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

I had another doctor appointment. Went much better overall, I think. He said I looked better… less drawn and more animated. I guess this is a good thing. LOL Still not sleeping worth a flip, so he upped my dose on a couple of things.

The Flagyl hasn’t whooped me yet, but I’ve only been at full dose for 2 days now, so it’s still a bit early to tell, I think. On the whole, though things have been better/nicer in the last couple of weeks. WAY less nausea and being off balance. Less twitching. Less overall aching, too. I did have a couple of days of some extreme pain in my knees and upper legs, and some really, really bad headaches, though.

We’ve had some interesting highs and lows in our medicine costs lately. One of mine (Zithromax) and one of the kids’ (Zyrtec, replaced by Claritin).

The thing with the Zith is that it is super duper expensive even in the generic form. At least it is if you have to take it for the length of time I’m having to take it. These TBIs (tick-borne infections) are some really tough bugs to beat and take BIG doses of antibiotics. Whereas most people will take a short 5 day course of Zith, I am looking at probably a couple of months… two pills a day. That’s a lot. It’s like a WHOLE lot. I had some massive sticker shock when I went to pick up the script for the first time. The gal said it would be $400 for a month’s supply. I asked about the generic and she replied, “That is the generic cost, the brand-name is $600.” Oh my!!

My mom bought 14 pills for $100 from Wal-Mart. That was enough to find out if I would even be able to take them (i.e. NOT have an allergic reaction) and to get me tied over for a few days while we tried to figure something out about affording this stuff. A couple of days worth of poking around and we managed to find the generic at Costco for a lot less. We also found that the drug manufacturer sometimes will supply meds for low-income, prescription-drug-plan-LESS people like myself. Sooooo, we’ve applied for that and in the meantime we bought another 10 days worth for $34 from Costco.

Yeah. That much less! I think I know where Wal-Mart is making all its profits now. =/ It’s in the medicines. Both prescriptions and OTC. Here is another example…

Another really good deal I found at Costco was the generic form of Claritin. The kids have both taking Zyrtec for about 6 years. Before Zyrtec’s patent ran out and they released it as an OTC medicine, that meant a $20 co-pay per kid each month. Once the patent ran out, it was about $1.50 cheaper per kid to buy the generic form OTC. Soon after I discovered we could get Walgreen’s generic version for about half the cost, so we switched to that. A couple of months later I found a generic Claritin at Wal-Mart that would be even cheaper. $7.50 for a bottle of 60. That would get both kids covered for a full month… at $7.50! Much better than the $40 it had been, so they got switched to Claritin a month ago.And then in walked Costco and sweetened the deal. I just paid $11.99 for a bottle of…wait for it… 300 tablets!!!! That is FIVE months for BOTH kids!! For twelve dollars!! So the kids’ maintenance antihistamine cost per year has dropped from $480 to $30! Oh my stars!!! =)

Anyway, while we were at Costco, Mike decided we’d buy a membership and he would drive me out (it’s a good hour’s drive) a couple of times a month. We made our first shopping trip last week. I spent $189 and came home with not a lot. LOL

No, really we did get some pretty good deals. Specifically in meats and cheeses. We got 10 pounds of ground beef for $18, a couple of decent sized roasts for another $20, a 2lb brick of Mike’s sharp cheddar for $5, and 5lb of shredded cheese for $11. I also picked up giant cans of diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce to try freezing them. (I’ll split them into meal-sized portions and bag them, first.)

Our other medicine news…

Matthew is taking a new medicine to try and help him control his feelings and thus his behavior. He’s only been on it for a few days and the doc said it’d take a few weeks to notice any real effects, so I’m trying to just be patient. LOL

The kids both competed in the Putt-Putt event through the ‘league’ or whatever the school is in. They said that their school split into groups and both my kiddos placed FIRST in their group! Too cool! Of course, they don’t have any idea how that compares to the other schools, so no clue yet on whether they did well enough for a ribbon, but they had tons of fun. That’s right. They BOTH went and had fun.

I’ll say it again… clearer… MATTHEW, the kid who was terrified to even go on the field trips if I went with him and would not go play with the kids or even go to Sunday School class without me… went on a school field trip while I stayed HOME. There were several other schools there and HE HAD FUN! =)

Here’s where I drop my jaw, squeal with delight, and do a happy dance!

And no, the new medicine is NOT an anti-anxiety med and in fact he didn’t even start it until the next day. Meds ARE responsible, though. It’s the antibiotics. No doubt. Antibiotics, of all things, enabled a kid who has lived in perpetual fear and who was downright terrified of being around strangers, especially large crowds of them, to spend all day at a new place packed with strangers and far away from Mom. Amazing!

Matthew and I aren’t the only ones with new meds. Meagan is now officially starting treatment for Lyme Disease, too. She is on the same antibiotics Matthew is taking. My doc said something at my appointment about babesiosis being infamous among the co-infections of Lyme for causing nausea. I’m going to mention that to her doc who when I see her next, because that is the symptom that bugs Meagan the most. Every day since the virus or whatever it was in January that had her vomiting every hour for several hours, she has felt like throwing up at least once. She feels like she is going to collapse a lot, too. I think she’s trying to describe being woozy or lightheaded. We’ll see what her doc thinks about the babesiosis. I know she tested negative through a standard lab, but it doesn’t show up in the bloodwork very often, apparently.

Anyhow, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s babesia causing the nausea. After all, I did test positive for it and I have symptoms of it myself (nausea, severe headaches, air hunger, hot flashes and chills, sweats, and more). Personally I don’t see how I could have passed down only one of my infections to the kids. Seems much more likely that whatever I had/have got passed down to them both.

I’m going to be going in for a consult for Meagan’s behavior soon too, though for much, much different reasons than for Matt. This is more for the ADHD and CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder) that I’ve suspected for years and years but had not been able to get the previous pediatrician to do anything about.

So lots of changes in the air… so far all for the better. We’re feeling better, we’re functioning better, and even better? The docs say it will continue to get better and better. =)

I didn’t get any of my projects done last week, but I might get a chance to work on the secret project for the kids this week. They got their room clean enough finally that I just might get to.

I can’t wait. They’re going to be sooooo tickled! =) I am absolutely planning on taking pics and blogging about it.

Posted: September 13th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, Meagan, kids, the changing me.
Comments: none

It’s done. The kids are BOTH in some other school than our own Bullfrogs and Butterflies Learning Center. I have to say I hate that. I know, I know. I should be happy for them, blahblah. And ok, I am… a little… or at least I’m TRYING to be. Truth is…

I want to homeschool! I love teaching them and am going to miss it something fierce. I already missed teaching my girl. Meagan didn’t and doesn’t miss it, of course, but I did. She doesn’t care a fig newton who teaches her or what her curriculum is like or what she learns or anything along those lines. All she cares about is whether or not she is surrounded by PEOPLE! She absolutely thrives on being surrounded by people. She has been (naturally) just beyond ecstatic for the new year to start. No more stuck with only one or two playmates!! WOOHOO! She made cupcakes for the whole school for lunch today. She “can’t wait!” to meet the new kids and to spend all day with her friends.

Matthew and I? Not so much. We pretty much shut down around people. Stammer, stutter, tense up horribly, and anxiety levels blast through the roof. The anxiety truly is just unbelievable. It’s worse than awful.

I hated that I’d passed on the “super shyness gene” to either of my kids, but I had expected it. It always flabbergasted me that Meagan was SO outgoing, SO fearless, SO comfortable around other people. It’s always been this way, this extreme social anxiety for Matthew and me and extreme social butterfly for Meagan…it’s just weird. It has gotten a teensy bit better for me now that I’m an adult, but not a whole lot, and there are still times when it is more than intense. For Matthew, though, it *seems* to be letting up some… with the outlook of STAYING that way.

I can not believe I just wrote that! I never thought I’d see the day. Honestly. His anxiety has always been much worse than mine, and that’s saying something, so I am truly shocked that I can write that. It’s true though.

The anxiety (we know now) stems from the borrelia, bartonella, and other bacterial infections. Matthew started antibiotic treatment right at one month ago. Two weeks ago he went to a 3hr/day daycamp at the library and loved it. He was fairly nervous and scared about it before going, but he went without hanging on to me (or Dad since he took him) and he ended up loving it. I suspected the antibiotics helped some, but it seemed so ‘out there’ and so I wasn’t really sure.

This, which was so much bigger since he knew that not only was it ALL DAY as opposed to 3hr, but was ALL YEAR as opposed to one week, and also full of tons of rules and lots of big kids and so forth and so on… well, he was a “little bit nervous” last night, but also “excited”. His words.

He walked in, deposited his bags and cowboy hat (he has to stay out of the sun because of the antibiotics he’s on), then went to his desk. I saw him standing there and he looked ok, and so I started to just walk out and go on home, but he hadn’t said anything to me yet. Something niggled not quite right, so I didn’t dare just leave him without checking on him, so I signaled him out of the classroom real quick and asked if he wanted a hug. Sure enough, he hid behind me and almost broke down.

But only almost! Not DID! “I’m scared” he said. I told him he’d be fine, reminded him of his bible verse about being courageous, and walked him back to his seat. The problem all of a sudden turned out to be simple seating arrangements. He apparently thought his sister would be sitting beside him and instead she is on the opposite side of the room.

Once I got him back to his spot, I turned around and walked out.

I expected he would hang on to me and cause a scene. I expected I’d have to pry him off me, crying. I expected to have to fight him to even get into the car so we could leave the house this morning, to tell the truth. There wasn’t ANY of that, though.

Two months ago there would have been.

Two months ago it would have been a HUGE ordeal. Fighting, kicking, screaming getting him to the car. He would’ve been hurling “I hate you”s, “I won’t go”s, and “I’ll just run off”s the whole way. At the school he would have sat in the van and refused to get out of the seat. I would’ve had to haul his stuff in, then come back out and physically pry him out of the seat and half drag/half carry him inside. I would’ve had to take him off to a corner or a side room or something to try and threaten him with spanking, as under-my-breath as I could, to get him to walk in there and sit down and then realize (very late to class by this point) that that is just NOT going to ever happen, and so half drag/half carry him in to his seat myself. He would’ve been clinging to me. Holding so tight and fast that depositing him on the chair was impossible. I’d would’ve discovered that quick enough when I pried his fingers off one at a time and tried to get them to STAY off.

Then I’d finally catch a break in the arm-clinging and manage to slip free of his grasp and start for the door. I might even have made it all the way to the door, but then he would’ve all of a sudden been in front of me, arms tucked in, hands clinging to me in front of him, trying to burrow his head into my stomach, and press his body into mine in an effort to hide from the dozen or more pair of eyes watching us.

And then the process would start all over again.

Probably I would’ve ended up sitting with him, alternately threatening (and then the actual spanking, of course), lecturing, consoling, encouraging (yes, I’ve tried each of these in massive amounts!) in the bathroom or the lunchroom or somewhere else hopefully out-of-earshot of the rest of the class who were TRYING to have school.

That is EXACTLY the way it would’ve happened two months ago. How can I be so sure of exactly? Easy… the scenario played itself out time and time again over the years. Sunday school class, vacation bible school (incl. this summer… only I was too sick to mess with trying to fight him so I just didn’t even bother trying this year, his anxiety was high enough just in anticipation that I was going to make him go, it was evident that actually trying it would be disastrous), various extracurricular daycamps and/or sports, various ‘playdates’ and family get-togethers, sometimes even with well-known situations like going on an outing with his dad.

It’s never been the ‘being away from mom’ that bothers him so much as it’s been the ‘being around large groups of people, especially if they’re unknown’. He’s never had a problem spending the whole day off playing in the neighborhood. Most days he wasn’t supposed to be doing his schoolwork, he was off playing. Not home. Away from me. NO problem.

The problems have always come in when there are groups of others involved. A small handful of well-known friends (three or four…maybe five at most) and he’s ok. More than that, or strangers, or WORSE… BOTH… and the crippling anxiety attacked.

You can imagine why I was more than a little concerned about the possibility of putting him in public school. *shudder*

Starting school, even in a private school with only about a dozen students, is was a situation perfectly engineered to set the anxiety monster loose.

There is NO doubt in my mind that without the antibiotics this would have been the case. It’s ALWAYS been the case. And now it looks like it’s not. =)

I’m not going to say he is ALL better, completely cured, though, cause that’s not true, either. It will take a long time for that, but absolutely the antibiotics are responsible for getting him to the point that he COULD go off to school today.

Antibiotics.

Just wanted that to sink in. NOT anti-anxiety meds (though those are not completely ruled out as an option… we’ll be discussing those and other meds at a consult with the doc the 8th). The kid needed simple antibiotics. All these years of literally disabling anxiety and all he needed was antibiotics. It blows the mind!

Excuse me while I go back to my no-more-homeschool-pity-party now. =(

Posted: August 26th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, kids.
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.
Comments: none

Such a bag of mixed news today. Could explain why my feelings are mixed. Or maybe it’s mixed feelings and that’s what makes it mixed news.

The big where-are-the-kids-schooling question has been answered. Mike decided it would be best for everyone if I took a break from homeschooling this year and the kids went to our church’s school. He called today to set things up. Praise the Lord Meagan still has a scholarship, so we will only have to come up with tuition for Matthew.

I definitely have mixed feelings. Of course, Meagan loves the school up there, so she is ecstatic. No mixed feelings for her! LOL Matthew? Yeah, he’s just as mixed up as me, though for different reasons.

Don’t get me wrong… there is nothing WRONG with our church school. Good school, good environment, good teachers, good curriculum, good extracurricular activities, etc. Nothing wrong with it at all. I just don’t like giving up homeschooling EITHER kid… not that I’m losing THEM, just losing the opportunity to teach them. I really enjoy the homeschooling (that is, the way I like to/was homeschooling a few years ago… the last couple of years I have been unable to homeschool to my standards). It stung a little last year when I lost one student, but I definitely saw the special opportunities it opened up for one-on-one teaching. This year it just downright hurts.

It’s not the difference in the kids, either, although there is a difference in how each kid views this change. Meagan, of course, is thrilled to continue on in the private school. Matthew, on the other hand, is less than thrilled. He’s apprehensive at best, and terrified at worst. He has a lot of concerns about going, not the least of which is all the PEOPLE. (He is also not exactly excited about the loss of textbooks and the gaining of small workbooks… the kid likes to READ, and he’s loved reading his schoolbooks.)

The reason this year is so hard on me, is not because I’m losing Matthew this time as opposed to Meagan, it’s because I’m losing ALL students as opposed to just one. I don’t favor one kid over the other, though I’m sure to strangers it probably appears that way because of the difference in the kids’ personalities (Matthew is mega-clingy and sticks to me like glue, Meagan is super-independent and can hardly be seen with me for more than a second before she takes off to do her own thing.)

Homeschooling is all I know. It’s been my ‘thing’, my job for 10 years. It’s been my life. I don’t mean that homeschooling has been more important to me than anything else and that nothing else holds any meaning whatsoever, I just mean that homeschooling… or at least the way I like to homeschool… is a lifestyle. It’s not just what we do did during school hours, it is was the way we live d.

I’m not going to lie and say I’m excited, or that I’m even happy about this. I will say that I gave the decision over to Mike, and I will stand by what he chose. I will even do so without complaining (too much…at least… I’ll TRY not to complain!). I can’t promise I will do this without a couple of bucketfuls of tears over what I’m losing.

No, it’s not the end of the world, and yes there are even aspects of this change I AM looking forward to… like Matthew learning to pray in front of others (they take turns asking the blessing at lunch). I just feel like in the last year everything I knew, everything I did, everything I was able to contribute has been slowly but surely taken away from me. This… the homeschooling… was the biggest contribution to my family and to the world and certainly to the Lord that I was making. It was and IS the only thing I knew how to do even remotely well enough to be considered a *good* thing… and now that’s gone.

With no longer being able to homeschool even, I feel like a complete and total failure in every regard. I mean I knew I was failing at the raising of the kids in terms of discipline and making them feel loved and accepted and so forth, but at least I was training their minds academically decently. I might suck at handling sibling squabbles or chores or hurt feelings or spiritual questions, but at least I could teach them how to use a dictionary or how to do long division. I might not know what to do or how to do it when it came to the “parenting” part of raising these two, but at least I could see how they each learn differently… what they have difficulty with, what they excel in, how they think, etc… and was able to fine-tune the curriculum and teaching methodology to suit their individual needs.

Proverbs 22:6 has SO much meaning to me… so many layers. I believe that each child’s training needs to be individually tailored in every way… that is tailored based on the way the learn, their personality, their spiritual gifts, their talents, their weaknesses, their strengths, their physical, mental, and emotional help… just completely and 100% tailored for them. Train up a child in the way they should go… (pronoun choice and emphasis mine to illustrate what I mean by individualizing everything). This is what I’ve tried to do, and while the private school is a good school and the teachers are good and the curriculum is good… they can’t tailor every little thing the way I can here at home. Not because I am so much better at doing so, just that they have to use ONE curriculum, ONE schedule, and they have several kids. It is perfectly understandable that there has to be some level of standardization amongst the class… whereas here at home I only had two kids to ‘tailor’ for and a vast array of curriculum and schedule options. (Plus, I had the added bonus ‘leg-up’ of knowing each child very personally from the time they were born. lol)

Now it’s someone else’s job. I don’t doubt that they can DO the job, that’s not my problem. My problem is… the teaching was the only job I felt like I could do even a little bit ‘well’. It’s like… my academics… my knowledge… my brain was all I had to give the kids, and now that that is gone…

It just hurts so much.

And also? What in the world am I supposed to occupy my time with now?? I mean, sure, I can crochet, sew, read, learn, etc, but do you have any idea how GUILTY I will feel doing things I enjoy but have no benefit for anyone aside from my own pleasure instead of doing something else I enjoy but that actually BENEFITS the kids (i.e. Homeschooling)?!!

I hate this.

Posted: August 12th, 2008 under Matthew, Meagan, kids, lettin' hubby lead, the changing me.
Comments: none

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.
Comments: none

Things have been so busy (and so tiring) the last 3 weeks (or has it been 4?… 5?) that there hasn’t been much getting blogged. It’s not so much that I don’t think about the blog, or posting about this or that… it’s just I’ve been doing a lot of “I’ll post tomorrow” and “I’ll finish x, y, and z and then post” kind of thinking about the blog.

I didn’t really anticipate using this blog as a means to update anyone on things going on around here in any kind of family newsletter kind of way, but it seems that the last few posts have ended up that way. I’m going to sink real low and pull a “it’s because my brain has been too sick to think/do anything else” with the posts problem.

Since the posts have taken the newsletter-y turn to an extent, I suppose I should continue that to an extent, just in case there actually is a lone reader out there somewhere following along. I’d hate to leave them hanging going “ohmigosh! She has Lyme and got some meds and thinks the kids have it…WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!?! Did she ever find out about the kids? Did she ever get better? What about the whole freakin’ out about going to a dr thing? Or the telling her family and folks about what was going on?”

Of course, I don’t really expect that anyone is following along. And certainly if they are, they are doubtless NOT concerned to the extent of sitting on the edge of their seat with bated breath to know what happens next…

BUT I’m living in a reality of my own choosing at the moment and so I’m going to go with the whole exciting melodramatic scenario and make-believe that there really is a valid reason for me to continue to ‘update’ in the dreaded newsletter-y fashion.

Thus…the long awaited (humor me and edge forward on the seat, would you?) update of the last few weeks…

*drumroll*

I’ve had 2 appointments with my Lyme doctor so far. One week apart. I go back in next week for the 1 month check-in. It will be interesting on so many levels.

I never did list a complete rundown of all my symptoms/problems because that would be TOO boring and complainy but suffice it to say there are/were a lot. Before going in for that initial appointment I kinda figured I had at least one of the infamous co-infections of Lyme (Lyme in this case referring specifically to the infection of the borrelia burgdoferi bacteria as opposed to a more generic all-encompassing name for the condition of multiple infections of which the Bb is only one). I highly suspected…to the point of pretty much took it for granted… that I also was infected with bartonella (one strain is responsible for an illness commonly referred to as “cat-scratch fever”). At the initial Lyme appointment, my doctor decided to test for some co-infections, but in an effort to save me (the uninsured and BROKE) some money opted to NOT test for bartonella since my symptomology (is that actually a word? it should be…) was so strong for it. He decided that if I was ok with treating based on symptoms (i.e. based on a clinical diagnosis) then, in a sense, the testing for bartonella was unnecessary. I don’t think, though, that he actually wrote bartonella down as a guaranteed. Semantics, I guess.

Anyway, I digress. I had blood pulled and sent off to be tested for only 2 different co-infections. There are many, MANY more possible (even outside of the bartonella), but for now anyway, we were only testing for 2. Erlichia (or HME- Human Monocytic Erlichia) and Babesia (specifically just the babesia microti strain… there are many strains but the test only looks for the one…). I also had a CBC done to check my kidneys and liver.

Now… it doesn’t seem like there is a point, but there actually is…

I’ve had 2 appointments, but I’ve spoken with my dr on the telephone (yes the DOCTOR how awesome is that?!?) twice since my last appointment.

Lemme back up (only the teensiest amount) to catch-up on what happened between the blood draw and the first phone call…

Aches, new meds, tired-so-tired, brain-fry, July 4th at Bro3’s (shout-out to my wonderful snow-buddy… LOVED the whole thing… you did great at hosting, gal!) complete with exaggerated startle reflex (by-the-by… exaggerated startle reflex + fireworks = heart-that-feels-like-it-just-may-EXPLODE), more aches, more new meds, more tired. Absolutely no grocery shopping, very VERY little cooking/cleaning/laundry/etc, and only a teensy bit of crocheting and a little MythBusters (thanks Netflix!) thrown in.

Ok, that covers the 2wks between the appt and the phone call that shook things up a bit, sotospeak…

The phone actually woke me up that day and it was my doc. Wow, I thought… the DR called with the test results. A positive and another positive. Hmmm… The Erlichiosis was already being treated with the doxycycline I’d been given, but the babesiosis? Not so much. Babesia is a malaria-like parasite. In the same sense that borrelia is a ‘cousin’ to syphilis, so babesia is a ‘cousin’ to malaria. Its presence means the probability of needing to add a whole different class of meds to my cocktail at some point…anti-malarials.

Remember I said I never threw out a whole list of symptoms, but that it would be long if I did? Well now it’s beginning to make sense as to WHY… I now have 3 different ‘for-definite-because-the-test-even-came-up-positive’ infections and 1 ’symptoms-are-such-that-its-presence-is-so-obvious-we-don’t-really-NEED-to-test-right-now’ infection on top of that. That makes 3 big-bad bacterial infections and 1 malaria-like infection. Sheesh! No wonder that list would be so long and varied, huh?

Anyway, doc said at the next appointment we’d look at my symptoms again (re-assess, kinda, to see how the antibiotics, etc are working out) and if they’re not all being addressed we may add the anti-malarial. My initial thinking the first few days after that phone call was that even with the positive for babesia, the anti-malarial meds were probably still months away since it wasn’t currently responsible for any of my symptoms. This, however, was before I did much looking at babesia symptoms. The only ones I was really thinking of were night sweats and air hunger (feeling like you can’t get enough air)…neither of which I have or have had any time recently.

Then I did a little more looking into the babesia symptoms and discovered that some of my new-ish symptoms the last couple of weeks or so (lightheadness/dizzy, loss of appetite, nausea, base-of-head headaches…) could very well be the babesia rearing its ugly head. So the next appt. should be interesting on that note…

I said I talked to my dr twice. That was the first phone call. The second needs some other updating first…

I think I had mentioned that I had gotten the new pediatrician to sign the orders to test Matt for the Lyme, but that Meagan’s first appt with the new ped wasn’t for another week or two, so she still needed to be tested. The week of Meagan’s appt, the kids both ended up sick with the chest congested, asthma stuff. In calling to get them a sick appointment (to possibly end up on a short course of steroids and antibiotics) I discovered the ped. was on vacation that week. We tried to get them in to Urgent Care and that was a disaster. We ended up just giving them neb treatments at home and they’re doing much, much better now. Anyway! I cancelled Meagan’s check-up appt. that week because I thought she’d be seeing a dr at Urgent Care… and anyway I didn’t want the fill-in… I wanted the actual ped… because of the whole issue with the Lyme testing.

Well, the next week when I still hadn’t heard from the ped’s office on Matt’s test results by Wed, I called to check. I figured it’d been 3+ wks by that point, so I needed to do a little squeakin’ perhaps to get things movin’ again. They’d look into it and get back with me.

Turns out the results HAD come in the week before, but the fill-in doc didn’t know what to make of them or do with them or what-have-you, so they didn’t call. The ped. got them out and read them and lo and behold… he came up positive. I’m so shocked…NOT! haha

Doc didn’t really know what to do about it, though, and since she knew I was seeing a Lyme doc suggested I have him look at Matt’s results. Our kids’ insurance being what it is, though, that would N-E-V-E-R work as far as any kind of ‘official’ look-at-and-treat, so I suggested that perhaps the ped could call him for info and/or suggestions on what to do or where to go for info on what to do.

Today my dr called (yea HIM) again. Said he’d gotten a phone call and he’d passed on a little info along with directions on where to find more. He said the ped was going to send Matt to a dr who specialized in infectious diseases, but the reality is most of those docs don’t treat long or well enough (IF they even concede that you could, in fact, have Lyme since we don’t live in… you know… Connecticut. Those ticks must be very obliging to respect state borders or something, huh? UGG). Anyhow. My dr also said that it sounded like the ped would be treating Matt soon. He was basically REALLY shocked and REALLY surprised and dare I say… really EXCITED that this ped here in our little podunk town was actually… maybe… going to look into this and learn and TREAT.

I went about ‘business’ for the day (that means I called my mom…again… more on that in a min.), totally figuring ok… in a couple of days we’ll get a call from the ped’s office to make an appt and bring Matt back in to talk about what to do. I figured it would take at least that long for her to be able to get started on the looking into things.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the phone call at 15min till 5pm was NOT one of the kids’ friends, but was in fact the ped’s office calling to say that the dr had talked to my dr and what pharmacy should they call the scripts for the 2 different antibiotics into?

WOW! How cool is that? =)

Meagan’s check-up is this comin’ Monday so I’ll be able to at least briefly ‘check-in’ with the dr about Matt then and tell her way THANKS, while talking about getting Meagan started on treatment also of course.

Now, I said I’d talk more about Mom in a min, but I think for tonight I will leave that updating off. Why? Because this post is already long enough and I want/need to do this instead…

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

I don’t want to go any further without making good and sure that anyone reading and going “wow, what an amazing set of good fortune/coincidence” is fully aware that it is SO MUCH MORE than that. It is the work of an amazing, wonderful, powerful, loving God. Nothing less.

God has been leading me through all this from the get-go. From my first looking up my symptoms online, through giving Lyme a second glance, finding a doctor to sign the orders, finding a doctor to treat me, and now finding a doctor for the kids and ever-so-much-more in between! In so many big and little ways. Big scary leaps of faith like my going to a doctor for the first time in nearly 10yrs and telling my mom what was going on even though I was terrified of her reaction. Little, tiny, but-oh-so-important-and-specific details like exactly what bands need to show up positive and exactly what words/phrasing to use at the dr’s office and exactly what date to go and shirt to wear and a billion other things.

This whole health/Lyme/etc. journey for myself AND the kids has already involved a lot of prayer on my end… and I’m so thankful for it… a lot of guidance and answered prayers on the Lord’s end.

I can’t even begin to fully or adequately express just how blessed my family and I have been… and continue to be. ALL the glory belongs to the Lord Jesus in all of this. Again…

PRAISE THE LORD!

Posted: July 23rd, 2008 under God's Guiding Hand, Lyme disease, Matthew, blogging, faith, family, kids.
Comments: none

Matthew has had a couple of interesting days. He saw the new pediatrician yesterday. She is SO not happy that he has had to be on so much medicine “every day of his life” and so is running some RAST testing to find out what enviros he is allergic to so we can look at “immunotherapy“. We were having to pull out the big-gun words because Mr. Smarty-Words had already started freakin’ out over the whole “vaccine” thing. Having just read about Salk and the polio vaccine in history… he was totally clued in to what would be taking place in the next few minutes.

So this is cool! Maybe she can get him off the massive doses of antihistamine, and the other half-a-dozen things he’s been relying on to keep his asthma and allergies under control. She also signed the paperwork for the Lyme testing without batting an eyelash. In fact, she was WAY cool with it. yea!! So after a couple of pokes yesterday, and then the blood draw today (for which the dr gave him some numbing cream…yea again!!), he was feeling very put-out.

As we left the dr office after the vaccines yesterday, I said something like, “So was it as bad as you thought it would be?” To which he replied, “Yes. It hurt, but it still didn’t hurt as much as giving away the dogs. I still miss them.” The last half of which I had to squint to understand through the high-pitched whine and tears. Poor kid.

After the blood draw today he declared that he hated the age of 9. It has been the worst year of his life, ever! he says. I can kinda see where he would think that… giving up the dogs, getting into big trouble with the police, missing out on a fishing trip with his pastor, and now… horror of horrors… shots and blood draws! Actually, it is likely to get worse for him, as I can not homeschool this coming year. That means Mr. EXTREME-O Shy will have to go to a school of some sort. That is not going to be easy on him.

Even so, personally I would think Meagan has had a rougher year, though to be sure her yuckiness started back at 9.5, so maybe there is something to that whole the-age-of-9-is-the-worst after all. She’s had braces put on, an ingrown toenail cut-out, started monthly OW! shots, had a case of stomach bug that left her puking every 30min for about 12hr, gotten glasses, had a huge abscess from one of those monthly shots that then drained… at school, had 7 teeth pulled at once, and added another nightly shot.

Ya know? Now that I really think about it? I was 9 when I had a slumber party that only 2 girls out of the whole class showed up to, we moved into my aunt’s on-the-market-home and then into an apartment, discovered that homeschooling did NOT mean you didn’t have to do schoolwork, and got my face slammed into the concrete by the girl next door. Oh, and I had two break-ups. One boyfriend moved, handing me off to his best friend, and then *I* moved.

Oh the horrors of being 9!! I wonder if anything horrible happened to Mike when he was 9. Doesn’t matter. I definitely had it worse, don’t you think? ;-)

Posted: June 10th, 2008 under Matthew, Meagan, family, funnies, kids.
Comments: none

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been avoiding posting. Truly. Outright avoidance. I’m not even really sure why.

Right now, this second, I am hating the me I am. Badly. I detest me. I’m an awful me. I have no one to blame but myself (ok, prob. can share at least a little blame with some little germies, but still…). I. Hate. Me.

I hate the me that I am. I am an awful mother. I yell at the kids. I hate that. I am getting worse about it the more I try not to, too. I hate that even more.

I tell the kids stupid stuff when I get upset or frustrated. I hate that, too. Things like “I know you hate me, you’ve made that perfectly clear.” or “You think everything has to be YOUR way or no way, and I’m about ready to tell you ok, no way and kick you out.” or “It’s ok, you probably won’t have to deal with the horrible mother that I am what with making you clean up your own messes and all- for much longer. I’ll probably be dead or locked up within 6mo anyway.”

He’s 9! WHY do I even say this stuff? I HATE it! I try so hard not to. I do. And the stuff just keeps coming. I didn’t use to be this way. Honest.

I know when the kids were still toddlers and throwing temper tantrums way more often than this (and BOTH of them were doing it!!), I was calm and cool for the most part. I didn’t ever blow up at them like this. I really didn’t. I’m SURE there were times when I snapped at them, but NOT like this. No way.

I either spanked them and put them in time-out or I tried Mom’s method of making them keep the tantrum going…long past the time they were ready to stop. (Almost reverse psychology there.) I can remember friends telling me I was sooooo patient…how do I do it? I got that a lot. At the time I did NOT think I was patient…at all… but looking back now? Knowing the way I am now? Oh I was super-mega patient mommy. Like you wouldn’t even believe!!

Now? I have no patience it seems and I HATE that! I have been trying to fix it. I’ve been praying for help and the patience thing just keeps getting worse and worse. It’s gotten like a billion times worse just in the last year. Probably about a year ago is when I first noticed I was having big problems with the whole patience/blowing up thing, and man! it just gets worse and worse.

I HATE ME!

Yes, I apologize every time. And yes I cry about it and he cries about it and we cry about it and we both promise to try and do/be better…me with the snapping/blowing up and him with the obeying/behaving to start with. Less behavior problem, less snapping problem. And NO I don’t mean that he is at fault… and yes, I tell him over and over that no he is not to blame for my blowing up. I just mean that there *is* a correlation. His constant fighting with everyone around him (whether it be fighting with his sister or fighting us parents by not doing what he’s told or correcting us or whatever….) is so unbelievably frustrating! I just can’t take it!

What I really don’t get and is where the “hating me” part comes in, I think, is that I used to get just as frustrated with him… or his sister… or my parents… or my brothers… or whatever… and yet I could still keep from blowing up nearly always. And on the rare occasions I did I *mostly* was able to keep from spewing too much junk before I quit. I’d mostly just bang things around for awhile and grunt.

Last year though, things started changing. Matthew’s behavior had been getting worse, the tantrums, the hate pouring out of him, the Jekyll/Hyde like stuff was worse and worse over the last couple of years. I was beyond frustrated with him, of course…had been for a long, long time, but I didn’t start blowing up and really losing it until last year.

When I noticed it (and believe me I noticed it pretty quick), I immediately started hating myself and begging God to please help Matthew and help me. At first I protested being his mom, I begged God to please take him from me and give him to someone who could give him what he needed because obviously I couldn’t. Nothing I’d tried had helped…at all.

I begged and begged. Then I gave up and said ok, if You won’t give him a different mom, please make me into the mom he needs.

This… this me that I am right now tonight… can NOT be it. It just can’t be. I know that.

Around the same time I started having really bad brain problems in general. Bad anxiety, freaking out, paranoia, forgetfulness (actually this had been building for a few years), inability to think clearly or to focus, word finding problems, couldn’t say what I wanted to in the right way, etc. Lots of stuff.

I started crying out to God, “What is wrong with me?!”. I knew something was wrong. I was losing my mind. I really, REALLY thought I was going crazy.

Then I started having weird nerve pain and tingles and numbness. Electric shocks going through my body in different places. I’d had shin pain for awhile, and swollen lymph nodes off and on, too. Started having balance problems walking to and from church so I pretty much took to driving. Especially after one particularly scary trip where I wasn’t sure I was NOT going to pass out once I got inside the church.

I decided I better run a quick check online to see if I needed to find a dr. No insurance makes the internet my first pitstop. I run my symptoms through and do a little research first. If it seems more likely that it is a common, simple thing I can skip the dr fee. That way I’m not paying for a dr to tell me I have a simple cold or a little bit of heat exhaustion or I’m probably a little low on vitamins or whatever. If it looks more troubling? Well, then I guess I’ll have to bite the $$ bullet and get it checked out.

This has worked fine for years. I watch for signs of infection (sinus, bladder, kidney, etc) and take garlic for that…if it doesn’t get better I’ll go in for stronger antibiotics. I’ve never needed to, btw. I’ve probably saved thousands of dollars this way.

I started with the freak-out type stuff and what was coming up was rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. Not just the “normal” bipolar, but rapid-cycling. That is… extreme highs and lows but SEVERAL TIMES IN ONE DAY. Oh yes. It was so not a good few months there… really. =(

That seemed to make a LOT of sense and I was pretty sure I better see about finding a dr to be sure and then get some meds, but something kept naggin at me… that wouldn’t explain the weird balance and nerve pain and other various PHYSICAL problems.

My knees that had been acting up off and on for 2-3yr (early onset osteoarthritis I’d decided) were doing ok, but now my feet were joining the party. And my hands, and my arms… I’d had super bad headaches more ON than off for years. And lots and lots of other things too.

So I tried again, this time being sure to include the physical stuff. The last time I’d really done any REAL diggin into possible health problems was several years ago… for the kids. At the time there was not a site where you could go and enter a bunch of symptoms and get a list of possible things to look into, but I remember discussing with a friend of mine that there SHOULD BE!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that now there WERE sites like this (besides google, I mean). So I did that.

I came up with things like: lupus, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, Lyme disease, Parkinson’s Disease, bipolar disorder, and a few others. It was really weird to watch the possibles list change as I entered symptoms or took them away. Pretty much the only one that stayed no matter what was Lyme disease.

I pretty much ignored that one, though. I’d had a tick attached back in the summer of ‘03 and had looked up Lyme disease at the time, knowing I didn’t have insurance to go see a dr because of a tick bite. I looked it up to see what to watch for that way if I DID have problems I could go in, then. Bullseye rash and then a few weeks later knee pain, and eventually the arthritic stage would resolve itself anyway. So, it looked like really I could just tough it out even if I did get the bullseye rash… it would all go away on its own. I kept an eye on the redness that showed up a couple of days after we pulled the tick off, but the center never cleared, so I was good.

I looked into each of the other possibles a little and pretty quick was able to say my problem was probably NOT _____ for whatever reason. The most likely one was looking like multiple sclerosis.

Interestingly enough, this was right at the same time my mom took herself into the doctor (shock of shocks!!!) because of a weird numbness episode she’d had. The doctor was checking her out for MS! Had an MRI and a CAT scan, both. No MS, but her thyroid levels were a little low. I thought it seemed appropriate we were both looking at poss. MS until I realized that MS actually is NOT generally found “running in families”. oh. my bad. LOL

A talk with a friend, though, told me that not everyone gets a bullseye rash with Lyme disease AND that the knee pain doesn’t always show up right away…sometimes not for years and sometimes not even then, but Lyme can cause a lot of other symptoms too.

Back to the research drawing board I went. Oh the info I found on Lyme disease! She was right… the bullseye rash is NOT always there, nor are symptoms always seen right away. Hmmm… Also every single symptom I had *could* be attributed to Lyme disease. Including the losing my mind kind of stuff.

So I told Mike that pretty much I felt sure I was looking at either MS or Lyme, and I needed to see a dr. In the meantime I did more research and reading. I found out that oftentimes Lyme disease is misdiagnosed. Many cases of: MS, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and even some cases of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, early Alzheimer’s, ADD/ADHD, and bipolar disorder are found to actually be Lyme disease. People were getting better after being diagnosed and treated properly (with Lyme) whereas they had not been getting better being treated for the ______.

Sooo… looking like maybe the most likely is Lyme? How WEIRD is that, though?? I live in TEXAS! And Lyme is supposedly RARE, right? Especially in TEXAS?!?!

Well, no.

It’s transmitted by deer ticks found in the northeast, yes. It’s also transmitted by lonestar ticks (found here in the Lone Star State!), and other species of ticks. It’s also been found in fleas, gnats, flies, and mosquitos. So there’s a potential right there. The deer ticks in nymph stage can be as little as the period at the end of this sentence. If it bites and doesn’t make a bullseye rash, you might not even know it’s there at all! Lyme has been found in every state in the USA.

I was born in Virginia. I vacationed in VA and Maine as a kid. I lived near wooded areas several times as a kid here in TX. I knew for sure I’d had at least one attached tick. I’d even had a rash with it. I definitely had the possibility of having been exposed to the Lyme bacteria.

I knew I was going to have to go to a dr and I knew I was going to have to be tested for Lyme, too. WHATEVER I had, I was getting sicker. My symptoms were getting worse. My bad days were getting worse and more frequent. The aches had spread to nearly every part of my body at random various times, and on bad days EVERYTHING ached. On bad days I was hurting everywhere…and stiff… and couldn’t think or function worth a flip. The bad days were starting to keep me in bed, even. Not just keeping me from getting cleaning done, but keeping me from being able to get up at all.

I was scared, and confused, and I still am. I hadn’t seen a dr since I was pg (except for an ER trip a few summers ago due to weird blood/heart problems which DEFINITELY is connected, I know now). I had collected so much information, but I had no insurance and could not figure out what my best plan of action was. Also? Lyme can be passed through pregnancy to the baby… I had had some symptoms since jr. high. If I had Lyme, the kids could.

Testing isn’t always accurate. Lyme is a clinical diagnosis. That means even if the tests come back negative, you might still have Lyme. This is because they need better testing… and also because the Lyme bacteria burrows its way into your tissues, organs, bones, etc and hides from your immune system, so the immune system may or may not be making antibodies against it. It’s the antibodies the tests look for.

By December, I knew I had to see a doctor who knew and understood Lyme. One who wouldn’t blow me off by saying Lyme doesn’t exist in TX (which it certainly DOES, but regardless I could have picked it up in VA or ME or CO or a dozen other places). I also knew the kids would need testing if I were diagnosed with Lyme.

I asked my friend to help. My brain just doesn’t work right a lot of the time. Besides this was ME talking about ME seeing a dr. This is just sooooo weird. I needed help.

She very graciously said she would help. =) I was still not sure, though. I mean for years I had relied on Jesus to be my only physician. After all, He is the Great Physician. I had convinced myself that for ME that is the way it should be. That I wasn’t fully trusting God if I saw a dr. I took the kids to drs, sure… that was different. Although I did totally see the irrationality of that, I still couldn’t shake it.

I was so scared I would be failing God by going to a doctor, or that I would maybe not be failing…but that maybe it just wasn’t what I should do. I prayed and prayed some more. Of course I’d BEEN praying for months that the Lord would please help me know what to do, that He’d help me figure out what was wrong and that if He wanted me to see a dr, He would help me to know that. I prayed more…and then some more. One day I prayed very specifically… I was just so scared of doing something out of His will and just so confused and it seemed like the more I thought about stuff the more confused I got, so I prayed, “Lord if you want me to see a dr, please, You’re going to have to tell me exactly WHICH doctor and exactly what to say, because I just can’t figure this out.”

I don’t think it was even two days later my friend showed up at my door and started a conversation about doctors and told me the name of a doctor she felt sure would order the testing for me and then told me to let her know if I needed help in figuring out exactly what to say when I went in.

Things got crazy and I didn’t actually get an appointment made for another few weeks, but go in I did…with my friend right beside me. Oh my goodness was that ever a BLESSING!! I was petrified and nervous and so very thankful for her presence.

The P.A. signed the paperwork so I could have the test for Lyme done through a lab in CA that specializes in tick-borne diseases. This lab has the most accurate testing, though even these tests can still come up falsely negative. We dropped the sample off in the mail and then I waited.

For two weeks, I think it was. That day Matt took off and he ended up visiting the jail the next day? Well the day he visited the jail I spent in pain in bed most of the day. I finally managed to get up around 2pm, but only just. I HAD to, though, because Meagan had to go get a Lupron shot and bloodwork done and of course Mike was waiting to hear back from the police about Matthew. So I managed to take Meagan to do the shot and bloodwork and then went to church. While I was in bed, Mike had called the dr office to see if the test results were in yet. They were not. I’d already called a couple of days before.

I called again the Monday of the next week and ended up calling the lab in CA. The results were sent out to the dr, but the dr’s office was saying they still didn’t have them. So I got a fax # and called the lab back and had them fax it over. I picked up a copy the next day.

It was positive.

I have Lyme disease.

I still need to find a dr to treat it though. I am trying to get the guts up to call a dr tomorrow. I’m scared he won’t take me as a patient, though, since I don’t have insurance.

I’ve waited till now to even think about calling and getting an appointment because I thought I’d try to get insurance first. Since the P.A. had not given me a diagnosis officially, I thought that meant I did not have a pre-existing condition and so I could get health insurance and then when it kicked in I could go to the dr. Except that won’t work.

Last Thursday we had Meagan’s Un-birthday party… at the park… at 2pm… in the TX sun. There was little to no shade. Whether it was the sun, the stress (it was a FULL week or two before that filled with Lupron reactions, ortho appointment, dentist appt to get 7 teeth pulled, end of school, awards banquet, and lots of other stuff), or the Lyme bacteria’s ‘cycle’ (the bacteria reproduces about every 30 days), or WHAT I don’t know, but Friday was a BAD day.

I mean a big bad day. Worst day I’ve had yet. I was in so much pain and was so stiff and weak in the a.m. that Mike had to help me roll over for much of the morning. Around noon I was able to get myself rolled over without help, but I still couldn’t get up. Mike was ready to take me to the ER or the GP we’d seen years ago, but I was scared to do that since I still hadn’t looked at the insurance thing closer. He called and got info on the health insurance through his work. Open enrollment is in Oct. It would cost $180 every pay period to get me put on and it wouldn’t kick in until Jan. He wanted to take me in and get something to help get me through till then, at least, but I was adamant.

I finally managed to get up and sit for about an hour in the evening, then back to bed. Mike said I had fever when he left for work that night. Saturday was better. I was able to get up and into the dining room, but with much difficulty. I was stiff and I hurt and I was weak, but nothing like the day before. I spent most of Sat. looking into the insurance.

Come to find out the insurance companies look back anywhere from 6mo-5yr and anything you sought advice or treatment for or that a “prudent person” WOULD have sought advice or treatment for is considered a pre-existing condition and most insurance companies will exclude any and all treatment costs for that condition for a year or permanently. So as that extremely long sentence shows (LOL!)… I was outta luck on the ins. Even if I got some, it still wasn’t going to pay for Lyme treatment.

Sunday was even better, though I did stay home from church in the am. I was still walking WAY funny. No way would I have been able to do the amount of walking required without a cane. Since I didn’t have one… haha. I had loosened up enough by that evening that I could go to the evening service. I was still stiff and sore and I was still walking funny, but not horribly so. I was, of course, still twitching, too. Twitching is pretty much an everyday thing anymore. I hope no one noticed. I don’t think so. Anyway, if they did they didn’t say anything. I did have 3 people ask what I did that left me so stiff. I told them nothing, but I doubt they believed me. LOL

So that brings me to tonight. Why didn’t I call yesterday or today? I’m scared. I heard another woman was calling this dr Monday, and thought it would be weird if I called the same day. Besides she was obviously sicker and in more need than I was… she’d been to the ER last week and they really messed up her arm with the IV poke. So I thought I’d wait a few days, maybe. Then I heard that the dr was going to “get back with her” about whether or not he’d take her on as a patient and I basically freaked. I wanted to wait and see if she’d get in or not.

Found out this afternoon that he is going to take her, which is great. =) She has insurance though. I do not. I’m still scared he won’t take me.

I have no reason to wait anymore either, and every reason to NOT wait. Especially since I am hating the me I have become more and more each day. No, I should not blow up at the kids no matter what, but YES the Lyme *is* playing a part. I know that now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get back to the kind of mom I was 6 or 7 or 8 years ago if I don’t get treated and get better. In fact, I’m sure I won’t. So I have to do this. Somehow.

I don’t have any idea how we’re going to pay for the dr visits, the meds, the bloodwork, the supplements. Not to mention the fact that it could double or triple as we still have to get the kids tested and then if THEY need treatment and the in-network drs can’t or won’t treat…

Matthew has an appointment with a new pediatrician Thurs. I have the test kits from the lab (Igenex) in CA sitting here ready. I’m praying the new ped will sign the paperwork to get the testing done. We’ll have to pay out-of-pocket for that, since the lab is out-of-network.

I don’t know how the Lord is going to work this out. I don’t. BUT I do know He will. I know this is where He’s led me/us. And if God leads you to it, He will see you through it.

Saturday night as I laid in bed, after having learned that no matter what I wasn’t going to get health insurance to cover Lyme treatment for me unless I waited a LONG time and/or committed insurance fraud, I prayed. I prayed and I reminded myself that if the Lord outfits the lilies, He will surely take care of me. We humans are more precious to Him than the animals and plants and other creations as we are made in His image. If He cares enough to take care of the new kitty we have, and I know that well enough that I felt ok praying that He would help us get rid of the fleas that had found her, then He cares for me enough to take care of the dr bills without insurance. I realized I had been kinda trying to put my faith and trust in the insurance to cover the costs because I just can’t SEE or fathom how He will provide otherwise.

Thing is, I don’t have to see it or understand it. I don’t have to know ahead of time how He’s going to work it out. Jesus cares so much for me that He DIED for me, He loves me and wants the best for me. I know because He tells me so in the bible. He’s led me this far on the Lyme journey. He’s allowed me to figure out I needed testing and treatment, He’s not going to quit caring and helping now… He will make a way, even if it does seem impossible to me right now.

So I decided then that I was going to go ahead and call to make an appointment this week, and nevermind waiting on insurance. For a start I was not about to even consider committing insurance fraud. Uh-uh! The Lord will provide a way that does NOT include breaking a law. Of that I am SURE! Whether or not we even look about buying insurance (and then it would *maybe* start paying for treatment after a year) or not I don’t know right now, but if so, it won’t be while trying to hide the Lyme disease!

Sunday night at church, the song sung as a special was “Consider the Lilies”. =) I thanked God right then and there for that blessing. That was the very idea and verse and what-not I’d been having to focus on and remind myself of just the night before. Ok, so it probably wasn’t me, after all, huh? More like the Holy Spirit reminding me to consider the lilies…

And the woman who sang the special? Well, she was one of the three that commented on my stiff walk. LOL

So I’m sitting here hating the me I’ve become, and knowing that while I am NOT completely guiltLESS by any stretch of the imagination, there *IS* some problem outside of my control that is making the situation all the more difficult and complicated. So while I’m hating the me I’ve become, some of that hate is actually for the bacteria that is chewing on my brain, and other body parts, and throwing my hormones into a major tizzy. The bacteria has helped to shape the me I’ve become. Stress, frustration, and lack of help (mostly due to my stubborn SINFUL pride which has led me to not only not ask for help but to actually turn it away over the years…) has also played a part. Exhaustion plays a role too. And yes, of COURSE!!! so does sin. Like I said, I am NOT guilt LESS.

I need to work even harder at locking myself up when I lose it. I always end up not doing it because I think that’ll be leaving Matthew to “get away” with something and/or it’ll leave the kids unsupervised (while I’m hiding in the closet crying or fuming). I have done it before, just not in awhile. I used to be pretty good at it when Mom and the others were still here. I guess I figured I could then because there would still be an adult (my mom) up and about to watch over things while I hid.

Since they moved out, I’ve been mostly trying to just not have the whole frustrated blow-up problem at all so I don’t have to hide and leave them unsupervised. (Trust me, Matthew unsupervised during one of his meltdowns is not good… of course me in one of MINE isn’t either…)

One thing about it… if the way I feel when I have these meltdowns or whatever is at all close to what Matthew feels when he has his… Oh my stars!! =( It’s not good. At all. It really, REALLY is uncontrollable at a certain point. Mike and I were talking about it a couple of weeks ago… if there really truly is some physical aspect to his massive Jekyll/Hyde like behavior over the past SIX YEARS, then we feel AWFUL for being so hard on him when he has these meltdowns.

We just didn’t know it could even be an honest-to-goodness possibility, ya know? Now we know it’s possible, and we’re going to try to find out, and in the meantime I hope and I pray that I can keep my own cool and quit saying stupid things to him that I shouldn’t. I HATE that I say them… sick or not, physical problem or not I shouldn’t say them. I know it and I feel awful about it and I’m TRYING to not do it anymore, I am. There truly is something to the “uncontrollable” thing though…at least after a certain point. There are times when I really TRULY can’t help but blow my top. Sometimes over the stupidest things, too…which again… sounds like Matthew.

So yeah. I’m a horrible mom. I know it, but I AM trying to fix things. Yes, I’ve yelled at my kids and said some really awful things to them. I AM trying to fix things. Please don’t hate me. I do enough of that for us both. Truly. =(

I guess that explains why I’ve been avoiding posting. I knew it would be a long, full disclosure kind of post. One in which I let it all hang out sotospeak. Not pretty or pleasant. More like painful. I don’t like pain. I tend to try to avoid it if at all possible. I’m sure you understand.

Posted: June 3rd, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, faith, the changing me.
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