Andy couldn’t have come home at a better time. We’ve had all week to reconnect and have some quality time as a family. We went to the zoo, the new Mario movie, had friends over, and Andy took the kids to the trampoline park. It’s been so nice having Andy home. Many people warned me that “the hardest part of a deployment is the reintegration.” So far, I highly disagree. It has been nothing but goodness. Andy’s slid into his home responsibilities without complaint, it’s almost as if that time apart helped us grow to appreciate the other even more (not that we didn’t before, but it’s definitely felt precious having him with us). It probably helped that we had spring break to have time to spend together and acclimate back to normalcy, but I can feel my body recovering from months of being the sole parent to solve all of our kids’ problems and needs. I’m sure Andy is also recovering from months of sleeping on a miserable excuse of a mattress along with sharing his room and working long, tedious hours and weekends. I’m still processing what I’ve learned from this deployment, but I mostly just feel stronger as a person. I am beginning to see myself let go of some insecurities and tendencies that would weigh me down. Unfortunately, I’m still a huge work in progress, but it was one of those refining years that helped chip off some of my rougher blemishes. The migraine medicine my doctor prescribed me was not a good fit. My migraines continued while my vision felt like a light was shining in my eyes. I also felt down and unmotivated and was scrambling to try and figure out what caused this change in me when I remembered the side-effect list of this medication which included vision issues, depression, insomnia, etc. My doctor explained to me that we have to try out these meds first in order for insurance to pay for other treatments. As soon as I told him of these symptoms, he had me ween myself off of it, but before I jump in and try another medication, I told him that I wanted to see if my migraines would lessen on their own now that Andy was home. I scheduled this neurology appointment at the beginning of Andy’s deployment, but didn’t get in to see him till Andy was almost home. World of healthcare…
The kids go back to school on Tuesday and life will resume to its normal business. We have baseball, a temple trip, Andy’s got to drive the Tesla to Duluth to try and get it fixed… again (It’s having sensor issue with one of the cameras), and other appointments. It’ll be so nice to juggle it all with my best friend back home. Andy only has one shift this month, so we’ll have plenty of time to catch up and enjoy each other as well as knock a few house projects out of the way.