Girls Being Girls

"Let me in Mumma, they gettin me!"

"Get her Erika" (you can see Makenna running for her life through the deck posts)

"Ya I did it and Daddy had to take the hose from me cuz I wasn't playing fair."

4 Days and Counting

Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.
-King Whitney Jr.

Starting to get a little nervous and I have huge butterflies in my stomach thinking about the fact that in 4 days I will officially be a nursing student. I think it finally hit me this morning. I was sitting on my couch enjoying my coffee, watching Makenna play and talking with Eli. I started thinking to myself....this will be the last Sunday morning until December that I will be homework free. There are so many emotions that I am feeling at this moment, not any more then the other. My life as I know it is about to change. Some people hate change, me....not so much. I am about to embrace this change with wide open arms.
I have been praying and hoping for this experience for as long as I can remember. It's in front of me and I'm about to touch it. I can't believe how close I am to it. I am so grateful for this opportunity. It almost feels too good to be true. I can't promise that I will have this attitude half way through the semester, but going into it excited doesn't hurt.

My Badge of Honor

Erika and I headed out to Lansing today. I showed her all around campus and showed her which building most of my lectures and labs will be at. I had to get my student nurse badge, pick up my supplemental packets, nursing equipment, and gait belt. I also took her to the bookstore. I wanted to compare prices and see if there were any used books and if they were cheaper then half.com, which NO they weren't.

Erika asked me, "Mommy I thought you said I had to finish college before I could get married. Why didn't you?"

I told her, "I did honey, I finished once before, but a woman can always change her mind and do something different."

All the way home she told me all the different things she wanted to be and do when she grows up. Everything from an illustrator, a writer, a chef, and a police officer.....and all her reasons why. We had great conversations about how she was as a baby and how much she has grown through the years. I told her how very proud of her I was. She impressed me today and I just know that she will be something great, no matter what it is that she chooses.

Erika loved it, walked around wide eyed with a big smile on her face. She did say that she was happy to still be in elementary school because she's not ready to walk around that much yet. We had a great day together and I took her to lunch before we picked up Olivia and Makenna from my Moms.

Back Update

Warning: This is me complaining, if you don't want to read it.....don't.

So I had my second cortisone injection last Friday. I did all that I could to keep myself going and keep my mind off it. The family hung with the Kurt's Friday night, Saturday with the Meador's, and on Sunday we hung out at the Jeffrey's cottage. The weekend went fast and I was surrounding by the people I love and that's what I needed to keep me going and keep me side tracked. Watching my girls have fun in the water was my highlight for the weekend. Knowing they had a great weekend made me smile. I feel like I have held them back from so much this summer.

Monday morning I was limping a little, no biggie, in my opinion. More pain down my leg that I prefer, but doable. I saw Dr. Carbajo in the morning, she read the recommendation from my pt and we had another talk. She is concerned about getting me through nursing school. She also brought up the surgery word. She said we will talk more about it after my 3rd injection. Something I was trying to avoid at all costs. If these injections don't work, there may not be much more to do other then surgery or I can just continue with medication and keeping up exercises but she said we may be looking at a chronic pain type thing. Surgery is not an option for me at this point, again, this is my own opinion. She said I may want to be careful about my field choices once I am a nurse. I will probably have my limitations and again talked to me about "life altering event" blah, blah. Still no work, and she said she'll see me in a month. She did say that I was doing my best and I am a compliant patient, and reminded me of how far I've come, but it didn't make me feel much better. My afternoon was filled with frustration and tears. My sister and Eli were blessed to listen to it all and then some.

I arrived at pt excited and optimistic because I was supposed to be starting a change and was going to be able to work with Franks wife on pilates strengthening. Arrived there ready to go, decided I would focus on this being the highlight for my day. Started on the tread mill for warm up, Frank and Christie, of coarse, took me off 1 minute into it. The two of them assessed me together in a room, look at my injection sites and decided together that today was not a good day to start. They did a little talking about me, respecting that I was in the room, mostly good and also talked directly to me about their concerns. Frank was telling her how much I have improved and what he thought I was capable of. Christie put her hand on me, smiled and said that Frank has kept her updated and together they have been coming up with a plan for me and we will try and start Wednesday, try not to be frustrated, you just need to rest. Frank did some soft tissue therapy to loosen up some of the inflammation. So for two hours I slept, laid on heat, traction, stretching exercises, massage and Frank let me do one exercise.

This is probably my own fault and I should have just relaxed this weekend but I am so sick of just sitting around watching the world go by. It's not like I was running around lifting things. At most I picked up Makenna when she had her finger incident. I may have been on my feet more then I should have, but honestly sitting for me sucks and is uncomfortable for me right now. I am bored, restless, and irritated.

Beside all of this that is going on, the cortisone injections has messed up my girly hormones and am also now on another medication to regulate what is going on, and it's not working. Which could be another reason why I am crying for every stupid thing and about to buy stock in always. If it's not the cortisone that is causing these problems, my ablation isn't working anymore and I may need to have a hysterectomy, among a few other things that is going on that I will not go into details about.

I now am under the care of a total of 2 physical therapists and 3 doctors. I am worn out and am I growing tired of everyones opinion on what I should or shouldn't do. I am also tired of people outside of the medical profession telling me their opinion on what worked for someone they know. Let me be, I'm a big girl, I am not ignorant nor stupid and I will figure out what to do under the care of the proper professional opinions and what I feel is best for me and my family.

I am going to try and enjoy my last 3 weeks of summer with my girls before nursing school starts. My first day of lecture is August 21st. I am hoping that I will be able to hold my own by the end of September when I get assigned to a nursing home. Also I need to get back to work so I can afford Makenna's daycare.

If I am in a bad mood or don't feel like talking about it, please don't take it personally. If anyone truly knows me, they know I put other people's feeling before my own. I'm sorry for being a little selfish at this moment right now. This is just where I am right now and just know I am trying to work out my attitude on my own. If you think you're tired of me, just imagine how I feel about myself.

I am trying to embrace all the great things in my life and focus on that, because I do have such great things in my life. My family, my children and the memories of our vacation and all the great experiences the girls have had this summer that I have been able to witness first hand. The fact that I have been able to spend more time with Eli then I ever have before. I have never been able to be a stay at home mom. So this is new to me. Being at work is much easier for me then being at home. I just wish I could be the great mom I know I could be if I had full function of my entire body. I feel that my children got me this summer by default and that they have somehow missed out on things.

Meadors new boat

Diane and Jeff's new boat.

Kenna carrying her noodle

Olivia is all smiles on the lake

The boys played some volleyball at the sandbar with some other Chemung regulars.

The Fab 5 enjoying the boat ride home

CHEEEESE, or should I say potato chips, gone in 60 seconds

Cheers

Jeff actually didn't catch this

We had a short afternoon on Lake Chemung today. We didn't get out there until I could get my back into it. We had just enough time for the kids to blow off some pent up energy. Lauren and Erika swam the entire time. The dare devils, Ryan and Olivia went tubing. Kenna likes to act like a mermaid and boat rides when Uncle Jeff goes "SUPER FAST". We had to cut the day short because Diane had to go to work :(.

Kenna Benna

Not sure what she was doing here.....

Makenna swimming with her big cousin Ryan today at Lake Chemung

Happy Kenna

This is Kenna after she had her finger slammed in the front door tonight, right where the hinges are, ouch! Poor Ryan felt so bad, he kept kissing her saying "I sorry Kenna, I sorry". I thought he was going to cry. After almost 2 hours of screaming, a double dose of Motrin and lots of love, she finally fell asleep watching the little mermaid on my laptop and playing with her Barney laptop. She managed to sleep 2 hours with her hand wrapped in ice. She is awake again now watching the good night show. I think she'll live. She just keeps saying "my finger, my finger". It's double in size and has a nice cut on the underside of it. She's not using it, but hopefully it will be better tomorrow! Thank God it's still attached and there wasn't a trip to the ER, she has enough accidents on her record. It's amazing how different it is with your 3rd child.

After me screaming "ELI AHHHH, Kenna's finger, Kenna's finger", (we all now how loud I can be, I think you get the point), it looked bad when I first got it out of the door. Eli came running and there are 3 strips of lawn mowed in the front yard and the lawn mower is still sitting in the same spot. It was too dark to finish after all was said and done, so Jeff and Eli started on a project. Kenna slept long enough for me to feed Lauren, Ryan, Erika, Olivia, Jeff, and Eli.

Eli and Jeff are installing a ceiling fan in our bedroom right now. Something long overdue and one of great buys we used with the $1000 home depot gift card Eli won at golf. Our bedroom is always the hottest in the summer and the coldest in the winter. I'm just happy that I don't have to listen to the loud fan we had on our dresser pointed directly at our bed. It's the little things.