Jabberwockey
Well-Known Member
Been gone for a couple of years. Not back due to issues with our son, just decided to log back in and see what's up. Stopped logging in mainly because I would read posts at work during lunch and the new administration was a bit fickle about that. Never really thought about logging in at home.
Don't remember exactly where we left off but read a few of Lil's posts, she stayed on for a year after me, so here it goes. Our son is currently employed, or at least hasn't told us he's not anymore. Things seem to be going ok on that front. He's actually starting to initiate the conversation from time to time. He and his wife were talking about moving here but then her mom got them a new car so they can't really leave till its paid off. He's not exactly what you'd consider a model citizen but is definitely doing better. She seems to be able to mostly keep him in check and rolls with it when he does stupid crap.
As for us, our plans have changed yet again. We've come to the realization that full time RVing probably isn't for us so we're buying another house and moving to a different town. I retired from Corrections as of February 1st this year although I'm working part time as an officer to prep for the double mortgage payment we will have until this house sells. Looking forward to it as we will be within thirty minutes of three major lakes, only ten minutes to a boat ramp to the tail end of one of them. There is much fishing planned in my future!! After everything is settled and Lil retires, we will buy a pontoon boat and maybe upgrade the camper. We still plan on doing a lot of traveling and while our current camper is great for weekends and even week long trips, we are looking at some trips that will be longer than that.
Sadly, all of our fur babies are gone. Boo, our cat, had to be put down in mid May of 2020 due to complications from kidney issues. She was barely eating as the only food we could give her was the special kidney food and she HATED it! We actually had to give her appetite stimulants to force her to eat and even that being done on a daily basis was no longer enough to make her eat. She was down to five pounds. We had both been off for a month and a half due to COVID at that point so we had been able to spend tons of time with her so the timing just felt right. Hated the thought of coming home one day to find she had passed with no one around. Mac, the Boston Terrier, went in July of 2019. He was having seizures that were getting progressively worse along with a tumor on his leg that was getting huge. It was on the lower half of his front leg and had hit the point where it was going to breach the knee at any time. The vet said that if that happened, it would probably spread throughout his body. She also said that taking the leg at his age, around 15, would probably be catastrophic and he would have a terrible time trying to learn how to walk on three legs. So between that, the seizures, and the blindness we decided it was time. That was hard as outwardly, other than the tumor on his legs and the glazed eyes, he seemed perfectly healthy most of the time. His sister Suzie left us about a year and a half before that. She had bladder cancer that had spread throughout her body. She was having seizures, bladder control issues more and more as the tumor got bigger, and no control over her back legs. We had kenneled them for the weekend to go to St Louis to be with my family while my dad had a surgery performed. The vet said they would call us if there was a problem. While in the waiting room after dad's surgery was done, the vet called and told us that Suzie's white blood cell count was so low that it was surprising she was still conscious. We came home, dad was fine, and gave her a spa weekend and doted on her before we took her back to the vet. We miss them dearly but having been caring for sick animals in some way, shape, or form, for the last five or so years we decided to be without pets for a while. It also makes it easier to do what we need to around the house to prep for sale. New flooring is enough of a pain without dealing with what to do with the pets while its installed.
We had an interesting 2020. My dad took a bad fall in late February. Hit his head hard. He spent a week or so in the hospital who then released him to a place that keeps them there for physical therapy. After about a week of PT they determined that he wasn't going to get any better than he was. He could hardly speak, couldn't walk, couldn't even feed himself. He was offered the opportunity to go to a nursing home on a feeding tube and even without being able to speak, made it VERY clear what he thought of that option. We took him home on hospice care and he passed at the end of March. Afterwards, mom said that his quality of life had been gone for a while. She's been handling it fairly well. Doesn't hurt that one of my sisters currently lives with her. Found out during all this that not only will a hard blow to the head make a current case of Parkinson's worse, it will also cause the onset of a case. My dad had been fighting Parkinson's for quite a while.
I had taken off work while dad was in the hospital and went back while he was at the PT place since only mom could stay there and I would just have been in the way. The day after dad passed, one of my sisters and her husband had spent the morning saying they weren't feeling well. They went home and that evening I was running a fever. As my body has decided to run cold when I'm sick, this was a shock. Fever was still there the next morning, Lil and I had isolated overnight, so we headed home. I called the doctor on the way and went straight there when we got back for testing. Lil started coughing the next day and we both ended up testing positive. We didn't get back to work till mid May. All of my immediate family ended up sick and those of us who got sick enough to go to the doctor ended up testing positive. Two brothers in law went to the hospital for a few days, as did the sister who was sick that morning, and Lil spent almost ten days in the hospital. The brother in law who had been sick the morning of the day I got sick ended up dying. He had been in the hospital with pneumonia and they released him WAY too soon. He also had a lot of health issues.
Oh, while dad had been on hospice, a hail storm had damaged our camper. Thankfully, the place we stored it at had gone on top of all of them right after the storm to seal any holes otherwise ours would have been severely damaged. Due to dads situation and then us having COVID, we forgot about it till they called us in June. Warranty covered it but didn't get it fixed till October so didn't get a chance to take it out last year. We close on a house on April 9th so until that's settled we don't want to make any plans.
I had planned to work for another year and a half but changes at work made me change my mind. They are so short of staff that non-custody employees, even those who have never worked or trained for custody, are being pulled out of their jobs to work custody positions. After I left, they started pulling them to do cell searches which I knew was coming. And I knew that before long, they haven't started it just yet, they were going to start forcing non-custody to work overtime. I was doing that as it was but couldn't stand the thought of having gone through all I did to get out of custody, just to basically be forced right back in. Working part time as custody now but I control what days and what shifts. That and they were cutting us zero slack on our caseworker duties. So yeah, 2020 was weirder for us than most.
Anyway, glad to see so many people on here that I remember and looking forward to meeting those I don't know.
Don't remember exactly where we left off but read a few of Lil's posts, she stayed on for a year after me, so here it goes. Our son is currently employed, or at least hasn't told us he's not anymore. Things seem to be going ok on that front. He's actually starting to initiate the conversation from time to time. He and his wife were talking about moving here but then her mom got them a new car so they can't really leave till its paid off. He's not exactly what you'd consider a model citizen but is definitely doing better. She seems to be able to mostly keep him in check and rolls with it when he does stupid crap.
As for us, our plans have changed yet again. We've come to the realization that full time RVing probably isn't for us so we're buying another house and moving to a different town. I retired from Corrections as of February 1st this year although I'm working part time as an officer to prep for the double mortgage payment we will have until this house sells. Looking forward to it as we will be within thirty minutes of three major lakes, only ten minutes to a boat ramp to the tail end of one of them. There is much fishing planned in my future!! After everything is settled and Lil retires, we will buy a pontoon boat and maybe upgrade the camper. We still plan on doing a lot of traveling and while our current camper is great for weekends and even week long trips, we are looking at some trips that will be longer than that.
Sadly, all of our fur babies are gone. Boo, our cat, had to be put down in mid May of 2020 due to complications from kidney issues. She was barely eating as the only food we could give her was the special kidney food and she HATED it! We actually had to give her appetite stimulants to force her to eat and even that being done on a daily basis was no longer enough to make her eat. She was down to five pounds. We had both been off for a month and a half due to COVID at that point so we had been able to spend tons of time with her so the timing just felt right. Hated the thought of coming home one day to find she had passed with no one around. Mac, the Boston Terrier, went in July of 2019. He was having seizures that were getting progressively worse along with a tumor on his leg that was getting huge. It was on the lower half of his front leg and had hit the point where it was going to breach the knee at any time. The vet said that if that happened, it would probably spread throughout his body. She also said that taking the leg at his age, around 15, would probably be catastrophic and he would have a terrible time trying to learn how to walk on three legs. So between that, the seizures, and the blindness we decided it was time. That was hard as outwardly, other than the tumor on his legs and the glazed eyes, he seemed perfectly healthy most of the time. His sister Suzie left us about a year and a half before that. She had bladder cancer that had spread throughout her body. She was having seizures, bladder control issues more and more as the tumor got bigger, and no control over her back legs. We had kenneled them for the weekend to go to St Louis to be with my family while my dad had a surgery performed. The vet said they would call us if there was a problem. While in the waiting room after dad's surgery was done, the vet called and told us that Suzie's white blood cell count was so low that it was surprising she was still conscious. We came home, dad was fine, and gave her a spa weekend and doted on her before we took her back to the vet. We miss them dearly but having been caring for sick animals in some way, shape, or form, for the last five or so years we decided to be without pets for a while. It also makes it easier to do what we need to around the house to prep for sale. New flooring is enough of a pain without dealing with what to do with the pets while its installed.
We had an interesting 2020. My dad took a bad fall in late February. Hit his head hard. He spent a week or so in the hospital who then released him to a place that keeps them there for physical therapy. After about a week of PT they determined that he wasn't going to get any better than he was. He could hardly speak, couldn't walk, couldn't even feed himself. He was offered the opportunity to go to a nursing home on a feeding tube and even without being able to speak, made it VERY clear what he thought of that option. We took him home on hospice care and he passed at the end of March. Afterwards, mom said that his quality of life had been gone for a while. She's been handling it fairly well. Doesn't hurt that one of my sisters currently lives with her. Found out during all this that not only will a hard blow to the head make a current case of Parkinson's worse, it will also cause the onset of a case. My dad had been fighting Parkinson's for quite a while.
I had taken off work while dad was in the hospital and went back while he was at the PT place since only mom could stay there and I would just have been in the way. The day after dad passed, one of my sisters and her husband had spent the morning saying they weren't feeling well. They went home and that evening I was running a fever. As my body has decided to run cold when I'm sick, this was a shock. Fever was still there the next morning, Lil and I had isolated overnight, so we headed home. I called the doctor on the way and went straight there when we got back for testing. Lil started coughing the next day and we both ended up testing positive. We didn't get back to work till mid May. All of my immediate family ended up sick and those of us who got sick enough to go to the doctor ended up testing positive. Two brothers in law went to the hospital for a few days, as did the sister who was sick that morning, and Lil spent almost ten days in the hospital. The brother in law who had been sick the morning of the day I got sick ended up dying. He had been in the hospital with pneumonia and they released him WAY too soon. He also had a lot of health issues.
Oh, while dad had been on hospice, a hail storm had damaged our camper. Thankfully, the place we stored it at had gone on top of all of them right after the storm to seal any holes otherwise ours would have been severely damaged. Due to dads situation and then us having COVID, we forgot about it till they called us in June. Warranty covered it but didn't get it fixed till October so didn't get a chance to take it out last year. We close on a house on April 9th so until that's settled we don't want to make any plans.
I had planned to work for another year and a half but changes at work made me change my mind. They are so short of staff that non-custody employees, even those who have never worked or trained for custody, are being pulled out of their jobs to work custody positions. After I left, they started pulling them to do cell searches which I knew was coming. And I knew that before long, they haven't started it just yet, they were going to start forcing non-custody to work overtime. I was doing that as it was but couldn't stand the thought of having gone through all I did to get out of custody, just to basically be forced right back in. Working part time as custody now but I control what days and what shifts. That and they were cutting us zero slack on our caseworker duties. So yeah, 2020 was weirder for us than most.
Anyway, glad to see so many people on here that I remember and looking forward to meeting those I don't know.