So I haven’t had the best start to my new life. I got up yesterday, ate a bowl of my healthy steel-cut oat breakfast (recipe will be posted later) and started to clean my basement. Why start in the basement? Well … just because it is winter time … my furnace decided to stop working. (side note … I really hate the three dots and I have no idea why I started using them … I really need to stop.)

I went into the basement and almost had a heart attack. Cat poop everywhere (we had a sickly cat that had bowel problems), I could barely get across the basement because of all the garbage bags down there (my daughter cleaned out her room before moving out and left it there along with most of her belongings) and a mess left by my son when he moved his games room upstairs.

Two trips to the dump later I was starting to feel under the weather. I’ve had a persistent pain in my right side since Sunday morning and it was getting worse. Now those who know me know I hate going to the doctor but I decided it was time to go. I called my doctor and was shocked when his nurse said I was to come right away.

My doctor examined me and told me to go to the hospital. He called ahead to the hospital to have them expect me. After he had examined me he said he believed it was my appendix.

The doctor at emergency also examined me, decided it was my appendix and ordered blood work, had me change into a gown and an IV was put in. I had to drink this foul-tasting orange liquid and wait for it to flow through my digestive track. Then off for a CT Scan. They inserted a die in my IV that made all my blood vessels tingle (makes you feel like you wet your pants but you don’t really).

Back into a little room I go (but at least they gave me a TV so I could watch NCIS while I waited). The doctor came back in and said it was not my appendix and they couldn’t find anything other than one large kidney stone and one small kidney stone. After waiting an hour to make sure I didn’t stroke out from the dye I was released with no answer to my pain.  So off I go home (with a nice needle for pain) and I go to sleep in a freezing house.

So today I got up all enthusiastic to start again.  Knock me down and I’ll pop right back up!  Ate another bowl of steel-cut oats, finished cleaning the games room, cleaned a pathway to the furnace, made a healthy meat free dinner (fresh mushrooms, garlic and tomato sauce over pasta) and had a hot shower in a cold room.  Furnace people are coming tomorrow.  I’m still in pain but not nearly as bad as yesterday.

So everything in life is about how you handle Plan B.  Yes, my dream is to have an “A” life.  I want the “happy every after”.  I want my husband to feel strong and well. I want our finances to ensure us to have a comfortable retirement.  But that never happens for me.  My husband has major back and body problems and the economy directly hit our retirement plan.  But how do I handle this?  Do I sink? Or do I swim?  Do I wallow in self pity (like some people I know) or do I make the best of the situation?  The choice is mine and I decide I always need to be ready for Plan B.

So I am looking at the past few days as a positive thing.  Yes, I was in terrible pain yesterday but I got a state of the art CT Scan that checked me out and found nothing.  No surgery, nothing came up on the scans other than one big and one small kidney stone.  (I am having them blasted next month.)

My furnace went out.  OK, positive thing is it forced me to work on the basement.  I had planned to work on my room, but now I have the games room cleaned and available to use while renovating my house.

Nothing ever goes the way I plan.  So I need to learn to rely on Plan B.