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It was a slow, painful process, but John and I managed to patch things up, once again keeping the phone company in business. He eventually got orders out of California, and we all reunited in Texas. Two days after we arrived in San Antonio, a federal investigator tracked me down to subpoena me for that court case of my former neighbor. I had to fly back to L.A. and spend yet another week in that sewer to give all of 10 minutes of testimony in the trial.
San Antonio was quite the experience, although I didn't come to hate the town like I did L.A. I found it charming and quite beautiful, although it was HOT! We were only supposed to be there for six months, but it turned into three years for reasons best left unlisted (you don't want to read another five pages of this story, do you?!) In January 1997, I had a new problem rear its ugly head. I was sidelined with a nasty case of TMJ a disorder/disease/syndrome (whatever you want to call it) of the jaw joint. I could only open my mouth a few millimeters and could not chew without blinding pain. With such limited mobility of my mouth, I even had to learn how to yawn all over again...just try yawning without opening your mouth and you'll see what I mean. I underwent two horrendous surgeries to correct the problem and spent countless hours in the oral surgery department of the Army hospital in hopes of living a pain-free life someday. | |
| Anyway, we were finally given a set of orders to Naples, Italy. Now that was quite a trip. We spent almost two of the three years his orders were good for in Naples and it changed our lives in many ways. Our second daughter, Shona was born. For the next few months, things got stranger and stranger with John not feeling well. On my 30th birthday, I put him on a plane bound for the states for a battery of tests. They concluded he has lupus and that we could no longer be stationed overseas. We were packed out and John was sent on a medical flight out (which wound up stuck in Germany for several days), while I flew back with the kids and met up with him a week or so later. Our time in Maryland was strained, waiting and wondering what was going on with his health and career. Our belongings arrived months after we did, and living out of suitcases with a baby and youngster grew very tiresome. Katy changed schools three times in one year until, finally, enough was enough. We knew John's days in the military were numbered, and so we decided the best thing to do was settle us in to wait for his permanent departure from the Navy. In August 2001, we bought a house in Missouri and I took the kids there to wait on their dad. He arrived nearly a year later and we've been here ever since. John's back in school, studying to be a teacher and I work for the state. Maybe someday I will make it back to the white sandy beaches of Pensacola. Thanks for suffering through my life story. I'm not sure why you did, unless you're a glutton for punishment...or it's comforting to see that bad things happen to other people, too. *grin* |
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