Our last 3 months

Wow where did November, December and now 1/2 of January go.
These last few months have been challenging to say the least. It all started in November with the very unexpected loss of a wonderful family friend, Freddie. We were on our annual "girls weekend" that I take every year with by best friends from childhood Rebecca and Corinne this year we headed to Jackson, NH. Bec and Corinne drove up from buffalo and get there in the evening on Friday and we had a great night catching up and having our spagetti dinner. The next morning we headed out to go shopping at the outlets and after about an hour Rebecca recieved a tragic phone call that her brother Freddie had passed away, it was devistating news, I've known Freddie for pretty much my whole life. He was an amazing man and father who loved his family and always had a smile on his face. This news put a quick end to our weekend and Rebecca and Corinne headed back to buffalo a couple hours later. This news was an eerie reminder of my father's death which happened 1 day shy of 8 years before. The next couple of days where spent trying to figure out how I was going to get home for the services. My great friend Bobby was able to hook me up with a buddy pass through JetBlue so I was able to get home. My heart goes out the the entire Wojtas family.

After that started another week full of stress. With Milo hurting his leg with what we thought was a torn ACL. While looking into surgery options for him we decided to get a second opinion with a vet in Norway Maine who specializes in ACL surgery on dogs and after he evaluated Milo he felt he did not have a torn acl and surgery was not nesessary, so we restricted his activity for a little while nd now he seems to be bck to normal. So it was a lot of stress and long hours of research for nothing. But at least we have our healthy dog back. All that happened right before thanksgiving so we where not able to go back to VT for Thanksgiving like we usually do.

Then the day after Thanksgiving was the beginning of a long and very painful December. It all started when I went shopping the day after Thanksgiving and bought a new pillow. Well I slept on it that night and woke up the next morning with a tiff neck. Each day after that th pain got worse and worse until Decemeber 3 when the pain became unbarable, to give you an idea of the pain on a scale of 1 to 10 I was at about a 9.5. Long story short they diagnosed and are treating me with a hurniated disk in my neck which is pinching a nerve that goes down my arm and into my fingers. For the first few weeks I couldn't do anything except for law on my back. Thank god my mom could come up and stay with us for a little while and help out while eddie was at work, an after a bunch of PT I was able to sit up longer and move around a little bit more and after a bunch more PT I am now back to work 4 hours a day and am able to drive again. I'm still not allowed to pick up anything but I'm feeling better day by day.

And to make matters worse during all this neck pain thank god when my mom was still here We had a big ice storm and lost power for 5 days so Eddie (who works the winters for Lucas Tree which has a contract with our power company) had to work 17 hour days. Thank goodness we have great friends like the Plummers. The first night we stayed at Matt's mom and step father's (Shirley and Ray aka Mimi and Papa) house where the Plummer's were staying as well. Shirley and Ray were so kind to have opened their home to us we REALLY appreciated it. The next few days we stayed at Matt and Sarah's house which we also REALLY appreciate. And of course Alsion got sick the second night with a fever of 105, throwing up and a cough. The second sickness of the winter so far. After the power finlly came back on we got a call from Eddie's family telling us that his brother Jimmie has to have emergency neck surgery the next day. He was having similar pain as me but his ended up putting pressure on his spinal cord making his legs go numb. Talk about scary! But he made it through surgery great and is recovering day by day.

As for Christmas we were unable to go back to buffalo for the first time ever. It was a sad and happy time here in maine. We tryed to make it as much fun for Alison as possible but our hearts really wanted to be back in Buffalo. Once again the Plummer's and Shirley and Ray really helped us out and invited us to Shirley and Ray's house for there family festivities. It was pretty cold but we still went for a little walk with the girls in their sleds and Alsion was able to enjoy a great sled ride with Matt, Sarah and Payson. It ended up being a quiet and relaxing Christmas and one that we will always remember for sure! Sorry this post is full of mostly trying times but I promise the next post will be happier and I will follow this post with pictures soon.