I forgot to mention that on Sun. night when Vic came home from work, he brought w/ him an X-ray (so illegal). Seems said X-rayed girl let her BF stick a small vibrating object some place that should be exit only and let it go. It was stuck. So she had to come to the hospital to have it removed. Surgically. She also had somethin' "down there" pierced that showed up nicely, a little ring. We laughed so hard. But can you imagine walking into the ER and explaining why your abdomen is buzzzzing?! Sheesh!

We are going to keep it as a fun party prop, so if any of you are ever here and would like to see...just ask!

John Fluevog Shoes

Why oh why can't I wear fun high healed shoes. Damned drunkin' knee injury & two surgerys later...that's why. Not the mention the $175 price tag. And with a name like "Vanny" they so scream "Amanda." But I must ignore their calls.

Genesis Visual Arts

I think I've talked about him before, but this guy is so awesome. He is one of Vic's friends from high school and lives in Canyon, TX. He is paralyzed from the neck down and paints with his mouth. He always sends us his newest painting via email and that's always the desktop in the puter. Yall should check him out. Just looking at him makes me feel inspired.

Someone gave me "Neutral" feedback! I SCOFF! Bitch said that I was "slow shipping & slow to communicate but item as promised." I didn't bitch when it took her a damn week just to pay via paypal. I mailed the frickin thing the SAME DAY that I got her payment...for 5.50 did she really expect overnight delivery?! And she wrote me 7 days later to let me know she had it. She wrote me once on the 18th to check to see if I mailed it and I wrote her back on the 19th to say that I had and gave a tracking #, with an explanation that I was at a funeral and I was sorry I didn't reply the same day. I hate stupid people. I had perfect feedback until this. And it's not even true. If it had been true I wouldn't mind. But it's not. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

When I don't blog it's not because I am busy or am just not...I always have time. It's just I don't have anything to say. I've had a hard 2 weeks. With the exception of Vic's good news, I could have lived under a rock and been much happier.

I do appreciate all of the condolences. But Nana lived to be old, had lots of good times, and is now where she wants to be. That's very peaceful. Did anyone besides me think about the fact that she died on St. Patricks Day...not so lucky.

The other thing that happened was the loss of my very sweet old Poodle man, Rowdy, yesterday. He lived with my parents, he was almost 12. That's 84 in poodle years. But it was still very very sad. There are only so many truly great dogs and he was one. To make it all worse, he had to be put to sleep. I won't go into the long drama, but basically he couldn't get up and William had to pick him up and carry him to the vet. If you would like to see him, here's the link to my old website and he's towards the bottom of the page. He will be missed greatly, he was a member of our family.

Photo Album

I've had so much time to reflect on what it would be like to not believe in heaven and God and all and I have to say...it would suck. I am so glad that I believe that I am going somewhere after I die, and more immediately, that my loves ones go somewhere after they die. I've had enough death for awhile, we need more babies. Andra? Wendy? Moe? (ok, so you can't officially for a few more months...but hey, nothin' like a shotgun weddin'...KIDDING).

I'm really nervous that as bad as all the news has been lately, that Vic's appt on Tue's to get a second opinion will not go as hoped. Now, as an educated (college, too, but as Moe pointed out...doesn't necessarily mean much...) very NON-superstitious person I know that one bad event does not connect to other bad events. My logical brain tells me that it's stupid to think that just because everything has sucked for 2 weeks, that this week will naturally suck too. SO I am really just being pessimistic. And I need to stop it. But I can't. I feel like I'm holding my breath until Tuesday. I will exhale then.

Did I mention that Drew does, indeed, have to have a shunt put in? Yeah, poor baby. Keep him in your prayers too.

So yesterday morning, the Dr was talking to us explaining that he would have to do a complete set of pics of both sets of arteries in the brain due to us not knowing 100% for sure that it's an AVM or a dual fistula...the main difference is the set of arteries that feed it....so it was going to be closer to 1.5 to 2 hrs rather than 1-2 hours. So Vic was wheeled away and I went to the waiting room. 40 minutes later the Dr. came around the corner smiling from ear to ear and said "I shot dye into every spot possible and there is nothing wrong with anything...at all. The last gamma knife (radiation laser) surgery must have worked because that is a completely unremarkable set of pictures...if I didn't know his history, I would say it was a completely healthy vascular system. " All I could say was "Are you talking to me???" He was. I asked why they didn't notice this in the January MRI and he said that his vein of galen is enlarged due to the previous malformation so that's what the MRI saw...but the malformation is gone and the enlarged vein is harmless.

Wow. All I could do was laugh and cry. I called my mom and she cried too. I called his mom (grrr) and she cried. Next his dad, and yes, he cried. Twenty years since this began, and it's finally gone. And he's not gone. I hadn't even toyed with the idea of this being the outcome. In my head, the best outcome was for the next embolization attempt to be successful so that he didn't have to do the open-head brain surgery.

This is completely amazing. It's a miracle. I have been praying for this since I met Vic 4 years ago and have always felt it was a race against the clock to fix it before it ruptured and killed him.

He said on the way home from the hospital that he feels like "my death sentence has been over turned." He also decided to not get completely excited until we see the other Dr. on March 30th. But I am just going to enjoy the idea of him being healthy.

He does, however, still have a giant cyst on the outside of his brain that he will eventually have fixed. But it's not life threatening so it will wait.

It was honestly one of the best days of my life.

I am supposed to be getting up in 2 hours and I can't even be still long enough to close my eyes. Or maybe it's because I can't stop crying. I was not that nervous until I talked to his fucking sister and mother. I was anxious to get this over with, but not really scared. I was dreading sitting at the hosptial all day, but not worried about the actual procedure. Then, at 10:45, right before Vic got home from work his sister called to inform me that I must call her and her mother first, before his dad or my parents, because "Vic's my bro, ya know, and he's like my sidekick and I'm really worried." All I could say is "Yeah, I know. He's my husband." She just kept rambleing on and on and on. THEN his mother got on the phone telling me stuff like "don't worry when his blood pressure gets too low, it always does" and "the wound always bleeds more then they'd like on Vic so just don't worry about that either" and "be prepared to stay over night because that usually happens" and "up until a few years ago they took angio patients straight to ICU because of all the complications" and "I was going to buy a plane ticket but Vic instisted that I not...he wants to be a big boy and do it all by himself."

What the fuck am I? Those people don't have anything to do with him unless they are worring about his brain. How bout coming to visit when he could actually enjoy your company? How bout calling when he's actually here and not to pigeon hole me into listening to your crap?

So now all I can think about is that this is a big scary thing and that I'm going to sit at a fricking hospital, which I HATE, all damn day. Not like 1/2 a day, a whole damn day. We get there at 6 am, Vic thinks we might make it home by 7 pm.

His mother also felt the need to tell me the story tonight about when they found out about his AVM. It was this big long story that ended with the Dr. calling her and Vic into his office and saying "He has an inoperable brain tumor (which it wasn't) and he will be dead in 2 months." And then the DR. left the room and he looked up and her and said "Mommy, am I going to die?" and she explaination that "When Jesus calls us to him we go and it will be wonderful there and nobody knows when their time to go is and everyone will miss you but we all want to be with Jesus but you just might get to go earlier than the rest of us, but we will all join you someday."

Why did she tell me that today? Could that story have not waited? Because I can't get it out of my head now.

I just relized that Vic doesn't have ANY pants except for dress pants and jeans. Neither good with stitches in da groin area! SO I just went to Old Navy and bought him a pair of sweats, 2 t-shirts, and 3 pairs of boxers...all on clearance. I then crossed the hall to the Gap and got him 4 more pairs of boxers on clearance...one w/ SHEEP, one w/ PIGS, one w/ FROGS, AND! one with LADYBUGS!!! Too cute! Anyway, as I was leaving I realized that I've lived here since 2000 and I have NEVER been to the Denton mall. I always go to Lewisville or Frisco or Dallas because it's so much better. But still, you'd think I'd have been there before now!

So Kim got a call on Thurs. from Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas saying that she needed to make an appt. w/ Drew's neurosurgeon. Seems that 2 months ago when he had his MRI, said hospital misplaced the films until this past Thurs. when they found them and finally got them to the Dr. on Fri. Soooo, to make a long story short...it sounds like Drew might need a shunt put in his brain. The next step is on Mon to make an appt w/ the Dr. in Dallas, get a CT scan done ASAP, and set up an appt w/ the Dr. in San Francisco for a second opinion. Brain surgery always needs a second opinion. I simply can not get over the fact that the hospital did that AND that the Dr. didn't notice he never got the films he ordered. Needless to say, they could use some prayers...for Drew and for strength for all of them.

Speaking of brains. Vic's having his angiogram on Monday. It's a day surgery, we have to be there at 6 am, the hospital (Medical City) is 45 mins away. I'm not excited about sitting by myself at a hospital all day. I'm going to work on my knitting CD-rom tomorrow so maybe I can take that with me, my knitting project, not the CD. We take him back to the Dr. on Mar 30th to decide the plan of attack, which we already pretty much know...attempting to fix the AVM w/ embolization, if it fails (50/50 chance) then do open-head brain surgery the next day to put some platinum clips on it & poke some holes in the cyst. I had wanted him to wait to have the surgery til the end of the semester, but he told me last night that he has a strong sense of urgency to get it taken care of. It's up to him, I suppose. Other than missing school, my main reason for wanting him to wait has been dashed...so if he thinks school will be ok with missing 1-2 weeks...then that's what we'll do.

In more fun news...Nancy and Frank were beautified. They went to Bobbie O's Pet Salon in Lake Dallas. Bobbie O made me look like a lil' tiny thing and had 2 missing teeth. But, boy how-dee, those poodles sure do look perty. She inspires me to speak just such. Nancy has the fanciest PINK bows in her ears and pink toes. Frank haD a nice bandana, but he ate it off so Vic threw it away.

The FAT!SO? Manifesto: #7

"Large, big-boned, heavy, overweight, chubby, zaftig, voluptuous, Rubenesque, plump, and obese are all synonyms for fear." -Marilyn Wann

This is one of those things that I read and just sat nodding my head in agreeance. Our society is so afraid of not fitting in (no pun intended) that we can't even say the nice, simple, adjective FAT. Fat's synonym is not ugly or bad or lazy or stupid. It's the opposite of lean and thin. If Vic said to me "Wow, Amanda, that dress is really pretty...it makes you look so FAT!" I would be flattered! I wouldn't think anything at all was wrong with that statement. But can you only imagine what 99% of women would do if their husbands said that?! It's a shame. It really is only a word, and not even a 4 letter one!

Common Sense and Health / Is logic the latest victim of 'obesity epidemic'?

This is an abfab article from the San Francisco Chronicle. I LOVE it when people get it. And Love it even more when they publish it. I am going to copy and paste it here too, because, well, it makes me happy.

Common Sense and Health
Is logic the latest victim of 'obesity epidemic'?
by Dan Mindus

A World Health Organization panel recently concluded that a 5-foot-6 man or woman of Asian descent weighing 137 pounds should be considered "overweight." That would place the trim Hiroyuki Sanada, one of Tom Cruise's co-stars in "The Last Samurai," just a few pounds shy of this category.

Welcome to the politics of fat, where bathroom scales can be tax- deductible, lawyers are lining up to sue anything rumored to contain calories and the media have fed us a steady diet of hysteria and hyperbole. In this twilight zone of fat panic, something called the Body Mass Index (BMI) uses only our height and weight to divide us into categories: obese, overweight and government approved.

A BMI of 30 or more makes you "obese"; at 5-foot-7 and 201 pounds, Tom Cruise's magic number is 31. If the WHO gets its way, Asians will join the "last samurai" in the obese category if their BMI hits 26 (5-foot-7 and 163 pounds, for example). A BMI of just 22 -- perfectly "healthy" for most of us, even by WHO's ever-tightening standards -- will make an Asian "overweight."

The global love-handle police insist on this ridiculous BMI standard, which classifies 61 percent of Americans as overweight or obese. You have probably heard that number. Along with the claim that obesity costs the United States $117 billion a year and kills 300,000 Americans annually, it is one of the three most commonly cited figures associated with our so-called obesity epidemic. But it's more like an epidemic of bad statistics. All three of these numbers are seriously flawed.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledge that these results are counterintuitive: "Overweight may or may not be due to increases in body fat. It may also be due to an increase in lean muscle." This explains why the new governor of California (6-foot-2, 257 pounds, BMI of 33) is officially obese, too. For the rest of us, however, the story is a bit more complicated. One night in 1998, more than 39 million Americans went to sleep at a government-approved weight and woke up "overweight," thanks to an arbitrary shift in the BMI cutoff for "overweight" status.

The standard that we abandoned in 1998 had the virtue of distinguishing between men and women -- something we don't even attempt to do anymore. Now the WHO wants to start determining "acceptable" BMI levels according to race - - making Jackie Chan (5-foot-8, 160 pounds, BMI 24) our latest "overweight" movie star.

The claim that excess weight kills 300,000 Americans each year is bizarre in its assumption that overweight people are officially immune to all other causes of death. As insane as it sounds, if Cruise were to kick the bucket for any reason, he would count toward the mythical 300,000 total.

The New England Journal of Medicine knows this is bogus. In an editorial, the journal's editors wrote that the 300,000 figure "is by no means well- established," and that it is "derived from weak or incomplete data." Still, this flawed number finds its way into nearly every public discussion about obesity -- as does the spurious claim that obesity costs Americans more than $100 billion every year. That figure is derived from a single 1998 study published by the journal Obesity Research. This study had serious limitations. The authors acknowledged that their methods allowed for the "double-counting of costs" that "would inflate the cost estimate." They also admitted that "height and weight are not included in many of the primary data sources" that they relied upon.

Worse yet, these bean-counters used the wrong definition of obesity. Traditionally, a BMI of 30 or more makes you obese, but the authors decided to arbitrarily set their threshold at 29. A small error? Not at all. They wound up wrongly including the health costs of more than 10 million Americans.

Unfortunately, activist groups are all too happy to build their nutritional utopias on the shaky ground of these faulty obesity statistics. The guiltiest in the bunch are the self-described "food police" at the Center for Science in the Public Interest -- the traditional advocates of "sin" taxes on foods they don't want you to eat. A health-advocacy group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine also uses these bogus stats to force a vegetarian diet down our collective throats. Then there's the American Obesity Association, which aggressively promotes these numbers in its quest to have obesity classified as a "disease" -- for the financial gain of the manufacturers of the weight-loss drug and products who pay its bills.

Basic logic dictates that obesity is no more a disease than couch potato- itis, that replacing milk and chicken with tofu won't magically melt the pounds and that Tom Cruise isn't fat. But obesity scares and cooked numbers have tipped the scales against common sense.

Dan Mindus is senior analyst for the Center for Consumer Freedom (www.consumerfreedom.com), a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurant operators and food and beverage companies to promote personal responsibility and consumer choice.

: It would be Davis'


I don't know who "ADM" is, but I would like to thank you. Moe, you were slackin and someone else had to answer our grammar question. And Davis has only been here a good month now!! Anywho, glad to know!

Gainesville Daily Register: News Column

So I went to this funeral today. It was weird. Miss Crystal Dawn Pinkston and her sweet daughter Cierra were among the first people I met when I moved here. I knew from the second I met her that she was a nut, but she was so FUN. I hadn't talked to her in quite some time, years actually...but I kept up with her through Mandy. But after my last job, I knew how seriously crazy she was. But never in my wildest nightmares could I have ever imagined this.

At her funeral they played a tape of her daughter and 2 little sisters singing a song about Jesus. It was so surreal. Just last Tuesday Mandy called and was freaking out because of the Amber Alert when Crystal took Cierra from Southmont Baptist's daycare and today I was at her funeral at Southmont Baptist.

I made an important discovery. Throughout the service the preacher talked about how Jesus had a special place in his heart for the ill, including the mentally ill. I had never looked at it like that. But it's true. And it's comforting to me.

It is also very strange to me that I have know 2 sets of people that have lost lives in hostage negotiations in the last 4 months. I think I am going to lay off the CSI for awhile, I've got too much in reality.