thoughts in my head at this moment

After reading a fellow blogger's blog about saying what you really mean I realized that I don't do that. I find myself editing certain things out of my posts. Especially things about work. I would love to vent about some of the things that happen but I'm afraid. I'm afraid someone from work will somehow stumble upon my blog and read what I have written. It could happen! I've shared my blog address with two co-workers, they may have shared with others. What if I complain about Dr. Man and his crazy thinking of lets treat this HIGH school like a Jr. High because he worked in one for so long, and it gets back to him? This man controls the fate of my job (i.e. my food, home, and entertainment). I don't know if I can take that risk. Plus you all probably don't want to hear about the crappy communication at my school. Or the mice that have invaded the HOPE room causing it to be closed until further notice. Which also cuts back on my extra pay that I was going to put toward...anything I want! Yes I know I am spoiled. It is my compensation for being denied the privilege of being a mother.

On another topic...headaches suck! Every test that was done came back normal. I am glad to know that I don't have a tumor or cancer or anything ugly and vicious like that. However, I'm still getting headaches daily. The neurologist informs me, 5 tests and 4 months later, that I have chronic headaches. To which I say "duh"! Like I didn't know that going into my first appointment with him. I have been suffering with headaches for over 8 years, but I had absolutely no idea that they where chronic headaches. I know the sarcasm is a bit bitter, but I'm slightly angered that all of this time, money and stress has come to nothing. (deep breath)

The lesson I taught the young women on Sunday was about spiritual talents. One of the spiritual talents was the faith to be healed. I thought, years ago, that I had this talent. I have faith in Gods supreme power to heal. I know that whatever God wills will happen. If he were to bless me I would be healed. I do not doubt this in any way. However, after too many years to count, of praying to be healed of my infertility without success it makes me think that God doesn't want to heal me. I have been praying for my health. I have been praying that he will take the headaches away so that I wont have to take a pain killer each and every single day. I have faith that he can heal me, but what if he doesn't want to? I could have the faith of the prophets and it would do me no good if my physical suffering is the will of the Lord. "Ask and you shall receive, Knock and it shall be opened", but only if it's God's will. I know He knows infinitely more than I do. I know that He wants what is best for me and will not give me more then I can handle. But at times I feel like he overestimates my strength. I do pray that the Lords will be done. Sometimes I just wish our wills were the same.
Did I mention headaches suck?!

Sorry

Okay I have totally sucked at blogging the last two months. I haven't even taken the time to read my friends blogs. I'm sorry about missing out on your lives and all the great & not so great things that have happened. I am going to try and do better, but I make no promises. To be honest I think one of the big problems is that I can't get on blogs at work. I have plenty of things to do at work and it is not like I would spend the whole time reading and typing, but have you ever heard of a lunch break or a 15 min break. The fact that the school now blocks access to blogs is ridiculous! Good news though, on the 15th I will have access to the internet on my phone so I can always read your blogs then. Hopefully commenting will be easy on the phone.
I’ll try to do better this year with blogging and reading. Thank you for your patients and support. I’ll try and catch you up on the last two months. Novembers’ done…one month to go.

November/Thanksgiving

November started out crappy. My spinal tap went wrong. The 24 hours of laying flat turned into 48 hours. But after the blood patch I could finally stand up without a severe headache. Unfortunately, I woke up with another sinus infection. After the sinus infection went away we headed to my parents for Thanksgiving. My sister and her family also came to Yuma. My brother, Craig, was also going to come but was unable to make it do to an emergency. We had a lot of food and fun! We not only ate but we had the chance to ride and shop.

Mom prepping the Turkey

Cookn' the bird

More Yummy Food


Carving the Turkey

My Kids

My Parents

Audree's Family

My Family

Thanksgiving Dinner

The Kids Table


Riding

Lab Rat... That's me

I got my MRI results last Thursday. I’ll let you decided if you think they are good or bad, b/c I can’t seem to fully commit to a decision. Even the Dr. had mixed feelings. My blood work came back negative and my MRI came back clean. So I don’t have a tumor or aneurism or anything major like that. That is the good part. However, we still don’t know what is causing the headaches and now migraines. That would be the bad part.

The next step is to have a spinal tap or lumbar puncture, same thing different names. I’m NOT looking forward to this, not one bit! Not only does it sound extremely unpleasant with the possible side effect of the worst headache ever, but my back (especially the spine) is very sensitive. I can’t get my haircut if there isn’t a chair between me and the scissors. I can’t put my back to a fire or anything that gives off energy. Any type of energy directed at my back causes tickle/pain. Can you picture me lying on the table and the Dr. saying “ok now don’t move” as he is (1) touching my back and (2) directing all his focus and attention at my spine? I think you are wishing you could be a fly on the wall.

The spinal tap is to check for pressure in my head. I don’t know what the next step is if this test shows nothing. I’m still waiting to find that out. All I know is that I want an answer so that this pain will stop. As I am typing this I’m wearing my sunglasses b/c the light is hurting my eyes which then hurts my head. So before I start feeling worse I will end this post. Please keep me in your prayers.

Update: Even though I didn’t post this until today I actually wrote the top part last Friday. I know I’m a bit slow. I have also been scheduled for another test, a TCD (Trans-Cranial Doppler). It’s like an ultrasound for the brain. They want to watch my blood flow. This should be interesting. I’m scheduled for this test on Friday and I’m still waiting to hear about the Spinal Tap. That’s all I have for now I’ll let you know when I know anything more.

Please Make It Go Away

I finally went to see a neurologist on Thursday. I have been suffering from headaches for 8 years. I get a headache almost daily. When they first started I would take a Tylenol and that would be all. Then the Tylenol stopped working and I discovered Excedrin. Excedrin and I became BFF's. I carried a small bottle in my purse at all times. When I felt a headache coming on I would take the regular dose of two pills. If I waited a bit too long I would take it with a Coke. Now if you don't know me this is a huge deal. I don't like the taste of cola, but to get rid of the headache I would suffer through the can of Coke. If I waited to long to take the Excedrin the only thing that would work was sleep.
A couple of years ago when I was in the hospital for stomach problems (gal stones) the Dr.'s were very concerned with my daily dose of aspirin. After getting out of the hospital, gallbladder free, I adjusted my Excedrin intake. I cut back to half a dose. A while back, I can't remember when, I came up with the clever idea that if I took 1 Excedrin in the morning I could avoid the whole headache all together. This system worked for quite some time. I was rarely getting headaches.
However, lately things have been changing. My headaches are becoming more sever. My prevention pill isn't working anymore. My headaches themselves have also been changing. They are in different spots and they also seem to be affecting my eyes. It was the sharp pain in my eyes that prompted me to ask my general Dr what we could do. He gave me a referral to the neurologist.
Now I don't want you thinking that I suffered from headaches for 8 years and never did anything besides pop pills. During the first year I did a lot. I had many Dr. visits all to no avail. One Dr. said it was a tension headache, after the MRI showed nothing. I disagreed with this diagnosis because I get headaches in sacrament meeting. I don't feel tense in sacrament! I will not disagree that some of my headaches may be brought on by tension, but it is not the main cause. I had my eyes checked. (My headache is usually between my eyes). I suffered through migraine medicine that only made me sicker. I went to a chiropractor. I went to an allergist. I chose to go to an allergist bc I realized that while I was on Allegra D my headaches were not as frequent. Unfortunately for me all the Allergist Dr. wanted to do was give me shots to build up my immunity. I don't have a problem, per se, with building up my immunity, but my headache problem was not being fixed. I diagnosed myself with sinus headaches and prescribed myself Excedrin.
The Neurologist order blood work and is going to do another MRI. He also gave me two medications to take. One is for prevention and the other is for when I get a headache. See I had the right idea, jut the wrong meds. So far its not working all that great. I took a pain pill 3 hours and 40 minutes ago. I get to take another one in 20 minutes...and counting. I know I have to give it time, blah blah blah. He did say that if the blood work and MRI came back with nothing I would get to have a spinal tap done. Oh, what joy! Can you say ouch? He said that he would be testing the pressure buildup in my head, bc too much pressure can lead to blindness. He said something else but I wasn't really paying attention. I have been totally freaked out about the crap going on with my eyes and my head always feels like its pressurized. The good thing is, I'm not blind yet, meaning I didn't wait too long to see a Dr. Also he isn't the type of Dr. to just throw medication at the problem without finding out what the problem is.
In the meantime I'm going to keep taking the pills and hope they work, wait for the MRI to be scheduled, and try not to freak out about going blind. I must admit I'm not doing very good with the last one. I was laying down in bed, sleeping, trying to get the headache to stop. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep bc all I was doing was trying to imagine my life blind. I couldn't do my job blind...way too much computer work. My hobbies are reading, scrap booking, photography, puzzles, games (board and card), interior design, cross stitching, knitting and riding ATV's. I could still read through audio books and possible knit without sight, but the rest of it doesn't seem possible. See I told you I was freaking out! (deep breath) I'm going to go say a prayer for peace now then take another pain pill. I'll keep you updated on all my medical fun.

CONE HEAD

I REFUSE to be a grandma at the age of 31! Can you blame me? Due to my refusal my baby girl got fixed on the 17th. She had to wear the e-collar for 10 extremely long days. Luckily she learned quickly that she could still get through the dog door with the cone on her head. I was afraid that we were going to have a lot of messes in the house. She has been doing awesome on the potty training. There are still some occasional leaks when she is supper excited. I want to start letting her on some of carpeted areas in the house soon.


The first night she had the cone on was terrible. I didn’t know how the cone and her kennel would work so I decided to just leave the dogs out (on the tile) for the night. However, Miss Lillee got up at midnight for a stroll around the house. She must have still been sleepy because she was walking into scrapping the walls with her cone. (FYI this noise is actually amplified by earplugs!) I got up to make sure she could go out for a potty break then placed her and her brothers back in bed. This worked until 3 am when she went for another stroll. This is when I learned about the earplug amplification. At this point I was mad about being woken up again exhausted so I decided to try having her sleep in her kennel. After all, if she was in her kennel she couldn’t hit the walls with her cone. Once in her kennel, on the floor next to the bed, she didn’t settle down as I had hoped. Now she was hitting the kennel with the cone. I didn’t want her to wake up Neal, so I ended up freezing my toes off sleeping on the floor next to her kennel. She slept through the rest of the night (a whole 2 ½ hours). I spent the next couple of nights on the air-mattress. (My dog is so NOT spoiled) Luckily she eventually got a hang of the cone in her tight quarters (Really the kennel is quite large, but that evil cone took up lots of space.) and slept peacefully through the night.

Lillee was a menace with her cone. She is quite a handful as it is but the cone just made it worse. The cone situation was the hardest on KC. Lillee and KC play a lot. However, Lillee couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t supposed to play with KC while she had the cone on. Poor KC! When we were home we immediately corrected Lillee, but there was a lot of time for Lillee to torture KC while we are at work. Lillee walked into my legs numerous times and it hurt, bad. This gave me real sympathy for my middle child. Also Lillee managed to get the cone completely off one day while I was at work, for who knows how long. Twice she got the cone half off. Meaning the bottom of the cone was no longer on her neck, but in her mouth. She chewed it up pretty good.

Not only was Lillee torturing us with her cone, the cone was torturing her. She itched a lot. There were times when she would have an itch so bad, that she couldn’t reach, that she literally was crying. The cone matted her hair behind her ears and on the back of her neck. I had no other choice but to cut the mats off. They were tight to her head, which could cause skin problems if not removed. Suffice it to say that the whole house was very happy when Lillee’s cone came off.
Lillee got groomed yesterday. She lost more than half of her length. Her groomer Shauna did the best she could to blend in the chopped off portion part I cut with the rest of her body. I think she did a good job. (Especially considering what I gave her to work with.)

I also think Lillee is supper cute. You should feel her hair it is like running your fingers through silk. I might be extremely slightly prejudice, but I think my dogs kids are the best!

I'm back

I'm sorry that I left you, my devote followers, for such a long period of time without posting. Okay seriously though life has been hectic and crazy. I cannot believe that it has been since 8/30/09 since my last post. I don't know if I can even remember all the things that have happened since. Don't get me wrong it is not like my life is jam packed with fun and adventure, more like drudgery and exhaustion. I spend the day staring at my computer at work and it seems the last thing I want to do when I get home is stair at my computer some more (even though mine is much nicer). I’m also why too tired to be creative and entertaining. The worst part is during my lunch I would love to get on and post, but no. The school and their supper filter have decided that blogs are an unsafe place to go. So now, unlike last year, I cannot access my blog from work. How sucky is that? I discovered this injustice was going to show my coworker some pictures of Lillee that I have on my blog. Also, why do I an adult (legally speaking) have the same filter restrictions as the high school students? Oh wait I know why, because of the sick0 adults who work in education who have abused the situation. That is why the rest of us (goody two shoes) get punished.

So for those of you asking yourself; what has changed? How come you’re posting today (on a week day none the less)? Well that is an easy question, I’m home sick. The stress at work and home and the pure exhaustion have left my body susceptible to illness. So my crappy allergies (I’m allergic to the desert and sometimes students i.e. work) were not enough to punish me they had to go and cause a sinus infection with a post nasal drip! Ever had a sinus infection? It hurts like…you fill in the blank. Yesterday I felt like the front of my head and my face were in a vise. It was like someone was torturing me. Just when I would start to sort of get used to the pressure, the vise would tighten, causing more pressure. Not only was there a vise on my head someone was also pouring acid down my throat! On top of all of this I also have a cut on my tongue. I have no clue how I got this cut. I only wish to never have this happen again. I never realized just how precious my tongue was before this happened. I use it to talk and eat! Two of my favorite things; my favorite things are not supposed to cause me pain. So here I sit in bed blogging to you. I was not going to return to work until the vise was removed from my head. I’m not a happy person when I’m sick and nobody wants to talk to an unhappy counselor.

I guess I’ll catch you up on the last three weeks now that I am done whining telling you about being sick and why I’ve been a slacker unable to blog. Nothing too exciting ever happens during the week. Neal and I are too busy working to do much of note. I try to run all my errands during the week, but like I said nothing note worthy. The last three weekends have been fun.
Last Saturday (9/19), Neal & I drove out to Cal-Nev-Ari where my parents are staying to go riding (ATV’s). We had a good time. Even though it was about 100 degrees it was okay because you have the hot wind to cool you off. We also had dinner with them. Waiting for dinner to cook would have been a great time to visit except that Bill their neighbor in the RV Park decided to come over and visit. I thought this was very rude of him. Clearly they already had company! This really upset me especially since the job my dad has been working on should be finishing this week and my parents will be returning to their home in Yuma, AZ. Cal-Nev-Ari is 1-1 ½ hours away; Yuma is about 4-5 hours. It really sucks that they will be so far away again. And Bill had to ruin my last chance to visit with my parents for quite some time. What a butthead! The whole time I just kept thinking, go away Bill!

Saturday (9/12) I got free tickets to the UNLV football game. We also got free food at the tailgate party. Neal & I are not huge football people. I do however, enjoy live games. It was a late game; it didn’t start until 8pm. Half time was about 10. It was shortly after half time we decided to leave. We were both tired and decided since we weren’t really UNLV supporters and we didn’t pay anything for the tickets it was okay to leave. As we were still walking out of the stadium the cannon went off, meaning UNLV scored. We missed the first touchdown by this much… Oh well, I will live. Sorry about the quality of the pictures. I forgot my camera so these were taken with my phone. Not the best quality, but you get the picture (pun intended).


Labor Day weekend was tons of fun! We left Friday night after work to drive up to Fillmore, UT. We meet my parents and my sister & her family there. We camped at the KOA in Fillmore. Since camping I have decided that I don’t like tents. If only I could win the lottery that I don’t play, then I could get myself a trailer. Ah, what pleasant dreams. Back to reality, I need to get used to the tent. The tent and I need to become best buddies. I would like tents better if the walls were straight and my hair didn’t become all static-y walking around the bed.

For those of you who have driven past Fillmore I’m sure you’re asking yourself “Why would anyone camp in Fillmore?” The answer is simple: Hundreds of miles of ATV trails! My parents have had their ATV’s for about 6 or 7 years. My sister family got ATV’s this spring. So it was planned for my sister and parents to meet in Fillmore to ride together. I kinda invited Neal & myself along. I figured we could take turns as we have always done. But a better idea came up while we were there: “Let’s rent ATV’s.” Well the price, $80 a day, was really good in comparison of other places that rent by the hour. However, two bikes for two days was bit too pricey. So we rented one bike for two days. I rode the first day. Neal stayed behind and watched the dogs. Really he fell asleep; we did not sleep well in the tent with the rain and then the wind. The second day, Neal rode the quad and I rode behind my sister on her bike. We rode about 50 miles each day. The scenery was breath taking! However, my body is not used to that much riding or trail abuse. I was very tired after my three day weekend and in no way wanted to return to work on Tuesday.

Anyway enjoy the pictures. Also after our camping trip I have decided to buy a bark collar for KC. He barked at everything; people walking by, people riding their quads by, people driving by in their cars, children playing in the distance. I think you get the point. First KC barks then JJ and Lillee. So if I can keep KC from barking, hopefully the other two won’t start. We are lucky no one in the park attempted to keep them from barking, if you know what I mean.


PS sorry it is just one picture. I spent all this time in photoshop creating a collage type thing so that there were not a million pictures, but it wont upload (grrr)

I just added all the Labor day pics on my facebook. So if we are friends you can check out all the beauty and fun.