Pics

The quality is quite low because they are cell phone pictures, but this is the way my wrist looks now.  In two days time it will never look this way again.  It will no longer be bent to the side, as it won't be able to bend at all, and there will be a massive scar down the back of my arm.  Ignore the laundry pile, Chris is a bit behind in the folding and it's one of the few chores I can no longer do.

Pre surgery jitters!

In less than 48 hours my left wrist will be permanently fused, leaving me with a forearm and fingers, but also with no more pain.  I'm having conflicting thoughts about this.  I'm excited to no longer be in pain, but nervous to lose the last bit of function in my wrist.  My wrist has gotten even worse over the past few weeks.  Instead of just being bent back, a few weeks ago I popped a bone in my forearm and now my wrist is cocked to the left as well.  Tonight I will take pictures and post them, mainly I would like pictures of the way my wrist looks now because after surgery I will have a sizeable scar running down the back of my arm.  Never again will my wrist look the way it does now, and I am going to miss that. I will not be able to post the first week of recovery as I won't be allowed to use my fingers at all.  The plan is to stay in bed with Charlie and my LMN movies I have on the DVR - if Chris will be kind enough to put the DVR in the bedroom.  If we can find the battery charger we'll upload pictures of everything next week after the first week of recovery.

Negativity

I'm not sure why, but I think we too often deal with people who bring nothing positive to our lives because we feel some obligation to do so.  I'm not sure why we feel that obligation.  Perhaps it makes me a bitter person but I'm done with negativity.  If you bring negativity to my life I will no longer have you in my life - regardless of why you are in my life in the first place.  My life is too stressful as it is, I don't need additional stress.  And I certainly don't need people I hardly know adding more stress or telling me how to get further in life :)  I'm not the one living at my in-laws house unable to support myself.  Low blow? Sure. Am I being negative myself right now? Yup.  And this is why I'm cutting negative people out of my life.  They don't make me a better person, they make my negative characteristics come out.  I have enough loving and caring people in my life that I don't need the others around.  So this will be the last post about negative people.  From now on my outlook is cheery and the people I allow to share my memories with will partake in that cherriness or they will not partake at all.

A whole bunch of stuff...

It seems as though when one thing in your life is thrown out of balance everything else seems to follow.  I've been meaning to compose my thoughts here, but I'm having a hard time thinking clearly with everything going on.  I apologize if this post comes off as harried.

Surgery is set and approaching quickly.  As the 23rd nears I'm becoming more and more nervous.  This isn't a minor surgery, it's completely life altering.  Every day that passes now is the last day of the week that I'll have the ability to bend my left wrist.  With that said, surgery couldn't come soon enough.  I've had to increase my pain killers by quite a few just to get through the day without being a total mess from pain.  

I've been battling with the hospital I'm having my surgery at over my rights to breastfeed following surgery.  They told me that I couldn't nurse for 24 hours following surgery.  I know this is false, and old school thinking.  New studies show that as soon as mom is awake and alert enough to nurse she can.  I explained this to the Robin, the scheduler at my surgeons office and she told me I needed to be "realistic" and that "nursing isn't that important".  She also told me that in 20 years of working she's never come "this close" to losing it on a patient before.  Finally she contacted a liaison at the hospital I'm having the surgery at for me to discuss this with.  Unfortunately, Sue is quite similar to Robin and I continued to get an ear full.  I told Sue that I'd be more than happy to have my IBCLC, Debbie, contact her.  She said that was fine, I'm assuming in an attempt to get me off the phone, and hung up.  Debbie called her and Sue refused to speak with her because of HIPPA!  So I called Sue back and this sparked a few more phone calls between us hashing this out.  At one point she told me they'd cancel my surgery if I tried to nurse Charlie.  I told her I wanted documented evidence that this was harmful to my son, and if it was for liability I would sign a waiver.  I said I had no issues coming up there in person with the studies in hand, my IBCLC, and a representative from the LLL.  Sue promised to get back to me.  A week and half later I still hadn't heard from her and she wasn't returning my phone calls so Debbie finally got her on the phone and asked Sue to set up a meeting between us and the anesthesiologist.  At first Sue said I wouldn't be able to speak to the anesthesiologist until the day of my surgery, but at Debbies urging she agreed to set up an appt.  This morning I had my meeting with them.  I pre-registered for the surgery, they showed me around, and then they brought in the anesthesiologist that is going to be there for my surgery.  She was awesome, and assured me that I would be able to nurse as soon as I wanted to.  There was no issues at all.  I felt bad that Debbie accompanied me to the appt, but am very happy with the outcome.  This was my first real adventure in Lactivism and certainly gave me a taste of what I'll do some day as an IBCLC.

So as all this approaches we also find out that David has a pretty severe hernia and is going in for surgery himself on the 9th.  Charlie is still having breathing issues.  And as a family we are dealing with some personal issues concerning one of our children that is taking an extreme emotional toll on us.  I'm hoping that the Karmic universe gives us a break here soon.

Day One of Homeschooling

Today was our first day of Homeschooling.  It went really well, and went much quicker than I originally expected.  Except for a few minor melt downs we had absolutely no issues either.  We started with independent journaling.  Writing and journaling are skills we are really trying to instill in Anthony, and so far he really seems to enjoy it.  For Anastasia we got her a sketch pad and she draws pictures during journaling time.  After breakfast (a nice primal breakfast of eggs and steak!) we moved onto Language Arts.  Anastasia seemed really disinterested in sitting still today so I concentrated on Anthony most of the time.  We began reading, "Stuart Little" today, and Anthony read aloud the first chapter.  He did amazingly well and only needed help on 2 or 3 words.  Afterwards I quizzed him a bit on comprehension and surprisingly he retained all he had read.  He then composed a short paragraph about the first chapter in his book log notebook.

He only misspelled a few words, which we then added to his spelling list notebook as a start for this weeks spelling list.

After Language Arts we had health.  The first unit study is about our bodies so we decided we wanted to measure everyones height, weight, hands and feet.  The kids weights really surprised me!  Anthony is now 38.5 lbs! Anastasia is 28.5 lbs (which is amazing, she's been 23 lbs forever).  David is now 19.5 lbs, so still not quite big enough to turn his car seat around but growing.  Our chunky baby, the only child of ours who has ever had baby fat and rolls, is now 10 lbs!  We figure he'll get super heavy and then stop growing like Anthony did.  I must be making cream this time instead of skim milk!

After Health we had music.  I originally wanted to start with the recorder but I haven't purchased them yet, so we are learning about composers instead.  Today we learned about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and will continue to study him for the rest of the week.  This is where our major melt down happened.  After reading a short biography on him I gave Anastasia a coloring page of his face, and Anthony received a word search to complete.  Anthony didn't want the wordsearch, he wanted to color.  Out of 9 words he only found one without help, and 2 with help, before he gave up. Will keep in mind he does not like word searches, but I will still give them to him because I do think they teach valuable skills.

After Health it was time for Spanish, which is computer based.  Anthony wasn't feeling it today and didn't really try, resulting in only getting half correct.  So we will be repeating lesson one for a while.

Next was Science, one of the subjects I'm the most excited about this year.  Today was a really easy day for Science, basically an intro into this years subject and some journaling in his Science Journal followed by adding Vocabulary into his Vocabulary Journal.  Tomorrow we start our first lab using thermometers to show how certain objects conduct heat!

Then we had Social Studies where we just introduced our current unit - Geography.  We learned basic definitions for Latitude and Longitude, identified the on a world map, learned how to read coordinates, and discussed the equator.  I guess he learned a lot of this already by reading one of his encyclopedias, so we flew through this quicker than I thought.

Finally we had Math.  I showed him how to do the word problems, and gave him two sheets to complete.  He flew through them very quickly and got every question correct! I was so proud.

So far things are going smoothly, but today was pretty easy.  On days where Anastasia is more interested we'll be doing a lot of things with her as well which will make things a bit more complicated.  But so far, so good.

Here's Anthony working on his Language Arts journal.

Here's my homeschool shelf, and our dining room with the alphabet posters, and the "Mizzell Money" reward chart (more on that in another post)

And of course, pictures of the kids!  David playing with Charlie's playmat, he can't keep himself off! And David getting into the homeschooling supplies.

Anastasia dancing to her "Get Ready For School" CD

And some of Chunky Charlie Bear.  So cute, so sweet, looks like me, but has little baby rolls!

Saw the Surgeon Again

I saw my surgeon again on Friday.  After reading the report from the rheum. he asked me if we wanted to set a date up for surgery.  My left wrist is the one that is bothering me the most, so we are fusing that wrist first.  Surgery is set for June 23rd.  I'll go in at 11 am, and the surgery is scheduled for 1 pm.  They booked the OR for 2 hours, and said I should be back in recovery with Chris and Charlie by 4 pm.  Right now we are fighting for the right to breastfeed after surgery.  I know Charlie will need a bottle while I'm in the surgery, which frightens me to no end, but the doctors are telling me they don't want me nursing for 24 hours after surgery.  That isn't going to happen.  All the literature shows that a nursing mom can nurse as soon as she is alert.  There is no danger to baby except the possibility of passing out and smothering the child - so it should never be done without supervision.  I tried to explain this to them, but they weren't listening and the scheduling nurse was very condescending.  I told her I'd contact my IBCLC if that would help, and she set me up with a liaison at the hospital where the surgery would be.  The hospital agreed to allow Chris and Charlie to room with me, so that was one hurdle that was cleared.  On Tuesday my IBCLC is contacting the hospital on my behalf and working it out with anesthesiologist, not only for me but to educate him for future surgeries on lactating women.  It will be quite a feat to nurse, but I will let nothing deter me.  For the first week after the surgery I can't move my arm at all, I can't even bend my fingers.  It will require a lot of discipline on my part, and I think I'll spend most of it in bed with Charlie.  For that week I'll be in a heavy gauze wrapping, and a half cast.  After one week I'll be put in a hard cast up to my elbow for 6 weeks, and then I will be put in a removable brace for 6 more weeks.  The fusion will be complete after 9-12 months at which point I'll have the metal bracing removed.  A few months after my left wrist is operated on we'll do the same to the right wrist. My IBCLC is coming out to teach me to nurse one armed, and bringing me a special pillow to assist me.  I really do love her.  She's been there since I had Anastasia.  She was shocked when she got the message that I needed help, she knew I didn't need latching or the normal type help.  I'm constantly keeping her on her feet!

Now that surgery is scheduled the reality of it is hitting me.  This just plain sucks.  My arm is going to look deformed and scarred up.  I will never move my wrist again.  I will have to relearn how to live and function. Three more weeks is all I have with mobility in my wrist and unscarred arms.

I have been dubbed, "The Mean Mommy!"

Anthony has hit this oh-so-wonderful stage.  If he wants something he promises to be mine or Chris's best friend in exchange.  When he doesn't get his way he yells, with his voice gradually getting louder, about how horribly mean we are.

Last night he wasn't behaving well at bedtime.  We let the kids stay up as late as they want, as long as they are in their bed and quiet.  Anthony uses this time to read, and he knows that he must have his books in his room PRIOR to bedtime.  Last night he kept coming out of his room to get more books, and the final time I told him he needed to get back in his room immediately or he was losing all of his books for the evening.  He ignored me, so I confiscated his books.  This resulted in a full on melt down with me being the evil person and him accusing me of breaking promises.  He said he made a promise to himself that he could read every night before bed, so by my taking his books I was breaking his promise.  I think his meltdown went on for nearly an hour.

Today, prior to lunch, he kept picking on David and Anastasia. So I sat him down to have a talk with him about stopping when someone asks him to stop teasing them.  The whole conversation he had this grin he gets on his face when he's being a smart butt, and he kept talking back so at the end of it I told him to go to his room and stay there until it was clean.  An hour later it wasn't clean, so I sat the other two down for lunch and told him he could eat his lunch when the room was clean.  Again, another hour of screaming about how he was going to die if he didn't eat right then, and how awful I am, and that it's MY fault he can't clean when I ask him to because of me asking him to (?).  Finally he decided to clean and was happy as a clam afterwards.

I really don't like this stage, at all.