Longest Blog EVAR!

Since I know that all of you are up to date on all my blogs I’m just going to assume that you all know and are appropriately feeling sorry for me and my achy head. You can go ahead and keep that sympathy for a little longer, I’m starting the recap on Friday and I don’t get fixed until Monday. So Friday, I was extra cranky at work, everyone noticed that I wasn’t feeling well and I don’t want to take credit where it isn’t due but since I’m pretty sure Jimbo let us all go early because of how pitiful I looked I’ll just go ahead and say your welcome now.
So I was on the road around 12:30 heading home. I got there and ate and sat on the couch debating on whether or not I should dye my hair. My roots are out a bit. but since I couldn’t see the point of making my head hurt even more from the fumes I decided against it. Instead I just laid on the couch for about an hour before my mom and grandma said they were ready for me to come over, so I picked up Laine and headed over there to visit for a while. Laine and I got in the pool for a bit but her fingers started turning purple so we got out and showered off. She got her pajama’s on and I got ready for the CPC thing. Erik called to tell me he was on his way home at 4:30 and we all felt a little rushed since we were supposed to be at the church at 5:30 and we still needed to drop Laine off with Torben and Kate. Once Erik came and picked us up we headed to his parents but neither one of them were home so we left Laine with Kate to babysit. Patricia was there by 6:30 and Kate is amazing about checking in and sending me photo’s often that I never really worry about Laine with her. Kate’s the best.
Once we got to the church in Pasadena I kept waiting for the butterflies and the nausea to settle in but it never did. I think listening to our CD from last year made me feel prepped for our time on stage. I also was able to watch the DVD I made for Jacob and was able to relive a lot of what I felt at the time of the adoption. But since I spoke about the adoption last a lot has changed about the way I feel. I’m not angry anymore and I rarely get sad. I’ve found my peace. So this time was a lot different than last time in that I didn’t run off the stage and vomit when we finished and I smiled a lot this time, my cheeks were hurting so I know I smiled a lot, and I had to say more than once that “If you listen to the CD you’ll hear me say differently” because I think I’ve done more growing up in my emotions where as in the last eight years I’ve just been growing out, letting the emotions I had just get larger and stagnant. A lot of my growth up had to do with the fact that I see Jacob on a regular basis now. That helps.


Darren emcee'd for us so none of us had to think to hard
about what to say next.



After the thing at CPC Erik and I had a long talk in the car about how much had changed in the last 19 months, how I’ve changed a lot of who I am and what I feel since I had Laine. And he let me know that he is grateful to Laine because he sees less sadness in me since she came a long. I think Laine makes it possible for me to learn how to love as a mother and not a birth mother, a little more attached a little more intimate. Since Laine I’ve been too busy to think about things I’ve lost and now all I have is the happiness of seeing Jacob when I can and the joy I feel when I think of him. So yeah, I’m grateful for Laine too.



My Angel



So, onward. We picked Laine up from the Rosendahl's and headed home for some much needed sleep but Laine woke up in the driveway so she and I got some quality time laying in bed just being quiet and listening to dad battle the squirrel in the attic until we both fell asleep.

Saturday morning and Erik is up and at it again with the squirrel this time he took the bb gun and did a great John Wayne for us. Long story short about the squirrel, he eventually got it out of the attic and the attic is now fully sealed at least temporarily, he’s going to be getting a lot more creative given the time to think about it. I texted dad soon after and asked him if we could ride with him to the family reunion and he said sure, be there in fifteen minutes. Eek! So Laine and I got up and showered and I got her bag packed and my dad was knocking on the door before I had any pants on. I only took an extra five or seven minutes but I hate to keep him waiting, I know I’m exactly like him when I want to be on the road and I know it would aggravate me to wait so I hurried as fast as I could and in the process of hurrying and getting out the door I forgot Laine’s beebee. It’s one of only two times I’ve ever done that. So I sent Erik a text telling him to bring it to the woodlands when he came. (oh yeah, he stayed behind to continue the battle with the squirrel until about twelve thirty, he showed up as Laine and I were napping). The whole time that Laine was up and moving around though she was stuck like glue to my dad. He's her best friend for sure.


I know it looks like she's in time out but she's not,
I'm pretty sure she was just contemplating how to get down.



So we got to the family reunion at I don’t’ know what time but it was early and I thought that’s why no one was there but it turns out that half the family just didn’t show up. Totally wacky. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it though, it was kind of nice having the family in such a small group, I was able to talk to everyone there one on one and I can’t ever do that when everyone shows up. But even though it was nice this time, next time I’d still like to see everyone. (Elizabeth. I’m looking at you.)

My Peeps

 Once 5:30 or so rolled around Erik and I were close to the last to leave, we packed up the care and headed out with mom and dad just ahead of us. Laine was marvelous the whole ride home, she did a lot of singing and talking and screaming and she kept up entertained the whole way back. Since she was still awake when we got into league city we went ahead and stopped by Lowes to look at a new vanity for the downstairs bathroom and found one that we both thought was amazing. Yay for agreement with the spouse!



*Angels Singing*



No we did not let her play with scissors.



Anyway, we headed home and went on with our relaxing, we were so pooped, all we wanted to do as sleep but Laine wanted to stay up until after 11:00 but thankfully she slept for the rest of the night.

Sunday we woke up around 8:00 which is something we haven’t been about to do in a very long time but Laine and I were up and eating but my head hurt way too bad to try to wrestle Laine into the shower. So I gave Erik puppy dog eyes and he took her for me and I passed on a shower all together. Lunch was at the Schmales’s house this Sunday and boy am I glad I’d already slipped up on my diet because I would have slipped all over those sandwiches and soup. It was amazing. I was ready to go home and my mom offered to drive me since Erik was helping Ben with his computer but instead of going home we went to HEB because momma wanted to help me get started on my diet the right way. So she wouldn’t even let me go home to get my money she bought me almost $200 worth of groceries and then we went to her house until almost 8:00 and cooked until our feet fell off. Erik had been home all day cutting the tree in the back yard with Charles and by the time I was ready to go home and needed help getting all the TWO WEEKS WORTH OF FOOD in to the freezer as well as getting Laine to bed he was already gone to drop Charles off and wouldn’t’ be home to help me out at all. But mom offered to watch Laine as I did a quick freezer run and I’m glad because I was in and out of my trunk to the freezer at least six times. There’s no way Laine wouldn’t’ have been underfoot had I tried to do that on my own. I didn’t think I took more than fifteen minutes to unload it all but by the time I got back to my mom’s house she had already given Laine a bath and her kitchen, which we DESTROYED was already more that half cleaned up. That woman is a MACHINE.

So I loaded up aine and gave my mom a few too few hugs and thankyou's, those never add up to the appropriate number where she’s concerned. Once I got home who’s there but Erik, asking what I needed help with so bad. How do you say “nothing now, I took care of it since you said you couldn’t come” without sounding like a bitch? I’ll tell you, you can’t. So Erik went back to the couch to watch TV and left me with a newly amped up kid to try and calm down and get into bed until well after midnight. But again, at least she slept all night and didn’t wake up until 7:30.
I’m debating starting a new blog here because I know it’s going to be another long one but since you’re here... we come to Monday, and before this Monday I had been seriously debating splitting my hate for Tuesday right down the middle with Mondays. But I met a man. A wonderfully wonderful man named Dr Hudson. Before I get to him though let me tell you, I thought maybe I’d made a mistake waiting until Monday to got to a new doctor. I had a whole list of ailments that you’d think I was about to burst in some insane viral epidemic, either that or that my head was going to explode all over my parents clean carpet. Either way I felt like I was seriously hurting myself by waiting until Monday when they could have taken me on Friday, but priorities, you know. It was more important to speak at CPC than it was for my head to stay in one piece.
So Monday morning I get up and stretch like usual but this morning my blood is pounding so hard in my ears that I literally cannot even stand up much less roll over into my side. So I laid there for upwards of an hour until Erik’s alarm went off and I had him help me to the shower. After that I felt a little better so I got Laine up and dressed for the day and Erik was up and dressed too and he took Laine to daycare, but guess what, we forgot her beebee again. It’s the tumor I tell you, otherwise I’d never forget that thing. So I got dressed and did a load of never ending laundry and headed out to drop off the beebee at the daycare, it was a little awkward making the new girl walk all the way across the building to get it from me and she was looking at me like a retard who is making her go out of her way for no reason but I explained to her that Laine was right on the other side of the window and I didn’t’ want her to see me and I apologies to her for inconveniencing her but by the time I was in my car I was ready to turn back around and give her what for, I mean what am I paying them for anyway. To take care of my kid while I can’t and that includes keeping her out of eyesight if it keeps her happy. Jeez.
Anyway, I then head out to Pearland for my appointment. I get there after a quick stop at Walgreens for a bottle of water and some altoids, yeah I forgot to brush my teeth before going someplace where there was a good possibility a doctor may want to look at my newly healed throat. And he did and I was glad I stopped first.
I got to the office and had to wait a while to get the paperwork to fill out as a new patient and my lord in heaven batman, if I knew my future grandchildren’s social security numbers they would have forced it out of me with bamboo under my nails, how the heck should I know when I got my chicken pox I was like four years old and how would I know if I was vaccinated for hep b when I was an infant? I was an infant. PFT! So I finish laboring my way through page after page of paperwork and hand it over to the nurse who holds my insurance card hostage until the nurse gives it back when I’m already in the exam room.
Are you noticing a pattern here, me making a huge deal and being greatly bothered by nothing? Yeah, that had been my life for like two weeks and I could see and hear myself being ridiculous and was powerless to stop it.
So I’m in the exam room and I’m getting weighed and my blood pressure and temp is taken. I weigh exactly the same as I did that morning at home (176) and my blood pressure was almost exactly what it was the other day at moms house (177/72) and my temp was exactly the same as the night before (95.7) which all three being the same is kind of weird right?
The nurse talked to me for almost a half an hour, asking me all kinds of questions and writing down all my answers I think verbatim because she filled out almost three sheets of paper. She was super attentive and incredibly intuitive. I liked her a lot, she didn’t’ smile too much and just did her job but in a nice lady kind of way and I like that. After she left it was only about two minutes before I met the most wonderful man in the whole world next to my dad, and my husband and my grandpa and my grandpa and my brother and my son and his brother but you get the point. Besides all the big greats he’s next. He’s a jolly man in a plaid shirt and suspenders. If you ever wondered what Saint Nic does on his time off, now you know. He’s my doctor. And he’s amazing. He talked to me for almost an hour and a half , just me and him. Even when the blood was being all CBC’d or whatever he sat next to me and had me walk him through the last three weeks, every drug I’d been put on and how they effected me, every day I spent laying down and resting versus the days I was up and active and how I felt each of those type of days versus the other. He asked me how long I’d been having allergy problems and I told him I hadn’t had allergies since last spring with I got house arrested by the pollen. But he kept on the allergy point, asking me why I was sniffing so often and I was all “I’m not sniffing, I don’t’ have a runny nose or anything, no itchy runny eyes, no sneezing no nothing” he just said okay and then kept talking about other tuff but pointing out each time I sniffed. I never realized how often I do that. It had made me thoroughly self conscious about it. So then he started asking me about my joints and had any of them become stiff or sore, I told him my shoulders and neck feel like they have a constant crick in them but I just figured it was from laying on the couch for so long and so often. He put his had on the back of my neck and started rotating my neck and the only pain I felt was a tightening in the center of the back of my neck and a pulling at my shoulders. He then asked me to sniff and I did then he pinched whatever muscle gets used while sniffing and I just about fell off my chair, I went all blurry eyed and I swear I almost screamed out loud. I’ve never felt the pain of giving birth through my neck before but now I have. He told me it hurts because I have a couple of pulled muscles and he thinks an pinched nerve too. I couldn’t believe it, I told him It didn’t’ feel pinched and pulled and I really don’t feel like I have allergies and I can’t believe that he’s getting all this from :I have a headache” and he just told me it was because I’m not a titty baby. Yeah, my amazing doctor broke it down to that simple fact and from that point on he started to seriously question me about my headache and how it hurt and where it hurt and how often and when it hurts worse and less because if I don’t’ even notice pinched nerves and pulled muscle but my headache was putting me on my ass he knew it must really hurt me.
I can’t even tell you, I still want to cry from the absolute happiness I felt just to have a doctor take me seriously. He talked to me and he logically walked through every problem I have and her treated each one with equal seriousness and all I can say is that I think I’m in love. I’ll never go to another doctor again if he’s this amazing every time.
Anyhow, my tumor turned out to be allergies. My glands are so swollen that they are putting pressure on all my next and shoulder muscles which paired with my sniffling is pulling and pinching at things it normally wouldn’t. And my swollen sinuses are what was making my head hurt worse that it already was from the tension headaches I’ve been getting from stress. This is the only thing I’m skeptical about . it went like this. Him: are you under an unusual about of stress? Me: no, not really. I have a 19 month old and a husband and a job and a home to care for and bills to pay just like every other married mother in the world, no more or less stress than anyone else. Him: well for some people that is too much stress. Me: not for me it isn’t. Him: for your body it might be.
He’s sharp he’s got wit and he’s quick with his comebacks and I think that might be why I take him at his word. So I can take Alive while I am on my meds but once I’m off them and if the headaches continue he told me to try tension headache medication instead of the migraine meds that weren’t helping much.
So I asked him about my meds, if I should just take Claritin or Benadryl for the allergies and he said we were way beyond that and he’s got me on some antibiotic that has like three warnings about the effects on my GI tract and some steroids that in the instructions it talks about how it’s used to treat liver disease, kidney disease, a thyroid disorder, a history of malaria, tuberculosis, osteoporosis, herpes infection of the eyes, stomach ulcers, ulcerative colitis, or diverticulitis, depression or mental illness, congestive heart failure, or high blood pressure. WTF?! I didn’t even know there was suck a thing as herpes of the eye. Anyhow that’s what I’m taking and so far so good. He gave me a shot in my butt too and within about six hours my headache was completely gone. It was the first night of total rest I’ve gotten in over three weeks. I can’t even put into words my bliss. It thought I could handle a little headache, a big headache and a migraine even but apparently eighteen days strait of no relief had done very bad things to me.
So today I’m awake and I have more energy that every day in the last three weeks combined and I am looking forward to going home tonight and finish cleaning my house that I started on last night. It was such an epiphany to finally have my head clear and be feeling no pain, it was like a veil was lifted and I could see the wreck my house was where before I didn’t’ care at all what was stuck in my carpet or what was hiding under Laine’s crib (three diapers ugh!) So I got he kitchen living room dining room Laine’s room and my room cleaned and ready for Katia to come on down!

Everyone at work today has commented on how much better I look, and I don’t’ blame them in the slightest, I do look damn good today, my pants are clean and my shirt isn’t wrinkled and my hair is brushed and I have on makeup.

So that’s it, end of story. I’m fixed.