(no subject)
So Im not sure if it's due to just plain laziness or lack of desire, but I haven't updated my blog since the wreck in June. Shame on ME!!
So, let's try to fill in the blanks the best we can...
We all recovered nicely, for the most part, from the accident. Mike, as far as I know (because I don't get pictures from his ass reamer of a father), is having no issues with his head injury. He told me when he got back to school after the summer break that he had nothing but questions about it for several days. It didn't seem to bug him that much.
Kayla didn't have much of a scar left so she didn't need to explain as much. She didn't say anything to me about anymore pain.
When Allena went back to school, it was "tell what you did this summer" day. And of course, all the kids told about camping, swimming, eating junk food and traveling. Allena raised her hand and said, "I got in a wreck and my brother got 29 stitches. And my gums ripped… see??? (insert lifting top gum to show the audience)"… She's so cute!
John recovered nicely from his cracked ribs. Now THAT was something that I don't wish on anyone, and it wasn't even me. But blood curdling screams when you try to move just a half an inch is not my idea of a good time.
Richard's scar above his nose healed up nicely. He, of course, did not put the doctor recommended Mederma on it as he should have, so his scar is quite visible. But, he's Richard… I didn't figure he would do what he was supposed to. We love him anyway! Silly feller!
Lets see… that pretty much leaves….me. Physically, I am doing good. No lasting effects from my injuries. Now, psychologically, that's a different story. For a few months now, I have been seeing a therapist for issues resulting from the accident. I have been diagnosed with PTSD. If you don't know what that is, look it up. Anyhow, I knew something was wrong when I could not lay down in bed at any time (day time snoozes, night time, etc.) without seeing Micheal sitting behind me screaming, seeing the blood come out of his head. This became such a problem that I was afraid to lay down and close my eyes. When it was time for bed, I cried and had to watch TV until I fell asleep watching it. Even then, I still saw him. After that came an extreme fear and panic of being in the passenger seat of a vehicle. When I was not driving, I was so scared, I had panic attacks every time. I cried, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't speak to anyone. And I could not control it. So I did some of my own research online and that's how I came to the preliminary conclusion of PTSD. So I contacted a therapist in the area and set up an appointment. Sure enough, I had/have all the symptoms of this damn disorder.
So after the diagnosis was made, "Doc" decided that she would try a new therapy style, called EMDR. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMDR. Too hard to explain. Anyhow, after a few weeks of intense recalling of the accident and bringing up things that were better left alone, I no longer saw my son screaming when I would lay down. It was such a relief! Next, it was time to work on the passenger in a car situation. A little bit tougher. Its such a difficult thing to understand because I was the driver when we had the accident. The reason I cannot be a passenger is because I have no control over the situation. I cannot slow the car down when I feel we should. I cannot move lanes if I think we are too close. I have no way to protect the people in the car if I am not driving.
It wasn't until about 1 month ago that we made a breakthrough with the issue. After lots of deductive reasoning, it was discovered that it is seeing brake lights in front of me that triggers the panic attacks. When I see brake lights and I am not driving, I do what they call "dissociate" from the situation. I can hear what is going on around me, but I am so out of myself that I am unable to respond. I have to turn my head so I cannot see the car in front of me.
When I am a driver…. I have no problems. I can sing, I can talk, I can talk on the phone (don't tell anyone…) and have no issues with it. It is ONLY when I am a passenger. However, there is one exception, and this is something that I just realized the other day. When it is dark and I am driving, I tend to panic even as a driver. I cant talk to anyone in the car. But what I realized the other day is that if I am driving alone in the dark, I am OK. It seems that I only panic if I am driving other people around in the dark, because I feel total responsibility for the injuries from the accident and I am fearful of doing it again to everyone in the car.
Weird huh??? Its not very fun, but it's slowly getting better. I think it will take months, if not a year or so before I am all the way OK with it. Ive only been in therapy for 3 months.
Now on to the more interesting things in life….. Back in May, I took a part time job cleaning houses and businesses here in town to bring in a little extra money for the summer. John had been working for her since January. Jumping ahead quite a bit… in August, she decided that she wanted to relocate to Las Vegas and asked John and I if we would be interested in buying her cleaning business from her. We explained to her that we had no money to speak of. She said that we could just pay her out of the profits from the business. At the time, the business was bringing in close to $3000 a month. A nice pretty penny on top of John's full time job at DirecTV. So we talked about it and we said sure. We would be getting her work van, all the equipment and all the existing accounts. We had tentatively agreed on a set amount per month, to include van insurance, van payment and business payment. Nothing was put in writing, as she was getting ready to move and didn't have time to write anything up at that time. She told us that as soon as she got to Vegas, she would write up a contract and mail it to us and we could finalize the deal. OK, sounds good.
I went to Vegas for my 30th birthday, courtesy of a very good friend and his generosity. While I was there, I helped said boss move into her new apartment, because she had gotten there the day before I did. While I was there, I reminded her again to write up the contract and mail it to us so we could get this done.
I got back from vacation, and started my life as a new business owner. Things went well for a while. We paid on time and we were keeping our end of the verbal, never written agreement. Then comes the middle of November. I realize that the van insurance is about to expire on the 21st. I text former boss and ask her what we are going to do to renew it. I get no response. I call the next day and leave a voice mail. Still no response. The next day I get a phone call from the insurance company asking me if had heard from former boss, because they needed to get payment to renew the car insurance. I told them that I had tried but I was getting no response. They told me that they had sent her several letters about the expiration and had gotten no response. So I waited a day or so, and left another message. Still no response. November 23rd comes. I get a notice in the mail that had been CC'd to former boss telling her that she no longer had insurance on the van. Then the mind started working overtime. I had been paying her $100 a month for insurance. Where was that going if it wasn't getting applied to the insurance to keep it current? So November 30th comes… the day our business payment is due to her. Lo and behold, I get a text message asking me when I am sending payment. I respond NOT with an answer, but with a question as to when is she going to renew the car insurance. I get no response. I texted her again and said that the insurance company had been trying to contact her for a month and had not heard from her. She responded with "they never sent me anything. I cant pay the insurance until you pay me". Uhhh… what about the other months of money I have been paying you?? Oh yeah.. back up… earlier in the month I had told her, because I was being honest and keeping up communication, that several people had cancelled due to the Thanksgiving holiday and being out of town, etc… and we were short on cash that month, so we would pay her in payments to get caught up for the November payment. Never did get a response until the text asking when she was going to get paid. Bounce forward again… so I responded via email telling her that I was planning on paying her in payments to get caught up for November payment, but I still needed to know what was going on with the insurance. Finally I get a response, well into December:
Hi,
Hope you had a good Christmas. I'm off today and tomorrow so I am trying to get a few things caught up. I am very glad to be home (although Florida was wonderful). If you have to be away from home, I guess Fort Myers is as good a place as any to be there. November and December is always a tough time to collect money from the accounts. Lets do $*** per month then and I will apply $*** to the business and $*** towards the van. You have got to catch up to that amount from November tho. (Get to $700 for November). That's $*** still due for November then and $*** for Dec.Let me know when you make a deposit please. I'm super tight for money right now too.
So NOW she is willing to work with us. But, do you see anything about car insurance? Noooo….. there is nothing. So at this point, I still have NO idea what is going on with the car insurance. Now I start to wonder if she is paying the van payment, or is the bank going to come get it from us. Hmmm….. Its starting to wear on me….
So apparently she does understand how hard it is to collect money in November and December, so now she will understand when I tell her that I am not going to pay her until I know what is going on with the van or the car insurance… yes? But no…. this is the response I got to THAT email:
Emmy- We are $200 short on our rent that is due tomorrow. We will be evicted if we come up short. Please deposit at least that much for us. Thank you.
Mmmmm hmmm….. STILL no acknowledgement of the insurance. What the hell is going on here?
January 9th, I keep getting phone calls from a number that I don't recognize. I don't answer it. After 3 phone calls, I start to wonder something…. I get John's phone and look up the number for former boss's boyfriend. Lookie lookie…. Her boyfriend is calling to collect money, but he's not leaving messages.
At that point, I was so fed up that I told John my thoughts… I think we need to email former boss and tell her that the business transaction is not working and it cannot continue the way it is going, and ask here where she wants her van and her equipment. Nothing was ever put in writing, so we are not bound to anything. We will pay her for time up until January 15th, which is when we sent the email. The equipment…. It is replaceable. The carpet cleaner is broken and we had to rent a rug doctor when we did carpets, the vacuum is falling apart and the van, well… aside from not being insured, it barely runs, the tires are bald and they go flat whenever they want to.
The same day, John gets a voicemail from former boss saying that she received the email. She said she would have someone come get the van next week (present week now) and that she had someone to take back the residential accounts so she could make the money on them. Also, she demanded the remainder of payment by last Friday. Well first of all, you can try to take back the accounts, but one of them was so happy you left because you had different people in there all the time and she is so happy that only I clean for her now… one doesn't use us right now because she is saving money for a few months…. Two of them you CANT touch because we found them AFTER we got the business, and the other 2… take them, if you can convince them that you wont send people in there that wont rip them off like you did before… Yeah, good luck. And… you don't have business insurance anymore… you cancelled that the day you moved…you aren't licensed anymore… you transferred that to us and we changed the name. You aren't bonded anymore to insure anything that gets stolen or broken. Go ahead. Take them. I'll report you.
So now we are happy business owners with NO worries about car insurance or payments to anyone. Granted we aren't bringing in the $3000 we were at the start, but we will build the business and we GET the keep the money. We can buy a new vacuum cleaner and all is well.
John and I are in the process of trying to get custody of Allena. Her mom and stepdad are causing her more harm than good. We have a pretty good chance. I don't want to do into detail here, for legal reasons.
Im starting my 2nd semester of my sophomore year tomorrow. Im taking 18 credits online. Im so happy because they are starting a speech pathology major next fall. YAY! I can use my sign language finally! And Ive figured out all the requisites for the major so I can plan the next 2 years. Im excited.
Well, that's all for now I guess. If I think of anything else, you'll be the first to know!
Oh yes… and for those of you (you know who you are) that were not able to see Tasha when she was with her dad for Christmas, I am VERY sorry and I want to kick his ass for not bringing her to see you.
OH WAIT!!! I just thought of something else… So the other day I was walking out of Tasha's bedroom (it's the 4th bedroom we built in the new house), I came around the corner and I slipped on the carpet and went down the only 2 steps in my house that go down into the sunken living room and broke my frigging toe! 30 years old and never a broken bone, until NOW!!! So now I have to wear one of these damn walking boots for 4 weeks. Its so NOT sexy! :)
So, let's try to fill in the blanks the best we can...
We all recovered nicely, for the most part, from the accident. Mike, as far as I know (because I don't get pictures from his ass reamer of a father), is having no issues with his head injury. He told me when he got back to school after the summer break that he had nothing but questions about it for several days. It didn't seem to bug him that much.
Kayla didn't have much of a scar left so she didn't need to explain as much. She didn't say anything to me about anymore pain.
When Allena went back to school, it was "tell what you did this summer" day. And of course, all the kids told about camping, swimming, eating junk food and traveling. Allena raised her hand and said, "I got in a wreck and my brother got 29 stitches. And my gums ripped… see??? (insert lifting top gum to show the audience)"… She's so cute!
John recovered nicely from his cracked ribs. Now THAT was something that I don't wish on anyone, and it wasn't even me. But blood curdling screams when you try to move just a half an inch is not my idea of a good time.
Richard's scar above his nose healed up nicely. He, of course, did not put the doctor recommended Mederma on it as he should have, so his scar is quite visible. But, he's Richard… I didn't figure he would do what he was supposed to. We love him anyway! Silly feller!
Lets see… that pretty much leaves….me. Physically, I am doing good. No lasting effects from my injuries. Now, psychologically, that's a different story. For a few months now, I have been seeing a therapist for issues resulting from the accident. I have been diagnosed with PTSD. If you don't know what that is, look it up. Anyhow, I knew something was wrong when I could not lay down in bed at any time (day time snoozes, night time, etc.) without seeing Micheal sitting behind me screaming, seeing the blood come out of his head. This became such a problem that I was afraid to lay down and close my eyes. When it was time for bed, I cried and had to watch TV until I fell asleep watching it. Even then, I still saw him. After that came an extreme fear and panic of being in the passenger seat of a vehicle. When I was not driving, I was so scared, I had panic attacks every time. I cried, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't speak to anyone. And I could not control it. So I did some of my own research online and that's how I came to the preliminary conclusion of PTSD. So I contacted a therapist in the area and set up an appointment. Sure enough, I had/have all the symptoms of this damn disorder.
So after the diagnosis was made, "Doc" decided that she would try a new therapy style, called EMDR. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMDR. Too hard to explain. Anyhow, after a few weeks of intense recalling of the accident and bringing up things that were better left alone, I no longer saw my son screaming when I would lay down. It was such a relief! Next, it was time to work on the passenger in a car situation. A little bit tougher. Its such a difficult thing to understand because I was the driver when we had the accident. The reason I cannot be a passenger is because I have no control over the situation. I cannot slow the car down when I feel we should. I cannot move lanes if I think we are too close. I have no way to protect the people in the car if I am not driving.
It wasn't until about 1 month ago that we made a breakthrough with the issue. After lots of deductive reasoning, it was discovered that it is seeing brake lights in front of me that triggers the panic attacks. When I see brake lights and I am not driving, I do what they call "dissociate" from the situation. I can hear what is going on around me, but I am so out of myself that I am unable to respond. I have to turn my head so I cannot see the car in front of me.
When I am a driver…. I have no problems. I can sing, I can talk, I can talk on the phone (don't tell anyone…) and have no issues with it. It is ONLY when I am a passenger. However, there is one exception, and this is something that I just realized the other day. When it is dark and I am driving, I tend to panic even as a driver. I cant talk to anyone in the car. But what I realized the other day is that if I am driving alone in the dark, I am OK. It seems that I only panic if I am driving other people around in the dark, because I feel total responsibility for the injuries from the accident and I am fearful of doing it again to everyone in the car.
Weird huh??? Its not very fun, but it's slowly getting better. I think it will take months, if not a year or so before I am all the way OK with it. Ive only been in therapy for 3 months.
Now on to the more interesting things in life….. Back in May, I took a part time job cleaning houses and businesses here in town to bring in a little extra money for the summer. John had been working for her since January. Jumping ahead quite a bit… in August, she decided that she wanted to relocate to Las Vegas and asked John and I if we would be interested in buying her cleaning business from her. We explained to her that we had no money to speak of. She said that we could just pay her out of the profits from the business. At the time, the business was bringing in close to $3000 a month. A nice pretty penny on top of John's full time job at DirecTV. So we talked about it and we said sure. We would be getting her work van, all the equipment and all the existing accounts. We had tentatively agreed on a set amount per month, to include van insurance, van payment and business payment. Nothing was put in writing, as she was getting ready to move and didn't have time to write anything up at that time. She told us that as soon as she got to Vegas, she would write up a contract and mail it to us and we could finalize the deal. OK, sounds good.
I went to Vegas for my 30th birthday, courtesy of a very good friend and his generosity. While I was there, I helped said boss move into her new apartment, because she had gotten there the day before I did. While I was there, I reminded her again to write up the contract and mail it to us so we could get this done.
I got back from vacation, and started my life as a new business owner. Things went well for a while. We paid on time and we were keeping our end of the verbal, never written agreement. Then comes the middle of November. I realize that the van insurance is about to expire on the 21st. I text former boss and ask her what we are going to do to renew it. I get no response. I call the next day and leave a voice mail. Still no response. The next day I get a phone call from the insurance company asking me if had heard from former boss, because they needed to get payment to renew the car insurance. I told them that I had tried but I was getting no response. They told me that they had sent her several letters about the expiration and had gotten no response. So I waited a day or so, and left another message. Still no response. November 23rd comes. I get a notice in the mail that had been CC'd to former boss telling her that she no longer had insurance on the van. Then the mind started working overtime. I had been paying her $100 a month for insurance. Where was that going if it wasn't getting applied to the insurance to keep it current? So November 30th comes… the day our business payment is due to her. Lo and behold, I get a text message asking me when I am sending payment. I respond NOT with an answer, but with a question as to when is she going to renew the car insurance. I get no response. I texted her again and said that the insurance company had been trying to contact her for a month and had not heard from her. She responded with "they never sent me anything. I cant pay the insurance until you pay me". Uhhh… what about the other months of money I have been paying you?? Oh yeah.. back up… earlier in the month I had told her, because I was being honest and keeping up communication, that several people had cancelled due to the Thanksgiving holiday and being out of town, etc… and we were short on cash that month, so we would pay her in payments to get caught up for the November payment. Never did get a response until the text asking when she was going to get paid. Bounce forward again… so I responded via email telling her that I was planning on paying her in payments to get caught up for November payment, but I still needed to know what was going on with the insurance. Finally I get a response, well into December:
Hi,
Hope you had a good Christmas. I'm off today and tomorrow so I am trying to get a few things caught up. I am very glad to be home (although Florida was wonderful). If you have to be away from home, I guess Fort Myers is as good a place as any to be there. November and December is always a tough time to collect money from the accounts. Lets do $*** per month then and I will apply $*** to the business and $*** towards the van. You have got to catch up to that amount from November tho. (Get to $700 for November). That's $*** still due for November then and $*** for Dec.Let me know when you make a deposit please. I'm super tight for money right now too.
So NOW she is willing to work with us. But, do you see anything about car insurance? Noooo….. there is nothing. So at this point, I still have NO idea what is going on with the car insurance. Now I start to wonder if she is paying the van payment, or is the bank going to come get it from us. Hmmm….. Its starting to wear on me….
So apparently she does understand how hard it is to collect money in November and December, so now she will understand when I tell her that I am not going to pay her until I know what is going on with the van or the car insurance… yes? But no…. this is the response I got to THAT email:
Emmy- We are $200 short on our rent that is due tomorrow. We will be evicted if we come up short. Please deposit at least that much for us. Thank you.
Mmmmm hmmm….. STILL no acknowledgement of the insurance. What the hell is going on here?
January 9th, I keep getting phone calls from a number that I don't recognize. I don't answer it. After 3 phone calls, I start to wonder something…. I get John's phone and look up the number for former boss's boyfriend. Lookie lookie…. Her boyfriend is calling to collect money, but he's not leaving messages.
At that point, I was so fed up that I told John my thoughts… I think we need to email former boss and tell her that the business transaction is not working and it cannot continue the way it is going, and ask here where she wants her van and her equipment. Nothing was ever put in writing, so we are not bound to anything. We will pay her for time up until January 15th, which is when we sent the email. The equipment…. It is replaceable. The carpet cleaner is broken and we had to rent a rug doctor when we did carpets, the vacuum is falling apart and the van, well… aside from not being insured, it barely runs, the tires are bald and they go flat whenever they want to.
The same day, John gets a voicemail from former boss saying that she received the email. She said she would have someone come get the van next week (present week now) and that she had someone to take back the residential accounts so she could make the money on them. Also, she demanded the remainder of payment by last Friday. Well first of all, you can try to take back the accounts, but one of them was so happy you left because you had different people in there all the time and she is so happy that only I clean for her now… one doesn't use us right now because she is saving money for a few months…. Two of them you CANT touch because we found them AFTER we got the business, and the other 2… take them, if you can convince them that you wont send people in there that wont rip them off like you did before… Yeah, good luck. And… you don't have business insurance anymore… you cancelled that the day you moved…you aren't licensed anymore… you transferred that to us and we changed the name. You aren't bonded anymore to insure anything that gets stolen or broken. Go ahead. Take them. I'll report you.
So now we are happy business owners with NO worries about car insurance or payments to anyone. Granted we aren't bringing in the $3000 we were at the start, but we will build the business and we GET the keep the money. We can buy a new vacuum cleaner and all is well.
John and I are in the process of trying to get custody of Allena. Her mom and stepdad are causing her more harm than good. We have a pretty good chance. I don't want to do into detail here, for legal reasons.
Im starting my 2nd semester of my sophomore year tomorrow. Im taking 18 credits online. Im so happy because they are starting a speech pathology major next fall. YAY! I can use my sign language finally! And Ive figured out all the requisites for the major so I can plan the next 2 years. Im excited.
Well, that's all for now I guess. If I think of anything else, you'll be the first to know!
Oh yes… and for those of you (you know who you are) that were not able to see Tasha when she was with her dad for Christmas, I am VERY sorry and I want to kick his ass for not bringing her to see you.
OH WAIT!!! I just thought of something else… So the other day I was walking out of Tasha's bedroom (it's the 4th bedroom we built in the new house), I came around the corner and I slipped on the carpet and went down the only 2 steps in my house that go down into the sunken living room and broke my frigging toe! 30 years old and never a broken bone, until NOW!!! So now I have to wear one of these damn walking boots for 4 weeks. Its so NOT sexy! :)