Field Trip and Surgery

Today was R's field trip to the Halle Heart Center. I love this field trip the center is like the science center but only for the heart. I've been there 3 or 4 times and I was originally going to go with R, but because of my back I couldn't go. R still hasn't because the bus on the way to the center was involved a minor car accident. Everyone was fine, but they didn't make it to the Heart Center. My best friend was on the bus she sent me a text right away when it happened. Thank you God the kids were all OK. The school called all the families after they moved to a new bus and were on their way back to school. They will reschedule the field trip. In other news I was scheduled for my back surgery today! It will be on March 7th! Please pray that I'll do OK during the surgery and it will really heal my back.

Blood work

I had blood work done last week as part of my clearance for surgery. While she cleared me I need to follow up on my blood work. My cholesterol is high and my blood sugar. And I think something else but the nurse rattled it all off so fast I didn't have time to process it all. I do know she said the doctor thinks I should be on medication for the cholesterol and I am diabetic but we can wait until after surgery to follow up on the labs. Great just what I need more things wrong with me :(

Sickness and AAA and thank you notes

R has been sick with allergies which has felt forever. She's been using her inhaler, taken Clartin and she's still not getting better. She's missed school all week. Yesterday she didn't have a fever so she's trying to go to school today. Tomorrow is her filed trip to the heart center I don't want her to miss it. Please let her be well. In the medical world AAA stands for Ascending Aortic Aneurysm. For some reason the laser spine institute thinks I have an abdominal aortic aneurysm. I'm trying to get my heart doctor's nurse to work this out with them, I talked with her all day yesterday trying to get it straightened. While I'm glad the spine institute is being so through I really wish they would believe me already! Last night I was helping R with her thank you notes from her party. I know the party was a few weeks ago and usually I get out or make the kids get out thank you notes right away. But I wanted to use a group picture from the party and had to get them printed. As I was muttering to myself about not getting them out sooner, I realized again not many of her friends brought gifts. Is that the new norm? I would be embarrassed sending my child to a birthday party with out a gift. And this party was for 2 girls, and R got more gifts than the other girl, which I felt bad about too. What's the deal you just send off you child to a party and some of the parents didn't know us, and let us drive your child 45 minutes to the party location and then of course 45 minutes back to our house with out meeting them or sending a gift or card? One boy didn't show up in time so we picked him up and he's older brother came too? What??? I wouldn't do that if the party was even at so someones house but this party was going to cost us $16 per child, I think the parents owe us a thank you and not us thanks for coming to my party notes. Of course these boys had no gift for either girl. $5 or a homemade card would have been better than nothing. Maybe I'm just wrong, and gifts aren't really about attending a classmate's birthday party. But weren't they embarrassed when the girls opened the gifts they had? I would have been very uncomfortable even as a 10 or 11 year old.

Valentine's Day

We celebrated as a family on Sunday. R who hasn't felt good since Friday and I stayed home from church. I made 2 lobster tails, shrimp scampi and asparagus. For our lunch desert we had strawberries covered in chocolate. Yum. P took S to the Suns/Star Wars game. R and I watched a movie together. One day this weekend I broke part of my bridge eating a conversation heart, so this morning P and I are going out for Valentine's Day breakfast and he's going to take me to the dentist before he goes to work. Sounds like love...

Happy Birthday to my Baby Girl!

R is 11 today. I can't believe it, doesn't seem all that long ago I went to the hospital late on a Friday night to have her. She was supposed to be delivered on the 10th and everything was set up then for her birth. But she decided she couldn't wait that long to be held. My doctor went away for the weekend, so another doctor delivered her. It was pretty scary. P was not allowed into the operating room. You were born so fast, I remember I just wanted to sleep afterwards, but the doctor's kept yelling at me to wake up. The nursed were yelling ask about the baby, I remember asking a few questions like how much did she weigh, length. But really I wanted to sleep. I remember a lot of activity in the room. I really didn't know then what was going on. I remember hearing her lungs are solid white, but I didn't know if this was good or bad, and if it was me or the baby. They wheeled me to the ICU and I remember the doctor's all standing at the end of my bed talking and watching me. I do not remember much more from that day, other than my Father-on-Law coming to see me and he had on a long sleeve red shirt. He wasn't the only one to see me, but the only thing I remember. After we had the film developed after R was born I was shocked to see me holding the baby and feeding her, and I don't remember it at all. P said when they first brought R to be the first I did was uncover her and I counted all her fingers and toes. The first few days after she was born I didn't get to spend very much time wit with her. After they moved me to the telemetry floor I spent lots more time with her, and one time after not having her for a long time, P helped me walk to the nursery and we took her. She was a very good eater and would down a 2 oz bottle in minutes. We tried nursing, but we both ended up crying. I had just decided to stop trying when I went to see mt heart doctor as a follow up few days after leaving the hospital and he put me on a beta blocker that could harm the baby if I nursed, I'm so glad I had just reached a point of wanting to stop trying before that appointment. But it was all so very upsetting because I really wanted to nurse my last baby. Anyway that was 11 years ago, unbelievable. I love you, R happy Birthday!

Party # 2

Amazing Jakes birthday for R and her friend. 10- 5th graders 2- 8th graders 1- 12th grader 3 adults played and rode rides (and I ate and sat around and watched). Fun was had by all. I was a little bored at first, I had taken a book to read but I grabbed the wrong one, I grabbed the one I had just finished and not the one I wanted to start. And I didn't charge my cell phone and the batteries were dying, poor me. It got better sitting around, I did try to play some games but my back was really hurting so that didn't last long. It took a long time to get the kids loaded up and back in the cars for the ride home. They were having so much fun they didn't want to leave. It wasn't crowded at all so they were able to everything more than once. I hope it's a birthday R will always remember.

14 years ago!

Happy Birthday S!!!!! I love you!

First Birthday party of the season! LOL!

S had a few friends over last night. J dropped 5 girls off at the movies, then picked them up. They had pizza and they had cake 2 girls left and the other 2 spent the night. They pretty much played the Wii all night, well until 2 AM when they finally fell asleep. I have to say that a 14 year old birthday party is not as much work as a younger child's birthday. By 14 they don't really need me any more to keep the party going, or come up with things to do, they just do it. Wednesday R will celebrate her birthday at Amazing Jakes. One of her good friend's birthday is also next week and they are combining their birthdays, they are both really excited about it. There's no school on Wednesday so I hope it all works out. R was invited to 2 birthday parties today, she had to pick one to go too. This must have been a good time of year for babies to be born!

Girls and their birthday parties

Both girls have their birthdays coming up. They both want fabulous parties instead of presents. S wants to go to Castles and Coasters with some friends, and they want to go by themselves. I'm not ready for that. It's a big place and she's only gonna be 14. I suggested going to a movie and having a sleepover. I'm not sure I convinced her of that. R wants to go to Amazing Jakes with some friends. There is no school on Feb. 2nd which would be a great day to have the party during the day/during the week it's much cheaper. I'm worried about the fact it's a long drive to get there, and will parents really drive that far to drop off their kids? If they stay we would have to pay for them to hang out, play, and eat? We could take some kids in our car, and do I go not to be able to have any fun and how painful it would be walking around there? So, do I let P be in charge of the party? We've never done that before. He sometimes isn't even home when the kids have their parties. I just feel awful about not going, but if I stay home then one more friend could ride in the car. I want them to be happy, but I want them safe and darn it I really don't want to miss their birthdays.

2 weeks

2 weeks ago today is when I fell. Seems like I've been living like this forever. Yet it's only been 2 weeks. The pain medicine MS Cotin is helping a lot. I haven't had bad spasms since Saturday night. But the medicine makes me tired. I just started walking short distances (in the house) with out the walker. I had J pull out my scrapbooking stuffyesterday so I have something to do. Today I organized pictures and did a few pages. Nothing fabulous but cute pages. Was able to sit for a few hours. Yesterday I began contacting the Lazer Spine Institute, today P faxed them a large packet of information. Hopefully they will hear back from Worker Comp, fast and I can get in for an evaluation right away. If they can fix my back like their website claims I could be pain free 5 days after treatment. Is this to good to be true? I hope not, and I'm praying they get in me soon. I also need to contact a surgeon that my neurologist recommended. They want copies of my latest MRI films, which P picked up on Friday, their office in by St. Joe's hospital and they want to films before scheduling an appointment. P will have to take them the films when he's off on Thursday. It's very hard not being able to do much of anything. I feel like a lump of coal.

Still in tons of pain

Not a whole lot of relief, I am on a much stronger pain med. now and I have 2 referrals to see 2 surgeons about maybe some surgery that will help, I'll start calling on Monday. I had to have the MRI films to schedule the appointments. I did get out of the house today, J had some pictures taken for his graduation announcements. Since we've been home from the hospital I've haven't been able sitting at the kitchen table for long. Today I have sat here for over an hour. I'm just starting to feel uncomfortable. Tonight we are going out for dinner with P's family to celebrate my sister-in-laws birthday, I hope I do as well or better at dinner.

Rough Night

Since I've been home I've really only have had one good night of sleep. Last night was the worst. I slept for 1 1/2 hours then woke up, my back started having horrible spasms. Took some pain meds. They got worse. Played on my laptop for hours. Had some ice cream at 4, when I could finally take more pain meds. I slept on the couch from 4:30 to 6:15. I see a long nap in my future today. I have a doctor's appointment at 9:30 hopefully he can get me better pain relief. I have to add that I am so in love with R's puppy. She's been watching over me, and snuggling when I'm alone during the day. She really is the cutest little one.

I've fallen and can't get up

Tuesday I was on the playground with the 1st graders. I went to walk behind the swing when I tripped on a boy's leg. I knew right away I was in some serious pain. 911 was called and I was transported to the hospital. X-rays and CT scan showed a compressed fracture in the L1 spot of my vertebrae. Wednesday I had a MRI to see if there was any other damage. Yesterday I had the fracture fussed with cement, that was one very painful procedure. Hammering on my back to drill holes to squirt the cement in. Today I walked with a walker to the nurses station and back to my room. I am sitting up right now as I type on my laptop. First time I've been able to sit up. It's not pain free but not as bad as I would have imagined. It's going to be a long road of physical therapy.

Happy New Year!

This is how we celebrated this year...Games!Loving the puppy! Horns! Necklaces! Sparklers! Silly String! Toasting! We had a fun night!

Year Ending

The last few days we didn't do much. I did get my stitches out on Tuesday, which took about an hour and 2 doctors to get out. I then did a little shopping, and almost lost the car. I was scared, cold and alone in a very large parking lot. I finally found it, thank goodness! Wednesday it started raining and the temperature really dropped. Sarah went to a friend's house in Mesa on Tuesday, J and I picked them up and they spent the night out our house on Wednesday. I also went with a few friends for girls night out for a few hours. Yesterday it was cold enough to snow a little bit in Phoenix! Today we were going to go to the zoo, but it was too cold. We started taking down the Christmas decorations. What a mess mt house is now! P went out and got us some dinner, and soon we'll start playing some family games before we ring in the New Year.

Christmas

Very busy, very fun last few days. On Christmas Eve we attended church at 5:30 and my in-laws met us there. R and all of kids church sang beautifully. After church we came back here and had a little snack of little smokies wrapped in quartered biscuits and soft pretzels with cheese. Pretty tasty. R read us the Night Before Christmas and we opened one gift before going to bed. Christmas morning I had to wake everyone at 8:30, once we read "our" Christmas book (the story of Christmas)we opened gifts. S was very happy with the Just Dance 2 game for the Wii, and R was very happy with her keyboard. J of course loved all his Steelers stuff! We then headed over to Aunt Jul and Uncle Will's to exchange gifts and brunch. My nephew called from his Navy station and we all got to wish him a Merry Christmas. Very cool. We left about noon to come home to get the house ready to host P's family for Christmas dinner. P wanted spaghetti so that's what we had. Opening gifts took awhile since there were 14 of us, with numerous gifts each. After dinner the kids tried out the keyboard and the Wii game. Very fun! Sunday we picked P's Aunt up who was visiting from California for church and lunch out. P had to go to work, but the rest of us got to enjoy watching Alice in Wonderland with his Aunt and parents. Followed by the rest of our families coming over for game night. Very fun, but long day! Yesterday we spent the day with P's family at Amazing Jakes it was very fun. They all left about 4, but we stayed on for 3 more hours, playing more bowling, riding rides and playing games, before eating dinner before we left. It was a great family outing. When we got home we started to watch a movie, I didn't last long and was falling asleep on the couch, I was the first one to bed and then the first one up at almost 11 AM. The saddest part of yesterday was because we were gone so long I think Baby thought we would never come home, she was very, very happy when we let her in.

Merry Christmas!

Baby!

It's Saturday and I have 2 weeks off

The girls danced beautifully last weekend. I was sorry to see the weekend end, it went by so fast. This week was another busy week. And big change for our household. A puppy! Baby is 7 or 8 months old and just adorable. R brought her home the Thursday of her band concert. P finally agreed to let us keep her on Sunday. She was a stray or abandoned. Her right front leg is injured, and the vet doesn't think we should do anything about it, since she is getting around OK and it's not hurting her. We'll get her license after she gains some weight she only weighs 4 pounds now and we have her spade. Tuesday night S had her 8th grade chorus concert. Wednesday she had bible study and J needed to buy some secret Santa gifts, we went to Fry's and I did the grocery shopping while he was picking out his gifts and S was at bible study. Thursday night R had her "Pirates" play with her school's drama club. She was very good and it was a very cute play. Yesterday at work when I was walking a student out to meet his mom I fell and cut open my knee. I had to get 8 stitches to close it up. What a way to end the last day of work for 2010. NOT!!!

Busy Week followed by Snow Queen weekend

Something every night this past week. Including last night which was R's first band concert. She did very well. This afternoon they had a dress rehearsal for The Snow Queen performances this weekend. Both girls are excited about preforming! I'm tired already! But I love watching my girls and their cousins dance.