I’ve moved to: Denim N Daisies  so come on over and join me there!

No real reasons for it. Ok, so maybe there are.

Reason #1: I got all set up to blog several months back and spent a small fortune doing it. I don’t want to have to pay that small fortune again in a few months in order to continue blogging.

Reason #2: The place/way I had been blogging was “outdated” according to WordPress. (See my post about this.) This gets my version of WordPress updated without me having to figure out how to do it. (Because THAT was never gonna happen, folks!)

Reason #3: I finally figured out how to do it! (Move it that is.)

That’s pretty much it. This should be much simpler to keep up with. Simple is good. I like simple, remember? =)

Oh, I also like rearranging things. This would apparently include my blog. ;-)

Posted: October 2nd, 2008 under just life.
Comments: none

I had no idea. No truly. NO idea.

I was doing a little research today, on a couple of my medicines, and I stumbled upon references to a depression questionnaire that medical professionals use to grade the severity of clinical depression. I don’t mean the down-in-the-dumps blues. I mean the bigtime stuff. The stuff that warrants, no necessitates, medical intervention in order to shake.

Yeah that kind of depression.

I say I stumbled onto a questionnaire… actually I found several different ones. Just for kicks, I decided to screen myself. Grade myself, if you will.

Mind you, this is after being on 2 different anti-depressants for about 3wks. Meds that, in all honesty, I was taking only because my doc told me to. NOT because I thought I needed them, but simply because I wanted to be a good patient and do what I was told. I looked up the usage of these two and found that when used in combination at the right dosage they were helping fibromyalgia patients with pain. That coupled with the fact that the doc had prescribed one of them to help me get to sleep… not for depression… made me feel so much better about taking them, if you know what I mean.

Anyway. I almost maxed out every single screening and questionnaire there was. No kidding. Severe depression was the result on every single one.

Do WHAT?!

Were they wrong? Did I somehow mess up and answer something wonky and skew the results? Are they flawed? What in the world?!?!

Nope.

Thing is, despite the fact that I have felt -emotionally and mentally- better in the last 2-3 wks than I have in I-don’t-know-how-long, apparently I truly AM still “severely clinically depressed”.

Talk about an eye-opener. I honestly, truly had NO idea that I was not ‘normal’. Ok, scratch that. I’ve known for years and years I’m not ‘normal’. What I mean is I had no idea that the way I feel about myself and the way I live day-to-day emotionally/mentally speaking was depression of any kind, let alone “severe depression”. That’s what I mean.

Turns out, I’ve been living with severe depression for a little over 20 years… probably 23 or 24. I’m not quite 30. You do the math.

So basically? I don’t have a clue how the majority of folks have been feeling/living. I don’t have a clue what is normal. I’m not “getting back to normal” so much as I am just plain ol’ “getting normal”.

Now, you might think “well gosh! Didn’t her mom think something was amiss when she was depressed at 7 or 8, or even by her teens? SURELY her doctor at least would’ve noticed something was up…”

Yeah, not so much. For a start, I didn’t see doctors much growing up. Major illness or something requiring a cast or stitches warranted a dr visit and well… none of those happened very often. Then there’s my mom.

See, my mom and I are a lot alike. A lot. It’s more likely than not that SHE would also come up depressed on a screening. I won’t say with 100% certainty because she might take offense to that, but knowing what I know of her… if she answered honestly… yeah it’s likely.

And here’s the kicker… Mom doesn’t “feel depressed” or see herself as depressed either. Know why? Cause she is “normal for her”. That is, she feels no different now than she ever has.

Catch that?

Yup. It’s a strange world we’ve been living in, though it does not seem the least bit strange to us. This, (that we know as “just life”), being the strange world is what is strange. Just the idea that the way I feel could actually be different, be BETTER is strange.

Matthew being depressed doesn’t come as a surprise per se, and I’m not even kicking myself in the rear too much for not catching it and doing something about it sooner. THAT is, in and of itself, a new experience for me. I’ve recognized that I really couldn’t have realized he truly needed medical treatment any sooner because I didn’t know better, and so I’m not beating myself up with guilt over not doing anything sooner. That’s simply amazing to me.

Always, ALWAYS, before even if I knew rationally that there was no way I could have been “at fault” or “guilty” about something with the kids (like not getting medicine sooner, for instance), I would still -despite totally and fully realizing it was not rational- feel tremendous guilt. I’m talking bone-crushing guilt. The kind of guilt that leaves you chewing yourself out in your mind for days, sometimes weeks, on end.

I feel like a brand new babe, learning feelings and experiencing things for the very first time. I’ve never seen life like this before. That probably sounds cliche, but think about it for a minute. Your earliest clear memory, I mean really clear memory, probably isn’t much further back than your sixth or seventh year. I remember a few snapshot-like moments from the time I was 3-5, but the memories don’t really become clear, fully defined, complete with emotions, until I was closer to 7.

Second grade. I remember fleeting moments of first grade, but not enough to hold onto and evaluate in terms of emotions and thought-processes at the time. That doesn’t come till second grade.

It was second grade that I talked about killing myself and of wishing I was dead. It was second grade when Mom took me to a counselor to make sure I didn’t really mean it. The counselor assured her I was just “throwing a fit” and offered the suggestion of encouraging the tantrums when I had them. The ol’ “reverse pyschology” ploy at work… if Mom wanted me to throw a really good fit, then I wouldn’t want to anymore and so the tantrums would stop.

They did… mostly. My behavior just morphed. I have been told that at times I appeared to be possessed because of the “pure hate” pouring out of my eyes. Mom did not know then, what I did not know with Matthew… that depression in children often manifests as anger, frustration, aggression, etc.

She also did not know (nor did I with Matthew) that depression in children can also cause the child to “be a loner”. I did not play with many other children. One or two at a time, at most, and frequently I played alone. Well, mostly I read, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, I can remember feeling and thinking in second grade pretty much the same as I do now. Or maybe I should say, have up till now. It’s like… I’m almost thirty, but I feel the same as I did at 17 or 18. I’m sure most people are that way. They don’t feel thirty, they just feel like themselves… they way they have for years and years, since high school is generally what people say. I can take that back further. To second grade.

Oh sure, as a kid I felt younger in that I was well aware I wasn’t an adult. I mean it’s not like I felt or thought in a mature manner as a 7 year old, not at all. What I mean is I have felt the same emotionally in terms of feelings overall since at least second grade. I’ve felt the same way about myself since at least second grade. I’ve felt the same way about other people since at least second grade. I don’t remember feeling any other way. I can remember how I felt and how I thought in second grade and it was no different than the way I answered those questionnaires and screening tests earlier today.

That’s what I mean.

So when I say I’m learning feelings and experiencing things for the very first time… I mean it. At least for the first time in my memorable history anyway.

The good news? The meds are definitely working. I know because if you’ll recall I said way up there that I “almost” maxed out the screenings. “Almost” being the operative word, here. Being honest I can say that a few weeks ago (or at any point in the last 20+ years) I would have maxed out the screenings. A few points lower today and I would’ve pegged out for “moderate depression”. So while I’m still falling in the “severe” range, it’s headed towards “moderate”.

It’s going to take some getting used to, for sure. I think I’m kinda scared of it, in a way. I’m hesitant to “let myself” feel different, if you will. Almost like… I’m afraid it might all be a dream. It’s like I’m being offered a butter rum lollipop…  and I’ve gotten a tiny taste, but I’m afraid to close my mouth around it lest the lollipop will be jerked back out of my reach, knocking teeth loose, leaving me battered, bleeding, and aching for that delicious buttery sweetness.

This is so weird. But then, weird is normal. Weird is what I know. It runs in the family.

I’m just sayin’.  =)

Posted: September 25th, 2008 under Miracles, just life, mildly "article-ish", the changing me.
Comments: none

It’s a good thing hubby and I like beef. A lot.

We bought a package of 2 roasts from Costco when we went the other day. I immediately put them in the freezer when we got home so they wouldn’t spoil. I pulled them OUT of the freezer about 3 days ago so they could thaw so I could cook one and refreeze the other.

Problem: Hubby thinks one should not REfreeze meat.

Solution: Cook BOTH roasts.

Since I forgot to put the one in the crockpot this morning, I had thought about doing a sausage gumbo kind of meal tonight and postpone the roast till tomorrow. Then Mike comes up with this cook both roasts idea.

So, at 6:30 tonight I popped one roast into the oven, the other into the fridge awaiting a slow crockpot cook tomorrow.

Then I made the kids’ day by offering them hot dogs for dinner.

Yes, I am serious. The older one had been whining and shnivveling about hating roast, so she was especially ecstatic. The younger, well these days most everything pleases him. It’s true!

Yesterday when he heard we were having roast for dinner he was all “Yea! Mommy, I love you! You’re the best mom ever!” and then tonight when I offered hot dogs instead (because said roast will not be done before their bedtime), he turned to his sister with his jaw dropped and literally squealed with delight! “Did you hear that? Hot dogs! Mom just said we could have hot dogs for dinner!”

It’s so out-of-character for him, I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. The exciting thing is… it just might not drop at all. Apparently my boy was NOT bent on making my life miserable all these years. (ok, I knew that… truly… but whatever. It sure felt like it sometimes.)

It appears that my boy was… of all things… depressed, thanks in large part to a systemic bacterial infection. He is doing/acting/feeling like an entirely different person nowadays. In a good, REALLY good way.

How about them apples?!

We’re not here to discuss apples, though. We were discussing the roastS hubby and I will be eating this week… by ourselves, it seems. It really is a good thing we like beef. A lot.

Note to self: When buying super mega family packs of meat to use over the course of the next several weeks (as opposed to 2 days in a row), do NOT, I repeat do NOT put them in the freezer until you have divided the meat up into however many packages are appropriate. 

Posted: September 23rd, 2008 under Matthew, just life.
Comments: none

The secret to a doctor’s appointment going well? Bathe it in prayer. A lot.

I was approved for the drug manufacturer’s patient assistance program. This means they will supply my meds (well, the ones they make) for the next year! Praise the Lord! We just picked up a 3mo supply of the Zithromax. God is good! He supplies our every need. =)

A seemingly simple 2-day project inevitably stretches into weeks at this house. The super secret surprise for the kids is proving to be MUCH more complicated than I’d originally figured it would be. =(

There are rumblings of a new Moms Night Out kind of thing happening at church. A monthly get-together of moms to do something girlie. I don’t even know what that is, but I’m game for learning! =) A night out sounds WUNDERBAR!

Matthew’s MedicAlert bracelet came in the mail today. He was so excited!

My B12 shot will not be administered tonight (yea! hehe!) because the solution has what looks like teensy tiny STICKS in it! YIKES! Will call pharmacy tomorrow to see what’s up.

It looks like not only is Mom a fellow Lymie, but at least one of her brothers could very well be also. He hasn’t seen a doc about it yet, so of course we can not say for sure, but he sure had a lot of symptoms off the checklist Mom read to him last night.

My two youngest brothers have an appointment in a couple of weeks to look into the Lyme and Co. problem.

Mike’s car is still not fixed, so Mom will be over this week to shuttle the kids back and forth to school on Thurs and Fri again. This is proving to be a bigger hassle for all of us than first anticipated. It’s just ROUGH having two different family make-ups or whatever. First just us, then Mom and the boys also, then us again, then them too again… repeat and repeat. The kids all get on each other’s nerves in about half a nanosecond, and my two get upset about the boys touching any of their things, etc. I’ll be SO glad when Mike gets his car runnin again!

Posted: September 15th, 2008 under Lyme disease, just life.
Comments: none

Matthew being allergic to peanuts and several other nuts means he really needs to be wearing a MedicAlert bracelet at all times. He used to years ago as a toddler, but like a bad food-allergy mommy, I let his membership go because it was something like $35/year and he was NEVER not with me. As much as I would have liked him to be not with me some, it just never happened.

Now that he is going to our church’s private school this year, he IS away from me most days. I feel completely comfortable with him being there at the school without the bracelet (though I do send his Epipens) because his teacher’s son is also allergic to peanuts, so he is familiar with the whole “allergy scene”. The thing is… sometimes they go on field trips or to compete in different events and those are the times he would not be with me OR with his teacher, and so it was time to get him a new MedicAlert bracelet (his old one broke years and years ago, plus it had his OLD membership # on it… completely useless now since he hasn’t been in their computer in years).

Today I went to order that bracelet. His first field trip is this Monday (Putt-Putt… they are competing for ribbons… too cute!), so he will still be bracelet-less for his first ‘away’, but he should be covered for all subsequent trips now.

The blessing happened like this… I spent about 45min filling in all Matt’s personal and medical info (allergies, conditions, medications, emerg. contacts, etc), and had him pick out the design of his sports band (he can’t wear the stainless steel ones, as he is allergic to nickel). Then I went to the cart and saw there was a box to enter a promotion code. NORMALLY when I see this kind of thing in an online cart, I immediately open a new tab and start a google search for promotional coupon codes for whatever store it is. This time I did not. This time I instead clicked on a little link towards the top that said “Kids” thinking I’d go look in the kids’ section just to see if there was anything unique in there that I hadn’t seen yet. I’d already picked his bracelet out, so I really didn’t have a NEED to look, but went anyway.

I’m so glad I listened to that little voice that said to go check it out, because when I did I discovered a GREAT deal. The Food Allergy Initiative was offering free “new memberships and 1 bracelet” for low-income kids with food allergies! It said you could call and mention the code number or fill out the enrollment form online. Since I was literally in the middle of ordering a “new membership and bracelet” for a food allergic kid, I called and she said yes I could do it online, just put that code in the promotional code box in the checkout process. When I tried that, though, it came up with an error, so the gal pulled up Matt’s info and put it through for me. She said they’d ship out his bracelet and card in 7-10 days.

That’s it. Easy Peasy.

Praise the Lord! That just saved me $70 right now and $25/year, since the deal comes with a reduced renewal fee as well! God is so good!

Posted: September 6th, 2008 under faith, just life.
Comments: none

I know, I know. This blog would be so much better with pictures. Maybe with pictures it would advance past the boring-avoid-at-all-costs level. Sorry bout that. I truly DO have lots of wonderful ideas for posts… complete with pretty pictures to look at… the problem comes in the execution of said ideas. In part because of the vast array of health oddities that have befallen me in the last year and a half. Basically I have no energy or clarity to even think most of the time, and only just enough to THINK about doing stuff the rest of the time… not enough to actually do.

I really hope this will change soon, and so… (as I always seem to do)… and daydream about what I’ll do when I feel up to it. My list of “want-to-dos” is HUGE. Think Santa’s Nice list from the movie The Santa Clause. Totally that long.

Since I’m not there yet, I guess I’ll continue the old, boring ‘format’ for now. At least today I have a sorta kinda funny (or two) that relates.

The first one-

I saw my doc again Wednesday. He wasn’t as frustrated with me this time. I think mostly cuz Mom once again went with and this time she piped up and said a whole lot. Stuff about symptoms I’d had in the last few weeks and stuff about how paranoia is the name of the game for me. How I’m scared to tell him anything for fear he’ll quit believing me or seeing me. (Actually the comment I’d made was closer to “He’s about 3mo past due for no longer believing me”… I started seeing him in June, you do the math.)

Anyhow. I’ve been having a real rough couple of weeks and so he decided to change my meds all up. I’m now on Zithromax (more about that later) and Flagyl, and 2, count them TWO anti-depressants. Oy vey! While Mom was writing down the instructions on how much and when and when to increase and so forth (cause I could never remember otherwise), doc had me stand up to do the whole stand-with-your-eyes-closed test. “Did you just tip?” he asked as I stood up out of the chair. Ummm, that would be a yes. (I’ve been WAY off-balance the last couple of weeks.)

I barely got my eyes closed when he decided that was enough… on to the grab-my-fingers-as-hard-as-you-can test. Flunked that one again, of course. “Still weak” he said. He doesn’t know it but I would have flunked that test 15 years ago! lol I commented that after last month’s visit my mom discovered (and declared) that my son had the same strength I did. (The more amazing thing is my daughter has way more! but I didn’t think of that at the time.) The funny is my doc’s response to that. He said “I bet your son likes that. He can arm wrestle Mom.”

Ok. Maybe you just had to be there, but I thought it was pretty funny. My doc also told me I was a real piece of work at this visit. I’m not sure how to take that. =/

The second funny I have for you deals with a new Olympic sport. Last night I stretched a little sitting here at the computer and when I was through I had a couple of muscles start twitching. Now the twitching is nothing new. I have dozens and dozens of muscle twitches all over all day long. I’ve even had my tongue twitch! This was a new thing, though. Synchronized muscle twitching. I had a twitch in each buttock in matching areas! Never had synchronized twitches before. It should totally be an Olympian event, I could so TOTALLY compete! LOL

On the ‘plan’ for this coming week??

Well, if I can manage to grab enough ‘feel ok’ time, I want to get started on Matthew’s western shirt. He was so excited to learn Mom could make western shirts with real honest-to-goodness pearl snaps! He picked out the fabric he wanted and is just giddy with anticipation. Me? Not so much. I can’t help it! I love making the western shirts, I do, but see, the thing is I kinda have in mind that they will look like… oh I don’t know… a western shirt?!?! when they are done. Not like something you’d see Bozo wearing. The fabric he picked out is a little bold and a little Oriental. Not exactly your typical western shirt fare. Ah well.

Also I’d like to get a t-shirt appliqued for Meagan to wear with her favorite pair of (new) culottes. Bright, bold lime green with frogs. She wants a shirt with one of each of the different frogs on it.

After that I want to get the DVD racks wrapped in denim and hung.

Then there are the pillows out of bandanas to make. And the curtains for the kitchen, laundry room, and linen closet. And then there’s the 3 different quilts I have started that I need to be working on…

Of course, chances of me getting even the first one done this coming week are slim. Still. I can dream.

Posted: August 30th, 2008 under Lyme disease, blogging, funnies, just life, projects.
Comments: none

Mike and Matt just walked out the door. My honey is going after the mint chocolate chip ice cream he forgot to pick up for me last night and Matt tagged along because he wants to wear his suit to church tonight.

Matt has a thing for suits and ties. He likes them. A lot. He hasn’t been able to wear them in quite awhile because his boots wore out and I couldn’t even find dress shoes to fit. He found a pair of (I think UGLY!) boots at a store in town that he likes, though, and now he has talked his Dad into taking him to pick them up. They were on clearance, so for his sake, I do hope they are still there.

I really hope they are. It’s all he’s talked about since Friday when he spotted them. He is so excited to wear them with his suit and tie tonight to church! Please, Lord, let them still be there in his size.

UPDATE: Yes! The boots were still there. Here is a pic of them and my yummilicious ice cream. Notice I had already started enjoying the ice cream when I thought to take a pic. The fabric in the background? My current sewing project… 6 new pairs of culottes for gymclass for Meagan. I got them mostly finished today. They just lack elastic and hemming.

Posted: August 20th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, just life.
Comments: none

You know it’s been too long since your last post when the WordPress log-in thingy does not automatically let you in, but instead pops up with your user name and password prefilled and a little unchecked box that says “Remember Me”. I totally think that was WordPress’ way of saying “hey! What’s up with the no-posting?! Hello?! Remember me… your blog?! You know, the one YOU wanted to start. Hello? Hello?! Remember me??”

Yeah, so it’s been awhile, and I can’t even say that it’s because I’ve been oh-so busy. Well, I guess I could, but then I would be lying through my teeth. No, the lack of posting is a combination of being a little busy, a little feel-like-death-warmed-over, and a little trying-to-avoid-all-forms-of-reality. (I find it’s easier that way… just don’t think about stuff. Unfortunately for me this does not always work. Actually it rarely does, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I’m nothing if not persistent!!)

So, about this end of an era thing…

Yeah. It sucks more than a little, I’ll be honest. I don’t even like to think about it, and it has nothing to do with ‘letting go’ of the baby, either, so don’t go there. (That’s where most people seem to go when they realize I’m not exactly ‘ok’ with Matt going to the private school.) I am SOOOOOOOOO looking forward to the time away from my precious baby!!! Oh my lands you have no idea!! I know that sounds horrid, but really it’s BEEN horrid the last couple of years and I NEED a break from him, oh PLEASE! So yeah, it’s so not ‘letting go’ of the ‘baby’. Nope. It’s letting go of the homeschooling life/dream. That’s what is crushing me. I can’t stand it.

Every time I look at school supplies, teacher supplies, new workbooks, catalogs for teacher resource materials or homeschool curricula, or anything that might vaguely resemble a ‘teaching the minds of young children’ slant… I want to scream and kick and wail and gnash my teeth and cry and cry and cry. =(

Enough of that, though. I do have a few other things to mention. Like….

My house is clean again! (Well, ok, the bedrooms are in progress and the pantry…well, let’s just not talk about the pantry, shall we?) But on the whole, my house is clean again! I’d done ok with keeping it picked up and clean after the folks stuff got sorted out and we did the initial clearing out and cleaning up, until about March when the fatigue and aches just got to be too much for me. Since then stuff had been piling up and getting worse and worse and the kids’ pitching in was a no-go. Not that I didn’t try… it just didn’t work. *sigh*

My grandmother called early last week, though, and wanted to know if I’d be home Fri around noon, and if so could my mom and her bunch come over, as she and PawPaw would be coming through town around then and they’d like to stop in. Sure! I told her. And then Mom called me and said “Do you need some help cleaning?” and I said back to her “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! You are so funny to ask that! That was a stupid question! You saw my house two days ago… you tell me!” haha

So come over she did, and help me clean she did, and visit we did on Friday. Granted, it cost me. Friday night I was in so much pain! UGG! I popped 2 pain pills then went and writhed in bed for about 4hr while the very worst of it passed. Saturday I slept all day. No really. All day. Sunday was church and by that point I’d mostly recovered. I did nap Sun. afternoon, and my head was killing me Sunday night (TWO rounds of 2 pain pills and I still couldn’t sleep Sun. night.).

Yesterday we did some more prep for Operation Start-to-School. We took Matt to the uniform store and sized and purchased him 2 pairs of pants, 2 short sleeve shirts, and 2 long sleeve shirts. He actually could use more than that obviously, but we are el cheapo private school folk. We can’t even afford this, let alone a complete weeks’ worth (which would have been another 3 pairs of pants, and another s/s and another l/s, since they only wear the blue uniform-store shirts 3 days a week and plain white WalMart button-ups the other days). Meagan has the same line-up… 2 jumpers, 2 s/s and 2 l/s. It’s not an ideal set-up since the jumpers and pants either have to be worn twice or be washed mid-week, but it’s what we can do.

From the uniform store, we went to a nearby boot store (HUGE place) to see about finding a pair of cowboy boots for Matt to wear to church. He LOVES wearing suits and ties to church, but has not in several months because he has no appropriate footwear. I’ve looked everywhere and haven’t found a thing in his size. Granted everywhere is pretty much our local WalMart and one time a Payless when we were out of town, but still… He really prefers boots to dress shoes, but I haven’t even found dress shoes to fit, so he’s been wearing jeans, t-shirts, and tennis to church. Oh the horror, I know. He doesn’t like it anymore than me, actually I think he probably is MORE bothered than I am by it, but oh well.

Anyway, this huge boot store was supposed to have massive amounts of boots to pick from…and they do… if you are a full-grown adult with a FULL-grown wallet. Oh my stars!! They had about 4 styles in his size and he liked none of them. Also? They all were too narrow for his feet. Thankfully there was a pair at a local high-falutin’ drugstore-cowboy kind of joint on clearance that he liked AND that fit decent. They are not the black I was looking for, though. Instead they are a chocolate brown lower, with a mustard gold top. Personally I think they look like sick baby poop. Blech! Matt loves them, though, and has been buggin me all day to go get them for him.

Unfortunately I could not do that because he picked today to throw another all out tizzy massive meltdown of epic proportions. Screaming and hitting and biting and growling ensued. I ended up having to sit with him on my lap, one leg wrapped on top of his lap and one hand on each arm trying to keep them still in order for him to be able to get calmed down. Mike called the dr, because even though I have a consult set up for the 8th, I don’t know at what point we QUIT the waiting and just take him in to be admitted. Seriously he gets that bad with these rages or whatever they are. True, this is the first in a couple of months (I totally think the lackadaisacal no-pressure/stress summer is to thank for the brief reprieve…), but we all got lucky in that today I was not hurting super bad or super weak or whatever. Most days I would not have been able to physically restrain the kid because on most days he is far stronger than me. If that had been the case today, Mike would have been wholloped on the head with a metal pipe and I would’ve been bit up pretty good.

So the official word from the dr was… can’t do anything till the consult. FINE, but could you answer the whole question of what to do in the meantime?! I mean we totally got lucky today that I could hold him still, most days I can’t! What do we do when he goes all berserk like this and I can’t help Mike… or worse… Mike is at work. I sorta-kinda got the answer to that in a roundabout way… dr told Mike that if we think he is going to harm someone, take him to the childrens hospital an hour away.

Ok, so at least we have a plan… sorta. I mean by the time we got to the hospital I know he’d be calmed down, these tirades don’t typically last for hours once he’s restrained (which he would be in a car seat…), but then there’s the question of HOW in the beegeebees do we get him in the car and strapped down when he’s like this? We’re doing good if we can keep him in the house and semi-confined to one room. If we have to try to move him, he’s liable to take off into the street without looking (he’s done it before) or maybe climb the roof (again, done it before), if we lose our grasp of him which is not that difficult to do considering all the writhing and kicking and pulling and squirming the kid does.

And what if he pulls this kind of thing at school?

Sad thing is, just before this tirade, I totally thought I saw improvement in the whole moodiness thing. First there was the library daycamp thing a couple of weeks ago, of course. That was a huge sign of progress. Then this morning he had been out playing and when he came in and told me who he’d been with, I told him he needed to stay inside now since #1 he wasn’t supposed to be playing with this kid and #2 he wasn’t supposed to be in the sun. Ordinarily this would have provoked a massive meltdown. Yelling and screaming at me that he hates me, he hates his life, it’s not fair, he can play with whoever he wants, yadda yadda. Instead, this morning he took the disappointment very well and calmly said ok, and then asked if he could go to another friend’s house and go in and play video games instead. (Ok playmate, and out of sun) I agreed and off he went, no fuss, no fighting at all. I was shocked! I thought between the daycamp thing and this… surely the antibiotics were hitting the target and helping with the moods/behavior/pysch.

And then the meltdown. *sigh*

I guess it’s still possible the meds ARE working. After all, this was his first major meltdown in a couple of months, and it is about one month into treatment, so probably due for some herxing/cycling about now, too.

On another note (kid)… Meagan got back up out of bed around 11pm tonight and came looking for the thermometer. I asked her if she felt like she had a fever, and she said she did. Thermometer read 97.3. This is becoming quite the familiar scene around here… Feeling feverish? Your temp must be low! Matt did this a couple of days ago and his temp was 96.1!! Mine comes up anywhere from 96.4 to 97.6 when I feel feverish. Thing is we’ll really feel feverish on the outside too. Like Mike will put his hand or lips to my head and tell me yup, I probably have fever, but then we check it and it’s so low! Weird!

Posted: August 19th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, blogging, family, just life, kids.
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This post is going to have a little bit of everything, and a lot of nothing. haha I just wanted to throw out a few different things and instead of a bunch of little posts, I’ll do it all in one.

I got Meagan’s denim cowgirl swirly skirt finished finally. Somehow she managed to pooch her tummy out enough while I was trying the elastic on for fit (twice!) that the skirt now falls down to the top of her hips because the waist is so loose. It’s a pretty long skirt to begin with (it’ll be great for winter with a pair of tights underneath… nice and warm), so it looks like she should be able to wear it for a couple or three years.

This past week brought us a first. It’s one of those “developmental milestones”. One of those “growing up moments”. The kind people make scrapbook pages about, although admittedly it is one that typically happens as a toddler, and I don’t HAVE any toddlers…

Last weekend Meagan got a call from a friend of hers, inviting her to go to a daycamp the local library was having. It was going to be from 9-3pm, M-F, so bring a sack lunch, we were told. Mike decided that since it was quite possible Matthew would be GOING to school this year (man do I hate giving up the homeschooling!), it would be a good thing for Matt to go to the daycamp as a way to get used to being off ‘by himself’. So when Mike took Meagan to sign up, he signed Matthew up too.

Well, of course the rest of the weekend he was more than a little anxious, and definitely not pleased with the situation. We went ‘lunch-sack shopping’ Sunday afternoon to get goodies for lunches, and he did enjoy planning what he would pack/take.

Monday morning was liable to be disastrous, though. I told Mike ahead of time that I should stay home and he should take the kids and drop them off, because I figured that would lessen the chance of a knock-down, kickin-screamin, pry-him-off-a-parent fight. So I stayed home and waited for the report of horrible crying and fighting…

It didn’t come!!!

Mike said that Matthew went in and sat down next to his sister (all weekend he had been on her case making sure she knew she had to sit with him and not leave him alone at ANY time…) at a table to one side of the door, while the teacher was at a table on the other side.

No kicking!

No screaming!

No clinging!

No tears!

We got a phone call at noon from Meagan to say “whoops! It’s only till noon, can you come pick us up?” When I got there I found BOTH kids happy and excited and trying to tell me all about their day and what they were going to be doing for the week. The kids had all been put into groups, and while mine were both together (whew!), there was one other kid with them… a girl, even… and Matt was ok with it! He was not only resolved to having to go back the next day, he was EAGER!

Told you it was scrapbook worthy! The kid’s 9.5y and he just went to his first no-mom (or dad or grandma or uncle, etc) activity/event! AND he did it without any histrionics! And it wasn’t even just a quick 30min thing, either. He went in thinking he wouldn’t get to go home for 6hr!

I know he hasn’t been on his antibiotics long, but I can’t help but wonder/think that they had to have played a part. I tried to get him to go to VBS just a month or so ago and the anxiety/fear that caused was WAY more than what he had with the daycamp. In fact, it was such that he didn’t go… at all. He was hysterical just thinking I was going to make him go, there was no way I could have gotten him deposited in his class without a massive meltdown (that would, of course, have been very distracting to everyone else not to mention embarrassing for Matt and me).

Another clue that the meds might be helping some of his mood/anxiety/psych/whatever stuff came last night. He had been playing a video game online and was getting really frustrated. He’d done the same thing the day before and it quickly devolved into a massive frustration meltdown of yelling, hitting, slamming, stewing, etc and I had to ban him from the video games the rest of the day. He did get off the computer, but the meltdown effects carried on the rest of the day and into the night. It didn’t get better until he fell asleep. Anyway. Last night he was getting frustrated and so I told him, “You need to chill out. You’re getting all worked up again, and then I’ll have to pull you off again…”

He replied, “I know. That game was too frustrating. That’s why I’m going to a different site.”

I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped just a little. He not only recognized the frustration, but came up with -and instituted- a solution on his own before I’d said anything to him! He was already loading up a different game when I came through with my warning. Never. NEVER before has that happened. Not once, despite the 5 billion times the exact same situation, with the exact same outcome, occurred.

On another topic… I think I may end up taking Meagan to a GI before too long. She had a tummy virus back in Jan that had he puking every hour for several hours. It only lasted a day or so, but ever since she’s complained of feeling like she is going to puke a LOT. Like every day. She says it is mostly when she eats. She also says her tummy feels full a lot, and then she says she is hungry when she lays down. (????) Last night we each made our own pizza for dinner and they were all cooked one, then the next in the oven. Meagan’s was cooked first. She let it cool while Matt’s cooked, then started eating when I put Mike’s in the oven. She complained about the pepperoni making her feel like throwing up, so I told her not to eat them, then.

My pizza was last in the oven (since I’m the cook… you know how it is…) I had to keep reminding both kids to EAT!! and get ready for bed. Matthew was playing a video game (NOT the frustrating one…haha), and Meagan was just avoiding eating. I let my pizza cool for about 5min, and then settled in with my food and my handful of pills to watch Everybody Loves Raymond. Meagan had still only eaten about half of a piece of pizza… 30min after starting. I told her again to hurry up and eat (and then told Matt again to get off the computer and do the same). Meagan told me, then, “I am! I have to eat it slow or it hurts my stomach.”

Umm… ok? She ate slow, all right. Another HOUR and she had about another half piece eaten. (She basically left the very bottom of the crust of both pieces.) I sent her to bed at that point. She put the other 2 pieces of her pizza in the fridge (I think). I don’t know what is going on in her gut, but this is getting ridiculus!

With Meagan’s skirt done, the next project(s) I have coming up is a stack of culottes for her for P.E. (provided she gets to go to the church school again this year), and get this… a western shirt for Matthew for his un-birthday! It won’t be the first western shirt I’ve made, but it’ll certainly be the teeniest. I made a couple for my stepdad when I first started sewing back in high school. He barely ever wore them because they were “too special”. I’ve warned him a million times since then that since I made them to be WORN, if he didn’t wear them, he wasn’t getting anymore. haha It’s been 15 years and he has not gotten another yet. I wonder if he’s figured out I really meant it yet or not. haha

This is also going to be the wildest western shirt I’ve made. The two I made in high school were not sedate, but this one! Oy vey!! Matthew picked a black fabric with BRIGHT blue flame pattern, and then for the yoke he picked a black fabric with BRIGHT red flames…and gold Chinese dragons! He wants me to put one dragon on each yoke! What a combination for a cowboy shirt, huh? HAHA The pattern calls for something like 1/4 of a yard for the yoke… I bought 1 full yard since he wants a dragon centered on each side. I’m going to have to do some creative pattern placement, I think. haha

Little man was so shocked to learn that Mom could make cowboy shirts and even put those fancy-shmancy pearl snaps on them! HAHA So cute! I went ahead and bought myself the pliers for putting them on, too. I just used a hammer to put the snaps on before, but if I know my son, this will definitely not be the last cowboy shirt I make, so I figured why not? Do it right this time. haha

Posted: August 9th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, Meagan, family, just life, kids, projects.
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Had another doctor appointment yesterday. It did not go so well. I don’t think my doc likes me much. I apparently was a big pain and no help at all. Problems with being decisive on whether symptoms were better or worse, etc (to him the problem was lack of decisiveness, for me the problem was: I couldn’t TELL if there was any better/worse). Of course, if he really KNEW me (not that I expect him, to, but you know what I mean…) that alone would have been a big clue that NO, I’m not any better.

The last few months some of the most crippling symptoms I’ve had in terms of getting anything done or functioning on a basic level have been:

• the inability to communicate verbally (it’s like the pathways from brain to mouth are tangled or closed completely in some cases)
• the inability to prioritize (for ex. what is the first thing I need to do?, what is the biggest problem I have? , what needs to be taken care of next? etc)
• the inability to make decisions (and this kinda goes with the prioritizing in a way…) about anything no matter how big or small… and NO this did not use to be a problem for me

Hey lookee!! I just ‘got around’ the not being able to prioritize thing a little, by making this little post. How cool is that? I wish I could do that more often. =( Anyway. These symptoms (especially the communicating one!) are far and away worse when it involves my mouth/speech, ‘on the spot’ or ‘quick’ situations, or when dealing with other people (whether family, friends, professionals, etc.).

In PRINT form I do a little better. That is, if I can sit down just me and the keyboard, I can generally spit out (via my fingers) what I am trying to say…eventually… it just will NOT come out through my mouth, and definitely not in an “on the spot” kind of situation…like a normal conversation. It takes lots of slow, deliberate concentration and lots of had work to get it spit out of my mouth. That doesn’t really work when you are in the middle of a conversation of any sort. =(

The bad news is… typing is fine, but not very practical in a minute-by-minute kind of way. Especially if you factor in the joint and/or muscle and/or bone pain I have (because even though typing might make the communicating a little easier, the fingers/hands aren’t always able to cooperate immediately). The numbness and tingling I get in my hands/arms off and on also makes it more difficult. And then, of course, there is always the problem of the keyboard not always being available to use.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t make a habit of carrying a laptop (that I don’t even have!) with me to church in case someone wants to ask me a question… or to the dr appt so I can better discuss symptoms and medication issues (although possibly I SHOULD in this case????)… or to the… ok, so I can’t come up with another example right now. That’s because any more these are really the only places I go. No stores, no library trips, no restaurants (unless Mike is there to take care of the speaking for me), no anything. Doctor appointments and church. That’s it right now.

The unpredictableness (is that a word? it should be!) is way it is for everything, actually. ALL my symptoms are come and go, off and on, random, sporadic, intermittent, no rhyme or reason, or however else you want to say it. Simply put, at any moment of any given day I can have any combination of a HUGE list of symptoms… and then 5min later the combo might be completely different.

Yes, there are some things that if they are a problem on a particular day tend to stick around most of that day, but even those are not generally every.single.second.of.the.day. The brain not working/thinking right is a real good example of that. On days when this is a problem (most days), most things involving thinking are pretty much no-gos for me all day… BUT since it is generally not an every.single.second kind of thing, there might be a time or two during the day when the brain works well enough that I actual have a 5min ‘normal’ conversation… or I can actually get all the way through a certain task with relative ease (like figuring out how to make a phone call and make a doctor appt for one of the kids).

One of the more frustrating aspects is that even these momentary clear-thinking spells are unpredictable. Not only in terms of WHEN they will happen (so impossible to plan tasks to coincide with them), but also in terms of how long they will last. Some days I’ll have several minute-or-two long spells of feeling clear-headed, and other days I’ll have maybe one or two times but each one is 30min-or-more long.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet… *grin*… the posts on this blog happen during those spells of clear-thinking that have lasted long enough for me to go “oh! I’ll go get a post written up real quick”. Sometimes, the clear-thinking lasts long enough to finish a post, and other times I can feel the brain shutting down and so I have to break it off and go back to mindless roaming through the house…

…like now.

In the middle of that last paragraph, I could feel the clarity go bye-bye. All of a sudden stringing the sentences together was much more difficult. I started making multiple spelling mistakes (at least the computer helps me catch and correct them…), and I started having problems remembering what I was going to type next. It’s probably taken me as long to type these last two paragraphs as it did to write the whole rest of this post. Pots. That’s what I typed first on that last word. That’s funny… though I don’t know why…

Over and out for now… try to pop back in during the next clear spot.

***update a couple hours later***

Immediately after posting this I got a note from a gal who has dealt with speech issues before and offered me this tip: carry pen and paper with me so I can resort to writing things out in a pinch.

DUH! Why didn’t I think of that before?? Easy. Another big brain issue I’ve had is in missing the ‘connections’. You know… putting 2 and 2 together to make 4, kind of thing. Like the other day when it finally occurred to me that Matt could not be in the sun…just like me… because he was taking the same antibiotic I am. He’d been taking it for a week before I snapped on that. Never mind that the whole week I KNEW he and I were taking the same med, I KNEW that it was the med that I had to take with a lot of water and no dairy and also eat with or else get sick and so I KNEW that applied to Matt too and I KNEW it was the med that makes it where I burn real easy and yet I did not make *that* connection for a week.

Why didn’t I mention the inability to make connections in my little list above? Because of another big brain symptom/issue… memory problems. I forget EVERYTHING, and really quick, too. This includes what my symptoms are or have been in the last few hours, let alone the last few days, weeks, months, etc. (Of course keeping other people’s symptoms -like the kids- straight is even more difficult.) I won’t necessarily forget everything, but I certainly don’t remember it all, either. Some of what I can remember gets twisted and put into wrong places on the timeline, too.

So, yeah. That’s my non-functioning brain in a nutshell. And here I just thought I WAS nuts…

****updated about 10min later****

Oh yeah… here is another brain issue… confusion. On all levels, about whatever you can imagine. I guess reading comprehension and auditory processing difficulties would also fall under the ‘brain’ heading, too, huh?

Posted: July 31st, 2008 under Lyme disease, just life.
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