holidays already??

I love the holiday season! I really do! I love being with friends and family and the caring and sharing that goes on. I wish all the time could be holiday time! NO wait I do not wish that. As much as I love the holidays I do not want them all the time. The work it takes to get everything ready the time the aggravation the pain and sweating and the mix of emotions and attitudes? I wouldn't take it on a permanent basis for all the money in the world! I love the time together but the work well I could live with out that. My daughters birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year so double duty on that day. I don't really mind but I feel bad for her since it is her birthday. I feel like when she has thanksgiving on her birthday or her birthday on thanksgiving she gets cheated out of her special day. I almost wish she would have been born on time and and not taken early. It is what it is and we deal. I m really actually dreading the holidays this year. It is an end for me this year and I am not ready for that yet but that is a whole other story i don't want to get into. I just wonder how to get through with a smile on my face and have a god time knowing that my world maybe turned upside down shortly there after. I also have this horrible diet I have to follow that allows me to eat very little. No raw veggies or fruits no nuts or seeds no whole grain or while wheat, no corn at all and no broccoli or cauliflower unless it is pureed. No salads no nothing unless it is really soft. I cant even have crackers unless I soak them in something like coffee or tea or soup. I cant eat beans or peas (don't eat peas anyway) or fruit that has been cooked with the skin on it. Can not even have cheese unless it is melted in whatever I am eating. I am so tired f having to eat only the easy to digest low residue soft foods I want to scream!! I am loosing weight at a time when most are gaining it so I am happy about that except that the doctor does not want me to loose weight right now because that is a sign that I am as he said not getting enough variety of foods. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? I cant eat very many things so how am I to have a variety of them? Ugh so frustrating! Anyway what are you happy about this time of year?

ties Ties TIES!

     I love the holiday season! It gives parents like me  chance to dress our kids and wives like me a chance to polish our husbands up and take a few minutes to dress ourselves up and maybe get a photo or two or a million taken. I love having a daughter don't get me wrong but I really would love to have a son! I only say that because I love little boys clothes.I love how you can take a pair of pants a shirt a vest and a tie to make them look so spiffy. Little boys ties complete the whole look! I think that when you take a little boy and dress him up with shirt and tie that you all of  a sudden have  little man.
     I have seen school pictures and holiday pictures of little boys with and without ties. I always think that the little boys with ties make the pictures so much cuter. Little boys ties are just like icing on a cake it is good with out it but so much sweeter with it!
     Boys who wear ties when dressed up also give off a different impression. Think about the last function you were at. It could have been a wedding a christening even a funeral. Now think about the boys who were there. Can you picture the boys with out ties? What about the ones with ties on? I know that the ones who wore boys who wore ties stick out in my mind. I really like when boys have on a black shirt and a bright colorful tie. I can remember at my first wedding the boys in ties definitely made an impression. Boys ties just seem to pull the whole look together and are an accessory that should not be skipped.
     I love having a daughter but for girls it is pretty simple frills lacy dresses tights or bloomers and shoes. For boys when you add a tie to jeans and a button down shirt you can go from casual to "dressed" in a second. Boys ties just pull it all together and give you so much versatility that they can make dressing a little boy fun!

oh really? smack right upside my head

So why would I think anything in my life could be ok? I did I ever think that when people said things and made promises and vows together that I was not the only one making them? Because I am an IDIOT thats why!! Why can I not learn the lesson the first time and keep making horrible mistakes that destroy myself every time? I set myself up each time and then look around and wonder where did that come from?? You would think that I would have learned from the first time that no one means what they say anymore. I promised forever twice now and it hasnt happened. Life fuking blows and I dont want to start over again I have more luck at filing than I have ever had at reaching my goals and life would be som uch better for everyone else if I just disappeared, went away an dno one had to bother about me any more. My kid cant stand me most of the time and my husband seems to think that I am something he can just throw away or use to his benefit. Well I dont get along well with most other people and from what I have seen or heard from my "friends" lately they dont give  crap either. What is anchoring me here? Not a damn thing. I am of no real use to anyone. Maybe i should have become septic and died while in the hospital. It would have made life so much easier for every one. I hate feeeling like this and it is not how I want to keep going. I do not want to run away but I need  clean start. Unfortunately no matter where I go I can not escape myself. I cant run from the voices in my head telling me how aweful I am tht I have failed yet again not just myself but him and my daughter and my parents and everyone. I feel like a piece of garbage because I let some one in again and as always I get screwed and there is no reason just that it is. BULLSHIT!! I dont and wont believe that. I know actions speak louder than words but words hurt much more and how well the real past can be twisted and rearranged to fit their purposes. Maybe I should have stayed a little longer with the first one then I would not be here to feel this pain now. But then again the current pain can never outweight the past good!

Just an update on me!!

     Well I am still in the hospital and it is now Friday. I had the ultrasound done yesterday and it was unsuccessful. The tech tried everything to visualize the mass but it just said ha ha ha I am not going to let you see me and then it hid. Now all of a sudden my surgeon is not worried about finding out what the mass is. It went from You can not leave this hospital until we know what it is to we will just deal with it later. I do not know why this bothers me so much. I mean I want to go home right? I certainly do NOT want to stay here so why am I so worried about going home with out knowing? My infectious disease doctor came to see me later on last night. She wants me here until we know for sure what the mass is. My mom feels the same way. The infectious disease doctor (ID) asked me My opinion on the subject. I said well if I need to be here I need to be here. My fear is that if I go home too soon that there could be either rupture of the abscess or of the mass. This could be a very serious situation. I am a little scared to be honest. This is probably the most serious medical condition I have ever had. I have been doing some research while stuck here in the hospital and the things I have found out! Some have calmed me down and then the other side has really freaked me out! Back to the mass. I am worried because I have always has "problems" with my period. The only time in my life that it was regular was for the 3 months before I conceived my daughter. I went to multiple doctors to try to get it corrected. Two doctors told me I had PCOS  and then I had an ultrasound done and found that I do not have polycyctic ovaries. You  CAN NOT HAVE POLY CYSTIC OVARIAN SYNDROME WITH OUT HAVING POLY CYSTIC OVARIES!!  Common sense right? so the one doctor turned to me and said well it is the only thing that fits. Uhm no it isn't. I had been seeing a reproductive endocrinologist and she felt I had Cushing Disease or Cushings Syndrome. Well no one ever went and tried to find the tumors that would be secreting cortisol into my body so that went to hell. anyway I did have a point. Ah yes my point was that I have never had a normal reproductive history. The surgeon knows this and still says worry about it later grrr now to top it all off my normal pulse rate of apex 110 just dropped to 50???? OK I am not light headed, nauseous or anything like that. My BP was 121/60 that's great but uhm to have the pulse rate drop in half on the day i was supposed to be discharged?? WOW! Just one more this to stress about I guess. well this is where I stand right now NOWHERE CLOSER to an answer than I was a week ago!! frustrating yes nerve wracking yes worth getting this upset about probably not. I will have to have a the bowel resection done in a few months that is all I know but I am really tired all of a sudden and i am going to lie down for a bit.

Can I ever catch a break?!?!

I had very good intentions of keeping up with my blog. Just like all things lately in my life that fell apart too.No No No not like that. Things are still OK with Mike and my daughter is doing alright for now. She had a traumatic experience about 3 weeks ago and she is actually dealing much better than I had expected or could have even hoped she would! She is a great kid and a trooper as well. I firmly believe that child could do anything that she wanted to as long as she tries! Been taking care of Dave's arm and he is healing very nicely. I try to do range of motion with him daily and if he cant handle that then every other day. I do some resistance work with him and he doesn't even realize it. i guess that is good that he doesn't realize how hard he is working but he does see some of the benefits of his work. He can curl his arm some. Like if you hold your arm out in front of you and bring your hand towards your shoulder. I try to get him to work on touching each finger to his thumb but he gets very frustrated with his current lack of ability to accomplish this. I will have to make him work harder. And that right there leads me up to where I am now. In the hospital. Apparently I have diverticulitis. This is a disorder that causes little balloon like pockets in the lower bowel. These pockets can become inflamed and rupture causing a perforated bowel and spilling the contents of the lower intestines into the abdominal cavity. SO as nasty and gross as that sounds it is true. the bowel opened up and allowed fecal matter into my abdominal cavity. My body did exactly what it was supposed to and tried to fight the invading "crap". My body formed a wall and completely encapsulated the little invaders. Only problem there was that my body was not quite strong enough to  kill of the matter it encapsulated so it formed an abscess. a 6 centimeter abscess and massive amounts of pain to go along with it. I am not talking about little pain that seems huge it was huge all encompassing drop me to my knees tears running down my face type pain. So Mike made me come to the ER. I figured worse case scenario it was a sever bladder infection and they would give me some antibiotics and then be done. NOOOO not me I am actually OK though. I mean yes I have a lot and I do mean  a lot of pain and this condition can be very very serious I am  not that bad off. I could have become septic and been much worse off. The  surgeon is doing everything in his power to avoid sending me home with a colostomy bag. So they did a second ct scan of the abdomen and they found a large mass behind the one of my ovaries. It could be nothing but some fluid or it could be a tumor.. Point is that the surgeon wants an ultrasound of that area by the ovary and another area near where the perforation was because there is still some air and fluid and some other debris from the perforation.OK so that isn't so bad except that I can not tolerate any pressure on my abdomen at all right now so I am not able to have the ultrasound yet. Until he knows what that mass is I am still not allowed to have anything to eat or drink until the mass is identified and he decides how to proceed with it. I am frustrated because I have so many things and people depending on me all the time and I feel like because I am here and not at home that I am in someway letting them down. I know that this is irrational but it is how I feel all the same.  Since it will still be a bit before I get out of here and get back to healing up . Just wish me luck and a speedy recovery!!

Procrastinating

well it is Sunday morning no one else is awake yet so I should be working on my homework not sitting here typing a blog entry. Today my final exam for algebra is due and I am nervous about it. I do not do too well on my tests in that class. I know the information and get the concepts but making it work on the test still eludes me! My final paper for my Ethics in Human Service Management is due today as well and I am still only about halfway done! I should be farther through my paper by now but since i was sick as anything this past week and my dang bladder decided to give me problems on top of being sick I did not get much done. This stupid cold is still hanging on too the coughing kills my head and caused a migraine the other day. With Dave regaining more and more feeling in the form of pain everyday I don't have time to stop for a headache. He is not that hard to take care of but add in a 12 year old and two dogs and a husband and school and still wanting to find a job of some sort (thinking the job will have to wait a while humph) and all the doctors appointments for all three and meds and then I am thinking about the appointment Mike has tomorrow and even though it is not anything major it is still stressing me out...not to mention cooking cleaning and trying to do all the other things that a stay at home mom (by choice or not) does and I wonder how my mom ever got anything done at all!! she didn't just have herself husband and two kids either she also had my grandmother great grandfather(for a while) aunt and uncle  and the menagerie of animals that always seemed to be around when we were growing up in my grandmothers house. She also ran my girl scout troop when my aunt no longer did, took us to 7 days of dance classes back and forth to softball, birthday parties, friends houses, gymnastics for my sister (over an hour away) and still managed to work and go to school and earn a degree.  As read over my words it sounds as if she was responsible for ll those people and that was not the case. However when you live in the same home as other people there are always more things to do, more food to cook, more dishes to wash, requests and demands on your time. I know this is true because for our almost 8 year relationship Mike and I have never really had time alone. Seems like we have always had some one living with us (well except for a 3 month stint in Florida and about the same in PA and a short period in NJ) and even when the people are living out of your home but very close (next door, across a courtyard, a few blocks away) there are still demands made on your time and sense of obligation to your family. Some people have the ability to turn away from those who are in need and well some of us don't. Some of us try to help to a fault and the expense of ourselves. I have no idea where this tangent came from maybe it is one of those days where reflection and introspection comes easily and allows me to appreciate all the things I had taken for granted or maybe it is the idea of pulling my daughter out of school and placing her in a military school or boot camp school or seeing Dave in so much pain or listening to my husband apologize to him for the millionth time or maybe there is some self pity going on here  but whatever it is I have successfully procrastinated  for a bit and now I must go work on these two assignments so that I can get my A and B in these classes (only my second B since starting back to school and first one since my first class) so that I can start my new classes tomorrow.... Wish me luck!!

oh boy what a couple of weeks!!

Well so much for trying to keep up with my blog the past couple of weeks!! Shortly after my last post my husband and brother in law were involved in a motor vehicle accident. The new Jimmy we just got was totaled not by the accident but by the roof having to be cut off to extract my brother in law. He sustained serious injury to his right arm and it was touch and go there for  while as to whether the arm would be saved. Right now it is good but that does not mean he can't still loose the arm. I was told after 7 hours of surgery that he should have no sensations for 12-18 months and that we should not expect any voluntary controlled movements for 6-9 months. Well once he was moved to CCU and we were finally able to see him for the first time since the accident I notified his fingers twitching. Since the doctors had told me not to expect much of the arm I wrote it off as involuntary muscle movements. Later that day when we went back to see him I watched him move his fingers (middle ring and pinkie) I was like what did you just do he said what this and did it again...I was shocked and the staff (nurses and doctors) have encouraged him to move his fingers as much as possible. Just before his discharge on Sept 20 (13 days after the accident) his doctor asked him to try to move his wrist and he was not able to, however later that night here at home when I was rewrapping his ace bandages that had come loose he tried to move the wrist again and was successful! He has had random stabbing pain in his arm from finger tips to injury site. This we have been told is the nerves trying to reconnect and even though it is pain it is a positive occurrence. Right now the most important thing to us is that he heals as well as possible and that he can eventually lead as normal a life as possible. Last prognosis was a return of up to 30% of is usage. the doctor says he may still need a skin graft but that remains to be seen depending on how the skin heals.It remains to be seen if that will be the way it is or not. He has set a long term goal for himself to bowl again with that arm. The vascular surgeon has said it is a good goal however the reconstructive plastic surgeon has said it is a good goal but he does not see it happening. I have told him to not let anyone tell him his goals are unrealistic. Right now it is crazy to think about bowling anytime soon but one day move his wrist the next maybe more thumb movement after that who knows what some one who is determined to do something can do? there have been cases of people with broken necks and spinal cord injuries told they would never walk again being seen running a marathon. I know these are isolated cases however it goes to show the power of being positive. do you think that if these people were negative about their situations and recovery they would have ever had the strength to try to do the things they were told they could not or never would? As soon as I heard of the accident and knew that a major injury had occurred I sent out a prayer request. This single prayer request grew and grew. I am not the most religious person but I believe that prayer is powerful and that God will answer prayers that are selfless. People who do not know my brother in law sent prayers for his well being and recovery. I believe God has heard these prayers and is helping him to recover. I know that God has a plan. What that plan is may not be so clear right now but there will be something good to come of this accident and injury. all I ask is that everyone who is OK with it says a prayer that he will recover and that he stays positive about that recovery and the last part should be that his pain stays bearable. I know we all have a long road of recovery ahead of us. My husband has the guilt that he feels as he was driving and his brother was injured. My brother in law well you got that already and for me to stay strong and to push him when needed and to try hard not to be too mean about it. I know that I will have to be the one to make him do the things he does not want to, that I will at times be felt as his worst enemy/nightmare. I know that he will be mad and angry and I need to stay strong enough to deal with that and also to be there for my husband when the guilt gets to be too much. Thank you for reading and I will update when I have something more about them and this accident.
     I will also try to write more frequently. Update on my school before I go: I am still doing well. I have an A in my ethics in human services class and have dropped to a B in my algebra class over the last two weeks. I am less than a half a point from my A and hoping I can achieve that A! I am holding up for now and made it through the first dressing change of my brother in laws arm. I prepared for the worst and it was not as bad as I thought it would be!