9 posts tagged “life”

First of all, I really just want to take a second to shout out to some of the wonderful people in my "hood.  One of the most special young women that I've been blessed to know, Adah, has gone out of her way to ask people to pray for me.  She must really have some pull around Vox and people have been coming out of the woodwork to say hello and to send prayers my way.  Adah, I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  If you were here, I'd give you the biggest bear hug of your life!  To everyone of you who have been giving your time to pray for me, OMG!  Your prayers are working and I want to thank you all so much.  SO...   BIG virtual group hug to all of you.  I wish there was something more I could do to express my thankfulness.  I just hope you know that I really mean what I'm saying.  Your prayers aren't falling on deaf ears and they're NOT going unappreciated by me!  I love you guys.  I really feel like the most blessed and lucky person in the world.  I am certainly rich in the area of good friends:-)

Here's where we're at:  I was released from the hospital on Easter day because they could find no more veins to give me the two units of blood that I needed at that time.  They also needed to give me 3 consecutive units of iron because I was losing iron just as fast as they could put it in.  There was nobody in the hospital to put in a central line or a pic line like I needed.  I'd been asking for these more permanent lines since I was admitted but the nurses would not even ask the doctors because there was always a possibility that I would be released the next day.  Several days later, I was still being tortured with these idiots blowing up every good vein that I had.  I was finally told by a supervisor that I could yell and scream and threaten these bastards with the hospital administrator.  This is what I'll do from now on.  So, I got to go home because, either they discharged me or I was walking.  I'm getting mean now.  They let me go if I promissed to come back and get my blood the next day.

I came back on Monday.  My mom took off work to bring me back to the hospital.  I had to go to the "infusion center", where I was told that they couldn't even draw blood from me because my veins were so bad.  They work with a lot of cancer patience and people who are notorious for not having veins, and they are generally AT LEAST able to draw blood.  They couldn't on me so they tried to get me into the radiologist to do a pic line.  Because I was ONLY bleeding to death and nothing more, they wouldn't consider it an emergency and I had to go home and come back on Tuesday, which is today.  8:30 is when they told me to go to admitting to get this party started.  I showed up at admitting, Ben taking off work this time (because I'm too weak to drive), and they told me I was supposed to be here at 8:00.  It wasn't the hospital's problem that Mom and I were told wrong.  NOW I would have to be worked into their schedule and that meant that I might not be seen until 3:00 this afternoon.  I was more than a little pissed.  It takes more than the loss of blood to make me forget that I have a "temper".  At this point, I don't really know what to do because if I show them that I'm as mad as I really am, they could treat me worse and make me wait longer.  You just don't know how it will work out with these people.  I kept most of my cool.  I got my pic line within the hour.  It could have been SO MUCH WORSE!!!!!  Prayer answered.

It was explained to me that because blood takes 4 hours for each unit to process (that would be 8 hours for me), and iron takes 1 hour for 3 consecutive days, that I would be admitted so that they could moniter me and it would just be that much more simple.  I'm packed to stay.  Once I got down to the infusion center, they took my blood to see where I'm at today.  I DON'T NEED BLOOD!  My blood went up a whole point since Easter!  Prayer answered again!  I can just go home now and come back and get my iron for an hour every day.  Not bad eh?  God will only give us as much as we can take and I think he probably knew that I was getting redy to kill the nurses up on the "floors".  My doctors are such good doctors now and I feel so blessed to have them but they only work out of this hospital.  If it gets to the point where I'm feeling postal, I may have to switch doctors again just because I absolutely despise some of the floors they put me on in the hospital.  This last stay made me feel like I was in the nursing home.  One lesson I've learned is that if you ever have to go into the hospital for any reason, TRY to bring someone with you.  I watched some of these people who didn't have family their to back them up not ever get waited on by some nurses.  I wouldn't have gotten 1 single glass of water if it weren't for Ben or Amber or my mom.  The lady next to me wouldn't have gotten 1 single glass of water.  A volunteer changed my bed only 1 day.  I changed my bed the rest of the days.  The lady next to me laid in her own mess for about an hour before anyone would help her.  When they did help, the nurse gave the patient all the stuff to clean herself.  She was a 73 year old lady who was weak from loss of blood too.  They would NOT help her.  I called the nursing supervisor to complain for this lady.  We were given semi better nurses after that.

Where I'm at with the doctors:  I'm being told that because of almost 100% paralysis in my stomach, maybe the best way to permanently fix me is to completely remove my stomach.  I know I've said this before so I'm sorry if I'm boring anybody:-)  My ulcers are being caused from the food laying in my stomach, causing acid and eating holes.  If I had no stomach, this wouldn't happen.  They want to attatch my intestines to my esophagas.  Very little of your digestion happens in your stomach (even for normal people) anyway.  Your stomach just squishes up your food and technically, you can live without a stomach.  The quality of life wouldn't be as good but mine isn't great anyway.  I'm in the hospital every other week and my last major surgery that I wasn't supposed to live through just happened in August.  They think this might just fix me as best as I can be fixed.  The surgeon is going to a conference and will be presenting my case to other surgeons in order to get their input.

There is another option that I think I'm going to choose.  They can make another tube (for a total of 2 tubes) coming off the other side of my stomach.  They can cut away the damaged ulcerated tissure that won't heal with medication.  There is a POSSIBILITY that this might work.  They don't think so.  This is the general consensus of all of the doctors combined.  I think I'm going with this option because it leaves the possibility that I might be able to live a somewhat normal life.  They can always take out more stomach if this doesn't work but if they take out everything now, I'll never know if this could have worked.  To take out everything just seems so drastic.  Besides I want to give this new nutrition stuff that is supposed to rebuild cells, a chance to work.  Just maybe, with prayer, faith and a positive attitude it might work on me.  I'll never know if I let them take everything out right now.

The other positive thing that happened yesterday was that I signed up for disability.  There's almost no way that I won't get it (or so they say) with the amount of hospital records that they have on me.  I'll be getting back pay to 2006!  AND my kids will also get a little amount of money.  Hey!  Anything that we weren't expecting is better than nothing, right?  I never wanted to file because I couldn't get it through my head that I was REALLY disabled.  I think I'm accepting that, for at least a little while, I will be.  The good news is that I don't always have to claim disability.  I mean that if I ever feel good again, I can go back to work.  I guess I thought that once disabled, always disabled.  I just hate that label.  I'm just too proud for my own good.  So proud I'm actually stupid sometimes!  lol  I'll get my first check anywhere from June to August.  Great, huh?

AND another thing is that I took Savannah to get her permit yesterday and she passed!  She only missed one question.  She has a photographic memory so I was pretty sure that she would.  I also took her to open her first checking and savings account that she has control of.  I set up overdraft fee protection that won't come out of MY account too!  Yay me!  I guess I just feel like I need to get things in order in case something really does happen to me.  I know it's negative to actually think that way but to me, it's being realistic.  Even if nothing happens to me, I don't really have too many good days where I'm out of the hospital for very long, so I need to get as much done as I can while I can do it.

So there it is peeps!  Thank you all again and I love you all!!!!!!!!

 

On Friday night we took the Texas crew to Hidden Valley Ski Resort because Jake wanted to see snow so badly and try his hand at skiing or snow boarding.  He didn't like it AT ALL because he doesn't like anything he can't master immediately.  Think about it though.  They don't have snow or rarely even ice in Texas!  Bobby and Ben had a great time snow boarding for the first time.  Check out this little video clip.  Our little "Fun Size Bobby" could do back flips on his snowboard!  He fell over immediately but HEY!  Who's counting!  lol  He was HEELARIOUS!  I almost peed my pants laughing so hard at him!  I was proud of Ben and he both because it was both of their first time on a snow board.  This was seriously hard to do folks!

 

This is Bobby practicing his expert snowboarding moves.  lmao  He's completely goofy but I really think he's going to be a natural if he ever gets to do it again.  We're going to try it again next year if they come in the winter time again.  I think me and Netta will just watch this time.  It's not that we're whimps because we DID try but I think it's best if we're not carried away by the snowmobile to the hospital!

 

Josh was funny as usual.  He convinced Amber that he didn't know how to tie his own shoes so she, being the helpful girl that she is, was more than happy to try and teach him!  lol  She gave up and just tied his shoes for him.  Good job Josh!

 

 

 

 

Netta, Jake and I decided to take first time ski instructions.  We wanted to learn how to ski the right way.  I think we only succeeded in majorly making the instructor so mad that he tried to kill us later!  We are NOT naturals!  lol

 

Netta has a bad knee and fell pretty hard just trying to get up the hill on this little escalator thing.  She also fell going down the hill and the ski instructor could have helped to stop her but he made no effort because he hated us.  She banged up her knee pretty good though.  The really cool thing is that both she and I wouldn't have even tried to do this if we both weren't there together.  She was thinking that she'd HAVE to do it if Michelle did it and I was thinking I'd have to do it if Netta did it.  It was like we couldn't let the other "one up" us!  I think we were pretty relieved when we both agreed to quit and not try again!  I never thought I'd be a quitter but this seriously hurt!  lol

 

This is me taking my ski lesson way too seriously!  It didn't help anyway.  I almost went off the side of a small cliff trying to ski down the baby hill!  Have you ever fallen on skiis?  You're supposed to kick your skiis off to try and get up.  I forgot to do this and had to roll over on my belly while screaming for Bobby to run down the icy hill to come and save me.  I don't know where Ben was.  Probably hiding and laughing behind a tree!  lol  Bones that I didn't even know I had were hurting.  They'll tell you that if anything breaks, it will usually be your knees while skiing.  Of course I didn't know that when we started.  Only after my knees felt broken!  I STILL hurt!

 

Savannah joined our beginner class late.  I wanted her to learn how to stop herself properly because she could ski but she had to intentionally fall when she wanted to stop.  This is her falling to a stop!  lol

 

Amber, Danielle and Julia have been skiing because they have passes.  They showed off the entire time.  They can ski down the hugest hill I've ever seen in my life.  I think it looked like a suicide hill!  They acted like they were on flat ground.  I was so impressed with them though.  Their form was beautiful!

 

This is Ben all proud of himself for being able to snowboard.  There's not much he's NOT good at even if it's the first time he tries.

We had a BLAST even if we all did go home banged up and bruised.  I think you need to try things you've never tried before.  Life is short!  We all need to have a good time with this life:-)

*edited to say that I'm not sure why this video won't play:-(  Sorry!

 

This weekend Ben and I celebrated our 5th anniversary!  Truthfully, with all the problems we've had in the beginning of our marriage, neither one of us thought we'd make it this far.  I know 5 years isn't an amazingly long time to be married but for us - we feel like we've really accomplished something!  So to celebrate, we decided to spend the weekend at the Southern Hotel Bed and Breakfast in Ste. Genevieve Missouri.  We had a BLAST!  As much as I adore my girls, it's been so good to take time away from them and spend QUALITY time with my husband with no interruptions and no phone ringing and no tv AND, most importantly, NO WORLD of WARCRAFT (Ben's vice)!  We had the quiet time we needed to get to know each other again.  Sometimes life just gets in the way and I think because of this, sometimes married people don't have a lot of quality time to spend with one another.  It's so important though...

 

 

 

 

The Southern Hotel was built in 1790 and is still standing!  Amazing!  I felt like it was haunted *insert twilight zone music*.  This is an absolutely beautiful place and the breakfasts were TO DIE FOR!  The owner is a recently widowed man (his wife just died in December) and MAN!  Can he COOK!  The first morning we had the fluffiest omelet that I've ever eaten stuffed with French farmers cheese.  I can not begin to tell you how rich and delicious it was.  He also served gooey butter cake BEFORE breakfast with the best coffee we've had in a very long time.  Visiting Ste. Genevieve was like taking a walk through the movie "It's A Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart. 

 

This was a little weird.  These 2 claw foot bath tubs were side by side in our room which was called "The Button and Bow Room".  I like my privacy while bathing so I wasn't excited about the arrangements.  lol  I just made Ben leave the room when I "bathed".  lol  Oh and the toilet was also in this room but it didn't have walls, only the little divider you see behind the bathtubs.  Also not amused by the toilet arrangements.  I wouldn't even let Ben use this toilet.  He had to use the "shared" restroom down the hall.  lol  Aside from this, there were no complaints about our room.

 

This was the armoire (sp?) in our room.  I believe the owner said it was made in the 1800's.  I loved this piece of furniture.

 

This was our canopied bed.  It was made in the 1700's, if you can believe that!  The down comforter was the best!  I don't know if you can see but there's actually a picture of one of the women who used to own this bed.  She wasn't the original owner - I believe the picture was taken in the late 1800's.  I'm a little supersticious so this was also a little creepy!  I felt like she was watching me so I had to take the picture down and lay it face down so she couldn't see!  lol

 

 

I guess my favorite part of this weekend was that it snowed and looked so beautiful!  Have you ever noticed how quiet it gets outside when it snows a lot?  It was so peaceful and I was NOT ready to come home and leave all the prettiness behind.  Besides, we only had mud here at my house:-(  All the snow's melted here now.

 

 

On Saturday, after breakfast, Ben and I visited Crown Valley Winery.  I think it only costs around $5 a person to taste as much wine as you can legally drink.  lol  We bought a case of some of the best wine I've ever tasted.  I've been here once before when we celebrated my Mom's 60th birthday with her sisters.  If you ever find yourself in Missouri, I'd HIGHLY recommend taking a tour of this winery:-)

This is Gracie.  She's completely blind from malnourishment for the first year of her life.  She's 3 (if I remember right).  She VERY friendly and gets around pretty well for not beeing able to see.  She has a HUGE running area and sees by using her feet to feel.  You can't really tell that she's blind because she gets around so well but you can see the cataracts if you look at her eyes.  They're looking into getting Gracie the eye operation that she needs to hopefully correct her eyesight.  Did you know that all tigers are born blind?  I didn't know this until Saturday when I took the tour.  Through the right kind of nutrition, their eyesight slowly developes after about 3 months of age. 

 

This is Alexis.  She's a 5 year old lion who was abused.  She's pretty friendly for all that she's gone through.

We also visited a tiger sanctuary owned by Crown Valley Winery.  They are a complete non profit group who are so dedicated to the care of these big cats who would otherwise be dead if the winery hadn't rescued them.  They rescue these large cats from different drive through animal saffaris.  The tigers and lions are also rescued from petting zoos who kill the animals after they turn 6 months old.  The tigers and lions that we saw were rescued from severly abusive owners and they were ALL malnourished and near death.  100% of the money that the winery collects from the tours go directly for the care of the animals.  They're fed only bison and elk, raised by the winery also.  Lions and tigers only live 5 years in the wild in a natural enviroment but in a controlled envirment, they can live to be 18 to 20 years.  

 

 The NEXT time we visit the Ste. Genevieve area, we're going to eat at The Crown Ridge which is located on the premises of the tiger sanctuary.  They were booked with reservations all weekend so we couldn't go.  Apparently they're wonderful to be completely booked!  This is located in a small town in the DEEP country but people from all around St. Louis make the 2 hour drive just to eat here.  Beautiful place!

Other than taking slow drives through the snowy country and visiting antique stores and the winery, Ben and I just kicked back and relaxed.  We played Dominos (I won!!!!!) and took some time to read to each other (which is something we always liked to do).  Oh, and we ate...  A LOT!  lol 

What do you say to your child when they have to experience the death of a dear friend?  A little while ago I got a dreaded call.  I answered the phone only to hear my breathless 23 year old sobbing and asking me to just stay on the phone with her.  She was afraid and didn't want to be alone.  After much prodding, I coaxed Amber to tell me what was wrong.  A boy that she'd gone to school with since kindergarten died today from complications of leukemia.  She just didn't understand how someone who was always so vibrant, always smiling and warm could be here one minute and then just die. 

Amber's friend Drew had been suffering from leukemia since high school.  He's had several bone marrow transplants and never had any complications from them.  Apparently, yesterday, Drew had another bone marrow transplant.  I'm not clear on how many this makes him BUT this was the transplant that he rejected.  He went into seizures and then died.

This is so hard for Amber to understand because he still went to parties with all of them (Amber and her friends).  Drew didn't want anyone to think of him as "sick".  He tried to keep up with the rest of them and drank, sometimes, more than he should.  He just wanted to be a normal kid!  He wanted to live a lifetime in his short 24 years.  I know his parents and his friends weren't really ready for this.  How can you be, really?  He was a healthy boy, realatively speaking.  I know he had leukemia but as far as cancer patients go, he was healthy.  He'd just started getting all of his color back and his hair and muscle tone.  He looked normal.

Amber doesn't know why this has to happen.  Why does God tease people with allowing them to believe that there's hope for these "sick" people?  It seems like a cruel joke.  She just can't get over that he had to die when he seemed to want to live so badly.

I have nothing to say to this.  No answer.  I've asked the same questions when my brother was killed.  He was 18.  I just don't know.  What I COULD tell my baby girl, is that when a person is very ill for a long period of time, they just get tired.  I believe that no matter if Drew allowed his friends to believe that he was healthy, he knew he wasn't healthy and he was probably tired.  I believe, because I've kind of been there, that when it is our time to go, it's almost a relief.  It's a peaceful end to a long hard journey.  I used to look at death as the dreaded enemy.  I don't now but I know that my daughter still does.  She's had to experience too much death in her young life.  Her father died of cancer when she was 16.  She watched his long hard battle and it wasn't pretty.  Her Grandmother has cancer now and is not expected to live very much longer.  And then there's me.  She's so afraid.  Terrified, really.  All I can tell her is what I've always said...  Nobody get's out of here alive.  Death is just another realm.  Another transition.  One that we can't take part in right now.  We're the soldiers who're left behind to finish our jobs here on earth.  We'll all be done with our job sooner or later.  Other than that...  I just don't know.

(*For your listening pleasure while I tell you my latest saga*)

 

 

So...  I went to the hematologist Tuesday.  I was prepared to ONLY talk about what my options were.  Apparently there were no options for me.  I wasn't given the choice.  I was TOLD that I needed to start intravenous iron treatments immediately.  I'm told that these treatments only take 1 hour (usually).  Mine took 5 hours, for many reasons.  The most important being that the doctor had to make sure I wouldn't be allergic to the iron because I've had such bad reactions to iron in the past.  They had to do 1/2 hour IV drip of Benadryl and another 1/2 hour of compazine which decreases the chance of me being sick.  Compazine did not work, btw...   The other problem they had was that I didn't have good veins so several nurses had to give it a run at starting the IV.  Of COURSE nobody listened to me.  NOBODY believed that my veins wouldn't hold a needle that was as wide as a pencil!  ARGH!  Apparently the pencil sized needles were good for drawing blood and receiving chemo and/or iron.  It hurt and I'm not one to complain about the pain of starting an IV because I'm so used to it.  Eventually, the nurses finally believed me (only because they had to find out on thier own) and I got the itsy bitsy needle that my veins will support.  Anyway, these iron treatments are supposed to go on once a week for the next eight weeks and possibly for the rest of my life.  If my blood counts don't get any better, they'll start checking my bone marrow to find out why I can't produce healthy red blood cells.

This is what the iron looked like after they took it off my pole.  An interesting mess, eh?  lol

 

 

I wasn't ready for this.  I never realized that I would have to go to the chemotherapy room to get transfused with iron!  In fact,

 I didn't even really know that people went to little rooms instead of the hospital in order to receive their chemo treatment.  The chemo patients came and went but I was still sitting.  They've made such advances in chemotherapy now.  I was able to talk to most of these patients and surprisingly, they were happy to answer my questions.  It took me a couple of hours to warm up to the idea of being there in the first place.  It was so sad.  I'd thought these people would look at their disease as hopeless or that they had a death sentence.  I was pleasantly surprised that NOBODY felt like their cancer meant death.  They also (most of them) had hair!  Totally shocking to me.  Some chemo treatments allow you to keep your hair.  I'm just used to thinking of cancer patients as having no hair.  Only SOMETIMES does that happen!  I did feel terrible for them after they stood up to leave though.  Apparently, no matter how good chemo is now, the patients still feel so shaky that they could barely walk.

No matter what I have to go through now, being in that chemo room has certainly put things in good perspective for me.  Maybe it's going to do my attitude some good, who knows!  lol  I'm told that I'll notice a difference after taking the iron by the 3rd treatment.  My blood and iron are so low that it's probably going to take a few treatments to see a big difference.  It's already easier to breath and I've been up and working around the house for longer periods of time.  They're still investigating the reasons why I might be developing these bleeding ulcers.  They're still considering it "terminal" if they can't "fix" the ulcer development problem.  "Terminal" is such a silly word if you think about it.  We are ALL terminal!  From the day a baby is born, he/she begins to die.  Not one single person gets out of here alive.  And that's ALL I have to say:-)

 

I love my kids.  That's no secret or big revelation.  Most of us DO love our children.  This post won't be about that though.  This post is about not losing yourself to being a wife or to motherhood.  Do you remember when you were a real, live person who had hopes and dreams and talents - even outside of motherhood?

I have a friend who became a wife at the age of 15 and a mother at the age of 16.  She came from a dysfunctional family - a father who was the primary care taker but an alcoholic and a mother who was completely unavailable and addicted to Valium.  My friend's only dream and function in life was to be a good wife and mother.  She surrounded herself with only "church" friends because they helped keep her in line.  She became 100% dedicated to her family.  She kept the kind of home where you could eat off the floors, if you wanted!  The coffee was on and breakfast was made for her husband before his feet ever hit the ground in the morning.  His lunch was made for the day and she'd send him off to work with a kiss.  Then she would go to work.  She was able to find jobs that allowed her to be home when the kids got off the bus.  She made all of her employers know that her family came first and she NEVER worked past the time it was time for her husband to come home.  Once she was home, she dedicated ALL her time to either taking care of her kids, taking care of her house, taking care of her husband or she'd get her Bible out and pray.  From the outside looking in, this was the perfect marriage (to me, it looked completely unattainable).  Actually, there weren't many problems in her marriage.  Her husband would have been stupid to create any kind of problem because not only did she behave as a perfect wife and mother should, she also looked like a barbie doll and was the perfect trophy wife!  She believed in being completely submissive to her husband because that's what the Bible taught.

Then came the day when her daughter graduated from high school and moved out.  I thought my friend would go into a depression that she wouldn't recover from.  She ALMOST did but she solved the problem by being completely involved in her daughter's life.  She'd take care of her daughter's household too and, in my opinion, became unhealthily submerged in her young daughter's life.  This is what she had to do to make herself feel like she was still "worth" something to her daughter.  The daughter would say things like "Mom's my best friend but I don't want to hang out with her 100% of the time!".  I could see her frustration but in the same sense, I could never hurt my friends feelings by telling her.  My friend still has a son at home.  He's in every sport that's offered at school and on individual teams.  My friend's husband coaches their son's baseball team.  My friend is just a baseball, football, basketball and God knows what other kind of sport "mom".  She doesn't ever go on vacation or on  short trips just to get away.  She only goes to her son's baseball games out of town and THAT'S her vacation.  Wow.  Fun, right?  I've asked her to go places with me just for a weekend because I think she'd actually LIKE it.  She won't tear herself away from her remaining family.  The problem with this is that her son is in 10th grade and about to start driving.  He'd rather be with his own friends now and is NEVER without a girlfriend.  Who wantsMom hanging out with your friends, right?

The problem that my friend is having is the same that I see so many other mom's having...  They forget that there's a person underneath the cloak of "mommyhood".  Now, through tears, she wonders what there is to life.  She's given all she has to her family and she's watching her family leave her to begin their own lives, little by little.  She asked me the other day what she was supposed to do with her life now?  She doesn't even know who she is unless she's "doing" for someone else.  Now she begins the journey of getting to know herself again.

I just think it's important to remind people that being a great wife and mommy is AWESOME.  That's what you NEED to do.  Take care of yourself too, though.  Your children WILL grow up and leave you.  There WILL be a day when they don't need you like they once did and then what will you have?  What will you do?  I'm struggling with this too, just not quite as bad as my friend.  I was able to foresee the day when my children would leave (sort of).  I have a lot more kids than she does though and my life with them will outlast the time my friend has with her children.  We need to TRY and do some of the things that make us happy WITHOUT the children and the husband.  Think about it:-)

 

Life has a way of teaching better lessons than we, as parents sometimes EVER can.  Many of you know the trials and tribulations of my life with Savannah, my step-daughter.  It's been a rough road and it sometimes seems like the road was impassable.  Blocked.  I will admit that I've been through times where I've all but completely lost hope that she would even be able to function in society.  Lost hope is NOT a good place to be in.  Against all odds, I kept trying.  In retrospect, I guess I was really hanging from my last thread of hope for her or I wouldn't have kept trying.

It's no secret that Savannah has had serious issues and obstacles to overcome.  She's bi-polar, she's had to live with several "mom's" that her dad has imposed on her, and the list seems endless.  There's just so much that's she's been through and I've touched on it ALL in previous posts.  The GOOD news is that LIFE is teaching her.  Life is teaching her lessons that I haven't been able to.  I think she's finally getting it.  For the first time since she's lived here (7 years), she's finally trying in school.  Her grades are starting to excell.  Her teachers are giving us reports about what a "joy" it is to have Savannah in class.  She's actually PARTICIPATING in class instead of disrupting class.  She should be in 11th grade but she really hasn't even been able to pass 10th grade because of her own lack of effort, despite ANYTHING we tried.  She finally sees that it's so much better to get the good type of attention.  Lord knows she's gotten enough of the wrong type of attention!  She actually may WANT to do well just for her own sake. 

Yesterday, Savannah went to a speech competition, or "finals" (as they're really called), where only the best of the best kids got to compete against each other.  There were a LOT of VERY talented kids there.  Savannah did a dramatic interpretation called "Multiple Personality Murder" where she got to play a murderess who had several personalities.  She can do ALL the personalities so well that it would give you goose bumps!  It did me, anyway and I'm not necessarily prejudiced!  lol  She won 3rd place and we were SO proud!  Her teacher just couldn't say enough good things about her.  Apparently, Savannah may just have some acting skills!  Of course, living with Savannah, I already KNEW this!  lol  She brought home a medal and a certificate.  I can't begin to say how GOOD it feels to see something positive.

 

ALSO!!!!!  She FINALLY has a job!  We've been on her for a year now, trying to get her to be serious about finding a job.  Our motivation is that once she's 18, she's going to have to find her own place to live.  I was SURE that I couldn't go through anything more than her 18th year.  We've been trying to impose on her just how important it was to believe that she really will be supporting herself and that Daddy really won't be doing it anymore.  This all sounds harsh but she's "purposely" tried to flunk out of school.  She's lost any chance of getting a scholarship into college because she didn't WANT to go to college.  She also didn't want to ever drive or get a job because she'll tell you, she's lazy.  She thought there'd really be a way around life and she'd get to do nothing.  I guess it's part of the disease of bi-polar.  I don't know.  Maybe I should have had more patience but I've always been a driven person (when I was healthy) and so are MY kids so I just couldn't understand why someone would actually think thier dad would take care of them all of thier life?  It sounded crazy to me. 

 

So now she has a part time job at Burger King and she LOVES it!  We were pretty sure that she'd try to get fired the first day that she worked.  That didn't happen.  She's been working now for 3 weeks and they LOVE her too!  In fact, they've increased her responsibilities.  They trust her more than they do someone who's worked there for much longer!  Savannah is so proud and rightfully so.  It's just good to see her achieve something POSITIVE!  Sorry for sounding like an obnoxious MOM but I just don't get many of these moments where I can be proud of her!  Oh yeah, now she's actually looking forward to driving.  She's saving her checks for moving out and for a car!  I'm pretty sure she's growing out of her Peter Pan syndrome! 

The moral of this story is that sometimes, even though it's scary to hope , we can never REALLY give up hope. If we do, we might as well be dead.  I believe this. Sometimes we just need patience and life really will work itself out.  Sometimes we just need to step out of the way and let God do his work instead of trying to force his hand.  That's a VERY hard lesson for me to learn:)

 

I'm feeling admittedly sappy right now, but for a good reason.  You have been for-warned so if sentimentality isn't your thing, please move on...

I have several health problems that I haven't really blogged about (or at least I hope not too much).  Recently, I had some pretty bad news and I'm trying to deal with it.  So, I guess I'll start here.  I have an ulcer disease where medicine and medical treatment can't seem to repair my "holey" digestive system.  The doctors (and so many of them) have tried everything that I or that they know to try.  In 2006, I had 1/3 of my stomach removed along with some other crucial digestive parts.  They had to do this because they couldn't stop the bleeding.  I made it through that horrible operation and I seriously thought I'd die at some points.  For example, the epidural that the anesthesiologist put in to stop the pain of the surgery didn't work.  They missed something and the pain medicine went into my body cavity instead of my spine.  I screamed in pain for 2 days and NOBODY, including my mother believed that I was in that much pain.  They kept telling me that I was getting the maximum amount of pain medication and couldn't take anything else.  They didn't know they'd made a mistake til I was literally dying.  My blood pressure plumitted and I started to fade.  I remember the nurses and my husband saying to me "Michelle, stay with us".  I almost could see my body from somewhere else.  At that time, the only thought that was going through my mind was that I wasn't going to die this way.  HELL NO!  I'd lived through too much just to die from something so incredibly stupid as a bad epidural!  It just seemed like I should die from something much more dramatic!  If you knew my life, you'd understand.

Complication after complication later, I'm here.  I just found out (almost 2 months ago) that the GI doctor who was doing scope after scope on me to see why I was still in pain and to make sure that I didn't have anymore ulcers, was wrong.  He said everything was fine and even indicated that he thought I was an overeater and a pain-med seeker.  Pretty much blamed my condition on me.  I was admitted into the hospital a couple of months ago and they found out that I didn't even have enough blood for half of a small woman.  I had to get several units of blood transfused into me (again).  Where was the blood coming from if I was fine?  I never saw blood and these new doctors had been assured from the old GI doctors records that I was a brand new healthy woman and shouldn't even have a problem.  They went ahead and did another obligatory scope just to find out that old GI doctor hadn't been reporting some major damage in my intestines.  There were so many ulcers that it was actually worse than the areas they'd removed surgically!  Some of these new doctors told me that they just magically grew there overnight.  WRONG!   The others that they already removed had grown over a lifetime and didn't look so bad.  They know and I know that old GI doctor made a serious mistake. 

This isn't just a mistake.  This is life threatening.  It will never get better although the doctors are trying to heal them with protonix cause that's the only non-invasive thing they can do.  They let my family know that I probably won't live because of this condition.  They won't operate cause they're afraid that the bacteria from my intestines will infect my whole body.  When they took out my stomach, last year, it had absessed and I had to go through a longer hospital stay with the absess than I did with the surgery!  That was with "clean" ulcers.  These ulcers, that they're just now finding, look so diseased that I can't even describe them without making some of you sick.  There's pretty much no way that infection WON'T start.  I may not die from the surgery but from complications of the surgery.  Needless to say there's no doctor around here that will touch me, as far as surgery goes.  At least not yet.  My regular internist says that they can operate as soon as something ruptures and I start bleeding profusely.  They'll have to then.  The problem I have with this is that then I will obviously be so unhealthy, by that point, that I don't see how I could possibly live?  I think they've signed my death warrant and I don't like it!  My other options are to wait til my insurance approves a drug that I can administer (in the form of an injection) called procrit.  This will allow my blood to build on it's own.  They don't want to approve it so far because this drug is generally only used for kidney patients.  I'm only a stomach patient.  I hate insurance companies as much as I hate doctors, at this point.  So I wait for that.  Meanwhile, I need to go back to the hospital because the symptoms they told me to look for are back.  I'm having a hard time breathing and I'm getting so tired I can do most nothing but sleep.  My kids are going crazy and I can do nothing about it.  They sense when I'm sick and get rowdier, I think.   They're taking care of the house though cause I can't.  I don't know what I'd do if they were so little that they actually "NEEDED" me! I guess call mom! lol  I'm sure they're all so sick of hearing me say how bad I feel or how sick I am.

This whole ordeal can't all be bad.  I can see the blessings in all of this, oddly enough.  I have learned to live and appreciate every little day.  Actually, I'm not feeling much of anything at all right now and that's another symptom of needing blood.  A body needs oxygen to "feel" anything other than dead (shock of all shocks).  My life from now on will be a series of blood transfusions and hospital visits.  I'm going to try and hold off surgery as long as I can.  I need to live.  There isn't another option.  My kids all have different dad's and I used to be able to laugh at my own stupidity over this fact.  I can't anymore because the sad reality is that, although I've raised them to be 100% sisters (and they see themselves as whole sisters not half sisters), if I die, their dads won't allow them to live together.  My ex-husband won't budge on this so if I die, they won't see each other much at all.  I seriously doubt my ex-husband and my ex-lover are going to set up "daddy play dates" at McDonalds just so the girls can play together.  My mom is trying to get me to do something legally to see that the girls won't be seperated.  I'm going to put it in writing and do what the attorney says to do but I don't think I can fight the "dad's" from beyond my grave!   I guess I'll just do what I can now. 

So....  I've already discussed why I NEED to live.  Now I'll touch on why I WANT to live.  I've lived my whole life wanting to see what was around the corner.  I never knew how to live in the moment.  I just couldn't do it.  I've experienced abuse that was so bad that I can't talk about it a lot. Mostly cause the whole subject bores me and partially because  you may not believe it anyway (cause I have had that reaction when I tried to talk about it before).  I've lived through fighting for my life.  I lived through watching my dad try to kill my mom in front of us and then trying to kill us kids SEVERAL times.  I lived for the tomorrow that I KNEW was around the corner.  The corner came though and it took my brothers life.  WE were supposed to live the rest of our lives together and it wouldn't happen.  EVER.  I would never ever have my best friend back again.  I spent the rest of my life wanting to die, I guess.  It was like living in a haze.  Watching my life through a dream.  Someone elses nightmare, really.  I couldn't cry and I couldn't feel.  I shut down emotionally.  Oh, I had emotional twinges every now and then but for the most part, I was dead.  I'm 41 people!  I've lived like this since I was 19!  NOW, I'm ready to live and I just think it's a little funny that we can't decide when we're going to get to do this.  I've wasted all these years and now I think I'm ready to feel again and see again.  I don't want to go through life like a robot.  I was always good at getting things done and being strong for everyone else but I couldn't do the same for myself.  I think I'm a LITTLE ready to take care of myself (but I can't stop smoking and don't even want to).  I AM ready to see the sunshine though.  I'm ready to smell the smells and see the sights and LISTEN to my kids when they talk about the most ridiculous things! lol  Cause that's this thing people have been calling life and now I really want to be here:)

 

First of all I need to give the credit for this blog (or therapy session) to one of the friends in my neighborhood, One Feisty Mama (sorry I'm so ancient that I can't at this time figure out how to link her!).  I read one of her recent blogs called "sleep" and it brought back a lot of memories and emotions that I realised I wasn't quite done dealing with.  She addresses the guilt that I felt for wanting so much more than to just be a mother.  I've been a mother since I was 17 and by the time I was in my late 20's, I'd decided that I was tired of it and although I wouldn't have traded my 2 daughters for anything (but in a way I did), I wanted to see the world and do something that wasn't "kid" related.

 

 

 

Is There Life Out There?  By:  Reeba McEntire

 

 

She married when she was 20.

She thought she was ready,

Now, she's not so sure.

She thought she'd done some living,

But now she's just wondering 

What she's living for.

Now she's feeling like there's something more....

Is there life out there?

So much she hasn't done...

Is there life beyond

Her family and her home?

She's done what she should,

Should she do what she dares?

She doesn't want to leave,

She's just wondering,

Is there life out there?

She's always lived for tomorrow.

She's never learned how

To live for today.

She's dying to try something foolish,

Do something crazy,

Or just get away.

Something for herself for a change...

There's a place in the world that she's never been,

Where life is fair and time is a friend.

Would she do it the same as she did back then?

She looks out the window and wonders again...

Is there life out there?

 

 

Here's my story and a brief background...  I got pregnant with Amber during my senior year in high school.  I was a virgin when I got pregnant but I wasn't in love with her father so I decided to NOT marry him.  I thought I'd be able to fall in love and give her a "real" family one day.  I struggled to raise and support her,and with the help of my mom and to some extent, my step-mom,  I did a pretty good job.  I felt like it was important to show her that she wasn't a "welfare" child so I worked a whole lot of hours and I went to school to better myself so I could hopefully have such a good career one day that I'd be able to shorten my hours and eventually spend some time with her.  That didn't happen soon enough for me so I started to think that maybe the answer was to "make" myself fall in love with the first "nice" guy that I dated.  I thought I'd found a "nice" guy and I gave no thought to the fact that we had NOTHING in common and I wasn't attracted to him at all.  I thought I could learn to love him so I proceeded to let him fall in love with me and I agreed to marry him, lied to him and said I'd never loved anyone more (a fact that I've only recently apologised for).  I had a fairy tale wedding and my husband presented Amber with a ring, committing himself to be the best father he could be.  It didn't take but a few years for me to become so completely disgusted by him (only some of this was hi