My husband and I went to see my parents this weekend. He hasn't seen them since Christmas, and he wasn't even their son-in-law at that time. Lot's has happened since we have seen them (ummm, marriage for one). The drive to the coast is lovely and we chose a really cool place to stay.

I've had a long history of issues with my mother. I'd say the most descriptive word I could choose for my mother is "judgmental". Maybe I can thank her for the fact that I'm so non-judgmental. Maybe I wouldn't be this person I am today if she weren't so judgmental.

In the beginning, the visit wasn't so bad. My husband is so great. He's definately the guy any parent would love to have their daughter marry. Great manners, never swears (in front of my parents anyway!), polite, laughs at everyone's jokes. Yep, he's pretty darned perfect. We met them for breakfast, not too many problems, except for the fact that my mother waited almost 20 minutes to get a box to place her leftover 1.5 pancakes for their dog.

My husband, dad and brother decided to watch college football. I took a nap (2 hours!) and my mother was on her computer making a flyer for church. Her printer was acting up, so she kept calling my dad in to help her. Even though it's something I could have figured out in no time at all, I didn't offer to help. She didn't ask, and frankly I didn't want to be alone in a room with her.

We had dinner and she did another one of her annoying things. She has a problem if someone doesn't like what she likes. She just doesn't get it that people have different tastes. Example: she likes grapes on her salad.

She asked my husband: Do you like grapes?
Husband:yes
Mom: You should put grapes on your salad like me
Husband: I don't think I'd like that
Mom: You should try it
Husband: That's ok
Mom: you won't know if you like it if you don't try it
Grrrrr

Election talk:

Mom: So, did you vote?
Me: No, but guess what? We're both democrats... we cancel out yours and dad's vote (I was joking... but...)
Mom: (huffy) Anybody who would vote for John Kerry is stupid
Me: Let's not talk politics Mom
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Everyone goes back to what they were doing before dinner. Boys watching football, me playing solitaire on my phone, Mom complaining that her computer isn't working.

My mother calls my dad in every 10 minutes or so to come help her. BJ is looking at me because he knows full well that I could fix it. I try to ignore. REALLY, I didn't want to be alone with her!

Finally, I felt bad enough for my dad that I went in and saved the day. Yeah, I fixed everything. But, my payment? The following conversation:

Mom: I really need to talk to you about John Kerry
Me: I REALLY don't want to talk about this with you Mom
Mom: You can't just blindly vote democrat. This guy is scary and I need to tell you why
Me: Mom, I don't want to insult you, but (thinking in my head that I just didn't want to hear her judgmental slant on things, then thought better of it.) Let's change the subject.
Mom: So, you were telling me about the movie, "The Villiage" saying I'd like it. Why?
Me: Well, it's a villiage of people who lived in the puratanical days. No swearing, everyone respected their elders, no drinking, no smoking
Mom: Yeah, I'd like to live there
Me: (Here's where I should have kept my big yapper shut) I'd hate it. I'd be bored out of my mind.
Mom: Why?
Me: No stimulation.
Mom: Why, because people couldn't swear or drink? (ok, I'm paraphrasing, but that was the basic intent of her statement)
Me: No (arrrgh.... why didn't I keep my mouth shut?), it's because I'd have no internet. Besides, people weren't given choices.
Mom: I think the world should be like that. I don't like swearing. I don't like R rated movies (and on and on and on.) I don't like it that it lives in my brain for hours after I hear it.
Me: But Mom, you DO live in this world. You can choose to allow yourself to get upset when you hear these things, or choose to ignore it. I do not get upset be swearing unless people are swearing directly at me. It does not live in my brain. It goes in one ear and out the other.
Mom: That's just sad. It should bother you.
Me: I think you need to ignore it. I think you dwell on it too much. I think you wait for an opportunity to hear it so you can say something about it. (I can't believe I said that, even though I've been thinking it for YEARS. )

The conversation went downhill from there. Thankfully, I got her computer fixed in the nick of time and my hubby walked in saying he was tired and ready to go. Perfect timing, if you ask me.

Here's the love part:

I love my husband. He let me vent all the way to the hotel. He bought some wine. We drank it. We lit a fire in our room and just cuddled. He didn't say anything bad about my mother (good idea!)

And finally, the cop part:

On the way home today, we were speeding a bit. BJ looks in the rear view mirror. There he saw the flashing blue and reds. Yup. We were caught.

Cop: Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?
BJ: Nope
Cop: Well, I'm sure you were surprised to see me. Probably just as surprised as the mustang in front of you when you almost drove into his trunk
Lori: Mouth kept shut, even though I wanted to say, "Yeah, but that mustang had just cut us off!"
BJ: Silence
Cop: Well, do you think you should slow it down a little?
BJ: Yes, sir, I do
Cop: Ok, well, I'll just give you a warning. But you need to slow down
BJ: Yes sir. Thank you.

If it were me in the same scenario? I'd of made some bizzare story of why I was speeding, and I would have told the cop about the mustang cutting me off. And I would have cried and stuff. And, I probably would have received a ticket.

I married a smart man.

I was stressed over nothing. My doctor was just telling me things I already knew. She just didn't know that I knew! She believes that I'm only liver affected, but there is a small chance that my lungs could be affected as well. Frankly, I'm thankful for that because the idea of emphysema scared me to death. I always kind of assumed the liver disease would continue to progress, so cirrhosis doesn't scare me as much.

My doctor told me that she's never had a patient with this disease (it's pretty rare) so she's sending me to a liver specialist to whom she's already consulted about my history. She thinks that he'll probably schedule a liver biopsy. But I'll know more in October when I see him.

This may sound silly, but it's kind of a relief to finally know what's wrong with me, even though it's pretty serious. It's been 20 years of not knowing; so I never knew if it was something I was doing, or what I could possibly do that would make it worse. That's pretty hard to live with. Now I know. That's a relief.

Amazing that a small town doctor found this, after I've been to some of the best gastro's out there, huh? I gave her a hug and thanked her for being so thorough. She seemed very pleased that I recognized her efforts. She wants my kids to get tested, especially after asking about their health history. It makes me sad that I've potentially passed this on.

I think this is the last of these scary posts. Now I can move on to being my normal smartass self.

My half-body mirror told me that I looked smashing today. I left the house with complete confidence, and I might even add, a bit of a bounce in my step. I decided that since tomorrow was going to be a scary day, I'd make today a great day. I even ironed my outfit and changed my earrings (which I hardly ever do...)

I got to work, thinking how great I look and I'm going to make darned well sure that everyone had an opportunity to view my great look. After a venti coffee and half of my 32 ounce bottle of water, it was time to visit the ladies room. There IS a full length mirror there. I always check myself out in that mirror to ensure I'm zipped, hair in place, etc.

Imagine my horror when the image in my head didn't match the image in the mirror. I was imagining that my top was covering my butt (which was covered by pants that were a little too snug.) It wasn't. There it was, my huge arse out there for the world to see. Worse, the pants are kind of a stretchy material, so it kind of hung on to all the little imperfections (aka cellulite).

I wanted to go home immediately. Of course, my day was just beginning so that was impossible. Worse, I had several meetings to attend. My sister had a great idea. Be the first to get there and the last to leave. I had a better idea... just keep my butt in my chair and roll it to all my meetings.

I guess it got my mind off of other stuff.

I finally got real with my husband tonight. I broke down (I sure hope I don't have swollen eyes for work tomorrow... ) I've been holding back what scares me about this whole thing. What scares me the most is not being the person he fell in love with. I feel that he fell in love with a vibrant, independent, happy person. I told him that right now I wish I were single and had not brought him into this mess. He hasn't been with me long enough to have to deal with *this*. I want to give him a "get out of jail free" card. He won't take it. I pray that I don't push it.

One side of me knows that I'm just borrowing trouble. I mean, the doctor hasn't even talked to me yet. The other side of me is like a boy scout. Always prepared. I want to prepare my husband for what could happen. I want to prepare myself.

I think I've run through every scenario in my head. It doesn't help that his dad has emphysema and is hooked up to oxygen 24/7. It doesn't help that I see his dad struggling to just go from his car to our home. I am very familiar with this *thing*. I exchanged email messages with his dad today. I asked him how he found out about his disease. His came from smoking. I've never touched a cigarette in my life. Ok, once I did- but I didn't light it. I was cruising with my roomate and we thought it would look cool if we had cigs in our mouths. Silly 17 year old girls!

He told me he'd rather have the lung thing than the liver thing. I told him that I'd rather have the liver thing than the lung thing. I'm very familiar with with the liver thing. I've lived it for 20 years. I've experienced as much physical pain as I think one could possibly have. But at least I could breathe. I can't imagine not being able to breathe. It makes me claustrophobic thinking about it even now.

I remember being a little girl living in Los Angeles. The smog got to me so bad that I could only take short little breaths. I laid on the couch and worked very hard to breathe on those smoggy days. I can only imagine that this is what it'll feel like. I can still rememer it enough to know that I just don't want to go there. I don't want to live like that.

I've been having small panic attacks the last few days. I can't take a full breath when I have these panic attacks. This happens when I'm very stressed out. Yeah, I know I could alleviate the whole thing by allowing myself to put work second. I should have gone to the doctor on Tuesday.

Know what? I think I intentionally put this off. I need to quit being a work martyr. Part of me is avoiding the truth. One of my friends gave me an ostrich beanie baby one time. She said that it reminded her of me. I'm always burying my head in the sand. Maybe I was an ostrich when the nurse tried to schedule an appointment the next day.

Two more days. Breathe...

I am glad that my day is full of meetings tomorrow. It'll keep my mind off of things. I'm good at that. I had a therapist that told me that I have lots of boxes in my brain. Put *this* away in this box and pull *this* out of that box. That's how I cope. I guess living the life I've lived has been a gift in times like this. I've learned some great coping (or should I say ignoring?) skills.

It's late. My husband is asleep. I can't sleep. I wonder why.... I should at least try. Tomorrow will be a long day.

This isn't going to be one of those "risible" posts. I'm having anxiety over the unknown.

I've had this liver "thing" for about 20 years now. When I was first diagnosed I was told that they didn't know what caused it, but I'd feel like I had the flu all the time, then told to go live my life. I wasn't very satisfied with that. I was on the internet searching for something to explain this for days and days. Some things fit, some things didn't. I'd give up after a while.

Then, when  I'd have to get a new doctor (I moved, doctor moved, doctor referral, etc.) and the new doctors would test for things and I'd go through the internet research process all over again. The new doctors would always come to the same conclusion as the first one.

One doctor even took my galbladder out thinking that would solve the problem. It didn't. So, 20 years of this. Fast forward to now.

I've just recently gotten over a 3 week liver flare-up. Worst I've had in years, and I ended up in the ER 3 weeks ago. The ER doctor recommended that I follow up with my doctor. This is a new doctor to me because I've moved. So, she ran labs. No surprise, they came back bad. Ran more labs, this time wanted me to fast.

I was kind of rolling my eyes at the whole thing because every new doctor I get has to run all the tests for themselves. She noticed something in my labs that has never been looked at. I have an extremely low level of something called Alpha-1 antitrypsin. Nobody has ever looked into this before or even done a fasting blood test. I'd never heard of it, so came home and looked it up.

I'm literally stunned at how obvious this seems. There is a disease called Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. It was very easy to find on Google. In a nutshell it's a genetic defect that causes liver and lung disease. If bad enough it can eventually cause cirrhosis and emphysema. According to everything that I'm reading, my health history fits this to a T. I have never associated my liver problems with lung problems that I've also been plagued with. Now those pieces of the puzzle fit together.

The doctor ordered a genotyping test. This is the test that will show what my chances are of developing cirrhosis or emphysema or both. That was almost three weeks ago. I started to relax because I thought since I hadn't heard from the doctor, it came back ok. Not so.

The doctor was on vacation all this time. The nurse just called on Monday and said that my doctor wants to discuss my results with me in person and discuss my options. She didn't want to discuss over the phone. She wanted me to come in the next day, but I have huge commitments at work that I couldn't get out of. I can't come in until Friday. So, now I wait.