The More You Know......

2015 will be the year I wish I knew less. I always joke about the NBC "The More You Know" banner that would run after they enlightened our country about an issue of some sort when I was growing up. As I have learned things this year, you could hear me saying "The More You Know" and could imagine my own NBC banner with the rainbow star coming across. But as I get older, I find that sometimes I wish I knew less.

I miss my happy bubble. I miss thinking that our government took true care of the veterans they chose to send straight into harms way. I miss thinking that everyone cared about other people. I miss thinking that everyone could see past the end of their own nose. I miss thinking that a person's word truly meant something. I miss promises made were actually promises filled.

2015 brought us another roller coaster year. We had another 12 months of twists and turns. We held on and we have made it through....again. (We're getting pretty good at this roller coaster thing.)

How did we make it through?! Because we have made the peace with the fact that we are on our own. The white horse is not coming. Promise makers have their own lives and over commit. We acknowledge life just happens. People forget they even made commitments and promises. We fully embrace the fight for the wounded never, ever ends and truly only the wounded and those who fight with them know the battle continues.

What does that mean for us?! It simply means things will get done when we get to them. We can either sit down and count all the things people never followed through with or we can make a list of what needs to be done and sketch them all out in 2016. We chose the later.  

This year we learned that we will focus on the few amazing people who were brought into our lives rather than focusing on the turds that need to be smacked in the face a few times with a hard object. There was so much positive in this year, we will choose to focus on that rather than the negative that attempted to take root and tried to ruin our happy. 




Let's highlight some of that awesomeness.....

• We now have this amazing home that Chaz can get around in with almost zero difficulties!!! That in itself is huge for us! For years we have waited for him to have freedom like we have now.
• The girls chose to go back to school. Their school is fabulous and we are all very happy with the choice.
• I have been granted some greatness with my job at YRF for 2016. Lots and lots and lots of planning, research and work has gone into what we are launching. I am thrilled over it. 

See three awesome things. Boom! There there's the super, duper short list and we close 2015 and welcome 2016 with open arms!!

2015 was not a bad year, it was just another year of hard lessons that had to be learned. We will take our lessons, combine that with our faith and keep moving forward. Bring on a new year!!

Elfin' Fun

It cracks me up to see what polarizes people these days. It's like we have to be on a side of every issue. Sometimes we make an issue out of the issue. Take the Elf on a Shelf for example.....

I have had people tell me they hate that we participate in such foolishness. Then I have friends text me, scolding me for forgetting to post pics of what our elves are up to....whoops that just reminded me....

We invited the elves into our home in 2011. Why?! Because our life kinda sucked then. We were still dealing with Walter Reed and trying to heal and hit set-back after set-back. Our girls missed their friends. We all wanted to just move on and go home. We were stuck in the blahs. We needed to have some true fun. Yes, it is that simple.

Why have we continued? Because it's fun! Our little family of four enjoys having the elves for the short time they are here. 

Our elves do not tattle on our kids to Santa. Our girls know the true meaning of Christmas. For us the elves are just a way to make the holiday season even more joyous and fun. Seriously, it's that simple. There is no underlying theory of destruction of the true meaning of any holiday or religion, nor are we supporting the theory of perpetuating a police state. It's just simple fun!!

I believe we could all use a little more fun in our lives. Sometimes life really sucks and it kicks your ass. And when you are a child trapped in a situation that most adults can't handle, you deserve a little bit of fun every once in a while. Sure there are lots of other ways to have fun, this is just one way we have fun in our home. It's just simple, harmless fun.

Here's the thing with the elves....if you want to do it, do it. Have fun with it and don't let anyone spoil it for you. If you think it is silly and you don't want to do it, don't. But don't be a Grinch and ruin another person's joy because you disagree. It's just that simple. ;)

Selfish Saturday

My birthday was two weeks ago. Months prior my best friend from college and I decided that we should take a Saturday for ourselves and hit the pause button on adulting for a day. We decided that was a beyond excellent decision that must be repeated.

My friend, Jessica, is my best friend for a long list of reasons. Here are just a few.....

1. We have the same name. (Seriously, isn't that awesome?)
2. We attended the same college. (We are approaching the 20 year mark on this relationship.)
3. She is my little sister in our sorority. (Kappa Delta, by the way)
4. Perhaps most importantly we LOVE UK basketball. (There have been some great texts over that topic for sure.)

In all seriousness, the reason our friendship works so well is that we both live insanely busy lives, so we understand each other very well. Once we are in the same room it is like absolutely no time has passed and we just pick up where we left off. We do not get to see each other often and our friendship is a fueled on text messages, but it works for us.

We have been there for each other in our darkest days and can easily recall the calls that led to floods of tears. Together we have healed through the frequently truckloads of drama the Lord knows we can handle. It is the healing together through adversity that has made our bond so strong.

Neither of us make time for ourselves beyond the occasional hair appointment or perhaps random kid-free trip to the store. We are great at telling others (including each other) how important that is for self-care, but our self-care comes in the the massive amounts of books we read. We both love to escape into our books and that occupies a chunk of our conversation when we see each other.

But we did it!! We were selfish together for the first time!! We both worked and ran away to Lexington, KY on a Friday. Selfish Saturday 2015 began the next morning. The entire day, we did what we wanted. We did not have hubbies or kids whining, nor chiming in. We finished our day celebrating my first visit to the Rupp Arena and cheered on our UK Wildcats together!

We had a blast and of course we both had to go home super early on Sunday because we have too many responsibilities. But we did it!!! The ladies who preach about self-care, actually took time for themselves! It was amazing! I am overjoyed we did it! And I cannot wait to do it again!

It will be a long time before another Selfish Saturday will come around for us. I can assure you, we will do it again and again and again. I am so thankful for my friend. I am so thankful that we took the time to be together. I look forward to many more selfish days in our future!

Get the Stories Out

We currently reside in a county that is probably 99.7% civilian. Most of what they know about military life comes from the media, Lifetime or the movies. Truth be told, they don't want to hear the actual truth about what our families go through. They only want to hear the "cool stories" about the wars and not about the healing that takes place.

I am learning that civilians truly believe that the government takes cares of our family's every single need. They don't understand the amount of red tape that exists for us, because the amount of red tape we cut through does not exist in the civilian world.

Many think that buying a green light bulb will actually help our families. They don't understand that our level of need and assistance goes way beyond a simple purchase.

Lies about our benefits make civilians envious of our "lavish" lifestyles and cause them to not to friend us.

When our children share their life experiences, apparently our children "think they are better" than others and this makes it harder for them to make friends.

When a veteran serves our country, apparently he must be violent and angry so we need to stay away.

When the caregivers of our wounded choose to have a job and/or independence and/or not make their entire existence about the catastrophic injury, then apparently the caregiver is selfish and should be ashamed.  

When our wounded get prosthetic legs, apparently that makes everything all better. 

We have an abundance of ignorance in the civilian world. We need to get our stories out there so more can understand. Most importantly we have to not be angry at people for not understanding. You cannot comprehend something that you know little to nothing about. It is our job to inform and educate not hold it all in and lash out because someone simply doesn't understand.

With Veterans Day approaching, this is a great time to get those stories out there and help combat the ignorance. I challenge all of our military friends to tell one civilian a day about our military life and how the fight for the families of our wounded, ill, injured, killed and missing never ends. I challenge you to let everyone know we lose 22 veterans a day to suicide. The only way to lessen the ignorance is to increase the education.

It's Just Different

I come across so many active duty caregivers who always ask, "Does it get better?" when referring to this journey. I don't like being a Debbie Downer or Negative Nancy, but I also cannot lie.....

It doesn't get better. It just gets different.

We were so spoiled at Walter Reed. One thing is for sure they get a F- for assimilation and preparation for the next steps of this journey. I feel like they set us all up for failure with their lack of preparation for what's next. I wish we would have had a veteran and his wife come and talk to us about the next steps. They could have warned us about all the dates and timelines we needed to be aware of. I wish someone would have given us real time data on the red tape procedures, who/what you need to look for, and who can truly be your advocate. I wish they would have talked to us about all sorts of things. Instead we just dropped off of the Army assemble line left to walk and figure it all out. I am not saying they should be holding our hands through all of this. What I am saying is Walter Reed sets you up for failure.

While you are there you have a big wide world of assistance at your finger tips. Here on the other side you have to make a gazillion phone calls to find one lead to find assistance. Here are two examples....

Need an adjustment to your prosthetic legs.
Walter Reed: Roll on in to see the guys. They do it right then and there.
VA: Call your NCM to tell your PCM. PCM tells the prosthetic department. When you finally get the prosthetic adviser on the phone, they remind you that they cannot work on your legs (which you already knew, but you have to go through them anyway) because they are too technologically advanced. They then put in a referral for an outside provider. Once that finally goes through, you find someone and begin treatment. Make sure you know the expiration on your permission form to be out in the civilian world. If that expires while you are being treated at the civilian office you then have to wait for another referral to be put in and authorized.

Broken wheelchair.
Walter Reed: Call Pete on his personal cell and he'll meet you asap.
VA: Call NCM to tell them to tell the PCM. They tell another department (I can't remember the name, because it's something other than wheelchair department). Then that department eventually calls you and says that the break sounds almost impossible to have occurred they need proof. You take a picture and send it in. Then they finally acknowledge it and then whoops, they can't fix the chair and it has to be referred out. This time they don't tell you the name of the provider so you just wait in a broken wheelchair for someone to randomly call to help you. They do and then it turns out they have to order parts. So you wait and thank your wife for keeping the previous wheelchair so you have something to use while you wait for the repairs.

These are just two examples, but it gives you an idea of how things go through the VA. With that said, we do love our VA. We are happy with our PCM, NCM and several other personnel there. However Chaz has a banker's box full of things wrong with him and our VA can only see him for audiology, standard colds or allergies and things like that. In regards to every other department, they do not have the experience or expertise to assist him. So he has to be fee based out and that involved referrals and it is freaking exhausting to keep up with all of it and it is on you to keep track. 

At Walter Reed, the professionals there just magically make everything work for you. They do so much work behind the scenes. You realize Walter Reed is simply a magically place, like a medical Disney World, once you are in the suck of civilian life and the VA.

I tell caregivers I don't feel like it gets better on the other side. I feel that your freedom from the Army's painful bureaucracy is short lived when you realize you are faced with a bigger bureaucratic nightmare. I feel that things are as good as they will get for us. I feel that the beginning of this journey at Walter Reed fighting for this or that simply prepares you to keep fighting. The fighting doesn't stop when the war comes home to you. Instead you have different fronts to fight in a never ending war of healing the wounded.

Chaz's health is the best it can be. We acknowledge that and are already preparing for the deterioration that will eventually come. People do not like to hear that word deterioration. They seem to think that we feel depressed about our life, when it is actually the opposite. We are not depressed at all. We have accepted our reality. We are different and we are perfectly fine with that.  The fight for us will never end. We acknowledge and accept it will not get better for us, it will only be different.

A Little Update

Whoa....it's been two months since I have written anything. Someone had to point that out to me when asking if we are ok. Yes we are perfectly fine, just busier than ever before.

I just said to a friend the other day that I needed to make time for writing. I really have missed it. However life has gotten in our way again and again and again. Let me give a little breakdown......

• We are still trying to get our home finished. Our builders abandoned us (wish I was making that up) and we still have all sorts of little things that need to be finished. Slowly but surely we are getting them knocked out. We are at about 95% completion. We'll get there. I just need to "you tube" a few things and get the stuff knocked out. It's finding the time....
• Chaz was rear-ended by a distracted driver. Getting his van fixed involves a lot of extra planning and effort. The guy did say he hurt his ankle to Chaz and was taken away in an ambulance. So yeah, there's that....
• The girls returned to public school. So far, so good there. Love their school!!
• Deryn made the cheerleading team at school. 
• Ryann joined the local community basketball organization. 
• Our dear friends home burnt down and we moved them in with us.
• I still work A LOT!!! 
• We spent a week at Gulf Shores for the girls' Fall Break.
• We are still unpacking and organizing our home. 
• Chaz's wheelchair broke and we are trying to get the VA to fix it. 
• One of his legs broke. Just got those back yesterday.  

That's the short list. Things are crazy around here, but I have a lot of blogs brewing!! Hopefully I will find the time soon to start churning them out!! ;)

 

What If She Was Yours?

I have always had quiet a bit of feminism in me. Too many women fought for the rights that we have. I do believe that in many, many, many circumstances I am equal and sometimes even superior to my male counterparts. Throughout my short life, I have fought the "you're just a girl" comments and have even used them as fuel to push harder.

I remember my grandfather telling me that since I was a girl and from the South, I would have to fight twice as hard to prove my worth. I would have to be twice as smart. And most importantly get my tears in check.

I was told by a high school guidance counselor that I was "just an average girl" and I shouldn't apply for any colleges other than the local community college. Then when acceptance letters poured in from every college I applied to, she called me into her office and yelled at me for not getting her permission and she let me know I created a lot of extra work for her.

I had a college professor look at me straight in the face and tell me that "the only thing that women have done throughout history is give birth to significant men." He fought me on almost every step of earning my history degree, but I went to my adviser and we figured out a new path so I could achieve the double degree.

I was fired from my job for giving birth to our first child. Since I missed an audit (because I was seriously in labor) it was deemed that I was not responsible enough to continue my job.

Just a few weeks ago I questioned our builders on things they were doing to our home and invoices we were paying. Rather than having an adult conversation, emotions went flying, I felt attacked and insulted and they next thing I knew I was in someone's face. I was told to "Go hob-nob back in DC and see if that gets your house finished." Rather than us discussing the questions I had, I was attacked and written off because I was a woman and my job was downgraded to "hob-nobbing."

Right after we moved here, the editor to the local paper wrote a note that he was upset that women would be featured on money soon. He wanted to know if they would use a picture of women shopping or vacuuming. I was assured he was only kidding, but I really don't think he was. He sure did spend a lot of time on something that was supposed to be taken as a joke and his joke sure did have a degrading manor to it.

In the news now we have Ronda Rousey, two females who qualified for Ranger tabs, a female NFL ref and the US women's soccer team. They are all achieving such incredible levels of awesomeness that this mother of two girls is beyond excited that our girls have new faces to look to for inspiration.

I had two females who were in the public eye when I was growing up who inspired me, Senator Elizabeth Dole and Sally Ride. That's it. The rest of my inspiration came from men. And having the honor to work with one of the women I always looked up to is inspiring beyond words!!

For some reason our society feels the need to squash female achievement any way we can. The comments that have come out about the women who are hitting these new goals are primeval. Seriously, what year is this?!

I will proudly admit I have no desire to participate in a MMA fight, play soccer, complete Ranger course or referee the NFL, but if that is something you want to do I will cheer you on!! I will also proudly share your accomplishments with our daughters.

I am so blessed that my grandfather encouraged me to light my own path. I am so thankful to have a husband that puts up with my loud mouth and opinions. I am thankful for brothers (related and not) who will not tolerate someone putting me or my work down. I am thankful for a job that values me and my opinion.

I will admit the one thing I love about my job is that I am treated as an equal. I have lost track of how many times I have been in a room and had to pull the "yes I am a woman, but I know what I am talking about" card. But with YRF, our board actually asks my opinion and it is lovely to be valued.

Now to all of you keyboard commandos, here is the question I would like to pose to you. What if one of these awesome women were a part of your life? What if they were your wife, girlfriend, sister or daughter? Would you still be so brave behind your keyboard and fire off your disgusting comments? I know that when I have been cyber-attacked it has enraged my husband and those who know me so well. But like I always say, "We don't win internet wars with people who obviously cannot pull their heads out of their own ass."

Why can we not just take the time to think that what they are accomplishing it awesome?! Why do we have to belittle and question how they got there? We don't question the male counterparts to the same degree.

Once words are out there, they cannot be taken back. Sure you can delete your comment, but you already threw it out and someone felt that sting. Been there, felt that. My favorite was the person who said they'd "wish I would die so my family would live happily ever after." Yup, not going to forget that one any time soon.

So keyboard commandos, is you are so brave behind the keyboard, why not channel that bravery and go make your own mark rather than lashing out at women who are making their place in history?! If you took all of your jealousy and hate and channeled it into positive productivity then we would all have a much better world. But wait, you'd have to come out from behind your keyboard.....