Easily Amused

Proof that I am not the only one in my house who can occupy herself when most people wouldn't be entertained at all.

My kids were finishing up lunch when my daughter asked me if I could do a cartwheel. I got up and did one. Immediately after I did the first "perfect cartwheel" my kids were on a quest to take a picture of it. We spent about an hour taking pictures and missing, trying again, missing and on and on. Most people would have given up. Why does anyone really need a picture of me doing a cartwheel anyway? My kids were determined. They played with settings on the camera, experimented with turning the flash on and off to see if that made the picture take faster or slower, and finally got a picture of me doing a cartwheel. Pay no attention to what I'm wearing or how I look...I am going to swim in a few hours after I drop my kids off at their pottery camp.



P.S. in the last photo, look at Maya looking at me like I am insane. And also look under my dishwasher for the cake pans that are collecting water because it is still leaking.

Dogs and School

Yesterday we went to a Dachshund Derby. We entered Maya in the race. The proceeds were to benefit the MidWest Dachshund Rescue. We didn't think Maya would win (and she didn't) but we thought it would be a fun way to spend Sunday morning.

We met some of the nicest people there and some of the cutest dogs. Remember when I said I wasn't a "dog person"? Well, I was wrong. I am a "living creature person" because I seem to love all animals almost equally. They did the race in heats. When it was Maya's turn we expected her to not really know what to do but we did not expect her to look so frightened and just sit there looking around for us. I felt awful! She did not win, and actually at the end of her heat I had to go out on the "racetrack" to get her because she was just sitting there shaking. Did I say I felt awful? Because I really did. Poor Maya was glued to my side the rest of the day.

When we got home, my 3 older kids each had birthday parties to go to. My husband took my 5 year old to do something with him so I was alone with Maya. I recently got a bunch of DVDs to do instead of the shred because as much as I love it, it is getting repetitive now that I have been doing it for over 3 months. (that was an awkward sentence but as much as I try, I can't seem to fix it) I popped in a video and began. Maya chewed on her toy and watched me, like she always does. When I got to the ab part and I was lying on the mat, Maya dragged her bed over and placed it on my mat. I wish I had taken a picture because it was really sweet that she wanted to be so close to me. Annoying, but sweet. I can only imagine how clingy she will be after she gets spayed next week.

Switching topics here to something serious that bugs the crap out of me.

I brought my 9 year olds to their checkup on Saturday. I know I have mentioned before that my 9 year old daughter has difficulty with handwriting and other things. The pediatrician agreed with me that the school doesn't seem to know what they are doing in helping her so I should take her to an independent learning disability testing place. This way, someone with nothing to gain/lose from diagnosing her can identify the problems and come up with a plan to help her.

So far the school isn't really even really acknowledging that she has difficulties. If they did, they would be legally required to provide that help. That help costs money, which is why I believe they are hesitant to confirm the disabilities. Every time I bring it up, they say that she seems to be doing fine. They do give her some extra help with handwriting and reading, but otherwise they aren't willing to give her the testing that they are supposed to be legally required to do in order to figure out what she needs. Our insurance of course doesn't cover this testing with a private facility because technically the school should be doing it. look especially at the word "bedroom". My daughter can not distinguish between b's and d's. She sort of randomly switches witch way she writes them in a frustrated attempt to get it correct. This looks fine? This looks like a kid who doesn't need some testing to see how to help her?


This will all work out fine for my daughter because we are willing to pay to get her the testing she needs but what if we couldn't? What would happen to her academically? I can imagine the consequences of her feeling like she was dumb or whatever when that isn't true, she just has some trouble learning/learns differently.

The school is unwilling to admit that all her difficulties (writing letters backwards, mixing up numbers, trouble reading, trouble writing, etc.) go together so we are going to pay to find out how to help her. What if we couldn't? It is really frustrating to me to think about all the kids who don't have such involved parents, who maybe don't notice the issues and just think their kid is lazy or something and don't get them help. We shouldn't have to push so hard for them to give her some help, we shouldn't have to pay to get her tested and then most likely pay for the extra help she needs, but we will. But what if we couldn't/wouldn't?

Evil Scientist

Starting a business is hard work.(duh!) It is also fun hard work that takes my mind off of surgery coming up next month. I will admit that I have had a couple morbid thoughts about the whole new business/surgery thing. My main thought has been "I am spending a bit of money getting things ready and if I die, what will happen to it all?" That is horrible and morbid and I only typed it out here because sometimes I need to write something down to get it off my mind. Anyway, I have been getting excited about it all and can't wait to share with you what it is. I'd say most of you won't be interested in it other than to just see what I have been working on though.

My oldest daughter watched me work on some stuff for the new business. She watched me struggle with some of the label stuff and website stuff (was that a big enough hint that anyone could figure out what kind of business it is?) I worked with programs I didn't know and learned the best I could. What I couldn't figure out, I found another way to do. At the end, when I ended up with something pretty awesome, she remarked that I was very resourceful and stubborn (two words I often think about my 5 year old who has about the same personality as me...and drives me bananas sometimes because of it). She talked about the fact that she was proud of me for working so hard, proud of me for figuring it out when I began with no idea how to do it. That is something I hope my kids have learned from me. Even when things are hard, there is always a way to figure it out if you work hard enough and think creatively.

Besides all of that, the kids and I have been having fun doing summertime things. I love that they are home and hate that they ever have to go back to school. Yesterday it was amazingly hot out so we stayed in for most of the day. We pulled out these plastic chemistry supplies that my sister in law gave my son for Christmas when he wanted to be "an evil scientist". She intended for him to put colored water in them and play around making "potions". He has done that before and had a lot of fun, but this time I filled one with vinegar and gave him a teaspoon of baking soda to drop in. The older kids already knew what would happen, but he had no idea before he saw the "volcano". He thought this was the coolest thing in the world. We made quite a mess, but it sure was a fun mess!

Summer is Busy (and fun)

We are busy here so just a few things to update you on:

1. My surgery is scheduled for July 28th. I am not crazy about the date because it is sort of close to when school starts again and we have a bunch of stuff set up for the few weeks before school that now I will have to cancel or change. I tried to get them to do the surgery earlier, like in the beginning of July, but we just couldn't find a date that worked for the oncologist and my doctor, and also had an operating room available. It is what it is, the surgery will happen 4 weeks before school starts and 4 weeks before I start watching daycare kids again and I'll just have to hope I am healed enough to deal with it. Oh, and my husband was supposed to be out of town for work that week too. Hopefully he can change it.

2. I am very excited about a new business I am working on and once the details are final, I will fill you in. Just know that it is something fun and I can't wait to get started. I have only told 2 people outside of my family about this so if you know what I am talking about, you are one of them.

3. We went to the beach yesterday and I had my daughter sunscreen my back. She apparently didn't want to get sunscreen on my bathing suit so all around the edges of where the straps are I am burned. It is the funniest sunburn I have ever seen, a perfect outline of my bathing suit on my back. It still hurts like a sunburn though. When we got home from the beach we had milkshakes for dinner. I am not kidding.


4. Both my boys now have short hair. My 9 year old son hates his haircut and will have long hair again by the end of summer I am sure.

5. I have been knitting a lot.
These socks are for my 9 year old for Christmas. If I can wait that long.

I swear I have two of these socks done but I can't seem to find the picture I took of both together. Does the yarn look familiar Kim?

We had a long car ride this weekend so I started some socks.


I also started a sweater.

6. We have been playing a lot of board games at night before the kids go to bed. We found a new favorite game,
Whoonu which is very similar to Apples to Apples but a little more fun for kids to play. My 5 year old needed a little help reading some of the cards but it worked out fine for me to whisper them in his ear and then when it was my turn as the whoozit, someone else helped him.

7. This post is sort of boring so I am going to end now.

Thinking About

Maybe it is a midlife crisis, but lately I have been thinking about the fact that I spend so much time making everything easier for everyone around me that I now have no idea what I want. I think it's natural for a mom to do things to make her kids have a happier life. Sometimes it is simple things like eating the crust of a brownie so a kid can have the middle even though she really dislikes the edges of brownies. It isn't a big deal, but where does the line get drawn that it turns into a big deal? It isn't just my kids, I seem to spend my days helping friends with things that aren't a big deal. At least taken separately they are no big deal but when you put them all together, it seems that I am forgetting to think about what I would like.

Last night I was looking out the window before I went to bed. I was about to make a wish on a star, but then stopped myself. Obviously if I had to make a wish right now, it would be for the health of myself and my family and friends. But after that? After I take care of basic needs? I have no idea what I would wish for.

On the weekends I plan our days based on what the kids would find fun. Sure, I have a good time too, but I honestly have no idea what I would want to do if someone asked me or told me I had to choose for just myself. I don't think it is so much that I gave up myself for my kids, I just think somewhere along the way I forgot that I matter too.

Obviously for the last 4 years I have been so busy just staying alive that it seems easy to get lost in all of that. I get lost in the unfairness of it all, but not for myself, for my kids. It isn't fair that my kids are stuck with a mom who has surgery all the time, sees tons of doctors, etc. Because of that, I think I gave up a little of myself trying to make things more normal for them when I could. I don't want them to have to live this, so when I have a chance or can give up something in order to make them happier, I gladly do it. The problem is, I no longer really know what I want.

I don't live an awful life, I am very happy, so this post isn't meant to make you think I am all sad, just thinking about something I need to change. Thinking about how I can figure out what I want and who I am separate from other people in my life. Thinking about the fact that I am responsible for my own life, and that I need to focus on myself sometimes without thinking about how it affects others around me. I deserve to be happy, I deserve to not choose something other than what I want just because it would make someone else happier. Sometimes that is all right, but I need to come first sometimes too.

Not The Piggy Flu

We started the weekend with this:

My 5 year old son has the flu. He is feeling pretty much back to normal already, which is amazing considering he had a 104 fever on Friday and was not coherent at all. He kept saying things that made no sense and it would have been very funny if it hadn't been sort of scary. Now that he is fine, it is hysterical though. At one point he was mumbling something and I didn't understand it so I asked him what he said. He then very clearly said "oh crap" and fell back asleep.

He slept in my bed and got up several times at night very confused. At one point, his pajamas were soaked with sweat so I took them off of him and had him sleep in his underwear. When he woke up a few hours later, he got out of bed, wandered around my room looking all confused and when I asked what he was doing he said "I'm just in my underwear". He didn't remember anything that happened earlier at all. I explained the situation and why he was in his underwear, put some new pajamas on him and he went back to sleep. A few hours later, he woke up and said "man am I thirsty". He took a huge drink and then went back to sleep again. Because he slept almost all day Friday, when he woke up on Saturday morning he sat up and said "I'm not tired anymore. I think that's because I got so much sleep". It was 4 am when he decided it was time for him to get up for the day. After he had been up several times in the night. He may have been well rested but I was pretty tired!

By Sunday, his fever was pretty much gone and he was feeling well enough to try the new Slip 'N Slide surf thing that his sister and brother got for their birthday. Actually, they got gift certificates and instead of spending them individually, they put them together and bought this one big thing they both wanted. I need to tell you that even though it looks super cool, do not buy this. First of all, our yard is so hilly that we had to set it up several times before we found a place that would work. Even then, it didn't fill correctly so we could only use about half of it. I thought it was way too difficult but I think that is because I was afraid of getting hurt so I didn't run very fast before I jumped on.This is me about half a second before I fell. I had been taking pictures of the kids because it was pretty funny so I guess they thought it was only fair to take one of me falling. My 9 year old son was awesome at it. He still fell sometimes but I think because he really went for it every time,when he did have success it was awesome.


We picked some strawberries for a snack.
The whole time we were eating them I kept saying "we grew these". I think I was the only one who found that exciting. If you knew my track record for keeping plants alive inside the house, you would find it amazing that outside I can grow actual food you can eat.

Switching topics, I am still waiting for a surgery date. It is pretty difficult to find a day that works for both the oncologist and my gynecologist and is also a day/time that there is an operating room available. I will keep you posted and let you know when I find out. I just want it to be over so I don't have to worry about it anymore!

Suddenly Nervous

For some reason, I wasn't nervous about my upcoming surgery until just now. The nurse just called me to schedule it and I gave her 2 weeks that were better for me than any others this summer so she could find me a date. She found 2 dates that he has available but then said she would have to call me back tomorrow after she talked to the gynecological oncologist because he will be assisting and she needs to be sure he is free for the date we choose.

I knew he was consulting with a gynecological oncologist. I knew this. But hearing that he is assisting suddenly made me nervous. I am no stranger to the word cancer, but when it is said in combination with a surgery I am having, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. No one thinks this is cancer, he is assisting because my cervix is adhered to my bladder and other things and gynecological oncologists are better prepared to deal with odd/complicated things they may find. At least as far as I know no one is thinking it is cancer...doctors tend to keep that possibility to themselves until they know for sure so they don't freak people out for no reason. I am not stupid though, I do know it is a possibility, although unlikely.

Upcoming surgery is a great motivator to get things done that you have been putting off. I scheduled Maya's appointment to be spayed and took care of a bunch of other stuff on my to do list. To be clear, it isn't that I think I will die or something, I would never ever go into surgery if I had that kind of feeling, but just that who knows how long it will be before I am up to taking care of things again. I have no idea what to expect with this surgery and neither does my doctor. That's fun, right? (sarcasm) I am all for spontaneity, but maybe when it comes to health we could just be a little less up in the air.

You know what is great though? Having a friend that you can begin an email with "so tell me about your vagina" and have her answer your question without even thinking twice. And then you can both laugh about how ridiculous of a sentence that was. This is TMI so if you are a man or don't want to know so much personal stuff about me, skip this next part. My doctor is going to take out my cervix and then "sew the end of my vagina shut"(?!?!) That was a little disturbing to me so I needed to check with my friend that it wouldn't have any kind of effect on anything else after I am healed. I have been assured by my doctor that I will not notice a difference an neither will anyone else. My friend confirmed that everything feels the same. And on that note, I am going to end this. All I can hear in my head when I write this is Oprah's va jay jay and inexplicably chicken tetrazzini.

Normal/Abnormal Life

You guys are amazing. Thank you so much for being so supportive on that last post! I'm sorry to leave that last post up for so long...what a downer! We have been living regular life and I got so busy with the kids now being home.

Normal life for a mom:


Yesterday I went to the gym to swim for the first time in a bunch of weeks. My 3 older kids used to go to the big gym and my youngest used to go to the little kids gym. When I got there yesterday everything was different for summer. My youngest now goes to the big gym, my two 9 year olds go to a different big gym and my 11 year old? She goes to the "teen center". I don't even need to sign her in and out anymore. Everyone was hesitant with their new places to go. My 5 year old cried when I left him. He doesn't like unexpected change and since I had no idea it would be different, I couldn't prepare him. Hopefully next time since he will know what to expect he won't be so upset. Although with him, I bet it will take a few weeks before he doesn't cry when I leave him. Yesterday he just stood against the wall the whole time I was gone. He wouldn't play or participate at all, which is fine as long as he isn't disruptive and he wasn't.

My 11 year olds best friend was in the teen center when we got there so she was pretty happy. When I was just getting finished in the shower after my swim, her best friend's mom saw me and asked if she could just take the girls home with her. I started to say yes but then remembered that we were going to sign up for the summer reading program at the library on the way home from the gym. She said her daughter wanted to sign up too so I just told her to leave her daughter in the teen center and I would take her with us when we left.

We stopped at the library and signed all the kids up for the summer reading program. The kids were all excited to check out more books than I can carry. They sat down to look at their books and when I rounded a corner to set more of their books down on a table for them, I saw a really good friend of mine that I haven't seen in months. We talked for about an hour and towards the end, her son and all my kids were getting bored and wanted to go home. I pointed the kids toward the cookbook section and told them that they should look for a recipe they all agreed on and when they found it we could check out the book and they could make it when we got home. They found one in a chocolate cookbook.

We went home and had lunch and then the kids got started on their recipe. They made chocolate chip cheesecake bars. We had lunch, played outside and then decided that my daughter's best friend would stay for a sleepover too.


Abnormal mom life:

My gynecologist called this morning. The reason it took so long for him to call back was because he met with the gynecological oncologist to go over my case. I don't have cancer (that they know of) but the abnormal bleeding is worrisome. We talked about my options and decided that I will have surgery. I need to look over my calendar and choose a few weeks that look good for me and then call him back to look at his schedule and set it up. I laughed when we talked about weeks that are good for me because when is it ever a good week for surgery?

The fact that he talked to a gynecological oncologist is super impressive to me. I trust him completely and feel good about him doing the surgery. He didn't flat out say that my other doctor was an ass (or whatever the right word is for a doctor who does a surgery but not completely enough for it to be good for anything) for not doing the surgery completely and I stopped myself as I began to ask him that because I didn't want to put him on the spot. He sensed what I was about to ask and answered with an answer that confirmed what I believed, that the last surgery to remove just my uterus (and not get all of it) was useless without actually saying those words. I got his point, and he knew I understood.

I feel bad for my doctor because I can hear in his voice that he feels awful that I have to do this again. He did say that he can schedule a laparoscopy and see if he can take my cervix out vaginally (TMI! Sorry!) but then if he can't safely do it, he can switch over to cutting me "all the way open". When I said that he laughed and said that when I say it like that it makes him feel really bad. At least it will only be one surgery. I am looking at the middle of July I think. At least now I know not to buy the 20 punch tickets for the beach when we go this Friday. I will call tomorrow to schedule it. I could call right now but I want to have a little time to look over our schedule again and make sure whatever I choose is the best for the kids.

In other news, my chest CT showed no significant changes. The nodules are still there, but the same. I have to call to get the report to put in my file because I forgot to ask yesterday. My doctor called me less than 24 hours after the CT to tell me about it. This may be totally wrong (but no more wrong than changing the entire practice without letting patients know ahead of time) but I did not ask about the fees for his new concierge service. So far no one has sent me any information and no one has asked me for any fee so I am hoping to just wait a bit before I have to decide what to do. I do wish I had the information so I could look it over, but I figure if I don't ask and they never mention it, maybe I can just stick with him for a while longer because he really is a great doctor.

I feel like I am leading two completely separate lives sometimes, the normal everyday life of a mom and then this freaky medical disaster life too. They feel so separate that I often put them in little compartments in my brain and don't think of them together. When I am talking to my doctor, I am all focused on what he is saying, when my kids and I are playing, I am all there too. Today my doctor called when we were just finishing having homemade cinnamon rolls for brunch*. My head felt like it was going to explode at first because my two worlds are not supposed to mix. Then I sent the kids outside to play and all was good again.

*Brunch is the word for I forgot to make everyone breakfast until it was too late to call it that so I called it brunch and everyone thought it was all fancy.

Everything Goes Together

The kids were gone over the weekend so I did exciting things like changing toilet flapper things because our toilets run constantly and waste a lot of water. We also fixed the ice maker water line on our freezer so now we might actually be able to stop making ice with trays that we have to fill up in the sink. We would have done something fun, but I am still not feeling great. I woke up with no voice on Sunday so it was a quiet day for me.

A little later today I am going for my chest CT. My doctor may not be my doctor for much longer. It terrifies me the way he closed his practice to start a new one. I dug around online and found that he is opening a concierge style practice. If you don't know what that is, click here to read about it. There are several reasons I think I may need to switch and only one of them has to do with the increased cost to me because of his new practice. I actually have no idea what his cost is or whether he works with insurance at all in his new practice because I haven't gotten the packet of info yet. For the practice that began on June 1st. An entire week ago. Interesting.

I would say the main reason I am considering switching is because of how terrified I was when I heard the first message that the practice closed and the way I felt about him doing this without notifying patients or even explaining when his nurse returned my call last week. It's one thing to give patients some notice that things will change and give them time and information so they can sort it out and figure out their plan, but to just close and reopen without letting anyone know? Not cool with me. I just feel so abandoned.

If I choose not to remain with him, how will I get my medication refills? Obviously I will need to immediately make an appointment with someone else and catch that doctor up on my medical history. I just did this with this doctor! I hate this part, the finding a doctor I trust part. I feel so scared about it because I rely so heavily on my doctors. I think a lot of the reason I don't freak out about my health is because I know there is someone I trust and like looking out for me. If I switch, it will take some time to build up that trust. I'm not sure if I can request that my file be sent to me but I sure don't want it sent directly to some new doctor I have never even met yet. I am guessing it may take a few tries before I feel completely comfortable with a new doctor and I don't want to pay for transferring my records more than once! Hopefully it will be fine for me to have them send them to me and then I can bring them in with me.

What I was planning to write about today was my hair and how it has been slowly falling out since the beginning of the thyroid cancer. After the first surgery and radioactive iodine, clumps of hair would fall out when I brushed it. It has been gross and straw like since then. I can work with it and make it look presentable, but lately it has been looking thinner and thinner again. I bought some fake hair clip in extensions on a whim and it actually looks good. This is what I have come to...34 years old and needing fake hair.

Here is the short hair I got. Sorry the picture is so blurry. You can't tell which hair is real and which is fake. I couldn't believe it!


And this is the long hair. I was amazed with how real it looks and how you can not tell which hair is mine and which is the fake hair. The thing that kills me is that my hair used to look like this for real. I used to be able to air dry my hair and have it look like this.





The thing is, most of the time I feel like I can deal with whatever illness comes my way (which is good because I sure have been hit hard lately) but it's the little things that really bug me. Little things that I would have said didn't even matter to me before all this happened. My hair? Small potatoes...until it falls out and I feel all self conscious and like people are looking at me like I don't know how to take care of myself. I realize that is my own perception and judgements that I am believing other people are making about me but I still can't help but feel judged when I can't make my hair look like I have brushed or washed it even though I have worked for an hour to try.

I work my butt off to keep myself healthy and there are only a few things I can't change/make better by myself. There is absolutely no way I can make my boobs bigger without surgery. There is also absolutely no way I can make my hair not fall out and be crunchy feeling. And of course those are the things that bug me. I was going to post a picture of what I look like if I just wash my hair and let it air dry, something I used to do every single day and not think twice about. I don't have enough courage for that right now. Everything goes together so when my doctor leaves/changes the practice and I am uncertain about what will happen with that, I sort of feel uncertain and scared about everything. Sometimes I feel strong like I can take on anything. Now is not that time.

4 Kids Minus 1 kid Equals a Quiet Day

Yesterday was my kids last day of school. After school we threw our confetti (made from the torn off paper chains we used to count the days until the end of the school year) and then hung out for a bit. I looked at report cards and sorted through backpacks. After a short while, my 11 year old begged me to take her to her friend's house. She packed up her bag for her sleepover and I dropped her off. For some reason, when my daughter decided to sleep over at her friend's house I gave up on my plan to take the kids out to lunch on their last day of school. When we were all in the car after dropping her off at her friend's house I realized that was dumb because why couldn't I just take the rest of the kids out to lunch? I wasn't hungry because I had already had a black bean burger at home, but it was great to sit and talk to my kids while they ate.

We went out to lunch and talked about the last day of school, what the kids were excited for during the summer, and all kinds of other things. When we got home, we brought Maya outside with us. My 9 year old son and I worked on teaching her how to go down the stairs on the front porch. She didn't like it much and I think her plan is just not to go up anymore. She hasn't gone up the stairs since then, so we will see what happens.

I have said it before, but let me say it here before I say what I am going to say. All 4 of my kids are very well behaved. They play together very nicely and rarely fight. Quite often when all 4 of them are playing, I have no idea what to do because I am lonely. I don't fit in their game or whatever, so I just kind of hang out and listen. My point is, there is never a problem when they play. However, when one child is gone, any child, things are so much more calm. It really doesn't matter which child...at first I thought maybe it was that one particular child was louder or something but it really doesn't matter which one is gone, they play so much calmer and are so much more quiet and peaceful. Even outside it was about one million times more quiet than normal. It doesn't make any sense to me since they almost always play nicely when they are all here. I do miss my daughter today though!

Yesterday I made black bean burgers again for dinner. When I made them the first time, we had a bunch of leftovers. When they were gone, I made more. Since I first made them, I have been eating about one a day. Last night, to go with them I made the yummiest corn ever. Does anyone think it will be a problem if I continue to live almost solely on the black bean burgers and now add the corn too? It will be fine to only eat black bean burgers and corn for the rest of my life, right?

Tomorrow my son has an appointment with his tummy doctor. His tummy has been much better lately, but he has been having horrible headaches. When he first was diagnosed with Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome, the doctor mentioned that a lot of kids with it end up having migraines when they get a little older. Well, he's a little older and the way he has described his headaches sound a lot like migraines to me. It will be nice to talk to his doctor about what we can do to help him with this. After that appointment, we will drop the kids off at my husband's parents house for the weekend. Since I have my CT appointment on Monday, they will come home Monday night. What we didn't think through when we got Maya is that even when the kids are gone, one of us still has to get up with her. We have no definite plans for the weekend yet but are talking about going to the gambling boats with some friends. That sounds like a lot of fun, so I hope it works out!

Things

Things Making Me Crazy:

1. This puppy is making me crazy. Sure, she looks all innocent and sweet in this picture (and she is) but she learned how to climb up the stairs yesterday. She can not go down by herself. All day I would hear her thunk up the stairs and then minutes later she would let out a little cry because she was stuck. I got my exercise for sure!


2. My kids are spending Monday with their grandparents. Guess what my big plans are. I am going to have a chest CT. My regular doctor (not the one I am waiting for to call me back) wants me to have one to follow up on the "stuff" in my lung that we have been following since my radioactive scan years ago. At my last appointment we decided it would be my decision whether to get any more or not. I decided I would not because all that excess radiation scares me. Apparently he didn't like that decision and said he would feel more comfortable if I did get another one. I trust him* so I will go with his thoughts on this.



*I trust him except that when I called to get him to resend the orders over to the place closer to my house, there was this totally crazy message on the office machine in his voice saying the practice is no longer seeing patients. Then it left a number to call for more info. I called the number and it was another recording saying to leave my name and number and they would get back to me. I left my name and phone number, and also a message about where I needed them to send the orders. At the end of my message I said something about not understanding what was going on with the office. After I left the message, I left to take my kids to tennis. When I got home, there was a message from the nurse telling me they faxed over the orders to the new place and that it should be all set. She left nothing else in the message. Where do I go if I am sick? Who do I call? How do I get medication refills? What the hell is going on???? I am quite confused and unsure of exactly who is going to call me with the results of my CT if the practice isn't seeing patients anymore. Do I need to find a new doctor? It seems like they would have been more informative about this confusing turn of events.

I don't have time to find a new doctor and even if I did, I am pissed that I just made an appointment with this guy when I switched from his partner to him. The sole purpose of that visit was to catch him up on my history since it is so complicated. I paid for that appointment and if he was planning to close the practice, it would have been cool of him to tell me not to waste my time filling him in on everything. I don't exactly want to start all over again, especially since this doctor is someone I trusted. Something about this whole new situation makes my stomach hurt and doesn't feel right. Just a few years ago, this wouldn't have bothered me a bit. It is amazing how much I depend on/trust my doctors now and feel sort of abandoned when they leave without warning.




Thing I Can't Keep Secret For Long:
I started a pair of Gryffindor socks for my 9 year old. I plan to give them to her for Christmas. I will never make it that long without giving them to her but I am going to try!

Thing That Made My 5 Year Old Son Happy:


Yesterday we picked up the bowls/mugs we painted. My son was very excited when he realized what I had painted for him. The colors aren't photographing well because I suck at photography but trust me, in real life it is pretty cool.


Things Frustrating Me (not sure how that is different than making me crazy, but let's go with it here and not question things so much):

1. I still haven't heard from my doctor about what he thinks after looking over the operative notes. He will probably call either Saturday or Monday. I suck at waiting and really want to know the plan!

Thing That Makes Me Cold To Even Think About:

Today is my kids' last day of school. They have school for one hour. I had plans to take them out to lunch or something after they got home but my 11 year old and her best friend had plans of their own. My daughter is going to sleep over at her friends house tonight and wants to get there early so she can swim in their pool. That's great but it's freezing out! Her friend's grandma (she lives with her grandparents) and I talked about how kids are crazy and swim in weather that adults would never want to swim in.

Things Making Me Happy:
1.My kids


2. I want to say thank you to my good friend Sarah (no link, right?) because she gave me a link to a recipe for cold brewed ice coffee. I made some and it was wonderful. I then looked up a recipe for peppermint mocha creamer and can not wait to try it.

3. Signing up to enter some of my knitted things in the county fair next month.

4.

5.

6.

Periscope Surgery

We have a forest behind our house so quite often we see deer in our backyard. I have never seen one in our front yard before! It actually freaked me out because I was walking up the stairs with a laundry basket and peeked out the window as I passed by. From a distance, it looked like the deer was a person staring in our windows. I kept walking then stopped as soon as I realized what I thought I saw, turned around and went back with my heart pounding. As I walked closer to the window, I saw that it was just a dog in our front yard. A dog that was standing very still for a long time. A dog that was huge. Because it was a deer. I ran to get the camera but by the time I got back, the deer had moved farther away from the front door and I couldn't get a picture of it staring in our window.

I called my doctor's office yesterday in the morning because no one ever called me back about my biopsy results last week. The receptionist put me right through to him which gave me a moment of panic. My doctor always introduces himself with his first name. Doctors are not supposed to have first names. He told me the biopsy results were all fine. We talked about how we are working backwards and excluding all the serious things but at this point he isn't sure how to proceed. He asked me if I could get a copy of my hysterectomy operative notes and my ovary removal operative notes. He told me he was so sorry to make me do it but with HIPAA he can't just call over and get it anymore. We talked about how difficult it is for even me to access my own records and that at one doctor's office I have to fax in a form and then it takes 6-8 weeks to get whatever I am requesting. Crazy!

Luckily, since I had cancer and I see a million different doctors who seem not to communicate with each other at all, I always get copies of everything I think they might ever need to see so I have them in these kind of cases. I have a huge file of my medical information so I just pulled it out and faxed it over to him. He is going to look it all over and come up with a plan and call me back later this week.

I thought we were positive I was having surgery but now he is saying he isn't sure. I think he is trying to figure out any other option for me because I have had so much surgery recently. I still can't really see any other option, but then again I am not a doctor. The last time we talked, he did say he was going to have to do the laparoscopy and then remove my cervix in order to get the leftover uterine tissue, so I am still thinking that will be what ends up happening but at least now I have a tiny bit of hope that maybe there will be something else we can try first. He mentioned some pills similar to birth control pills and said we can possibly try that if I want to. Part of me wants to try that because that is way easier to take a pill than to have surgery but then I think about it more and just want to get this all over with and just have the surgery and be done with it all. Plus I am cranky when I am on the pill. Except then I think about it more and remember that the reason I had the hysterectomy in the first place was so I would get it over with and be done with it all. That was 3 years ago! I am still not done. So if I had this surgery now, would I still be talking about it 3 years from now? Because if it isn't going to make a difference and I am still going to have to worry about medical crap all the time why don't I just live with what is going on. Why don't I just forget about doing anything else, forget about testing, etc. and then just be. The medical stuff seems to never stop anyway, so if I ignored it all, how much worse could it get. (I know, I am not seriously considering giving up)

I will say that I have a cold again and feel tired and yucky so it makes me just want to throw in the towel on all the medical stuff right now. I just want it to all be over and not have to worry about it all ever again. I know that won't happen, that I will always have to go to more doctors than most people, will always have to have extra tests, etc. but it sure is frustrating to have to deal with it all. It isn't frustrating for myself as much as it is frustrating that it affects so many other people and then I feel guilt about it all. It isn't my fault, I know that, I know I am not causing it but it just feels bad to be the one bringing it.

Yesterday my 11 year old daughter brought home a bunch of notebooks from school because their last day is Thursday. I looked through them and then came to one that is a notebook she writes back and forth to her teacher in. I asked her if I could read it and she said yes. I love her teacher like crazy and am so happy she got to know her. I am sad, however, that a lot of their letters are about me. My 11 year old doesn't tell me she is worried much but a big chunk of her letters were about how she wants to be a chemist when she grows up so she can find a cure for cancer. She talks a lot about how she feels about things and her teacher is wonderful in her responses but I just wish she could be writing about boys or something (she does, but I wish that could be her biggest concern). If this were all just affecting me, then fine, I am a big girl and I can take it but come on already with my kids being worried and sad. Enough!

That is a sucky note to end this on, but I can not think of anything that would make sense to add at the end to finish with something happy. I thought I was just going to write about the deer today. I just never know what I will get when I sit down to write something. Thank you for being my therapy today!

P.S. spellcheck wanted to change "laparoscopy" to "periscope". That would certainly be a funny surgery. Although if you think about it, it sort of is similar I guess.

Unrelated Items

1. My kids and I have been talking about having a "Pioneer Day" this summer where we wouldn't use any electricity. We considered things like air conditioning, lights, tv, computers, ipods, etc. Our plan was to use our outdoor fireplace to cook food and use candles and lanterns inside the house to see when it got dark. We planned on playing outside all day and playing games inside when we came in. I was pretty excited thinking we had everything figured out until Nilsa said something about the refrigerator. I may need to do some thinking about exceptions to the no electricity rules so that we can use things from the refrigerator. Either that or plan on a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or something!

2. I have been sort of slacking on dinners lately because I am not so hungry lately. My kids all know how to make themselves food if they need a snack, so no one would starve to death or anything but I feel sort of bad that the "dinners" I have been making have been really lazy. To fix that, we decided to have a make your own pizza night Saturday night. The kids love it and I love it because it is something fun to do AND dinner. In addition to regular pizzas, we tried this award winning pizza that we were skeptical about but really liked after we made it and also this one which was fine but not great.

3. Sunday I went to the gym to swim and then came home to bake a bunch of things for my kids teachers. The last day of school is Thursday but I sent their end of the year presents today because I know how busy/hectic things get closer to the end of the week. The first batch of cookies I made tasted great but looked sloppy. I would never give the teachers something that looked like that so I had to make another kind of cookie. Now we have a bunch of ugly tasty cookies leftover.

4. Would you believe my doctor still hasn't called with my biopsy results? I want to be mad at him but really I feel like his staff doesn't get him results of tests in a timely manner. When I had my pap done, I got the little post card saying everything was fine before he saw the results. He called and was talking about other things and then said something about still waiting for the pap results. I told him I had already gotten the postcard and he was surprised since he hadn't seen them yet. I plan to call the office today to see what the hold up on the biopsy results is. I am finding it hard to plan the summer when I don't know when my surgery will be. Because of this, I am sort of stressed out and not hungry/worried.

5. My 5 year old has a terrible cold and he has had a runny stuffy nose and cough for a very long time. He started being stuffy right when we got Maya. My other kids have been coughing since then too. I am extremely worried that they are allergic to her! I would be crushed if we had to find a new home for her or deal with allergy shots or whatever. I am going to cross my fingers that we have just had a really bad run with viruses lately and that it is completely unrelated to her.



6. I have been knitting a lot lately and finished a pair of socks. On the one hand I am happy about this but on the other hand, it always stresses me out trying to choose what to start next. I obsess over it and worry that I will choose the wrong thing and then be stuck with it. That is silly because there is no knitting boss of me telling me I need to finish something I am not enjoying and there is also no one stopping me from beginning another something if what I am working on is boring me.

Well, I am also working on this project but it is so complicated that I don't count it as a project because I can only work on it when everyone else is busy and not distracting me, which rarely happens.


7. The weekend was beautiful outside. We went to the park a lot, took Maya for a lot of walks (we need to remember she is a tiny dog and we should maybe not walk her quite so far) and played basketball outside with our new basketball hoop. Last night we had a huge thunderstorm that kept me awake a lot of the night. It's great that it happened after the weekend, but I am sure tired today!