This, That, and an MRI

How to start.

Seriously, I've written at least six beginnings and accidentally dumped two started posts.

I suppose I should begin by saying that we went to Scottish Rite again yesterday to have an MRI on Beanie's right hip.  I should also say that at this moment we know absolutely nothing.

As I stare at this blank page, fingers poised over the keyboard, I find that I've forgotten what I've actually told you.  I think of the audience for the blog as different people than the audience/community that is Facebook.  I know that you are by and large the same people.  I find myself writing on the blog for different reasons.  I actually write here for my family mostly.  It's funny, in a way, I write for my grandmothers, both deceased, who did read it.  I know that for a long time I had a few friends that were just bloggy...I don't even know who I'm writing to anymore.  Maybe you all know this already.  I do know that I write HERE to find it again.  This is the closest thing to a memoir that I may have.

Anyway.

Have I told you that I'm divorced?  It's been two years and 5 months since anyone has called me a wife.  




Have I told you that Bean is almost 16 now and pestering me to let her drive MOST every time we leave the house?















Have I told you that Bear is an incredible just-turned-twelve-year-old who still cracks me up most of the time and who has become such a great hair stylist/make up artist that I have to check her before I plan to leave anywhere so that she doesn't LOOK like a 24 year old...because she's 12, darnnit?











Have I told you about my baby, Monkeyface?  Do you know that she is a fish tank owner and drawer of many things and is one of the best huggers on the entire planet?

 Have I told you that I have a ten month old gigantic puppy that I've named Teddy the Wicked?

Have I told you that we are happy most days?  Finally.

I don't know that it matters.  But for the record, y'know, maybe understanding my viewpoint today might help me (us) to understand where I am should you be reading only the Legg Perthes posts.

So over the last few months Bean has been having some increasing trouble with her right hip.  It started with a pretty awful locking incident when we were on a family trip to Arizona last July (2014).  Then the girls went to Colorado with their daddy in October of 2014 and Beanie had quite a few problems that she "dealt with herself" because she's a teenage girl who WON'T bother her father.  I wish she had because they hiked the WHOLE trip and she didn't tell him.  He would have chosen differently had he known.

Sometime around Christmas, it was getting too much for her to handle alone.

After I knew what she had been dealing with, I called, got an appointment for the standard visit, X-Rays, conversation with our doctor etc.  That was a couple of weeks ago.  At that visit, the bones looked about the same, meaning that more than likely something has changed with the soft tissue.  Perhaps a tear or some other damage. It is finally time to explore a surgical option to address the many issues of this hip.

I count March 7, 2007 as the beginning date of this disease for us.  There was some stuff before that, but March 7, 2007 was when we had a diagnosis of Legg Perthes in the left hip.  March 7, 2009 is when we had the diagnosis of Legg Perthes in the Right hip.  She did a photo shoot back then in the very same room that we were in yesterday...same baby doll, same little pretend MRI. 

Today is March 3, 2015...we are getting pretty close to 8 years of this.  This is only the second time since that first diagnosis that we've been in a position to consider surgery.  The first time we considered it was within the first few months of diagnosis.  It was terrifying back then.

Now, to a certain degree, it's about time.  Beanie at 15 is not the same person that Beanie at 7 was.  She has grown into an incredible young woman.  She always was, but chronic pain has shaped her differently than anyone that I have ever known.

Don't get me wrong, she's still a teenaged girl with all her silliness and crankiness.  She still argues about things that are pointless.

But she is calm, and ready, and unafraid (mostly).  Or, at the very least, knows how to stick her chin in the air and carry on...Oh, to be more like her.  Maybe when I grow up. ;)

The MRI was yucky...and okay.  They had to inject a contrast dye directly into the hip.  They also injected her hip with pain killer and then a further steroid that should kick in in a day or two.  BUT...the doctor (whose voice reminded both of us of Jane Lynch, so much so, I had to look at her face when she talked or I couldn't concentrate) told her that no matter how much pain reliever they give her, "bones don't like to be poked" and that it would be "uncomfortable".  Beanie said that was the only part that really hurt.

Leg Perthes kids are BEASTS when it comes to pain.  Seriously.  If SHE says it hurts...it'd put the rest of us on the floor cryin like a little girl.  I don't want to know what "REALLY hurts" feels like.

The only other part that was hard was being still.  They were dealing with that Right hip, but she's also got that Left hip that doesn't like to be held completely still...and so that obnoxious thing, not to be ignored, "locked" up while she was laying there.  When she told the tech, the tech said that she couldn't move it without starting over.  Given the choice to move and begin again or be still...Beanie toughed it out. 

BEAST, I tell you.

So that's where we are this morning.  Waiting to see what's next.  I'm struggling to let her deal with it all as an almost-woman-growed while still feeling very much like a momma-bear.  I wish I could say that I was completely at peace with whatever may come...but let's be real, shall we? 

If you are praying, and I hope you are, pray that we get the "good" answer.  I don't know what that is, for me the one that causes the least pain and the quickest recovery...for her...she wants to be able to run...play softball...ride a horse...be a "normal" kid...so the one that FIXES that stuff.  I'm not doing the research that I did originally.  I just don't have it in me.  Maybe I will once the options are all on the table, but for now, I'm riding the 8 year relationship we have with our doctor and the trust that my Lord, who has been with her from the very start, will lead us to the next place.  I'm trusting He will give her the stamina to survive the pain and recover...and that He will provide the strength for me to be able to support her physically should she be non-ambulatory.

I'll keep you posted.

There is no good place for this in this post, but Bean and I had some time to ourselves yesterday so we decided goofing off with a song that we've been playing with for awhile would pass the time.  Like I said, this is a remembering place...I want to be able to find it again, for me. 

See ya around...

The Slow Slide Back into Good Citizenry

Day 7 of the new year...Day 2 of the second semester...Day 1 of the ACTUAL new schedule.  That's how MY life works out.

Obviously, you can't start a new semester on the 2nd day of the year.  There is far too much fun being had on the LAST day of the prior year to be worth much productivity on the first day of the year...and the second day is merely the START of the clean up from the holiday at the END of the year.  Are you following me, dear reader?

So like all the rest of my society, we let the first 5 days of the year go by in a whirl of cleaning and visiting and, if I'm honest, laying about.  It's vacation.  This year we had the added excitement of some sickness, I'd say flu, but it seems everyone has had it worse than we have, so we'll just say, "The Crud" and leave it there.  So the first 5 days also had the fun of a few people really needing the extra sleep that a full schedule simply does not allow.

Every new year of my homeschool career...save the last two (2012 - The-WE-ARE-getting-a-divorce-and-right-soon-Year and 2013-JUST-GOT-divorced-and-moved-and-have-to-settled-Year) where my emotions wouldn't allow it...I have used January to hunker down, get a new schedule and re-connect my household. 

See, starting with my birthday in the beginning of November, we have a 2 month slide into vacation-mode (think Island-Mode without the waves) that lasts through the first week of January.  I know that most of our friends have a similar slide but I think mine is worse.  See, having a birthday at the beginning of the least productive time of the year, adds an extra three weeks of less productivity, because, "But it's your BIRTHDAY" happens a lot...and I generally let it.  Just keepin it real.

So today we start our new schedule.  This is the MOST HATED DAY OF THE YEAR.  See, generally my kids are up and reading or journaling or sometimes even playing piano, even on vacation, by 7:30.  But on SCHEDULE...it's up at 7:15.  This is a heinous thing to them...and I cause it, ergo, I am evil.  The fact that it gives me joy makes it exponentially worse.

We had "the talk" yesterday.  You know the one, "Everyone needs to be up and doing what SHE is supposed to do in the morning."  There was a motion to scrap the whole idea, which was then seconded and they hoped carried by their third member (that easy-going curly one)...thank heavens I hold veto power...or they'd stay the unwashed masses until it was time to go to church.

We spent yesterday restarting the wheels that came to a complete halt a little over 2 weeks ago at the beginning of the Christmas break...finding all the school books that got squirreled away...organizing the library list...getting math back on track...overviewing grammar and writing...overviewing our new unit in history (Industrial Revolution ... I'm excited)...and sorting out the plan for the new sciences that we got over Christmas.  Today, everybody KNOWS THE PLAN. 

It will STILL take a few days to implement it...but they KNOW it.  And it is POSTED on the wall.  (Oh yeah, I AM that mom).  So tally ho!!  I hope you all have a GREAT day, I know I will.

See ya later 2013...

See ya around...

Christmas Week 2013

(All pictures in this post are from LAST Christmas)

 

In case you were wondering at my quiet, I would remind you of something I said a couple of years ago, "I blog on the upswing."  If you are new to the blog, this drop in visual productivity, it has happened a lot over the years...I feel the downward pull of emotion or circumstance and I can't.find.words.




A girl and her "Grinch Punch" and her living back stop

Those closest to me will recognize it in my arguing style...I lose nouns and descriptors and start calling everything "crap" and "thingie" and "stuff" and find that, while I may have a valid argument in my head there is no way that it will be passing my lips anytime soon. So, I go quiet and stay that way until I find I have control of my faculties again.  It's just how I process.





The girls and Uncle K putting up the lights that I STILL have up on my back fence.

But, today, dear reader, I found my upswing.




Uncle BakerMan chattin them up

This has been a hard week for me, well...honestly...a hard month.  It's Christmas for crying out loud.  Usually I'm one of those OBNOXIOUS "Let's sing Christmas carols on Halloween" people.  I usually start in about September sizing up my kid's friends to see which would be caroling fodder and try and teach them new songs they might not know so that when Christmas comes around I can drag them around the neighborhood.  BUT...not this year.




Those are his ACTUAL horns...been there all his life...only
became so prominent as he lost his hair.  Just ask Uncle J...he'll tell ya.

It's odd how a fact that underlies your life affects you.  I've know since the divorce last year that my-ex and I would be trading off holidays...he was nice enough to give me the first Christmas, and I've KNOWN that meant that I wouldn't have my kids this Christmas.  KNEW it.  Prepared my head for it or so I thought.

There is a whole series of these
I'm saving them for her wedding video.

See, I've been "crankier" than normal since putting my feet back in my house after my Florida trip.  It started out as just little things...running out of coconut milk and butter.  Other people have other staples that they never run out of...in my house it's coconut milk (for curry) and butter (for life)...I am NEVER out.  Over time it progressed to either me being too weepy or too silent with everybody. 





Hilarity all around.

When last week started, I could feel the completely counter-productive desire to tell the kids to just "GO ALREADY!"  It's been a surprising emotion for me, "get out of here, it hurts me to know you'll be gone, so just GO."  I've felt that way a lot in the last year.  Thankfully, by the time Mom GOT married, I think I was better at recognizing it for grief and NOT saying stupid things that I didn't mean...I think. 

Anyway, when it hit this week, I definitely recognized it...I lowered my goals for the week...I pulled my kids close and actually WENT caroling on a whim with zero preparation (which was great by the way) and finished up school and tore apart caches of clothing that needed to be torn apart and went to a movie and did everything I could to ENJOY my last week with my girls for the year.





I was SO sick in this picture...but it's become on of my favorites
Go figure.

And then they left.

Singing with my family around is not something to miss...

And then I sat on the floor in the middle of the mess and cried...for awhile.  And then I reached out to people in one post...spent awhile chatting, texting, and talking...to say that my phone 'LIT UP' would not be an exaggeration.  And then I realized that this was something I was going to have to walk through ... So I did what any self-respecting total geek would do...I set up my laptop in my bathroom,  watched a couple of episodes of "Farscape" from my tub and decided that sleeping was a pretty good option, all things considered.  I find Science Fiction soothing...it is part of my charm.




Ah wrapping...a skill I hope their daddy realizes HE needs to teach them.

I wish I could say that my "funk" was over at that point.  I'm not sure it's over now.  But over the last couple of days of quiet within my own house, I realized something pretty great... I realized that I walked through another valley and made it...again.

Nine of us last year.  So much fun.

In "The Screwtape Letters", chapter 8, C.S. Lewis talks about the "Law of Undulation".  If you've not heard of this book, in a nutshell, it is letters from an elderly "Uncle" demon (Screwtape) to his younger nephew detailing ways to bring people AWAY from God.  It's a very interesting juxtaposition in Christian writing, taking it from the devil's point of view, everything that seems like a triumph is actually a defeat for Christ.  In the quote below, the "patient" is this nephew's charge.  The nephew has noticed that the patient is downhearted and supposes it is his success that has make him so.  Dear old Uncle Screwtape offers insight into our lives in his answer.

If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life - his interest in his work., his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down.  As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty.  The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it. 

Let's just say there is a LOT of estrogen in my house, and leave it at that...

I made it through another undulation...another turn of the wheel.  YAY ME! Every one of these "undulations" has taken me farther into comfortable-in-my-own-skin and given me proof that I'm capable.  It's hard to admit, but without these dips I wouldn't have made the progress that I've made.  When things coast along, I get proud...supercilious (one of Bean's words this month ...  go on, go look it up...I'll wait. ;) ).  I guess I need that humility of despair now and then, maybe we all do.

Monkey Face dazzling her Grandma

I've gotten a couple of emails from the girls and it sounds like they are having a GREAT time.  I wouldn't take that away from them for the world.  The hardest part of this week is that guilty feeling that I have in the low moments where I would rather it be ME having fun with my girls.  How selfish is that?  And narcissistic? And entitled?  I pray THAT part goes away.  I think that it's probably a natural reaction...but so SO destructive.  Just keepin it real.

Monkey Face's mantra last year, "I'm going for the Yahtzee"...and she got about 8 of them. 
Amazing!

Today is Christmas Eve...by tonight, Nali and I will be tucked in among our dear friends, probably eating cookies and playing Rummi Cube.  Tonight, I will be surrounded with family I've adopted as my own and I will make memories and they will be beautiful, too. 

Scott and Stacey 2012
Love my big brother.

And next week, when my girls get back, for the first time in THEIR lives, we won't be starting school on the 2nd.  Nope, we're going to figure out some new fun New Year's traditions beyond taking down the tree, so the NEXT time I have my Christmas week to myself, I have something great ahead of me.

I have so many pictures of the sky changing colors over those roofs.
Just my favorite spot to watch the sky change.

Well, unless we get bored...then we'll just break out the microscope...

My loves, 2012

 

 

See ya around...

Embrace your limitations...

The Inspiration for this post...



Embrace the limitations.  Embrace the limitations.

Ha!  That's not something you hear every day.  Most inspirational speeches start with some "you are bigger than you think" premise.

I was that girl.  Still am, in certain circumstances.  I'm still the one that will tell you, "This thing you are dealing with, whatever it is, is forming you and you CAN overcome it."  Those of you, who know me well, have heard me say some form of this at some point in our relationship.  The ever-outward optimist...that's me.  Freaking Pollyanna.

Those of you who know me REALLY well, know other things.  You know that I doubt much more than the casual observer would ever suspect.  You know that I doubt my own intellect, my own body, my own intentions...ultimately my own worth...over and over and over again.  You know that I fall on my knees weekly with tears of hopelessness for every single limitation real or perceived that I do not know how to overcome.  You know what my 3 am holds.

Do you know, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say..."Embrace those limitations?" 

Now to be fair, it's not like other people AREN'T saying the same thing if you look for it.  Nick Vujicic is a prime example...here is a guy with no arms and no legs but who was gifted with a charisma that pulls everyone to him.  So much so that you begin to not notice that he is merely a torso and a pretty face.  Honestly, though, I've never thought of Mr. Vujicic as saying "Embrace your limitations"...more, "those limitations don't MATTER, you are more than your limitations."  And he certainly is.

So why does this phrase strike me so much?  Well, I've had another week of being discontent in my circumstances.  Another week of feeling that certain aspects of my life will NEVER be overcome. 

Another week of realizing what a complete failure I am in this certain area of my life...AGAIN...and STILL...after all the times I've tried to overcome this...STILL...this limitation.

The fact is, there are places in my life, limitations in my life that I am NOT overcoming.  I AM NOT ABLE to overcome for whatever reason.  They are my secrets.  They are my 3 am.  They are my silence.

It's never occurred to me, to embrace them as they are, love them for the person that they make me, think about staying INSIDE this box and not apologizing for it.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I did think about it a little.  But not in those words.

You know, on this journey of my life, I've discovered that until I'm ready to hear something, I don't...Not even if you tell me.  My focus is where my intellect lies...and if a given topic is not within the realm of my current focus there is not a thing that I can do to force myself to learn and retain the information in a useful way.  But, just like when a friend buys a car that you've never heard of and now all of a sudden you see them all over on the road...An idea that strikes me when I'm ready produces a flood of images, some new and some hidden away in memory banks that didn't even remember that they were there, that shapes me.

Embrace my limitations unapologetically, huh?  I'm going to have to think on that...

See ya around...

The Journey

Ain't that the truth?  The first step is a doozy.  The one where you decide, maybe not exactly where you are going, but who you will choose to be as you get there.  I've been quiet here because I've had a lot trouble knowing who I am anymore and it's been difficult to cobble together words that make sense to people who are not looking straight into my eyes...straight into my heart.

After much deliberation, we have decided to homeschool again this year.

So much of this journey is inside me.  Am I the right person to continue forward on this path?  Do I even want to move forward?  I thought I was one of the strong ones, the funny ones.  The girl who had moved all over the country, left and lost friends and loved ones over her life and still managed to chin up and find the adventure.  Where on earth did my "Pollyanna" go?

Apparently, I have a pretty dark side.  I didn't know.  Over the months since the divorce, I've done a lot of living and a lot of what I consider NON-living.  Others who have been through this know what I mean.  NON-living - that considerable amount of time spent NOT doing the normal things that you know how to do, know that you SHOULD do, while you sit and think, ponder and distract yourself, waiting to find out if, in fact, you want to go out and live THIS life again. 

I have an impressive ability to do absolutely nothing.  Truly, it's a gift.

Along the way I have been amazed by the wisdom surrounding me.  People have been exactly where I needed them to be, exactly when I needed them to be.  Strangely, the when hasn't always been when I WANTED them, but always when I needed them.  And the baffling part is that there has not been one person who has been shocked by the absolutely visceral things I've said.

I wish I could say that I have arrived...I have enough people out there who know the truth that I'll just stick with the facts.  Things are looking up.  They actually have been for awhile, but I wasn't ready to write yet.  All of a sudden, in the last few weeks really, I'm ready to write again.  It's kind of nice and not completely unlike coming out of a darkened cave during the day...as you go from dark to dim to shade and on out into the sunshine.  I so wish that I could trust the path, but I'm really not there yet.  I still very much doubt my competence on this journey; my already honed capabilities and my readiness to learn often falter.  For the first time in my life, I often completely doubt my potential...and what I REALLY want to be when I grow up.

But, here I go anyway...No net...

It brings to mind a few lyrics from a song from Hello Dolly,

"Don't tell me not to fly, I've simply got to...If someone takes a spill, it's me and not you...
Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade?  

I'll march my band out...I'll beat my drum...and if I'm fanned out...your turn at bat, sir...
at least I didn't fake it...Hat, sir...I guess I didn't make it...

But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection...or freckle on the nose of life's complexion...
the cinder or the shiny apple of his eye...
I've gotta fly once, I've gotta try once, only can die once, right sir? 
Ooo life is juicy, juicy and you see, I've gotta have my bite, sir..."

I've felt this before in my life, this iron-jawed decision making where there is no absolutely sure answer...but, as always, it's with a large amount of internal cowering.  If I am who I say I am, I have to step out in faith...Faith that the Lord will meet me, as He always has, every single place I need Him, every single time. I just need to take that first step.

See ya around...

Brand New Day

November 1, 2012...

What a crazy month October was.  And AWFUL in so many ways...

Here's a run down.

October 5th - Divorce final.

October 12th - Begin moving into a hotel...it's got a kitchenette and a bedroom...but it's a hotel.

October 15th - Grandma flies to Arizona for the time being, to vacation and enjoy her friends, while we figure out where we are going to live.

October 16th - Close on the sold house.  The one that we've lived in for almost 10 years

October 17th - Girls go with their Daddy to Colorado to visit Camera King and Auntie SP and all the Colorado girlies.  They will be gone until October 30th...and I will be alone.

October 18th - Move the baby grand piano, that was my Daddy's and is now my Mommy's out of our perfect room, to a friend's house for the time being.

October 18th - Walk away and leave the keys to this house in this house for the next family.

October 19th - 30th - Be alone...sleep...rage a little...be with friends who make me laugh and talk to me and wrap their arms around me and love me even when I'm crazy-unloveable (you know who you are)...plan a little...walk the dog a little...journal and read, my bible and The Scarlett Letter, ALOUD just to kill the silence.

Quite a month to live through.  Quite a month to walk with me through to all of you who have been there.

For all the awful, there have been so many bright spots.  So many moments of joy.  So many people lifting me up with encouragement and hope...in prayer and in action...sending me songs and email and texts.

Guess what.

It's a brand new day...brand new month...time for a brand new life...let's get this party started!

See ya around...

Life in a Hotel...

--- This was written during our time at the hotel.  Normally I would back date it, and may in the future, but blogger has changed a few things and I can't seem to find the date.  Possibly, I'll push the publish button and it will date it to the day I wrote it...but if not...before you read...Know this was written in October of 2012...the terrible month. ---

Well, part of our journey has been moving all the stuff we use on a daily basis into our hotel room.

Ha!  That's actually kind of funny in retrospect.  Seriously, right now, look around your house and pick 30 things that you use on a daily basis.  There are some standard things that you just aren't going to forget...for instance...I wasn't going to forget a tea cup...school books (well most of them anyway)...my laptop.  But there are these things...that you only sometimes use on a daily basis...my coat, for instance, that I didn't even MISS until last week when it dropped into the 40s at night...or various vitamins or medications that you only USE if someone gets sick or bit by a big old green bug and it leaves a huge welt and two puncture wounds on your child...but I digress...we've forgotten a few things.  Thankfully, we live in civilization and so far there hasn't been anything forgotten that couldn't be replaced.  But there have been a few, "Did you remembers?" and each one has caused varying degrees of inconvenience.

But after over a month, I have to say honestly that we haven't missed much...not in terms of stuff.

We have missed our freedom...our ability to run right out the door and visit friends...or to open the door and let the poor dog out (he is averse to pooping on a leash, poor thing).  I've missed being able to have a phone conversation...and OH how I've missed being able to cook bigger things without setting off the smoke alarm...it's a freedom that I didn't even realize existed until this hotel.

I would like to say that missing all these things has helped us to grow new and wonderful skills.  Sadly, not as many as I'd hoped.  I fear we've watched a little too much T.V. and fallen back on electronics a little too much.  I've been struggling for months with so many things, and I'm afraid that my imagination is shot.  Where I used to see adventure, I often see drudgery.  It's not a good direction, frankly.

But there have been some lessons learned here...the hard ones...the ones no one wants to have to learn.

I've learned that not every thought is worth unpacking.  Seriously.  We are collectively broken right now.  And we have been for awhile.  Sometimes we look pretty normal and we've always been good at smiling.  But underneath it, there is a disillusionment in every one of us.  The shocked, "Well, that's not what was supposed to happen" that overwhelms us often.  The first week that the girls were back home to me was really difficult, because I hadn't come to this truth yet.  And one thing I'm VERY good at is talking.  And with every tear, or bit of  anger...there came this big discussion.  I've learned that sometimes just shutting up is the answer...sometimes the bubble has to burst and then, in a minute, everyone is ready to move on.  I've also learned the MOST of the crazy emotions are lies.  We are not ALWAYS going to be in a hotel.  Our WHOLE life doesn't stink.  We are not ALWAYS going to miss every event. 

I've learned to sleep well here.  But it took first learning to turn off the T.V.  And then learning that just because I'd had a terrifying dream, I WAS okay and to purposefully think of something else.  I also learned that when I couldn't shut off my mind, I needed to write.  Write an email to a friend...Write a blog post I never intended to share...Write in my journal.  I learned through many moments of waking thinking I was in my own home...that THIS is not that home...THIS will never be that home...I will NEVER have that home again.  And I had to cry...and be angry...and plead with God.  And then, finally, I had to realize that home is NOT a building or a bed...it's a heart and it's the family...and while my heart was a little shredded...these girls...my mommy...me...WE are home...no matter where we are...what we eat...how we sleep...We are home.  And all of a sudden, I got it, and that was enough and I could sleep.  I've slept better in the last 3 weeks in this hotel than I'd slept in the last 7-8 years.

See ya around...