Cage Free Family

Hello Lovlies,

We're here. We're solid. We're getting through.
We've gotten out of the house, got our full security deposit and are trying to embrace where we are.

More update soon with what we're planning and what we're trying to work through right now.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Loving you.

Things on our front are not what I would call "Good".

My gut would not go along with what the surgeon wanted Jeff to do. His foot was showing no signs of getting better and a few things that were making me worry. I had been pleading with Jeff to pack us all up and go down to Santa Fe or Albuquerque to try their emergency room, but he felt like it was a huge risk to lose a whole day of packing and repairing the RV to drag all three children hours away without knowing if he would be turned away again.

After talking to a family member last night we tried calling a podiatrist today. Because we live outside of such a small town there are none here, only a couple that travel here from Santa Fe. Luckily I caught one on a trip here and was able to get Jeff in to see him this afternoon. After he was there for more than an hour and emerged with a large amount of bandaging on his foot I felt really hopeful. Three doctors and this is the first time that there was any bandaging or signs of care.

Unfortunately when I saw Jeff's face I lost all that hope. After working on his foot for more than an hour, he was unable to dislodge the piece of stem and said that it had migrated into a joint on account of not being removed on the first day. You remember that day... the one where we went to the ER to, um, get it removed.

Jeff is now in a pretty serious amount of pain. In thirteen years of knowing him I've never, ever seen him like this. He's scheduled for all out, serious, full anesthesia surgery on Wednesday. He's terrified, hurting and profoundly frustrated.

I'm just overwhelmed. Like millions of others, we have no medical insurance. This is going to take everything that we had set aside for repairs to our RV. Meanwhile, we are still in the countdown to moving day. T-minus 8 days and counting (fast). I am now essentially alone here with three small children, one of whom is cutting her first set of teeth and not at all happy about it. She isn't sleeping at night, so I am sleeping even less. When I get up it's a scramble to get everyone fed, clean, do laundry (diapers, hello!), dishes and then try to work on getting us out of this house and onto the RV. I spent today learning how to repair our black water tank (complicated) as fast as possible while Simone napped. I got maybe halfway there. I managed to get another coat of sealant on our floor while Quinn tried, in vain, to entertain Simone.

There is so much to do and only me here to do it now. I want to say that I'm handling it okay, but time restraints aside, I'm still stuck inside of a body that was in a state of serious handicap for more than half of it's existence. The pain of pushing it this hard is intense. I collapse into bed around 1am every night with searing pain all over from lifting, scrubbing, sawing and hauling a 20 pound infant with me wherever I go. I carry her while I do laundry, while I sweep, while I go to the bathroom. She's the happiest, most tolerant tike in the world, but forgive her, she's cutting her first teeth and it hurts her. She gives me smiles, but if I try to put her down to work she cries her heart out til she's hoarse. It sucks, y'all.

I can't begin to figure out how I'm going to get us all on the RV, move the last of our furniture to consignment, and finish painting and cleaning the house to ensure that we get our deposit back. $3,600 in deposits was an absolute necessity to us completing repairs before, now with the new medical bills I absolutely must get everything in perfect order.

But wait! There's more! I haven't yet mentioned the two dogs and 32 chickens that I have to care for. Or that I also have to move said animals to a friends house and tear down a chicken coop by myself.

I don't know how I'm going to pull it off. I really, really don't.
I'm just going on blind faith and adrenaline now.

I'm trying so hard to keep a sense of normalcy and peace for the children, but I feel a bit like I'm going to crack. When I began searching the country for a place for us to live my number one priority was finding a place that we could stay for at least 5 years. This was unexpected in the worst way.

What makes me really sad is that I haven't any time at all to enjoy the last days we have here with the kids. I got myself through 9 months of snow (19ft) by looking forward to the beautiful summer days that I was going to spend hiking and playing with the kids in the woods. Unfortunately we got the boot more than a week before the last major snow (18in on May 5th) and it's been non-stop work since then. I fluctuate between feeling like I want to sink to the floor and just weep and realizing that I haven't the time for such self indulgence.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

We'll take everything we can get right now.

xoxo

Yesterday, late afternoon, Jeff managed to bury a (relatively large) piece of an old dried rose bush in his foot. Don't ask how.

After trying every tool we had in the house to remove it while the blood poured out, we finally had to give in and Jeff went to the Emergency Room. Some time around midnight as I struggled to stay awake Jeff came home. Foot still containing the branch. Uncleaned. Un-cared for. The doctor tried to see the piece with an ultrasound but failed. He said they would have to get the Orthopedic surgeon in to remove it, but returned and said that Plan B was to go home and call the ultrasound tech and surgeon ourselves in the morning.

Oh, he also managed to mention that he was going through litigation regarding the death of a 27 year old man from a foot splinter he treated. Nice.

So, Jeff returned home, foot still weeping and dirty, with a prescription for antibiotics and codeine. Jeff doesn't take antibiotics unless his life is in immediate and certain danger, so we treated with Golden seal, both at the site and internally, and went to sleep. Or Jeff did anyway. Simone, who is cutting her first two teeth was up most of the night, so I was up the whole night.

We also had the pleasure of finding out that Jeff is severely allergic to codeine by way of 7 hours of vomiting. Yay!

Around 8:00 am Jeff took Simone and the kids so that I could try to get some sleep and he could call and make his appointment. about an hour after I fell asleep Jeff woke me to tell me that we needed to leave (all three kids dressed, fed and in the car!) in 30 minutes.

I dropped Jeff off at the clinic and took the kids to Nichola's ballet class, where only fifteen minutes after arriving I was given the message that Jeff was waiting to be picked up.
I prayed that this meant that it was a simple procedure and all healing would begin now because, Um, we're trying to move out of our house, sell all of our furniture, replace the stove, propane tank, and black water tank on the RV and clean and ready the house for our impending move out date -- In 12 Days!

Yeah, no. I picked Jeff up, foot still carrying the stick, uncleaned and hurting more. This surgeon, America's Best and Brightest, with all of his years of education in "healing" didn't so much as clean the foot. Nope. He wanted to do an x-ray. When Jeff mentioned that the previous doctor did not believe that the wood could show up on an x-ray he said that "Well, sometimes you can see a little haze." Uh, huh. A few hundred dollars payment for them to shoot radiation at Jeff's foot to see a "little haze" that would tell them "maybe something." In the end... the advice? Go home and wait for it to turn into an abscess so that it might be able to be cut open and "all the contents including the stick may spill out."

Yep. Another shining example of the incredible care you can receive here in the "Most Medically Advanced Country" on the globe.

WHEN, pray tell, did a surgically trained physician stop receiving education in the removal of SPLINTERS FROM FEET??????????

Oh, they'll cut you right open to pull out a baby or an organ, but a splinter?? Nope. Too risky.

???????!@#$%@!?????????
Please insert expletive of your own choice. I'm making up new ones today.

So, now that our propane tank was delivered today (a week late) and Jeff has a to-do list a mile long, we are supposed to wait for his foot to get worse while he stays "off of it" so that... well... we don't really know... maybe it will resolve itself.

And for all of this fun and excitement we got to PAY! Yay!
Yay for doctors!

Please keep us in your thoughts, we need all the help we can get right now. I don't know the first thing about electrical, propane or plumbing work.

Grrrrr.... more uplifting writing coming soon, I hope.

xoxo

We're nearing the end of our stay here in our little Cage Free Cabin in the Woods.
I feel as though I'm expanding in all directions.
I feel so strongly tied not just to this cabin and the beautiful acreage that comes with it, but also to Taos and the community we've become a part of.
There has definitely been a part of me that has been digging in my heals, refusing to fully let go and have faith in the path, and man is that a painful thing.

The closer we get to the move out date though the more excited I am becoming at the myriad of possibilities for us. Once again, we could go anywhere, do anything. It's one of those impossible to answer questions -- "If you could go anywhere, do anything right now, what would you do???"

Ummm... do I get three wishes? Can I wish for more wishes??

One of the things that has been coming to me as the back of my mind chews on this idea is Florida. It is not a state that was ever on my short list of places to visit. We wound up there totally by chance, maybe even a little by force, as we ran from the deep freeze that was sweeping the whole country in Jan of 2009. I had no real idea of what it would be like.
We wound up staying at every east coast beach we could from Tybee Island (outside of Savannah, GA) to central Florida and then across and through Orlando (AMAZING friends we made there!) and back up via the Western Florida coast. The beaches were so incredible. I have always wanted to spend winter on the beach and boy did I!

In this moment I lack the words to express how moved I was by the fine white sand, the turquoise and green wave, pelicans, sunsets and very sound of it all.
So when I think on where I'd like to go if I could go anywhere I can't help but remember how much I loved those quiet winter beaches.
The lurch in my stomach isn't far behind those memories now as I get hit by another kind of wave -- that drowning, mourning feeling, that inability to integrate what has happened in the Gulf. I am then awed by how truly fortunate I feel for having gotten to experience it before the devestation.

I then wonder what else in this life I would like to experience while I still can... what I would like to share with my children...

And the ability to free fall into the competent waiting arms of the Universe... to not try so hard to dictate, know or understand-- just to be and let be and love it all for what it is... comes back over me and lifts me back up.

We have friends with whom we could share land or even a house, others to build a community with, a place to build our own cabin, a community of travelers to park with, friends to travel the country with, an invitation to a family focused community in Oaxaca, Mexico and some discussion of Costa Rica and New Zealand with still other friends, just to name a few.

It's exciting, it's incredible, it's like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon trying to comprehend the vastness...

So. Many. Possibilities.

I'm working on willing my white knuckled fingers to let go of the cliff and discover that falling feels an awful lot like flying...

Weeeeee....

Coming up: Our first guest blogger has sent me her post and I'm working on a little intro about two of our very best friends... you're going to love it!

xoxo

Here are a few links for help in selecting a safer sunscreen.

To answer some of the St. Johns Wort oil questions:

1. SJW is believed to possibly cause sun sensitivity in some individuals when taken internally.
I take SJW tincture every day and have seen no increase in sun sensitivity. Most do not.

2. As a sunscreen we apply the oil topically, at least 30 minutes before sun exposure. It takes a few applications before your skin learns how to use it. We have found it to be VERY effective. For instance: in the 13 years that I have known Jeff I have never known him to tan. He does however burn quickly and very badly. Since we began using SJW oil, as many around here do, Jeff has developed a deep brown tan and has not burned.

3. To make the oil: fill a jar to the top with fresh SJW flowers and then fill the remaining space with organic olive oil. Tightly seal the jar, place it in a cabinet and allow it to steep for 2-6 weeks (different herbalists have different opinions on this, but we do 3 weeks). At the end of the steeping time strain off the flowers and apply the oil to your skin before sun exposure.
SJW oil can also be purchased in 2 and 4 ounce bottles through Mountain Rose Herbs.

4. Remember, to each his own! We choose to prevent cancer in other ways. If you would like to know what these ways are please feel free to email me. If you are looking for a debate, I do not have time.

Namaste

xoxo