Our Jolly Roving Tar

Our favorite sailor is out of Iraq!
That's about all I can/should say at this point
and while he's not home in SD
he will be very soon!

Good News!

Thank you to everyone who has been reading, loyally, this blog and sending happy thoughts our way! The great news is that this long journey is almost over! I can't say too much but I can say that Mike is on his way home and will be back in sunny San Diego, sporting flip flops and baggy shorts (and a hat so that his nearly bald head doesn't get sunburn) very, very soon! I don't have exact details (as is always the case) and couldn't post them if I did (also always the case) but I did want to let everyone know that we have this to look forward to! I'll post more when I know more and when I can!

I love you Mike!

Smarty Pants

I got Final Jeopardy right tonight. I love it when that happens!

Virginia Tech

Our thoughts are with you...

Perspective

I think I have been pretty good (not perfect) over the course of this deployment, about not putting too much of any one political ideology into my posts. This has been a conscious decision on my part. However, today while I was reading the following AP article on the MSNBC homepage I found my anger welling up over the continued situations that our allied forces are finding themselves in. You can read the article in full here but I have posted an excerpt from it below:

Meanwhile, dozens of Iraqi policemen demonstrated in front of their Baghdad station Sunday, accusing U.S. forces of treating them like “animals” and “slaves.”

The protest took place at Rashad station in Baghdad’s eastern neighborhood of Mashtal.

Officers chanted “No, no to America! Get out occupiers!” while U.S. troops in two humvees and a Bradley fighting vehicle watched from a distance.

My anger came as I got to the last half of the final sentence of this excerpt, knowing that U.S. and coalition forces alike are meeting these sentiments on a daily basis. I think it important to note that these sentiments are often in some way, shape or form, shared by many war opponents in the U.S. and in other countries who have men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I do not pretend to know or understand what the troops are facing in these two countries. Unlike others, I will not pass judgment here over whether I believe "we" should still be involved. What I will say is that the men and women who are on the ground in these regions are not the policy makers; they are bound by rules passed down to them from their 'bosses' just like you and I are here at home. It is, I feel, incumbent upon us - no matter what our feelings are about these wars - to support these troops in any way that we can. I suspect that, if given the choice, many of those "U.S. troops in two humvees and a Bradley fighting vehicle [who] watched from a distance" would much rather be at home with their girlfriends, fiancé’s, wives, children, parents and friends. But they are not. I would suspect that many of those "U.S. troops in two humvees and a Bradley fighting vehicle [who] watched from a distance" do and see good and positive things on a daily basis that all of us at home are not privy to and that they are getting very little, if any, recognition for from the countries for whom they are trying to establish peace and order. I suspect that as they stood there hearing, not gratitude but contempt and scorn from the Iraqi policemen they've trained at their own peril, those "U.S. troops in two humvees and a Bradley fighting vehicle [who] watched from a distance" felt just a little more disheartened about their purpose in these countries.

I'm Back!

Can you see me now? :)

Kidding. But, I'm back, able to type and healing just swimmingly! Mike's mom was kind enough to help nurse me back to health over the first couple of days of my post-op and my good friend Cortney has been my personal chauffeur. THANK YOU both!! But, all is now right (and upright) with the world! The eye is still healing and there is still a little swelling, but things are as they should be. For the first few days after surgery, because my eyeball is now actually sitting straight in the socket - a position it was not used to - whenever I held my head straight I was seeing a crooked world! That has since gotten better and now I've stopped going around my house un-straightening everything that hangs on the walls! :)

I'm hoping you are all watching with bated breath the newly added counter at the top of this blog. It brings with it good, if still uncertain, news that I can't wait to shout out into the blogsphere when I can!

Tomorrow night I'm having dinner with a girl whose fiance' has recently embarked upon his deployment...I think he's been gone 2 months now. She lives here in SD and we have been emailing and talking on the phone, but have yet to meet. It'll be nice to put a face with a name and be able to talk about the ups and downs of our experience. She, like me, has been keeping busy and staying upbeat and optimistic. Also like me, she is planning her wedding! I'm certain we'll have LOTS to talk about! ;)

Well everyone, when school starts back up on Monday I'll be pretty busy. I promise to try and post at least several times during the week and especially when I get any updates from our favorite sailor!

Take care everyone!

I love you Mike!

Pre-Op

As some of you know, I am having outpatient surgery tomorrow on my eye. No big deal, but for kicks I thought I'd post a picture and try and explain what I think it is they are going to do. So, first things first. On the picture above you can see the Superior Oblique muscle, correct? Well, evidently my SO isn't working so well anymore and whenever I'm trying to focus on anything (so pretty much whenever my eyes are open) my eyeball feels like it's bouncing around in the socket. Now, it isn't actually bouncing around, it only feels like it because it's trying so hard to stay focused. Because the SO is so weak, its alternate muscles are pulling harder and the eyeball has a hard time staying straight. You CAN see this when I try and look to my right, without turning my head, when I'm focusing too hard on something, etc. At those moments, the SO loses the battle and my eye rolls pretty much into the top of my head! Nice image, huh? Happily it doesn't happen often and I know how to avoid it so I've not been thrown in a circus side-show yet!

Two things (at least) have come from this. I've adopted this weird head-tilt where I think my head is totally straight and it's actually tilting to the right (opposite the bad eye). This, I guess, is common with this problem. I was talking with a co-worker the other day who said he had noticed it but that he thought it was because I was so interested and engaged in what he was saying! :) Evidently, this tilt has helped my eyes to be able to stay focused...it somehow alleviates pressure on that bad left eye...weird. The second thing that has been happening is my headaches have been getting WAY worse...and I have them all the time (which I am sure is due in part to the head tilt, the strain on my neck AND the strain on my eyeballs!). The kicker came a few weeks back when I realized that as I was reading - anything, at any time of day - I was closing or covering my left eye because I couldn't get it to focus. Red flag, anyone?

Ok, so back to the surgery. They can't make the SO stronger so they have to weaken the muscle that is pulling against it, which in this case is the Inferior Oblique. How do they do that, you might ask? Well, they will cut a little hole in the mucus membrane of my lovely left eye to get to the IO which they will then proceed to snip/cut/sever (whichever term you like best) and reattach closer to the front of my eye. Sounds like fun, eh? Ideally, this will take care of the problem and a few weeks and one bruised, red eye later I will be healed of headaches and a neck tilt (which will take awhile to correct itself because I'm so used to it that when my head IS strait it feels like my left ear is touching my shoulder - call me Quasi Moto)! If this procedure doesn't correct the problem, they will go in and "weaken" another muscle...but let's hope that's not necessary!

Anyway, I may be walking around for a day or so w/an eye patch (too bad this didn't happen during my Pirate project last Fall!) and I'm not sure about posting in the interim.

On WAY better news, we are hearing good things from the Mike-front. I don't want to say anything too particular yet, but we could be seeing him WAY earlier than we had anticipated.

I love you Mike!