Speak’s Anatomy

So newsflash; I have nerve damage. My right foot has no reflex right now and shows weakness. I had to go to a doctor to find this out? The only real question is if the damage is being caused by a herniated disc or from the epidural I got during labor. Bah! I’ll be having an MRI & a nerve test next week to determine which it was & the extent of the damage. If it’s the disc, the amount of damage my symptoms seem to be showing are pointing to surgery. Christ! That’s what I need. So let’s all pull for epidural shot as the cause, which they will treat with another epidural shot only with steroids this time. There goes my shot at the baseball hall of fame…oh yeah, I don’t play baseball.

So I feel somewhat validated in all my whining now. And my approach; chiropractic, PT & pain meds is exactly what I should be doing, so that’s good to know. I’m still irritated that the first doctor made me wait for two weeks to get into the orthopedic guy, but I can’t do much about it now, so trying not to dwell.

BS had her NINE month appointment today. She’s 15# 4oz and 27” (in case you’re keeping track). She’s just below the 50% for height and off the chart for weight. Yup, she’s less the zero in the weight category. That means that 100% of the kids her same age are bigger then her. Doctor says they typically drop a little at this age because their activity level has increased so much, so he’s not worried. If he’s not worried, then I’m not worried. She’s gaining weight, so that’s all they’re really watching now. He’s ordering some predigested formula for her; he wants us to have a back up for my (lack of) boob juice so he’s working with me to get her to take it. I’ll let you know how that goes. She got two shots today & didn’t even cry. We’re nursing every 3 hours, which means…I’ve got to go again.

Cheers!
Say a little thank you prayer for vicadin!

My children speak

So things are pretty much status quo around here. My sciatic is pretty much the same, now my neck has joined the fray—just to keep things interesting. I do have an appointment with an orthopedic doctor tomorrow, so hopefully something good and immediate will come of that; like a shot in my ass that will give me feeling in my foot and lower leg and get rid of the pain I’m feeling in the rest of the leg, blah, blah, blah….You’ve heard it all before. Dude I’m tired of talking about it, I can’t believe you’re still reading it. You must really not want to work today, huh? Yeah, I know me neither.

So a few updates;

BS has spoken! My brilliant genius of a baby has said the word “kitty”. She says it quite clearly, has said it several times now, in front of several people and at the appropriate time. You know, when one of the cats shows up. She says, “gee, gee” for dog, cause we say doggie. She is also signing the word “more” (mostly for food). She waves “bye”, and she puts her hands behind her head when tired so I’ve deemed that her word for sleep. Last night DS walked up to us (she was in my lap on the couch) and she held her hands out to him & then signed more. In other words, “more Daddy please.” So freaking cute!!!

No more blood coming up, but no more formula either. I’m in contact with the lactation consultant and I’m working on the milk production (or lack of it) right now. I’m also thinking of getting her a passport as it’s looking a lot like she’s going to Mexico with us in April. We are such the party animals.

TS is truly turning into me. She loves to pull out her play hair dryer and curling iron when I pull mine out. We primp together. She pulls out her play make up while I’m doing mine and she likes to help me by handing me the correct brushes and make up containers; she knows the difference between blush, eye shadow, eye liner, concealer, foundation, mascara and all their accompanying brushes. Some kids learn all the dinosaurs, but my kid knows her way around the MAC counter. The way I know she’s truly turning into me has to do with her Starbuck’s order. Here’s the way I order: “Vente, decaf, single, non-fat, no-whip, 6-pump mocha. The other day she says, “Mommy I want my chocolate milk cold, with ice and whip cream.” They start so young.

We’ve Peaked! or All About Me

Well let’s hope so, I know it can get worse, but jeez I think we’ve gotten more then our share already this year. I haven’t posted because after last Friday things went downhill with my sciatica. I’ve been going to the chiropractor and the physical therapist and I’ll have a “good” day and then a couple “bad” days. None are pain free, but yesterday was probably the worst it’s been. I was so sore that I was achy and I was cold; borderline chills. I think now that it was that my body was readjusting to everything and getting used to it. I also think that the “cold” was poor circulation coupled with the adjusting. I finally took a couple vicadin and when they started to take affect (and I started to relax) I actually got really warm, almost hot. Today was much better. Don’t get too excited, not pain free, but better.

Night before last we spent in the local ER with BS. She had been spitting up blood earlier in the day. It’s been colder then heck here and extremely dry, so I wasn’t too concerned at first. I figured it was sort of like the nose bleeds you can get from dry cold weather. Not so much, when I called the advice nurse. The doctor had us come in to check her out and they felt it might be in her lungs (she’s teething so she’s had a runny nose, but it comes & goes). They gave us a nebulizer. She did it two more times that afternoon and I called them to tell them what was going on and they sent us to ER. So. Much. Fun. Actually, she thought it was party time, screeching, cooing and having a ball. Cause let me tell you there is nothing that is more fun then the tissue paper on an exam table. It’s what I’ll buying for all the kids for Christmas next year. They did x-rays and blood tests and spoke to her GI specialist and decided that she probably has esophageal reflux (in addition to her stomach reflux) and it probably caused a tear in her esophagus and thus the bleeding. At our follow up with the GI specialist the next day he indicated that when this happens at her age it’s usually from a food allergy, but we can’t think of anything new that she’s had. So I don’t know. She hasn’t done it again since, so we’re just trying to pay attention to everything she’s eating. Another new medication. I feel like I medicate, feed her and let her sleep and that's all we do all day. Mostly cause it is ALL we do all day. Don't worry, she seems to be fine. (It's her mother who needs to be committed.)

My folks are out of town this week, so BS was supposed to be in daycare with her sister, but obviously that’s out. So I’ve been out of work all week. It’s good and bad. Honestly, with the way my leg has been I don’t think I could’ve worked this week, and I already had TS set for daycare all week, so that is good part . Tomorrow DS is staying home to help me. Hopefully I will continue to improve; I already know I’m going to be missing work for PT appointments next week. They've been really nice about all this, but they've got to be getting sick of it.

So I’m back off to bed, no vicadin tonight we’re trying Darvocet to see if that will cut it. And of course, lots of ice. If all goes well I’m going to try and walk around the block tomorrow. Wohoo! We’re the definition of fun around here.

TS has been hilarious lately; very focused on her upcoming birthday. Upcoming in May! Today, she asked two of the girls in her class if they’ll come to her party, in May. Guess she wants to make sure they can make it. BS is teething and beside the one she got last week, two more popped out this week; all on the bottom--weird. My boobs are not happy about this new perdicament. But she’s mostly happy, so whatever.

Need to sleep now. Hopefully, happy funny stories in a timely fashion this next week. Thanks for hanging with me.

Our Christmas

So since I've been out of it and a picture is worth a thousand words here's our December in a nutshell. I know it's late, but it's my excuse for playing w/digital scrapbooking. (Obviously I'm feeling a bit better right now. Went to a chiropractor yesterday and while I'm still in pain, I'm FUNCTIONING!!! Which is way more then I could say before. We'll see how long it lasts.
Happy Friday!

The Fun; it just never ends for me

After a very long weekend of being in massive pain or drugged up beyond belief here I am. Yes I realize it’s Thursday, I said it was a long weekend for me. I found that by Sunday, 3 days without any pain pills that work just did me in. So I spent the entire day Sunday drugged up and more or less in bed. You could say I “Turned on & Tuned out”. On Monday I came into work, (once again off pain pills) but left early for a follow up appointment w/my OB. Who, upon hearing my predicament, promptly prescribed physical therapy (PT) and said, “This is ridiculous! Why are they messing with you like that? If you have any more issues you call me & we’ll get you what you need.” Reminding me why I like her so much. She’s so very take no prisoners. I couldn’t get into PT until Wednesday, but I quickly (and thankfully) grabbed that first appointment they had available.

On Tuesday, I finally met with a shrink. I liked her very much and she seems very down to earth and “normal” which is no small thing from my past experiences with shrinks. Her little “assessment test” told I’m only mildly depressed, but still depressed none the less. I reminded her that if I’d taken the test before being on anti-depressants many of my answers would be much different. It was just good to have an hour without kids and not because I was at work or the grocery store or something.

On Wednesday I got into the PT. She (the physical therapist) thinks there's a possibility of nerve damage from my epidural. (But I was talking to my friend, H last night & she thinks I would've had to have been having problems with it all along if that were the case. Of course, none of us really actually knows either way.) Anyway, the PT that a lot of questions related to my epidural and if it was given into my sciatica, which I know for a fact it was, so we'll see if that's part of the problem. I've got 2 weeks of PT and if I'm not improving by the end of that time I'm off to an orthopedic Dr. She (the PT) wanted my Dr to give me new pain meds that I can take during the day (unlike vicodin which makes me too loopy to drive or be in charge of my kids). So I found myself back at my primary doctor’s office that afternoon. When I talked to the Dr he was all, "And which drug would that be?" I'm like, "Ummm, call me crazy, but aren't you the one in the room who went to medical school?" (I don't think he thought I was funny.) In the end he's got me trying drarvoset, which isn't really doing anything for the pain AND makes me loopy! Sooo Special! I didn't think it was making me loopy, but while driving to work today I realized that yes, in fact, I could continue to drive while nodding off RIGHT NOW. So fun! I also found during my hour and a half commute that the fastest way to wake me up is to have to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. Twice! I found the pain shooting up my leg is a great wake up call. I may need to utilize it while here at work. I’m so nodding off that my eyes are crossing. I find myself doing one of two things: (beside screwing around writing my blog) either I give in and sit for a few seconds facing my computer with my eyes closed (so very tempting) or I close one eye so that when they cross I can still read what I’m writing. Nice. Since this is happening while doing something personal (my blog, fun!) you can imagine how effective I must be while doing actual work-like stuff.

I think I just closed my eyes facing my computer for more then a couple seconds—eeek! Guess I should go before I my face falls into my keyboard. I'll come back to read this later and see how much sense it makes. Hahahahahaha!

New Year, not a new drill

Unfortunately I have not been MIA because I was having a great vacation off. I WISH it was something like that.

For starters, my G’ma died on Christmas Eve day—Merry Christmas! In the end, it was actually the type of situation when you deem death a “blessing”. In the two weeks she stayed with my parents she went from walking with a walker into their house, to being completely bedridden and requiring a catheter. My understanding is that my dad, mom, aunt were in the room with her and the hospice nurse having a conversation about medication, in the middle of the conversation she closed her eyes and went to sleep. My mom said she started to turn grey and you realized that she was dying, not sleeping. “It was very peaceful.” When my mom called me to tell me I already knew. As soon as the phone rang I knew why they were calling. Weird I know. I wasn’t upset at all. In fact I felt bad that I didn’t feel more about the whole thing. But you can’t fake those kinds of emotions. I feel bad for my dad and my aunt who were closest to her. I try not to think too much about my parents dying because that upsets me and being a mom now puts a new spin on the whole deal. Ultimately the whole death thing is upsetting for the living, but for the dead it’s either all good or you don’t care because you aren’t anymore right? So I guess there’s no reason to dwell on it. The upside is that my mom’s imminent nervous breakdown was halted and she’s more or less back to “normal.” We’ve been having the “death” and “heaven” talk with TS over all of this. She’s the type of kid who has lots of questions and has not disappointed on this subject as well. I have some good blog fodder from this for sure. Later this week.

The last entry mentioned my back killing me; well it’s actually a problem with my sciatica which popped up on the 18th and has been getting progressively worse. I’ve been trying to get into a doctor for over a week now, but with the holidays I couldn’t see anyone till later today. They did give me a prescription for vicodin over the phone (that’s how much they weren’t seeing anyone, just handing out prescriptions over the phone. Should’ve asked for something really crazy.) Yesterday, I was finally able to actually speak with my own doctor who has me taking mega doses of ibuprofen. (Something I wasn’t doing because I’m nursing BS, which complicates the whole deal.) I’ve been to acupuncture twice this last week, hopefully there is something they can do (like a steroid shot) that will give me immediate relief. Today is my first day off the vicodin in a week. My pain is down the back of my right leg. My right foot has been asleep (pins and needles) for a couple weeks now. I feel like such an old lady, I’m gimping around bitching about “my sciatica”, next it’ll be my dentures. I haven’t been able to sit at the computer for very long in the last couple weeks, thus the lack of a post. I’m back at work today where I actually seem to have the best luck. I have an ergonomic chair that was measured for me so I think that’s why I seem to do best here.

Christmas was fun. TS was a blast and so was BS. I have pix to share and lots of good stories. TS got her bike from Santa and her “Hello Kitty Camera” from mom and dad. So she was happy. Her favorite present is by far her Ariel Talking Vanity Table and especially the “grooming set” given by my brother’s family. The necklace on this set is Ariel’s voice singing from the movie. It wins the “annoying toy” contest hands down. BS’s favorite toys were the boxes, tissue paper, empty water bottles and packages of wipes. Oh, and she does really dig her new activity table from Santa. This “quick little update” is way longer then I expected (as usual). So I’ll go now and write more later. Happy New Year.