Staying busy

This summer is flying by and we are trying our best to take advantage of it before the cold dreadful winter gets here. I know we still have quite awhile until then. It has been hard doing much else besides being in the water since it is so hot and humid. I took the kids swimming a few days ago and it was so much fun. Matthew kept diving away from me in the little pool as I tried to squirt him with a squirt gun; he is getting so brave. We went to the big pool and Matthew amazed me; he was swimming a few feet all by himself. It wasn't the best form but he was doing it and was loving it as was I. Taylor and I cheered and clapped for him and he was so proud.

I was in the kitchen one morning doing dishes from the day before :( when I came into the living room to see this. They had made beds for everyone including me (on the very left) and Taylor's baby (on the right). Matthew even had the right pillows for each person.

I grabbed a rubber band to get Taylor's hair out of her face and decided to try the side ponytail. Her expressions in these pictures just kill me. The second picture is my favorite. She looks like such a little goof/nerd. So funny!!

Taylor kept trying to be like Matthew by jumping and diving and lets just say she swallowed a lot of water. Taylor is always trying to be bigger and older than she is. She thinks she can keep right up with Matthew and the big kids. Matthew and his boy friends tell her often that she is a baby and can't do certain things. Taylor does not like that very much. Taylor is talking so well it just amazes me. She speaks full sentences and you actually can understand her very well. Her and Matthew can play so well together sometimes because they just talk back and forth.

Glen's Mom has been such a help lately coming down and brought us such a great dinner the other night. Matthew and Taylor surprised me with the way they ate these ribs.

We finally got a hose and a sprinkler to use in our yard. I always say I can't wait to have a yard but we really do have one. It is not fenced and we do share it with the other people in our townhome but it is a yard. We are the only ones usually out on the lawn anyway. I do watch them closely with the road and driveways but they are both pretty good about staying on the grass and sidewalk. It's nice to be able to step right out our door and do sidewalk chalk or eat lunch on the grass.

Matthew was trying to help Taylor into the sprinkle and she ran out pretty quick. She said it was too cold!

A wonderful day with my favorite people

We went to the zoo last Saturday and it really was the perfect day. It wasn't too hot or humid!! We were able to have Glen the whole day all to ourselves which is very rare. A lot of our pictures look a little blurry and I hope it was just that we were using the timer on a rock and not that our camera is dying.

I love how curious kids are. You can't ever walk very fast anywhere because they have to stop and check everything out.

Taylor's smile is just the cutest thing ever in the picture below. Such a cheeser!

hard to share

This is something I wrote in my journal and decided to share. I am not exactly sure why because I usually do not like to get this personal on my blog but I decided to this time. It is not because I want every ones sympathy; I guess I just want people to know how I really feel sometimes since I don't talk about my health a lot or at least not to that many people. Please forgive all the spelling and crazy mistakes. I wrote this fast and didn't try too hard to write it correctly. I copied this out of my journal so it kind of jumps right into things. I am finally writing about this in my journal 9 months later.oops

Written: August 1, 2010
"but I am frustrated a lot and down and discussing how I am feeling with him (which I don't do with many others) and it just feels like there is always this big weight on me. I can't truly be my confident, easy going, happy self all of the time. In my defense, overall, I think I have handled things really well. I happily take care of the kids even though I am tired and don't feel good. I stay busy going to things during the week with friends and for the kids and do it wtih a smiling face. I hide how I really feel pretty well and maybe that is a bad thing but I am happy and I do try to stay positive and I do that a lot of the time. But always deep down there is the feelings of doubt, fear, anger, and sadness. I want to be well, I want to not be scared all of the time with what is wrong with me or what new symptoms might pop up. It's hard and I feel so strongly that if I was not sick anymore I would never take things for granted and be a better wife and mother and just be so happy. I would be able to deal with the occasional sickness, or dealing with Matthew's asthma, or little life stresses so much better and just be grateful. I know I should be learning from this now and try to be a better wife and mother while going through this hard time but it is hard. I am trying but I do feel I have lost some of me through this. I have gained many things yes, like I said before Iam grateful for the little things and am so grateful that I can still be with my kids everyday and take care of them by myself and take them to the park. I guess I will share what is going on. I know I said I would talk about the positive first but it's just coming out so here we go.
On October 28th I went to Bowling Green Ohio to take the kids to get their H1N1 vaccine. I was very worried about it because of all the media hype and that people had died and this and that. With Matthew having asthma and his increased risk I was especially worried so we finally found a place that was giving the vaccine and drove one hour to go wait in line for hours to get it. I also ended up being able to get the vaccine. About 20 minutes later as I was driving home my arm started tingling. I was talking to Glen on the phone and said my arm just felt asleep. It was kind of weird and when I got home it started in my other arm and down my legs. And from that day on, it has not gone away. I freaked out!!!! I thought I was getting Gian Barre like my mom got a couple years ago. The symptoms started out so similar and I have never been so scared in my life. It was the worst feelings I have ever had. I called my parents that next day and cried. We watched things really close and especially watched for weakness which I couldn't tell if I was a little sore or if it was weakness. We contemplated flying me right out to Idaho to do this treatment from a naturpath but we ended up not.Those weeks were so hard on all of us. Glen was on his pediatrics rotation and I was calling him and paging him and we were tryng to decide what to do. He ended up not doing as well as he would have liked in that rotation for sure. I felt tired and my body felt funny all over. I didn't do a whole lot for those first couple of weeks because I think my body was in shock. I don't know if I got a little better or if I just have gotten used to the tingling. I also have pain which is the worst part of it. I feel I am more used to the tingling but I still don't like it. My feet are the most painful, it just hurts to walk, they feel so soar. I don't want to give all the details but things went up and down all the time. I would say for the first couple of months things stayed the same but then they started getting worse and new symptoms popped up all the time.
Here is a list:
achy arms and legs
antsy and painful hands, arms, back, shoulders, neck
At one point my back and neck hurt so bad and i tried a chiropractor which made it worse
muscle aches (hurts to touch the outside of my thighs, sometimes happens after I walk like for exercise.
sudden heartburn and worse stomach pain then normally have
ear aches and felt weird to swallow
most recent is the worst headaches everyday most of the day (they hurt center in forehead and my eyes are so affected-it's hard to move my eyes without them hurting)
shooting, sharp pains through arms, hands, neck, and feet
fatigue, tired a lot
sinus pain and pressure
sharp pains around my ovaries (having this now) OB did ultrasound and not a cyst
pain in left flank (back) worried it could be kidney stones (having right now)
blurry vision
diarrhea
tingling and painful around spine
PAIN PAIN PAIN sometimes it feels like there is no part of my body that hasn't gone untouched from this.
So I obviously have seen doctors (family doctor, neurologist, ENT, gastroenterologist)
What we have found......almost nothing. I got into the family doctor and neurologist pretty quickly afterwards and they ruled out Giane Barre because i wasn't having the progression of symptoms or weakness. My neurological exams always come back fine. Nerve test to test for damage in the nerves both came back normal. Blood tests..all normal, MRI to rule out MS came back normal. YEAH!!! all of these things good but somehow still not reassuring me that it isn't MS (my biggest fear) I have read it is hard to diagnose and one test doesn't always show it. I try not to think about that because a lot of the symptoms are just to similar. They did a EDG of my stomach and found inflammation (reason for heartburn) related or not I don't know but still having the heartburn and on medicine for it. A cat scan was done of my sinuses and they found narrowing/inflammation or chronic sinusitis. I don't get tons of infections but I have pressure and pain on my nose and around even when I am not sick at all (like a cold). They wanted to do surgery but we have now decided to wait for multiple reasons. I said so my prayers of thanks after we were pretty sure I didn't have giane barre. My biggest fear was to not be able to walk and take care of my sweet kids. I just hugged and kissed them all day everyday when we were still unsure. I just saw what my Mom went through and new that would be the worst thing to have to do with two young kids. I know I would get help but it would just tear me up not being able to do all of the things I would want to for my kids. So I am grateful, very grateful. I get frustrated and I ask those questions of why me, give me a break. I get more frustrated and my faith dwindles a little when I keep getting more and more symptoms on top of the usual ones. Symptoms that are worse than the feet pain. It was a hard winter but I started walking more and I guess just dealing with the pain. My feet didn't cramp up anymore so bad and I was able to go to walking group. This helped me so much to be able to exercise a little although sometimes it makes me feel worse after doing it. I just feel halfway normal again. The most frustrating is knowing nothing and the doctors know nothing. I am going to be switching doctors soon because I feel my doctors are done trying and thinking of things that this could be or tests to run. I say run every test and try everything. I am only 25 years old.....you can't tell me to just live with this, I can't. I am living with it but I am not giving up. It's hard because people don't really know what I am going through and I look completely normal. Sometimes I feel like the doctor doesn't take me seriously sometimes because I look too good. Mom says I need to go in and be really dramatic and maybe I should have makeup running down my face and my hair all messed up. Take away the stomach problems, the CRAZY headaches, the sinus pressure, and the back and neck pain and I feel like I would be doing so good and dealing with things so well. Leave me with just the tingling and pain in the feet, hands, legs, ect. and I would be happier. It would still suck but sometimes those things are even worse. I just want to be able to walk and run without hurting so bad. I want to lose weight and I just can't because I can't work out a whole lot and not much more than walking. So for now I guess I try to be patient and not worry so much and pray...pray a lot! I am so blessed (saying this with tears rolling down the face). I have the gospel, a wonderful loving husband who is my best friend, two beautiful and happy children who make me so happy, and families that love me and also pray for me constantly. Faith is a hard thing...I sometimes feel my faith is very strong but then I am reminded that people have to go through really hard things and that our Heavenly Father doesn't always take them away, young kids get cancer and don't get better, little children lose their parents in car crashes, and many other things like that. Is this something I will have as one of my trials in life forever, I don' t know. I can't really plead to my Heavenly Father and say "I have learned, now please heal me." That doesn't always happen but I do believe that I have to have faith and hope that I will get better. I just have to believe I will."