I hate lab days! We went to take Darein last Thursday afternoon to repeat one of her labs for her congenital adrenal hyperplasia as well as to repeat a couple of other hormone levels. This was supposed to just be a routine arterial stick and be done, no problems. As we were driving there Darein wanted to make sure that she was going to get her blood drawn through her artery instead of a regular vein since they would give her some numbing medicine while they drew the blood. I told her that I was sure they would but thought maybe she should try a regular blood draw instead. She agreed though she wasn't very happy with it. When we arrived at the hospital the nurse, Tina asked how Darein wanted to have her blood drawn. I told her that she wanted it done arterially but wasn't sure if this was a good idea. Tina thought it was an excellent idea since she had been stuck so many times before. She ordered the labs and we were thankful that only 3 ml's were needed. While we were waiting on the respiratory therapist to get there to do the stick I asked Tina if they had lots of kids that they saw that were tough sticks. She said yes and that most of them came from Darein's endocrinologist in Columbia but stated that even as tough as many of the kids are, Darein is one of the toughest. The therapist finally came up to draw Darein's blood and gave her a shot of the numbing medicine in her artery. She did great. However, when he went to stick her for the blood he had quite a bit of difficulty. He moved the needle around all over in her arm. Darein couldn't feel a thing but my stomach kept getting more and more nauseous from watching. He finally got the blood but the artery quit giving after 1 ml. He finally took it out and I had to turn to Shane at that time who was sitting in the chair beside Darein's bed and ask him to take over. I left the room and headed down the hall to the restroom. I had managed to break out in a sweat, felt nauseous and thought I was going to pass out. This is the first time in 14 years I have ever come close to passing out. I was so mad at the therapist for digging in her arm so much even though she was in no pain from it at all. I have seen so many phlebotomists dig around in her arm and we only let them do it so much before we tell them to stop as it causes her so much pain. After using the restroom and getting a drink of water I finally calmed down enough to enter the room again. When I got back to the room, they were done. Shane said that when the therapist went back into her artery he dug a little more but then finally got the artery and it gave a little extra blood. The therapist said to make sure that next time she has to have blood drawn that I tell the therapist that it is very deep in Darein's arm.
I worry about the fact that she is only 14 years old and still has many more surgeries and blood draws to endure and the fact that her veins and now possibly her arteries are starting to close up and be harder and harder to get any blood from. She is scheduled on Friday February 5th to see her kidney surgeon and she will have to have pre-op labs drawn I am sure prior to surgery and then an IV placed during surgery. I talked to my sister-in-law who is a respiratory therapist and she told me not to worry that they will be able to get blood from her if they need to. She has offered to do Darein's labs if we would like her to as she is pretty good at it. It is reassuring to know that we have someone in the family to talk to about this and that can help us through these questions.
Darein's arm was not bruised the next day and she laughed at me for almost passing out saying, "mom, if anyone should have been upset it should have been me and I wasn't so you shouldn't". I love this kid :) LOL
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Endocrinology Update
I spoke with Darein's endocrinologist today and most of her labs came back normal. Her congenital adrenal hyperplasia is stable and no need to increase her cortisol at this time. However, a progesterone was done instead of a progesterone-17. We need to repeat this next week. I am not sure exactly what this lab shows but I know that it is a routine lab in regards to her adrenal hyperplasia. Her physician also wants a couple of other labs repeated as well and I was not told what these were but nothing of concern. Her bone age was 12 which tells us that she still has a little bit of growth going on which means her puberty issues are of no concern. She is 14 so her bones still have a couple of years of growth. Girls usually stop growing around the age of 14 or 15 so when her bone age reaches 14 or 15 then that will tell us that she is as tall as she will get. This will also be helpful when they are trying to determine when to perform her jaw surgery as timing of the bones is very important. If you perform surgery too soon then there is a chance of having to redo the surgery. We did find that she is Vitamin D deficient again so she will get a power dose of Vitamin D which includes about 3 capsules and then will reduce to 2 then to 1 a week for 6 weeks. I was hoping since she was doing so well we would not encounter this situation this winter especially since her chronic regional pain syndrome is in remission and she is back at school. This however does not appear to be the case. She will get her replacement of Vitamin D over the next several weeks and then hopefully with spring coming up she will get enough sunshine to help. She is currently on a multivitamin once a day but evidently this is not enough to help with this situation. She is having a few headaches recently but nothing too bad so hopefully the Vitamin D will help keep them from getting worse. We also have to discontinue her Senokot which is a laxative to keep her regular as her GI physician wants her to maintain a daily dose of Miralax now. This could take some adjustment before we get it right but hopefully she will have no problems as we work on keeping her maintained regularly. She did receive her 2nd Gardasil vaccination today and did well with.
Overall, I am very happy with her progress right now as she is losing weight and she states that she is having more energy. She is getting regular PE as well as adaptive PE at school. She states that she is running every day in PE which we are absolutely thrilled that she has been able to maintain that this past week. Her ankle started hurting yesterday and she was limping this morning but she said by 2nd hour she no longer hurt and was able to walk with no problems and then was able to run in PE during 4th hour.
She is such a different person than she was a year ago. We are so very pleased with her progress. Her depression is gone, she is loving school and misses it when she is not there and is making more friends than ever. She is learning to push through things in order to keep up with the other kids and I can not say enough how proud we are of her.
Overall, I am very happy with her progress right now as she is losing weight and she states that she is having more energy. She is getting regular PE as well as adaptive PE at school. She states that she is running every day in PE which we are absolutely thrilled that she has been able to maintain that this past week. Her ankle started hurting yesterday and she was limping this morning but she said by 2nd hour she no longer hurt and was able to walk with no problems and then was able to run in PE during 4th hour.
She is such a different person than she was a year ago. We are so very pleased with her progress. Her depression is gone, she is loving school and misses it when she is not there and is making more friends than ever. She is learning to push through things in order to keep up with the other kids and I can not say enough how proud we are of her.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Off To A Good Start In 2010
Well, so far we are off to a good start this year. The kids have finally went back to school today after being out for about 3 weeks. They were ready as much as mom was ready. I went to see my general surgeon last week and found out that my gallbladder is only working 2.5%. The only problems that I am having at this time however are that I can't eat bacon and eggs as that seems to be the only foods bothering me right now. Since I am not having more problems right now the doctor tells me that I can wait until things get worse before having surgery. Since we are getting Darein ready to have her kidney surgery I have opted to go ahead and wait until this spring or summer when life isn't so busy.
Darein went to see her gastroenterologist last week and I am happy to say that her cleansing this weekend went without a hitch. She is not backed up and all looks well from that perspective. I on the other hand had some issues but am feeling much better today :)
My kids have gone through some major personality changes over the holidays, for the better. Damein actually started playing games with me and Darein and hanging out with the family a little bit. It has been really nice having him back, I feel like I have a whole new child! He has lost his attitude and started enjoying his family again. I'm not sure how long this will last seeing as he is a teenager and all but am enjoying it for now. Darein actually came in yesterday and told me that her bathroom was a mess and then proceeded to clean it without being told. In fact, I even told her that I would get to it today but she just went ahead and got it cleaned. I was so proud of her. She is growing up :)
Shane has only been working about 4 days a week as he has had a few Mondays off due to the holidays and has called in a couple of Mondays so that me and Darein could go to our appointments. He doesn't like me driving in the snow and since we got a total of about 5 inches or so, he figured he would rather take us than have to worry about it. It has been nice but now he is back to the grind as well this week. He is expecting to get busy for the next couple of weeks and planning on taking full advantage of it since things will slow down until he starts his new bid in March. He also has his physical in March that he will need to pass and so he is starting to work on his health a little and trying to take a little better care of himself. He has diabetes and he chooses not to take medication for this so he has to keep his blood sugars under control and his blood pressure under control in order to pass his yearly physical so that he can keep driving his truck for AG. He actually does remarkably well with this and I am hoping that he will start working out with me soon as well.
We only have 2 more weeks of January left and time is flying by. I love the holidays but I love my routine too and am anxious to return to the grind as well. Last week was my first full week of working out and I managed to lose 6 lbs. already. I am very excited that I had such a great first week. I am ahead of schedule and watching my calories like crazy. It is turning out to be a little easier than I expected. I just have to really work at the workout part, that is where I really struggle.
Well, this is a pretty boring blog today as I don't really have much to say but thought I would add a little update. I hope everyone else's new year is off to a great start as well!
Darein went to see her gastroenterologist last week and I am happy to say that her cleansing this weekend went without a hitch. She is not backed up and all looks well from that perspective. I on the other hand had some issues but am feeling much better today :)
My kids have gone through some major personality changes over the holidays, for the better. Damein actually started playing games with me and Darein and hanging out with the family a little bit. It has been really nice having him back, I feel like I have a whole new child! He has lost his attitude and started enjoying his family again. I'm not sure how long this will last seeing as he is a teenager and all but am enjoying it for now. Darein actually came in yesterday and told me that her bathroom was a mess and then proceeded to clean it without being told. In fact, I even told her that I would get to it today but she just went ahead and got it cleaned. I was so proud of her. She is growing up :)
Shane has only been working about 4 days a week as he has had a few Mondays off due to the holidays and has called in a couple of Mondays so that me and Darein could go to our appointments. He doesn't like me driving in the snow and since we got a total of about 5 inches or so, he figured he would rather take us than have to worry about it. It has been nice but now he is back to the grind as well this week. He is expecting to get busy for the next couple of weeks and planning on taking full advantage of it since things will slow down until he starts his new bid in March. He also has his physical in March that he will need to pass and so he is starting to work on his health a little and trying to take a little better care of himself. He has diabetes and he chooses not to take medication for this so he has to keep his blood sugars under control and his blood pressure under control in order to pass his yearly physical so that he can keep driving his truck for AG. He actually does remarkably well with this and I am hoping that he will start working out with me soon as well.
We only have 2 more weeks of January left and time is flying by. I love the holidays but I love my routine too and am anxious to return to the grind as well. Last week was my first full week of working out and I managed to lose 6 lbs. already. I am very excited that I had such a great first week. I am ahead of schedule and watching my calories like crazy. It is turning out to be a little easier than I expected. I just have to really work at the workout part, that is where I really struggle.
Well, this is a pretty boring blog today as I don't really have much to say but thought I would add a little update. I hope everyone else's new year is off to a great start as well!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
A Brand New Year
Well, it is a brand new year and already it has been full of adventures and trials. My family ended 2009 with a bang! Shane got a stomach bug about a week before the new year. It only lasted about 24 hours. About the time he was getting better me and Darein both came down with it at the same time. We were a little more sick than Shane but he was great at taking care of us. He got us Sprite and chicken noodle soup and came to check on us constantly. Damein stayed in his room from the time Shane got sick up until the last day when me and Darein were finally starting to recover in hopes that he wouldn't get it. Unfortunately, he came down with it the night that we had recovered. As you can imagine this put a damper in everyone's New Year's Eve plans. The kids had an annual event scheduled at their youth leader's house that they were unable to attend and me and Shane usually hang out with another couple on New Year's Eve and we had to cancel those plans as well. We made the most of it and only the kids though ended up staying up until midnight.
Because I got sick I had to cancel my appointment with my surgeon for my gallbladder which has postponed everything. They were unable to get me in until January 7th. However, thankfully I have not had any attacks and have been watching what I eat to help keep things that way. My appointment is tomorrow so hopefully they will be able to get surgery scheduled fairly quickly. We did go to meet Darein's new GI doctor earlier this week and we absolutely love him. I forgot to take Darein's new patient paperwork but thankfully we arrived for the appointment early and I thought enough to ask the receptionist for the paperwork so that I could get this filled out while waiting. I was able to get all of this completed. Darein has not been having any stomach problems since about 3 weeks before Christmas break and I couldn't figure out what had changed so drastically to cause her no more problems. However, when I was filling out the paperwork they asked about pets and allergies, etc and I got to thinking that we got rid of Trixie about 2 weeks before Christmas. Makes me wonder if since she is allergic to cats and dogs if it was affecting her stomach by breathing in the dander from the animals. So now I felt like a real idiot for keeping this GI appointment since she was having no problems. We went back and the nurse asked her questions and then the doctor came in. He asked why we were there to see him and I explained what kind of problems she had had and that these seemed to have resolved now but that I was wondering if it might have something to do with her allergies from the dogs. He didn't address the issue but continued to look over the information that I filled out and asked a few questions. There were some concerns that she might be leaking a little bit with her bowels and he wanted to make sure that that valve was working properly. If it isn't, it isn't a huge deal and is fixable but definitely something we need to check out and address if necessary. I explained to him that she was scheduled to see a urology surgeon in Kansas City, where he is from on February 5th and he assured us that we would like that physician very much. He instructed us to clean her system out with Miralax over the weekend when she has nowhere to go. She will get 10 capfuls of Miralax over the course of the weekend. If there is excessive bowels then we know that there might be a problem. If it is a normal amount then she is cleaned out and no problems. He assured us that this is totally safe and is similar to what they have patients do prior to a colonoscopy. Since I have been working out and watching what I eat as part of my New Year's resolution I am going to go through this with Darein so that I know what to expect and so that she doesn't have to do this by herself. She isn't concerned about it but I think it is good to be able to empathize with what your children are going through anytime that you can to help give yourself some perspective on what your child is going through. He also is going to talk to her urology surgeon and see if he can schedule to do a scope to look at her stomach at the same time as her kidney surgery. He says that this will allow him to tell if she has gastritis, gastric ulcers or other complications from her gastroesophageal reflux disease. I have to call and let him know how the weekend went and the results of Darein's cleansing and then call him back again after we meet with Darein's surgeon and then we will proceed accordingly. It was very nice to not feel like a total idiot when I walked in and said that she was no longer having any stomach problems. He really seems like he wants to get to the bottom of what is going on with her stomach even though it isn't a constant in her life. Since so little is known about her Antley-Bixler syndrome and all of the complications that it can cause and what if anything it is causing for her it is important to me that we have physician's that are in tune with making absolutely sure that her anatomy is the way that it should be and is functioning the way that is should be. If everything checks out well with all of the above then he will at least help us with her gastroesophageal reflux disease and help us answer questions in regards to making sure that we know what to look for if she starts having problems with her esophagus or the lining of her stomach from this problem.
As the kids were scheduled to go back to school this past Tuesday we received about 4 inches of snow which prevented them from starting back. Me and Shane dug Darein's 4-wheeler out and got it started and played in the snow with her on Tuesday. Darein wimped out on us early and said the bottom part of her face was cold. I offered to get her a scarf to wrap up in but she refused so me and Shane finished riding. Unfortunately, just as we were getting ready to put it up the chain broke. Shane finally found someone to work on it that is reasonable and honest and will be taking it over there today. The hope was to get it fixed before the next snow fall today and tomorrow so that we could purchase a sled and pull behind it and have all kinds of fun as we are supposed to get another 2-4 inches of snow. However, even though it may be fixed and even though we may purchase a sled it looks like it is going to be way too cold to actually play out in it. They are calling for windchills of 10-20 below zero tomorrow so I think we will stay in and drink hot cocoa instead. The kids have been out of school an extra week now and they are growing bored and mom is ready for them to head back to school now so that I can get into some sort of a routine.
All in all the new year has started off well and expectations are high for this year. Shane has his 20 year class reunion in June and I have a new year's resolution as most to lose weight. I have downloaded a calorie counting app on my Iphone and am watching what I eat and have purchased the Wii Fit Plus and Jillian Michael's Wii workout game as well. I purchased some 3 lb. dumbbells and a thick yoga mat so I think that I have all of the supplies I need and Shane is being supportive so I have a good support system at home as well. My goal is to lose 53 lbs. in 6 months. This is a very realistic goal and I am confident I will make sure that it happens. When I was working I kind of let myself go and didn't have a lot of time to focus on me. I was busy working for our family and taking care of my kid's needs in my spare time and somewhere along the way I lost me. I have learned since I have been home this past year that I have to take care of myself in order to take the best care of my children. I have managed to make all of my routine doctor visits last year, am continuing to keep those appointments this next year, am working on my weight and will even take some time to do a little tanning. I am starting to adjust to being home and had forgotten how much easier it is to manage my family, home and myself when that is all I have to worry about. Taking 8 hours or more out of your day to work really causes a person to have to limit what they can and cannot do for themselves and their family. It is kind of nice to have Shane work and provide for us while I am able to take care of everything and everyone else. He is still great to cook and grocery shop as he is very good at both of these things and I hate both of these things. I do grocery shop with him now but he is much more thrifty and gets more for his money. I have taken back over the household chores and even taken over the bills. It has been a little rough getting everything together and getting in the flow of things but things are starting to take shape and I am able to sit back and enjoy life a little more. I am still having those occasions where I ask Shane if I need to try to go back to work but he is doing well financially at work and we are able to maintain our lifestyle so he continues to tell me to sit back and enjoy it and he will let me know if our situation changes and I have to find a job. So in the meantime, I am doing just that and taking advantage of whatever time I have to be off of work to get my house in order, take care of my daughter, get my son ready for college and take care of myself. I feel so very blessed to have the support from my husband that I do as it just makes it so easy to concentrate on what is important. I still think often of what I want to do once my daughter is 18 as she only has 4 more years before she reaches that age. It is very scary to think about as I have no degree, no idea of what I would want to study if I did decide to go back to school, no idea of what I would want to do as far as a career or anything else. I guess, I will just continue to think about it, continue to throw ideas around in my head, maybe even try a few things here and there as the opportunity presents itself. I don't know what the future holds, Darein could still be living at home after the age of 18 and/or still need quite a bit of constant care and my life's work from now on may be to devote to caring for her and that is something that I am able to accept I think, even now. We decided when we had to face the decision of whether to abort her or not that she would be our lifelong commitment no matter what and that it was okay if we had to care for her for the rest of OUR lives and that decision is unwaived. We love her and all that she is and all that she hopes to be and will do everything we can to help her have the best life she can have and help her accomplish all of her dreams at all costs. As far as me and Shane are concerned that is just part of being a parent.
Well, I haven't written in awhile and sorry that this blog today is a little sappy but thought it was important to write about my short and long term goals as it is the start of the New Year and felt that this was an important part of maintaining some sort of commitment to my goals as they say it is important to write your goals down so that you can look back on them. I also figured it would help me put things in perspective and gives me a good overall bigger picture of my life and where my dedications lie. If you haven't already done this, I would highly suggest it. They teach us to do this in school but I think as we get busy with our lives sometimes we forget how important it can be to take some time out to list our short term and long term goals. After all, without goals what are we here for? I know I don't want to look back and say that all my life consisted of was getting up and going to work and doing a few fun things here and there. Life is short and should be fun but there should be some sort of purpose in everyone's life and in short, my purpose is raising my children to have the best lives they can hope for. :)
Because I got sick I had to cancel my appointment with my surgeon for my gallbladder which has postponed everything. They were unable to get me in until January 7th. However, thankfully I have not had any attacks and have been watching what I eat to help keep things that way. My appointment is tomorrow so hopefully they will be able to get surgery scheduled fairly quickly. We did go to meet Darein's new GI doctor earlier this week and we absolutely love him. I forgot to take Darein's new patient paperwork but thankfully we arrived for the appointment early and I thought enough to ask the receptionist for the paperwork so that I could get this filled out while waiting. I was able to get all of this completed. Darein has not been having any stomach problems since about 3 weeks before Christmas break and I couldn't figure out what had changed so drastically to cause her no more problems. However, when I was filling out the paperwork they asked about pets and allergies, etc and I got to thinking that we got rid of Trixie about 2 weeks before Christmas. Makes me wonder if since she is allergic to cats and dogs if it was affecting her stomach by breathing in the dander from the animals. So now I felt like a real idiot for keeping this GI appointment since she was having no problems. We went back and the nurse asked her questions and then the doctor came in. He asked why we were there to see him and I explained what kind of problems she had had and that these seemed to have resolved now but that I was wondering if it might have something to do with her allergies from the dogs. He didn't address the issue but continued to look over the information that I filled out and asked a few questions. There were some concerns that she might be leaking a little bit with her bowels and he wanted to make sure that that valve was working properly. If it isn't, it isn't a huge deal and is fixable but definitely something we need to check out and address if necessary. I explained to him that she was scheduled to see a urology surgeon in Kansas City, where he is from on February 5th and he assured us that we would like that physician very much. He instructed us to clean her system out with Miralax over the weekend when she has nowhere to go. She will get 10 capfuls of Miralax over the course of the weekend. If there is excessive bowels then we know that there might be a problem. If it is a normal amount then she is cleaned out and no problems. He assured us that this is totally safe and is similar to what they have patients do prior to a colonoscopy. Since I have been working out and watching what I eat as part of my New Year's resolution I am going to go through this with Darein so that I know what to expect and so that she doesn't have to do this by herself. She isn't concerned about it but I think it is good to be able to empathize with what your children are going through anytime that you can to help give yourself some perspective on what your child is going through. He also is going to talk to her urology surgeon and see if he can schedule to do a scope to look at her stomach at the same time as her kidney surgery. He says that this will allow him to tell if she has gastritis, gastric ulcers or other complications from her gastroesophageal reflux disease. I have to call and let him know how the weekend went and the results of Darein's cleansing and then call him back again after we meet with Darein's surgeon and then we will proceed accordingly. It was very nice to not feel like a total idiot when I walked in and said that she was no longer having any stomach problems. He really seems like he wants to get to the bottom of what is going on with her stomach even though it isn't a constant in her life. Since so little is known about her Antley-Bixler syndrome and all of the complications that it can cause and what if anything it is causing for her it is important to me that we have physician's that are in tune with making absolutely sure that her anatomy is the way that it should be and is functioning the way that is should be. If everything checks out well with all of the above then he will at least help us with her gastroesophageal reflux disease and help us answer questions in regards to making sure that we know what to look for if she starts having problems with her esophagus or the lining of her stomach from this problem.
As the kids were scheduled to go back to school this past Tuesday we received about 4 inches of snow which prevented them from starting back. Me and Shane dug Darein's 4-wheeler out and got it started and played in the snow with her on Tuesday. Darein wimped out on us early and said the bottom part of her face was cold. I offered to get her a scarf to wrap up in but she refused so me and Shane finished riding. Unfortunately, just as we were getting ready to put it up the chain broke. Shane finally found someone to work on it that is reasonable and honest and will be taking it over there today. The hope was to get it fixed before the next snow fall today and tomorrow so that we could purchase a sled and pull behind it and have all kinds of fun as we are supposed to get another 2-4 inches of snow. However, even though it may be fixed and even though we may purchase a sled it looks like it is going to be way too cold to actually play out in it. They are calling for windchills of 10-20 below zero tomorrow so I think we will stay in and drink hot cocoa instead. The kids have been out of school an extra week now and they are growing bored and mom is ready for them to head back to school now so that I can get into some sort of a routine.
All in all the new year has started off well and expectations are high for this year. Shane has his 20 year class reunion in June and I have a new year's resolution as most to lose weight. I have downloaded a calorie counting app on my Iphone and am watching what I eat and have purchased the Wii Fit Plus and Jillian Michael's Wii workout game as well. I purchased some 3 lb. dumbbells and a thick yoga mat so I think that I have all of the supplies I need and Shane is being supportive so I have a good support system at home as well. My goal is to lose 53 lbs. in 6 months. This is a very realistic goal and I am confident I will make sure that it happens. When I was working I kind of let myself go and didn't have a lot of time to focus on me. I was busy working for our family and taking care of my kid's needs in my spare time and somewhere along the way I lost me. I have learned since I have been home this past year that I have to take care of myself in order to take the best care of my children. I have managed to make all of my routine doctor visits last year, am continuing to keep those appointments this next year, am working on my weight and will even take some time to do a little tanning. I am starting to adjust to being home and had forgotten how much easier it is to manage my family, home and myself when that is all I have to worry about. Taking 8 hours or more out of your day to work really causes a person to have to limit what they can and cannot do for themselves and their family. It is kind of nice to have Shane work and provide for us while I am able to take care of everything and everyone else. He is still great to cook and grocery shop as he is very good at both of these things and I hate both of these things. I do grocery shop with him now but he is much more thrifty and gets more for his money. I have taken back over the household chores and even taken over the bills. It has been a little rough getting everything together and getting in the flow of things but things are starting to take shape and I am able to sit back and enjoy life a little more. I am still having those occasions where I ask Shane if I need to try to go back to work but he is doing well financially at work and we are able to maintain our lifestyle so he continues to tell me to sit back and enjoy it and he will let me know if our situation changes and I have to find a job. So in the meantime, I am doing just that and taking advantage of whatever time I have to be off of work to get my house in order, take care of my daughter, get my son ready for college and take care of myself. I feel so very blessed to have the support from my husband that I do as it just makes it so easy to concentrate on what is important. I still think often of what I want to do once my daughter is 18 as she only has 4 more years before she reaches that age. It is very scary to think about as I have no degree, no idea of what I would want to study if I did decide to go back to school, no idea of what I would want to do as far as a career or anything else. I guess, I will just continue to think about it, continue to throw ideas around in my head, maybe even try a few things here and there as the opportunity presents itself. I don't know what the future holds, Darein could still be living at home after the age of 18 and/or still need quite a bit of constant care and my life's work from now on may be to devote to caring for her and that is something that I am able to accept I think, even now. We decided when we had to face the decision of whether to abort her or not that she would be our lifelong commitment no matter what and that it was okay if we had to care for her for the rest of OUR lives and that decision is unwaived. We love her and all that she is and all that she hopes to be and will do everything we can to help her have the best life she can have and help her accomplish all of her dreams at all costs. As far as me and Shane are concerned that is just part of being a parent.
Well, I haven't written in awhile and sorry that this blog today is a little sappy but thought it was important to write about my short and long term goals as it is the start of the New Year and felt that this was an important part of maintaining some sort of commitment to my goals as they say it is important to write your goals down so that you can look back on them. I also figured it would help me put things in perspective and gives me a good overall bigger picture of my life and where my dedications lie. If you haven't already done this, I would highly suggest it. They teach us to do this in school but I think as we get busy with our lives sometimes we forget how important it can be to take some time out to list our short term and long term goals. After all, without goals what are we here for? I know I don't want to look back and say that all my life consisted of was getting up and going to work and doing a few fun things here and there. Life is short and should be fun but there should be some sort of purpose in everyone's life and in short, my purpose is raising my children to have the best lives they can hope for. :)
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