My 2015 in Review

Well, it’s the end of the year. It’s time for my review of the year that was, as it pertained to me and my family.

2015 was a very rough year for this family, as it was for many of those this family knows. That’s not to say that it was rotten for everyone, but it was for far more than it has been in the past few years.

First, one year ago today, I fell on my bathroom floor and boogered my knees up terribly. That hobbled me up pretty bad. Sometime around February, I got a terrible infection in my right lower leg. My leg turned bright red, and the redness started going up my leg. It was hot to the touch and very painful. It made me feel very sick and I had a high fever. The doctors tried a couple of antibiotics, but in the end, I had to take Levaquin to knock it out. Levaquin is a very nasty antibiotic and it nearly knocked me out. I wonder if the Levaquin didn’t set me up for the next problem that I had……

While on Levaquin, I started having terrible bouts with depression. We also had vehicle failures, financial uncertainties, and other stressors which led my doctor to prescribing alprazolam (Xanax) to me on a full time basis. Up to this point, I had a prescription for it, but only took a tablet here or there as needed. Taking the medication full time at first seemed like a good idea, but come July 16th, I thought I had a heart attack. It seems it was a panic attack brought on by my body getting used to the dosage. Xanax is a short acting drug meaning it’s effects on the body are short lived. It is also a drug belonging to the benzodiazepine class of medications. These are the same drugs that are used before you go into surgery to relax you and to make you forget things. In the hands of skilled anesthetists,  it’s a wonder drug, but I found out that it can also become a nightmare when taken for any length of time.

My doctor wanted me to take more alprazolam, but I figured that any drug that can make you feel like you’re having a heart attack in between doses is a terrible drug, far worse than even nicotine. I quit smoking because I didn’t want to be addicted to something, so it shouldn’t be any surprise that I wanted off of the alprazolam too. I essentially went cold turkey off of the medicine, which I found out after-the-fact, is a very bad idea! I suffered horrendous withdrawal symptoms which confined me to my bed for nearly 6 weeks. I still feel symptoms of withdrawal as I write this, four and one half months after my last dose. I have read many places from many other people who have been down this road that I can expect to experience withdrawal problems for up to two years after my last dose! Some people get better sooner, and a few people never really get over it. I find it hard to believe that I little drug like that can mess someone up so bad until I think about LSD. How many hippies have we heard about who “fried” their brains on LSD? Supposedly, many of them went into our mental institutions and some are still walking our streets, suffering flashbacks and other terrible side effects, decades after last taking the drug. It really testifies to how delicate our brain is.

We didn’t put in a garden this year. We did plant a couple of trees. We did get some firewood cut, but not as much as we had liked. Our vehicles gave us a lot of fits this year. First, the van’s water pump gave out. The bill to fix that was over $600. Some good Samaritan picked up the tab for that anonymously. Then the heater hoses under the van rusted through not once, but twice. The guy who originally worked on the van for us really screwed us over. He did a half-assed job and charged us dealership rates for his labor. The second time we just fixed it ourselves, on the side of the road. The pickup also had fits. First, we thought it was the fuel pump. An old friend of mine and his wife came over and helped KinDee change the fuel pump. It still was not running right, so we changed an expensive fuel pressure regulator, and that cured the problem. Oh, I almost forgot, the power steering pump failed on the pickup this year and my wife had to change it all on her own! That was a real treat and required us to spend a small fortune for parts and tools. AND, another one I almost forgot involved the brakes on the van which needed replaced, cleaned, as well as the van needing two new shocks. Again, an old friend of mine arranged for someone to do the labor for us, thank God! In all, over $2000 got stuck into our vehicles this year, but thankfully, a portion of that was mitigated by the kindness of others.

I am only homeschooling Jenna at the moment. I sent Sean and Karen back to school, not because I couldn’t hack homeschooling, but because of my poor health. I miss homeschooling the two younger kids, but I must admit, that I just didn’t have the energy for it after I got ill this past spring. I have a pretty good relationship with our new principal at this school. While I still abhor what we have done to our school by making it a K-8 and sending our high school kids to West Union, at least we have a top notch principal. For that, I’m quite thankful.

Now, for the hardest part of the year. 2015 brought some losses to our family. First, another old friend of mine lost his young son to cancer. That took a toll on this family. I watched my sister Lisa die and losing one of my own children has been a terrible nightmare of mine. Watching my old friend go through it brought back a lot of pain and hurt, as well as fear for me. As his family was going through the pain, I was reliving the pain here on top of it all. We also lost Cousin Ann Durnan totally unexpectedly this March. While Ann and I had our disagreements, I still loved her and I never wanted to see anything like that happen to her. Ann, along with her sister Grace, help take care of my Uncle Mike, who in many ways is like a father to me. I hated seeing Grace and Mike lose someone else so close to them in less than ten years. First it was Bonnie in 2006, Dave in 2009, and then Ann this year. My family was very close to Mike and Bonnie’s, so we felt that loss pretty hard as well. On top of this, several people I know lost loved ones. A few family members, myself included, have failing health this year. As I write this, I have an aunt who has been on hospice, in what is most likely the very end of her life. It’s been a tough, tough year for losses.

On the bright side, it’s also been a year that God has shined through friends and strangers. As I said, someone anonymously paid to have our van fixed with the water pump. KinDee and I have been blessed by an old friend of mine who has helped with fixing vehicles, to several other things that have helped us. There have been other areas where complete strangers have brought sunshine into an otherwise dreary year.

I am probably forgetting a ton of things on here. Regardless, I pray that 2016 is a much better year. The past couple of years have been tough and it would be nice to catch a break!