Shifting Gears

So I've been in a nasty flare up, since June. For whatever reason, my endometriosis has been pissing everything off in my pelvis. It makes it difficult and uncomfortable to sleep, so naturally that leads to a flare up of my fibromyalgia. Now there's pain from my fibro, which also makes it difficult to sleep, which leads to... more pain. It's a nasty cycle, and because of my endo involvement, I'm having a hell of a time breaking out of it. Even my physical therapist and neurologist are getting frustrated by this.

I've been in denial, somewhat, about the length and severity of this flare up. I finally realized the other day that so many of my recent daily frustrations stem from the fact that I'm trying to live like I'm NOT in a flare up. So I realized that I need to retool things, down shift to help me get through this. I know that there have been relationships I've been neglecting, and it hasn't been personal, it's been an attempt to save my energy for other things. And unfortunately, there's going to be a lot more of that for the time being.

The good news is that I feel like I have finally reached the bottom of the pit of despair, which means there's only one direction left to go, up! This past weekend was difficult. I had a treatment in the doctor's office on Friday which at first seemed promising, but then seems to have failed. I was also given an increased dosage of one of my medications, which the cost of is now astronomical. I can afford it, but I choose not to spend an absurd amount of money on it (what I had been paying for a three month supply is now the cost of only one month). Luckily, Jeff realized that I was stuck in this pit and threw down a ladder and climbed in after me. I think I'm going to be able to make it out, again. Because that's what you do when you live with chronic illness, you keep climbing out of the same pit, over and over gain, because you have to.

Self care is important, be well!

The Quiet Time Bag

          Four o'clock in the afternoon seems to be the witching hour around here. Luke is usually down for a nap. Doug and I have typically just finished his homework. I am usually exhausted by this point in the day, but need to start making dinner soon. And Doug is usually full of energy and wants to yell and run around the house. In case you don't live in the DC metro, we've had over two consecutive weeks of rain, so throwing Doug into the yard hasn't been an option much. I ended up losing what little control I had left with Doug by this point in the afternoon. After several days of this, I thought to myself, "I can do better. WE can do better." I just needed for inspiration to strike, and it did.

                                                

    I give you: The Quiet Time Bag. It. Is. Awesome. I'm really not over selling it. I found some things that Doug can do QUIETLY, in his room, for about half an hour. Thirty minutes is enough time that I can regroup, take a brief break, and start dinner. Jeff typically walks in the door not too long after, which is a huge help.
Anyway, in the bag we have a note, Colorforms, secret market reveal pads, sticker books, Spirograph, coloring pages, blank pages bound together in a binder (he loves this, for some reason). Doug loves the bag. He will ask for it all the time. I try to limit its use to those afternoon times and Saturday mornings. We already had some of those things (paper, Colorforms) and some I bought in the dollarish section of Target. I save some things to put in later and plan to rotate things in and out so Doug doesn't get bored.

The note I included:

 

I also made a sign to put up by the baby gate. You can see what Doug thought of it:


 

So far, I'm pretty happy with how the Quiet Time Bag is working out. I 'll have to keep it interesting to keep his attention, but I'm happy he's doing something creative. And most importantly, I'm glad he can be quiet and I don't have to yell.

Things I Care Passionately About

So, being pregnant I've discovered some things that I apparently care very passionately about, to the point of tears:

1. Raspberry Lemonade. I was trying to kick my soda habit and looking forward to making some raspberry lemonade and having a glass in the evening. I had bought two cans of mix at the store a few days ago in preparation. Fast forward to that evening, I could not find the cans of mix. I tore the house apart, looked in the car, everywhere. I'm guessing that pregnancy brain took over at the store and I left the bag with the mix in it there. Jeff comes in and tells me he'll get some tomorrow. I naturally began bawling because I had been looking forward to it ALL DAY. Jeff ended up making an 11 o'clock trip to WalMart to get some more. Life was good again.

2. Clean sheets. Every week of our marriage, on Sunday nights, Jeff and I always have the same discussion; "It's time to change the sheets, Jeff." "But we just changed them last week.". Every week for 7 years. It gets old. Anyway, the previous week we had to change the sheets on Wednesday. Doug had come in our room in the middle of the night because he had wet his bed. His shorts were wet and he was leaning up against the side of the bed. So the next morning, I changed our sheets too. I was willing to let the sheets stay on longer than normal because they were changed midweek. And I was tired as hell. So the next Saturday the sheets had been on our bed for a week and a half now. It was late and we had to get up early for church the next day, but I was really looking forward to sleeping on nice, clean sheets that night. Jeff, as usual, shared his resistance to the idea of changing the sheets. Being tired and hormonal, I couldn't take it anymore and burst into tears. Over sheets. It was one of those situations in which you're crying about something, but at the same time you know it's absolutely ridiculous. So naturally I start laughing while I'm crying. Anyway, it was effective, because we got the damn sheets changed.

3. Infant carrier car seats. After yesterday's ob appointment, I dragged Jeff to the baby supply store to check  out infant car seats. I hated Doug's with the fire of 1000 suns. It was heavy, clunky, awkward. My legs looked like bananas gone bad they were so bruised from the damn carrier knocking into them. I had seen these carriers when Doug was an infant with different shaped handles that allowed the parent schlepping the baby to hold the carrier in a more natural position. I don't know why, but no one seems to make them like that anymore. Anyway, the store had one model like this and the buckle was made out of plastic, not metal. We were disappointed. Then I started looking at all the carriers, trying to find one that weighed the least in the hopes that that would be helpful. They all weighed between 8 and 9 lbs. So, last night we dug out the old carrier and weighed it. It weighed 7.4 lbs. LESS than all the 'light weight models'. I burst into tears. It was like being told that the thing that felt like an Albatross around your neck was actually a Cardinal, so you should be grateful. The thing of it is is that because I have fibro, I tire easily. I get sore more easily and it takes longer to recover. So being told that the thing I already thought was unmanageable is actually lighter than any of the others was a bit crushing.

Jeff managed to calm me down. Part of it was that I was started to get sick when Doug was two months old, and it was just so hard to leave the house. He reminded me that this time we know what we're dealing with so I can get the meds to treat my fibro faster this time. He also reminded me that it took me a while to realize that I'd save energy by getting a combo diaper bag purse instead of carrying one of each. I have my eye on a Vera baby bag that also converts into a backpack. I'm also thinking of getting one of those snap and go dealie strollers for the car seat. So I have options, we just need to be creative about them.

I can't wait, and I'm sure Jeff agrees, for this hormonal roller coaster to be over!

Ps, Sarah Mclachlan, if I see your face on tv, consider the channel being switched!

Ebb & Flow

The past eight or nine months of being off of my fibromyalgia medications has been a learning experience. I'm still feeling around for my limits of pain and fatigue and unfortunately, that changes throughout the month making things more complicated than need be. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely good reasons for me to be off my medication. Overall, I'm less fatigued than I had been. I've had a decrease of other side effects as well. It has just taken me a long time to get to know my fibro in this new situation.

Every so often, I go through this internal struggle with my illness. I begin to wonder if I do actually need to limit my activities because of the fibro. I wonder if it's actually the illness that is limiting or it's my own perception of the illness. Basically I wonder, am I lazy or am I sick? And so then I go and do something not really wise.

Last week, I skipped my crash day. It had been a really busy weekend and I rested a bit that Monday, but I thought that Tuesday I could just get up and get on with the things I'd like to do that day. That Tuesday I was fine. Unfortunately, that Wednesday, Jeff's car became compromised and it was old enough and broken enough that it was better to replace it than fix it. Which led to one very long day at a car dealership buying a car and then another long afternoon the next day bringing in our old car to trade in. Basically, I probably would have been okay that week, if not for the emergency. But this week I'm still trying to pick myself back up after a rather long last week, and I wonder how things would have turned out if I'd taken my day to rest.

So that's sort of where my mind set has been the past several weeks. I am tired. I do rationally know that it's due to being ill, but it's still difficult to really wrap my head around that. I am excited and a bit nervous about some new responsibilities and activities I've taken on and will be taking on. Some of them will be short term and other a bit long term. I love being able to get out of the house and interact with other people. I miss trouble shooting, and I'm definitely getting the ability to do it now!

So for now I've decided I'm going to be cautious, but still try new things. Push my limits a bit here and there. Just keep swimming!

I'm a Monster

I've been microwaving this adorable bear. The bear looks kind of depressed sitting on the plate there. I found these bears around Christmas. You can nuke the bears and they have corn in them which gives off a nice moist heat for aches. I bought one for a friend of mine and I thought about buying one for myself, but at the time, I decided I wouldn't really need it.

Anyway, this is my first winter since my fibromyalgia diagnosis that I have not been taking medication for it. I didn't really think anything of it, but apparently the colder temperatures mean that I ache much more than usual. After several night of hauling the heating pad into bed with me, I gave in and purchased one of these delightful bears.

Doug was very excited when he saw the Amazon box on our porch the other day. The last time we got a package, it had Beta Bet in it, so he was hopeful for another fun thing. I made the mistake of telling him there was a bear in the box. We opened it and Doug claimed the bear for himself. I told him that he could play with it, but that it was mine. I told him that it was a special bear that I could put it in the microwave and it would help me feel better. That just freaked Doug out, "NOOOO DON'T MICROWAVE THE BEAR!!!".  So alas, I feel like a horrible person every time I nuke it. Well, I feel horrible until I put the bear on my shoulder, then I feel much better.

New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

I like the new year. It feels fresh and full of promise.  This year I'll turn 30, in a few weeks, in fact. I'm not sure yet how I feel about that. I've been telling my husband that I've lived most of my adult life in my 20s (think about that, it's TRUE) so being 30, is.... different. Probably not bad different but just different. Jeff will be 33 this year, so he's already done the '30 thing'. My biggest apprehension about getting older has to do with the fact that in my 20s I acquired two (TWO!) chronic illnesses. I know as I age, my risk for more only goes up.

Along with many other people, I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions. All the ones I've come up with pretty much boil down to one thing: do healthier things for myself and my family.

 For example, this is unhealthy and pretty stupid:

That is a picture of my diaper bag. With all the contents there, plus Doug's sippy cup, the bag weighs close to 12 lbs. TWELVE POUNDS. Twelve pounds on my shoulder every time we leave the house. I don't have to tell you that this is bad. It's bad for anyone, but horrendously bad for someone with fibro. I was able to pare it down to 9/10 lbs. I wanted it closer to 8. Next week I'm going to go look at Vera Bradley's 'Mom's day out' bags to see if that would better fit our needs. The diaper bag plus Doug means occasionally I'm carrying 40 lbs. Yes. 

In other fibro related resolutions, I've decided that I'm allowed to say 'no' to things. I'm allowed to say 'no' to things that I feel are going to over tax me. It probably won't happen much, but saying 'no' more means saying 'yes' more to Doug. 'Yes, we can go to the park' 'Yes, I'll get out of bed right away' 'Yes, I'll play with you' 'Yes, I'll make dinner now'. So please don't be offended if I say 'no' to you.

I've also decided that I'm allowed to wear sneakers all the time. I have TONS of gorgeous, lovely heels in my closet that I haven't worn for years (mostly because I'm getting smarter). I've found that if I wear heels, I will spend the next day in agony. The muscles in my calves do not remember how to relax well; they need the support of sneakers. I do have some nice flats I can wear from time to time. I've also found that low wedge heels are acceptable for a while. Don't worry Erin; I won't wear crocs or sneakers to your wedding! I shall be cleaning out my closet soon though.

I also want to change the way we eat. I obviously am going to try to include more fresh fruits and veggies in our meals. I feel that when I cook, we do eat fairly healthy things. However, when I don't cook, we don't eat so healthfully. Unfortunately when I don't feel well, which happens from time to time, making dinner is the last thing I want to do. So we go out or grab some fast food or order in. My goal this year is to reduce the number of times we do that. I plan to go through my recipes and find things that will freeze well. I can make double one night for dinner and freeze the rest. That way when I'm having a flare up, we can just defrost a nice homemade dinner. I did a similar thing when I was pregnant with Doug, and we had some nice dinners to have when Doug was a newborn. I also want to make more soup. Mostly because homemade soup is delicious.

I also plan to do completely crazy, off the wall things this year. Absurd things like eat breakfast AND lunch. Drink more water. I've decided to set my exercise goal to be one aerobic activity a week (chasing Doug through the store with a huge cart won't count, but it sorta counts). Once a week sounds low, but with the fibro, I want to slowly increase exercise. I'd also like to start yoga again. See the insanity?

What are your New Year's resolutions?

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

The Sanctity of Tuesday

You know the opening scene in 'The Emperor's New Groove', where the old man gets in the way of the song and dance number and Emperor Kuzco throws a hissy because his 'groove' was thrown off?

That was me last week. Except I wasn't yelling at a little old man, but at the government.* You see, doing nothing on Tuesdays is totally a thing around here. Going to vote is definitely a thing. A thing that totally threw me off my groove. Voting is something that involves me not wearing my PJs and dragging Doug with me and standing in a looooong line. All things I hate doing (except the being with Doug part). I did try to vote early, but believe it or not, the line was worse. At any rate, I was able to drop Doug off at my parents' house and then go vote. Missions exasperatedly accomplished.

I take Tuesdays off, they are my crash days. I take this very seriously. Well, as seriously as you can take something when you sit around in your PJs for most of the day. Let me explain the origin of the 'Crash Day'. Having a few chronic illnesses makes me a tired person. Most people who know me well, will hear my say "I'm tired" about 673 times a day. Doug even knows this. He'll look at me and say, "Mommy's tired."** At any rate, when the fatigue starts to build up, the pain will too. Such that when I know I've over done it, my muscles will begin to twitch as sort of an early warning system (which is occasionally too late to do anything about it). I have found through experience that if I ignore these sign and keep on going about my business during the week, I crash unexpectedly. By setting aside one day a week in which I don't need to leave the house, let alone get dressed, I save a lot of energy and restore myself. Its kind of like when firefighters are fighting a forest fire and they set their own fires to prevent the blaze from spreading. By intentionally taking it easy once a week, I prevent most other fatigue crashes. It's brilliant.

Monday was  my day to crash for a while. We're usually busy on weekends, running errands, fun outings and going to church. Mondays I was tired, so it was a natural day for me to take it easy. Then Doug's story time at the library moved from Wednesday to Monday. I realized I could hold off my crash day for one more day and the Tuesday Crash day was born.

Crash day is a wonderful thing. I do look forward to it every week. On Tuesday morning, I permit myself the luxury of letting Doug watch a DVD, by himself. Doug will wake up, and then I'll change him and dress him and fix him something easy and non-messy for breakfast. He'll usually have dry cereal (for whatever reason, he's not big on milk in his cereal), toast or a cereal bar and some milk. I will then turn on a DVD of his choice, usually Olivia or Thomas, and then go back to my room, leave the door partially open, and then lay down for about an hour. Occasionally Doug decides to be the world's most persistent snooze alarm, and come in about every twenty minutes or so. Sometimes he comes in because he wants something, or he needs a snuggle or he just wants to check in. Either way, I'm totally fine with that. Then I'll get up, Doug and I will hang out, I'll make him some lunch, and then it's nap-time for him and more relax time for me. He'll usually nap until the second shift, Jeff, gets home. I usually have something quick ready for dinner on Tuesdays, or Jeff will make something. It's really amazing what a difference taking it easy once a week can make!




*In my defense, albeit for different reasons, I probably wasn't the only one yelling at the government last week.  

**Over the summer when I had a bad flare up, he looked at me and said that, and then told me to go lay down. How can I argue with that? 

Reset

The summer has just flown by! I have to say, I'm glad it's done and almost fall. Summer is always a bit tough, I seem to be more prone to fibro flare ups, and indeed I had a nasty one in July. Just as I got over that, my thyroid decided to join in the fun too! I was worried about our trip, but my doctor was able to diagnose my low thyroid just in time! We went out to Kansas City for the last week of the summer. It was nice to visit with my in-laws and Doug always loves seeing them. I feel that we were really able to get potty training well under way while we were there, with four adults watching Doug, he was taken to the bathroom quite a bit. But we got to relax and more importantly get out of the rut that my illness had set us into. It was very cleansing. I think I'm back on track and I'm totally ready to enjoy my favorite season of the year: Fall!

Until next time, here are some pictures of our Kansas City fun!


This first set of pictures are from Lego Land. Doug asked to go back there just about every day.

In this picture he's helping his Pop-pop make a house out of tissue box sized rubber Legos.


There were small wading pool sized tubs of Legos and Duplos everywhere! They had some farm animals that Doug absolutely loved. However, they didn't have them for sale in the store!


They also had some cute Duplo cupcakes. They only came in pink however, Doug loved them regardless.



After going to Lego Land, my brother-in-law recommend this place for lunch, I think it was called 'Fritz's'. You meal was delivered via train and a basket. Both Doug and Uncle Matt were very excited about this!

Here's a shot of Doug looking at the trolley that went by our table.


Here comes our food on the train!



Doug's great grandmother, Nan, came over from St. Louis to visit with us for a few days. On one nice day, we went fishing. After about 15 minutes, Doug caught a fish. And then he was done.


Unfortunately, this cool park was right by the water, and after he caught his fish, Doug wanted to go slide and play.



The last two days we were there, the remnants of hurricane Isaac caught up to us. There was lots and lots of rain to play in!



The second rainy day we headed up to the mall to wear Doug out before we got him in the car the next day. The mall has this fairly unique two level carrousel.


We all had a good deal of bbq and fun in Kansas City!

It's Friday!

It's finally Friday! I don't know what it's like else where, but here in the D.C. metro, it's been raining on and off all day. I was alerted to the rain a little before 8 this morning. Doug came into my room and announced, "It's RAINING Mommy!!!". It was a little more excitement that I can deal with at that hour of the morning, but I didn't want to rain on his parade, as it was.

It has been a loooong two weeks. A little over two weeks ago, I rolled my foot/ankle coming down our deck steps while carrying a chair. That minor injury sent my fibro into a tailspin and I've been stuck in a lovely little fibro flare up since then. Today is the first day in a while that I was able to promptly get out of bed in the morning. Due to that and the rain, I decided that Doug and I shall bake!

The most serious mind, baking takes. Also country music.

We got off to a bit of a dangerous start. I had left the chocolate morsels on the counter and pushed Doug's chair up to it. I turned my back for a fraction of a second, only to turn around to catch him using the paring knife to open the bag of chocolate! I freaked out a bit checking his hand for cuts, which upset him. I usually let him sample some of the chocolates, but because he was upset I let him sample more than was practical for making chocolate chip cookies. I ended up opening a bag of peanut butter chips and making chocolate and peanut butter cookies instead. They turned out to be quite delicious! I attempted to get a picture of Doug eating the cookies, but no dice. But believe me he's enjoying them while watching Cars.

It's the perfect day to cuddle up on the couch with some cookies and a movie! Happy Friday!

Summer Time!

This summer kind of feels like a manual car being driven by some one who has no idea how to drive stick (like me). It goes on quite well for a while, and then stalls out. We started out the summer with a cold that Doug brought us and that took me forever to get over. Then we had a fantastic time at the wedding of one of Jeff's frat brothers in North Carolina. Then we got slammed by the Great Land Hurricane of '12 and lost power for nearly 6 days. We've been playing around with my fibro medication as well, which has given me mixed results. We're very excited about going out to Kansas City at the end of the summer.

Due to a lack of energy and a lot of time to make up for, here's a ton of pictures of our summer so far, one picture being worth a thousand words and what not.

This is a picture of the sign that hung in every stall in the bathroom of the wedding reception we went to. The reception was on a lovely pier that is evidently trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible. For example, the toilets used 'reclaimed' water, so they thought this sign was necessary:

So you know, stay out of the toilet because of the reclaimed water, not because it's a toilet. Funny side note, you couldn't go into the bathroom without hearing people snapping pictures of this sign.


This is a picture of Jeff and me at the reception. We had a great time, it was our first trip away without Doug (just two nights). Initially I was a little apprehensive about going to the wedding of one of the frat brothers, but due to the heavy presence of the wives, all the guys were on their best behavior and I didn't see anymore of them then most people (no odd nudity).




Here's some random pictures of backyard fun:

Catching lightning bugs!

Hanging out in our inflatable pool.

In June we were supposed to go to the baptism of my friend's son. I lost the invitation and we wound up at the wrong church and completely missed the event. The reception was to be held at a park, and the whole time Doug kept asking from the backseat "Park? Park?". We finally decided to head home, get changed and head out to Wheaton Park. Why not make some lemonade? Doug had a blast but kept on asking about seeing his friend Nora (the big sister of the baptized). I had to keep telling him that mommy was the flake and not Nora. Doug managed to have a pretty good time anyway.

The train ride is very serious business!

The 4th of July turned out to be another one of those happy accidents. We'd left my Uncle's house early because Doug was getting cranky and we knew he wouldn't sleep there. We drove my Grandma back to her place and Doug slept the whole time. He got about an hour and a half worth of sleep in the car. When we pulled into our drive way I realized that the city's fireworks were about to start in 40 minutes. We hurried up, ran into the house and re-provisioned and headed out to find a spot to watch the fireworks. We ended up in a parking lot across the lake, the perfect distance to see the fireworks without them being too loud. We were also at an easy exit to go home without fighting too much traffic. If we had planned it we couldn't have done a better job!


Doug was enthralled with the fireworks. He can be iffy about loud noises, so we were prepared to leave if we needed to. He only cried when they were over, he wanted more!

The weekend before last was supposed to be gorgeous, no rain and in the low 80's.We took Doug on his first trip downtown and on his first Metro trip. Of course it misted on us all day, but I'll take that over 100 degrees.

Our first stop was the American History Museum, the transportation section. Here Doug is rather excitedly pointing to a truck.



We also saw the dinosaurs at Natural History. Here is one very tired little boy passed out on the Metro ride home:



Til next time!

Off and Running

I think the title should be more like 'Off and Walking' or 'Off and Strolling' but I thought the one I chose looked better. Anyway, we're a week into the New Year and life is going well. I love the holidays, but I'm glad they're over. I like it when our schedule relaxes and things can go back to normal. We do have a bit of a birthday blitz in the next two months, but that's not as crazy or as all consuming as the holidays can be.

I've started feeling better. I do tend to do better with my fibro in the winter. It's something about the heat that tends to increase my level of fatigue. Conversely, my hypothyroidism tends to get worse in the cold months, my thyroid's activity tends to decrease and I experience more aches in my joints. I'd rather be dealing with thyroid issues then fibro ones as the thyroid is relatively easy to fix. I've also been off of Lyrica for about a month and a half now. We added Lyrica to my regimen about a year ago to help deal with my skin sensitivity*, but it didn't work, so it just got increased and increased until I was taking a mind boggling amount of it. It was also causing unpleasant side effects, so I went off of it, which took forever because its a drug you have to back off slowly. So I noticed that when I was in Kansas City for Thanksgiving, that I didn't need to take naps that week. That was the first full week I was off the drug. Then one of my girlfriends mentioned that she'd been on a mood stabilizer that was causing her lots of fatigue. Then it just clicked into place. So now that I've been off of Lyrica I've had more energy. I was taking naps almost daily in the fall, and I rarely got anything done.

We've had a very definite upswing on the quality of our lives. The house is cleaner and more organized. We've eaten more healthy homemade dinners. Doug's gotten more quality play time. We've been attending church more. Yesterday we hit story time for the first time in months! So, here's to you, 2012! Lookin' good!


*The skin sensitivity has a fancy smancy name: tactile allodynia

Cool Moms Wear Pajamas

Right? Don't they?

That should give you a pretty good feel for how things are going around here lately. About three weeks ago, Doug acquired a cold. Then he gave it to Jeff. So, I pretty much didn't stand a chance. What was some minor sniffling to them became a whole ordeal for me, requiring Jeff to stay home one day and my mom to take Doug the next. The cold then developed into a lovely sinus infection. I've been tying to scrape myself together since then. You know how some one who has asthma wheezes, their lungs desperate for air? If my body could make a sound like that for all the sleep it craved, the noise would be deafening.

In other non-pajama related news, Doug is talking. For real. I've officially lost track of the number of words he has, which is a great sign. He's also working on the concept of 'off' and 'on', two of his new favorite words. At first, only the tv in our bedroom could be turned off and on, but then flashlights could be on as well as toys. This morning he brought me a can of play doh and said "on!", meaning to open it. Almost there. He's also been teething a ton. He's got his canine teeth coming in along with possibly three others. This has led to a bit of an eating strike on his part, but with some Advil and soft food, we were able to get him to eat something. We discovered at his 18 mo appointment, that he hadn't really grown at all. His doctor was concerned but not overly so. But now we have to see his doctor again in three months instead of six to check his growth. So his little eating strike has made me anxious. Some of my cousin's sons went through the same thing, so I'm not that worried. Maybe our kids are normal, and the others are huge? Anyway, I've resolved to monitor Doug's food intake more and try to make sure snacks happen more.

I finally joined something at our church. This is a big, hairy deal! I've been afraid to commit to something for a while, because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make it to something because I wasn't feeling well. I decided I'd missed too many opportunities and I joined a bible study. It's very structured and it meets for something like 34 weeks. So far, I'm enjoying it. We're supposed to do a little reading each day and make notes in a workbook, but typical me, I leave it all to the night before. I suppose some habits are just hard to break. Some how I didn't study the bible much in the 13 years I was in Catholic school. I'm not sure how it happened but it did. Right now we're looking at Jacob and Joseph's family and I really wish I had the sound track to 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat'. Oooh, I've discovered it's 8 bucks on iTunes. Nevermind, it sounds awful. It sounds like a high school performance. I shall wait and get a better one some other time.

Doug is asleep, and for my quiet time I'm going to go curl up with a Sookie Stackhouse book. Those things are addictive! Also, she's kind of like Jessica Lansbury, every where she goes, people drop dead. I would move out of her town if I lived there. Anyway, my book and a comfy chair is calling me!

Fighting Back

One day last week I was lying in bed and wondering why I was there. The answer was obvious, that I was exhausted and couldn't do anything more. And then I began to wonder why I was letting that stop me from doing the things I wanted to do, from living my life. I realized that yes, I was tired, but I can decide to succumb to it, or push through it. I will grant you, that this attitude is easier on good days than bad, but even on bad days I need to do something.

Last week, thanks to an old acquaintance, I met a new doctor to treat my fibro. He's not a rheumatologist, but a chronic pain doctor. He also has actual fibro patients, I'm not one or two of fibro patients he treats, but about one of thirty he sees weekly. That's a lot of fibro experience. He wasn't happy with or complacent about my treatment either. My first doctor told me that he aims for a 60% recovery for his patients. I've always wondered why he didn't want more for them. This new doctor is willing to try new things, one at a time to see how I react to them. He's also willing to see me more frequently, once a month instead of once every three months. I'm sure that appointments will become farther in-between as the fibro becomes more stable. But he gives me hope, which is more than any other doctor has done so far.

Last week I started yoga again. It wasn't something I was planning on doing, but I got a groupon offer for classes at this studio and they offered some gentle yoga classes. Sometime I think things like that land in your lap for a reason, so I jumped on the offer. The class was definitely more challenging than my lost yoga class, which was mostly done in a chair*. It was hard but not impossible. I left the class sore, but feeling well. I also didn't realize how weak some of my muscles were, which was a good wake up call.

I've been lamenting the shape of the house for weeks, smears on the kitchen floor, crunched cheerios in the carpet, dust everywhere. I began to wonder 'Why can't I have a clean house? Who says it's impossible?". So last night I decide I'd take the house one room at a time and clean it. Thoroughly. So far the upstairs bathroom is done as well as the kitchen. I bought a large wicker bin for the living room to stow some of Doug's larger toys in.** I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished so far and look forward to finishing the job!

Have a great week!


*The last yoga class I did was a therapeutics class, full of mostly older women with various types of arthritis, so many things were done on a folding chair to accommodate that. To be perfectly honest, it didn't really feel like yoga to me. Also, folding chairs are not friendly to fibro type people. Ouch.

**The main toy room is in the basement, but Doug manages to have toys in the living room as well as his room, which got a toy basket long ago. I swear he's taking over the house!

Back in the Saddle

So. Wow. Several weeks have passed since I've updated my poor little blog. Well, starting about May, my thyroid condition started to get worse, leaving me fatigued. I swear there are sometimes that I think my middle name is fatigue. Anyway, then a TON of family on Jeff's side came into town. His parents stayed for two weeks, it was a blast. Then right after they left his aunt and uncle from Texas visited while they were in town for a wedding. It was nice to see them again, they hadn't met Doug. Then we had a break for about a week, and then Jeff's aunt and cousins from Alabama came to stay with us for a week. While they were here another one of Jeff's uncles from Kansas City was in town with his family. They were all here during Jeff's birthday, which was really special, as he never has family here then. There were a LOT of people, but we all had a good time.

At around this time I started seeing a new rheumatologist for my fibro. It turns out that he's leaving that practice, which is really annoying, as I had done quite a bit of research to find him and I liked him. At least he was up front and honest about treatment. He started me on a new anti-depressant to see if it helped my skin sensitivity. It did not. Even if it did, I wouldn't take it. I'm just now getting over the side effects from it-more fatigue. I couldn't make it through the day without a nap, unless I slept in. There were days in which I really couldn't get out of bed for quite a while. Sundays were the worst. We missed a LOT of church. Today is the second day in a row I got up at 9 and did not take a nap. Praise God! I'm starting to feel more like myself again.

A week and a half ago, I was starting to get things back together. We were on our way to church, when we got into an accident. An SUV pulled out in front of us from a gas station, another SUV was on it's tail, he didn't see us on the main road. Jeff swerved to avoid hitting him head on and the other driver ended up hitting us, on my passenger side door. In the car port is my THIRD rental car in two years. Ridiculous. Anyway, it was pretty low speed, but I felt tired and sore for a few days, but it's alright, because Doug was fine. I don't think I saw the other driver hit us because I looked back to check on Doug. He didn't even realize there was an accident until he heard his daddy swearing a blue streak! I don't blame Jeff there. We're hoping we're done with car accidents in our life time.

Doug is being Doug. He's still signing tons. I'm pretty sure he says 'dada'. The trouble is, when he babbles, he mostly babbles 'da da da da da'. But I can tell there are times he says it with meaning. He will also say "bubu!" complete with blowing for 'bubbles' at times. I've noticed that he can say the first sound in some people's names, with intent. For example, if he's looking for my brother John, he'll say "Jah? JAH!". Doug will say "guh?" for 'grandma'. So we're just waiting for him to add more words and sounds to his repertoire.

So that's all for now, I'm hoping I'll be able to post more regularly.

Fizzle

That was the theme sound of our weekend. Things just fizzled out.

Friday night was the birthday dinner of one of my grade school girl friends. She planned a nice evening at a restaurant in Glen Burnie, the Bone Fish Grill. Jeff and I had actually been there recently and had a very nice time, so I was excited to go again. The catch was that the place doesn't take reservations for prime time dining on Friday, and there were twelve people in the party. So, my friend got there an hour before hand to get us on the list with the hopes that we'd be seated by about 7, 7:30, that is about what the hostess said, so we had high hopes.

Now, Glen Burnie is about 40ish minutes from my house and I'd only been there a couple of times with Jeff. Since I'd never driven there myself, I didn't feel too comfortable doing it by myself. Then you add to the fact that the fibro screws with my night vision and it was raining and then suddenly I'm your 65 year old relative who has to leave your house before dark. My parents weren't available to watch Doug, and we didn't have another sitter lined up. I really wanted to go, and Jeff very generously offered to drive me. We need a new washer and dryer, so he planned to have dinner with Doug in the area and then do some comparison shopping at the stores in the area while I had dinner with the girls.

This plan sounded good. When I got to the restaurant, my friends were in the bar, so I joined them. We chatted and had drinks and caught up on life. At about 8 or so (half an hour to an hour after we expected to be seated) the bar tender (who totally looked like Frodo Baggins, and oddly had a black eye) closed out our tabs saying that our table was going to be ready soon. We waited and waited and were starting to get restless. At about 8:45 we went to stand in the front of the restaurant, hoping to be seated soon. It was almost 9, and this meant that we'd probably eat dinner closer to 10. It was just too late. I couldn't let Jeff and Doug wait out all night for me. I decided I needed to leave, so Jeff and Doug came and picked me up. I was very disappointed, but it was really going to be a much later evening that I'd planned. For what it's worth, Doug had a very nice time at Chik-fila. He had a yummy dinner and a lot of fun in the play area. The Glen Burnie Chik-Fila has a much more awesome play place than ours. When we got home, the power was out. I wondered if we'd suddenly been relocated into Montgomery County. According to BG&E, one of the arms of a pole had to be replaced and our power would be on by 11:30, 1, then 3. Luckily it came back by 2, or else Jeff would have been sleeping in the basement*. And that was Friday.

I decided that Saturday we'd do something as a family. We decided on Thai for lunch and a movie, Hop. I didn't want to see Hop in particular, I just wanted to see a movie. We had a very nice lunch, the waitresses at the Tara Thai in Rio hadn't seen Doug since he was about 6 months old, so they made a big fuss over him, which he loved. We got to the movie, got some soda for us, chocolate milk for Doug and some snow caps and Reece's pieces. We decided to try Doug in his own seat in the theater and got a booster for his chair. We settled him between us and gave him some of the candy and milk. He was happy during the previews, he occasionally had to get up and stand on his chair and see all the people sitting behind us. When the movie started, he began to get restless. He wanted to walk around in front of us and say 'hi' to the people sitting near us. We tried to get him to sit in our laps, but he would have none of it and screamed each time. Jeff had finally had enough and took Doug to the entrance way and let Doug run around there. Every so often he'd try to sit down with Doug, but he'd scream again. This went on for at least 40 minutes and was miserable for all three of us. I decided that it was time to go. It wasn't Doug's fault. I think the problem was that he was too tired and our environment was too interesting for him to settle down and take a nap. Lesson learned, no more movies for a while.

Sunday was kind of a wash. I was too tired, drained and sore to get up in the morning, so we missed out on church. Most of the day was spent around the house. I watched a Hallmark movie I'd dvr'd a few weeks ago, 'Time After Time'. It was about a 55 year old man who accidentally went back in time and went to save his 30 year old self and marry his high school sweet heart. At one point, the events of the man's life had changed because of a choice he'd made with his second chance. The older version of the man had no memory of the events and they'd had no idea why. I felt they needed the Doc there with a chalk board showing the diverging time lines. It was a cute movie as long as you didn't think about it. Sunday was a very lazy day.

This weekend has made it painfully obvious that we need to think about an alternate baby-sitter. It's kind of a difficult time for Doug now because he has separation anxiety. I also don't want to subject anyone to a screaming toddler for a few hours.



*No electricity means that Jeff's CPAP machine doesn't work, which means that I don't sleep due to the monstrous snoring.

Story Time

This week I took Doug to story time for the first time. I've been attempting to do it for some time, but for one reason or another, it just hasn't worked out. One of the problems we had with getting to story time, is that it's so early. Yes, I know that sounds crazy, but a story time at 10:30 is a little bit tricky for us to get to. It takes at least an hour and a half for us to get out the door in the morning. This includes a shower for me, dressing myself and then doing something with my hair. Then I have to change (usually twice) and dress Doug. After than, I have to shovel some breakfast down his throat and get his coat on and gather all his paraphernalia. It's exhausting. However, now that Doug is one, he now can go to the toddler story time, which starts at 11:15 and is a much more manageable time for us.

The other issue was my fibromyalgia. I am usually tired and sore in the morning, so getting up and out isn't always an option. Lately Doug has been sleeping in until 11:30. I blame the time change and my need for extra sleep. Recently I've started a new drug which really seems to be helping with the pain and fatigue. So it took a while for us to get all our ducks in a row for story time. Crazy, I know.

When we got to the library, we arrived a little early for the toddler story time. I asked at the children's desk where it was, and we were ushered into a room where a story time was already taking place. At first I was confused, I thought that maybe the time had changed. It turned out that we were in the story time for infants. I mostly deduced this from the fact that Doug was the biggest child there. We stayed for the last half of that story time and stuck around for the next story time which was for toddlers.

The story time for toddlers was a different beast entirely. Doug got into a couple of scraps with a few of the other toddlers. Most of the kids were up and walking around and getting into stuff. There were a few people from the earlier story time with older children who also stayed on for the next story time. The girl and her mother that had sat next to us stayed too. The girl was a little tiny thing, yet she was walking around kissing everyone. Turns out she was only 7 months! She'd started walking when she was only 6! Anyway, at one point her mother offered her some Gerber puffs. Doug loves those things and he saw this go down. So, Doug being Doug, toddled over and looked at the mom expectantly. She asked me if it was ok, and then offered the cup to Doug, who promptly grabbed three of them. After that I grabbed him and sat him on my lap so he didn't finish off the little girl's puffs. Unfortunately, Doug didn't think he'd had enough puffs. He kept wandering over to the mom and badgering her. She hid them, but Doug is all over object permanence and tried to get to the hiding spot. As a desperate move, I grabbed him and clipped his pacifier to him, hoping that if his mouth was busy, he'd leave the puffs alone. It seemed to work for a while. At one point, Doug wandered into the middle of the small room with some of the other kids. He walked over to a little boy exactly his size. They stood very close sizing each other up. Doug didn't have his pacifier in his mouth, but he was fingering the leash it was on. The little boy noticed this. Doug noticed the little boy eying his pacifier and got antsy. Luckily, before the little boy made a grab for it, his mother grabbed him. A few minutes later, the little girl that we'd been sitting next to noticed Doug's pacifier as well. She had one clipped to her clothes, but nearly knocked Doug over trying to get to his. As they were both close to me, I popped her's in her mouth, and the crisis was resolved. The last scrap Doug got into was when an older and much bigger boy knocked him over. Doug cried, mostly because he was surprised and didn't see it coming. Over all, it was a pretty positive experience. Doug enjoyed seeing other kids and it was nice to have something to do. A reason to get out of the house. I think we'll be back next week.

Socializing the Beast

It's been painfully obvious for quite some time that Doug needs to spend time with his peers. He will see other children his age here and there, and gets very excited about it. There was an incident a few weeks ago at a Barnes and Noble train table in which he tried to grab a little girl's face. Despite being a little older than he was, she was smaller, and he didn't realize that he could easily knock her over. I decided it was time for Doug to spend time with his peers.

So I started looking for classes or groups to enroll him in. The county we live in doesn't offer much in his age range. Montgomery County does have quite a lot of classes for babies his age, but most of them started a month ago. And then there's the problem of the drive back and forth. The local indoor pool offers classes for babies his age, but to be honest I'm worried about ear infections. I'm also not sure how much of it I can put up with either. Doug loves the water, but after taking him in the pool, I'm usually fairly wiped out. Then there's drying off and changing both of us back to our street clothes and everything else. Very exhausting. The other options were story times at the library and classes for babies at gyms for kids. I decided we'd try a free class at one of the gyms for kids.

When we got to the gym, a class for preschoolers was letting out. There were lots of excited kids running around, and Doug was quite interested in them. Once I got Doug out of his carrier and our coats and shoes off, Doug and I walked around a bit exploring. Only two other babies turned up for the class, one of which was also trying the class out for free. So they only had one registered baby in the class. The class consisted of songs and climbing up and down the various pieces of equipment. And lifting Doug. Up and down. Twenty pounds up and twenty pounds down. The instructor really liked activities in which we had to do this. Doug had an okay time, he didn't get terribly excited or hate it. He was mostly interested in the other babies and their parents. He met his first hippie. Doug was amazed that one boy's father had hair longer than mine. Doug also was really into the perky instructor. I didn't have the heart to tell Doug that she was paid to flirt with him. After it was all over, I was very tired and extremely sore. The physical toll on me wasn't worth the class. The price was also a bit much. Maybe when Doug's a few years older and there's less physical involvement on my part, we can try it again.

Until that time comes, I think we'll try story time at the library. The church nursery is also a nice place for him to socialize, but he's the youngest there by quite a bit. I'd also like to try to find him some play dates, so if you have a baby about Doug's age, I might start harassing you for some play dates. Now, I think it's time for a coke and some tv and not moving for a very long time :)

It's Regan's Fault*

We had quite a memorable New Year's Eve. I woke up on New Year's Eve at about 4:30 that morning in Columbus, Ohio. We had stayed the night in Columbus on our way back from Kansas City. I rolled over and over but I could not get back to sleep. See, Jeff has sleep apnea and if he sleeps without his mask, it sounds like some one is cutting down an entire forest of trees! Unfortunately, for us both, his mask broke the first day of the vacation, so for nearly two weeks, neither of us slept well.** Anyway, I wasn't getting back to sleep, Doug was restless between us and Jeff kept on waking himself up. So I decided that since none of us were sleeping we'd at least get on the road and be home by that afternoon. I was able to clam down and blow off some steam in the shower (don't mess with my sleep) and I come out into the room to find that Doug had thrown up all over the place. So there went my nice relaxed mood. I started working damage control. Jeff had done a good job on keeping the bio hazard localized, but Doug was still very upset. I calmed him down and took his temp, which was 102.3. So I dosed him with some Tylenol and called our pediatrician's after hours line. The line told us that Dr. So & So was covering for him and to call her. I called Dr. So & So and the message told us that our pediatrician was covering for her! Epic fail! So I called my mom. Anyway, long story short, we got Doug calm, clean and dressed and put him in the car. I think we left Columbus at about 7ish? I do feel badly for the person who had to clean our room. Doug sure knows how to destroy a hotel room!

For the rest of the day in the car Doug mostly slept. Unfortunately I couldn't get his fever down. I called his Dr.'s office and they were concerned about his high fever too, but as we were in Ohio, not much could be done about it. The nurse said we could take him to the ER or an urgent care facility, but neither of those were available at the time, so our goal was to just get him home. At about 11 we stopped some where in West Virginia for lunch. We wanted to eat quickly so we could get back on the road, so we headed toward a McDonald's. But lo and behold, what was next to the McDonald's!?!? An urgent care facility! I told Jeff that I thought it was a sign, so we took Doug in. We were told the wait was long, but actually we got in an out in a relatively short time. The doctor saw Doug and agreed with us that it was a stomach virus and told us the correct dosage*** of Tylenol for Doug. He also recommended that we try ibuprofen instead. So after the visit we got back in the car and drove to a pharmacy in town, dosed Doug with ibuprofen and headed back to McDonald's.

You know how some times something happens to you, or somebody does something to you accidentally and you really really want to throttle them but you know it's not their damn fault? That's what happened to me at McDonald's. I'd been going on no more than four hours of interrupted sleep the past two nights. I was beyond fatigued and in a lot of pain. I'd been dealing with a sick baby all day. In short, I was thisclose to going over the edge. Doug was asleep on the table in his carrier and Jeff brought the tray to the table with our lunch on it. Jeff reached for something and some how his gigantic Dr. Pepper was knocked over and spilled all over the table. A good portion went onto my lap, and the rest went into my brand new purse. Luckily, nothing in my purse was ruined, but everything was soaked and sticky. There were pools of soda in my purse. Jeff jumped up and helped me mop up and helped me pull things out of my purse. At the time the only thing I could say to him was to tell him to go to the car and get some plastic bags for the contents of my purse.

It was probably really good for our marriage that Jeff left me for that minute in a half. I was able to pull myself together and calm down. I realized that I had some options at hand. Option 1, I could yell at Jeff, which would allow me to vent. However, this will make Jeff feel worse and in the end will make us both miserable. Option 2, I could let it go and we can move on. I chose option 2. We were already both pretty miserable and really needed a break.

Anyway, Jeff came back in and we got resettled and began our lunch. After a few minutes Jeff said to me, "This whole trip has been my fault." I grabbed a french fry while I pondered my response to that. "Well, actually no. It's not your fault that you grew up in Kansas City. That's where your parents lived. They probably settled there in the 80s because of the economy. So, actually, it's Regan's fault. Yep, I think the blame resides squarely on his shoulders." So we had a nice quiet lunch and loaded Doug back up. By the time we got home on NYE, we were all dead tired, but Doug's fever broke. All in all, not a terrible end to 2010.



*I was in Kindergarten when the 80s ended. History classes never covered something as recent as the 80s, so really I have little to no idea what the economy in the 80s was like. Humor me.

**Fibromyalgia symptoms are worsened by poor, interrupted sleep. They've actually done studies in which they've screwed up the subject's sleep, and they have many fibro like symptoms. So seriously, don't screw with my sleep!

***Tylenol, or at least the generic we got, doesn't give you dosage per weight for children under 2. You're supposed to talk to your doctor about it. The last time we got that info for Doug was at least 5 lbs ago. On the other hand, the Advil we bought ONLY gives dosing instructions for children under 2. Go figure.

And Life Keeps Moving

Life keeps moving on. We've been playing with my medication, trying to find a happy spot with it. The medication was taking nearly all of the pain away, but more than doubling my fatigue (which is why posts have been scarce). We've cut back my dose, which brings back some of the pain, but eases the fatigue a bit. So we'll see what happens.

In other health related news, I've started yoga. It's not typical yoga. It's yoga for chronic illness, so many things have been modified. I'm taking the class with a friend and there's a mix of women in the class. Every one seems very nice and most people have taken the class a few times before. My first class was last night and I ended up feeling very relaxed and energetic after class. I'm hopeful that after this class I'll be able to build up to something like swimming.

So onto house news. We are under contract! Our house is under contract and we should be under contract with the house we're buying by the end of this weekend! We didn't think it was going to happen, but all of the sudden a buyer came along and hopefully in the first week of November we'll be moved!

Douglas James is such a different baby now! He's sitting up now and is quite content to be left to himself to play on his play mat. Before this, after about 5 minutes on either his back or stomach he'd start screaming. He's also scooting. He moves, on his tummy, kind of like an inch worm. In fact, right now he's scooted off his mat and towards a chair leg, which he's gnawing on. He's also got two bottom teeth coming in and seems more determined than ever to chew on things. His eyes are still blue, and at this point, I'm thinking they're going to stay that way. I was so sure our baby would have Jeff's brown eyes, brown being a dominant color. We're also retiring the bumbo, the bouncer and the swing. He can nearly climb or twist out of them all. So now he's a free range baby!

Well, I think that pretty much bring this week up to speed!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will write in my blog. Tomorrow I will wrap those gifts. Tomorrow I will address those cards and go to the post office to send packages. Tomorrow I will make food for Doug. Tomorrow I will register for yoga. Tomorrow I will go to the lab to get my blood tested. Tomorrow I will send emails. Tomorrow I will visit my grandfather. Tomorrow I will do the laundry. Tomorrow I will make dinner. Tomorrow I will get up at a decent hour. Tomorrow I will take Doug for a walk.

Right now my todays are full of tomorrow. I'm trying to find the balance between too much and too little. It's a fine edge. It's Wednesday and I'm finally starting to get a handle on this week. But, I did get to do some things yesterday, so a small victory there!

So here's to tomorrow!