A Case of the Sickies

Sunday evening brought a little surprise for us. Amee, who hardly ever gets sick, spiked a 102 fever out of nowhere :(. Now the real fun begins- caring for a cranky sick 9 year old while attempting to also care for a cranky 5 year old (who has been in a Fibro flare for over a month now) and keeping my fingers crossed that the 5 year old does not get whatever it is the 9 year old has. The last couple of days have been torture! Amee's fever dropped from 102 to the 100s, so she has been feeling good enough to be a pain to the little one, but still must stay home (school rules are- symptom and fever free for 24 hours without the help of medicine). Yesterday the temps dropped from the low 50s to the high 30s and took what was left of Mickey's decent mood with it. She was in so much pain from the Fibro she could barely move without crying. I finally had to throw her in the bath to relieve the pain while we waited for the tylonel to start helping. I haven't exactly been feeling 100% . I'm having some pain issues that are causing me alot of discomfort and until I can get insurance (either after we move or next January), it's just something I have to deal with whenever it happens. It just adds another layer of "fun" to this roller coaster. I can't wait until we are able to move.

Crazy Wildlife!

Yesterday, Ryan came home a little early for Mickey's birthday. He peeked in and whispered for me to come out front. Right by our front door was a little bird, just hopping around, totally un-afraid. The girls pushed their way out the door, yelling and making all kinds of noise, but the bird didn't seem to care. Ryan crouched down and the bird hopped over and was hanging out under him! When he stood up, the bird jumped up and was flying around the hallway (we were relieved because we were worried it may not have been able to fly). The girls were screaming, I'm yelling at them to stop and trying to keep the bird from flying into the house (and becoming dinner for the kitties!). THEN IT LANDED ON RYAN!!!!! Just perched right on his shoulder and started hopping around on him. I ran inside to grab the good camera, I just had to get a picture of this! By the time I grabbed it and got back outside, this is what I found-

Yup, the little bird is just hanging out on my husband's head! lol Thankfully it didn't poopies on him ;p. So a wild bird hopping around on your head, this has to be a good sign right!?!

Here is a close up of our little visitor :)

The Booji-Boo Turns 5!

My little baby is 5 today! What a whirlwind the first 5 years have been. I remember the night she was born, 5 years ago. I was so desperate to touch her, to hold her after I woke up from the surgery (c-section delivery that I had to be put completely under for). After the trauma of not being able to even touch Amee until she was already almost 24 hours old, I was anxious to get my baby into my arms. She was perfect. So strong and healthy at a whopping 9 pounds 7 ounces. I was terrified to let her go, insistant that when I did, she remained in my sight. I was so scared that I would fall asleep only to wake and find her gone (which is pretty much what happened when Amee was born). But everything went smoothly and we took her home in less than 48 hours. I cherished every coo, every smile, every moment she was in my embrace.

I wish I had known then what I know now. I wish I knew how hard her little life was going to be. I still see the same strength in her eyes that I saw the day she was born, but there is pain there now as well. The last 4 years have been so rough on her little body. She did not get to be a "normal" toddler, or a "normal" preschooler. She will not have a "normal" childhood. 2010 brought us what we fought so hard for these last few years, a diagnosis... Fibromyalgia. Now that we know, we have been able to somewhat manage symptoms. There is no cure. There is not even an "approved" treatment for someone so young. So we manage as best as we can with a special diet and vitamins/suppliments. At least now she is not in pain everyday.

But winter in the Northwest does pose a challenge to her. She has been on a roller coaster lately. One day she's fine, the next she's miserable with pain, insomnia, exhaustion and a fever. So our big challenge this year, to move south (Arizona or California). Our gift to our sweet girl- a milder and dryer climate in hopes that it will help us manage her Fibro better. My wish for my baby girl is that 5 is an easier year for her. So far it's looking good ;).

                                                                              My sweet girl on Christmas Eve
A little fun fact for her B-day- I get asked alot "What's with the nickname Booji-Boo?" lol. So here is the explanation behind the name. If you are a super Disney nerd, like I am, then perhaps you have already figured it out :). It started with Ryan calling her Boo. Not sure why, he just kind of started one day lol. Despite being so sick, she was a vocal, loveable, happy 1 year old. She reminded me alot of Angel, the little pink alien that Stitch falls in love with on the Lilo and Stitch series. "Booji-Boo" is what Stitch called Angel (and an orange ball that was his favorite thing in the world until Angel). Although they never say exactly what it means, to us it means "My Love". So that is the story behind Booji-Boo :).

EDIT 1/24/2011: After deciding to finally look it up, turns out I was spelling it wrong lol. Stitch calls Angel Booji-Boo not "Boochi-Boo", oh well. So I corrected the spelling. It is believed to mean "Loved One" in Stitch's language (close to "My Love", which is what we thought it meant). It still works and I plan on continuing to call her my "Loved One" forever ;).

Good Bye 2010

I have to say, 2010 I'm not that impressed with you. There were some good time (the Harry Connick Jr concert was AMAZING!), but overall, 2010 was a hard year for me. I did manage to accomplish the 2 things I felt were necessary-

(1) Getting Mickey a diagnosis. This was big for us. Hubby and I both make the decision that no matter what, we were going to continue to push towards getting her a diagnosis this year. That meant more specialist and more testing, but we pushed through. In the end, Mickey has been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. It's very rare in children her age, especially since we know for sure she's had it since 2 (maybe even before that). There is not much that can be done for here at this age, so we have chosen to manage her symptoms with diet and suppliments. So far it's working pretty well and she is no longer in pain on a daily basis.

(2) Getting control of my weight. This is still an on going battle. I have completely changed the way I eat and what I eat. As I like to put it- I have scrubbed my diet clean :). No more lying to myself about my food choices, now I know they are healthy. Along with my girls, I have chosen to go gluten free. I have a gluten intolerance, just like they do and eating foods that contain gluten, keep me from losing weight. I started going to the gym again in July and also began working with personal trainers. Since July, I've lost 25 pounds (it was closer to 30, but I gained a few like I do every month right before my period- isn't being a woman fun!). I still have a long way to go, but it feels good to know that I'm  on my way.

I have high hopes for 2011-

(1) MOVING! This one definitely tops the list. We want to move closer to our friends and family. Also, with Mickey's Fibromyalgia, she would do much better in a dryer/milder climate. We were hoping for Southern California, but lately we have really warmed up to the idea of moving to Arizona. So right now, that is our current mission (hopefully to be accomplished by no later than summer of 2011).

(2) Continued weight loss. This is very important to me. It's not just a vanity thing. I'm not trying to like a super model or anything crazy like that. I just want to be the healthiest possible and that means getting to and maintaining a healthy weight. I have made too many excuses for far too long and I know that if I continue down this road I will burden my body with health problems that will just make life harder. I need to be able to not only take care of my family, but be able to help Mickey. She is growing up with a life long illness that will sometimes break her down and leave her in pain and miserable. She needs help and support, but also a mom that shows her a healthy example of how to live.

(3) Homeschooling. Mickey will start kindergarten this Fall and Amee will start 5th grade. I plan on homeschooling both of them. We had already made plans to homeschool Mickey, her health problems will just make public school too stressful. For Amee, really I'm just done with public schools. She has fallen into a gray area of struggling just enough to make her miserable, but not enough to get extra help. I want both of children to succeed and be able to follow their dream careers (even if they do change 50 times lol), so Amee will be homeschooled as well so that I can give her as much focused attention as she needs.

(4) Do more activities with the kids, including at home activities. This should be easier since we won't be fighting a public school schedule anymore :).

(5) Clean more. I'm a horrible housewife, lol. I'm not the worst, I don't sit around stuffing my face all day and watching trash tv, but I could be better. I've already started. I'm doing better about keeping up on the vacuuming and getting the kitchen pretty much clean the night before. Laundry is still an issue. I get it done, just not usually put away. I have gotten better about folding and putting away the girls laundry (making it easier for Amee to pick out her clothes in the morning), but I still just throw our clean laundry in our room and forget about it. I think I'm going to start making a cleaning schedule, that way I put 1-2 day aside for laundry and can get it all done and put away.

(6) Set more time aside for blogging. It really is theraputic for me. I usually do think about it, but then I find something else that needs to be done and forget. Just like my me time at the gym, I need some me time for my brain.

I think that's pretty much it. There are a lot of other little things I want for next year, but they all kind of fall into the other big things (most of them fall into the moving catagory lol).

So good by 2010, sorry to say we aren't going to miss you! Bring on 2011, please don't dissapoint!

I Learned Something New Tonight

If you are using the "quick start" on an elliptical, it cuts you off at 30 minutes! lol

I had no freaking idea!

Since I started back at the gym in July, I've been using the "quick start" on the elliptical. It's just easier, punch in your weight, push the button, then crank up the resistance to your desired level (mine is currently 12-15 depending on how I'm feeling). I would just go until I felt I had to stop, usually because my feet would start to lose feeling (I have poor circulation). I always had to stop before 30 minutes. But tonight, I was going along, feeling good, enjoying my music, reading a magazine, when I notice the resistance dissapears! So I check and sure enough it switched me to "cool down" mode at 28 minutes. I kept going, figuring it would just let me go like some treadmills do, but NO, it stopped at 30 minutes. I looked at the screen and said (a little louder than planned) "Did I say you could stop!?!" Ya, that was a bit embarassing lol, but at least the few remaining gym patrons got a good laugh.

But now I am quite proud of myself! It looks like I will actually have to start setting a time on the elliptical :). It's the little things in life that bring me joy.

Insomnia- The Sanity Killer

What's worse than an adult with insomia? A child with insomnia!

Last night I was feeling great. I started using an energy suppliment recommended by my trainer, along with a suppliment to help maintain and recover my muscles after a hard workout. So after my workout, I felt fantastic! I got home about 9:20pm and jumped in the shower. After my wonderful shower, I called for the hubby to.... um..... join me in the bedroom ;). And that's when I heard it, a little voice calling "Mommy" from the girl's bedroom. CRAP! The girls go to bed between 8 and 8:30, it was now after 9:30 and Mickey had already take 5mg of melatonin. But when I opened the door, there she was all bright eyed and way too awake for 9:30 at night. We convinced her to go back to bed and I hoped that would be the end of it. But an hour later she was complaining of needing to use the bathroom.

After that, I figured she has to be too exhausted to stay awake any longer. But of course, now I'm all worried about her and not tired myself. I took my melatonin around 11ish hoping sleepiness would soon follow. Coming up on midnight I decide to call it quits. I turn on the monitor and I hear Mickey talking. SHE WAS STILL AWAKE!!!! I gave her a second melatonin and remind her to be quiet and go to sleep (the last thing I needed was her waking up Amee).

The rest of the night was pretty much me listening to her toss and turn, causing me to toss and turn as well. I'm thinking it's highly unlikely we got more than 2 hours of sleep. Oh well, such is life I suppose :/. Tonight is another night and hopefully it will be filled with peaceful silence and blissful dreaming.

Our Reality (Sometimes It Just Plain Sucks!)

I have neglected my blog. My mind has been elsewhere lately. On December 5th we took the kids out to see Tangled. Adorable movie! Absolutely worth the small fortune it costs for 4 people to go see a movie at the theater. It was also Mickey's first time seeing a movie in the theater and she loved it :). Unfortunately, since then she just hasn't been herself. I don't know if it's just a coincidence or from sitting in one place for so long, or being out in the wet and cold, or from the excitement of seeing a movie or possibly a combination of all those things. Since that evening she has had a fever on and off (up to 100.8), more stomach pain than usual and her appetite has been all over the place (she'll complain being hungry, take two bites and then say she's full and other times she eats just fine). It's been a couple of months since she's had a flare up that lasted more than a couple of days.

The stomach pain really had us worried earlier this week. Usually her pain is located around her belly button and is fairly mild (I figure it's probably usually gas, but because of her sensitivity to pain it feels uncomfortable). She doesn't complain too much. She'll tell me it hurts and then move on. But on Monday she was complaining about it hurting alot and also was saying that her right hip hurt. I didn't think much of it, figured it was just joint pain from all the wet weather we've been having. But her appetite was weird. She didn't even want to eat her favorite dinner. Tuesday morning she still had the pain and a low grade fever. I asked her to show me where her hip hurt. Turns out it was actually her abdomen that hurt, just above the right hip. So I pressed on it and she was almost instantly in tears. CRAP!

So now I'm losing it a bit. Of course my first thought was appendicitis. It would be most parents first thought when their child presents with low grade fever and intense pain in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen. But now I'm conflicted. She will usually run low grade fevers with a bad flare and she has some kind of abdominal discomfort every day. So what do I do? Is this unusual enough to warrant an ER trip or am I simply overreacting to a bad flare?

Well, long story short- I asked hubby to come home early and we spent 2+ hours at our clinic's urgent care. Blood test did not show any infection, so no ER. Thank goodness! But now I sit back and think "This is it. This is my life". My daughter has a chronic condition and it will always make deciding what is "unusual" very difficult. The idea that we have to figure what is "normal everyday pain" makes me want to crawl into bed and cry myself into a coma. And sometimes even her "normal" pain will present itself in a way that throws us off. And I have wonder if this flare was set off by what was supposed to be a fun family outing. Is 1 day of fun worth a week of her being miserable?

And now I'm feeling super guilty about telling Ryan to relax when he got upset about 3 weeks ago. We had decided to run errands together, get everybody out of the house. We just planned to go to Target and Winco. But, as soon as we started to get ready to go out, Mickey got cranky. Her temp went up and she was grumpy and easily irritated or upset. By the time we got to Target, she had completely shut down on us. She is sensitive to the bright overhead light and loud noises (since it was pretty crowded, it was very noisy), it sets off what I can only describe as an anxiety like panic attack, which flares up her Fibro . She was flushed, warm to the touch and was complaining of a headache behind her left eye. She used my jacket as a blanket and spent the whole time there looking pretty damn miserable. Ryan also has some mild anxiety in overly crowded places, so the two them were just making each more uncomfortable. I asked him to take us home so that I could put her down for nap and then he could go to Winco alone. He was understandably upset about the change in plans, especially since lately it seems like we're always changing SOMETHING because of how Mickey is feeling. I tried to tell him "this is just how it is. Sometimes she'll do well, sometimes she won't. Unless we want to go back to not taking her anywhere, we just have to learn to adjust to it." Now I'm attempting to tell myself the same thing. We have to learn to be incredibly flexable and to accept that sometimes plans will have to be adjusted or even cancelled all together.

I would love to say it's easy. That we are all incedibly understanding and accommadating. But it's hard. It's hard damn near everyday. Even the good days can have a gray cloud of "how long will it last" hovering overhead. I do my best to stay positive, to be the "strong one". But I don't always succeed. I admit that my new favorite spot to tear up a little is when I'm by myself in the sauna at the gym. For a short time I'm all alone, no one around to be strong for, no one to see me be weak and pathetic. People tell me how wonderful I am, what a good Mom I'm being, how strong and "together" I must be. I'M NOT! I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and while I do a good job (most of the time) of putting out a positive attitude, inside I feel anything but. I'm scared, sad, angry, resentful and often I feel like a total failure. But I'll put on my smile and struggle through it. "Fake it till you make it", right?

Hopefully things will be better once we move. The dryer, warmer climite could help her symptoms a lot. And it will be nice to be near friends and family. To have some help when we are both feeling overwhelmed. To have friends that are caring and understanding that sometimes plans may need to be adjusted, rescheduled or cancelled. To have more people around me so that the job of providing comfort and adult interaction does not all fall onto my husband. To have more time to spend "just the two of us" and more time to spend apart ;) (don't get me wrong, I love my hubby dearly, but sometimes you need to do fun stuff APART and we don't really get much of that).

How could you not just love this face! This was back when her Fibro was just starting to get really bad, before we had to cut her hair super short because of her headaches.

Learning to adjust! She decided she didn't want to wear her costume because i was too cold. But she was still my cute little bug!