The third deployment. The one we all dread..... 15 months! We had gotten to Fort Hood in July 2006. By the time this deployment rolled around it was the end of 2007.
A few major things bombarded me during this deployment and it was the hardest by far. Thank God for my friends I had to help me get through.
The first thing I didn't like about this deployment was that he left in December, before Christmas, and was going to miss the following Christmas too. Then we found out when he was getting his R&R! Boy was I mad!! His R&R was scheduled for 2 months after he left, which meant he would come home in Feb. 2008 and than it would a whole year before I saw him again.
During his R&R, his mother came down to visit for a week. While she was there, we took off to Austin for the weekend and some great.....alone time.... =) (dirty birds!!) LOL.
Now, for some time my mother had been battling cancer and we knew she didn't have long. This is another thing I didn't like about this deployment. Two days after Darrell left to go back from R&R my mother passed away. My husband had a Red Cross message waiting for him when he got back. Even though he just had R&R, they turned around and sent him right back home so I could fly to Jersey to be with my family. (I'm not sure if this is usually allowed, but my husband wouldn't take "no" for an answer and his command was decent.)
After he went back again I began feeling really sick. I couldn't concentrate on my school work, I had no energy to cook, clean, or barely take care of the kids. I was putting on weight and was very angry all the time. Yelling at every little thing the kids did. My hair was falling out and I was so sensitive to the cold that I was wearing long sleeves in the summer....in Texas.
My neighbor, Heather L. (I love this woman to death!!), convinced me to go to a doctor because we were both thinking it was stress and I was depressed. Of course I had all the symptoms of depression so my therapist sent me to my doctor to get on Prozac. He took one look at me and told me he was doing blood work. A few days later I got a call to get to the doctor ASAP.
It turns out I wasn't depressed, my thyroid had completely died on me. I was sleeping the days away because my body was shutting down on me. I had no clue that your thyroid was that important. My doctor told me he was surprised I hadn't gone into a coma because of how high my TSH levels were. Every thing that was wrong with me was explained by this. So, for the rest of my life I now have to take medicine for hypothyroidism.
This disease had caused a lot of problems too since I wasn't diagnosed until after my husband came home from his deployment. When he came home, it was horrible. He thought I was just being lazy and didn't want to keep the house clean or do the things I had normally done. We got back on track after my diagnosis though.
So, during this 15 month deployment, my mother passed away, I almost died and my marriage almost didn't survive. I would definitely say that I went through hell. And now, being on our 4th deployment, this one is as easy as pie. =)
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