Hello everyone, yes I have not posted anything in a rather long time. I do so apologize for this but I do have a valid reason or reasons. Mostly due to family activities and illness in my family, my brain has been taxed much more then usual.
Yes, I am like everyone else especially since CoVid hit the USA in 2020. My household consists of my husband, myself, my daughter, her husband and their 2 sons who are now in their ealry teens.
Much like many of you Covid did hit our household of 6 with my oldest grandson who was almost 14 years of age came down with it. He had contracted it from a friend that lives on our street and thus resulting in all of us contracting it. My grandson was tested and his condition was uncomfortable for him with having very bad stomach cramps, fever, vomiting much like you would have with a very bad case of the normal infulenza for Novemeber of any year.
As you can imagine this did place all of us under quarrenteen and all of us tested positive. Well there is nothing like being on lockdown with a family of 6 all under the same roof together all at once. Yes you can imagine it was not fun at all by any means. While my husband Tim and I remained in our basement we worried about our grandson who was ill since he had not been ill at all in his 13 years of living. Tim and I was over concerned due to my medical conditions I have as I worried that this may put me in the hospital. I can report I only felt worry during this and was very fortunate.
After the Covid shots became available both Tim and I were eligible for the 60 plus people in March of 2021. Prior to that we had to go back to retest 2 weeks later. Tim tested negative as did everyone else, but me I tested positive for a 2nd time. Before I even looked up my results the Louisville Health Department called me to advise me I tested positive again and not to go retest again as this may be in my system for 3 to 6 months. I was for the lack of better words torn up !
After we received our vaccines the only reaction I had as well as Tim, our arms had that hurt that you get from a strong shot and I was just a tad bit tired that night and slept all night long. This was a good thing for me because I had been like a colicky child with their days and nights mixed up. Many of you will know what that is like as I have been this way off and on for nearly 20 years.
I had other medical things I needed to take care of but due to possibly testing positive again with in that 6 month time frame a few things had to be put on hold. In March of 2021 on the 31st, I did however have my right hip replaced with a nice 5 piece hardware set that cost a grand total of 61 grand. Yes I do have the breakdown bill and all the part numbers incase of a future recall ! And incase you are wondering I did have to test prior to my surgery and I tested Negative !
I did not let Covid sway what I love to do which is Genealogy and Genetics. I took the time that my whole household was home and delved more into my personal genetics which I tested via Genomelink and Cri Genetics. Yes I had already had my DNA via Ancestry but I wanted to push the envelope and get a more comprehensive breakdown of all 22 chromosomes and what variations or mutations I had. Since I inherited more of my fathers DNA then I did my mother’s and I am the only child of my parents 4 daughters who inherited my father’s O negative blood type where my mother and all 3 of my sisters are all A or AB Positive, this was extremely interesting.
When I gave birth to my only child a girl, I remember the nurses coming in during my 3 day hopsital stay and taking multiple tubes of blood from me to run tests as I was told. When they would bring my daughter in her little heels were all pin poked from the drawing of her blood so many times.
Finally the last time they came to take my blood I put a hold on it until someone would explain to me why they needed so much blood from me and my infant newborn daughter. One of the head nurses came to me and explained that since I had not had a prior birth that it is rarity to have a child with a different Rh factor as this was the case with my daughter. She was a Positive RH factor and I am a Negative Rh factor. She is an A postive and I am an O negative. Many nowdays do not pay attention to this sort of thing but me being 21 at the time worried intensely about this from what the Nurses had told me that this was something that should not have happened.
The good thing about it was that I could give her and everyone else blood but I could only receive O negative blood otherwise it would kill me. Yes this is what I was told. So I guess this is one aspect that lead me to become intersted in Genealogy in 1995 and thus leading me down the road and into Genetics.
Many of you who follow me are into Genealogy and also into DNA. My reasons for the DNA is due to my many quirks and oddities I seem to have with respect to mental aspects that I have traversed since age 12 and not having a clear understanding from any doctors even up to today in 2021 other than my psychiatrist who has a full understanding of it and also of my thinking processes.
Since our Medical intities do not really delve into a persons DNA when they have a patient such as myself being allergic to all sorts of medications for anything ranging from my outdoor allergies and also all various medications that are needed for allergies and sinus infections or other things like pain, arthritis and a whole host of other medical conditions one may have.
I hit the motherload so to speak in these catagories. Mentally as many of you know I had for many years had to take various Anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications along with narcotics for severe back pain. It was nothing for me to take in one days time 6 percocet 10/325, 4 Flexeril muscle relaxers, various anti-depressants dailey or 2 times a day ontop of Xanac for Anxiety up to 3 pills per day. This went on from 1990 until September 2020. The pain meds I stopped taking in 2013 cold turkey. Yes I did have withdrawels but for me they were mild ones and only lasted about a week and was also off the muscle relaxers as well in 2013. The only thing I was on was the anti anxiety medication up to 3 pills per day when I was overly anxious and I also maintain the anti-depressants until they no longer worked then had to change out to another form of them.
Finally in September 2020 I decided I wanted to stop taking the Anti-depressants so I stopped those cold turkey as I have other medications. This time I had what some will call a “snowball” effect. The timing could not have come at a wild time since Covid hit in November and I was still working the ins and outs of not being on Anti-depressants. If you look at it like a computer, all my programs, files and everything dumped at one time and I had to go thru 3 months of re-booting my brain everyday. Yes it was a wild ride but a good one.
After all those years my mind had healed from the tramatic experiences I encured from age 12 to age 30. From 3 marriages and divorces, having a child at age 21 and working all jobs that were all stressful in finace my brain cracked in 2006 and thus the hard journey of rebuilding my brain and coming out on top in 2020. If anyone has had issues or experienced any form of these issues you will understand completely what I am typing.
Crossing over in my research and with my mental challenges of all the years I was able to talk with many new found relatives on both sides of my family branches. Correspondance galore over the years and comparing our issues we shared so vastly. Genetics and all those SNAPPS on each chromosome are abundant. Finding out you have mutations on all 22 of your female chromsomes and many over lapping aspects lead me on that wonderful road of putting everything into a calm realization of who I am and why my brain works the way it does.
I have had many people over the years that I have had tiffs with due to my shortsideness, vast difference of opinions and not accepting someones word with out the factual records to prove things. This was also a problem for me since I was raised Catholic, attended 12 years of Catholic school and as you know if you are a Catholic you attended church in some schools everyday and then again on Sunday. Being taught by nuns and lay people were not the ideal senerio for someone like me who had to have a fact base reason for what I was being taught. I even failed religion class one semester in high-school and I thought my parents would literally kill me. If you know anything about Catholics and having one Catholic parent and the other one who signed a paper saying all children born of the marriage were to be raised with- in the Catholic faith and attend Catholic schools, then you know what I am talking about. IT was not a pleasant thing to happen to someone in high school who would get detention for having an arguement with a nun who was teaching you religion and they could not give you fact. Their reason was you had to have “Faith”. Faith for me was not fact. Needless to say I skirted by 4 years of an all girl Catholic high school religion class being a C to C- student.
Facts are facts and anything other is conjecture. Yes you will hear that term used in many realms such as legal terminology, scientific reasonings and proof of said research and even in Genealogy. It is also in the realms of Genetics. Facts are facts when a person like me with messed up genes as I like to say, can finally answer a question that no doctor in my life time so far could ever answer.
Since I have worked in various forms of Finance from Collections to Mortgage Servicing then onto Mortgage origination I have a vast knowledge base and now that base widen more when I learned my Genetics and the breakdowns of it and how all of it factors into to my mental and physical aspects. This is a fascinating and can be overwhelming for some, but for me it has been relatively easy to understand, comprehend and I am able to fully discuss this with my psychiatrist I see to keep me in check. It is grossly under-rated by many doctors with concernes to your genetics unless you have to have tests ran for certain cancers or rare disease one may fall upon.
In February 2021 I went to see my PCP and he decided for whatever reason to argue with me about what insurance was my primary insurance just because I have been 100 percent disabled since 2006 and I am on Social Security as well. I am carreid under my husbands insurance, I decided I was not going to sit and argue with a doctor when he could not comprehend that I actually knew who was my primary insurance and that Medicare was my secondary insurer since I was under the age of 65 and I have coverage under my husband where he works at. I merely put my hand up and told him I wasn’t arguing with him. All I wanted to have done was a vitamin panel to see what vitamins my body lacked so I could get my body back in tune and finish getting my brain incheck incase I was deficit on vitamins that causes very bad outcomes in you brain as well as your over all body chemistry. I had even called my insurance company ahead of time to make sure that a full vitamin panel would be paid for and that I did not need to have prior authorization for it ! Needless to say it was not ran by him.
I did however locate and had to wait 3 months to see a new Primary care Dr. with whom he himself advised me he did not have a full understanding of Genetics and that he also could not run a full vitamin panel unless he had reason to do so or if I exhibited certain things. I spent an hour meet and sit down talk with him to see if he met my requirements be my primary care doctor. Needless to say he seemed to be a good doctor since I did do my research on him prior to seeing him. Yes you read that correctly I researched him, his school he attended for his medical degree as well as everyting else I could dig up on him down to his residency and I also inquired with other physicans of mine about him and they all gave him a good rating.
Needless to say he made the mistake of telling me if I did come down with a sinus infection I could call the office and ask for the meds that would nip it in the bud instead of me having to wait until it went into a full fledge head pounding, throat swelling, chest tighting type of hellish infections I do get after sneezong 3 times in a row. Ohio Valley weather, you just have to love it for all the allergens, dampness, overall unhealthy area if you are allergic to basically everything indoors and outside ! Yes I did call his office at the first 3 sneezes and guess what they refused to RX me anything. He even told the nurse to tell me he wouldn’t unless I came in and he didn’t have anything available for 3 weeks. Yes you did read that right so don’t fall off your chair or off your couch. Needless to say I will be looking for another primary care doctor ASAP. And incase you are wondering about the sinus infection, well I was lucky I still had some antibiotic from the one I had in early 2020 so I was able to nip it’s head before it took hold of me.
Another area of things that is interesting. Have you ever heard of Tangentgential Thinking ? Well it is a rollercoster to deal with. It is when you are thinking or talking about one thing then all of a sudden your change gears in mid thought or speach. You have heard of people say “Oh I lost my train of thought” or they all of a sudden switched gears when you are talking and you sit back and think to yourself “when did we change topics” ! I am that type of person. IT is like having an fireworks display in your brain where you can literally seek all the sparks zipping around yoour brain and sparking and bouncing from one side of your brain to the other. If you haven’t noticed in this writngs I have somewhat switched gears, but I think I made a fluid switch by going from one aspect of Genetics into the things you find out about yourself and what you inherited.
Now that you have read this, I hope it will either have you thinking or relating or make you think that once upon a time you had a relative that is or was like this.
Genetics is wonderful and goes hand in hand with Geneaology when you get write down to it !
For now, until next time may all who reads this or those who have shared it to your wall enjoy reading my rational/unrational writing !
My Taylors, Montgomery's and all the Branches 