My net worth chart for December 2006:

All of the bills are paid for December so I sat down this morning and added up how much postage I saved by paying electronically. It amounted to $5.46 so that amount has been transferred to the Challenge fund bringing it to a total of $58.72. Not too shabby for having started so recently.

Stayed home all day and spent $0!!!!! I like these kinds of days.

Since my main challenge idea (packing lunch for book deliveries instead of buying) is on hold for now, I came up with a new idea today. I'm going to pay myself for each pound I lose while fighting this "health thing" that's taken over my life lately. I have to weigh myself daily so that I can report to them if I've gained more than 2 pounds in a day, so I might as well get paid for it!

I've already lost 2 pounds since they prescribed the heavy-duty diuretic so I deposited $2 in my challenge fund today.

Good-bye pitting edema! LOL!

I applied and was accepted for a Discover card yesterday. I decided to transfer the balance of CC#2 to the card since it is offered at 0% interest until January 2008. The BOA card we have now is charging interest so I figured any little bit I can save is worth it.

We've never had a Discover card before so I don't know how many places around here take them, but that will be okay because hopefully we won't be using it anyway.

Tithe= $60.00
Dinner= chipped in $3.25 towards fish fries

Total= $63.25

Water/sewer bill= $50.00 (went up for 2007 from $46.50)
Checks= $14.20
Groceries= $16.06 (total was $46.06 but had $30 gift certificate)
Gasoline= $19.55

Total= $99.81

I got my paycheck last night from my bookkeeping job and decided to take $20 of it and add it to my Challenge money. This replaces the Christmas money that I had planned on putting in my challenge fund but had to use instead to get breakfast after my stress test.

That brings my total to $51.26.

Haircut= $16.00
Lunch= $4.19

Total= $20.19

We got a letter in the mail yesterday that our credit card was being credited for $138! It turns out that they charged us transfer fees when we first got the card in July. I had just assumed that I'd missed the "fine print" that said that we would be charged and was not happy with myself that I'd cost us more money. So this was very good news, especially right after Christmas!

Gas & groceries CC= $193.11
Breakfast after test= $13.46

Total= $152.57

Our Christmas was really nice. I got quite a few sweaters from my parents which I desperately needed since not many of my clothes from last year fit at the moment.

DH got me the Time Life collection of

70's Hits. I have been wanting this for a long time but wasn't about to spend the money on it. Leave it to him! He's probably tired of having to sit through the infomercial every time it comes on.


I got DH a new emergency response light for his truck. His old one was pretty worn out.

The kids all enjoyed their presents. My favorite of their gifts was DS#3's alarm clock. I got him a sonic boom alarm clock that has a strong vibrating alarm. No more having to get up on my days off to get him around to deliver his papers! Now all kids have alarm clocks.

I had my stress test today and am now radioactive for the next 10 days. LOL!

I watched my blood pressure numbers as I was walking. The systolic got up above 260 while the diastolic kept dropping. It got into the 60s at one point. I don't know if that means anything, but they did say that they "saw something" but that sometimes females give a false positive so they'll have to compare it to the pictures of my heart that they also took. I should know something by Friday.

After the test we went out to eat since I wasn't allowed to eat before the test. I ended up spending my $20 Christmas money that my parents gave me. I was hoping to put that in my $20 challenge money. Oh well.

When we got home I took a long nap because my legs feel like lead and then called to make sure that the 2 tests I'm scheduled for this week and next wouldn't be affected by the radioactivity. They assured me they're not. So....next step- nerve conduction test to see if my elbow pain is from a damaged ulnar nerve.

I've done quite a bit of searching of my symptoms on my own and wrongdiagnosis.com keeps saying Lupus, but who knows?

2 no-spend days in a row!

DS#2 (16 years old, the one that wants to be a paramedic) had quite a dramatic Christmas Eve. He took his great-grandma back to the nursing home and then went into the city to do some shopping. He got there close to closing time for the stores so it wasn't very busy. He went to the strip mall and was walking outside of Borders when an older lady (60ish) yelled for him. Her husband was down on the sidewalk not breathing. She had seen that DS#2 had on his ambulance association jacket and thought he could help.

Thank goodness he's CPR certified. He did all the stuff you're supposed to do before starting CPR and then started the procedure. He managed to revive the gentleman! The wife took him to the hospital herself, much against DS's recommendations, but he came home feeling pretty good that he'd been able to keep his head and do what he'd learned.

I guess he's well on his way to his dream of being a paramedic. He was beaming the rest of the night

Merry Christmas to all of you!

I'm waiting for the rest of the family to rise so that I can start getting Christmas breakfast in the oven. The cinnamon rolls and Swedish tea ring were made last night (DH and I do the task together) and are in the refrigerator.

DS#3 is out delivering his newspapers and I can hear DS#2 moving around up above me. So 3 out of 7 is a good start so far.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas today!

Finally a no-spend day!

The agenda for today is the family get-together at Mom and Dad's house. We do this every Christmas Eve morning and then have a lunch of just sandwiches and chips afterwards. It will be the 7 of us, Mom & Dad, my brother, his wife and 2 kids, and my aunt.

We don't exchange gifts with my brother's family, but you'd never know it by the amount of gifts there are. My mother has always gone WAY overboard in the gift-giving department. I really don't know how she's afforded it all these years. So our Christmas at home with the kids is always extremely small compared to Christmas Eve at the grandparents. But our kids say they enjoy our little Christmas much better.

DH went up and pre-warned my mother that if she starts nagging me about my health today I am coming home. I don't need her getting my blood pressure up. She is not happy with me because I won't go to the emergency room. Well, right now this is not an emergency. If my blood pressure spikes or I start to feel really badly then yes, I will go. But I'm not listening to her comments all day long either. I know she's worried, but she really has never learned when to just be quiet.

She seems to think that things are not moving fast enough to find out what's going on. Seeing as I have a stress test on Tuesday, a nerve conduction test on Thursday, an EEG January 3rd, an appointment with an endocrinologist the 17th of January and they're sending me to a nephrologist also as soon as they can get me in, I'd say they're doing pretty darn good about getting things seen to.

The pitting edema is getting better. The 2 diuretics I'm taking seem to be handling that pretty well. I'm still pretty bloated but not so much that my knee caps feel like they're going to launch into space at any moment. LOL! The blood pressure is staying fairly low. It gets higher in the afternoon but that's probably because that's when the swelling is getting bad.

Sorry about all that. My mother can just a bit overbearing sometimes. :-)

DH's life insurance= $58.75 (monthly)
Dollar General= $29.01

Total= $87.76

Gasoline= $20.63
Prescription= $10.00
DH's disability insurance= $40.00

Total= $70.63

I have been to the doctor's office twice in the past 2 days. I went yesterday for a urine test and today to talk to the doctor again. This time I took DH with me since he can be a bit more forceful. The nurse made me get in a gown so the doctor could see that I am swollen and it's not just weight gain. I think until today he really thought that I had just put on a lot of weight.

The Cushing's test came back negative, so that's ruled out. In fact, he said that all of my tests have come back perfect.

He decided today that he's done all he can do so he's referring me on to a nephrologist to see if the fluid retention has something to do with my kidneys even though tests say they are working fine. So they'll contact the nephrologist on Tuesday when they come back to the office. He also prescribed a heavy duty diuretic, besides the other one I'm taking, just to try to get some of the water off of me. Just a little bit of walking makes me feel like I've run 5 miles. My legs are tired for hours afterwards.

I still have the appointment with the endocrinologist the middle of January too.

I have a cardio lite test scheduled for Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. (it says I'll be radioactive for 10 days after that) LOL, the nerve conduction test for the 28th, and an EEG on the 3rd. Hmmm...any medical tests that I've missed? Well, I guess I haven't had a colonscopy yet! LOL!

I've noticed that my blood pressure goes up during the day, but that's probably because the fluid accumulates during the day. I've been recording it each day at least 2 times.

So that's basically it. No exercising until we know what's going on and the longer I wait the higher the weight goes. I'm almost to 200 now!!!! That's quite a bit for 5'3". I know a lot of it is fluid, but that doesn't make it any easier mentally or emotionally.

I dropped the class I was scheduled to start in January (Accounting Applications), since we don't know what's going to be taking place until things get straightened out and DH really wanted me to take a break anyway. I really want to take this class, but it will be there for me when I'm ready.

Thanks for listening, everyone. I hate to get on here, especially at Christmas time, and complain.

It's a very unsettling feeling to be a medical mystery.

School lunch account= $10.00
2 Eye exams= $45.00
Tithe= $121.00
Groceries= $4.98

Total= $180.98

I mentioned previously about DH's Shop Vac biting the dust. Well, yesterday we made a trip to Valu to replace it because we heard that they were on sale for 20% off.

Regular price for the 6 gallon one was $49.88. He had just gotten a gift certificate from his supervisor for $25 to any of the chamber of commerce members in town so when he applied that towards the total of his purchase he ended up paying $14.90 plus tax!

Dinner out= $25.60
Emergency car kit= $19.88 ($5.00 went to the Salvation Army)
New Shop Vac= $19.68 (20% off sale at Valu YEAH!!!)
Groceries= $62.78

Total= $127.94

Well, good news from the neurologist! He says the cyst is nothing to be concerned about and is not the cause of the medical problems that I am having. He wants to do an MRI in another year or so just to make sure it is not growing. He is having me come back for a nerve conduction test to see if the pain in my elbow is because of the ulnar nerve and I go back the beginning of January for an EEG.

He believes it is all tied into my thyroid problems. I already have a referral to an endocrinologist the middle of January.

So the big thing right now is to find out why my blood pressure went so high and to find out why my legs are still so swollen and tired-out feeling.

My assignment for this morning is to get all pertinent information in an organized list for DH. I need to get him a list of all of our accounts and passwords so that he knows what to do if I'm not able to do things for a while.

I also need to get the information gathered to take to the neurologist this afternoon: a list of all medicines, symptoms, etc.

I guess this will keep me busy for quite a while.

School lunch account= $10.00
Medical bill for DS#2's MRI= $15.00
Kitchen addition= $95.52
Dollar General= $5.13

Total= $125.65

I got a call at work this morning that I have an appointment with the neurologist tomorrow afternoon! I never dreamed it would happen this fast and actually, thought I'd be lucky to get in before the end of January.

The appointment is with the neurologist that DS#2 saw last month for his hemiplegic migraines. He is only 20 minutes from where we live, so that will be good. Not a lot of expense in travelling. And if he feels that I need to see someone in a bigger city, he's more likely to have the knowledge to choose someone than we are to just pick a name we see on the internet.

Yikes! I don't know that I'm ready for this so soon!

I'm taking my box of Christmas wrap, ribbons and bows to work today and am going to get the presents wrapped that have been stacked in the corner for a month or more. The tree has been up and it's time to fill in a little underneath.

On the health side of things, I'm going this morning to get blood drawn to test for Cushing's Disease. I had blood taken at 4 yesterday afternoon, took a pill at 11 last night, and get the final blood drawn at 8 this morning. Everything has to be spaced out just right. The doctor doesn't think this is what I have, but wants it ruled out. On a side note, my legs feel really swollen this morning.

Blood pressure is sure much better than it has been so that's a plus. And the referral to a neurologist is in the works.

After work today I will be stopping by the store and picking up the last few things I need for Christmas dinner and desserts. I have to make something to take to my librarian's Christmas party on Thursday and DH needs a couple things for his party on Friday. Tonight is DD#2's Christmas concert at school.

My change box is actually getting a fairly decent amount in it. Everyone knows now not to get into it. LOL!

I found out today that my electrical bill is going down $11 on the budget plan next year. I've been working on my budget for 2007 so I adjusted that category and added the surplus to clothing and miscellaneous household expense (printer cartridges, towels, etc.)