by Sarah | Jan 21, 2011 | Random
I’m getting used to waking up at 6AM every day.
I hate it.
But I’m getting accustomed to it.
The pace of the mornings.
Getting Riley up. Making her lunch, making Archie’s lunch, his breakfast of eggs.
This week I took steps toward some of my goals.
Angel and I went to the library where I picked up some books and I’ve been reading diligently. I’ve started writing again. At least half the week we sat down and ate a healthy meal as a family. I made my husband’s lunch every day. I ate healthier. I was frugal at the grocery store (and only shopped the outside, went down only the cereal and baking aisles). I finally took down our tree and started cleaning. I’ve been using my camera.
All very baby steps.
Leaps and bounds aren’t being made in my slump, but I feel a little better. I’m trying my hardest to fight yet another oncoming cold – hoping the tickle & dry cough mean it isn’t serious and will pass quickly.
In an effort to push myself, to do things I’m proud of, I’ve been setting more firm and concrete goals.
I want to read 50 books in 2011 and I’m tracking it.
I’m setting a goal to complete another novel this year. Or a novellette (1 of the 2 I have in mind is shorter). I will be tracking this one, too.
I’m also planning on setting a photography goal. I can’t commit to 365, but I’m tossing around a few ideas for weekly challenges/themes. This is something that isn’t set in stone yet, but I’m working on it.
The week hasn’t been perfect. We had one brief crisis. It passed. We’ve had a minor concern, that we’re trying to keep minor.
Day by day.
Less than two weeks until the big appointment for Brandon. For Angel. For our nerves.
I’m sounding like a broken record.
I hate that.
I will do better.
For now this is how I deal with it all. Once I get writing more, all of my aggression/tension/depression will be dispensed onto my characters, and that is always wonderfully cathartic.
Until then bear with me. It won’t always be about me.
by Sarah | Jan 19, 2011 | All About Me, Crap
“The best way to get over being sick is to act like you’re healthy. Take a shower. Get out of your PJ’s.”
It was a “magical” cure my Mom told me to take every time I was on the ‘verge’ of getting better from a cold or a flu.
It did help.
At one of the online hangouts I go to there’s a running joke. “Look Normal!” is the call. One person has a picture of a (normally) stunning actress faking a smile so comically it looks photoshopped into a Jim Carrey/The Mask-ish twist of her features (it isn’t, I’ve seen the scene the screen capture came from).
That…is what I feel like now. I’m crying out “Look normal!” I’m pushing myself into taking care of house and home, husband, kids. Getting into life-breathing activities like reading, writing, food.
But it’s a mask.
I don’t feel okay.
Archie has picked up on this…and in his current state of mind…he thinks it’s his fault or I’m mad at him. I’m not a shiny, happy person right now.
I don’t know how to get back to that.
In the past few months life has been hard, my sense of reality has been turned on its head…but we’re all here. We’re together, happy, nothing catastrophic is happening right this minute.
So I should be happy.
But I’m struggling to return to “normal.”
I went through a bout like this a couple of years ago. I tried getting some anti-depressants from the doctor.
Let’s just say the treatment was worse than the problem.
Out of the handful of antidepressants I’ve tried (for different reasons, over the course of many years)…I haven’t reacted well to any of them. From tremors to NOT sleeping (literally. I didn’t sleep for 1 whole week once – it wasn’t pretty)…drugs & I do not mix.
So, I’m afraid to try again. Terrified, actually. I didn’t like not sleeping, and I didn’t like the way my brain felt on them.
Plus.
I’ve seen depression.
I see it on an almost daily basis. I support it. I live with it. I’ve seen what it is like to NEED medications.
That isn’t me.
I’m just in a funk.
A lousy funk that I haven’t been able to fake my way out of.
Remember that good cry I said I’d never had?
I think I need it now.
Otherwise things might get ugly.
by Sarah | Jan 17, 2011 | All About Denver, Crap
Proving he’s more like me than maybe he’d like to admit – the boy hates being in limbo.
The unknown.
Unanswered questions.
Like a thousand pound weight they bear down on him.
Turning what was a well-behaved, maturing pre-teen into a sullen, moody, lying, ignoring his homework teenager.
Yes, I’m sure part of it can be attributed to the fact that he IS a teenager now (or will be in a week)…and there’s hormones and all sorts of craziness, and two sisters that garner much of his parents attention.
But it’s also largely the unknown.
He doesn’t fully understand Cystic Fibrosis.
And all of my explanations and answers can’t change that.
He’s scared.
He doesn’t know what it would mean for him.
He can’t figure it out without an answer.
If it comes back negative, relief will sweet through each and every one of us.
If it comes back positive…
It will not be easy.
Not that it was “Easy” for Angel – but she is growing up with CF. It is ‘normal’ for her.
Brandon will have to learn a new ‘normal’.
But he will learn. And be able to deal. And cope.
But that can’t happen without answers.
Getting out of limbo.
Limbo sucks.
(16 days to go…if the results are back in time for that appointment.)
by Sarah | Jan 11, 2011 | Random
Finally, I am mostly free of the creeping crud. I can talk in my normal voice again, I’m only coughing occasionally. I got housework done today!!
Whoever thought I’d see the day that I was HAPPY I’d managed to do housework? There is just something inherently wrong with that statement.
I’m glad to get back to the blog, although I feel like I need some oil for my blogging joints. Amazing how being away for just a few days makes that first few posts so difficult to follow through on.
I’m working on a few posts about my dreams/goals for 2011 – but I dare not call them resolutions (I can’t keep one of those to save my life). I’m working on posts about the kids (all three)…where they are now what they’re struggling with, or we’re struggling with.
But I’m also working on projects outside the blog so I’m distracted and trying to refocus (part of the whole goals thing).
So in the meantime, before this becomes an entire post of nothing, here’s just a few random tidbits:
* Our Christmas tree is still up. My plans to take it down last week were thwarted and thus, it remains.
* Three years later I’m finally being a good wife. I’ve ordered some books about diabetes & recipes. We’ll be making meal plans from those. I’ve also sort of crafted a bento box for him until I can afford a real one. He’s in heaven having his food compartmentalized (did we mention we thing Riley got her autism from him 😉 )
* I’ve always quietly snickered and/or rolled my eyes at the raves of the Snuggie in the twitterverse…but, um…I HAVE ONE. Yup, and I LOVE IT.
* We were BLESSED with many many clothes for the girls for Christmas. Their dressers are full again and I am so grateful.
* We had a beautiful white Christmas here in Indy…and now it is snowing again. I am one happy Buffalo-born gal.
* My oldest is turning 13 in 2 weeks. I’m feeling OLD.
* I saw (most of) Wicked back in December. It was good, but I couldn’t enjoy myself…and I didn’t see the end because I wanted to get back to the hospital…but then I had to go back and…well, that’s a story for another day. Maybe I will have a chance to see it again one day.
* Given the choice of a computer, an iPod, or a DSLR camera (a low-cost model) for his belated present – Brandon is leaning toward the camera….that’s my boy 😉
* Did you know that it’s much easier to see the bright side and be pleasant when you aren’t sick? No, really…IT IS!!
That’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll be back in the swing of things here in no time. I’m pushing through the last of the ick, and trying to write (much more than blog posts). I’m also finishing up a design for a new blog…not mine, but a good friends’. I’m very excited for it…I’ll be sure to give you the URL when it’s done!!
by Sarah | Jan 5, 2011 | All About Me, Crap
Oh, I am very weary, Though tears no longer flow; My eyes are tired of weeping, My heart is sick of woe.
~Ann Bronte
There have been plenty of posts for me to write in recent days. Recaps of 2010. Dreams of 2011. The kids are back in school. Life is returning to our level of normal. All PICC lines are gone, casts…
But my fingers haven’t typed a letter.
I’ve been sick. Sick as a dog for the third time in 2 months.
And to be honest, 2010 sort of sucked. We had some highs, to be sure. Some wonderful notes…but we had a few pressing lows, and some that haven’t even been dispelled yet. Areas where we linger in the hellish limbo of unanswered questions.
I lost my grandmother this year. My spunky, vibrant, bossy, stubborn grandma was taken within a week of a cancer diagnosis. Suddenly, cruelly ripped from our lives.
My Angel faced her first real level of illness at the same time. Her first severe round of massively strong antibiotics to defeat an infection that is beyond unique to CF patients. And then she was admitted to the hospital six months later for the first time. We had isolation, PICC lines, IV antibiotics…so many new and frightening evidences of her illness.
We heard the ‘official’ word “Autism” with both relief and tears. Riley faced kindergarten and challenges within herself…and gave us more challenges than we were sure we could manage.
Brandon broke finger in the beginning of summer, his wrist at Halloween. He got straight A’s…and then became faced with a possible CF diagnosis for himself as well.
For the last two months of 2010 there was someone injured or sick at all times. There was no break, no respite. I, who by law as a mom am NEVER allowed to get sick, as I said above I’ve gotten sick 3 times in the past 2 months. Right now it’s so bad, I’ve been laid up since Saturday. I haven’t been able to talk for a week. It sucks big time.
My husband has been struggling against his depression with as much strength as he can muster. The end of the year between his birthday and the holidays are always soooo hard on him, and the added stress of constant illness…I fear he’s ready for a massive break.
I’m tired of crying – but then again, I still don’t think I’ve shed a tear.
I’m exhausted from the constant beat down. I’ve taken maybe 5 pictures in 2011 because I’ve been sick for all of it…and the picture above is one of them. I had to find the beauty somewhere…and I did in the gorgeous flowery pattern of frost on our truck’s windshield.
And I’ve found it in my Riley’s beautiful way of taking care of her sick Momma (which she has taken to calling me over Mommy). In Angel’s snuggling with her Daddy, sad because we can’t dare to let her snuggle with me.
Once I am better I can take the reins and find the silver lining again. I can free up my husband to release his restraints and rid himself of some of the burden’s beating against his fragile wall of strength. I can recover my house from the clutter of Christmas. I can make sure each of my children know I love them, and I’m not just the grumpy witch on the couch that semi-yells at them to be quiet w/ her non-existent voice (seriously, it’s SAD how I sound).
But right now…
I’m not there.
I only hope tonight is the night I am able to SLEEP. To get past the worst.
Because I don’t like being here.
I want to be there.
Where I had my sh*t together. I was “ready” to face whatever.
Right now I can’t even face myself. (seriously, be glad there’s no self-portrait here today. *shudders* It would give you nightmares)
by Sarah | Dec 21, 2010 | All About Denver, Crap, Cystic Fibrosis
Yesterday I told you about Angel and where we were with her.
Today it’s Brandon’s turn. He also had an appointment yesterday. One meant to look further into his abnormal test results. His initial appointment with the pulmonologist.
He was examined, lungs sounded clear.
The pulmonologist said that there have been studies that have been coming out that are showing that sometimes carriers of the CF gene can have low abnormal readings and just have more sinus symptoms, etc.
It was decided that instead of a sweat test, we would run full genotypes on both of the kids. To determine what genetic abnormalities brought on these strains. While Angel was being admitted, Brandon was sent for blood work and x-rays.
We felt satisfied with the explanation. Hopeful.
But no official results for a month.
Then, once things were settling down in our insane day…I got a phone call. The Fellow that had assisted our pulm said that he’d forgotten to call earlier.
It was about Brandon’s x-rays.
“The x-rays are abnormal. They appear to be CF in nature – but this is not enough to definitively call it yet. We still have to wait on the genotype results – which will be in January.”
So we still don’t know. We’re still waiting.
It might not be.
But it very well could be.
Another month of waiting.
My life has been cut up into months. Never ending. One month more.
One month.
I’m getting used to waking up at 6AM every day.
