Tag Archives: Journal

I only have a couple minutes here to post, and I wanted to do a very quick update. Michelle and I returned home on Sunday. We spent Friday and Saturday night in Avila Beach, which was nice. We returned home on Sunday. After doing some unpacking, I returned to work on Monday, where I have been insanely busy. I’m hoping that things start slowing down soon, but basically, I haven’t had much time at home, which is why there hasn’t been much activity here as I’ve been hoping. We’ll see how things continue to progress in this new year.

Ok, so, it is 11pm on December 31, 2008. I’ve left a few things hanging in previous posts, so I thought I’d try to tie up a few of the loose ends and get things back on track.

I’ve been down in Southern California since December 20, visiting family and friends for the holidays. Michelle’s situation hasn’t changed too much being down here. She was doing well for a while, but did go to the hospital three or four times since she has been here. Not bad, overall, and I do think she is trying to change.

Friday, Michelle and I will leave and start heading home. We’ll stop in Avila Beach for a couple nights for a last mini-vacation of this vacation, and the first mini-vacation of the new year. We’re hoping for a better 2009 than 2008. We’ll get home on Sunday, and I’ll return to work on Monday.

My health is doing fine. I’ve been doing physical therepy for my lower back. That seems to have helped. My physical therapist is right downstairs from my office, and she told me that after my therepy is done, I can come down on my lunches and use her equipment to excercize, so I don’t have to pay for a gym membership. Also, I’m on medication for a slightly elevated blood pressure and a seizure disorder. While it might sound serious, it really isn’t, and I am still doing well overall.

Work is insane, and probably will remain insane. When I return on Monday, I have to figure out where we stand in our QA department and work with the QA Team to try to allocate our resources to meet deadlines, hopefully without having to work any Saturdays. We’re hoping (as a company) that when we release or new version in March/April, it will help stimulate more business. It is hard in this economy, especially since we sell software to the Mortgage Industry.

On a personal level, I’ve decided not to take the path of having Michelle move out. Partly it is because of the cost associated with it. We simply can’t afford it. Another part is because I think it will be easier to work through some of the issues if she we were still together. I want the marriage to work, and I want to make sure that it is handled the way the Lord would have it handled. As a result, I’ll need to figure out how to balance all my time, which seems very limited as is, so that we can move forward and that I have time to complete my projects as well. There never seems to be enough time in a day, which is frustrating.

So, that took about 10 minutes to write. We’ll see what the Lord has planned for 2009. Draw the line in the sand and step forward. Learn from the past, but don’t focus on it. I’m going to keep my eyes forward, looking at Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith.

Yeah, it has been almost two months since the last update. I am LONG overdue, and quite a bit has happened. I will start with Michelle. Things have been getting better and she has been making efforts to get rid of those bad habits and addictions and focus more on the Lord. I am hopeful, but time will tell. She has been in Southern California since mid-November, staying with her family. Currently, she is staying with her dad until Christmas. We weren’t able to celebrate Thanksgiving, her birthday, nor our anniversary together, but we will be celebrating Christmas together, and she will be coming back home with me in January.

The same time I brought Michelle to Southern California, I had to go down there for a funeral. My grandmother (on my father’s side) passed away. It was something I had known was coming for a few months, as her mind was rapidly slipping away. Even prepared, though, it doesn’t help with the loss. Christmas is going to be interesting without her.

Work has also been on the crazy side. After returning from the funeral, we were working at hiring some temps to help in QA. I was involved in every interview, which took a lot of time. Of those interviewed, four were hired, and I began training them on Thursday. There’s still a lot more to do before I leave on vacation after December 19.

Saturday Dec 20 (or Sunday Dec 21) I will head to Southern California for the holidays. I will be down there until just after the 1st, as I have to return to work on Monday Jan 5. I look foward to going down to see family again, and more importantly, to see Michelle. After we get back, we need to see about the next steps and go from there. What is important is that the Lord remains first, and that we work together to restore the damage Michelle’s spending and constant ER visits for pain meds has done to our marriage.

Okay, so my updates are coming about once a month. Better than nothing, I guess. Time just moves by so quickly, and there doesn’t seem to be enough time to get anything accomplished.

It is still a roller-coaster ride with Michelle’s health. In and out of the hospital. While she hasn’t been getting the narcotics like she used to, it is still difficult. Of course, even with tighter controls on the spending, she is also finding other ways to spend money. Very frustrating. She’s afraid that I hate her for what she has done. While it is true, I hate the fact that she did lie to me about things, I don’t hate her for it. I just know that there are certain things that has to happen now as a result. I just hope it doesn’t get worse, because if it does, the next step would be a separation, and neither of us want that.

That brings up a question that some people might ask. If she is putting me through so much stuff, why am I still with her? Why don’t I divorce? First of all, I do love her. I haven’t stopped loving her. I grew up in a stable home where love wasn’t based on what you did or didn’t do. Yes, there were consequences for bad actions, but the love was still there. I am able to seperate the actions from the person. Because I love her, I want only the best for her. In addition, when I gave my wedding vows, I meant them.

It is my personal opinion that many people go into marriage and they don’t take the vows seriously. Or they might think they do, but don’t realize the long-term commitment and work that goes into those vows. When things go wrong, it is much easier to throw in the towel, or trade it in for a newer model. This isn’t meant to speak badly of those who got a divorce, because I know there is so much more to it than that, and every person’s situation is unique. This is just a generalization of what I feel is one of the faults in our society, and why we see so many divorces.

In addition, my belief is that there are only two reasons for a divorce. The first is infidelity, and the second is if the other person leaves the marriage. Now, there is a lot of interpretation on what constitutes “leaving a marriage.” I’ve heard that a person who is abusive (physically, mentally, emotionally) has already left the marriage, and a divorce would be allowed. Under their logic, they would say that Michelle has left the marriage through her abuse of spending (and the strain it puts on our marriage). Personally, I disagree. I believe that leaving is just that, leaving. The person packs up their bags and moves on.

So, does that mean a person has to put up with abuse, or excessive spending? Do I have to put up with Michelle’s issues? Yes and no. When I took the marriage vows, I took the good and the bad. Although I wasn’t fully aware of the bad at that time, how I choose to handle the bad now is what is important. When things go wrong, I make changes. I adapt and I try to set forth consequences. I hate it, partly because it makes me feel like I’m treating Michelle like a child instead of a partner. Each consequence is known by Michelle before it happens, so it doesn’t come as a surprise. There is only one consequence left, as mentioned previously, and neither of us want that to happen. Separation.

Separation isn’t divorce. It is a time apart with an attempt for the sick person to get better. There is a hope, on my part at least, that Michelle would get better during the separation, should it come to that. When, and if, she is able to get her abuses under control again, she will be able to come home, and our lives together can resume. I know it won’t be easy, but I do believe that is the way the Lord would want us to handle the situation. In my personal opinion, I believe that is the way any type of abuse should be dealt with, safety through separation. Separation to recovery, only going to divorce if the other person breaks the marriage vows through infidelity or leaving on their own.

I hadn’t intended to go on this little tangent, but I think it is important to share. I do love Michelle, and I do want this marriage to work. Unfortunately, it takes two people to make a marriage work, and I can only do so much. And in what I can do, I know I still fall short at times.

Switching from Michelle over to me to finish this entry. As mentioned in an earlier post, I had to get an EEG and an MRI done to check on the possibility of seizures. Well, good news is there is no brain damage, and my EEG activity appeared normal. The neurologist, though, did say that I was suffering from a type of seizure disorder (I forget the name). It basically is a type of seizure where I can remain functional when it happens. Interesting thing was, while I was seeing the neurologist, one of the minor seizures did happen, and my right arm was shaking. I showed it to him, and showed him that I could still move my arm, hand and fingers even though it was shaking. This confimed to him that it was a type of seizure disorder that he previously mentioned.

He started me on Depakote for the seizures, and I’ll need to get blood work early November. I won’t see him again until January. My primary doctor I’ll see on Nov 3, to follow up on my blood pressure medication. I’m on two medications now, and hopefully that is where it will stay. Already I can feel some adverse side-effects. Minor light-headedness or dizziness at times, but nothing that affects my equilibrium, infrequent racing of the heart, and ringing in my ears. The side-effects are diminishing as I continue to take the medication, so things should get relatively normal in a couple months. As for the seizures, it is still too early to really tell, but I haven’t noticed any of the minor seizures, which is a good thing.

Other than that, I’ve been keeping extremely busy with work and updating some of the sites on my web server (including the updates here). There is just so much to do, that there never seems to be enough time in a day to get everything done, both that I need to do and that I want to do. Hopefully things will slow down again sometime soon.

I have finally uploaded our wedding album. It contains pictures from our Wedding, December 21, 2002, as well as our rededication and reception on May 17, 2003. There are several different galleries that you can view, so please feel free to take a look around.

As time permits, I’ll try to get some other photo albums online. We have a lot of pictures to upload, and not a lot of time in which to work on them. I hope you enjoy what I’ve uploaded so far.

Thursday was an interesting day at work. For some reason, my work computer would start crashing every few minutes. I traced the cause to what I believed to be my VMWare server development environment. I had received an external harddrive to use at work, and moved my virtual image onto that harddrive. That was when the trouble started. After talking with IT, we decided that the best course of action would be to reformat my computer and not use a seperate virtual server for development, instead, I’d install everything locally.

Thursday night I had to stay up all night in preparation for my tests on Friday. I thought that would be a good time to work on the reinstallation. I brought my work computer and all associated software home with me. That was a huge challenge, despite the fact that it was only a laptop. My decision was to put Windows 2003 Server on my computer, which is what I was using as my virtual image development environment. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that most of my drivers were incompatible with Windows 2003. By the time I discovered this, I was getting too tired to figure out ways around the driver issues.

Staying up all night was a difficult task. I couldn’t keep my mind clear enough to work on the computer, nor could I focus enough to play my PS2. As odd as it may sound, TV was the way I stayed awake. Of course, I also used my cell phone, and set the alarm for every 30 minutes just in case I fell asleep. My goal was to watch TV and reset my alarm before it went off. It seemed to work, as I didn’t sleep at all Thursday night.

Friday was a long day. Went to San Jose, had breakfast at Carl’s Jr. (minus caffeine) and went to the EEG appointment. I had a bunch of wires connected to my head and I had to lie on the bed following the instructions of the tech. He had me opening and closing my eyes, trying to sleep, and even flashed a strobe into my eyes. I had a few minor tremors, but nothing notable. Don’t know if that is good or not.

After that was done, we went to a nearby Supercuts so I could get all the gunk washed out of my hair, and get a haircut (which was overdue anyways). When that was done, we went to Togo’s for lunch, then went down the street to my office so Michelle could say hi to some of my coworkers she hadn’t seen in a long time, or had never met before.

The MRI appointment was at 3:30. That was another interesting test. I was given earplugs and my ears were further covered with padding to protect my hearing as I was lying in a narrow tube as the sounds of the MRI machine roared. The padding helped to dull the sound, so that it wasn’t loud, but it was still too loud and uncomfortable to sleep. Instead, I rested the best that I could while they did the hour or so of tests.

After, we were going to go to Cheesecake Factory. Unfortunately, Michelle wasn’t feeling well enough, and I was ready to get home myself. Instead, we stopped at Boston Market and picked up dinner to go. We got home around 6 or 7 that evening, and I was in bed around 10.

Saturday, I returned to working on the computer, to finally discover that there was no possible way to use Windows 2003. As some of my development tools don’t run as well on Vista (which is the reason I had the development image), I decided to install XP Professional. Unfortunately, as I was starting the new installation, Michelle’s health got worse. She hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, and became pale, sweaty and started vomiting. That afternoon, I had to take her back to the ER to find out what was going on. I didn’t stay with her, as I had too much to do with my work computer. Plus I was irritated, so it wouldn’t do her or me any good to stay at the hospital for my irritation to grow.

Later that night, after picking Michelle up from the hospital, I discovered that one of the drivers that I needed to install needed to be done before installing the operating system. That meant that I, once again, had to reformat the computer and reinstall the operating system. It was a major annoyance, but there was nothing I could do about it except start over.

Michelle wasn’t any better on Sunday, and she called her doctor. Her doctor advised her to try going to the Urgent Care first. We did that, but a couple hours later there was still no improvement. As a result, her doctor advised her to go back to the ER so they could get plenty of fluids into her, as this was somehow caused by dehydration again. As I still had a lot of work to do on my computer, I dropped her off at the hospital and went home to get the computer set up.

By the end of the day, I managed to have Windows installed and updated and Microsoft Office installed. I thought I had done all the updates as well, but when I got into work, I discovered I had to do several more updates to Microsoft Office. There is still a lot more that I need to install, in fact, I’m doing installations as I write this entry. I really can’t do much else, unfortunately.

In addition to the work and health insanity, there has been some fun thrown in the middle of everything. Last week, Michelle and I bought Season 7 of Smallville, which we hadn’t seen due to not having the CW at the time. Over the course of the week we watched the entire season and yesterday we watched the season premiere of season 8, since we now have the CW (KTLA out of Los Angeles). We’re finally caught up and excited about it.

Also, I have been doing minor updates to the Sanborn Family website. As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I have found a new theme and some new plugins to add to the site. I found a picture I took of the lone cypress tree, a popular sight on the 17-mile drive in Pebble Beach. It is almost synonomys with the Monterey Peninsula. I thought it was perfect, which is why it now appears as the background for the site. In addition, I have added all my poetry, sorted by date, from my earliest poems written in the eighth grade, up to the last poem I wrote about 11 years ago. (I need to write poetry again sometime). Not only that, but I found some old Letters of Reflection, which I have added as well.

Special note about the Letters of Reflection, as more may appear as I find them. I rededicated my life to the Lord on July 4, 1996. Prior to that, I was heavily influenced by the world and its views. While I was still considered a moral person, for the most part, I wasn’t walking with the Lord the way I am now. Things slowly started changing after my rededication, but the most dramatic changes started happening in 1997. Unfortunately, I believe the Letters of Reflection ended in late 1996 or early 1997, so the Letters mostly show my old style of thinking as opposed to what I believe today.

Yes, the site has a new look. This is the first of several small steps. I found this new WordPress Theme, Aeros, that I thought looked nice. Yes, it took away the pictures of Michelle and I, but that is only temporary. I have also added an image gallery, NextGen Gallery. Eventually, that will be integrated into the site to create a custom header that will rotate to show different images. In addition, I plan on changing the background image to a scenic Monterey Bay picture. Not sure what yet. I’ll need to take my digital camera out and see what I can find. Since my time is limited, though (extremely limited), it may take some time. Keep checking back to see what changes have happened.

Also, I’ll try to update the blog on a more regular basis. Yes, I know, I’ve said that before, but I still do come back, eventually.

Just a short post here to let everyone know that there are a number of backdated blog entries that have been added to this blog. There are old blog entries from Live Journal, which was started back in 2004. There are entries from MSN Spaces that were done in 2005. There are even entries and Bible Studies that were added from my posts at Christian Forums in 2007 and 2008. This should be the entirety of my entries and thoughts between 2004 and today. I’m sure that there are some that were lost somewhere in cyberspace, but this was my best effort to put everything in one place.

Use the calendar or categories on the left to find the added articles and feel free to add your own comments.

It has been over a year since my last update. That is a long time. I’m so bad at keeping up on these things. As a result, I thought I’d go ahead and update now. I’ll try to start where I last left off.

After returning from vacation, things pretty much returned to normal. Normal for us, that is. Michelle still struggled with pain and nausea, and was continuing to go in and out of the hospital. Unfortunately, things returned to a downhill spiral from there. Starting in November, maybe even earlier, Michelle started going to the hospital on an almost weekly basis. It was hard going to the hospital so frequently, and I was beginning to wonder if these were real problems or not.

December was supposed to have about a week and a half in Southern California for Christmas and New Year’s. It turned into less than a week, and Michelle spent almost the entire time in the hospital. After getting home, I called an 800 number to talk to a drug crisis counselor, to talk to him about whether or not Michelle was addicted. He told me, from what I described, that she was definately addicted. I waited a couple days and talked to Michelle about it. She agreed to see a doctor about getting off the narcotic medications.

I wish I could say that things started to change. She saw the doctor once, and didn’t follow through. She didn’t think she had a problem. It was so frustrating, but I knew I couldn’t do anything, that she had to make the decision herself. Soon, her weekly visits turned into twice a week, and later into three times per week. I had, for the most part, stopped taking her to the hospital. She went there on her own, by friend, or by ambulance. Unfortunately, I still had to pick her up. I wanted her to realize what she was doing, and, when the opportunity arose, I brought it up, to no avail.

For the Fourth of July, I went down to Southern California to spend a few days with my family. Michelle chose to stay home (in which she spent one day in the ER). I enjoyed the time with my family, as I didn’t see them at Easter. A few days after getting home, I talked to Michelle about her addiction. This time, she seemed more willing to listen, and I make it clear that I wasn’t going to deal with it anymore.

End of July, Michelle detoxed off Narcotic pain medications and started the Drug rehab program through CHOMP (Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula). At first, it was more fear of losing me and doing it more for me than herself, but as she began to recover, she started doing it for herself as well. She went to the group every day and I could see the Michelle I married starting to return. The downward spiral was finally on the way up. It was an answer to much prayer.

The initial program was about a month long, and Michelle just graduated from the program on Monday evening. It was a very special time. Not only was she congratulated, but I was as well, for going to the family programs with her on Monday and Thursday evenings. It was nice for Michelle and for me. She’s now in the “after care” and doesn’t go every day, but she is sticking to the program as well as attending AA meetings and Celebrate Recovery at Shoreline church in Monterey. I go with her to Celebrate Recovery for the “co-dependant” support and have my own program through the hospital once a week for the next year.

This has been a struggle for Michelle, but she is sticking with it. She has just started a mood management program and has returned to a pain program to learn to deal with her pain and her moods better. The road, which was spiraling down, is slowly starting to move up. One step at a time, one day at a time, things are getting better. Even better is the fact that, except for two incidents early in Michelle’s recovery (not drug seeking, but complications relating to withdrawal), Michelle hasn’t been back to the ER. We’re also looking forward to two weeks in Southern California for Christmas and New Year’s. Not spent in the hospital, but spent enjoying family and friends.
Of course, Michelle’s health issues haven’t been the only insanity this past year. In March, we were forced to file bankruptcy. We filed Chapter 13, which is the restructuring of the debt, as opposed to completely writing off the debt. That is still going through the courts. With all Michelle’s health and emotional problems since her grandparent’s death a couple years ago, she would spend to try to feel better. Unfortunately, her spending streched beyond our means, and brought us to this point. I blame myself more than I blame her, because I feel I should have been paying better attention to what was going on. Not that it probably would have changed anything, but still, I feel that it was more my responsibility to make sure we were on track as much as I could. Fortunately, with all these different things Michelle is doing now for recovery, the spending addiction will be dealt with as well. Another gradual incline in the road.

Finally, there is the work situation. That has been insanity on top of my already insane life. When the mortgage bubble burst, my job became uncertain. After all, we sell software exclusively to the mortgage industry. How would the company fare? We do have market share, but would it be enough? I couldn’t switch jobs because of Michelle’s health and because of the bankruptcy. I felt trapped, and didn’t know what else to do. That became even more stressful after my manager, Babita, quit. She was helping me to transition into Development, and I was half in QA and half in Development. With her gone, I had no idea what that meant for my security. Add to that the closing down of the Monterey office, and I felt like I was being crushed.

Fortunately, I was given a company car and a gas card to use to get to work. The idea originally was to commute with the others from the Monterey office. Unfortunately, they decided to quit instead of commute to San Jose. I was concerned that the loss of the carpool would equal the loss of the car. That was not the case. It was around April when I started driving the 65 miles to the San Jose office every day.

As if things at work couldn’t get any worse, we released our 6.1 version and discovered that a certain type of installation was overwriting customer data. I about died when I heard that, because I was the one who wrote the installation. The first thoughts through my mind were that I was going to lose my job, and then I’d be stuck. I immediately worked hard trying to address the issues, as we needed to release a 6.1a patch. I did a lot of temporary fixes to get the patch out the door on time, working 60-70 hours per week. Once the patch was released, my job wasn’t done. All those fixes were temporary, and we were on an extremely short time schedule to complete 6.2. My 60-70 hour weeks continued through June and July, all struggling to fix those errors so they never appeared again. Of course, as mentioned previously, Michelle’s recovery started the end of July, so there was overlap where I was needed not only for work, but for her recovery as well.

Now, 6.2 has been released. QA signed off on it on Wednesday. There are still a number of installation issues that aren’t fixed, and I’m now waiting to hear which ones need to be addressed for our next version. In the meantime, I’m working on fixes to our build tool, that I need to have done in the next couple days. Yes, that means working over the weekend again. Then, once I get the information for installation, which should be on Wednesday, I’ll need to allocate time for that as well.

Well, I spoke of Michelle’s health, our finances, and work. As if that wasn’t enough on my plate, there is my own health issues. Fortunately, it isn’t anything that I haven’t dealt with for a while now anyways. Shortly after starting up in San Jose, I decided to get a new primary care physician near my office. In fact, my new doctor is right downstairs from my office. In May, I had some bloodwork and went and saw him for a complete physical. I knew I had put on a little bit of weight, but I soon discovered that I was almost 240 lbs. I should be between 180-190. I could afford to lose some weight.

The tests came back fine, for the most part. My cholesterol was low, he said it was too low. My blood pressure was a little high, which forced me to start blood pressure medication. In addition, he gave me a medicine for anxiety, due to the stress I’ve been under. I haven’t felt anxious, but my body has definately been feeling the stress. In addition, I told him about some seizure-like symptoms that I have been having (something I’ve dealt with for about 14 years). I was told it was originally diagnosed as anxiety, and does happen when tired or stressed. He wasn’t certain, but prescribed the medication anyways.

Earlier this month, I had an appointment with the doctor, informing him that the medication didn’t seem to be having any effect. He referred me to a neurologist to determine if they could be seizures. After describing things to the neurologist, he did agree that seizures were a possibility. So, to verify, he scheduled an EEG and MRI to try to see if they could find anything. Both those tests are next Friday, when Michelle will need to take me to the appointments, as I have to be up all night Thursday night, with no caffeine or other stimulants to keep me going.

The closest I can figure is that this started after a head injury I received because of my own stupidity. I was working security, and there was one of those half-high walls with a swinging door. I had to go answer the door, as I was the only one in the security office, and one of my habits was pushing myself up as I walked past, and swinging out. Well, this time, my hand slipped out from beneath me and I fell hard onto the ground, hitting the back of my head and neck. My entire body went numb. It felt like when an arm or leg falls asleep, but was that way through my entire body. As soon as I was able to move, I answered the door, and kept moving. My body was still tingling for several minutes, but I never told anyone at work what happened. Nor did I go to see a doctor regarding it, not that anything would have been discovered at that time anyways.

So, somewhere soon after, these episodes started happening. Most of the time, it would just be my right arm shaking, or my legs shaking. Nothing major, but enough to be annoying. If it gets worse, I might start stuttering as well, having difficulty speaking. The most severe type, which I’ve only had two or three times, my entire body shakes, and I can’t talk very easily. Stuttering is more pronounced, if I can speak. I don’t pass out, and in minor episodes, I do have some relative control, which is why I don’t know if they are full seizures. The neurologist says it is possible, which is why these tests are coming. I’m not worried about it, but will be relieved to actually have an answer, and maybe a medication to get it more under control.

So, as you can see, it has been a relatively “action-packed” year, but, at the same time, it is a year marked by noticeable improvements. I can only pray that the road continues its uphill route, and that the downward spiral is behind us.