Category: Pay attention to me…me me me…

Saw the Gastro doc today. He said the CT was unclear weather I had severe diverticulitis since it was hard to see because of my “dirty fat” (yeah I feel the same way about it!) getting in the way. So we have scheduled a colonoscopy for the near end of July. We are traveling to Kansas City, MO on the 27th, so why not do it on Monday, the 23rd?! Yes, lets. And also? I get to drink stuff that you can buy over the counter to clean out my insides so they can see what they are looking for. Fun stuff huh? Oh come on, I know you are so jealous. what’s not to be jealous of sitting on the pot for hours while my guts are being poured out like water? I better rent some damn good movies!
Ok, so today the doc gave me a diet that lists all the foods I could and could not eat. When we got home, I was not very hungry, so I was just going to have some tomato soup. (totally allowed, no seeds in cream of tomato) Jon didn’t want to have to cook again for the kids (he didn’t really ever, since McDonalds doesn’t count as cooking) so we decided to go out. I racked my brain trying figure out where we could go that would help me feel like I could participate with others. We ate out on Sunday with half our church it turns out at a local BBQ place. I was a good girl and had a baked potato, no skin with chopped beef, no sauce and some butter and sour cream. I enjoyed it very much as it was really the first real beef I have had in over 10 days. We ended up at Chili’s and I had a cesar salad with grilled chicken. It was also very yummy and I enjoyed all of it. I haven’t yet felt any ill effects from lettuce, so here is me crossing my fingers. We walked out of Chili’s and what was right next door? Krispie Kream!! We could smell the donuts from the parking lot and just had to stop and get some. I knew except for them being fried and all and that is a no no, I didn’t think one (ok two) would hurt all that much, after all I have had soft cakes already. They were like heaven and sex all rolled into one. I am serious. I couldn’t speak for like 5 min. after eating the cream filled chocolate covered donut of deliciousness. Now THAT was worth it. I will be a good girl and not eat too many more of those. I promise. I got the best burst of laugh until my sides hurt, I’m gonna pump you up! kind of high. It was great. The crash afterwards, not so much. Oh well. Like is said, it was totally worth it. Jon looked at me like I was manic or something tho. LOL He so crazy.

The rest of the week will be filled with laundry, prep for VBS, and monitoring my health. Oh and the VBS Lauren is going to, the summer school Brenna has, and keeping the bored monster from creeping in while sisters are away and Mikey and Dan are left to their own devices in the play room. This morning Dan watched Pirates of the Carribean for the umpteenth time. Is summer over yet?

You know your life has taken a turn for the worse when the only thing you think and talk about are poop and your bowels. What the hell? Seeing my Dr. today and having him pretty much confirm what the ER Doc said about the Diverticulitis was anti-climatic to say the least. He recommended I see a Gastrointestinal specialist, which I already knew. He suggested I go back on liquids because of the return of pain, which I suspected. I tell you, I’m not called AngieWebMD for nothing! I also got up early, showered, and was ready to bolt out of the door for another CT scan, when I called my GP and was told it was unessesary for another. Again, what the hell? I guess he ordered one last week for me when I was there. I ended up getting one in the ER, so I called and canceled. I was so tired, all I wanted to do was go back to bed. Instead I spent the better part of an hour calling trying to find a Gastro doc! I guess they are in high demand. The general population must all be backed up or feeling “crappy” that they book up all the appointments. Anywhoo..enough about my colon. Let’s talk about how tired I am!

Just kidding. My brain is a little foggy and I am still so tired. I’ll check in tomorrow…

The last couple of days have been tough. What I thought was a virus has turned into a disease and what I thought I was doing to improve my health was only the beginning.
Most of my readers I have called already and know the scoop, so I won’t go into all the gory details, but suffice it to say, I have Diverticular Disease. I have acute diverticulitis and need to start taking better care of me. What started out as a sharp pain in my stomach turned into a UTI and diverticulitis. I was sure it couldn’t be the same thing my Dad, Aunt, Uncle, and Grandparents suffered from, after all I am only 34! Unfortunately it is and I will need to do some changes to my diet while I recover from my attack and really for the rest of my life. I am trying to take the positive road here and tell myself this is what I wanted all along, either from the Gastric Bypass surgery or changing my lifestyle and eating habits. This way, I have some risk of complications, but once I get it under control it will be a ten-fold return for my effort. Weight loss, better eating habits, and a way to insure my families health in the long run. I would like the buck to stop here so to speak. I do not want my children to end up the way I have; overweight, health issues, and unwillingness to care for their health. How is that for positive? Now I am not saying it will be easy. Oh no…I already want something crunchy when all I can have is liquids! I chewed up a pretzel and then spit it out just so I could get that crunchy feeling I was wanting. I guess on the up side, I can eat cake and bagels for the next month! How is that for a diet? lol

I missed out on going to the opening of the Texas Pool today. That was a bummer, but I got to take a nap in peace and quiet. THAT, was wonderful….until  had to wake up and take my meds. Flagil ( one of two anti-biotics I am on) tastes nasty just in case you were wondering.  If I can get to sleep, we will all go to church in the morning and probably a nap after that, and then Memorial Day will be spent with friends. Let’s see how fun that is going to get for me on a liquid diet! I can’t think of one thing to bring that wouldn’t make me feel like I was missing out on eating there. Soup? I had to strain the tomato bisque Jon graciously got for me tonight so I wouldn’t eat the pureed pulp and irritate my colon. Gosh  I hate that word. Colon. I guess that is better than saying my pooper or something like that! anywhooo…Memorial Day…we’ll see how it goes!

I’m off to try and sleep. I took a darvacet  at 11 for some pain and I don’t really feel it working all that much except a little grogginess. Not the sleepy feeling I was going for. Oh well. TTFN!

and that isn’t always good. I won’t go into details, but lets just say, it sucks once a month to be a girl. All you girls out there know what I am talking about and it’s not when you pay bills and can’t buy shoes. It’s the dreaded PERIOD! Aghhhhhhh! The boys in this house know to start running and not look back for 7 whole days when all the girls start getting weepy and moody. Lauren’s time was last week, mine is this week, and poor Brenna is just practicing her moody ways. I think Jon and the boys should just live in a hotel 2 weeks out of the month. Everything he says and everything he does just bugs me. Poor guy. He tries…and I’ll admit that I don’t exactly practice patience during this time. I am low on energy and tolerance for dumb questions and actions. What can I say?

On the lighter side of things, school will be out in 2 days. The year has just flown by! Lauren will be a 7th grader, Brenna a 5th grader!!, and Dan a 3rd grader. Michael is still in pre-school, but will be moving up to the 4 year old class, which is good for preparing them for kindergarten. He is still expecting to go to school everyday and is sad when I tell him school is over. Since the older kids still go every morning, he feels left out. I’m sure he’ll change his mind about going once we start swimming at the pool regularly.

Jon is back to the old grindstone at work. AT&T is being difficult and demanding his time. I guess I shouldn’t complain, it does bring home the proverbial bacon. Dan has his last conference of the year tomorrow and Dad is going to stop in on his lunch hour. Then on Thursday, he’ll work from home so I can go to my annual skin check-up. Oh joy, I am always looking forward to sitting in a freezing room with just my underwear on so some strange man can look at all the spots on my body. I have so many freckles and moles that believe me, it takes a while! I just hope to get a clean checkup and no skin cancers.

This week’s TV watching and all the end of the season finales are coming to a close. We finished watching Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Heroes, and Grey’s. All were so good, I don’t want to wait until the fall to see them again! House is up and of course LOST! On the reality home front, we caught up on The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars, and Survivor. I missed not seeing a new season of Biggest Loser and where the heck is my Nip/Tuck?! Can you tell we like love our TV? We do. I guess that is why we are so fat. We sit waaaay too much and watch the box. Well, time to finish watching Oprah! Tootles!

I should be baking cakes, doing laundry, cleaning up, and general Saturday busyness but I’m not. I am sitting here in my bed wasting the day away. It’s kind of nice. Last night was Scrapbook night at the church. It’s held once a month and it started about 6 years ago I guess. I was really into scrap booking for a long time. I started making cards and they are like mini works of art, so I have stuck with them. I made 9 cards last night and they are simple, yet cute and are great to have on hand for birthday parties and long distance birthdays. I ran out of the ones I made over a year ago, where I had 10 categories of cards on hand for many different occasions. It was nice to have them around, but when I ran out, I didn’t replenish. Now I am starting to re-stock my larder. If I was actually scrapbooking, I wouldn’t have even completed one whole layout last night. I guess I enjoy the instant gratification that cards give me. All that to say, I stayed there until 2:30 and then sat in front of my house talking to Nat on her way home. I didn’t get in until 3:15 and Jon was still awake. We talked for a while and finally turned the TV off at 4:30. OMG! Doesn’t make a for a pleasant morning to have to get up at the regular time, so we slept in. The girls were at a sleepover and the boys played somewhat quietly until around 10:30. Jon got up and was still comatose. I think I got up sometime after 1pm. Gotta love Saturdays when you CAN be lazy….always an option to be lazy, all depends on if you take it or not.
Lauren has another sleepover tonight at another friends house, and I will be making cakes for her bake sale at the church tomorrow. She wants to help with all of them, but I would rather just do them and be done with it. I know, I know Mom..she needs to help! 😉

I work best under pressure.

I’m back and better than ever. Well, no not really, but I feel human again. It’s American Idol night and Melinda got voted off. I was surprised. I was sure Jordin would go tonight. Now Blake and Jordin are in the top 2 and it should be an interesting week. I sure hope Blake wins. I will surely buy his album. Although, Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson are the only two albums I have bought and listened to from AI. Jon liked Chris Daughtry, but his music is not my cup of tea. I thought I would buy Fantasia, but her album turned out to be to R&B for my tastes.

School is almost out and I am looking forward to and dreading it all at the same time. I hope this summer keeps my kids busy. I foresee lots of swimming and summer school and mission trips and maybe we might squeeze in a trip to Ingleside or San Antone to see Chris and Michelle. Should be fun and busy. I hope to get the kids rooms painted this summer too. Maybe they’ll want to keep their rooms clean?

Jon has to be up at 5am this morning for his conference. Last day, he’s off on Friday. I am pretty sure he’ll spend most of the day at the church office fixerating their computers. So much for quality time spent together while Mikey has his last day of school. Me, I am going to grocery shop tomorrow and I really need new shower curtains for the bathrooms. Ikea here I come. 😀

Went to the doctor yesterday. Well, went to two actually. The first one I didn’t get in to see, I was filling out paper work at an Urgent Care place when my Doctor’s office called and said they could squeeze me in at 3:45. So I apologized and went home to lay down. By the time I got to Dr. G’s, I was aching all over, 101.9 fever and couldn’t hardly take or swallow. I had chills and a terrible headache. All classic symptoms of strep. I knew it the minute my throat started to hurt. When you have had it as many times as I have, you just know. I got there a little early and waited in the office. With my head down and eyes closed. It seemed like a hour had dragged by, but only 10 minutes before I got back to the exam room.

Only bit of good news, I had lost 2 more lbs. so now I am down 12 lbs since I started trying to lose weight. Yay me. Anywhoo.. I got back to the exam room and Linda, Dr. G’s nurse looked at me like I was a poor leper and tried not to touch me. Took my temp, it was now 102 and I was so weak and tired and achy I couldn’t really talk all that much. I really felt like I could die. Usually I have a very high pain tolerance, but this was just too much.

Linda said Dr. G would be in shortly. Well, shortly couldn’t come fast enough, so I laid down on the teeny tiny exam table in a fetal position just to get some relief from the pain. I must have laid there for at least 10 min. but it was so quiet and cold in there, I think I might have fallen asleep a little. Right before he came in, I sat up and got my bearings and one look at me would have scared anyone. He asked me how I was doing and I wanted to say, “duh!”. Looked in my throat and the first time I have ever heard a doctor say this: “Gross!” and we both laughed. Um, understatement of the year. I pretty much had 2 large walnuts back there with pockets of white pus all over them. Try swallowing anything with those in there. Told you it was gross.

He gave me a prescription for amoxicillian and we discussed some ways to alleviate the pain I was having right then. So we both decided on a steroid shot to the hip. Some patients, 2 of them women have had a side effect with the steroid shots. Fat necroses or cell death. It was temporary, but left a divot in their skin for a while until the cells regenerated. I told him that was a price I was willing to pay for some pain relief and then I asked him if he could do it all over and help me lose some weight! He laughed out loud and said sorry, but that’s wasn’t a very viable option. I would look like a golf ball. So despite my pain and sickness, I haven’t lost my sense of humor!

Afterwards, I came home and laid down. I sent my kids to their rooms while Jon was out getting my meds because they acted like spoiled brats and fought with each other. They were supposed to make dinner while he was out, or at least get it started. Even though it hurt like crazy,  I yelled over their screaming to work together and they kept screaming at each other to shut up and such. They couldn’t hear me because they were so loud themselves!  Once it was quiet, I was able to rest some more, but at 6 pm, I took a sleeping pill and hoped it would just knock me out. It just made me really groggy and I tossed and turned all night long. Jon came in at 11 or so with Bren because it was thundering and lightening so she was scared, and I for some odd reason (don’t really know why) laid my head at the foot of the bed and seemed to sleep for 3 or so hours, then I got up to pee and put my head at the right side. My fever broke around 7am, so I was able to get some much needed sleep on and off until noon. I took my meds, had some soup, and heard from various people asking how I was feeling. Now, I am just resting in my room until later tonight. I hope to have my American Idol party tonight as scheduled, if I rest and don’t over do it should be fine. NO laughing for me! It hurts too much. I think a quick spray down with Lysol should do the trick!

I think I am ready to lay down again…

I think I have strep throat. Flash backs of a conversation I had on Friday night at our lovely Pina Colada Party: “Oww! Mom you hurt my shot!” I asked what that was all about and Mom told me that she had an anti-biotic shot for Strep Throat. I had never heard of that before. Friend told me that they get that instead of the 10 days worth of anti-biotic because it was over with immediately. I’m not thinking so since 3 days later I have the razor blades of death in the back of my throat. How do I know? Because I get strep waaaaaay too much. My sister and must have some sort of plague following us around. One stroke of our hem and blamo! we are sick with some sort of throat/ sinus / head infection. Crazy I tell ya. Not only do I have all the classic symptoms, I am supposed to sub at school tomorrow and I tried calling 2 other people to sub for me, but they can’t for various and good reasons. Between the throat and the thunder-storms I am still awake. At 3:40 in the freakin morning. Tomorrow is going to stink!

I’ll update as soon as I know for sure weather I have it or not. You can’t wait can ya?

Today my oldest son is 8 years old. There isn’t much more I can say about him other than he is AWESOME! oh and I love him. I hope he had a great day with lots of presents and Pokemon games and toys. I think he did.

We spent last night with friends over in Frisco. With it being Cinco de Mayo we had fajitas and pina coladas (no we did not get caught in the rain- get it? like the song? If you like Pina Coladas…getting caught in the rain…ah nevermind. 😉 ) and apple martini’s. Oh the apple Martini’s. I really should have stuck with the Pina’s. They weren’t as strong as the Apple ones. Another friend made the last batch extra strong and pretty much wiped both me and his wife out with that one drink. I think half a bottle of vodka is a little much! So we stayed over and then took Lauren to her Hawaiian Falls fun fest at 10:30. Danny got to open his presents over there this morning, so that was fun! I didn’t wake up with a hangover, but I did feel a little rough and very thirsty. I was up every two hours to pee, so I guess I got rid of that last 2 lbs of water weight! Next week during Danny’s birthday party sleep over with 5! count them 5 boys, the girls and I are going to spend the night with Nat and have a girls sleep over there. I don’t think I am ready to corral 7 boys and Jon! LOL

All is coming along well for the Ladies Luncheon tomorrow. I have my paper goods bought and my pretty flower plant stakes made to put in the dessert centerpieces. I have salad ingredients bought to put them together later tonight. I have yet to cut the table cloth centers, but I will do that tomorrow. And last but not least, I have to go to Dollar Tree and buy some trowels to use as spoons for the dessert centerpieces. Fun stuff! I hope lots of women come and participate..it should be a great time. I always get a little nervous when things like these are planned. What if not a lot of women show up? What if more than we planned for show up? What if we run out of food? I guess I have to just let it go and I have done the best I can and that is enough.

I’ll let you know how it goes! I have almost crossed all the stuff off my list! Yay me!

I thought my list a couple of days ago was long, but today, today my friends was a doozy! And! I still have more to do this week.

Here is my list of things that I needed to get done this week:

• Make a baby shower present for a friend in Houston.
• standard chores like : laundry, bathrooms, etc. ( working on those, only 10 loads of laundry left to do and cleaning those dang bathrooms!)** Cleaned 1 today, the one that other people will use. Mine can wait another day. Heehee.
• Fill out supply list for Vacation Bible School, due May7th (Yeah Yeah, I know. Good thing I know the Director, might be able to be a day late)
• Buy supplies for Ladies Luncheon on May 6th. (Bulk of work will be done on Wed. and Sat. Just need to set up on Sunday)
  My part of the duties include:
  making decorative “plant stakes” to put in the centerpieces
  Creating/buying tags to put around each individual flower pot party favor
  making a broccoli salad
  giving recipe to Carolee for Asian Coleslaw salad
  buying decorations for 8 tables or 64 people
• Going scrapbooking with Debbi on Wednesday. (Yay! time to have fun with a friend and get some work done for Luncheon too!)
• Buying bathing suit for oldest Daughter for Hawaiian Falls Choir Party and pool shoes (Definately on Thursday)
• Remembering to buy sunscreen and snacks for said Choir Party and giving her money for Locker there (Thursday Too)
• Make cake for weekly American Idol party, Lemon Cake with lemon frosting (get that done tonight while kids are in bed)
• Return table and chairs to friend (tomorrow at church?)
• Wednesday night Supper and Choir (duh. Wednesday)
• Work on Freezer Club idea and try to have ready by the end of next week.
• Plan and execute my own Weekly Meal Plan. (so far so good- Monday: Steak with fingerling Potatoes and Veggie Medley, Tuesday: Spaghetti and Cesar Salad with Garlic Texas Toast, Wednesday: Church Supper and Thursday: Turkey Devan with Garden salad and Melon )
• Subbing at preschool in the 4 year old class.
• Drop off and pick up kid at choir party
• Church on Sunday morning
• Financial Peace University at 4:30 pm
• Lauren’s Youth Choir performance at 6:30pm.
• Sleep all day on Monday because I will be EXHAUSTED!

Are you tired yet? I am just thinking about it. And in between all of that stuff, I am getting up, making lunches, getting myself and Michael dressed, dropping him off at school on the wrong day! It’s a lot of work to be normal I tell ya. All those days I stayed at home and did nothing? I can’t even remember those days. I like staying busy. My body on the other hand. Even with all that I am doing, I still don’t sleep well. Hopefully that will change as I continue to do more and create a schedule. This summer should be interesting. I plan on doing quite a few projects around the house and hitting the gym at least 3 days a week. Looks like Lauren will be earning her babysitting money/ mission trip money! LOL

If I’m not back by next Tuesday, call the calvary. I think I might need some back up!