Well, things started about 3 weeks ago when my son was in a wreck in our Toyota Tacoma. My husband thought he would drive into Springfield to see what he could do to help my son, only to discover that there was no gas in the Jeep Cherokee. We never drive that vehicle as we haven't got it legal to drive yet but we thought that it had about a quarter of a tank of gas in it. I tried to think about it and thought maybe with us using it occasionally to take trash down to the dumpster that we had ran it out and hadn't realized it. We didn't give it another thought until we went to get new tires on the Tacoma. The tires we replaced on it were bigger than the ones that were on it before so we thought maybe it was affecting our gas mileage. We continued to watch it and then got to thinking that maybe our son was not putting all the money that we gave him for gas into the vehicle or that he was driving more than what he said that he was. We continued to watch and the problem persisted so we sent our daughter with him on one occasion. The truck had a quarter of a tank of gas in it when he left and when my husband got up the next morning to head to work the gas light was on. We questioned our daughter about it the next day and she said that our son went exactly where we had sent them. A few days later we went to return my mother-in-law's vehicle to her and drove forever on a quarter of a tank of gas. It was then that we decided our neighbor had to be the one that was stealing it. You might ask how we came to this conclusion. We came to this conclusion as we have not had a neighbor for the past 6 months and have had no problems at all. The new neighbor that has moved next door is an ex-military guy who has a knocked up girlfriend that is not working. He has a couple of girls from a previous marriage and works as a semi-truck mechanic at a local trucking company. He claims he only makes $170/week, got his truck repossessed the other day and says that his car is not far behind. He claims to have mental issues and I think that he probably does. My guess is that he probably can't afford the gas and definitely most likely has all the tools he needs to siphon gas easily and quickly. I will now be buying a locked gas cap and hope that this resolves the conflict without any confrontation on either party's part. If this doesn't solve the problem then I guess I will have to pull the video camera out and see what I can catch on video :)
This is my first entry and first time blogging so please be kind if you read :)
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
High Expectations
Do you ever find that those days that you have the highest of expectations end up being the most disappointing of days? Well, that seems to usually be in my case as in my day yesterday. What a rollercoaster ride of a day I was on yesterday!
I was so excited for errand day to be here finally. I love errand day because that is the day that my husband finally has a day off, it is his payday and even though we have to run those tedious errands of paying bills and grocery shopping he always makes sure to include some fun by taking me out for breakfast or lunch and sometimes a little fun shopping even. I woke up this morning excited to start my day. I thought before I got ready I would take some time for about an hour to spend on my computer. My husband enjoys a little bit of alone time that he doesn't usually get at home and he likes watching the Today show so I thought before we started our day I would give him some space and clean up my Facebook page. Even though the laptop is mine and my daughters my son seems to think that ownership is in the power of the possessor and therefore keeps it in his room, which is fine though a little annoying at times. On this particular morning I left it in his room and decided to just log on. I was working on cleaning up my Facebook page and kept hearing a rattle of what sounded like a chip bag or something. I figured I was just a little paranoid because my daughter had said that she saw a mouse the day before run across the living room and down the hall into my son's room. Me and my husband had laughed at her but I promised to get some mouse traps. See, both me and my husband absolutely HATE mice! We can't even empty mouse traps and used to throw them away, trap and all. We hated having to deal with mice on those occasions when mice tend to try to get into homes, so much that we always usually kept a cat around or our big dog Trixie seemed to keep them at bay so that we haven't seen one in years. This has been a great thing about having our animals. However, this past year we gave our dog away to my brother as we were not home enough to give her the attention that she needed and deserved. Anyways, I got freaked out enough by the noise in the room that I decided to quickly get off the computer so that I could get out of there; but as I went to get out of my chair, the mouse darted out in the middle of the room scampering about very scared. Of course, I screamed and took off running and told my husband that in addition to getting the locking gas cap today the mouse traps were a must. I decided to be a big girl and buy gloves so that I can actually clean the mouse trap out instead of just throwing the whole thing away.
I went ahead and got ready and we looked over the bills we needed to pay real quick, grabbed some movies to return and headed for Shane's work. Now, my husband makes a decent living but it seems as though no matter what you make it just is never enough and by the time we figure up everything we need to pay, no matter how good it looks on paper there is never enough money to go around. We pick up his check and on our way to the bank we review how much money needs to be deposited. When I explain to my husband that on top of bill money needing to be deposited I also have jewelry that I have bought and need to deposit that money as well. This evidently hit him wrong today and so I get to hear for the next 15 minutes about how maybe I need to get a job to pay for the things that I want, etc. I explain to him that he gave me permission to spend this amount already. However, I do have to admit to being a little bit of a "space cadet" if you will. See, I do the budgeting but I always have to have my husband review it because inevitably I seem to forget those $50 things here and there that add up and then I can't figure out why in the world my paper budget doesn't match my actual budget. As usual, I have managed to remember after he gets paid and not prior to payday. We proceed to cash his check, get gas and decide where to eat. We end up eating a quiet lunch at Cracker Barrel as this is one of the few places where we can eat on Thursdays if we are running too late for a good breakfast, but not late enough for lunch. We finally decide to make the most out of the rest of our day, I receive an apology and we proceed to the bank. Once we are done at the bank it is just a matter of deciding if we are going to go ahead and get our license plates renewed this week still or if we have to move it back because of several things I left off of the budget. We know that we are going to Tulsa for the Thanksgiving holiday and I did budget a few extras in that I thought we had co-pays on for the week and we didn't so for the most part things were balancing out fairly well. We head to the license bureau in Buffalo as Shane has to return a logging chain to a friend that lives there. It is a small office so we figure we can get in and out easily without spending the whole day there. This works out very nicely and we get those errands ran. Shane then decides to go ahead and pay on the kids' layaway for Christmas so that we don't have that worry next week during Black Friday. We drive back into Springfield, take care of this matter and by this time I am starting to not feel very well at all. My stomach is cramping and I feel very gassy. We get the layaway paid on and Shane starts looking around. I am not feeling well and start to get a little moody so we leave and return our movie and decide to look for a new release, The Ugly Truth as we have been wanting to see that. We manage to get aggravated at each other again in the movie store, I am in quite a bit of pain by this point and so I head to the car while Shane checks out. He asks me if I am okay and I tell him that I am sure I will be fine. He wants to know if I want to go grocery shopping. I tell him yes, we need to go so we head to Harter House in Strafford which is close to our house. Shane offers to go inside while I sit out in the truck but I figure walking around might help. I have had this kind of pain recently but never this bad. We go into the store, do a little shopping and I start feeling like I am going to pass out, so Shane tells me to go on out to the truck. I sit out there doubled over while he finishes up and then we head home. By the time, he got out of the grocery store I was starting to recover fairly well. We got home and had just enough time to unload the groceries and put them up before having to leave to pick our daughter up from school. We get her picked up and decide to get Chinese takeout for dinner. I can only eat about 1/2 of mine before my pain returns full force again. I go ahead and set my mouse traps up and am quite excited to catch my mouse and have also learned how to use the locking gas cap and am thrilled about each of these new weapons. I am now ready to lay down for a little bit. My brother calls to check on me and I tell him how I feel and he insists once again as he did last week that it is my gallbladder and I need to go have it checked out and removed. He described my pain to a "T" but I tell him I am not thoroughly convinced and I don't have time to mess with that right now. I get off the phone and relay the message to Shane and he tells me that I need to schedule an appointment. I remind him that I don't really have a doctor that I like but my brother has St. John's docs as well and really likes his so maybe I should check into that. He tells me that he needs one too and wants me to put it on my agenda to get appointments set up. I argue with him and go to bed. A few hours later I get up, visit with him before he has to go to bed and then once he is asleep I put in my movie to end my evening and very disappointed that he missed out on getting to watch it with me.
All in all I guess the day was a success and everything managed to get accomplished. However, I always find it funny how it seems as though when we have the highest expectations for our day or for our relationships those are the times when they flop the most. If only I could learn to enjoy things as they happen and not have such high expectations maybe then I would find myself not so disappointed at the end of any given day; but then again, isn't that just part of life? :)
I was so excited for errand day to be here finally. I love errand day because that is the day that my husband finally has a day off, it is his payday and even though we have to run those tedious errands of paying bills and grocery shopping he always makes sure to include some fun by taking me out for breakfast or lunch and sometimes a little fun shopping even. I woke up this morning excited to start my day. I thought before I got ready I would take some time for about an hour to spend on my computer. My husband enjoys a little bit of alone time that he doesn't usually get at home and he likes watching the Today show so I thought before we started our day I would give him some space and clean up my Facebook page. Even though the laptop is mine and my daughters my son seems to think that ownership is in the power of the possessor and therefore keeps it in his room, which is fine though a little annoying at times. On this particular morning I left it in his room and decided to just log on. I was working on cleaning up my Facebook page and kept hearing a rattle of what sounded like a chip bag or something. I figured I was just a little paranoid because my daughter had said that she saw a mouse the day before run across the living room and down the hall into my son's room. Me and my husband had laughed at her but I promised to get some mouse traps. See, both me and my husband absolutely HATE mice! We can't even empty mouse traps and used to throw them away, trap and all. We hated having to deal with mice on those occasions when mice tend to try to get into homes, so much that we always usually kept a cat around or our big dog Trixie seemed to keep them at bay so that we haven't seen one in years. This has been a great thing about having our animals. However, this past year we gave our dog away to my brother as we were not home enough to give her the attention that she needed and deserved. Anyways, I got freaked out enough by the noise in the room that I decided to quickly get off the computer so that I could get out of there; but as I went to get out of my chair, the mouse darted out in the middle of the room scampering about very scared. Of course, I screamed and took off running and told my husband that in addition to getting the locking gas cap today the mouse traps were a must. I decided to be a big girl and buy gloves so that I can actually clean the mouse trap out instead of just throwing the whole thing away.
I went ahead and got ready and we looked over the bills we needed to pay real quick, grabbed some movies to return and headed for Shane's work. Now, my husband makes a decent living but it seems as though no matter what you make it just is never enough and by the time we figure up everything we need to pay, no matter how good it looks on paper there is never enough money to go around. We pick up his check and on our way to the bank we review how much money needs to be deposited. When I explain to my husband that on top of bill money needing to be deposited I also have jewelry that I have bought and need to deposit that money as well. This evidently hit him wrong today and so I get to hear for the next 15 minutes about how maybe I need to get a job to pay for the things that I want, etc. I explain to him that he gave me permission to spend this amount already. However, I do have to admit to being a little bit of a "space cadet" if you will. See, I do the budgeting but I always have to have my husband review it because inevitably I seem to forget those $50 things here and there that add up and then I can't figure out why in the world my paper budget doesn't match my actual budget. As usual, I have managed to remember after he gets paid and not prior to payday. We proceed to cash his check, get gas and decide where to eat. We end up eating a quiet lunch at Cracker Barrel as this is one of the few places where we can eat on Thursdays if we are running too late for a good breakfast, but not late enough for lunch. We finally decide to make the most out of the rest of our day, I receive an apology and we proceed to the bank. Once we are done at the bank it is just a matter of deciding if we are going to go ahead and get our license plates renewed this week still or if we have to move it back because of several things I left off of the budget. We know that we are going to Tulsa for the Thanksgiving holiday and I did budget a few extras in that I thought we had co-pays on for the week and we didn't so for the most part things were balancing out fairly well. We head to the license bureau in Buffalo as Shane has to return a logging chain to a friend that lives there. It is a small office so we figure we can get in and out easily without spending the whole day there. This works out very nicely and we get those errands ran. Shane then decides to go ahead and pay on the kids' layaway for Christmas so that we don't have that worry next week during Black Friday. We drive back into Springfield, take care of this matter and by this time I am starting to not feel very well at all. My stomach is cramping and I feel very gassy. We get the layaway paid on and Shane starts looking around. I am not feeling well and start to get a little moody so we leave and return our movie and decide to look for a new release, The Ugly Truth as we have been wanting to see that. We manage to get aggravated at each other again in the movie store, I am in quite a bit of pain by this point and so I head to the car while Shane checks out. He asks me if I am okay and I tell him that I am sure I will be fine. He wants to know if I want to go grocery shopping. I tell him yes, we need to go so we head to Harter House in Strafford which is close to our house. Shane offers to go inside while I sit out in the truck but I figure walking around might help. I have had this kind of pain recently but never this bad. We go into the store, do a little shopping and I start feeling like I am going to pass out, so Shane tells me to go on out to the truck. I sit out there doubled over while he finishes up and then we head home. By the time, he got out of the grocery store I was starting to recover fairly well. We got home and had just enough time to unload the groceries and put them up before having to leave to pick our daughter up from school. We get her picked up and decide to get Chinese takeout for dinner. I can only eat about 1/2 of mine before my pain returns full force again. I go ahead and set my mouse traps up and am quite excited to catch my mouse and have also learned how to use the locking gas cap and am thrilled about each of these new weapons. I am now ready to lay down for a little bit. My brother calls to check on me and I tell him how I feel and he insists once again as he did last week that it is my gallbladder and I need to go have it checked out and removed. He described my pain to a "T" but I tell him I am not thoroughly convinced and I don't have time to mess with that right now. I get off the phone and relay the message to Shane and he tells me that I need to schedule an appointment. I remind him that I don't really have a doctor that I like but my brother has St. John's docs as well and really likes his so maybe I should check into that. He tells me that he needs one too and wants me to put it on my agenda to get appointments set up. I argue with him and go to bed. A few hours later I get up, visit with him before he has to go to bed and then once he is asleep I put in my movie to end my evening and very disappointed that he missed out on getting to watch it with me.
All in all I guess the day was a success and everything managed to get accomplished. However, I always find it funny how it seems as though when we have the highest expectations for our day or for our relationships those are the times when they flop the most. If only I could learn to enjoy things as they happen and not have such high expectations maybe then I would find myself not so disappointed at the end of any given day; but then again, isn't that just part of life? :)
An Excruciating Day At The Doctor's Office
What a day it has been today! Sometimes, I forget how tiring days like today can be. Darein didn't have to be at her endocrinologist's office today until 9:20am, which meant that we would get to sleep in a little bit. However, by the time I took Shane to work at 3:30am, got home and wasn't tired I only ended up with about an hour of sleep before time to get up again and get Damein ready for school, take my shower and get Darein up and ready for her appointment. Darein knew that she had an appointment today so she knew she would have me on top of everything that she does today. I have to double check with her every single day, make sure that she has washed her hair good, make sure that she has good clean, weather appropriate clothing on, deodorant, teeth brushed well, hearing aids in and meds taken. On doctor appointment days it is especially critical as I sometimes forget to check or ask a few things here and there and then end up embarrassed at the doctor's office as she has most likely forgotten something. However, today was all checked except I forgot to check her socks and she ended up with dirty socks. I always seem to forget something and whatever it is that I seem to forget never seems to be a matter of importance to her. We show up at the doctor's office, everything goes well and she informs me that it didn't even matter that her socks weren't perfectly clean as I was so worried about because he didn't even check. The kid loves jewelry and shoes but could care less about showers, hair or clothes. This can be very frustrating most days. We talked to the doctor about a number of things but overall he was very pleased at how much happier she seemed since the last couple of times he had seen her. She was very happy and very much pain free. We are worried about some possible puberty delay, which I am sure she appreciates me placing on here. As she would say, TMI mom :)However, it is an issue that no matter how delicate we had to address. She was scheduled for several labs including: cortisol levels, electrolyte levels, thyroid levels, estrogen levels, vitamin D deficiency levels and maybe a few more. We told the scheduler that we needed to go to see Suzy at POPS at the hospital. She explained that she had moved to the St. Jude Children's department and was not over at POPS very often. If you have a child that is ill more often than not, you will realize the trauma of a statement like this. Darein has so many medical problems and is such a hard blood draw stick that we hate changing doctors or phlebotomists once we find someone who is good. Suzy is one of those people. The scheduler went ahead and called over there and told us to give it a try by checking into Admissions at St. John's, telling them where we wanted this done and then heading to xray for a bone age scan which helps to assess whether she is getting the right amount of cortisol or not. We headed over to St. John's, checked in and was pleasantly surprised to get to the POPS department and discover Suzy meeting us at the door. She remembered Darein and was very happy to see her and told us that she was still in that department as often as possible and for us to continue to be seen there. We were also greeted by the lady that had to come down and do Darein cystourethrogram a few weeks ago because the regular nurse could not get it. We were thrilled and thought that the blood draw today would be nice and simple. However, they had to wait on orders to get things condensed as much as possible as much blood was needed. Finally about an hour later, they started the process. Darein was unfortunately stuck 6 times between these 2 wonderful nurses. They ended up extremely aggravated as well as Darein. She hurt and we decided that our only option to get the remainder of the blood was to get an arterial blood gas draw. This can only be drawn by an ABG tech or a physician. There happened to be a tech there from that department and he attempted to draw her blood from an artery. After several minutes and a few attempts he was finally successful. Once the blood was drawn we still had to go back downstairs for a bone age xray, 2 1/2 hours later we completed all tests. Shane fortunately had a friend that was getting off of work about the same time as him and brought him over to the hospital to meet us so that we could then leave. We headed to the movie store to return a few items, rent a few items and then headed to the grocery store to pick up stuff for homemade tacos tonight. Once I finally got home, I did a load of dishes and got the kitchen cleaned up and started working on making tacos. Darein took the dogs out and played with them a little bit while dinner was being made. Once dinner was made and ate we decided to watch movies for the rest of the evening. I have to get up and take Shane to work at midnight but other than that we should all be able to sleep in tomorrow and enjoy a nice quiet day though laundry and yard work and other household duties will inevitably call my name. It is hard to imagine that it would be so tiring watching your daughter suffer for an hours worth of lab draws but it is extremely exhausting and then you still have no results at this time and get the pleasure of waiting for those. I don't blame anyone but find it funny when people think that we don't have it so rough because our child is not dying. I want people to realize that there are all kinds of sick kids out there and just because they aren't dying or suffering every day doesn't mean that they don't go through a tremendous amount of effort to get where they are at today. There are definitely kids that are so much better than her and yet there are children who are also much worse off than her too. We pray for all of those children no matter what their circumstances because no matter what is wrong with a chronically ill child, there is always something to be done with them and so much work yet to come. Every single day is a blessing and a challenge in the same sense. We didn't get to go to Hobby Lobby today as Darein wanted to to look for a birthday gift because we were just too tired by the end of the day. We will try maybe once again tomorrow but with ill children you can only hope that your plans work out but have to learn to expect them not to. I am a control freak and once I tell someone that this is what the plan is and that is what is going to happen, I expect nothing less and will nothing short of stopping to make sure it happens. However, you also have to realize at mom your limitations as well as your childs and sometimes those things don't go as planned and so you work towards that goal once again.
I hope all goes well with Darein's tests and we will be waiting now to see whether or not she has to start estrogen and then have another ordeal of things to work on. We learned today that she will see Dr. Roberts, GI doc from KC on January 4, 2010 and then sees her urology surgeon in February 2010. We have a busy beginning of the year next year and still have a dentist to see on Tuesday to see how many sets of braces I have to get between my son and daughter. Overall, Darein is doing well and we continue to work on so many number of issues. I am so proud of her each and every single day. What a brave little girl, even if she isn't dying right now :) Please cherish your children each and every one if you have them and if not then please remember a child in your thoughts and prayers. They are reliant on us as moms and dads and whether we like it or not they totally rely on us to make the best decisions for them. This can be too much some days for most parents. Talk about parents who worry they screwed up with normal healthy children, what a burden we must carry for our special needs children as they need us so much more. When you have a normal child you also have a certain balance to keep so as not to disrupt the balance of attention. God forbid, someone feel left out :) LOL Our children are our future, rely on us and our decisions.
Hope I don't mess up :)
I hope all goes well with Darein's tests and we will be waiting now to see whether or not she has to start estrogen and then have another ordeal of things to work on. We learned today that she will see Dr. Roberts, GI doc from KC on January 4, 2010 and then sees her urology surgeon in February 2010. We have a busy beginning of the year next year and still have a dentist to see on Tuesday to see how many sets of braces I have to get between my son and daughter. Overall, Darein is doing well and we continue to work on so many number of issues. I am so proud of her each and every single day. What a brave little girl, even if she isn't dying right now :) Please cherish your children each and every one if you have them and if not then please remember a child in your thoughts and prayers. They are reliant on us as moms and dads and whether we like it or not they totally rely on us to make the best decisions for them. This can be too much some days for most parents. Talk about parents who worry they screwed up with normal healthy children, what a burden we must carry for our special needs children as they need us so much more. When you have a normal child you also have a certain balance to keep so as not to disrupt the balance of attention. God forbid, someone feel left out :) LOL Our children are our future, rely on us and our decisions.
Hope I don't mess up :)
Inspiration for the Holidays
I had nothing exciting happen today as I had a headache most of the day, slept in and finally got up to finish watching a couple of movies that I had to take back today. I was dreading watching them since I didn't feel very good and the end result meant that I would end up having to go into town to return the movies. However, I watched my first movie and it wasn't bad and I only had one more movie left and was thinking of not watching it before I returned it but decided that I might as well because I had this nagging suspicion that I would be missing out on something if I didn't go ahead and watch it. It was a good thing I did as I learned so much and would like to share that with you.
I watched a movie today titled "The Soloist" with Jamie Foxx in it. It is a movie about a homeless schizophrenic cellist and a New York Times journalist who comes into his life.
I have to say that this has been one of the most inspiring movies I have seen in quite some time. The main reason I am writing about this today is because in the movie the journalist happens to meet the homeless cellist while looking for his next story and decides to help him and write about it. He is so focused on helping the young man but only just enough as he doesn't want to be too involved in his life. I think that so many times we as a society are just like the journalist. We don't mind to help someone throughout the holidays or we don't mind to help them out the way that we want to help them out and yet all they really need is a friend, someone who will be involved in their life. If you befriend someone like that you have to be a true friend to them and actually take an interest in someone outside of yourself and that requires a lot of time that most of us aren't willing to give.
If you have ever reflected on your own life or heard other people talk, you most likely have heard yourself say or someone else say that you are happy that you don't have needy friends in your life or you can't be friends with a certain someone anymore because they are just too needy. We all have such busy lives and most of the time I think we feel very overwhelmed by trying to take care of our family's needs, our extended family's needs, etc and honestly if you are like me you are not even much of a people person. I can honestly say that as a whole I think the majority of Americans are stupid, self absorbed, money hungry people who are only concerned about how they look to everyone else. I have been looking for someone to help for quite some time but I seem to have this nagging about what kind of person I need to help and how much do I help them because I don't want to be too involved. After all, I have a daughter who requires an extremely large amount of my attention, a son that I am trying to get ready for college, a husband who works so much that I rarely see him and that doesn't even include my friend time and extended family time. I continue to ask God, how am I supposed to take on anymore? Society has been telling me for such a long time that it is okay to say no, sometimes you just have to. In reality though, we don't say no to meeting new people and trying to become friends with them. We join social networking sites so that we can meet more people and let people know more about who we are, we text people so that we can keep in touch because we are just too busy to pick up the phone and say hello or to go visit a friend or family member and yet we are constantly telling the world on our social networking sites how busy we are spending time with our friends and family. Do you see the irony?
As for me, I believe I will reach out to someone over the holiday season and if nothing else, just be a friend to them. It may be a homeless person, it may be an elderly person, it may be a child, it may just be someone that is already in my life that needs a friend and that means me being there for them, not to change them, not to help them though I think those things might come all by themselves but those things are not my mission but simply to make a friend who needs someone in their life.
Our community is growing tremendously and as a result of that I think that it is our responsibility as good upstanding citizens to take care of someone either by volunteering at a local charity, taking time out just to be nice to someone at work or church that people tend to shy away from and becoming their friend, or even just by being a BETTER friend, family member, etc. I don't know for sure what I will end up doing but I do know that I am going to start simply by being there for the people that are already in my life. Sometimes it is easier to help strangers than the people that you already know so well and yet sometimes those are the ones that need it the most. Just try to carry your generosity past the holidays and into your everyday life. This Thanksgiving I will be thanking God for the many people that he has put in my life and learning to appreciate that, instead of looking at it as a burden and just one more person that I have to participate in their life.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I watched a movie today titled "The Soloist" with Jamie Foxx in it. It is a movie about a homeless schizophrenic cellist and a New York Times journalist who comes into his life.
I have to say that this has been one of the most inspiring movies I have seen in quite some time. The main reason I am writing about this today is because in the movie the journalist happens to meet the homeless cellist while looking for his next story and decides to help him and write about it. He is so focused on helping the young man but only just enough as he doesn't want to be too involved in his life. I think that so many times we as a society are just like the journalist. We don't mind to help someone throughout the holidays or we don't mind to help them out the way that we want to help them out and yet all they really need is a friend, someone who will be involved in their life. If you befriend someone like that you have to be a true friend to them and actually take an interest in someone outside of yourself and that requires a lot of time that most of us aren't willing to give.
If you have ever reflected on your own life or heard other people talk, you most likely have heard yourself say or someone else say that you are happy that you don't have needy friends in your life or you can't be friends with a certain someone anymore because they are just too needy. We all have such busy lives and most of the time I think we feel very overwhelmed by trying to take care of our family's needs, our extended family's needs, etc and honestly if you are like me you are not even much of a people person. I can honestly say that as a whole I think the majority of Americans are stupid, self absorbed, money hungry people who are only concerned about how they look to everyone else. I have been looking for someone to help for quite some time but I seem to have this nagging about what kind of person I need to help and how much do I help them because I don't want to be too involved. After all, I have a daughter who requires an extremely large amount of my attention, a son that I am trying to get ready for college, a husband who works so much that I rarely see him and that doesn't even include my friend time and extended family time. I continue to ask God, how am I supposed to take on anymore? Society has been telling me for such a long time that it is okay to say no, sometimes you just have to. In reality though, we don't say no to meeting new people and trying to become friends with them. We join social networking sites so that we can meet more people and let people know more about who we are, we text people so that we can keep in touch because we are just too busy to pick up the phone and say hello or to go visit a friend or family member and yet we are constantly telling the world on our social networking sites how busy we are spending time with our friends and family. Do you see the irony?
As for me, I believe I will reach out to someone over the holiday season and if nothing else, just be a friend to them. It may be a homeless person, it may be an elderly person, it may be a child, it may just be someone that is already in my life that needs a friend and that means me being there for them, not to change them, not to help them though I think those things might come all by themselves but those things are not my mission but simply to make a friend who needs someone in their life.
Our community is growing tremendously and as a result of that I think that it is our responsibility as good upstanding citizens to take care of someone either by volunteering at a local charity, taking time out just to be nice to someone at work or church that people tend to shy away from and becoming their friend, or even just by being a BETTER friend, family member, etc. I don't know for sure what I will end up doing but I do know that I am going to start simply by being there for the people that are already in my life. Sometimes it is easier to help strangers than the people that you already know so well and yet sometimes those are the ones that need it the most. Just try to carry your generosity past the holidays and into your everyday life. This Thanksgiving I will be thanking God for the many people that he has put in my life and learning to appreciate that, instead of looking at it as a burden and just one more person that I have to participate in their life.
Happy Thanksgiving!
An Introduction to My Daughter
I haven't had much to write about in the past couple of days. I did purchase my locking gas cap and it seems to be working so far. I think that the neighbor's other car got repossessed as there has been no vehicle there for a few days now. We are hoping that maybe they will move soon but the gas problem appears to be resolved. As far as the mouse problem, I have 4 mouse traps set and still have no mouse. I haven't seen it again though my husband caught sight of him a couple of days ago so we know it is still around. Hopefully we will catch it soon.
I just have to start out by saying that I could write a book about my daughter! I will try to introduce you to her today in as condensed of a form as I can. Her name is Darein Mercedes-Elizabeth Blanton and she is 13 years old today but will turn 14 on the 29th of this month. She is one of the most incredible and inspiring people I could ever hope to have the pleasure of knowing. I will never forget the day I was told that I was having a girl. I had had my boy and was glad to have had a boy first but was so wanting a girl more than anything. This child makes me smile bigger than anyone else can, makes me cry harder than anyone else does and is the reason I get up every single morning. Miss Darein came into our world with something wrong with her that no one could tell us. We were sent home and told not to bother coming back if she got sick because there was nothing they could do for her as they had no idea what was wrong with her. Fortunately, they did call a geneticist from Columbia who helped us and cared for her until the age of about 10. He diagnosed her with a very rare syndrome called Antley-Bixler syndrome. Only about 50 children from all over the world have this syndrome. It is a musculoskeletal disease that mainly affects the strength in her forearms and fingers as well as her bone structure in her facial features. Along with this syndrome she has multiple other medical problems that are associated with her syndrome as well as some other medical problems not known to be associated with her syndrome. She suffers from congenital virilizing adrenal hyperplasia which she takes replacement medication for. This will never go away and just simply means that her body doesn't produce enough of a hormone called cortisol which is a hormone that increases in your body when you are sick, have broken bones, etc. It affects her stress levels and therefore when she is under any sort of significant amount of physical stress she needs stress doses of her cortisol. If she does not receive these doses or does not take her medication properly she could go into a kind of diabetic coma and possibly even lose her life because of it. It is very important for her doctors to monitor her hormone levels as it can affect her height, weight, and over all quality of life. The only way for her to get these levels monitored is through lab work and she has to have an xray called a bone age scan which is just a scan of her hand to determine if her bones are growing appropriately for her age. She also suffers from conductive hearing loss in both ears which requires her to wear hearing aids. There is nothing that can be done for her hearing loss at this time as possible surgeries are too risky and she hears fine with her hearing aids. If she chooses not to wear her hearing aids she can still hear what you are saying but it may sound muffled to her and she may need you to repeat what you have said. She also suffers from gastroesophageal reflux disease which is easily controlled with medication at this time. We will be meeting a new GI doctor in January as we need to stay on top of this especially since she has developed this at such a young age. Reflux can tear up your esophagus over time if not treated properly or just from having it for so long and she has never been under close supervision for this part of the disease. Because of the way Darein's facial features are set up due to her syndrome, she has no bridge in her nose and therefore gets many sinus infections that cause her lots of problems. She takes allergy medicines and we just continue to monitor this for now. She will be in need of braces coming up soon and once those have been on for awhile then her plastic surgeon will start the proceedings for her jaw surgery as she needs to have her jaws aligned bilaterally and we are hoping that this will help with her sinus drainages as well. There is no need to do a rhinoplasty at this time as she is able to wear her new glasses with no problems and is quite comfortable in her own skin. If she chooses when she is older that it bothers her and she wants to do something about it then we can take care of that for her. She was more recently diagnosed last October with a disease totally independent of the Antley-Bixler syndrome called reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) or chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS). This came on all of a sudden and caused her to have to be in a wheelchair. It is a disease where the spinal cord sends a message to your brain telling your brain it hurts when someone touches your body. It affects the nerves in the affected area and even causes swelling from the nerves being so irritated. After much medication and horrible side effects, we took Darein to physical therapy and learned a light touch craniosacral combination therapy that Darein has responded very nicely to. After some time, she was able to come off of all of her medications and we are able to keep it under control and in remission through home physical therapy. There are no guarantees that this won't flare up at any given time again or that it won't come back. She is now walking and doing very well with minimal to no pain most days. We pray that this stays in remission permanently as this has been one of the most horrible things that she has had to endure in her life. We also found out recently that she suffers from a grade II left kidney reflux. This is mild but because she had one when she was just a year old and it had resolved and is now back she will now have to undergo surgery to correct this. We will go in February to a specialist and see what surgery he recommends. We are not sure if it is just Darein's personality or due to her medical conditions but she moves very slowly about doing things. She doesn't get in any big hurry. Learning disabilities is part of the Antley-Bixler syndrome and she has troubles in school but fortunately doesn't seem to be suffering from any learning disabilities. Her low grades seem to be due to her not getting work done or done in a timely manner and from missing so much school due to her illnesses and therefore we meet with the school and set up special standards to help assist her with school. She will never be an A kind of student as that just isn't in her personality or the type of student she is. She does struggle with school in general as far as her grades though her teachers are quite confident that she is understanding the material. I think she may possibly just have a different learning style than your typical child which she has to make adaptations for and which slows her learning down some.
You have most of Darein's medical background now but I still haven't told you who she is as a person. After enduring everything that she has been through, this child has the best attitude a parent could ask. She makes me and my husband laugh each and every single day, at least once a day. She is definitely her own person and is so comfortable with who she is that you can't help but smile at her no matter what she does. She is very creative and quite talented in the artwork that she does. She states that she doesn't know what her medium is yet but has a special talent for putting colors together. She has decided this year to try painting a little more and to try to fine tune that talent and see how much she enjoys it. Most of us have that little voice that makes us self conscious about what we do based on what we think others might think of us, Darein does not have that at all! She is great :) She knows exactly what she wants and has no barriers preventing her from making it happen. She isn't shy, she isn't fake, she just is. She has a great love for animals of all kinds. She wants to work in a zoo one day and gets to job shadow a zookeeper at the zoo next week for 1/2 a day and she can't wait! She doesn't talk much and doesn't smile much which gives people the impression that she is shy and unhappy which couldn't be further from the truth. She is actually just checking you out when she first meets you and sizing you up before she opens up to you. She also has troubles hearing people so she may not react appropriately if she didn't hear you but will rarely ask you to repeat yourself especially if she isn't very comfortable with you yet. Sometimes it can take awhile for her to warm up to you but then once she does you will find she has lots to say. She doesn't smile much but I think only because she doesn't feel the need to smile out of politeness. If she thinks you are funny or what you have to say is funny then she will give out a hearty laugh or a smile. For example, she got her hair done tonight and I was very nervous about it. When it was done and I was going on and on about how cute it was she gave out a very loud abrupt "HA". I looked at her taken aback a little and she just said, "I told you it would look good, now you have to trust me". I just smiled at her and told her okay.
I hope I have given you some sort of insight as to who my daughter is. She is a special needs child and someone who more often than not requires an extremely large amount of time and effort which can be very tiring. However, when she gives you those million dollar smiles or says the funny things she does that makes you feel so happy, nothing could ever replace that. She has brought me more joy and taught me more about patience, love, living in the moment and life than I could ever learn from anyone else or from any book or any other medium. She is truly the reason that I get out of bed every morning and she makes me want to be a better person. She is one of the reasons that I feel so blessed and thankful this Thanksgiving and I am thankful for every day that I get to spend with her and for the person that she has turned me into today.
I just have to start out by saying that I could write a book about my daughter! I will try to introduce you to her today in as condensed of a form as I can. Her name is Darein Mercedes-Elizabeth Blanton and she is 13 years old today but will turn 14 on the 29th of this month. She is one of the most incredible and inspiring people I could ever hope to have the pleasure of knowing. I will never forget the day I was told that I was having a girl. I had had my boy and was glad to have had a boy first but was so wanting a girl more than anything. This child makes me smile bigger than anyone else can, makes me cry harder than anyone else does and is the reason I get up every single morning. Miss Darein came into our world with something wrong with her that no one could tell us. We were sent home and told not to bother coming back if she got sick because there was nothing they could do for her as they had no idea what was wrong with her. Fortunately, they did call a geneticist from Columbia who helped us and cared for her until the age of about 10. He diagnosed her with a very rare syndrome called Antley-Bixler syndrome. Only about 50 children from all over the world have this syndrome. It is a musculoskeletal disease that mainly affects the strength in her forearms and fingers as well as her bone structure in her facial features. Along with this syndrome she has multiple other medical problems that are associated with her syndrome as well as some other medical problems not known to be associated with her syndrome. She suffers from congenital virilizing adrenal hyperplasia which she takes replacement medication for. This will never go away and just simply means that her body doesn't produce enough of a hormone called cortisol which is a hormone that increases in your body when you are sick, have broken bones, etc. It affects her stress levels and therefore when she is under any sort of significant amount of physical stress she needs stress doses of her cortisol. If she does not receive these doses or does not take her medication properly she could go into a kind of diabetic coma and possibly even lose her life because of it. It is very important for her doctors to monitor her hormone levels as it can affect her height, weight, and over all quality of life. The only way for her to get these levels monitored is through lab work and she has to have an xray called a bone age scan which is just a scan of her hand to determine if her bones are growing appropriately for her age. She also suffers from conductive hearing loss in both ears which requires her to wear hearing aids. There is nothing that can be done for her hearing loss at this time as possible surgeries are too risky and she hears fine with her hearing aids. If she chooses not to wear her hearing aids she can still hear what you are saying but it may sound muffled to her and she may need you to repeat what you have said. She also suffers from gastroesophageal reflux disease which is easily controlled with medication at this time. We will be meeting a new GI doctor in January as we need to stay on top of this especially since she has developed this at such a young age. Reflux can tear up your esophagus over time if not treated properly or just from having it for so long and she has never been under close supervision for this part of the disease. Because of the way Darein's facial features are set up due to her syndrome, she has no bridge in her nose and therefore gets many sinus infections that cause her lots of problems. She takes allergy medicines and we just continue to monitor this for now. She will be in need of braces coming up soon and once those have been on for awhile then her plastic surgeon will start the proceedings for her jaw surgery as she needs to have her jaws aligned bilaterally and we are hoping that this will help with her sinus drainages as well. There is no need to do a rhinoplasty at this time as she is able to wear her new glasses with no problems and is quite comfortable in her own skin. If she chooses when she is older that it bothers her and she wants to do something about it then we can take care of that for her. She was more recently diagnosed last October with a disease totally independent of the Antley-Bixler syndrome called reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) or chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS). This came on all of a sudden and caused her to have to be in a wheelchair. It is a disease where the spinal cord sends a message to your brain telling your brain it hurts when someone touches your body. It affects the nerves in the affected area and even causes swelling from the nerves being so irritated. After much medication and horrible side effects, we took Darein to physical therapy and learned a light touch craniosacral combination therapy that Darein has responded very nicely to. After some time, she was able to come off of all of her medications and we are able to keep it under control and in remission through home physical therapy. There are no guarantees that this won't flare up at any given time again or that it won't come back. She is now walking and doing very well with minimal to no pain most days. We pray that this stays in remission permanently as this has been one of the most horrible things that she has had to endure in her life. We also found out recently that she suffers from a grade II left kidney reflux. This is mild but because she had one when she was just a year old and it had resolved and is now back she will now have to undergo surgery to correct this. We will go in February to a specialist and see what surgery he recommends. We are not sure if it is just Darein's personality or due to her medical conditions but she moves very slowly about doing things. She doesn't get in any big hurry. Learning disabilities is part of the Antley-Bixler syndrome and she has troubles in school but fortunately doesn't seem to be suffering from any learning disabilities. Her low grades seem to be due to her not getting work done or done in a timely manner and from missing so much school due to her illnesses and therefore we meet with the school and set up special standards to help assist her with school. She will never be an A kind of student as that just isn't in her personality or the type of student she is. She does struggle with school in general as far as her grades though her teachers are quite confident that she is understanding the material. I think she may possibly just have a different learning style than your typical child which she has to make adaptations for and which slows her learning down some.
You have most of Darein's medical background now but I still haven't told you who she is as a person. After enduring everything that she has been through, this child has the best attitude a parent could ask. She makes me and my husband laugh each and every single day, at least once a day. She is definitely her own person and is so comfortable with who she is that you can't help but smile at her no matter what she does. She is very creative and quite talented in the artwork that she does. She states that she doesn't know what her medium is yet but has a special talent for putting colors together. She has decided this year to try painting a little more and to try to fine tune that talent and see how much she enjoys it. Most of us have that little voice that makes us self conscious about what we do based on what we think others might think of us, Darein does not have that at all! She is great :) She knows exactly what she wants and has no barriers preventing her from making it happen. She isn't shy, she isn't fake, she just is. She has a great love for animals of all kinds. She wants to work in a zoo one day and gets to job shadow a zookeeper at the zoo next week for 1/2 a day and she can't wait! She doesn't talk much and doesn't smile much which gives people the impression that she is shy and unhappy which couldn't be further from the truth. She is actually just checking you out when she first meets you and sizing you up before she opens up to you. She also has troubles hearing people so she may not react appropriately if she didn't hear you but will rarely ask you to repeat yourself especially if she isn't very comfortable with you yet. Sometimes it can take awhile for her to warm up to you but then once she does you will find she has lots to say. She doesn't smile much but I think only because she doesn't feel the need to smile out of politeness. If she thinks you are funny or what you have to say is funny then she will give out a hearty laugh or a smile. For example, she got her hair done tonight and I was very nervous about it. When it was done and I was going on and on about how cute it was she gave out a very loud abrupt "HA". I looked at her taken aback a little and she just said, "I told you it would look good, now you have to trust me". I just smiled at her and told her okay.
I hope I have given you some sort of insight as to who my daughter is. She is a special needs child and someone who more often than not requires an extremely large amount of time and effort which can be very tiring. However, when she gives you those million dollar smiles or says the funny things she does that makes you feel so happy, nothing could ever replace that. She has brought me more joy and taught me more about patience, love, living in the moment and life than I could ever learn from anyone else or from any book or any other medium. She is truly the reason that I get out of bed every morning and she makes me want to be a better person. She is one of the reasons that I feel so blessed and thankful this Thanksgiving and I am thankful for every day that I get to spend with her and for the person that she has turned me into today.
Its Been A Long Time
Well, It has been a long time since I have written anything. Sometimes I think that you have to take a time out and live life in order to get the big picture of what to write about, gets things from a little different perspective. Besides the fact that my son hogs my laptop all the time and I have a hard time using it while he is at school :)
Since I last wrote a lot has happened. It is Christmas time and lots of shopping and present wrapping has been going on.
I still do not have any mice that I have caught and recently got rid of my red healer, Trixie so I now have no animals to keep the mice away. They did manage however to eat the peanut butter off of the traps without getting caught so I think I am going to set more now that I have no animals to worry about and one of my cousins suggested I use some dog food and tie it to the mouse trap so that they can't just drag it away so I suspect I will give this a whirl.
My gas problem in my vehicle appears definitely taken care of so no more worries there other than it is a pain in the butt to have to continue to lock my gas cap which is a royal pain in the butt. Hopefully by Spring we can feel confident in putting the old one back on and see how that goes.
My daughter has her first boyfriend! She wasn't going to tell me as she didn't feel that this was a big deal. I discovered this on Monday of last week as I looked in her backpack only to discover a homemade card that read, "I hope you have a Merry Christmas Hunter this is for you" and there was one of Darein stuffed tiger animals. I asked her who it was for, thinking it was something they were doing with school. She just gave me the look and roller her eyes. I asked her if it was her boyfriend not really believing that but just trying to get out of her who it was. She said, "yes". I thought this was pretty cute and told her that we could get him a real present if she wanted but she said it didn't really matter, it was no big deal. Evidently he had asked her out the Thursday before and on that Friday she had a dance. I asked her if she danced with him but she said no, he wasn't there. She only has one class with him, Art and now that her IEP has taken place she is being pulled out of that class for another class so she has no classes now with him. She doesn't want to talk about it and when I tried to pry over the next few days she stayed tight lipped. I finally had to make a deal with her that I would ask no more questions if she promised to let me know when they break up. She said that she would and then proceeded to roll her eyes as she does quite often :) She went to meet with her new orthodontist earlier this month and they will be working with her plastic surgery team in St. Louis to find out when Darein will be ready for her braces. As of now, she doesn't need to go back until June which will be nice.
Things are the same with Damein as he still stays in his room most of the time and only comes out to eat and go to the bathroom and to ask if he can go somewhere with friends, typical teenager I guess. He got home this evening from our family Christmas event, went to his room and came out 30 minutes later and asked if he could go to a friend's house to hang out. He didn't know what they were going to do and then before he left he grabs his airsoft gun so I am assuming they are going to play airsoft out in this cold nasty rainy weather at 10:00 at night.
Shane is still working as hard as ever and as Christmas draws nearer and he works more and more the stress on our relationship is a bit rough. However, all of our Christmas shopping is done except for 1 gift and a few other small things for the kids which is pretty early for us as we usually end up going shopping on Christmas Eve.
I won $400 at the casino though earlier this month so that helped tremendously with our shopping this year and took quite a bit of stress off. I don't gamble very much at all but absolutely love it and that was the most that I have ever won! I have been having troubles with my stomach lately though and it appears that it is my gallbladder. I finally went to the doctor, had my ultrasound and found out it was negative Friday so I will now wait until next week to see when I get to go for a hida scan so that it will hopefully show that it is my gallbladder and I can get it removed. I am hoping to get it done this month as after the holidays things pick up tremendously around our house. I have a feeling it will be January before I get in though which is fine as long as it is early in the month.
Darein goes January 4th to meet her GI specialist from Kansas City who does outpatient clinics here in Springfield. I am assuming that will bring more tests to make sure nothing is going on with her tummy and will have some advice as far as her GERD goes. In February we go to Kansas City and meet her urology surgeon so we can set up surgery for her kidney reflux and will also head to Rolla to visit with MU S&T college and see what Damein thinks of it.
Always glad to get things done and see things progressing forward but sometimes can seem a little overwhelming. I am very grateful that my husband's job allows for me to be able to stay home with our daughter. We aren't wealthy and we definitely have to watch our pennies but we have enough to pay our main bills and enough play money to be able to do things and just have to fill in the rest with medical bills as they will always be there and always too numerous to be able to keep up with. Definitely worth the sacrifice and at a time when our economy is in such a bad state I am thankful things are well.
In case I don't get a chance to write again before the holidays, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I wish you all good health, happiness, love and friendship in your life.
Since I last wrote a lot has happened. It is Christmas time and lots of shopping and present wrapping has been going on.
I still do not have any mice that I have caught and recently got rid of my red healer, Trixie so I now have no animals to keep the mice away. They did manage however to eat the peanut butter off of the traps without getting caught so I think I am going to set more now that I have no animals to worry about and one of my cousins suggested I use some dog food and tie it to the mouse trap so that they can't just drag it away so I suspect I will give this a whirl.
My gas problem in my vehicle appears definitely taken care of so no more worries there other than it is a pain in the butt to have to continue to lock my gas cap which is a royal pain in the butt. Hopefully by Spring we can feel confident in putting the old one back on and see how that goes.
My daughter has her first boyfriend! She wasn't going to tell me as she didn't feel that this was a big deal. I discovered this on Monday of last week as I looked in her backpack only to discover a homemade card that read, "I hope you have a Merry Christmas Hunter this is for you" and there was one of Darein stuffed tiger animals. I asked her who it was for, thinking it was something they were doing with school. She just gave me the look and roller her eyes. I asked her if it was her boyfriend not really believing that but just trying to get out of her who it was. She said, "yes". I thought this was pretty cute and told her that we could get him a real present if she wanted but she said it didn't really matter, it was no big deal. Evidently he had asked her out the Thursday before and on that Friday she had a dance. I asked her if she danced with him but she said no, he wasn't there. She only has one class with him, Art and now that her IEP has taken place she is being pulled out of that class for another class so she has no classes now with him. She doesn't want to talk about it and when I tried to pry over the next few days she stayed tight lipped. I finally had to make a deal with her that I would ask no more questions if she promised to let me know when they break up. She said that she would and then proceeded to roll her eyes as she does quite often :) She went to meet with her new orthodontist earlier this month and they will be working with her plastic surgery team in St. Louis to find out when Darein will be ready for her braces. As of now, she doesn't need to go back until June which will be nice.
Things are the same with Damein as he still stays in his room most of the time and only comes out to eat and go to the bathroom and to ask if he can go somewhere with friends, typical teenager I guess. He got home this evening from our family Christmas event, went to his room and came out 30 minutes later and asked if he could go to a friend's house to hang out. He didn't know what they were going to do and then before he left he grabs his airsoft gun so I am assuming they are going to play airsoft out in this cold nasty rainy weather at 10:00 at night.
Shane is still working as hard as ever and as Christmas draws nearer and he works more and more the stress on our relationship is a bit rough. However, all of our Christmas shopping is done except for 1 gift and a few other small things for the kids which is pretty early for us as we usually end up going shopping on Christmas Eve.
I won $400 at the casino though earlier this month so that helped tremendously with our shopping this year and took quite a bit of stress off. I don't gamble very much at all but absolutely love it and that was the most that I have ever won! I have been having troubles with my stomach lately though and it appears that it is my gallbladder. I finally went to the doctor, had my ultrasound and found out it was negative Friday so I will now wait until next week to see when I get to go for a hida scan so that it will hopefully show that it is my gallbladder and I can get it removed. I am hoping to get it done this month as after the holidays things pick up tremendously around our house. I have a feeling it will be January before I get in though which is fine as long as it is early in the month.
Darein goes January 4th to meet her GI specialist from Kansas City who does outpatient clinics here in Springfield. I am assuming that will bring more tests to make sure nothing is going on with her tummy and will have some advice as far as her GERD goes. In February we go to Kansas City and meet her urology surgeon so we can set up surgery for her kidney reflux and will also head to Rolla to visit with MU S&T college and see what Damein thinks of it.
Always glad to get things done and see things progressing forward but sometimes can seem a little overwhelming. I am very grateful that my husband's job allows for me to be able to stay home with our daughter. We aren't wealthy and we definitely have to watch our pennies but we have enough to pay our main bills and enough play money to be able to do things and just have to fill in the rest with medical bills as they will always be there and always too numerous to be able to keep up with. Definitely worth the sacrifice and at a time when our economy is in such a bad state I am thankful things are well.
In case I don't get a chance to write again before the holidays, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I wish you all good health, happiness, love and friendship in your life.
Miscellaneous Ups and Downs At the End of the Year
Well, it seems as though I am still having some problems with consistency as far as writing on my blog. Ideally I would be writing everyday. However, this has yet to happen so let's pick up somewhere around where I last left off.
I have finally caught my baby mouse. My cousin told me at Thanksgiving that I should tie a piece of dog food to the mouse trap so that they couldn't just drag it off of the trap without getting caught. I finally reset my traps accordingly and within a day or two had my mouse!!! I have a feeling there is more since this one was so small but we have yet to see any and I haven't caught anymore so hopefully this is the end of the mouse problem. Two problems solved this year, dogs are gone and mouse is gone!!!
I had my hida scan this past week and evidently my gallbladder is no longer working for me so I get to go meet my surgeon on the 29th of December. I was really hoping to meet him this week so that I could have the surgery during the week of Christmas and New Years but that isn't going to happen. I know it is a routine surgery and all but for some reason it is really bothering me. I know that I am frustrated because I have so many appointments to tend to the first week of January and I am afraid that Darein will be set up for more tests and that I won't have enough recovery time before tending to her tests. However, I am continuing to tell my self every day that things will work out and I will have control over scheduling things and I can make it work for us. Some days I think I just worry too much instead of sitting back and letting God do what he does best which is taking care of things. I will end up having to let go and only do what I can do anyways so there really is no point in worrying about it so I will continue to find other things that will hold my attention for the better.
The kids had their Christmas program this past Sunday night and they did a great job of singing. They got to go to a Christmas party at their youth leaders house afterwards and had a really good time.
I love Christmas time! I'm not always ready but this year I am ready, other than sending out Christmas cards which I am awful about doing. We went to my mother-in-law's house the other night, made some peanut butter balls and attempted to make some peanut butter fudge but it didn't turn out for some reason. We had a great time visiting and my brother dropped in for a few minutes and my sister-in-law and her boyfriend came by for a little bit. I am quite disappointed in myself for not doing any volunteer work over this holiday. It seems as though I always have the best of intentions but I am not very good at following through on much of anything. I always seem to get sidetracked and I lay my loyalties elsewhere, usually dedicating more time to family and extended family. If I was better at giving my extended family and friends more of my time throughout the year then I probably wouldn't have so much to make up for at the end of the year :) All in all I am very happy with how well things went this year. They started out quite rough with Darein being diagnosed with Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome; me having to quit my job; Damein having an allergic reaction to a sulfa antibiotic and ending up in the hospital with Steven Johnson's syndrome; Damein losing his place on the Varsity baseball team due to his illness and then rumors flying about the school that he isn't playing baseball next year in order for the coach to give himself a reason to not play Damein as much next year as well I am sure. However, now that we are at the end of the year most everything has resolved. Darein is in remission as far as her Chronic Regional Pain syndrome goes and is totally off of all of her medicines which was causing major physical and emotional problems for her. Damein has recovered nicely from his illness and is working on playing baseball to the best of his ability and not focusing on all of the negative talk going on around him in regards to this issue. He has started looking at colleges, made 1 visit to Drury this year and has a visit scheduled in February to visit Rolla MU S&T. He is also working at bringing his ACT scores up and continuing to research his options. I have adjusted to being home, am learning how to take care of myself a little bit both physically and emotionally which has been a hard thing to take time out for. I am learning how important it is though in order for my kids to get the best of me. It must come with age :) Shane has been great in all of the transitions that have taken place this year and is working harder than ever to make up for money we lost by me quitting my job. He has managed to make up my salary this year and as always is one of the few consistencies in my life. He is always there and always steadfast and a get in and get it done kind of person. He doesn't sit around and feel sorry for himself and doesn't allow me to do that either which is good. Sometimes, I get in those funks where I really feel sorry for myself and life in general and Shane is always there to remind me how much worse off other people have it and reminds me that we always have each other and together we can get through anything.
I have started going to church with my kids towards the end of this year and have found it very rewarding. I always have known God is in my life and pray to him but had forgotten what it is like to go every week and learn more about what he wants for me and from me in life. I have to say that I truly do feel blessed this Christmas season. I have been blessed with many friends, which I was concerned about losing when I quit my job but have only found that I have made new friends and old friends have been stronger than ever. I have learned what it is to be a friend this year and what a blessing your true friends can be. The rest is just filler :)
God Bless and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year and may all of your New Years resolutions come true! My only resolution for next year is that it is as good or better than this year. My family has many challenges to deal with next year as we will be helping Damein to choose a college, I will be having surgery at the first of the year, Darein is having surgery sometime in February probably and will be meeting a few new physicians in January and February. I just pray that we meet each of these challenges head on and persevere through them and make all the right decisions so that at the end of the year we can look back at how successfully we were able to face these challenges and conquer them.
Merry Christmas All!!!!
I have finally caught my baby mouse. My cousin told me at Thanksgiving that I should tie a piece of dog food to the mouse trap so that they couldn't just drag it off of the trap without getting caught. I finally reset my traps accordingly and within a day or two had my mouse!!! I have a feeling there is more since this one was so small but we have yet to see any and I haven't caught anymore so hopefully this is the end of the mouse problem. Two problems solved this year, dogs are gone and mouse is gone!!!
I had my hida scan this past week and evidently my gallbladder is no longer working for me so I get to go meet my surgeon on the 29th of December. I was really hoping to meet him this week so that I could have the surgery during the week of Christmas and New Years but that isn't going to happen. I know it is a routine surgery and all but for some reason it is really bothering me. I know that I am frustrated because I have so many appointments to tend to the first week of January and I am afraid that Darein will be set up for more tests and that I won't have enough recovery time before tending to her tests. However, I am continuing to tell my self every day that things will work out and I will have control over scheduling things and I can make it work for us. Some days I think I just worry too much instead of sitting back and letting God do what he does best which is taking care of things. I will end up having to let go and only do what I can do anyways so there really is no point in worrying about it so I will continue to find other things that will hold my attention for the better.
The kids had their Christmas program this past Sunday night and they did a great job of singing. They got to go to a Christmas party at their youth leaders house afterwards and had a really good time.
I love Christmas time! I'm not always ready but this year I am ready, other than sending out Christmas cards which I am awful about doing. We went to my mother-in-law's house the other night, made some peanut butter balls and attempted to make some peanut butter fudge but it didn't turn out for some reason. We had a great time visiting and my brother dropped in for a few minutes and my sister-in-law and her boyfriend came by for a little bit. I am quite disappointed in myself for not doing any volunteer work over this holiday. It seems as though I always have the best of intentions but I am not very good at following through on much of anything. I always seem to get sidetracked and I lay my loyalties elsewhere, usually dedicating more time to family and extended family. If I was better at giving my extended family and friends more of my time throughout the year then I probably wouldn't have so much to make up for at the end of the year :) All in all I am very happy with how well things went this year. They started out quite rough with Darein being diagnosed with Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome; me having to quit my job; Damein having an allergic reaction to a sulfa antibiotic and ending up in the hospital with Steven Johnson's syndrome; Damein losing his place on the Varsity baseball team due to his illness and then rumors flying about the school that he isn't playing baseball next year in order for the coach to give himself a reason to not play Damein as much next year as well I am sure. However, now that we are at the end of the year most everything has resolved. Darein is in remission as far as her Chronic Regional Pain syndrome goes and is totally off of all of her medicines which was causing major physical and emotional problems for her. Damein has recovered nicely from his illness and is working on playing baseball to the best of his ability and not focusing on all of the negative talk going on around him in regards to this issue. He has started looking at colleges, made 1 visit to Drury this year and has a visit scheduled in February to visit Rolla MU S&T. He is also working at bringing his ACT scores up and continuing to research his options. I have adjusted to being home, am learning how to take care of myself a little bit both physically and emotionally which has been a hard thing to take time out for. I am learning how important it is though in order for my kids to get the best of me. It must come with age :) Shane has been great in all of the transitions that have taken place this year and is working harder than ever to make up for money we lost by me quitting my job. He has managed to make up my salary this year and as always is one of the few consistencies in my life. He is always there and always steadfast and a get in and get it done kind of person. He doesn't sit around and feel sorry for himself and doesn't allow me to do that either which is good. Sometimes, I get in those funks where I really feel sorry for myself and life in general and Shane is always there to remind me how much worse off other people have it and reminds me that we always have each other and together we can get through anything.
I have started going to church with my kids towards the end of this year and have found it very rewarding. I always have known God is in my life and pray to him but had forgotten what it is like to go every week and learn more about what he wants for me and from me in life. I have to say that I truly do feel blessed this Christmas season. I have been blessed with many friends, which I was concerned about losing when I quit my job but have only found that I have made new friends and old friends have been stronger than ever. I have learned what it is to be a friend this year and what a blessing your true friends can be. The rest is just filler :)
God Bless and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year and may all of your New Years resolutions come true! My only resolution for next year is that it is as good or better than this year. My family has many challenges to deal with next year as we will be helping Damein to choose a college, I will be having surgery at the first of the year, Darein is having surgery sometime in February probably and will be meeting a few new physicians in January and February. I just pray that we meet each of these challenges head on and persevere through them and make all the right decisions so that at the end of the year we can look back at how successfully we were able to face these challenges and conquer them.
Merry Christmas All!!!!
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. :)
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!
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.
Lab Day
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
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
A Few Days at the Doctor for Mom
Well, I finally went to the doctor yesterday to have my foot checked out as I thought that I had something in the bottom of my heel as well as the hives that I have seemed to break out in since almost passing out when my daughter got her blood drawn on the 21st.
My doctor looked at my foot and says that it is too deep so she is going to have to send me to see a podiatrist. She looks at my hives and thinks that it might be an allergic reaction though I don't think that is quite possible as I haven't changed my detergent or anything else that I can think of but she tells me to take Claritin twice a day and I should be better in a few days. I go to set up my appointment with the podiatrist and am lucky enough to get in today. So I went home, took my Claritin that evening and smothered my legs in Cortisone cream to help with the itching as well.
Went to see my doctor today and he is quite funny. We talk a little, he looks at my foot and then tells me that I have what they call a "mosaic wart". It is 5 warts that come together in the center as a cluster. Nice. He puts some medicine on it, covers it and tells me to keep it dry for the next 72 hours. He says that they can do surgery on it to remove them either tomorrow or Thursday. I told them that I had to take my daughter to Kansas City on Friday and would need to be able to walk around so he says I need to wait until Monday to have it done. So, guess I will be going in on Monday at 2pm to get it taken care of. Evidently, I will have a big hole in the bottom of my heel when all is said and done.
As you can imagine, I am thrilled. I take Darein to Kansas City on Friday to schedule her kidney surgery, get my foot surgery done on Monday, walk all over the Missouri S&T Rolla campus on Friday to look it over with Shane and Damein to see if Damein might be interested in attending college there. I'm sure I will have to schedule a pre-op appointment for Darein somewhere between the consultation date and the surgery date which means another Kansas City trip and then when she is all taken care of I still get to have my gallbladder surgery and lipoma removed on my right side. Guess, I might as well sit back and relax and hope for the best. A little bit of coordination as far as scheduling and a whole lot of patience will do me well over the next few months. :)
I hope my family and friends are doing well and I will write again on Friday or Saturday when we get back from Kansas City to let you know what we found out as far as exactly what type of surgery Darein will be having for her kidney reflux, etc. Her immune system does not appear to be very strong right now as so far she has managed to get all of the stomach viruses that are going around. She stayed home again today with diarrhea but seems to be feeling a little better this afternoon. Hopefully, she will stay strong and well enough to undergo surgery so that we don't have to postpone anything :)
My doctor looked at my foot and says that it is too deep so she is going to have to send me to see a podiatrist. She looks at my hives and thinks that it might be an allergic reaction though I don't think that is quite possible as I haven't changed my detergent or anything else that I can think of but she tells me to take Claritin twice a day and I should be better in a few days. I go to set up my appointment with the podiatrist and am lucky enough to get in today. So I went home, took my Claritin that evening and smothered my legs in Cortisone cream to help with the itching as well.
Went to see my doctor today and he is quite funny. We talk a little, he looks at my foot and then tells me that I have what they call a "mosaic wart". It is 5 warts that come together in the center as a cluster. Nice. He puts some medicine on it, covers it and tells me to keep it dry for the next 72 hours. He says that they can do surgery on it to remove them either tomorrow or Thursday. I told them that I had to take my daughter to Kansas City on Friday and would need to be able to walk around so he says I need to wait until Monday to have it done. So, guess I will be going in on Monday at 2pm to get it taken care of. Evidently, I will have a big hole in the bottom of my heel when all is said and done.
As you can imagine, I am thrilled. I take Darein to Kansas City on Friday to schedule her kidney surgery, get my foot surgery done on Monday, walk all over the Missouri S&T Rolla campus on Friday to look it over with Shane and Damein to see if Damein might be interested in attending college there. I'm sure I will have to schedule a pre-op appointment for Darein somewhere between the consultation date and the surgery date which means another Kansas City trip and then when she is all taken care of I still get to have my gallbladder surgery and lipoma removed on my right side. Guess, I might as well sit back and relax and hope for the best. A little bit of coordination as far as scheduling and a whole lot of patience will do me well over the next few months. :)
I hope my family and friends are doing well and I will write again on Friday or Saturday when we get back from Kansas City to let you know what we found out as far as exactly what type of surgery Darein will be having for her kidney reflux, etc. Her immune system does not appear to be very strong right now as so far she has managed to get all of the stomach viruses that are going around. She stayed home again today with diarrhea but seems to be feeling a little better this afternoon. Hopefully, she will stay strong and well enough to undergo surgery so that we don't have to postpone anything :)
A Trip To Kansas City
Darein was scheduled this past Friday to go to Kansas City and meet with her urology surgeon in regards to her left kidney reflux and the possibility of surgery. Shane had accumulated enough points through his employer that we were able to get a free room at the Drury Inn and Suites. This was great as the weather was scheduled to be snowy and Darein's appointment was at 8:30am Friday morning. Of course, Shane woke up on Thursday morning feeling worse than he had the previous day or two and decided to head to the doctor before heading to Kansas City. Once his appointment was made I decided to make one as well as we didn't want to head to the children's hospital if we were extremely sick with pneumonia or something. Shane ended up having the flu but they couldn't give him anything for it and told him that he just needed to get plenty of rest and gave him some time off of work. I just had a viral infection and nothing was given to me either and I was told pretty much the same as Shane, plenty of rest. We had been waiting for 2 or 3 months for this appointment and I didn't want to cancel it and therefore, we went ahead and ran our errands for the day, got packed and picked Darein up from school so that we could go ahead and leave as it was already starting to snow. We got checked into the hotel, got something to eat and enjoyed a little bit of time in the hot tub. It was an early night and we all rested well.
Friday morning Darein woke up with the same crud that me and Shane had. We were in hopes that the appointment would go fast in order to get in and out and on our way home before Darein got any worse. All went well. We were checked in very quickly and was happy to meet the surgeon. He was very friendly and had another physician come in to see us prior to him seeing Darein. The two physicians explained to us that a kidney reflux in and of itself does not cause infections and asked a few questions about the problems that Darein was experiencing. He then did a physical exam and they came to the conclusion that she has a spastic bladder which is causing her not to empty it well and in turn causing her to have several uti's which is causing some of her stomach problems. They gave us homework and Darein has to try to go to the restroom every 2 hours. She also needs to be having a bowel movement every day and therefore they asked us to increase her Miralax from 1 capful a day to 1 1/2 capfuls a day, splitting it up and also adding Benefiber to her food as well to help it solidify. They explained that the intestines sit on top of your bladder and if she isn't emptying it well then it is adding to the bladder spasms. They want us to work on this for the next two months and then get an xray of her bladder and see if it has calmed down any. If it hasn't then they will talk to us again and there are medications that they said they can place her on to help calm it down. They are hoping that surgery will not be something that we have to pursue. I was very happy to know that just because they were surgeons, that wasn't their first option. This is one of the reasons that I love children's hospitals and research hospitals so much. They are always thinking of all of the options and try to explain to you why they are choosing the option they are. Of course, all physicians have different reasons behind their choices even in these hospitals but you can usually find a physician who has the common sense behind his theories and that is always refreshing. Darein has had 8 surgeries up to this point and is going to have to have a mandibular resection in the near future. Therefore, the more surgeries that we can eliminate or delay the better. Darein was very pleased that she only has to have an xray in 2 months opposed to the cystourethrogram she had a few months prior diagnosing her left kidney reflux. This procedure is quite painful and needless to say, it makes her a little more than anxious to think about having to have that again.
We immediately left after the appointment and made it home before Damein got home from school that day.
This past Monday I also was scheduled to go and have a procedure to remove my mosaic warts from the heel of my foot by my podiatrist. I went in prepared and was a little nervous but determined that I would make it through the numbing shot that he had to give me prior to removing the warts. I went back to the room, got comfortable and he came in and warned me once again that the shot would hurt. I told him I understood and that I was okay with this. He then placed the needle deep in my heel and I unexpectedly came unglued. I screamed like a baby into the pillow behind my head and moved my foot. He took the needle out and proceeded to tell me that he didn't think that any of the numbing medication was injected and that it was ok for me to change my mind. He then said that he would give me a minute to regain my composure. I could hardly breathe and was petrified to think of him sticking that needle back in. He on his own opted to just do treatments every two weeks for 4 or 5 times. I regretfully agreed and he proceeded. He simply scrapes some of the dead skin off with a scalpel and then sprays this really cold spray on the bottom of my foot and bandages it up. It isn't too bad really. The spray burns a little but evidently this spray allows the skin to dry and slough off so that he can debride the warts a little more every time I go back. As much as I hate paying the co-pay every time and having to go through a lengthy and ongoing process of having this done I have decided it is a good alternative to getting that needle stuck in my foot. You would think that after childbirth nothing could phase you. After all, I have had an amniocentesis, natural and c-section childbirths, bellybutton piercing, and a tattoo. I would have never thought that I couldn't endure this. Who knows, maybe I'm just getting sensitive in my old age :)
Anyways, all in all the week was productive and we got a lot of things accomplished and are able to move on with our lives for another few months which will be nice. We take Damein this Friday to Rolla so that he can visit Rolla S&T and see if this is a college that he might be interested in. Me and my husband are really hoping that he likes this school as we feel that he is smart enough to get in here and just needs to pull his ACT scores up a little more. He is working very hard in school and as much as he is on his computer I really think that this could be up his alley but we will see. He isn't quite as thrilled about it as we are but we are hoping that the fact that they have football and baseball there will help to encourage him to attend.
I will try to write again this weekend after our visit and not wait so long this time :)
Friday morning Darein woke up with the same crud that me and Shane had. We were in hopes that the appointment would go fast in order to get in and out and on our way home before Darein got any worse. All went well. We were checked in very quickly and was happy to meet the surgeon. He was very friendly and had another physician come in to see us prior to him seeing Darein. The two physicians explained to us that a kidney reflux in and of itself does not cause infections and asked a few questions about the problems that Darein was experiencing. He then did a physical exam and they came to the conclusion that she has a spastic bladder which is causing her not to empty it well and in turn causing her to have several uti's which is causing some of her stomach problems. They gave us homework and Darein has to try to go to the restroom every 2 hours. She also needs to be having a bowel movement every day and therefore they asked us to increase her Miralax from 1 capful a day to 1 1/2 capfuls a day, splitting it up and also adding Benefiber to her food as well to help it solidify. They explained that the intestines sit on top of your bladder and if she isn't emptying it well then it is adding to the bladder spasms. They want us to work on this for the next two months and then get an xray of her bladder and see if it has calmed down any. If it hasn't then they will talk to us again and there are medications that they said they can place her on to help calm it down. They are hoping that surgery will not be something that we have to pursue. I was very happy to know that just because they were surgeons, that wasn't their first option. This is one of the reasons that I love children's hospitals and research hospitals so much. They are always thinking of all of the options and try to explain to you why they are choosing the option they are. Of course, all physicians have different reasons behind their choices even in these hospitals but you can usually find a physician who has the common sense behind his theories and that is always refreshing. Darein has had 8 surgeries up to this point and is going to have to have a mandibular resection in the near future. Therefore, the more surgeries that we can eliminate or delay the better. Darein was very pleased that she only has to have an xray in 2 months opposed to the cystourethrogram she had a few months prior diagnosing her left kidney reflux. This procedure is quite painful and needless to say, it makes her a little more than anxious to think about having to have that again.
We immediately left after the appointment and made it home before Damein got home from school that day.
This past Monday I also was scheduled to go and have a procedure to remove my mosaic warts from the heel of my foot by my podiatrist. I went in prepared and was a little nervous but determined that I would make it through the numbing shot that he had to give me prior to removing the warts. I went back to the room, got comfortable and he came in and warned me once again that the shot would hurt. I told him I understood and that I was okay with this. He then placed the needle deep in my heel and I unexpectedly came unglued. I screamed like a baby into the pillow behind my head and moved my foot. He took the needle out and proceeded to tell me that he didn't think that any of the numbing medication was injected and that it was ok for me to change my mind. He then said that he would give me a minute to regain my composure. I could hardly breathe and was petrified to think of him sticking that needle back in. He on his own opted to just do treatments every two weeks for 4 or 5 times. I regretfully agreed and he proceeded. He simply scrapes some of the dead skin off with a scalpel and then sprays this really cold spray on the bottom of my foot and bandages it up. It isn't too bad really. The spray burns a little but evidently this spray allows the skin to dry and slough off so that he can debride the warts a little more every time I go back. As much as I hate paying the co-pay every time and having to go through a lengthy and ongoing process of having this done I have decided it is a good alternative to getting that needle stuck in my foot. You would think that after childbirth nothing could phase you. After all, I have had an amniocentesis, natural and c-section childbirths, bellybutton piercing, and a tattoo. I would have never thought that I couldn't endure this. Who knows, maybe I'm just getting sensitive in my old age :)
Anyways, all in all the week was productive and we got a lot of things accomplished and are able to move on with our lives for another few months which will be nice. We take Damein this Friday to Rolla so that he can visit Rolla S&T and see if this is a college that he might be interested in. Me and my husband are really hoping that he likes this school as we feel that he is smart enough to get in here and just needs to pull his ACT scores up a little more. He is working very hard in school and as much as he is on his computer I really think that this could be up his alley but we will see. He isn't quite as thrilled about it as we are but we are hoping that the fact that they have football and baseball there will help to encourage him to attend.
I will try to write again this weekend after our visit and not wait so long this time :)
February
Well, it has been quite awhile since I last wrote so I thought I would write about a few things that went on in February. February was an exciting month as Damein went to visit MU Rolla S&T campus. His campus visit went better than I had hoped it would. We arrived on Friday February 5th and things started out a little slow as I had tried to set up a meeting for him to speak with the baseball coach there. I am hoping that Damein chooses Rolla but unfortunately the boy/girl ratio is a little lopsided and none of his friends are going there so I have had a little bit of troubles convincing him that this is the best school for him. I felt like if I could get him into the baseball program then he would be more likely to choose this school versus MU. It isn't that MU is a bad school, I just think that it is a little too big of a university for him and with his interest being in engineering I think that he would have more opportunities available to him if he chose Rolla instead. However, the baseball coach was in Arkansas for the weekend and was not able to meet with us. We went in and listened to the presentation which was good. It was then time for us to have lunch in the cafeteria. This is when things got a little more interesting. All of the colleges encourage you to speak with other students and ask lots of questions about the university. Damein however is not very outgoing in that respect and me and Shane were not quite sure exactly what questions to ask. So, we sat down for lunch and as we were finishing a couple of girls came over and sat down and started talking to us. Come to find out they were on the student panel and would be speaking next in the auditorium. They just started telling us about their experiences at Rolla and how they came to choose Rolla versus UCLA and Purdue, etc. They were quite interesting and Shane asked several questions based on information they were giving us. Then one of the guys from the student panel came over to our table and said that he figured Damein would appreciate a guy's perspective so he spoke about the college as well. All three kids were very interesting and entertaining and we got more information from them than anything else while we were there. I think they really helped Damein to loosen up. Damein wanted to get a shirt in the gift shop and was also given a free one at the end of the day for turning in his evaluation. The rest of the day went well but Damein learned that he is going to have to really study if he chooses to go there. It is an extremely academically challenging school but offers a lot. This past week I decided to e-mail the baseball coach and let him know how long Damein has been playing baseball, what positions, his extra lessons that he takes from a college umpire and that he had not had any exposure and asking what we needed to do to give the coach a chance to look at him. I received an e-mail back the following day stating that Damein could attend the open tryout on June 7th and to let him know if he planned on attending. After speaking with Damein I e-mailed the coach back and let him know that we would be there. Rolla is a Division II school and this would be an excellent opportunity for Damein to get to play that high of a division school baseball and he has a better chance of playing there than just about anywhere else. He has been wearing his shirts often and knows that we are in hopes of him choosing this college. He still wants me to set up a visit at MU which I will do and I asked him to make his decision this summer so that we could get started on filling out the application and starting the application process so that he would have a good opportunity of acquiring the scholarships and housing that he wants at his chosen college.
We have worked with Darein this month on going to the bathroom every two hours, taking Benefiber and Miralax every day. These things have proven to be quite a challenge. She does great at school because she knows to go after every other class period but then it is difficult to remember to tell her every two hours as we get busy and forget though she does fairly well with this since he bladder appears to trigger automatically every two hours or at least close. A month later we are still working on getting the Benefiber and Miralax adjusted. The Benefiber goes in her food and helps things to solidify a little better. However, it is a pill and therefore goes best in mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese type things so it is easier to give this to her in the evening. This leaves us trying to figure out when to give her the Miralax. This is trickier than you might think as I want to give it to her in a drink in the morning. This would work great if she wasn't so slow getting ready. However, some mornings she is worried about getting diarrhea so she doesn't want to take it prior to school and other mornings she just doesn't want to take it in the mornings or she doesn't allow herself enough time before leaving for school. It doesn't work for her to have it at dinner with her Benefiber as it is too close together and causes too many issues. I could give it to her before bedtime except that we eat rather late as a rule since Shane usually barbecues and really eat late in the summer so I am just going to have to continue to work with getting her to take it in the mornings. There really are no other options for this. She has been doing considerably well this month and has had very few tummy aches and missed very few days this month. She brought home her mid-quarter grades and now has all A's and B's except for 1 F in Word Processing. I asked her what was wrong in that class and evidently she needs to make some work up. I called and spoke with her Study Skills teacher about this and asked for suggestions and was told to write her word processing teacher a note and find out when Darein could make this up. I did that and received a phone call back stating that she had talked to her study skills teacher and Darein was making the necessary homework up in that class plus they had adjusted her IEP accordingly and she felt confident that Darein's grade would improve based on the following adjustments. The school has really stepped up and made school life very bearable for Darein. She is successful now and doing well and enjoying all of her classes. She in fact received a 138/136 on her human body bones test in her Science class which was the highest in her class. She seems to love science and feels like she is really good at it. She will get to dissect a frog sometime this quarter and is looking forward to that. Since she hopes to work with animals someday it will help for her to be good at science so I am quite pleased to see her actually interested and good in a subject other than Art or one of her other many electives.
All in all life has been fairly boring at the Blanton household this past month which is a good thing I guess :) Damein will be starting baseball this next month and we will continue to work with Darein on her kidney issues so that she will be ready for her xray in April. I will write again sooner, hopefully than later as I would like to start writing on a weekly basis if possible.
We have worked with Darein this month on going to the bathroom every two hours, taking Benefiber and Miralax every day. These things have proven to be quite a challenge. She does great at school because she knows to go after every other class period but then it is difficult to remember to tell her every two hours as we get busy and forget though she does fairly well with this since he bladder appears to trigger automatically every two hours or at least close. A month later we are still working on getting the Benefiber and Miralax adjusted. The Benefiber goes in her food and helps things to solidify a little better. However, it is a pill and therefore goes best in mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese type things so it is easier to give this to her in the evening. This leaves us trying to figure out when to give her the Miralax. This is trickier than you might think as I want to give it to her in a drink in the morning. This would work great if she wasn't so slow getting ready. However, some mornings she is worried about getting diarrhea so she doesn't want to take it prior to school and other mornings she just doesn't want to take it in the mornings or she doesn't allow herself enough time before leaving for school. It doesn't work for her to have it at dinner with her Benefiber as it is too close together and causes too many issues. I could give it to her before bedtime except that we eat rather late as a rule since Shane usually barbecues and really eat late in the summer so I am just going to have to continue to work with getting her to take it in the mornings. There really are no other options for this. She has been doing considerably well this month and has had very few tummy aches and missed very few days this month. She brought home her mid-quarter grades and now has all A's and B's except for 1 F in Word Processing. I asked her what was wrong in that class and evidently she needs to make some work up. I called and spoke with her Study Skills teacher about this and asked for suggestions and was told to write her word processing teacher a note and find out when Darein could make this up. I did that and received a phone call back stating that she had talked to her study skills teacher and Darein was making the necessary homework up in that class plus they had adjusted her IEP accordingly and she felt confident that Darein's grade would improve based on the following adjustments. The school has really stepped up and made school life very bearable for Darein. She is successful now and doing well and enjoying all of her classes. She in fact received a 138/136 on her human body bones test in her Science class which was the highest in her class. She seems to love science and feels like she is really good at it. She will get to dissect a frog sometime this quarter and is looking forward to that. Since she hopes to work with animals someday it will help for her to be good at science so I am quite pleased to see her actually interested and good in a subject other than Art or one of her other many electives.
All in all life has been fairly boring at the Blanton household this past month which is a good thing I guess :) Damein will be starting baseball this next month and we will continue to work with Darein on her kidney issues so that she will be ready for her xray in April. I will write again sooner, hopefully than later as I would like to start writing on a weekly basis if possible.
Spring is Here
Darein has been doing very well since the last time that I wrote. She is still enjoying her Science class very much and actually was one of the few students to actually handle a pig and cow heart. Most of the other kids just poked at it she said but her teacher cut them in half so they could see the inside of each of the hearts and Darein was one of the first students to pick it up, handle it and then showed the different parts of it to the janitor lady who came in to the class to have a look. Darein didn't think it was gross at all and said the grossest part was the liquid that came out of it but said that was just the liquid that it had been stored in and she wasn't grossed out by this at all. She got an A on her test over this and doing really well in school overall. She is currently working on a science fair project where me, Shane and Damein have to take a bite out of an onion and then a bite out of an apple with our eyes closed and see if we can tell the difference. Her presentation is coming along very nice. She goes to get her xray on her kidney on Monday and then we will have to wait to hear from her doctor as to how things have changed or not and what our next step will be or if we will just continue to keep her on her kidney medication at this time. She has no upcoming appointments for April which will be a nice break for her.
I set up an appointment for Damein to visit MU on April 30th. I had also sent an e-mail to the MU S&T Rolla baseball coach asking what we needed to do to get him to take a look at Damein and he sent me an e-mail back inviting him to attend tryouts this year which will be June 7th. We are very excited about this opportunity for him. I did unfortunately goof up and did not get his ACT registration for April sent in so he will not be able to take that test again until June. He signed up for all of his classes for his senior year earlier this month and is going to only have to take 6 classes. He will take 3 dual credit college classes to give him a head start for college. Baseball season has started for him and me and Shane are so proud of him. He is doing an outstanding job this year, considering how rough of a time he had last year. He had just got over his Steven Johnson's syndrome last year when baseball started and unfortunately the coach didn't cut him any slack and some of the parents were quite rough on him. He got his position on Varsity taken away and was dropped down to JV and got yelled at the entire year. He kind of lost his desire to play and chose not to play Legion ball last year. We were afraid he wouldn't play again and he is so talented and just a natural at this sport it seemed like a waste of talent to us. Fortunately, he joined a team in the Fall and did quite well. We were hoping that it would carry over to his high school year this Spring and it has. It is his coach's last year of coaching as he will retire at the end of this year. He is a nice person but does not seem to care so much about the team anymore as his star player was hurt in football this year and is sitting this season of baseball out for his senior year so that he can play college ball. Damein is playing left field for some reason this year which he doesn't mind. He is a better shortstop than the one that we have this year but he is fine with playing left field and it will help build his arm strength as well so we are not complaining. He also is getting to play shortstop when the starting shortstop pitches and Damein is getting to pitch quite a bit too. He is a great closer and has been one of our better pitchers this year. He is back on Varsity and has his confidence back so even though we will probably lose most or all of our games due to poor coaching, Damein is doing well and so we are staying upbeat and enjoying watching him play as always. He is going to play Legion baseball this Summer too and then we will see if he wants to play Fall baseball again.
I have had my gallbladder taken out this month as well as a lipoma removed from my right side. The surgery went well but as most of you know, I came down with a really bad stomach bug that put my recovery behind a little and made me miserable. I am excited however, as I have lost a ton of weight due to the surgery. I needed to lose quite a bit anyways and being sick with my gallbladder and then going through the surgery on top of that I have managed to lose a total of about 24 lbs. from my heaviest weight last year. I still have a ways to go but am eating and drinking healthier now and as soon as I am stronger I am looking forward to getting back into an exercise regimen.
Shane has been working really hard as always for us. He went to get his DOT physical though and they could not get his blood pressure low enough to pass for a 2 year physical so unfortunately, he has to go back in 3 months and have it rechecked. We are a little nervous because if he doesn't pass this time then he will be disqualified and he's not sure what that entails but it will most likely cost him his job. I scheduled an appointment for him to go see his doctor on Friday so that he can get on some blood pressure medication. He has diabetes and high blood pressure but has not been taking any medications for these things as he doesn't like how they make him feel. I have talked with him though and explained that they can change the medications so that he feels like he is supposed to but he has to tell his doctor otherwise they don't know that something needs changed. I have him eating and drinking better now and he has accepted the fact that he needs to see his doctor regularly for his conditions. His blood pressure has actually been fine, though a little on the high side just genetically. However, when he went for his physical he was sick and he gets nervous every time he has to have one of those physicals anyways so that didn't help with his blood pressure. We are confident that he will get this controlled and we both are working together along with Darein to have a healthier lifestyle and after only a few short weeks we are already feeling much better and Darein has lost quite a bit of weight as well and is looking great!
I found out this month that me and Darein are going to get to go on a month long vacation with my parents to California. We are so excited. I asked Damein if he wanted to go but he has opted to stay and play Legion baseball and take part in some church mission trips and activities that they do in the Summer. Shane unfortunately, will be at home working to help pay for our trip. Both boys are just as excited about mine and Darein's vacation as we are since they will have the house to themselves for a month. We are driving and are going to get to see some beautiful places. I won't go into too much details about the trip right now as I am sure I will be blogging and facebooking each day as I am taking the laptop with me on our trip.
All in all, we have had a good month though we have had a lot of sickness. We have spent the month working on a healthier lifestyle and taking care of health problems that needed resolved. Since Darein has no appointments in April, I will probably most blog about Damein's baseball for the next month. We have got Silver Dollar City passes and White Water passes so we have already been to SDC once on opening day and look forward to spending a lot of time there as weather permits. It is good exercise walking up and down those hills and a good time is had by all :)
I set up an appointment for Damein to visit MU on April 30th. I had also sent an e-mail to the MU S&T Rolla baseball coach asking what we needed to do to get him to take a look at Damein and he sent me an e-mail back inviting him to attend tryouts this year which will be June 7th. We are very excited about this opportunity for him. I did unfortunately goof up and did not get his ACT registration for April sent in so he will not be able to take that test again until June. He signed up for all of his classes for his senior year earlier this month and is going to only have to take 6 classes. He will take 3 dual credit college classes to give him a head start for college. Baseball season has started for him and me and Shane are so proud of him. He is doing an outstanding job this year, considering how rough of a time he had last year. He had just got over his Steven Johnson's syndrome last year when baseball started and unfortunately the coach didn't cut him any slack and some of the parents were quite rough on him. He got his position on Varsity taken away and was dropped down to JV and got yelled at the entire year. He kind of lost his desire to play and chose not to play Legion ball last year. We were afraid he wouldn't play again and he is so talented and just a natural at this sport it seemed like a waste of talent to us. Fortunately, he joined a team in the Fall and did quite well. We were hoping that it would carry over to his high school year this Spring and it has. It is his coach's last year of coaching as he will retire at the end of this year. He is a nice person but does not seem to care so much about the team anymore as his star player was hurt in football this year and is sitting this season of baseball out for his senior year so that he can play college ball. Damein is playing left field for some reason this year which he doesn't mind. He is a better shortstop than the one that we have this year but he is fine with playing left field and it will help build his arm strength as well so we are not complaining. He also is getting to play shortstop when the starting shortstop pitches and Damein is getting to pitch quite a bit too. He is a great closer and has been one of our better pitchers this year. He is back on Varsity and has his confidence back so even though we will probably lose most or all of our games due to poor coaching, Damein is doing well and so we are staying upbeat and enjoying watching him play as always. He is going to play Legion baseball this Summer too and then we will see if he wants to play Fall baseball again.
I have had my gallbladder taken out this month as well as a lipoma removed from my right side. The surgery went well but as most of you know, I came down with a really bad stomach bug that put my recovery behind a little and made me miserable. I am excited however, as I have lost a ton of weight due to the surgery. I needed to lose quite a bit anyways and being sick with my gallbladder and then going through the surgery on top of that I have managed to lose a total of about 24 lbs. from my heaviest weight last year. I still have a ways to go but am eating and drinking healthier now and as soon as I am stronger I am looking forward to getting back into an exercise regimen.
Shane has been working really hard as always for us. He went to get his DOT physical though and they could not get his blood pressure low enough to pass for a 2 year physical so unfortunately, he has to go back in 3 months and have it rechecked. We are a little nervous because if he doesn't pass this time then he will be disqualified and he's not sure what that entails but it will most likely cost him his job. I scheduled an appointment for him to go see his doctor on Friday so that he can get on some blood pressure medication. He has diabetes and high blood pressure but has not been taking any medications for these things as he doesn't like how they make him feel. I have talked with him though and explained that they can change the medications so that he feels like he is supposed to but he has to tell his doctor otherwise they don't know that something needs changed. I have him eating and drinking better now and he has accepted the fact that he needs to see his doctor regularly for his conditions. His blood pressure has actually been fine, though a little on the high side just genetically. However, when he went for his physical he was sick and he gets nervous every time he has to have one of those physicals anyways so that didn't help with his blood pressure. We are confident that he will get this controlled and we both are working together along with Darein to have a healthier lifestyle and after only a few short weeks we are already feeling much better and Darein has lost quite a bit of weight as well and is looking great!
I found out this month that me and Darein are going to get to go on a month long vacation with my parents to California. We are so excited. I asked Damein if he wanted to go but he has opted to stay and play Legion baseball and take part in some church mission trips and activities that they do in the Summer. Shane unfortunately, will be at home working to help pay for our trip. Both boys are just as excited about mine and Darein's vacation as we are since they will have the house to themselves for a month. We are driving and are going to get to see some beautiful places. I won't go into too much details about the trip right now as I am sure I will be blogging and facebooking each day as I am taking the laptop with me on our trip.
All in all, we have had a good month though we have had a lot of sickness. We have spent the month working on a healthier lifestyle and taking care of health problems that needed resolved. Since Darein has no appointments in April, I will probably most blog about Damein's baseball for the next month. We have got Silver Dollar City passes and White Water passes so we have already been to SDC once on opening day and look forward to spending a lot of time there as weather permits. It is good exercise walking up and down those hills and a good time is had by all :)
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Be sure to check out the website and get your copy!
This easy-to-use software helps you eliminate system crashed, prevent coputer problems, and restore your system to a healthy state
Key Features:
-Supports Windows XP/Vista/7
-Eliminates system crashes, freezes and slowdowns
-Automatically identifies and repairs common Windows problems
-Fixing registry errors will speed up your computer
-Eliminates BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)
-Cleans the registry to fix Windows errors and crashes
-Speeds up boot up time
-Reduces the size of the Windows registry
-The automatic backup creation of the repaired registry entries
-Improves your Windows PC's overall performance and stability
-Reduces the amount of time it takes your system to boot
-A simple, user-friendly interface with which you can safely compact the registry
-Prevents registry corruption by building a fresh copy of the registry
-Identifies over 50 different types of junk files
-Speeds up hard drive searching performance
-Frees up valuable space on your hard drive
-Boosts speed of Windows
-Runs much more quickly than others in its class
-Regains plenty of disk space
-Finds and deletes duplicate files - music, video, documents, application
-Frees up your storage space and increase computer performance
-Extends internal system uninstaller with features to find and delete left traces (e.g. registry keys, folders, etc.)
-Improves your Windows PC's overall performance and stability
-Reduces the size of the Windows registry. It results in faster and more stable PC performance
-Frees up valuable space on your hard drive taken by leftovers
-Full control of the programs that are loaded during Windows startup
-Add/remove/edit startup items
-Task scheduler configurator
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-Deletes all the Index.dat files
-Deletes Cookies
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-Empties Drop-down address bar
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Baseball Season Has Begun
Well, it is official! Baseball season has begun and it truly is my favorite time of year :) There is just something wonderful about sitting out in the sun at the ballfield, especially when your kid is playing.
Damein had such a rough time last year after he came down with Steven Johnson Syndrome right before baseball season. He managed to lose most of his coordination for the first of the season, the coach was hard on him and he was feeling pretty hard on himself about his ability. He chose not to play Legion baseball after he got demoted from Varsity to Junior Varsity during the school year. He took some time off after the school year and then decided to pick it back up this past Fall just for fun. He played well in the Fall and we were hoping it would carry over this following school year and it definitely has. He has one of the highest batting averages on the team, though I couldn't tell you what it is just that he is doing very well. He hit a homerun this year, which is the first in a really long time. He is playing left field, shortstop and pitcher this year and is playing each position above average. He has had 2 errors the whole season so far and pitched an entire 7 inning game by himself and got the win. He came in this evening to pitch the 6th inning. We were winning 5-2 and he got all 3 batters out. We then went back out to hit at the bottom of the 6th inning and ended up scoring enough for them to call the game. Game ended with a score of 12-2. He is looking forward to playing Legion baseball this year and to his tryout on June 7th at MU S&T Rolla. He is having fun and looks very comfortable and confident out there. Very refreshing :)
We sent Darein's xray results to Kansas City but have not heard anything back yet. I did talk to her pediatrician and evidently she had lots of stool that showed up so I had to call her urology doctor's office in Kansas City and explain to them that I had had surgery, then got the flu and she had the flu as well so for the past month we had not had Darein on a regular basis of Benefiber and Miralax every single day. I assured them that I would go ahead and get her started back on this right away and understood if we needed to repeat the test in another 3 months. They stated that they would pass this information on to the doctor so that he could make that decision.
Unfortunately, the medicine regimen that Darein has to go through on a regular basis can be a bit much for the both of us. Darein takes her medicines in the morning but of course she can't do it on an empty stomach. So she eats breakfast but we seem to have a hard time trying to fit her Benefiber in in the morning. Her doctor wants us to put it in her food as he feels this is the most effective method for her. Unfortunately, it is a powder that you mix up in her food. This is a little difficult if she has cereal as she has to make sure to drink all of the milk to make sure that she gets all of the Benefiber. If she has eggs or pancakes, then these things are impossible to mix with Benefiber. So we usually forget about it in the morning. I would try her Miralax in the morning which is also a powder but this goes in her drink except for the fact she states if she takes this in the morning she ends up with diarrhea. It is too harsh on her stomach for her to take both in the evening but that seems to be what ends up happening most of the time. She ends up taking her Benefiber mixed in her mashed potatoes at dinner and then when she takes her nighttime medicine, before bed we give her the Miralax. We just have to remember to start her medicine regimen 30 minutes to an hour prior to bedtime so that she has plenty of time to drink her drink.
Anyways, hoping we can come up with something that works better for the both of us and still meets her doctor's requirements.
I am healing well since my gallbladder surgery and am finally doing quite well. My scars are healing nicely and I have now managed to lose 26 lbs. over the past year and a half since I have quit my job!!!! I still have a long ways to go but I am well on my way and quite excited about my progress in this area.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Spring!!!! Take care and God Bless :)
Damein had such a rough time last year after he came down with Steven Johnson Syndrome right before baseball season. He managed to lose most of his coordination for the first of the season, the coach was hard on him and he was feeling pretty hard on himself about his ability. He chose not to play Legion baseball after he got demoted from Varsity to Junior Varsity during the school year. He took some time off after the school year and then decided to pick it back up this past Fall just for fun. He played well in the Fall and we were hoping it would carry over this following school year and it definitely has. He has one of the highest batting averages on the team, though I couldn't tell you what it is just that he is doing very well. He hit a homerun this year, which is the first in a really long time. He is playing left field, shortstop and pitcher this year and is playing each position above average. He has had 2 errors the whole season so far and pitched an entire 7 inning game by himself and got the win. He came in this evening to pitch the 6th inning. We were winning 5-2 and he got all 3 batters out. We then went back out to hit at the bottom of the 6th inning and ended up scoring enough for them to call the game. Game ended with a score of 12-2. He is looking forward to playing Legion baseball this year and to his tryout on June 7th at MU S&T Rolla. He is having fun and looks very comfortable and confident out there. Very refreshing :)
We sent Darein's xray results to Kansas City but have not heard anything back yet. I did talk to her pediatrician and evidently she had lots of stool that showed up so I had to call her urology doctor's office in Kansas City and explain to them that I had had surgery, then got the flu and she had the flu as well so for the past month we had not had Darein on a regular basis of Benefiber and Miralax every single day. I assured them that I would go ahead and get her started back on this right away and understood if we needed to repeat the test in another 3 months. They stated that they would pass this information on to the doctor so that he could make that decision.
Unfortunately, the medicine regimen that Darein has to go through on a regular basis can be a bit much for the both of us. Darein takes her medicines in the morning but of course she can't do it on an empty stomach. So she eats breakfast but we seem to have a hard time trying to fit her Benefiber in in the morning. Her doctor wants us to put it in her food as he feels this is the most effective method for her. Unfortunately, it is a powder that you mix up in her food. This is a little difficult if she has cereal as she has to make sure to drink all of the milk to make sure that she gets all of the Benefiber. If she has eggs or pancakes, then these things are impossible to mix with Benefiber. So we usually forget about it in the morning. I would try her Miralax in the morning which is also a powder but this goes in her drink except for the fact she states if she takes this in the morning she ends up with diarrhea. It is too harsh on her stomach for her to take both in the evening but that seems to be what ends up happening most of the time. She ends up taking her Benefiber mixed in her mashed potatoes at dinner and then when she takes her nighttime medicine, before bed we give her the Miralax. We just have to remember to start her medicine regimen 30 minutes to an hour prior to bedtime so that she has plenty of time to drink her drink.
Anyways, hoping we can come up with something that works better for the both of us and still meets her doctor's requirements.
I am healing well since my gallbladder surgery and am finally doing quite well. My scars are healing nicely and I have now managed to lose 26 lbs. over the past year and a half since I have quit my job!!!! I still have a long ways to go but I am well on my way and quite excited about my progress in this area.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Spring!!!! Take care and God Bless :)
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