I have been spending the past couple of days trying to put everything about Mac and his deployment and his brain injury into nice sheet protectors in a binder. This is crucial. I just cannot keep up on all that he has done and had happen to him and what doctor appointments we have been to in order in my mind. I am mailing medical documents off to his case worker at the VA today as well. I have been out and around collecting these from all the doctors and hospitals in regards to his care. We have a C&P visit this month for our increase of benefits that we have put in for. I pray it will go well. We really need to get this increase. I am working on so many things, that I rarely have the time I need to keep up with my house keeping. That is the thing that I have to put aside in order to keep things going.

I am working on all this paperwork, I am working on refinancing our house- this is harder said than done as our credit is still so crappy from all the years of medical bills. I always have the basics like paying bills and helping with homework.

Pumpkin Cookies make the day brighter!

I am making easy wonderful pumpkin chocolate chip cookies while I post! Yeah! First food of fall! I love fall but really dread the long winter that is coming. Winter is so hard here all the way around. I don't have as much work for money, but I have so much more work to get done. Just not the paying kind. That is why I love fall, soup, baking, warm smells, and sweaters.

I am trying to hard to get things at home in order! Money is so tight that I am wishing I could find a temporary job, but don't have the time! I have an insurance form to get in, refinance the house to a better interest rate, get the right documents from the military for Mac's purple heart ( like pulling teeth without novicane and a tissue not pliers!) Preparing a budget and solving some other problems that are haunting us! Well, the cookies are done and I am short on blog time! Have a beautiful fall day and enjoy a fall treat!

Life after Deployment

Out with the past and onto the present. Life after Deployment. Mac was gone from June 2004- November 2005. When he returned all seemed honeymoon perfect for a few days. He was monitoring the kids alot. They didn't like this at all. They had become my Friday night date night. Now here was dad demanding my time and my Friday was his again! Not happy campers! I started to notice Mac seemed to be a little on edge and just contributed it to trying to readjust. After all that is what I had learned at all the meeting on coming home.
Nov 18th was the date of his release from Active Duty. We decided to take advantage of the full 90 days off before going back to work. I had saved some money up and we could make it while he was home with no work. Unfortunately life has a way of taking a high speed turn that you can never make it back from. Nov 22, was one of the worst days of my entire life. My dear daughter my oldest child at the age of 15 was a passenger in a terrible car accident. It was our car but for some reason we don't know why- her friend happened to be driving! Again for what reason we don't know- they left a girls basketball game and went on a drive- the driver did NOT have a license. The car left the road, over corrected a couple of times and then slid sideways off the the road. It went into an area where there is alot of open marsh, but there was 1 tree and they hit it from the drivers side. Unfortunately the boy in the back seat was killed by a tree branch hitting his head. The driver was pinned under the steering wheel and hanging out the drivers door, and our daughter was in the front passenger area. Maybe she was reaching for the wheel but ended up having the steering wheel hit her in the left shoulder/chest area. She tore the left atrium chamber of her heart most of the way off, broke her collar bone, shoulder blade, back, bleeding on the brain, collapsed lung and launched her heart out of the chest wall cavity into her throat. She was broken and hurt very fatally. Then the car erupted into a ball of flames 15' high out of the engine. By some miracle of God and a divine plan I don't know. Our daughter did not die. She lived. She was rescued from the burning car by two wonderful angels disguised as men. They pulled her from the car, went to work on the driver, finally freed him and were not able to get the boy in the back seat. He burned in the car fire. I am so saddened by the terrible loss of her dear friend that I continue to think of him so often and pray for his family.

Life Before Deployment

Pre Iraq- I feel like I am dating time such as "pre-historic". We could be talking about the dinosaur age! Prior to being deployed to Iraq our family life was what you might call picture perfect. We had 5 children ranging in age from 13 to 3. I was as happy has someone can be. I was loving life. We lived in a beautiful home- I was busy fixing it up. It was an older 60's home in need of some TLC. I had painted nearly every room, put in new carpet, tiled the kitchen by removing kitchen carpet and just loved cooking and taking care of my family. The kids played sports like softball and we ice skated in the winter and built snowmen and such. We lived in a very rural community of about 150 people. We had a little bit of land and room to run. Besides work and church there was the Idaho Army National Guard Reserves. Mac was an E7 and the acting Platoon Sergeant. He was attending college online and finishing his bachelors degree. It just didn't get better than that! Happy kids, happy home and a great life!

Military Cover up?

I have had some trouble lately with the Army and their lack of interest in and willingness to hide the incidents and reports associated with the blasts that my husband was in and near. I have been requesting the incident reports and sworn statements of the soldiers involved on the incidents that cause my husbands TBI. Well after waiting for 4 months with no reply and being ignored, I finally reached the colonel I left over 10 messages for in 1 week. Well guess what- "No such incident or IED ever happened on or around those days"! We know they did. I have sworn statements for these incidents from other soldiers journals. I finally had it with a colonel the other day and said " Funny how these men went over there for a full year 2 deployments and NOTHING happened! No IED's no trouble, no bombs, everything was peaceful and calm! I want to know what happened to my husband then." I am at the point of calling every news place in this country to unleash a full investigation as to why and where these reports are being covered up! No purple heart without them. This kind of stuff keeps soldiers from ever getting their TBI verified.