And goodbye and good riddance to 2017. It has been a challenging year to say the least for the Doggy family.
A bit of a timeline...
May 11 - DoggyMama's younger daughter gave birth to twins (good thing) but they had some health issues early on and didn't come home for about a month.
June 22 - DoggyMama broke her ankle in 3 places. Because she's hard-headed and insisted on trying to help with the twins, she wound up with 4 surgeries since then and is only just now getting out of the wheelchair. This resulted in hurriedly rearranging the house (you think your home is pretty easy to get around in until you have someone in a wheelchair, then everything is in the way) and building a couple of ramps.
July 22 - DoggyMama's older daughter died from drug and alcohol abuse at age 31. A few weeks later, her aunt passed away. The funerals and events surrounding them also contributed to the additional surgeries. Also in July, moved my mom (95) from her house to assisted living, which involved cleaning out her house, having a garage sale and getting rid of the leftovers and putting the house on the market. Again, DoggyMama insisted on helping - adding to the reasons for more surgeries.
More recently - DoggyMama's mom broke both hips and her leg (all separate events). Broke her leg after only being home for a week after her last hip surgery. My mom's breast cancer came back. She was a breast cancer survivor of nearly 20 years. Fortunately it appears that she won't need surgery (and I don't think she would opt for it if she did), radiation or any agressive chemo.
Due to all of the above, this was the first time in over 21 years that we didn't get to go camping or even take the boat out. Yesterday, 2017 decided to get in one final parting shot. Around 9 a.m., DoggyMama's younger daughter called in hysterics. She ran her GMC Envoy into the ditch along 465 on her way home from work. Apparently the woman in front of her braked hard to avoid someone that was sliding on black ice in front of her and the daughter swerved to avoid her. A good Samaritan stopped and was able to get her truck back up onto the shoulder of the road. I called AAA and wound up waiting about an hour and a half on the side of the road for them to arrive (needless to say it was a busy day for them yesterday). Fortunately she wasn't hurt, and she didn't have the boys with her. She was damned lucky since she wasn't wearing her seatbelt and she nearly rolled the vehicle going into the ditch. Vehicle is pretty torn up - bumper and front grill came off, and her transmission intercooler was torn off, resulting in losing all her transmission fluid. We'd just replaced the transmission and cooler a couple of months ago.
Anyhow, I am hoping that 2018 will be a great year for us, and for all of my INGO "family". Best wishes for all!
A bit of a timeline...
May 11 - DoggyMama's younger daughter gave birth to twins (good thing) but they had some health issues early on and didn't come home for about a month.
June 22 - DoggyMama broke her ankle in 3 places. Because she's hard-headed and insisted on trying to help with the twins, she wound up with 4 surgeries since then and is only just now getting out of the wheelchair. This resulted in hurriedly rearranging the house (you think your home is pretty easy to get around in until you have someone in a wheelchair, then everything is in the way) and building a couple of ramps.
July 22 - DoggyMama's older daughter died from drug and alcohol abuse at age 31. A few weeks later, her aunt passed away. The funerals and events surrounding them also contributed to the additional surgeries. Also in July, moved my mom (95) from her house to assisted living, which involved cleaning out her house, having a garage sale and getting rid of the leftovers and putting the house on the market. Again, DoggyMama insisted on helping - adding to the reasons for more surgeries.
More recently - DoggyMama's mom broke both hips and her leg (all separate events). Broke her leg after only being home for a week after her last hip surgery. My mom's breast cancer came back. She was a breast cancer survivor of nearly 20 years. Fortunately it appears that she won't need surgery (and I don't think she would opt for it if she did), radiation or any agressive chemo.
Due to all of the above, this was the first time in over 21 years that we didn't get to go camping or even take the boat out. Yesterday, 2017 decided to get in one final parting shot. Around 9 a.m., DoggyMama's younger daughter called in hysterics. She ran her GMC Envoy into the ditch along 465 on her way home from work. Apparently the woman in front of her braked hard to avoid someone that was sliding on black ice in front of her and the daughter swerved to avoid her. A good Samaritan stopped and was able to get her truck back up onto the shoulder of the road. I called AAA and wound up waiting about an hour and a half on the side of the road for them to arrive (needless to say it was a busy day for them yesterday). Fortunately she wasn't hurt, and she didn't have the boys with her. She was damned lucky since she wasn't wearing her seatbelt and she nearly rolled the vehicle going into the ditch. Vehicle is pretty torn up - bumper and front grill came off, and her transmission intercooler was torn off, resulting in losing all her transmission fluid. We'd just replaced the transmission and cooler a couple of months ago.
Anyhow, I am hoping that 2018 will be a great year for us, and for all of my INGO "family". Best wishes for all!
