Mourning

I haven't had a whole lot of interesting blog fodder lately (except our weekend with my brother, Brady, and our adventures!). Work is work and it'll always be there with its all-encompassing stress and stomach-churning pace. I have a bunch of new things going on, but that's not newsworthy anymore.

My teeth are still aching and sending shooting pains up through my sinuses and to my skull. Every time I bite into anything, hot or cold, I suffer a raging "ice cream headache" until the nerve settles down several minutes later. After seven straight nights of waking up in agonizing pain, I finally called the dentist. I went back in (and saw a sub, I might add, my regular dentist was on holiday in the Bahamas) and learned that my root canal tooth had an abscess in it. Well, that will explain the pain.

Man, I KNEW I had a high pain tolerance! Jack was sitting here thinking I was behaving like a weeny who couldn't stand a wee bit of tooth sensitivity! So now I'm on a high-dose of antibiotics, my dentist shaved the temporary filling down a bit, and they told me if it's not better by Thursday, to come in on Friday and they'll fix the darn thing with a second canal to pull out any residual nerve material (gee, doesn't that sound fun), and cap it permanently. At this point, I should forget selling my house and just fork over the keys to pay for this dental work!

Speaking of house, I feel like I owe you an update. We sold the house (yes, again) on July 14th. Pending all successful inspections and appraisals, we were set to close on Aug. 16 (Monday, for all who might wonder if I was keeping track). I hadn't heard anything for days and days about the appraisal, so I started picking. Sure enough, my realtor found out the buyer is having trouble with her lender...so she had to secure a new lender...and that takes another 30 days to complete the process.

While we're not at Square One again (no more inspections! For the love of Pete!), we're delayed for another five weeks and I'm out another mortgage payment. The longer this drags on, the more bummed out I feel. For all intensive purposes, the house has been sold since May 25th! We just can't seem to get it closed. But we're not giving up now (and I'm sure as heck not going through another round of inspections!). Just to be safe, my mom is running over tomorrow to bury a statue of St. Joseph in the backyard. I have a "St Francis Garden" back there, where St. Francis ruled over my lavender, lilies, ornamental grasses. She's going to "plant" St. Joseph in the place vacated by Francis' departure.

So you're probably wondering why the title of this post is "Mourning." Well, in sort, because I am. Despite the crap of my current life, it's still not as bad as how others have it. I lost a colleague to cancer on Sunday; the Director of our home medical equipment department. She was energetic and robust until the end. Then one of my dear friends at work (our in-house ethicist) lost her mother. I felt I had to attend the funeral mass today, to be a support to my colleague but also, to thank God that it wasn't me up there, burying my mom. I might be struggling with the weight of the world on my shoulders, but at the end of the day, I still have my mom(s).

It puts it all in perspective. Well, I'm still human and struggling with all the challenges God seems to think I can handle right now. But I haven't had to cope with the loss of any close friends or family members. That's enough to make me realize that I might just make it through this gauntlet.