Catch up

Man, I never blog anymore. I am honestly not sure how I ever made the time for it when I started blogging... seriously... Well, whatever, the reason for not blogging anymore, I am very sorry. You know, probably the only thing that keeps me interested in blogging is visiting somebody else's blog and seeing that list on the side, that says "so and so blogged... 6 months ago" and seeing my name at the bottom... very discouraging!

I took these pictures today, after a fun-filled Christmas day and morning. They got these great hats in their stockings, and I got a great new little lense for my camera that I wanted to play with. I love getting things that spawn so much interest... for instance, I was so excited about my lense, I cleaned up my office, set up all my gear, and actually played with taking some pictures of the kids. I usually dislike taking pictures of them, but am realizing that I do indeed like taking pictures of them... jsut individually. I still really dislike taking pictures of all 4 together... {shivers}....

Seriously, I love this little boy! I am so glad, a million times over that we got surprised with baby #4 and that we got Austin. He keeps me going. His cute sayings and sweet kisses. If you make a kissy noise, he will come running over from anywhere to give kisses. (Well, maybe not to strangers, but to mom and dad at least, and sometimes for G&G too.) But my favorite thing to do is after he came running to give kisses and gets about 5 steps away from me, or about half way across the room, I do it again, and he can't help but coming running right back to me!! I'll do it half a dozen times before he starts to question whether he wants to go all the back or not! To. Die. For.

And then there's this little girl... oh my goodness.... she wears me thin. She does. It's true. I often wonder how in the world she can be the same little girl that I have lost so much sleep over in her few short years of life... she drive me bonkers. And then there are those moments, those special little times that I get to share the fun and sparkle with her and I remember how special she truly is. I got to go out Christmas shopping the other day with just her. TJ had all the other kids, and it was SO awesome. To get to hold just her hand. to walk at her pace. To not be distracted by others running around or complaining. I think she recognized how nice it was to have one-on-one time with mom also.

She is my baby doll lover, and so every year when we write our lists to Santa she still asks for a baby doll. It's just so cute.

Brooklyne.... she's a really cool girl to be around. She usually doesn't mind hurrying to get her chores done, so she can play. She's pretty quick to help out around the house. She loves to be in the kitchen helping me bake or cook, and she LOVES to be outside doing anything, but especially riding her bike.

Madison has always and probably will always be the "mother-hen" of the group. She doesn't really love helping out with chores, and she doesn't really love a lot of activities other than crafting (although she recently has gotten really good on her bike too.) She likes and does a fabulous job of keeping the "Littles" (Austin and Tristan) safe, and doing what they are supposed to do. It definitely borders the tattle-tale line sometimes... but it's far made up for when she is helping them get breakfast on Saturday morning, or getting shoes and socks for Austin to play outside with her... the list could go on.

My favorite part about taking pictures of them today is that I told them they didn't have to smile, since I was jsut taking sample pictures. And they both had headphones in, listening to music, so they seemed to have no clue as to what was going on!!

We had a great Christmas day! What a fun morning of waking up, scavenger gift hunts, present opening, church, left overs... Merry Christmas to everyone!!

** I tried posting this last week on Christmas and TJ had swiped my internet for something, so it wouldn't upload the pictures on wireless... so here it is... not too late;)

Plantar fasciotomy

Also know as plantar fasciitis realease. So, it's been 4 days post-op now and I thought I'd take a second to update how I've been doing. I mostl laid in the couch for all of Monday, all if Tuesdy, and most of Wednesday. I limped around using crutches, even though I was allowed to put weight on it, I just couldn't really.

I saw the doc yesterday for my first post-op check up. He said my incision looked so good that he asked if he could take picture! so, beware, if in the future you stumble across some medical journal with picturea of a plantar fasciotomy.... It COULD be MY foot;) anyway, I was glad to hear that it was looking just as it should. I was worried about wether I should be puttin weight in it or not... You see, I don't want it to heal too tight because I'm not walking on it. At the same time, now that I'm missing 1/3 of my fascia band, I'm scared if I over stretch it I'll wind up with a wobbly foot, that wouldn't do me much good either!! But the doc confirmed that I surely don't want it toheal too tight, and that I should be trying to walk on it, and that I most definitely needed to be walking on it w/o crutches in two weeks' time.

So for the rest of the day I tried to hobble around with out the crutches, they were a nuisance anyway. Today my foot is feeling awesome! I mean, I still can't walk on it correctly, but there are good things I'm feeling. For instance out of bed in the morning it honestly feels like my right foot (unoperated on) is tighter that the fixed left foot. Which is hopefully for me. I can move and stretch my foot w/o any sort of pain. And even when I stand on it, I don't really feel any PAIN with it. It's more like uncomfortable because it stretches my arch and therefore tugs at the incision. So because I've been babying that spot I've been walking on the outside ball of my feet, but the more I so that, the more I'm worried it's going to mess up my gait and ruin something else (probably my knee or something!)

This evening I switched from the walking boot they gave me to my regular sneakers and they seemed to feel a bit better. So for right now, I am supposed to be walking on it, it's only dressed with band aids which I'm supposedto take off every night while I sleep.

Anyway, so over-all it's feeling pretty good. If I knew for sure that my leaning limp would go away, Im totally ready to d this again in a few weeks!

Final step, new start

As most people who know me know, I have been suffering from bilateral plantar fasciitis for two years now. It could have been something that I ran my self into... Just before I got pregnant with our 4 th child I had started heavily exercising, working out, and losing weight. I trained for a 5k with some friends and while I did that I lost about 40 lbs and it was the best and healthiest I had felt in YEARS! I unexpectedly got pregnant and tried to keep up the exercise, but just couldn't. I delivered a baby two years ago this month and I was very anxious to get back to the gym and lose the rest of the weight gained in pregnancy and feel healthy again.

At the same time my eldest started kindergarten and we started doing A LOT of walking. And before I knew it, both of my feet were crippled. And they were never the same again. I don't know if it was the running before I came pregnant, the 50-ish pounds I gained while pregnant, or all the crazy walking I did afterward.... I'll probably never know. But I started to do PF treatments within a few months when I ad also a doc recognized what was going on. I got new shoes, custom orthotics, two night-splits, 8 weeks of physical therapy, lots more weeks of chiropractic care, MRIs, X-rays, cortisone injections, more new shoes, LOTS of resting, and NO more walking or gym workouts. As I've continued to gain weight from my incredible lack of activity it has gotten to be very frustrating for me.

Last month I got to spend the whole month at my moms house and I thought that my feet would rest a bit, cooler weather, softer sub-floors... But after painting her house and putting up backyard fencing and even more painting projects I left Colorado with throbbing, awful, painful feet. I was so fed up with it that the day I got back I called and schedules surgery for less that a week later.

I had my plantar fasciotomy procedure yesterday and it went quite smooth. The procedure was super quick. And now today, the following day of the procedure, I do feel a small painful twinge at the incision site, and I don't feel comfortable putting much weight on it yet, but they say I should be able to soon. It's just wrapped in ace bandages and then I have an awesome little walking shoe to go over it. And some fabulous crutches to hobble around on!

I had the procedure done on my left foot and I will go in in 3 weeks to have it done on my right foot. So hopefully this last step helps cure the problem and I'll be able to exercise and play volleyball again without any painful side effects. Oh how I hope so!!!

Loving Times

SLOW DANCE

(Anonymous author - Possibly written by a six year old girl with terminal cancer in a New York Hospital)

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask "How are you?"
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say "Hi"?
You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

One of my friends is recently going through some very hard trials for her, her daughter and her family, and it's really given me lots of opportunity to reflect on Tristan. On my trials with her, and the trials we face in the future. I have had the opportunity to read back through my journal entries from her most recent heart surgery and read and laugh and cry at the silly things that happened. I looked at the pictures I had taken on my phone, not realizing that I never even posted pictures of that time here on my blog.

I guess we got through it and we were so quick to move on, that I never took the time to re-cap her story, put closure to that chapter with her pictures, and start a fresh page for the next go-around. I read this poem online today, and honestly, the part that I found most touching to me today, is that part about putting off our kids until tomorrow, not seeing their sorrow. I wish more than anything, when a child of mine asks if we can do a special activity, I could say YES, and let dinner wait, and let the laundry wait, and that the crying babies would cooperate. YES, I want to play with aquasand and playdough too! Yes, I want to win at candyland and fill up the coloring books. So why do I not spend more time doing these simple little things with my children when they ask? Why is it so easy to get tangled up in the everydays, and so hard to see the sorrow in their eyes?

I don't know what Tristan's future holds for her, I hope everyday for the best possible life for her, yet a little sliver of me is prepared to do it all again on a moment's notice. So I try to love my children a little more, and let them mix the brownies (even though it tears me up inside to relenquish such responsiblity to a 3 year old).

I hope that we'll all slow down and take a look at our life, and be thankful for the many wonderful things we have, for the wonderful people around us, and know that our trials help us to be stronger, and they also enable us to be stronger for those around us.

As if

As in "As if anybody ever even reads this".... whatever. I'm here, writing, blogging, so what. I'll just talk to myself, I've never really understand how people could actually, verbally talk to themselves, it's sorta weird. Creepy. Hhhmm. Anyway, I wanted to post some info and thoughts on here, I don't know, just so they don't get filed in the wrong spot in my brain and then I forget them. Ooh, which reminds me of that Stephen King movie, The DreamCatcher, how he has a whole library filled with files and book shelves of memories and thoughts inside his head. Interesting interpretation.

Anyway... okay, so everyone knows that my feet hurt all the time, and it's even so polite of people to ask me all the time how they are doing, if they are feeling better and what not. I think what people don't realize is my feet aren't going to get better. I'm pretty sure this is how they are going to be forever, and I can figure out a way to deal with them. It's been such a rollercoaster for me, and I really don't like it. I was never one for the dramatic excitement of roller coasters. I've been dealing with these foot problems for nearly 2 years, since approximately the time that Austin was born. I can't remember if it started before he was born or after. I remember that my feet were killing me before he was born, but I think it's easily confused with late pregnancy, so how would you know? But I remember a very specific time that our home teacher and his wife came over to visit just before we were scheduled to deliver and I had been making muffin batter to freeze; like 4 or more batches of muffins, and my feet were KILLING me, so I was sitting at the table amidst messes and messes of muffins, batter, ingredients, etc. That's the only time that I remember my feet incapacitating me before I had our 4th baby.

So, after much trial, tribulation, and a many doctor visits, wrong diagnosis, many medications, several weeks of physical therapy, weird chiropractic treatments with lingering athletic tape on my legs, stretches, exercise, ice, shoes, supports, pads, shots, steroids.... you name it, I've tried it. It's recently occurred to me that now after all these treatments I can tell the difference between two different medical conditions I have. I definitely have Plantar fasciitis, so when people see me limping around, it's because my left heel is killing me, and I think I'd rather die then stand on it. The other condition has remained a mystery, but I think I am near solving it. After my podiatrist recently suggested the next step is to have surgery in each foot and to clip part of the tendon and arch, I decided I should keep digging on the internet. Now I know that surgery is still probably in my future, but there's something else wrong with me. I found a condition called Erythermalgia, and I found a fabulous explanation of it as well.

Erythromelalgia is a rare syndrome in which arterioles of the skin dilate periodically, causing a burning pain, making the skin feel hot, and making the feet and, less often, the hands turn red. Usually, the cause of erythromelalgia is unknown. In such cases, the disorder tends to start when people are in their 20s or older. A rare hereditary form of erythromelalgia starts at birth or during childhood. Less commonly, the disorder is related to the use of some drugs, such as nifedipine Some Trade Names PROCARDIA (an antihypertensive) or bromocriptine Some Trade Names PARLODEL (a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease). It also occurs in people who have certain blood disorders (myeloproliferative disorders), high blood pressure, venous insufficiency, diabetes mellitus, systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus), rheumatoid arthritis, lichen sclerosus, gout, spinal cord disorders, or multiple sclerosis. Erythromelalgia usually develops 2 to 3 years before the underlying disorder is diagnosed. Symptoms include burning pain in the feet or hands, which feel hot and appear red. Attacks are usually triggered by environmental temperatures of over 84° F (over about 29° C). Symptoms may remain mild for years or may progress and become completely incapacitating. Diagnosis is based on the symptoms and the increase in skin temperature. Tests, such as blood cell counts, are usually done to help identify a cause. Treatment includes resting, elevating the legs or arms, and applying cold packs to the legs or arms or immersing them in cold water. These measures sometimes relieve symptoms or prevent attacks. If no underlying disorder is identified, aspirin Some Trade Names BAYER or gabapentin Some Trade Names NEURONTIN may relieve symptoms. However, aspirin Some Trade Names BAYER does not relieve symptoms for the form that starts at birth or during childhood. If an underlying disorder is identified, treating that disorder may relieve symptoms

So after I found this great new information, I wanted to rush in to the neurologist and present my findings and see if I got it right! I was able to schedule an appointment with a doctor in town that has gotten fabulous online ratings, I was so excited to get a second opinion. Except I needed to take my 2 kids with me, but that was no big deal, it was jsut going to be a consultation. But then my other two kids stayed home from school sick, but I thought that was okay too, they are the nicer ones. So I took them all. I mean, I had very well taken them all with me, to the same practice a year prior when I happened to see one of the other doctors there. So we went, and then after going into the patient room and having my vitals checked, and waiting that awful 10 minutes before the Dr. arrives... the nurse returns to tell me that the doctor is unable to see me, and I will need to reschedule for a time that I have more suitable child care. I was crushed. Livid. Wanted to cry. Wanted to scream. What did I do instead? I smiled, a bit confused, but smiled and said okay, I guess?

I called today to reschedule that appointment and the woman whom I spoke with Refused to schedule it for me, saying that I wasn't allowed to switch doctors within the practice. Man, that line jsut REALLY gets to me, I've heard it from other practices before and I can't stand it!! Anyway, I wasn't happy, then she got a little snippy at me, and then when I got off the phone I cried. Ya, it's true, I cried. Man, I am so beyond tired of chasing a diagnosis, it is exhausting. It's this big dramatic cycle that turns into a cry-fest when I finally break because I'm so frustrated with it all.

So, in the end, here I am, no appointment scheduled, convinced I have some unearthly heard of disease that there is no cure for, and I still somehow find a little comfort in knowing that there are some therapies I could try but am baffled at why the DOCTORS --you know, those people that wear white lad coats, that go to school forever, that are supposed to be smart and make lots of money and fix people-- why don't they know what's wrong with me? Why do I even have to exhaust Google's search efforts. He's getting tired of searching how many different ways you can write a question using the word Erythermalgia. Ya people, it's long, and weird looking. But I'm convinced that's what I've got, and until somebody can diagnose me as any different, I guess I shall start self medicating.

** If any person has actually made it this far in the reading, you must ber very interested in my condition, or intrigued with my feet, or just find what I have to say awe-inspring... cuz seriously, I doubt I'LL even re-read this, it's probably boring as all get out. Oh ya, so do you think I can sue the doctor for discriminating against me because I was a mom?

My daughters are genii

Yep. It's the truth. In fact, they are so genuis, that they have now graduated early, before even exiting the first grade. It truly is amazing!

Alright, whatev, we all know that ain't the truth, so what gives with the photos? The elementary school is doing some sort of dream board project, where they are supposed to make a collage of things they "dream" of, Madison wanted to take a picture in that "graduation thingy" so, I busted out the ol' cap and gown and took some pictures of them. It was kinda fun!

The Truth comes out

I guess I don't have "Cousin IT" as a daughter after all. She just turns into "Cousin IT" if she's not properly bribed with boat-loads of candy. Ya, they sell them in boat-loads.

Anyhoo, on to the good stuff:





This photo card was made especially to give to some of Tristan's doctors that we make follow up visits too. Her cardiologist has a huge board of all the hear kids, and he asked for a pic, saying that it's comforting to future parents and families that come through that their child too will overcome this time in their life, and return to being beautiful, healthy, normal kids. I was glad to make it.

The rest of these pictures, are just luck of the draw that I got a good one. The little stiniker would only smile when I told her that Austin was a girl. Yep, she thought that was the funniest thing, because she knew that he most definitely is not a girl!

I'm actually really glad to have taken these photos, for my own keeping. it's such a beautiful way to remember how proud we are of that little scar on that little girl. I'm sure she will grow up and always be embarassed and self-conscious about it showing, but nothing will ever change for me. I will always see that scar as something beautiful. It means my daughter is a fighter. It's odd to have something so visual to serve as a reminder of all that she's been through, and how special she is to us, and how lucky we are to have her as part of our family.

I know I have posted this poem before, but I really think that it should accompany this picture.

The Day I Became a Heart Mother
One day my world came crashing down,
I'll never be the same.
They told me that my child was sick.
I thought, "Am I to blame"?
I don't think I can handle this.
I am really not that strong.
It seemed my heart was breaking.
I have loved her for so long.

I will not give up on this child.
I will listen to your advice.
I will give my child any chance.
No matter what the price.
I will learn all that I need to help my child thrive.
I'll even use that feeding tube.
My child must survive!

Will she need a lot of therapy?
Will she gain the needed weight?
Please God, help me do this.
I will accept our fate.

When the monitors beep at night, it serves as my reminder.
How many parents would love that sound.
Tomorrow I will be kinder.
As another Angel earns his wings,
I run to my child's bed.
I watch her sleep for quite a while.
I bend down and kiss her head.
I cry for the parents whose hearts have been broken.
I look to You wondering why?
Oh Lord, I just can't know your ways....no matter how I try.

And yet, I trust you hold her life, and guide us through each day.
My mind says savor each moment she's here,
But my heart begs, "PLEASE let her stay"!

From pacing the surgical waiting room, to sitting by her bed.
From wishing for a good night’s sleep, to learning every med.
From wondering, "Will she be alright?", to watching her reach out her hands.
With every smile my heart just melts, despite life's harsh demands.

For all who see that faded line.
I look to them and smile.
You see my child is loved so much.
I would face ANY trial.
That scar I trace with my finger (It's the door to her beautiful heart).
God must have known how much I'd love her (Just as He loved her from the start).

A heart mom is always a heart mom.
Now wise beyond her years.
For those who have angels in heaven,
Our hearts share in all of your tears.

Every day I will try and remember,
I was chosen for her (and no other).
I will always embrace that beautiful day.......
When I became a "Heart Mother".

- Author Unknown

sweetHEART

Oh man, this little girl is just PACKED full of personality!! I have been wanting to take a picture of her heart scar for memorabilia, but also to give a picture to some of her doctors. They hang them up on their board so future parents facing the same thing can see that children live past this, and grow up to be quite normal little children. So this, is our attempt. she hated that tu-tu, it was itchy. she hated me taking pictures of her, it's embarassing. she started thrashing around, and unfortunately this was the ONLY picture I took before my camera batteries died! So I now have a picture of an adorable "Cousin IT", with a courageous heart scar. Ugh, I don't know what I'm gonna do with this girl! I may try again, and if not, atleast her identity will be protected while having her picture hanging in a Doctor's Office!