Back in April, my brother was sent to prison. If you remember, I posted about it here.

He got out July 5th at 12:01 am. My dad and I drove down right after fireworks on the 4th to get him. Its a 2 hour drive and they were an hour behind us so we didn’t get back home until around 3:30 am on the 5th. He was in for a short time but has a bunch of stories. Some funny, some not so funny.
He was in a level 2 facility which is almost like a dorm setting but with guards, razor wire and murderers as bunkmates.

He said there is a large number of members of the Aryan Nation there. Most are very large and very scary dudes. He said they leave him alone since he’s a white guy who shaves his head and has an Irish last name.

Anyway, he said their favorite pastime is playing Dungeons & Dragons. These huge, musclebound white supremacists sitting around a table playing D&D. Only they are not allowed to have dice so they use spinners instead. They sell the books in the commissary and guys have people on the outside zerox books and send them by mail a little at a time.
He was watching them play one day and a dude almost got in a fight with the dungeon master because his dwarf almost died.

There’s another group (non-Aryan Nation people) in his dorm that play. The dungeon master there is a gay guy who’s in for murdering his boyfriend after catching him with another man. He was sitting out on the porch one day and heard them playing. They came across a creature and attacked it. After they killed it, the dungeon master said, “Aw, you killed a baby dragon” in a very gay sounding voice. He said that was a running joke between him and one of his friends.

He was telling us how everything in prison has a value. A scoop of instant coffee, ramen noodles, ketchup packets, cigarettes, they are all traded and have a price. Two scoops of instant coffee = 41 cents, one “rollie” cigarette = $2.00 (3 rollies can be made from one standard cigarette.) His theory is if prisoners are willing to pay $6 for a regular cigarette, tobacco companies could charge whatever they wanted for a pack.

So anyway, he was telling us how they get the tobacco into the prison since its illegal to have it there. They have crews that work on the grounds outside the prison. Those guys have friends and family hide tobacco (and other drugs I assume) in the area where they work. Then, guys in the work crew smuggle them in… in their rectal cavities. The tobacco was compacted and put in cans about the size of a small tomato paste can.
He said one guy was the main “mule” for getting it in because of his carrying capacity.
They called him “Two Can Sam.”

He also shared some pretty gruesome stories about the violence and brutality he witnessed there. Its not some place I would ever want to be and I hope he never has to go back.

…lays the smack down.

I wanted to say more about what happened to me on Monday but that post was getting too long…

I like being in control. Whenever I drink alcohol, I do so slowly because I don’t like the buzz. Call me crazy but it makes me feel like I’m starting to loose control and I can’t stand that feeling. I don’t think I would like being drunk or getting high from any kind of drug. Even when I’ve taken pain medication, I can’t stand it.

What scared me so much on Monday was I had no control over what was happening to me. My heart was doing crazy things and I couldn’t do a thing about it. All I could do was pray.
I’m sure there is a lesson here for me to learn, I’m just not sure I want to learn it.

Its been a while since we’ve written on a regular basis. I think we’ll be getting back to that soon.

As some of you know from Karen’s mass email. Monday evening was crazy.
We dropped our kids off at VBS at my parent’s church. I started to feel “spacey,” as I walked to the kitchen area to get a drink of water, I began to feel light headed and a little dizzy. I asked for a drink of water and felt like I really needed to sit down or I was going to pass out. I sat down and drank some water and put a cold washcloth on my neck.

Over the course of the next 45 minutes or so, my heart rate would jump up to over 100 and my blood pressure would sky rocket then come back down after a few minutes. Then it would start all over again. One of the guys working at the VBS was a medic in the National Guard and had just gotten back from a 14 month stint in Iraq and Afghanistan. He kept an eye on me, then we decided I should go to the hospital. Karen was going to take me to the hospital in our van but as we were getting ready to leave, it started again. I got scared and the medic guy suggested we call an ambulance. (In hindsight, I really wish Karen had driven me herself. I am not looking forward to the bill.)

On the ride to the hospital, I had a couple more instances of high heart rate and blood pressure but by the time I got to the hospital, it was pretty much over. They took some blood and gave me an EKG. All looked normal. I was in and out of the hospital in less than an hour and we were back to the church in time to pick up the kids. I haven’t had any further problems since.
The ER doctor concluded that it might have been stress induced although I did not feel any stress at the time. But, our overall situation is stressful. Two mortgages, a foundation problem with the house we are trying to sell in Little Rock, etc.

I went to the doctor yesterday. He took some more blood for tests and ran another EKG. The EKG was normal, although he said there were a few things on it that may be indicators of something. Still haven’t heard anything back on the blood work.
The doctor said I should be on the lookout for any reoccurrences and if there are, he will get me in for some sort of hear test. It was a real long technical sounding name, can’t remember what it was but he said it maps out the “electrical circuitry” of the heart.
He said that I could have sinus tachycardia which isn’t serious or Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome which is a little more serious and could require surgery.

Anyway, all is good right now so I’m thankful for that. Now I’m just stressing over the bill for Monday’s events.

Ten years ago, while pregnant with Elizabeth, Mike and I traveled to California. My dad and Cindy were there as was my brother, sister-in-law and my nephew. The purpose of our trip was to surprise my Grandma for her 80th birthday. Boy, was she ever surprised…. We all agreed that if Grandma lived to 90 we would repeat the trip.
A lot has changed in 10 years: Grandma now lives in Nevada, my dad died, Duane has another child, I have given birth 5 times, moved 4 times…………………………….and now, thanks to a house in Little Rock that won’t sell, have no “extra” funds to make that trip.
July 4th is Independence Day…..It is also my grandma’s 90th birthday. Grandma, if you are reading this:

I MISS YOU! HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU!!!!