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| The Beeson 5 + 3 |
Dear Family & Friends,
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I bet you thought I wasn't sending out a holiday greeting this year, huh? Well, this year I decided that a “Happy New Year’s” greeting would be more appropriate. I also wanted to wait until JB and Causten got here so that I could include a photo of the entire Beeson 5 + 3.
At the beginning of 2012, Ron was out of work and I had a job – oh, the difference a year can make…but more on that later. Let’s start this with our amazing daughters…
JB is still working at CFY in New York City. She has done so well at her job that she was promoted to Chief of Staff! She was enjoying running for fitness and fun until she developed tendonitis and had to wear a boot on her left foot. She and fiancé Causten spent some time apart this year as he was persuaded by the Obama campaign to move to Denver to be in charge of training staff and volunteers. He returned to New York before the election to get back to school and JB. Living with them are our grand-kitties, Luna and Thunder.
Mandi spent the first half of the year in New York with JB and Causten. She worked as an executive assistant. During her New York adventure, she met a very special guy named Bryce. It made coming back to California to go school very difficult for her. However, she did come back to California and started graduate school in the UCSF Physical Therapy program. Not too long later, Bryce hopped on his bike (yes, that’s a bicycle not a motorcycle!) and rode from New York to San Francisco. It took him 2 months to complete his journey and he is now acclimating very nicely to the west coast. Mandi is happier than we’ve ever seen her and is doing very well in graduate school. Only 2 ½ years until graduation!
Beckie continues to be one busy gal. Her list of jobs this year included tutoring, working as a barista at a local coffee shop, babysitting, and facilitating the afterschool writing table at 826 Valencia. Her volunteer work there included editing and illustrating publications of her students’ work. This year Bec moved out of our house and into an apartment in Oakland with her boyfriend, Brian. He is a great guy who is definitely the yin to her yang! The New Year will find Beckie working full time at a high end coffee shop in San Francisco called Four Barrel. She continues to pursue her passion for writing and hopes to finish her novel soon. Interested family members will receive an advance copy prior to publication!
After a well-deserved break from the 9 to 5 grind, Ron went back to work in March as the corporate controller of a company called Picarro. This company manufactures a device that detects greenhouse gasses. PG&E is the first utility to adopt this technology. The company is expecting this to be a game-changing approach to natural gas leak detection not only for consumer distribution but for the emerging fracking industry. Ron is never happier than when he starts a new job and digs into the details to make the company run more smoothly and efficiently. Shortly after being hired there, he found a significant mess that he has been working hard to clean up ever since. Otherwise, he has had his hands full taking care of me this year…I’ll get to all that in a minute….
2012 was a year of ups and downs for me. It started happily enough with a trip to Las Vegas to gather with my crazy family and a friend to celebrate my 50th birthday. Attending the big shebang were our kids jb & Causten, Mandi & Bryce, Beckie & Brian; all my siblings-Ginger and her two boys, Jeronn and Joshua, Stef and her husband Paul and my nephew Chance; and my brother Tim and his wife Megan. The party would not have been complete without cousins Kevin and Andy, Kimi & Randy, Leah & Tom, Derek & Cesar, Lisa & Danny and Mickey & Phoebe. To top it off, my friend Audrey made it to the party as well. Ginger hosted the event at her restaurant and it was amazing! There was good food, a beautiful cake and a live band. The whole thing made turning 50 not quite so difficult. It was wonderful seeing my family and I was humbled to think that they all came to celebrate with me.
Things took an unexpected turn for me at the end of spring and I “lost” my entire summer. It’s a very long and complicated story, but I will try to keep it short so not to bore you with the details. Or you can skip the next couple of paragraphs if you've heard this story before. In March, I had started receiving infusions of Benlysta. This is a fairly new lupus medication and has done amazing things for some patients, but does have some adverse side effects. For me, the side effects really kicked in at the end of May and caused me to have to leave my job and go on short term disability. As June and July wore on, I became more fatigued and weak. I was really hoping that the new treatment would work for me so I tolerated the side effects. It was only when my doctor started prescribing medications to deal with the side effects that things went horribly wrong. To make a very long story short, I got very sick, ended up at the UCSF emergency room with very high blood sugar, hallucinations and delirium. I was admitted and spent the next 17 days at UCSF Medical Center. It took a while for the doctors to figure out exactly what was wrong with me. As it turned out, I was suffering from Cushing’s Syndrome which was caused by all the steroids I had been prescribed to combat the side effects I was dealing with. I was found to have a urinary tract infection that became septic – this probably caused the delirium. I was also found to have a fungal infection in the right upper lobe of my lung called Nocardia. I was receiving insulin since my blood sugar was out of control and during the first couple days of my hospitalization I experienced two seizures. Much of what happened in the hospital during my first week there is lost – I just don’t remember, but maybe that’s a good thing.
Once my health stabilized, I was transferred to St. Mary’s Acute Rehabilitation unit. I had lost much of the muscle mass in my legs and had overall weakness. I stayed there for 15 days and received physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. I had wonderfully great care at both hospitals. I feel lucky to be alive and so grateful for the love and support I got from my family. Ron rarely left my side and took very good care of care of me. Talk about “through sickness and health”! It was a real blessing to have Ron and the girls, my sister Stef and cousin Leah here for support.
As a result of my illness and the uncertainty of when I would be able to return to work, I lost my job. Hopefully, I will be able to return to the working world and find something fulfilling to do in 2013. At present, I am still receiving physical therapy and keeping up with many follow up appointments with my NEW doctors who are all affiliated with UCSF. My recovery is almost complete with only a few residual effects – fatigue, weakness, muscle stiffness and the small issue of my hair which fell out in huge clumps. I am now sporting a very short blonde “do” and hope that someday my hair will grow back in. Otherwise, I really am feeling much better and have resolved to do a much better job of taking care of myself in the future. Thankfully, now that I’m on the mend, we are slowly working play-dates with Viliamu (who turned 6 and started kindergarten this year!) back into our schedule.
Ron and I are thrilled to have had all three of our daughters here with us during the holidays. There were sweet reminiscences and so much laughter about times past. It is so rewarding for us to see how well our girls are making their way in the world. We are just so proud of them.
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| Mandi, JB & Beckie |
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| Married 29 years and going strong! |
With love, Laura & Ron
