Thursday, May 31, 2007

Good 'Ole Days

Remember when you were little and summer was just beginning? Remember carefree days and fun filled evenings? I do and I want my children to experience it too. But, it seems more difficult nowadays.

When I was little and it was warm outside, I was pretty much outside the whole day except to eat or use the bathroom. When it was time to come inside, my parents either flicked the outside post lamp on and off or yelled my name really, really loud. I still remember being down the road and hearing "MARCIE, TIME TO COME HOME" echoing down the street. (Marcie is my nick name by the way. It is derived from my middle name. My mom tried to make my middle name after Jon Voight's wife, Angelina Jolie's mother. But, she spelled it wrong. So, instead of Marcheline, my middle name is spelled Marchelene. Anyway, that's where they get Marcie from.)

I remember playing under my cousins house in the crawl space catching frogs, while the adults sat around drinking and talking. We were at my Aunt & Uncles house for a moving party. I didn't know it at the time, but that "garden/field" they were burning was actually marijuana plants that they were burning to get rid of before they moved. No wonder everyone was in such a good mood that day. I wonder if that is why they put mud on my finger when I got stung by a bee or if that really works?

I also remember camping out in our backyard in a tent, or staying in the neighbors conversion van or even their pop-up camper. We would have the girls in the camper and boys in the van. Then, in the middle of the night we would go carousing around the neighborhood. Sometimes we TP'd people, other times we just walked around.

Where am I going with all of this? Thanks for asking. I just don't think I can let my kids do these things. Maybe when they are older I will feel better about letting them run around the neighborhood without me or BD, but right now I can't even imagine that. It seems their innocent fun just won't happen. Other mothers I talk to feel the same way. The world just isn't the same as it used to be and that makes me sad.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Withdrawal

Something you don't know about me is that I started taking the anti-depressant Lexapro a few years ago. I honestly cannot remember if it has been two, three or almost four years since I started. I definitely had something going on at the time. I would cry at the drop of a hat. Usually a song would come on the radio while I was driving that would remind me of my deceased ex-fiance and I would just start bawling. (The deceased ex-fiance is a story for another day.)

Anyway, I started taking the Lexapro and things were good. I have been wanting to try to stop taking it for a while now. I didn't want to do it over the holidays last year and gradually kept putting it off. When I had my tonsils out, I couldn't swallow pills really, so I only took it sporadically over those miserable two weeks. After that, I decided it was time to try it. I quit cold turkey.

A few days later, I started getting dizzy and having what I would have described as head rushes. I did a little research and found those are withdrawal symptoms of the drug. The are typically called brain zaps. I also found that some people weaned themselves and others went cold turkey. Of those that went cold turkey, the time period for the withdrawal symptoms was anywhere from one to eight weeks, with three being the average.

I am now in week two of quiting cold turkey. I am still getting the brain zaps, although not as regularly. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Will I be ok without it? I hope so. I really want to try to not take unnecessary medications. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

New Look

I need a new look, that is a new hairstyle. Right now, this is me:
My hair is to my bra strap on my back. It is very thick and wavy/curly. It does look nice straightened, that's me in the middle:

But, it takes forever to straighten being this long. Not to mention when it is humid then I have to worry about what it will look like. So, I need ideas. I'll take any! Send them my way. Even better, if you have a link to a picture, put that in my comments as well!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Back to the Daily Grind

Well, I saw my ENT yesterday. He released me to come back to work full time, so here I am! Also, no cancerous cells showed up in the pathology report for my tonsils. There was just lots of bad bacteria. So, yeah!!!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

DQ Funny

Last night, DQ went to bed early. She was given the choice after dinner to help pick up the playroom or go to bed. It was already about 7:30 by this time anyway, but we needed the playroom picked up for the cleaning lady to come today. She opted for bed. Since she drank so much milk at dinner, I decided to take her potty before we went to bed, which was around 10pm. When BD and I went into her room to get her, she started speaking. But, she wasn't speaking English. I have no idea what she was saying, but she must have either learned a new language while I wasn't looking or she made up her own. How I wish I had been able to record that one!

Monday, May 21, 2007

No more narcotics!

Well, Friday I took off the Fentanyl patch. After physically getting sick in the afternoon, I figured enough was enough and removed it. I have been surviving all weekend on just Tylenol. I am feeling much better, but my throat is still very sore. It feels like the muscles that are on the side of my throat are bruised. I really hurts to yawn - an aside, do you ever notice how even just typing the word y-a-w-n that it makes you do it? crazy huh? - it hurts like hell to sneeze too. I didn't realize that part. I knew about the yawn (made you do it huh?) part, as I have been fighting that daily, but yesterday I sneezed. Holy mother of all that is good! That hurt!!! So, from now on, if I have to sneeze, I am holding that one in!

On a related note, DQ woke up last night a little before 3am because she wet the bed. After getting her cleaned up and settled in on her little pull out couch on the floor in our room, I could not go back to sleep. The last time I looked at the clock, it read 4:38. BD's alarm goes off at 4:50. I got him up and promptly passed back out until 7:30. I am heading off to catch a few more hours (hopefully) of zzzz's before I get up and go to work for the first time in over two weeks. I got the doctor to at least let me work half days until my appointment on Wednesday afternoon. Then hopefully, he'll let me go back full days Thursday and Friday.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Venturing Out

Well, I decided this afternoon/evening would be my first trip out. I removed the Fentanyl patch around 1Pm or so after feeling like it really wasn't doing anything for me but making me sweat and be dizzy all the time. Boy was I wrong. By this afternoon, my throat was on fire! So, I put another patch on.

I still was able to go with BD to PM's soccer game. It was a good game and PM scored his first goal of the season! A few of our friends also have their kids in the league and they all came over to say hi and see how I was doing. It felt good to get out. One of the moms mentioned it looked like I had lost weight. I felt proud to tell her that was one benefit and I am down eleven pounds now!

After the game we hit the McDonald's drive through. I got just a hamburger and a vanilla milkshake. Breaking off baby size bites, I was able to eat just about all of the hamburger. I only drank a little of the milkshake then though, as I was stuffed. I am now dizzy and flat our exhausted and my throat is sore. So, I am off to bed. Keep your fingers crossed for a good update tomorrow!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Almost done whining

So, today and yesterday, feels like my throat is raw. It hurts to eat anything. Who knew getting your tonsils out as an adult was really this bad? Yes, I know they told me, but I didn't really believe them, not after seeing PM do it at 3 and it wasn't all that bad.

Yesterday, BD even stopped at Chick-Fil-A and picked me up one of these:

Yeah baby, that's a Cookies-n-Creme milkshake. My absolute favorite! And guess what, it hurt too bad to drink! All I had all day yesterday was a cup of red jello with fruit in it, courtesy of PM.

Today I get up hoping it will be better, but no luck. Heck, it hurts just to eat a piece of ice. I tried jello, no go. So, when BD, PM and DQ sat down to dinner, I warmed up some good 'ole Egg Drop Soup. And guess what, it worked! So, BD decided to get me some water that was a little bit warm and that worked ok too! I even managed to get through the pain and eat a 100 calorie chocolate and vanilla pudding cup while watching American Idol, which we'll talk about that later.

I think for these few days, while the scabbing is coming off and the new skin is being exposed, I need to stick with lukewarm things. Tomorrow, I shall polish off the rest of that Egg Drop Soup for lunch, but I plan to try Oatmeal for breakfast.

On to American Idol... I was ok with the decision to send Melinda home. I mean Jordin I can see as very marketable and Blake too. Melinda is an awesome singer, don't get me wrong, I think she blows the other two away, but I just can't see her as a very marketable individual. So, don't shoot me, but I think it was the right decision. Oh, and if you didn't already see who got the boot, sorry for the give away there.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Still alive, though just not kicking

Today was a really, really bad day on the recovery front. I barely slept last night, then I finally slept from about 6:30 this morning until about 11 am. The last time I had taken pain medicine was some time during the night and I am starting to think that it is what is causing me not to sleep. On top of that, I must have caught some type of stomach virus that lets just say, wasn't pretty and required me to drink even more liquids for fear of getting dehydrated.

Anyway, the whole day was pretty much a blur. I got up at 11 am and watched recorded episodes of "Two and a Half Men" and "The New Life of Old Christine" or whatever it's called. I was so miserable and couldn't even barely eat the Egg Drop soup or pudding I had. I finally called the doctors office and asked for a different pain medicine. Unfortunately, the problem I was having was not caused by the pain medicine, as that causes just the opposite of constipation. So, I guess it really was a virus. After feeling awful, I passed out in the bed for a little bit, only to be hounded by the phone ringing a few times. When I woke up, the phone rang, I was drenched in sweat, and I do mean drenched. It looked like I had just got down doing a spin class for three hours straight. I took a quick body shower and waited for BD to get home.

After he got home, I was feeling a little bit better and decided to go ahead and take some of the pain medicine I had to try to eat. And I ate!! Big News!!! I had a single scrambled egg (no salt or anything). Then, I had two pieces of toast with butter cinnamon and sugar on them, no crust. Yippee!!! BD is going back this evening to pick up the new pain medicine prescription. It is a patch and I am praying it will let me sleep. I still keep having hot flashes where I get all sweaty, and I don't know what is up with that. I pray that it isn't early menopause or something on top of all of this crap!

Enough of a pity party, I ate!! When BD goes to pick up my new medication, he is going to also get me an Oreo Blizzard!!!

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Can't eat, can't sleep, I toss and turn

Well, I think I slept too much during the day yesterday or something, as I cannot sleep to save my life tonight. I am still taking the pain meds every four hours and believe me, when it starts getting close I am counting down the minutes! Tonight I have been pretty much falling asleep, only to awaken about ten minutes later. So, I have given up and figure I will surf the net and read a book for a little bit.

I guess the recovery is going well. It seems to be going as expected, according to the doctor. I am still shocked that it is this difficult after seeing PM go through it a few years ago and it was pretty much a piece of cake. I am very, very, very tempted to see if our ENT thinks DQ's tonsils are large enough to take out now, rather than wait until she is older so as to not put her through all of the pain later in life.

As I said, I am taking the pain medicine (liquid percocet) every four hours. I have had to take the phenegren a few times for naseua, but that is it. I have had a low fever that has spiked as high as 102.2. According the the ENT, that is normal and fine. He said to just keep pushing the liquids. I read online that as long as you stay hydrated, the fever will stay down. It seems to be true. If I start not drinking as much, it goes back up.

My tongue still feels swollen and out of place. Apparently, whatever they clamp your tongue down out of the way does a lot of "damage". Nothing permanent, but my tongue and the inside of the molars feels bruised and he said that it is from the clamps and such. Once that part feels better, a lot of the discomfort will be gone I think.

As for the throat, I made the mistake and checked it out. EWWWW!!!! Gross!!!! I won't be doing that again any time soon!

The kids have been pretty good and BD has been great! He has really taken over. I am so lucky to have a great husband like him! When all is said and done, I think he deserves a free weekend or something (actually, I know he has one in Sept or Oct, so I guess I just won't make him feel guilty for going!) So far, all I have had to eat is jello, oatmeal, pudding, ice cream, ice cream cake and egg drop soup. I feel the weight loss plan kicking into high gear! I can't eat too much ice cream or ice cream cake, as they are too cold. My good friend brought the ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. So, it is torture, because it is really good, but it is very hard to eat the crunchy layer in the middle. About the most I have had to eat of anything is the egg drop soup. I just let it cool so that it isn't too hot and go to town. I have had a whole quart the last two nights in a row!

The downers have been that I have missed two of PM's soccer games and one of DQ's through all of this. I really want to be better enough to not miss his game this coming Thursday.
Well, that is the update for now. I guess I am off to read a book for a little bit now...

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

You know you've gained weight when...

Your five year old says to you, "Mommy, you look like you are getting a baby in your tummy." ARGH!!! Of course, just having my tonsils removed and wearing baggy shorts and t-shirts isn't an excuse to gain weight, but still...

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Such a Sweet Boy

Sunday night, as I was putting PM to bed, I asked him if he wanted me to sing and rub his back. He used to want me to sing "You are my sunshine" every night and rub his little back. Now he will only want me to every other night. I reminded him that I hadn't done it for the past two nights, because I wasn't home those evenings and that starting the next day, I wouldn't be able to for a little bit, due to having my tonsils out.

He started crying when he discovered I may not be able to sing, let alone talk to him for a few days. I felt sooooo bad...

So, I recorded myself singing "You are my sunshine" using our camera (just pointed it at the floor). I did one for PM and one for DQ, as I use their names in the song.

Last night, I had one at a time come into my room and I rubbed their backs while "I sang" to them via the camera. Gotta love technology!