Eleven years ago

I found this old entry I wrote when Janie was about 9 months old... Over eleven years ago!!!

10.12.2004 @ 10:57 am

everyday



janie is growing more and more curious every day. she can even stand up by herself now! well, maybe that isn't exactly correct... i have to stand her up, but she can stand there once someone else stands her up. understand?

she is also getting closer and closer to standing on her own literally. she will pull up to her knees. or she will put her hands down in front of her and straighten out her legs so that she is bent in an upside down "v". i keep worrying that she is going to topple over head first, but as far as i know, that has yet to happen.

she is getting more and more beautiful everyday.

Apparently I had an aversion to using any capital letters when I was blogging back then.  It is so very strange to look back at entries from my old blog. It goes from 2004 to this year. Thorough the births of 2 children and two marriages. Through 2 c-sections (one very uneventful and another almost too eventful). Through 3 different jobs and a hundred different friends.

There are so many things that are different, but yet so many things are the same... It doesn't make me sad to read through my old entries, but it does make me feel as though I have grown. Grown as a teacher, as a wife and especially as a mother. It has a been an amazing journey so far and I can't wait to see where it goes next!!

Couldn't have said it better myself

from a dear friend of mine who has been through much of what I have been through in the past few months...

"Well it has taken me sometime to be open about a decision that I have made not just for my wonderful husband, who has been my rock and my shelter but for my children who make me wanna be better every day. I have received a lot of private messages asking me how have I lost my weight? And this has been a very private matter between my family & close friends , but as I sit here watching "My 600lb Life" I can't help but see myself on this show. No I never reached that big in weight but close enough to where I was in Congestive Heart Failure , and I see myself in everyone one of these people who are fighting to get their life back.. I have struggled with My weight my entire life, yo yo diets, and trying to hide away a lot of pain, and as I got older my emotional pain got worse. So what does almost every heavy set woman do, she hides it and hides it well, usually behind a great smile and BIG personality. Trying to be the life of the party and the most outspoken, just to hide the physical & mental abuse, not just from family ,but so called friends and even strangers. So in some ways I've become a master manipulator of my own self.. And not until I started this journey of finding myself my true self , did I realize that. So, I had some tough decisions to make , well at least at the time I thought they were tough decisions, and now that I've made the decision to FORGIVE, I look back and tell myself it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was one of the best gifts I could give myself to FORGIVE those who have done me wrong but also to FORGIVE myself for whom I've done wrong. So my next decision was to have the Gastric Bypass surgery and that is the 2nd best decision I've made for myself.. There is no looking back, it is onward and upward for me and my family. I have had some of my, who I thought were my friends, that I shared this with leave me some pretty hurtful messages, telling me it was a coward way out to face my demons head on..Well my decision was not made for anyone else other than myself and my family .. I am sharing my story because I want to be honest with you all when you ask me how did I do it, I'm not ashamed. I just had to come to terms before telling everyone something so personal. So please understand why I hesitated.. Thank you and I love you all."

~ Kimberly Holley

Daniel Lee Sanders

Tonight's Memory Night program really got to me. I don't usually get emotional during the video, but this year I did. Almost 20 years ago we lost someone who had no clue how much of an impact he had on our lives. The song See You Again at the end of the video tonight caused my eyes to flood with tears. We miss you Danny. I cherish the memories I have with you, and I know that I was blessed to know you the short time you were on this earth. I look forward to the day I will get to see you again...

friends

I have realized lately that because of the changes in my life (my divorce, my marriage, the birth of my son, among others that I can’t right now place) I have gone from being a very popular friend, to having very few, if any, friends at all.

Honestly, this scares the crap out of me.

I have watched my mother be friendless almost her entire adult life. She spends virtually all of her time now taking care of her parents (my grandparents – one with Alzheimer’s and the other with more physical maladies that I can fit into one blog post). The days she is not there, she is working part-time for the health department helping mothers who are on the WIC program learn how to feed their children with allergies and sicknesses that I hope to never have to understand. Her best friend in my sister. She takes the time every now and then to make a trip to visit my sister and her family (which is about 3 hours away) and it gives her a nice break from being the sole caregiver for my grandparents.

I don’t want to be like her one day.

I can name four people I consider my true friends. Each I have known for over 10 years. I don’t talk to any of them every day.

I realize that there are people who once were a part of my life that no longer are because the only time they reach out to me is when they want something from me. I don’t care to be someone who is taken advantage of because of certain skills I possess. The people (some of them in my extended family) that I have chosen to exclude from my everyday life because of their snobbish behavior are assuredly not worried that I don’t include them in my inner circle. If they were, they would make more of an effort to be a part of mine and my children’s lives. I absolutely hope and pray that I raise both Janie and Si to be better people than some of the adults they encounter.  

tween

Yesterday I felt horrible by the time I got home. And throughout the evening itonly got worse. I must have a cold or something. I felt so nauseated and cold. I took my last Phenergen and a Percocet and fell asleep. I didn't wake up until after 8.

Today I slept moat of the day. Which is probably why I am still awake now. I'm finally feeling better. My throat still hurts from the sinus drainage but it's getting better. And I finally feel well from surgery.

Janie has been grounded from her cell phone. She posted her number in a comment on Instagram to some dude that's semi-famous and he text her. She text him back and even called him. When Jason saw the messages on her phone he asked her about them. She had her phone looking through it when he was asking about it and while she was telling jason she didn't know who's number it was she was deleting the conversation.

She's not even 11 years old and she's already doing stupid teenage crap.

I took the phone away from her and talked to Chris about it. He told me not to give it back to her.
As mad as I was earlier she's lucky I didn't break the stupid phone.

I should have been checking up on her more than I was. I've been consumed with all this diet/surgery stuff that I haven't been thinking about making sure she's doing right on that phone.

At least now that I have her phone I don't have to worry about her doing anything like that.

What's it going to be like when she's 14? I may not make it that long... lol just her being a tween is hard enough!

back to work tomorrow

I'm going back to work tomorrow. I'm kinda looking forward to it, but it sure has been nice being off :) tomorrow is Friday so this will ease me back into the routine better than starting back on Monday and having to work the entire week. Plus that's one less sick leave day I have to use.

I don't feel like I have lost any weight. I was weighed on Tuesday when I went to see Dr Hussain and their scale said I weighed the exact same amount that I did the day before surgery. I sure hope that scale is wrong...

I think Jason is working Saturday so I'm not sure what Janie, Si and I will do that day. One of Si's daycare friends has a birthday party that morning at 11, so I know we'll go to that.

I have a check up with Dr Ringold next Wednesday at 8:30 that morning. My mom wants to go with me. She said it was because Jason wouldn't have to take off from work to go with me.

Yeah... not sure how I feel about that...

inflamed

Just got discharged from Mobile Infirmary for the second time in less than a week. I was in horrible pain all night long. It felt like my kidney wad about to explode.

After a CT scan of my abdomen, they found that my lymph nodes in my belly are inflamed. Probably from surgery.

So I am leaving the ER with a prescription for Percocet, Motrin, and Phenergen.

I hope I don't have to come back to this place for a very long time...

C-section scar problems

Today it got up to 84 degrees in my classroom and that was with the air conditioner on 60 degrees. Gotta love the heat of an Alabama spring...

I am beginning to have problems with my c-section scar because of how the wound healed. It is actually because of how the doctors put me back together and all of the problems I had immediately after Si was born. 

I have some options...

Deal with it. Continue to bandage my scar for the rest of my life and fight off infection as best as I can.

Or...

Have it surgically fixed. 

The issue with the surgery though, is that I will need to lose a good deal of weight before having the revision. Otherwise it would most likely do no good. They removed fatty tissue from below my incision and that is what is causing the problem now.

Like I've said before, this body is not my body. It's not the one I had before Si was born by a long shot.

My mother has told me that I am going to have to have the problem fixed. I don't think she understands what all that entails. 

So for now I will continue to bandage the area and diet.

What else can I do?

Doctors, doctors, doctors

Two doctors appointments yesterday. One with my OB-Gyn and one at the wound care center. My OB expected my incision to be completely closed. But it's not. So she's not releasing me to go back to work until the beginning of December. (I should probably add here that she wants to make me as happy as possible because all of this is their fault -- their as in the doctors who performed the c-section and later on did not do what they should have to stop the bleeding...)

The doctor at the wound care center changed the type of dressing that I will be using. It's some type of special pad that will help absorb the excessive drainage and blood that it has been producing. It definitely feels different. It is supposed to pull the skin towards it, helping it to close faster.

We will see...

My grandfather fell two nights ago and cracked his hip. The bad hip that he broke about 5 years ago. So in between my doctor appointments Jason and I went to Spring Hill to see him. I assumed they would do surgery, but since it is only fractured part of the way through, they are going to keep him through the weekend and release him Monday to rehab. 

So this completely changes things that my mom had planned for November. She was going to Dothan and taking Janie this coming weekend for the Peanut Festival, but now, probably not...

Ahh well.

More blood

Well my incision is now 9 centimeters across and .9 centimeters tall. There is absolutely no depth to it at all :) 

I've come a long way since this first began back in August. Then it measured over 22 centimeters wide, 7-8 centimeters deep, and at least that tall.

But here's the strange thing... it is bleeding more now than it was a week ago. 

When I stepped out of the shower this evening, blood ran down my legs and onto the floor. And it just kept pouring. 

Jason got me some paper towels to clean up most of the blood, and he's not concerned. The nurse did say that as long as it's bleeding that means it is getting good blood supply which it needs to heal.

I just don't understand why there's more blood...

There should be less.

Two month shots

Si slept from 9 o'clock last night until 4 o'clock this morning! I am still amazed... 

He had a doctors appointment for his two month shots yesterday and I had an appointment at the Wound Care Center in Mobile yesterday, so we spent all day down that way. Jason and I went on down to Gulf Shores for the Shrimp Festival. But that wasn't Si's idea of a good time... it was also hot as 3 hells outside... so needless to say, we didn't stay very long.

Jami and Emmie came home yesterday also :) I love that kid! She is a handful but she is so hilarious! 

I've got to take pictures of Janie and Si sometime this weekend so I can get started on our Christmas cards. My sister has already ordered hers!

I should probably get some sleep since Si may be back up in a couple of hours. I still cannot believe that he slept for 7 hours straight...

I miss her...

I shouldn't care. I absolutely should not care at all.

But I do...

I was so unequivocally over-joyed today when the doctor took me off of the wound vac that I couldn't think of anything else. I immediately began sending text messages to my friends and family telling them that the doctor had taken me off of the vac. I cannot begin to explain how wonderful it felt all day not to be tethered to that confounded thing.

And tonight, I was able to take a shower. Like normal people do. I didn't have to wait until a day that the home health nurse would be coming (as I have been having to for over the past month). I can take a shower now any time that I want :) 

It is amazing the things that I use to take for granted that I haven't been able to do.

Shower on a regular basis.

Drive my car.

Go to the grocery store.

Walk distances longer than 100 yards.

And now I can start doing some of those things again. The stamina thing will be something that will happen over time. I don't plan on running any 5Ks anytime soon, if you know what I mean...

But the thing that I will never get back...

The way I was.

The way I use to look.

I've never had an awesome body. But it was MY body. And I knew every inch of it.

Heck, I've had it for 34 years, right?

But now... I have the beginnings of this hideous scar.

And not only a scar. It has actually changed the way my body is shaped. I hope I will be able to hide all of the disfigurement when I am clothed. And that is all I should care about, right?

Well, that is easier said than done...

I stood in the shower tonight and cried...

I cried so hard that my Janie came to the door and asked me if I was alright. She could hear me in the next room. I thought the noise of the shower would hide my weeping, but I was wrong.

I feel so shallow. So vain... 

But I just want my old body back.

The one that I wasn't even that proud of.

But it was mine.

I cannot even continue to type this entry. The tears are beginning to well up once again. I am better than this. I am stronger than this.

But I still want to be able to feel like Leigh again. I miss her.

No more vac!

No more wound vac!!!!!

I'm not completely healed by any means, but the doctor said I didn't need the vacuum anymore :D

I am a happy camper :) :) :)

Should I post pictures?

I have numerous pictures of my incision that we started taking about 5 weeks ago. I haven't posted them anywhere because they are pretty graphic and gruesome. 

But I am thinking about posting them here... I'd need to upload them to my Flickr account and embed them in an entry here... I'm not sure yet though... graphic images of an open c-section incision... 

Too much??

Another couple of weeks

I am so absolutely ready to be done with this wound vac. I have had it for over a month now. And at my last visit to the wound care center I asked the doctor how much longer I would have it. He said another couple of weeks... I seem to remember someone saying that to me a couple of weeks ago...
Tomorrow is Monday so Juanita comes (she is my home health nurse) and my mom will come sit with Si while she changes my wound dressing.

I really look forward to being normal again one day... this is so very tiresome...

Bottles

I am sitting on the bed, holding Si and rocking him. He woke up at 3 wanting a bottle and since it had only been just over 3 hours since his last bottle, I made him a 4 ounce bottle instead of a 5 or 6 ounce one. 

I wish I had blogged more when Janie was this age. So I could compare more... I know that I shouldn't compare my children, but there are so many things I cannot remember. Little things. Like how old she was when I upped her bottles from 4 ounces to 5 or 6.

Jason's mom thinks we should try putting Si to sleep on his stomach and maybe that would help him to sleep better... because of him having his days and nights mixed up. But after going through him crying for hours during the day, him being mixed up on days and nights isn't as big of a deal to me...
Yesterday was the first day out of the previous 6 days that Si didn't cry for at least 3 hours.

And I'm not talking about that mindless tearless screaming that newborns do randomly in short bursts when they are cold or hungry.

This was a gut wrenching, fearful cry that actually produced tears that streamed down his beautiful cheeks. The kind of cry that hurts a mother's heart because she cannot figure out what to do to help her baby stop hurting. 

So I am dine with being up with him in the middle of the night. If that's what it takes to keep him from crying during the day. 

At least there's usually Law & Order reruns on all hours of the night somewhere on satellite ;)

Sleep

I have spent the majority of today asleep. Si has been having problems with his tummy :( and I stayed up all night with him night before last and I was up all day yesterday also because of going to Mobile.
It has been a long past few days...

Jason has taken care of Si all day. And I just laid him down.

So I am going to try to go back to sleep. Because I have a feeling he won't be asleep all night...

Stroller

So... yesterday I made my first excursion out of the house with Si without having Jason with us. We went to the school to turn in the sick leave request. I decided to take the stroller so that I could just stroll Si around instead of carrying him the whole time.

It was a good idea, in theory anyway...

Since I picked up the stroller to put it in my car and to get it out of my car, I haven't been able to move as freely today. I haven't been experiencing hardly any pain for over a week and this is a sharp stabbing burn in my abdomen.

From one side to the other and all throughout my incision. 

So... yeah...

Not my best idea as of late...

Sick leave request

I finally finished the letter I am turning in to the board requesting my coworkers to donate sick leave days so that I can stay off from work...

On August 10, 2013 I had a C-section. Initially, the surgery went smoothly and Si was born at 11:32 am. That evening around 7 o'clock I was in more pain than I have ever experienced in my life. I had every nurse on the floor in my hospital room at one time. They even called the doctor who had performed the C-section back to the hospital because of the amount of pain I was in. After four hours of crying, begging, having an anxiety attack, and my blood pressure plummeting to 65/30, they determined that I had a hematoma in between two of the layers of stitches. 

I was told that they were hopeful that the hematoma would resolve itself over time. This is not, however, how things worked out. I was released from the hospital on Wednesday, August 14th. By Friday, August 16th my incision had started to pour blood. I went back to the doctor on Tuesday, August 20th and found out that the hematoma that formed the night that Si was born after my C-section has burst through my incision. And that is where the blood has been coming from. I also found out that it will take much longer for me to heal from this surgery because instead of remaining sewn together, the doctor had to cut through most of my stitches and pull out as much of the old blood from the hematoma as possible and pack the wound with gauze. And my husband has to help me by packing the incision with gauze two to three times a day.

I went back to the doctor on Thursday, August 22nd for her to try to scoop out the blood from the hematoma. Very painful is an understatement. After laying there through agony for about 5 minutes (which I promise seemed much longer than 5 minutes) she asked me about having surgery the following morning to get the rest of the blood out. This means I would be put to sleep and she would really be able to get in there and clean all of it out. So I was scheduled for out-patient surgery at 8:30 the following morning, Friday, August 23rd.

After being home for less than 24 hours, the home health nurse called the hospital to have me re-admitted for pain management and to be outfitted with a wound-vac. I was also given 4 units of blood because my hemoglobin level had fallen to 5 (a normal level is 12). I have fought off two infections through all of this. I have been admitted to the hospital a total of 3 separate times. A home health nurse comes to see me at my house every Monday and Wednesday to change the gauze from my open C-section incision and re-hook up my wound vac. Every Friday I make a trip to Mobile to the Wound Care Center to see the doctor there and have them re-evaluate my incision and redress my wound. 

I have been told by the doctor at the Wound Care Center, that I will need a minimum of 2 more months off from work, and I will exhaust my sick leave well before that time comes. I hope to return to work by November 6th. I would much rather return to work healthy than stay where I am presently, but to make that return a reality, I would really appreciate any donated days my colleagues would be willing to spare during this difficult time. 

Gotta love technology

Today was definitely a Monday. My cell phone service was completely gone this morning. Which meant that I couldn't get in touch with the home health nurse to find out when she would come to my house. It also meant that I didn't know when or if I could take a shower before she showed up. AND I couldn't call my mom to come stay with Si so that I could take a shower and have the nurse change my wound dressing. 

Thankfully I was able to use Facebook to contact my sister-in-law and get her to call my mom for me.
Gotta love technology :) even when it causes problems you wouldn't have had without it ;)

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡

I remember missing Janie being a little baby that I could rock to sleep. I absolutely adore rocking Si :) 

Granted, I adore it most when I am well rested and least when I am tired. Such as between the hours of midnight and 5 am.

;)