Feeling Grateful

**Link Fixed**

Hostage Situation Turns Deadly, Officer Shot

A woman was found dead inside an apartment after a man with a shotgun held Des Moines police at bay for more than an hour on Wednesday afternoon.

This story makes me more grateful for my life than I could ever explain.

Let's Hope We Don't Have to do THAT Again Anytime Soon!!

Yesterday I sent Zack back to daycare. It was the first time he had been back in a week. One solid week of moaning and crying and coughing and refusing to eat and crying and coughing and whining and oh... did I mention there was some moaning and crying with a side of whining??

Somewhere in the back of my mind I had myself convinced that because he was almost three and SOO active that he would just bounce right back from this. I thought I would take off Tuesday for the surgery, Wednesday to let him sleep a bit and by Thursday he would be playing at my parents house.

HA!!

No such luck. Wednesday he laid in a chair in our living room all day coughing and moaning and crying. I finally got him to lay down for a nap about 1:00 and he slept for 3 1/2 almost 4 hours. There was NO food intake and I was forcing him to drink by putting water into a syringe and squirting it into his mouth.

So, I took Thursday off of work and stayed home with him again. He was a bit better, although not by much. He acted like I was trying to kill him when I made him drink a bit of broth from chicken noodle soup. But amazingly he was just fine when he wanted to eat part of a Hershey's bar.

Friday I took him to my parents house. My mom finally got him to eat part of a donut on Friday morning but that was it. All he ate all day and there was a 3 1/2 hour nap in there too.

Saturday was much of the same except when he woke up about 6:30 on Saturday night he wanted pizza. Knowing that it would probably hurt his throat if it was too hard I opted for the softest pizza I could find and he ate half a piece before lying back in the chair to commence with the moaning and the coughing.

Sunday he was back to not eating anything and he also spiked a low grade fever. By Sunday evening I was pretty sure he was just going to become anorexic on me and that would be that. M came over and I'm not sure what we were talking about but at one point we mentioned something and all of the sudden Zack looked over and said, "I want a cheeseburger."

So, M went and got cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets and Zack sat down and ate 4 chicken nuggets and some french fries.

Monday I kept him home just to give him one more day to recover and he seemed to be doing fairly well so yesterday back to daycare he went.

I think last night was the first night he was finally mostly back to himself. He ate some spaghetti and passed out at 7:00. It was 7:00 this morning before I heard a peep out of him. Considering we have been up at least once to 10 times every night with him coughing and crying and carrying on, I actually had to check to make sure he was still breathing when I woke up at 6:15 and realized he hadn't been up.

Today the daycare called at 10:00 and said he was having a rough morning. Crying and saying it hurt. I told them not to make him eat if he didn't want to and to call me if he didn't settle down. They haven't called back yet.

I'm hoping that things are starting to get better. This has been a REALLY long week and it only will get longer by this weekend (another post... it's coming I promise).

Note to self, when the doctors say it could be 7 - 10 days before your child feels well again, they aren't kidding. It's just a good thing he only has one set of tonsils because I would not be volunteering to do that again ANY time soon!!

Droid Blogging

On Friday Verizon launched its newest smartphone. The Droid. From the moment I saw the first commercial I was smitten.

I have been going back and forth about getting a smartphone for some time now but I kept talking myself out of it. It was too expensive. I didn't really need it, etc.

So on Friday I decided I would just stop in to the Verizon store and see what all the fuss was about. AND... as you can probably guess from the title of this post you can tell how that went.

I love it. Can't imagine not having it. One of the best things I've done, just for me.

So tell me, what was something you indulged in, not because you needed it but because you really wanted it?

Brave Little Guy

We reported to the surgery center at 7:30 am

We then sat in the room for an hour and a half.

He changed into the outfit they gave him.
But kept looking at me like why are they making me wear this silly looking thing?

Finally it was his turn and he walked away like it was no big deal.
"You are the first one I've had all day who has walked back here on their own."

20 minutes later the doctor came out to talk to us.

30 minutes after that they let us go back and see him.

2 hours later we got to head home.

He slept in the car but wanted chocolate pudding as soon as we got home.

Then it was movie time.
He ate ice cream and two popsicles before he took a nap.

After he woke up he ate applesause and half of a nutrigrain bar.
By 7:30 it was bedtime and mom thought we were doing pretty well.

Sometime about 1:15 it all took a turn for the worse.

He was up every hour from 1:15 to 6:00. He would cough and then cry and then hack.

Finally at 6:00 I gave him another dose of medicine and he slept until 8:45.

Today has been bad.

He coughs and then whines like a wounded animal.

I know that this too shall pass but it is REALLY hard to watch.

He won't eat anything today so I'm just trying to push the fluids.

Hoping that tonight will be better than last night.

And tomorrow better than today.

WW: Cutest Farmer I Know

Happy Halloween... a few days late!!

One Surgery Down

At 7:30 this morning we walked into the surgery center not sure if we were going to be able to have his surgery or not. As it turns out, while his cold was bad his lungs were clear so surgery was on.

It was almost 9:00 before they took him back and about 9:45 before we got to see him. When the doctor came out to see us he was shaking his head still commenting on the size of his tonsils. He said that when they went to put in his breathing tube the anesthesiologists comment was, "How does he breathe with these in his throat."

So, now they are out. Along with his adenoids and his ear tubes.

He was pretty angry for the first two hours and then fell asleep in the car on the way home. As soon as I turned off the car his first words to me were I want pudding. So chocolate pudding it was.

Now we are sitting around, eating ice cream and watching movies. His next dose of medicine is in 10 minutes and I'm hoping after that I can get him to sleep for a little while.

However, he has, once again amazed me in his ability to bounce back from this. This kid is tough.

Medical Marvels

Apparently Zack and I are just a plethora of medical mysteries this month. I'll catch you up on the highlights because that really is all I have the energy for considering on top of everything else Zack decided to get a cold last night and was up no less than 5 times. Add in one time for the dogs and you've got one tired mommy.

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First up: Zack

Tomorrow he is getting his tonsils out. The comments from the doctors we have seen recently have included but are not limited to:

Wow... those are impressive and I do this for a living.

Can he breathe with his mouth closed?

Does he snore? (Yes, frequently and VERY loudly)

Does he have trouble swallowing solid food? (He's 38.5 inches tall and weighs 38 pounds does it look like he has trouble?)

So... tomorrow it is. We have to be there at 7:30 in the morning but I'm guessing they won't start surgery until 8:00 or so. My guess is by 10:00 my son will be VERY angry with me. :-(

On the upside we stocked up on Popsicles, ice cream, and chocolate pudding so with any luck I should be back in his good graces by noon.

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Next up: Fred (aka... the mass on my shoulder)

I had my second appointment today with the orthopedic doctor. His consensus is that it is a bone tumor. Most likely an osteocondroma which is non-cancerous but they won't know 100% until it is removed.

The CT scan showed a mass about the size of an egg that is rubbing up against my chest wall. So, bone on bone is why I am having so much pain.

My appointment was at 4:15 today and at 4:55 I was FINALLY shown back to the exam room. On the upside I was done and on my way home by 5:05 but still.... little ridiculous on the wait time.

Since it was after five the IA City doctor's office was closed so they will have to call me tomorrow to schedule the appointment. I would guess it will be another two to four weeks of waiting. Such is my life.

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So how about you? Any weird medical mysteries going on in your life? Or how about tonsil surgery stories? About how the mom was all worried about sending her baby off into surgery but all went perfectly fine and he was way better after it was over? I would very much like to hear one of those.

Duh Mom!!

I'm in the kitchen when I hear a crash. I turn around and he does it again. He hits the ball off the T and then throws the bat across the room.

"Zack what are you doing?"

"You throw the bat when you run Mom!!"

Remember when you were little and your mom would say we just can't have nice things!! I get it now.

Writing Again

When I took a break from this blog, I also took a break from my other blog. I needed space and time and I think I have now taken enough of both.

If you look over to the right you will notice that blog has a current date currently updated of today.

So, if your looking for me this weekend, I will be Through the Looking Glass for a bit. You can find me there.

We Shall Call Him Fred

About 11 years ago I had a pain in my shoulder. It started as just a small pain and moved into a holy crap what did I do to my shoulder pain. As is so often the case when you have something hurting your first instinct is to rub it and try to make it feel better. So rub away I did and much to my surprise while trying to rub my shoulder one day my hand grazed over a bump.

Of course at the age of eighteen the first thought to cross my mind was oh my god I have a tumor!!

"It's not a tumor!!"

Except of course, when it is. A non-cancerous bone tumor (osteochondroma) to be exact. Basically a mass of bone and tissue residing on my shoulder blade. (Scapula... this will be important in a minute... wait for it)

So, of course I rush my ass to a doctor who proceeds to tell me that it will not kill me, phew, but it will continue to cause me discomfort unless they remove it. By this point the pain in my shoulder had gotten worse and there were now random shooting pains going down my arm. So, surgery it was.

During Christmas break of my freshman year of collage I had surgery to remove the osteochondroma on my scapula. (See... told you... it makes it sound WAY cooler when I use it that way doesn't it?)

When the doctor came to see me after the surgery he broke the news to us about the placement of this particular tumor. See part of the tumor was sticking out where he could see it (and I could feel it) but part of it was under my shoulder blade. Taking the part out under my shoulder blade, because of the location, turned my surgery from a minor surgery into a major surgery. So he left that part in in the hopes that it would just sort of hang out there.

Unfortunately, my tumor had other plans. Like a starfish when you cut off one of its "arms", the tumor grew back bigger, badder and with avengence. I believe it was about two years later when I first noticed it sticking back out. At that point in time I went to a different doctor who gave me the same spiel about minor to major surgery, throwing in this additional gem:

There is a 10% chance of collapsing your lung if we take off the whole tumor.

Never mind. It's not bothering me that bad. We'll just leave it in place. I kind of like it. Maybe we shall name it Fred.

And so it stayed. For the last 9 years it has been there, just hanging out on my shoulder. Only causing me minor annoyances every once and awhile until about 2 months ago. That is the point at which Fred got REALLY angry. It started out subtly enough. My pinky finger and my ring finger would just randomly go to sleep. Annoying, yes. Life threatening, not really. I would just shake my hand and move on with my day.

Believing that I was not taking him seriously enough Fred ramped up the signals. August 23rd I woke up and it felt like someone had stuck a skewer through the front of my shoulder and it was coming right out the back. Add to that a shooting pain from my shoulder all the way up the back of my head and point taken... hello Fred.

So, I called around and found a new doctor. They couldn't get me in until October 21st which meant I just had to wait it out. The stabbing pain lasted about two weeks and if I move wrong the shooting pain up my head is still there. And as I type this, I am loosing a bit of feeling in my pinky. Feels kind of funny, like a parlor trick.

Anyhow, last week my appointment with the great doctor arrived. I was escorted to my room, xRays were taken and then the doctor came in. He did a brief overview and then invited me out to view my xRays.

That right there is your mass. (God I'm glad we pay him the big bucks!!)

(It's the size of an Easter egg in case your curious.)

And because of where it is located, I don't do that. And no one in my practice does that. So we will need to send you to a specialist in IA City.

All I can say is it's a good thing that I'd already had half of this thing removed once and I was pretty sure what it was. Because I can tell you right now that if I didn't know, I would have freaked out right then and there. He was throwing around terms like musculo-skeletal tumor in your chest cavity and abnormal x-Ray and he immediately ordered a CT scan to get a better look at size and consistency.

The next day, bright and early I had a CT scan to get some good pictures and then Monday I go back to this doctor again for a quick look at the CT. Then, it's off to IA City. At the end of the day the problem is not WHAT the tumor is, it is WHERE the tumor is. It is growing on the underside of my scapula into my chest as opposed to on the outside. So taking it off poses some concerns as far as... oh I don't know... leaving my lungs inflated.

So there you have it. I'm just one giant medical anomaly. Maybe they'll let me keep it in a jar when they take it off. Hey, I have to at least get something good out of this don't I??

A Fluke??

Ok, so I had a friend offer to help me with the HTML. To show her what I wanted I decided to print some screen shots. As I was doing this I changed one setting that I hadn't changed before and boyola... now the header seems to be working.

Pure dumb luck.

So... let me know if anything else looks strange to you. (Besides the pictures of me... those will always look strange. LOL)

The Blogroll

Ok, I'm working diligently on getting all of the glitches worked out of this new design. Anyone know HTML and want to give a girl a hand? I have a new header designed but I can't get it to work with this pre-formatted template the way I want it to and I am in WAY over my head with the HTML stuff.

In the mean time, check out the blogroll over there on the Right. Keep scrolling down... see it down there?? That, my dear friends is a link to ALL the blogs I read. Yes there are A LOT. I tried to take out the ones that are defunked or do not want to be publicly shared but I may have missed some.

SOO... if you're on and you want to be off, let me know. If you're off and you want to be on, let me know that too.

Tuesday Talks

He belches and the look on his face is priceless.

"I just got sick a little bit in my mouth."

"Did it taste yucky?"

"No, it was chicken."

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We are almost done with dinner at BK and he starts taking his coat off.

"Why don't you leave your coat on, we are going to be leaving soon."

"But it's warm in here. So I can take it off and then you can put it on when we leave in a little bit."

How do you argue with logic like that?

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Upon inspecting his less than exciting plastic toy from BK

"What does it do?"

"Nothing I think it's just a plastic toy."

Looks at it bewildered...

"I think maybe someone broke it while I was at daycare."

Take a Look Around

Ok, so if you're viewing this in Bloglines or Google Reader you'll have to click over. Things look a bit different. Let me know if you see anything that needs tweaking. It's not a perfect template but it is something with a different feel to get me back here again.

In the end, this is my space. It has been my space for four years and I'm not leaving it. I have talked to one of the members of my ex's family and explained to her my concern with this space. What they choose to do with that information is up to them. It becomes their decision what they read and what they don't.

I spent most of last week in one hell of a funk. I missed my blog. So, when I went to dinner with M on Friday night we talked about it. About what he wants as far as privacy from me and what he doesn't care if I share. His feelings are that this is my outlet. My therapy.

So, I'm back. New look and all.

Now about that tattoo I've been considering.....

Stick WIth Me...

Ok... things around here are going to go a bit strange for awhile. I'm hoping to get all the kinks ironed out tonight but if by tomorrow morning it still looks like aliens took over around here know that it will eventually get fixed.

See you on the flip side...

The Management

Stuck

I'm guessing that any of you that are still lurking out there have noticed a decidedly large lack of posting going on in this space. I've been back from vacation for almost a month and yet every time I sit down to write something, nothing comes out.

It was brought to my attention that certain members of my ex-in-laws are reading here and the way in which it was thrown in my face has made me a bit gun shy about being here. I know that by leaving this blog where it is and how it is, they are free to read whatever they want. But really, the last thing I want is people reporting back to my ex about everything that is going on in my life.

So, every time I sit down to tell you how I have never been this happy in my life or how I have no idea how I found M or how I never thought I would be lucky enough to find someone who makes me feel this way about my life I stop. I stop and I think... how much of that do I want being reported back to my ex. And then inevitably I click the little X up there in the corner and this space stays blank.

And it's not so much that there is anything bad in what I'm posting. But it's MY life, it's MY happiness and the way it gets twisted and thrown at me makes me feel less than stellar.

For those of you that know me... this is a big deal. This blog is a part of me and last night I seriously considered shutting it down. I've been writing here for over four years and last night I considered walking away. After all, if I'm not going to put anything up here, why shouldn't I?

But... that's not the answer for me. I've also considered moving it but that would require all of you e-mailing me and getting the new address and I know if I did that some of you would fall by the wayside and that's not really what I want to happen either.

So, I think I just need to redesign this blog. Give it a new look and a new feel to make me more comfortable coming back here and sharing with you again because I really do miss all of you and writing in this place.

Any suggestions??

Tuesday Talks

Mommy my cows are going to eat you cuz they are hungry.

They are?

Yeah, they are sad cuz they don't have any food.

Well that is no good.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(A few minutes pass... he is quiet in the back seat....)

Mommy... I don't want you to be eat.

Silence...

I had a commenter ask if I was ok. I keep coming here, trying to say something and I got nothing people. Somehow life and love and laughter have gotten in the way lately.

I'm ok. I've had a few days and a few reminders that I need to go back through the looking glass and work on a few more things but for the most part I'm just living my life.

I'll try to get back here very soon. :-)

Who's Yours?

At 3:00 today Garth Brooks is supposed to make a special announcement regarding possibly coming out of retirement.

The speculation is that he will be at the Wynn Resort for 16 weeks.

I NEED to be at one of those shows.

Garth is my see again before I die performer. When I was younger I had posters of him all over my room. I own every CD he has put out (except for that one where he tried to be someone else... because really... that was just bad). I know all the words to all of his songs and I have never heard a song I don't like.

I do not care what it costs, if the man is coming out of retirement I need to find a way to get to one of his shows. Any of you got any connections for tickets for me??

So, who is your I would sell my first born child to see them person??

Wordless Wednesday