Nothing to report

Nothing exciting has happened around here lately just been catching up on TV and relaxing with the hubby hehe

On Saturday night we went to the Gala for Cancer Research at our VFW it was kinda sorta awesome heeh

I won 2 free nights in Savanna GA and 2 free rights in Orlando Fl all from The Hampton Inn! Very exciting! We're planning to take a nice little drive down there and just relax and take it easy Josh wants to go hunting in GA so I asked him if we could do that in GA and go to Sea World in FL and he agreed :) we're doing Disney in the fall so I don't wanna end up going 5 times in 24 months haha

Josh also won a prize too! He's far more excited about his then mine hehe he won't 150 free drinks at our VFW!


Then on Sunday we took a random ride down to Bass Pro Shop about 2 hours away it was a lot of fun we made a whole day of it stopping at Sonic for slushes and lunch then walked around the store for a while normally not my idea of a good time but Josh loves it so it made me happy to see him happy :) we were looking at stuff he'd need for his hunting trip in GA and while there we found out dogs are welcome in Bass Pro Shop so next weekend well be taking Guinness down there :)

This weekend we already have plans!

On Saturday I'm having a bunch of girl friends over for a Pure Romance Party to celebrate a good friend getting married I'm pretty excited were gonna play a game where we all bring a pair of (new) panties in the Brides size I'm going tomorrow to buy the sluttiest pair I can find hahahahaha

Then on Sunday there is a gun show at our VFW that Josh has been looking forward to so after breakfast well be headed over there to hopefully find a new shot gun for the hunting trip :)

We're also planning a trip to Dublin Ireland and to New Orleans for later in the year we talked about it and we might as well travel as much as we can before we have kids

Oh yeah about kids!

We have agreed (with the help of my dr) that I should finish losing weight and get my ankle totally fixed before adding a pregnancy into the mix... I'm 0.9lb from my first weight watchers goal and about 40lb from totally 100% happy I've lost 15 so far :)

Alrighty I gotta run ill try to update more often :)

Jameson, meet the world :)

So today was a big day in the Tucker house! Josh surprised me with a 1 year old kitten! His name is Jameson Ireland Tucker and I kinda sorta love him hehehe

I've been begging Josh for months for a kitten and we haven't found the right one til now :) we wanted a larger breed, older, adoptable cat who is friendly and social and boy did we find our perfect little guy!

He is just perfect he purrs in his sleep, cuddles, loves to be pet, is playful and funny, and meows at me if I meow at him!

It's gonna take a few days to get Guinness and Jameson to be best friends but it'll happen :)

World, meet Jameson!

Graduated

So do I get a party for graduating therapy?

Since Josh got really bad I've been going to therapy at least once a week... Sometimes as many as 3 times a week depending on how bad Josh was but lately I've been doing a lot better and everyone including my therapist is taking notice

The last few times I've gone to therapy I've really had nothing to talk about Its kinda weird to say this but I don't care as much anymore

I mean I care I DEFF care but I can't let what happened last year over power my life I can't let them win

When you break it down, I won. I have my husband and he's doing a lot better... Fuck them. They can't ruin my marriage I won't allow it!

So on Friday I went and the therapist basically told me I was doing a lot better and she didn't see a need for me to go as often anymore she said once a month should be good and that I have basically graduated therapy she still has to see me once a month because of my meds but other then that I'm 100 times better :)

I'm glad that I'm doing better but I can't help but fear when the other shoe is gonna drop...

I'm scared about the MEB :/ some people get 100% and others get 20% both having the same symptoms... What if Josh only gets 20%? How long is this gonna end up taking? One of the SGTs in Josh's unit has been waiting on his PEB since Oct... But I have a friend who's husband moved though it all super fast...

I wish I knew a date I wish I could plan ahead this whole waiting thing is making me nuts I don't like not knowing which pay check will be our last, how much I need saved to be sure our mortgage payment can be made while we wait for the VA pay to kick in, when he should apply for college to be sure he gets in...

There's so much to plan and none of it can happen til we have a percent and a date and honestly part of me doesn't want to get either thing because it means this is all really over...

I dunno...

Amazed

So it's 3:40am I'm sitting up watching reruns of "Strong Medicine" it's a show that was on Lifetime in the early 2000s that I used to watch with my mom, I ordered season 1 off amazon about a week ago and then tried to order season 2 and found it isn't on DVD BUT I got lucky! All 6 seasons are on YouTube so I'm enjoying a trip down memory lane :)

It's amazing what 25mg of adderll can do to a girl! Normally if I'm up at 3:45am I'm tweaking out, paranoid, thinking about everything that could go wrong but instead I'm laying here smiling and thinking about how blessed I am

My husband is amazing... Even though he's sick he works so hard to keep it under control

He said this weekend he's going to work on a quilt with me because I've been trying to find interest in things he likes :)

I feel like a HS freak giggling about a crush haha

That's one thing I don't like about my meds I feel like I can't write as well I can't use words like I'd like I have zero memory :/

SHIT speaking of zero memory I have to go to the dr at 11am! Guess I gotta get to bed! More later!!

Awful to admit

I can't believe I'm writing this... I feel like the worst person in the world admitting this but I have to... I have to be totally honest here because if I'm not, where can I be totally honest?

Sometimes I wish Josh had a physical injury that people can see when they look at him...

People look at him and see a healthy 6'5 man they see the medicated side of him and they hear us say what is going on and then they say things like

"It's not THAT bad is it?"

"At least he still has all his limbs"

"Just think at least he's healthy and whole"

And I stand there dumbfounded...

YES it's that bad... Yeah he has his arms and legs too bad he lost his brain... And are you fucking stupid he's not healthy!!!

People have made PTSD into a joke they fake it so much, abuse the system so much, lie so much that everyone thinks its fake and made up and bullshit...

It's ruining our lives...

If he had a physical injury so many things would have been different... Noone could tell me I caused his problems, no one could say he's faking, no one could say we're exaggerating because you could look at him and clearly see the injury with your eyes... There would be no speculation, it wouldn't be at the thoughts of the doctors... It would be black and white. No gray... I had the color gray...

It's easy to see how lost limbs effect someone's life, no one can fight that it's cut and dry the process is simple and the same across the board but mental injuries are different how do I explain how hard it is to be living with a stranger? How do I express what it's like to not know the man who's laying in bed next to you...

Never knowing which side of him your gonna get never knowing who's gonna wake up never knowing if it will be a good day or bad day...

Sometimes he changes in seconds... He's totally fine and then BAM he's an ass...

So today I'm gonna take a stand against this... When he comes up stairs in a few mins (he's down stairs playing with Guinness hehe) I'm gonna call my friend Trevor and have him 3 way his friend Allan and the 4 of us are going to come up with a plan to ensure Josh gets the treatment he needs and the rating he deserves I refuse to be thrown under the bus again, pushed aside anymore, treated like a second rate citizen ever again and if that means we have to be the whistle blowers against Ft Belvoir Hospital, Radar Clinic and the Old Guard then fine! So be it!

If they have done these things to us then it means they've done these things to other people and I refuse to let it happen to anyone else...

I have a feeling things are gonna get wild around here soon... Part of me is worried about what they are gonna do to fight back when we go at them with all we have I know how they work they're most def gonna fight back but I won't be scared anymore!!!

I will NOT let them scare me anymore I will NOT let them hurt my family again. I will NOT let them hurt another family.

I'm preparing to go to war... Just because you can't see his injuries doesn't mean they aren't there and I'm about to bring his injuries into light!

"Do you believe in Miracles?!"

So it's 2:09am and for the first time in a LONG time I'm not awake due to fear or panic or insomnia I'm wide awake watching TV and smiling like a nut!

I was flipping though the channels after I finished reading my daily Kate Middleton gossip (yeah yeah yeah I know but I can't get enough of the Royal drama haha) and I was pleasantly surprised to find one of my favorite movies was on, Miracle!

I know it's a weird movie to be my face but I have a reason and I can't help but smile when I think about it, it brings me back to a very different point in my life, a point where I still whole heartily believed in magic and well Miracles ;)

I was a Junior in High School when the movie came out, my dad took Jimmy (my brother) and I to see it (Mom stayed home with the baby) the movie is based on the true story of the 1980 Olympic Hockey team, The Miracle on Ice as it came to be known. The movie was fantastic and the fact that my dad could tell me about the day it happened brought it to life for me he told me he had tickets to the game but him and his friends decided to go to Atlantic City instead because they were convinced that the US wasn't just going to lose but be humiliated by the Soviet team... Boy were they wrong and boy were they pissed haha

They ended up missing one of the most amazing hockey games ever played and one of sports most important moments!

My first week of Senior year I was told about our Senior Paper assignment it had to be 25+ pages on an event in history with an interview from someone who either was involved in or witnessed the event... Lots of people chose 9/11 because of where we lived, the start of the war on terror or the day JFK was killed but not me! I chose the 1980 Olympic hockey Team's amazing win... Needless to say my teachers thought I was nuts.

After I handed in my idea, my English teacher asked to see me and wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing she informed me she wouldn't force me to change my topic but if I didn't get an interview she would be forced to fail me and she couldn't see any way I could possibly get the needed interview. I wasn't worried I already knew how I was gonna do it my dad had handed me the keys to that kingdom the year before and didn't even know it!

At the end of the movie they show each team member as the real person, the actor who played him in the movie and a little blurb about what they are doing now... Most of them went on to be coaches or team owners but not Bill Baker... Bill Baker was my golden ticket!

The film said he went on to become an Oral Surgeon in his home state of MO! Take that info with any knowledge of Google and you have yourself an office phone number! I called and left a message with his front desk staff explaining my project and requesting a call back. I got it that night!

My dad came into my room holding his hand over the phone and said "um there's a Dr Bill Baker on the phone for you is this for real" smiling so wide I was shaking I jumped took the phone and asked him a few questions about his time on the team.

He was VERY nice! Told me how when they were presented their gold metals that was the last time they were all in 1 place together... he said all the quotes in the movie were really things Brooks (Their coach) did and said "The name on the front of your jersey is far more important then the name on the back!" "Red line back blue line back far red line back far blue line back... AGAIN!" that work put became known as suicides...

I told him how my fave part of the movie was when Brooks was trying to get them to say they play for the USA not their College teams and he said that really happened and that was the moment they bonded as a team.

Before we got off the phone he asked me for my address which I quickly gave him.

A few days later a fed ex package came with autographed cards, pucks, a jersey and a letter thanking me for taking interest in history!

My teacher was in utter shock! She called my parents twice to be sure this was real and as you can guess I got an A on my term paper :)

How many girls can say they interviewed a Sports Legend for their senior paper... That's what I thought hehe :)

5 years

So this year will be our 5th wedding anni :)

I know it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of Annis but it's HUGE for us!

It's a sign that we made it though, we have survived together against the odds... Noone thought we'd make it, hell for a while there we didn't think we'd make it :/

But now things are different we have figured out how to work together how to be a couple AND an individual and I love it :)

So this blog will be updated many times over the next few months as I plan our anni party :) the first wedding was pure perfection, baked ziti and cake with the people we love most, the people who totally supported our choice to be married even if they were placing bets under the table about when we would get divorced haahah I do take 2 was for me and it was a hot mess :/

This party is for Josh :) BBQ, beer, shorts and flip flops in our beautiful massive back yard :) why have a 1/4th acre yard if your not gonna have parties in it?!?

But we said I can hang lights and fancy table clothes and of course Baked Ziti will be served as it has been on every one of our Annis :)

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty effing excited!!!