[OutlawedSpirit]

I hope everyone has had a good holiday and new years. Mine has been bittersweet.

I finally reconnected with my dad after almost five years of not talking to him, and I think me and my stepdad are on our way to a better relationship. I hope I can keep both relationships going, and not let them fall apart again.

Got to go to Arizona over Christmas, which was nice. Definitely warmer there than it is here. Of course, being down there is where things started to nose dive.

Got a call from my great uncle, saying he thinks he has a week or so left to live. This wasn't completely unexpected since he has been battling cancer for over a year now. But it is one thing to anticipate it, and another to actually hear it.

New years eve we flew back home and I got one of the worst panic attacks I've ever had on the plane. I couldn't get the idea that the plane was going to crash out of my head until after it was already back on the ground.

New years day my aunt was taken to the hospital and put in the ICU with liver failure. Just to prove that cancer sucks even when it's gone, she wasn't a candidate for a transplant because of the medications she had to take because of the cancer. By Thursday morning, she passed away.

As if things couldn't get any worse, I have to come up with the money to take my puppy to a specialist because he has a murmur in both sides of his heart. The vet said he probably will need to be on medication for the rest of his life, which could be a normal span, or less than a year, depending on what kind of murmur. We also are starting to think he is deaf, so the vet told us what to do to try and check it and so far he has failed the tests, so he just was dealt a really crappy hand.

Sorry this was so long, I just am so overwhelmed and emotionally at my limit. Every time the phone rings, I am afraid to answer it, in case it is more bad news. Especially since I am still waiting to hear the final determination from my short term disability through work, to know if I still have a job or not. I'm sure that since we are still tweeking my meds, it doesn't help either. I don't know what to do, does anyone else?

[bluekoi]

OutlawedSpirit, Hang in there!