the Clinic every 6ish months, we  can see how she does coming every 8-9 months. Hopefully, her body can hang in there without any issues as Rituxan (her medication for MOG - the disease she was diagnosed with several years ago) has its own side affects - especially for those who need to expose their bodies to it long term. 

After all of our appointments were done, we stayed an extra day and went shopping and thrifting on Saturday with my mom and dad. We all had a really good time. My parents have the best thrift stores around them that I am looking forward to going back again. We got some good finds - which is always the goal when shopping and thrifting. 

Good ‘ole dreary Ohio winters…

Infusion days are always long and tiring. 

Shuffling cards for a round of Rummy as we wait in the Panera bread at the Clinic in between appointments. 

Realizing it is going to be a long afternoon of waiting for our ophthalmology appointment. 

Waiting for the ophthalmologist to come in. 

And waiting….we got to our appointment early as the one before it was done sooner than expected, and the ophthalmologist was running way behind schedule which made for an incredibly long afternoon. 

A tired girl. 

A thrift find that I did not pick up, but now wish I had. 

Loved this card so much I bought it because it is spot on. 

This made me laugh out loud. I found it while shopping with my girls and parents on Saturday. 

A train going by on the tracks by my mom’s house. 

What Moose was doing while we were away. 

Week 2 of 2023

This week in the Gregg's household:

The boys are beginning their spring semesters of college. The girls are starting their 18th week of their school year and will end their first semester at the end of this week. 

Sunday, the girls and I got back from a trip to Cleveland, Ohio where we sought out Sarah's twice-yearly medical treatment.

Choir begins this week again for the girls as well.

Basically, life is starting up again after a nice slow Christmas break. I am not sure if I am ready to begin all of the hoopla that goes along with life, but it's beginning again ready or not. 

Meals this week:

Breakfast: waffles, pancakes, bagels, omelets with toast and potatoes, french toast

Lunch: leftovers, subs, quesadillas, macaroni & cheese, pesto, peanut butter/ jelly, soup

Dinner: Stir Fry, Pizza, Baked Ziti/Bread/Meatballs, Tacos/Rice/Beans, Breaded Chicken/Potatoes/Gravy. Gardenburgers/Hamburger/Jo-Jo/Beans/Corn

2022: A Year In Review

 2022 was an eventful year filled with ups and downs. The beginning of the year was hard as Bobby finally realized that he needed to look outside of the only employer he has known for the last 22 years in order to find career fulfillment. It was a heartbreaking experience for him as he truly believed for a long time that he would retire from Allstate, but it ended up working out for the best. Bobby ended up finding an amazing job with Progressive after just a few shorts months of looking, His new job pays him significantly more, is bonus level, and the benefits are better, plus our car insurance costs of have gone done. The atmosphere of Progressive is a 180 in terms of organization, structure, and work environment. I am so glad that Bobby found a company that appreciates him for his experience and value. I am excited to see where this company takes him. 

The boys finished another year of college. Andy is going to take quite a while to graduate as he is paying cash for his college and only takes the classes he can afford. Plus, he gets overwhelmed easily and does not take more than 4 classes at a time, but he is still plodding along and that is all that I can ask. A small step forward is a step forward none-the-less. Josh is doing well. After having an awful first semester at Belmont academically in the fall of 2021, he pulled his shit together and did very well academically spring semester of 2022 and did well this past fall semester. He started 2022 off being a bench player on the first team, by fall he was a starter for the developmental team, and by the end of the fall he was a starter for the first team, so he was all of the place soccer-wise. I know that all of the emotional baggage that comes with playing collegiate sports was unexpected and has been hard for him to get used to. Josh also met a very sweet girl whom he has been seeing for the last few months. We like this young lady a lot. She seems to be a good fit for him and the entire family gets along with her. When not going to school, she lives out of state so that has been a bit hard on them during Christmas break, but they are making the most of it. Andy found his own group of acquaintances to hang out with at school and was playing cards and chess with them twice a week on campus. He enjoyed hanging out with the kids, but is unsure if he is going to see them again as some of them graduated from the community college and will be heading off to finish their degrees at other institutions. This made my heart happy as he is really shy and does not extend himself often to meet new people. I am hoping that he will meet a lady friend at some point this year because he hasn't yet had a serious relationship and I think that would be good for him. 

My girls had a good year. Elizabeth came out to the family as a lesbian in the beginning of the year and found a LGBTQIA+ youth group to hang out with. She also participated in her first Pride parade in downtown Charlotte. She played soccer both spring and fall seasons and was also in a homeschool high school choir all of last school year and this year as well. Sarah got into the nooks and crannies of Orientation and Mobility training this past year. She also participated in the homeschool choir group. She attended two camps on her own - one with her church youth group that she is a part of and the other was with an organization that support visually impaired children and teens. She had an okay time at the church camp and an amazing time at the visually impaired camp. Sarah also took her ACT this year. She applied to and was accepted into two colleges and is awaiting a response from two more. One of the colleges she applied to asked her to apply to their honors program - which she did and is also waiting to find out the results of that application. 

I ended up having some medical issues this year which I will be working through for the foreseeable future. A couple of them are fixable with time and some lifestyle adjustments and one of them is more serious and will require monitoring with eventual major surgery down the line. 

We hosted our first Thanksgiving with extended family, and I would say that it went off rather well. I am looking forward to hosting the holiday again next November. We also met my brother and his family for a little weekend getaway in Asheville in March. In May, we met my extended family in southern Ohio for a weekend glamping in cabins. In June/July (I forget which) we met Bobby's cousin and her kiddos for a day on the beach in North Carolina. Bobby and I spent a weekend on the ocean to celebrate our anniversary in October. In July we all met in New York for my grandfather's 90th birthday. We also met up again in New York in December for his funeral. While I was at the funeral, Bobby took the kids to the ocean for the weekend to celebrate Sarah's 18th birthday. It was something that we had planned out months in advance and I did not want them to cancel it. 

And that was our 2022 in a nutshell. I am looking forward to 2023 and hope that it is filled with more goodness and less hard times. 

2022 Books Read May - December

Every year I have a goal to read at least 52 books. With the exception of this year, I have been able to accomplish that goal every year I have been keeping track. I am not sure why I was not able to reach my goal this year. I feel like I got off to a bad start the first half of the year, and I spent the rest of the year trying to make up for my deficit, but I just couldn't catch up. By the end of April, I had only read eleven books which is unheard of for me. If I had to guess, I would say that I am much closer to twenty books by that time period. I ended the year only reading 49 books. I am actually much more disappointed in my results than I had anticipated and am going to try very hard to make sure this doesn't happen again next year. 

Like every other year, I had some books that I read for the second (or third, fourth, or fifth) time because they were so good, but I would say that the majority of the books I chose to read were all new to me. I think that there were only one or two that I did not like. I only read a handful of fiction books as my love of reading really centers on non-fiction books, particularly history books. 

Here are the books I read from May = December of this year:

I am very passionate about illegal immigration and the root causes of it. I also tend to read books in clumps where I will read multiple books on the same topic, usually back-to-back. I become obsessed with one topic and then tend to move on to something else. Usually, I will come back to topics I have read before and try and find books to read. 

Some books, like the one above, I see referenced in other books I have read. This book has come up several times in different books I have read. It was a pretty neat first-hand account of one's captivity among the Sioux Indians. 

Such a good book series about life among Saudia Arabia women. The covers are a little tacky (in my opinion) which makes them look like they would be fiction books, but actually they are non-fiction.

This book caught my attention because it reminded me a bit of Studs Terkel's book titled Working.

I loved Working so much. If I could have a dream job, it would be interviewing people about their lives. That fascinates me. 

I read this book every year, sometimes twice a year because I love it so much. 

I have become intrigued by the Vanderbilt family since we now live so close to the Biltmore. I have fascinated with dynasty families of which I would include Vanderbilts. 

This is the third book of a trilogy that I first read a year or two ago and decided to tackle it again.

This is another book I have read multiple times and can see myself reading just about every year.