CPAP

I got a CPAP machine! Woot!! Since the study went so badly, with no happy setting or mask, she gave me this machine that self-adjusts with each breath, and intelligently tunes in to my sleeping patterns. Even as I lose weight, it'll just keep on adjusting. It has a built in humidifier so I won't have to worry about how crusty my nose and mouth got during the study as well.

Oh, man, I can't wait to try this thing out. Good sleep, here I come!

Feminine appointments at the dr's office

I had to have half of a girlie exam today due to a slight scare in the "oh my gosh, is it one of those kind of lumps???" department.

So, there I am, being doctored by a nice, little old man with half of a British accent. He keeps his eyes mostly trained on the wall opposite him, I keep my eyes on the poster of a monkey someone had thoughtfully taped to the ceiling, and the nurse in attendance keeps a bright smile on her face and does her legal duty to make sure the dr stays one hundred percent professional.

Me: Doc, the only reason I'm letting you do this is because I've had four kids and as many OB's. I'm still really working the happy place angle though... [and then I realized how that sounded]

Doc: Oh, really? [he's concentrating on the wall, and doesn't pay attention. nurse gives one of those half-shocked giggles] Do you examine yourself every month?

Me: No, and I hate to admit it. One of my closest friends is a nurse, and she's always willing to go thumping for the "feel your boobies once a month" crowd. You know, [and I look at the nurse] a girlfriend thing.

The nurse smiles. She understands. This is how I cope.

Doc: Uh-huh. And she's right. A woman of your age should be familiar with her body so that when she gets older she knows when things aren't right.

And he totally made my day, since my last birthday saw me officially transition into my late 20's. The bloom of youth hasn't totally left me, but there's a bit of a droopy lip that comes with such birthdays.

We, all of us, managed to find the offending lump, and then I was given permission to once more clothe myself.

The poor guy was trying so valiantly to be professional and walk on fine porcelain egg shells. A thin line can sometimes be a dangerous one when litigation is on so many entitled minds.

Doc: The good news is, I most definitely believe it probably isn't cancerous. In fact, let's say that it totally almost certainly isn't. I wouldn't actually call it a lump even, since it doesn't display those characteristics of a lump that make it a lump.

Me: [lost in the bewildering labyrinth of qualifiers and absolutes] So, it isn't lumpy enough to be a lump?

Doc: No. And for now, and I think this is ok, if it was a lump the correct procedure would be to perform a lumpectomy and biopsy. But given what we found today, it's safe and good to do, well, not nothing, but... nothing. Yes, let's wait. But if it changes, come back in right away, don't hesitate. But otherwise, let's wait. Since it isn't a lump, no lumpectomy, and waiting will be fine.

I kind of wonder what it's be like to order dinner with this guy.

"Let's have the, not really shrimp but ok, some shrimp. And no tomatoes, which I think is ok, since it's shrimp but tomatoes exist in this restaurant but the lemon can wait, and then there's the broccoli. Make sure it's cooked but still somewhat raw, or if you think it's better cooked then do it that way. And don't forget the tomatoes. Meaning that I don't want them, perhaps."

I can understand that he didn't want to sear a diagnosis of No Cancer into granite, but oh my freaking goodness I just wanted him to grow a pair and talk straight. Apparently there are places called Breast Care Centers wherein all they care for are breasts. My, what strides women have made in the last century.

So the good news is, no chemo for me, maybe, probably. Let's even say certainly, kind of.

And let this be a reminder to all you women: Check yourself every month!! Really!

Bike accident

Black eye, scraped elbow and knee, limp, but still going out on that bike.


Evidence of the crossing eye, but the glasses hide the black eye pretty well.

oy vey - driving

I made an appt for Tag's ophthalmology needs.

Walter Reed appt lady: There aren't any appts for July or Aug.
Me: [sinking feeling, even more sinking than the thought of having to drive to walter reed]
Appt lady: would you like to make an appt with an alternate facility?
Me: Yes!!!
Appt lady: Ft Belvoir or Bethesda?
Me: [thinking: oh, shoot. Not much better of a drive] Bethesda, please. [crap, crap, crap]

So, thank heaven for small favors.

Princess Pics

Princess ran inside today to tell me that the sky outside looked awesome and could we please take some pictures. I handed her the camera and told her to knock herself out. I need to talk to her about holding still while the pic takes, but from an artistic standpoint, some of them are really neat.

Sleep study part 2

Last night I went in for a CPAP test, to see how much air flow I need from the machine to keep breathing without pumping air into my stomach.

I was brushing my teeth and studying the emergency exit map in the bathroom when I noticed that I had unwittingly chosen the men's bathroom. There was no sign on the outside of it, and no indication in the bathroom itself that it might have a gender preference. There wasn't a power tool or classic car motif and it didn't smell off at all. Huh.

I didn't know that there were a variety of masks to choose from. The one I started with looks something like a very heavy duty nasal cannula. There were two largish tubes which each rested snugly against a nostril. Getting used to air being forced into my lungs was a bit of a struggle at first, but after a while it was second nature. I got a good 2 hours of sleep before the air exploded out of my mouth and I woke up in a panic. I took a moment to breathe normally and calm down then tried to replace the nose piece but couldn't stomach it.

We cycled through the other masks with varying degrees of disaster, which resulted in a few instances of me dozing and getting more air blasted out of my mouth despite a chinstrap fastened tightly around my head. The final arrangement had a nose mask and chin strap so tight on my face that by the time I gave up on sleeping at 5:30, my front teeth hurt.

I may have to repeat the entire thing. The tech blamed the mouth air on sinus congestion, which I didn't feel I had. If I have to do it again I'll have to go in with nasal sprays. So I get to wait another week and a half to find out if I have to schedule another sleep study, and if I do then I have to wait at least a week for that. Following another sleep study, I'll have to wait yet another week to a week and a half for a consult.

And Man wonders why I waited so long to get this looked at. It's like going in for a cough and getting a work up for pneumonia. You end up glad your life will improve/be saved, but there's a certain amount of chagrin when it ends up taking 20x as long as you wanted and costing x amount more in gas and stress.

Did I mention: after a series of apnea episodes, my blood oxygen saturation gets down to 76%. According to this website:

If your low blood oxygen levels become extreme enough (low 80% to upper 70% oxygen saturation), you face the possibility that your heart will spontaneously stop.

So, you can imagine that I'll be following up a little more aggressively in the future. I'm not ready to die.

At the end of the study, they ask you a series to questions (how was your stay? do you feel you rested more or less than you usually do? how long do you think it took you to fall asleep last night?) one of which was "did you dream? If so, what was your dream?" I thought about that, and recalled something about a winged elf, having an enormously flabby stomach like a post-birth octo-mom, and trying to find a medieval inn where I could stable my horse and take my armor off. I jotted down "flying, and trying to find a hotel." I mean, how long could I sit and really write about my subconscious body issues and deep desire to just find a place to rest??

The hardest thing to get used to is that instead of taking a breath until my lungs were half full and then releasing it until my lungs were mostly empty, the CPAP machine kept my lungs filled all the way and breathing out could not be completely accomplished. Training your body to breathe an entirely different way and then sleep while doing it is quite the undertaking.

The tech removed the adhesives holding the electrodes on with a moderate amount of hair removal into the bargain. They should just make it a sleep clinic/waxing salon and make a bit more money for the same amount of pain.

Then I drove home and took a 4 hour nap.

Man got me a bike for my birthday, so now we can hitch up our bike trailer and take off as a family. Part of traveling in a bike trailer is getting your own helmet. They are just too cute in these things. Pebbles got a Princess helmet, and Freida has one that has different covers you can put on, including this fish and a bumblebee. I think the last one is a frog.



This was just too cute.

These are her new shoes. This kid cracks me up.


And this face was so ham and cheese I couldn't resist sharing.

big sisters are cool

This is a common sight nowadays:


She is an endless gut in the middle of a serious growth spurt. She's only happy when she's eating.


Unless her big sister gives her a big hug.

Then they both end up happy.

Shoulder update

Man went in for chiropractic care before he met with his dr about the results of his latest MRI. He didn't even get an adjustment, because the chiropractor poked around his shoulder and said that his pain could be explained by compensation. His shoulder hurt, so he began to favor some muscles over others. As a result of that, some muscles became weaker than others. One particular muscle became so overtaxed from that kind of compensation that it began to hurt all of the time. It was so tense that it felt like a lump of gristle. He got surgery to correct the initial cause of pain, but recovery from that surgery put even more strain on that one little muscle as he compensated even more. After that, he was compensating for the painful muscle itself and a vicious cycle has led to ever worsening pain. He can only sleep on one side, as any other sleeping position hurts too much.

This morning, the chiropractor identified the errant muscle, gave him a couple of exercises to do, and immediately Man felt a slight breath of relief.

We're being pretty careful to not hope too much this time around. The hope cycle is a difficult one to stay on for very long. Man is heroically patient concerning these exercises. He says that every time he does them, the painful muscle feels a tiny bit better. He has an appointment in three weeks to get a chiropractic adjustment to see if they can get that muscle to release after the other muscles have a chance to strengthen a bit. That poor little muscle will likely take quite a while to get back to normal after almost 3 years of abuse, but... here's hoping.

The MRI found a very slight tear in his superspinatus tendon (one of the blokes in his shoulder) but the treatment for that would be the very same exercises the chiropractor assigned him.

I'm still praying, and hoping, and the poor man will have to endure my inquiries on whether it feels better today, how about today, and today, and etc. I'm reservedly excited about his adjustment in three weeks, given how much an adjustment helped a back injury I got when Freida was still tiny. It only took 24 hours for my pain to dissipate entirely. Wouldn't that be a miracle.

found the battery charger!

Magic Mommy Kisses

I have a sister 8 years younger than me. Mom was gone for a while when Echo was still quite young (family reunion or something) and sadness resulted. In an effort to help her feel better I told her that I knew I wasn't mom, but I needed to work on my Magic Mommy Kisses, you know, the Kisses that seem to make everything a little brighter, a little less painful. So I kissed her hand that had been hurt and asked if it worked. She hesitated, shook her head, so I tried repeatedly until my muscles were feeling weak in the kisser and she started to feel a bit better.

Just this morning Pebbles came to me with a hurt hand. "Mom, duh closet bit my hand!" She held forth her hand to be kissed but it seemed that my first attempt was poorly aimed. "No, mom, it's white deer!" So I made kisses while she guided the contours of her hand along my lips until my fully developed Magic Mommy Kisses worked to their greatest extent.

Part of me felt happy that such a simple thing could bring great comfort to my precious young one. Another part of me felt like a tool, something from which this little princess demanded immediate attention and results. The latter feeling came to the forefront when, mid-kiss, she yanked her hand away and trotted off to do battle with the closet door again.

-sigh- The Mommy Tool. It's a good thing that my kisses bring me at least a much comfort.

late evening musings

I have a sort of love-hate relationship with sleep lately. I always feel worse upon waking than I do when I lay my sorry head down at night, so I've had a bit of a battle with finding an appropriate time to actually hit the hay.

Tonight, Man synched up our backup drive with my computer. The image files coming off of it were interfering with the show I was trying to stream. That was annoying. Taking a look at the Picassa import, it appeared to be a random collection of art that came with some cd-making kit Man keeps around for his music. I scoffed at the clip art that was harshing my entertainment and told all the files to go into one file named "garbage".

The upload began and the little 1/2" thumb nails started flickering through clip art, but then they began unfolding a chronological tale of my life in pictures. The past 5 years was literally flashing before my eyes. My children, sunsets, paper roses my husband has given me, every megabyte piling in heaps somewhere in "garbage".

Funny how the things that feel like they're intruding on my current project might appear so trivial, yet mean absolutely everything. It's a perspective I've been trying to keep in mind when Princess asks me to color with her, Pebbles asks me to paint her nails, Tag comes up and hugs me and says "mom, I love you so, so much" (real quote) and when Freida interrupts me just so she can give me her special brand of blat-kiss.

And then I realize that it's the computer I should be annoyed with, interrupting my time with these little people. Even Freida's body and face are elongating into that kid physique. There isn't much baby left about her nowadays.

What folder do I toss those real life moments into?

Writing slump

Obviously, a lot of my life has revolved about the sleeping condition and just daily sunrise-sunset labors and escapes. It used to be that writing was a great way to document how I felt about the contents of a day. Many of the issues with which I've been wrestling are also tender things for the parties involved, who may or may not ever read this thing. A sister and a dear friend are dealing with troubles between them; another person in my life is trying to be a sunny ray of happy-death and emotional epsom salts; the sleep thing is a boring saga of daily decisions and parings down of what I feel I can accomplish; another friend has a daughter who is still hanging in there, battling cancer and gracing the last months and weeks of her life with her beauty and lovely spirit; my personal projects are of a longer-term nature at the moment including food storage and college (and yes, deep, personal brooding concerning book ideas) and there isn't a whole lot to report.

I know that many of these issues aren't things I have any control over, and yet they concern people for whom I care muchly and forever. My heart is grateful that they include me in these growing times and heavy with empathy and awareness that they hurt during the growth.

My Relief Society president dropped by today to see how I'm doing. We chatted about my feelings on whether to keep two callings. She mentioned her battle with debilitating anemia and I struggled with whether to feel bad about asking for a lighter load while her own is unrelieved. She spoke of her concern for my health and feeling of inclusion in the ward and offered her services if any further needs arise. All in all, a good conversation.

It left me wondering about my comfort zones again. How uncomfortable should I be in my life in order to keep growing? I think that depends on how much I push myself before things get uncomfortable.

We also had a great visit from our good friends, the H2 family. Friend R is a dose of humor and good conversation who always leaves me feeling calmer, happier, nicer. And she brought me a cookbook, so she's earned a free pass on my good graces for many years to come. ;)

Freida has been a pill lately that is not assuaged by any offering we pathetic mortals lay before her tiny, pudgy feet. Hopefully it's one of those phase things they talk about in baby books that I don't really believe in. She weeps when anyone besides her is in my lap, cries when she's in my lap and I refuse to act as a conveyance for her imperative whims, screams when anyone approaches that which she has decided is hers, and wails when someone becomes upset that she has taken violent measures to secure an object of desire, even if she herself was not subject to any retaliatory measures. Yes, I've been trying positive attention, pain meds, proper feeding, etc.

So, I'll try to find some topics to write on at some point. In the mean time just know that dr's appts continue for one and all, we're doing great, and Man managed to find the battery charger for the camera, so that's back in business. These pics were taken by our neighbor who is studying a bit of photography.

A cute shot, and another angle on the hair cut. It's really growing on me, and shows off how her face has shed its toddler aspect.


Interesting shot.

My big girl, enjoying her bike.

My boy, enjoying his bike.


When did my chunky baby boy grow into this skinny, athletic young man?

Powdered milk

When I was a kid, my mom would sometimes try to get us to drink or otherwise consume powdered milk. It was hideous stuff. The only way she could use it without complaints from us was in baked goods. I don't think even half reconstituted milk and half fresh made it past us without fierce resistance. And who could blame us? Even adults who aren't used to it have been known to give it bad reviews.

Today I tried powdered milk again. We ran out of fresh so I thought I'd mix some up to go in my breakfast shake and took a bare sip of the plain milk before adding the breakfast powder.

Surprisingly, it tasted just like warm milk.

The brand I used is Sanalac from ConAgra.

Maybe this powdered milk thing isn't such a gross idea after all. We'll have to see how the powdered milk from the cannery goes over though, as it's far less expensive and that may be for a good reason.

Goings on

-Lost the charger for the camera battery. :( So, no pics for a while until 'tis found or replaced.

-Man had some leave, so that was nice. Time with kids and family is always good. House is recovering from our staycation.

-As a consequence of vacationing, I did as little actual cooking as I could get away with, so no new recipes.

-My carpet no longer looks new and spot cleaner isn't cutting it anymore. I may actually have it cleaned while we live here.

-Costco has the most awesome sticker books on bugs, snakes, safari animals, and sea creatures.

-it's difficult to explain to kids what to do with damp/wet laundry. "look. hang it on the side of the basket if it's wet." It's just too complicated and bewildering.

-Summer is too fun. I can see why some people homeschool. Reading books, playing math games, watching science videos and making homemade rock candy are things I like doing with or without the kids at home.

-houseflies need to die, and darn the global consequences.

-(I don't really mean that -- the only ones that positively must die are the ones who dare enter my home)

-a radio station that plays songs I like and doesn't have frequent commercials is worth its weight in gold... so to speak.

-Best hair clips in the world: octopus hair clips. I found some at Walmart and now I'll never use another kind again. It's the first clip I've used that I can put in my hair in the morning and forget about until bedtime.

-Buying nice bread and deli meats from the store is waaaaaaay less expensive than a trip to a fast food place. (one family trip to Chipotle = $35. bread and meat and chips for two large meals for a family of 6 = $17)

and now I'm out of random stuff to post.

recipes

Instead of randomly posting recipes here, I'm randomly posting recipes here.

I found that I use my blog as a sort of recipe referral but it's getting full enough of random things that it's somewhat cumbersome to search for a recipe. So, I added a search widget to the other blog and have been posting, in addition to recipes, a few menu ideas here and there.