7 Goals for 2014

I'm not a big resolution person but here are some of my goals for this year. I share these with you lovely readers so that you can help keep me accountable! We've moved into our lovely new house and soon we will have our second little boy here with us. With all the change and transition, it just feels like a good time to start building up some new, better habits. Without further ado, here are some of my goals for 2014:

• Keep the house clean enough. I'm not shooting for Martha Stewart, picture-perfect every day here. I just want to keep the cleaning manageable and not feel like I need to apologize if someone stops by unexpectedly. I'll be posting a cleaning schedule later. I wrote it out today and will start enforcing it tonight!
• No more medical debt. With all of Alex's health issues from last year and having two babies in two years, we've got more doctor's bills than I would like. We've been paying them off as we can, but I hope to have them all paid off by the end of the year! (Alex's pediatrician was paid off this month!)
• Try new recipes. I'm in a rut. I cook the same 7-10 meals over and over again. Once new baby is here and we get a decent rhythm down, I want to try one new recipe each week. Each recipe will be a whole foods recipe and will hopefully help expand my culinary skills (I'm getting better!) as well as increase our dietary variety.
• Make fitness a priority. This will be hard with two littles and a full time job, but it's very important to me! Yes, I'd like to lose some weight (maybe a lot of weight), but I really want to focus on helping my body to function better.
• Decorate the house. I am not a big decorator. Home decor is one thing that just kinda didn't get downloaded into my programming. However, I want to decorate our little house and have it looking good. I'm giving myself a year here and it's gonna take me some time.
• Build up a garden. I'm so excited to have a yard! Not only will the boys have a place to run and play, which Alex already enjoys, but we can have a garden! I want to grow many of our own fruits and veggies and herbs. Be watching for details as our plan unfolds!
• Make our lifestyle more sustainable. While our lifestyle is already pretty "green" in some respects, I'd really like to make even more improvements. One area I really want to focus on this year is eliminating one-time-use products and extra plastics. I don't think this will be a difficult goal, but it will take some time to build up a stash of reusable items to replace our commonly used disposable stuffs.

Alrighty, that's quite a bit! Check in with me and keep me honest! I'll be posting about each of these goals through out the year and hopefully we can inspire and motivate one another along the way!

What goals do you have for this year?

Scariest Moment of My Life

Around noon on Valentine's Day I got a call from daycare that Alex had a fever of 100.0 and needed to be picked up. He had had a cough for awhile, but hadn't been congested in several days. Still, we go to the doctor. The doctor said that he had Bronchiolitis and probably had RSV seems how we both had some cold symptoms. We did a breathing treatment in the office and the doc sent us home with our own little nebulizer and Alburol script so that we could treat him at home. She seemed confident that he would be better and able to return to daycare on Monday.

This is Roscoe Frog, Alex's nebulizer.
All the cool kids have one. ;)

Things go well Thursday and most of Friday. His breathing was rather labored but the treatments seemed to help. Friday I was getting us ready to go pick up Philip from the airport (he had been in California for business) and before doing Alex's breathing treatment I did a respiration count. He took 58 breaths in one minute and 61 the next. I called the on call doc and she said to do his treatment and if it helps, just keep an eye him, if it doesn't, he'll have to go to the hospital.

I already had his treatment set up so I sat down with him and we go started. He hated it. This loud machine was blowing stuff in his face and this big green thing (the mask) was always in front of him. He squirmed and kicked and fought. The nurse had said that they just more medicine that way because they take more breaths. Well, as he's kicking and screaming and coughing, his eyes started to roll back. I immediately called my mom (she used to be a peds nurse) who told me to take him straight to the emergency room.

I already had the diaper bag next to the car seat for us to leave. I grabbed my keys and as I started to put Alex into his car seat, he turned grey. (My heart is pounding as I type this.) I rubbed on his little chest and his color came back. He started screaming at me again (lately he has hated getting into his car seat). I grabbed the diaper bag and ran out to the car. Later I realized that I hadn't locked the door.

I broke every possible traffic law on the way to the hospital and bottomed out coming over a few hills (no damage to the car). Alex was crying. A few blocks from the hospital he went silent. No cries. No wimpers. No little Alex jabber. I don't know that I ever prayed so hard that a baby would cry.

When I got to the hospital (probably less than three minutes from when I called my mom), I went to get Alex out and he was as white as a ghost. I rubbed his chest and he woke up looking pretty startled and out of it. I ran him into the ER and handed him over the counter to the nurse as I told her that he had Bronchiolitis and had turned grey. She took him straight back.

A few minutes later they let me back to his exam room. I texted a friend to go pick up Philip from the airport. Once they had assessed Alex and saw that he okay, they had me sit on the guerny and hold him. They tested him for RSV and it came back positive. They did a breathing treatment and X-ray in the ER. Philip got there just before they put in Alex's IV and sent us up to Pediatrics.

The doctor and the nurse think that Alex had so much thick mucus in his lungs that when he was coughing during the breathing treatment a piece go lodged in his airway. He was admitted and we spent Friday through Tuesday at Hendricks.

He had two types of breathing treatments every 4 hours: a saline solution to help break up the mucus and the Alburol to help open up his lungs. The respiratory nurses also did chest precussions to help loosen it all up. They did eventually start an IV to keep him hydrated so that he didn't have to eat as his stats seemed to dip while he drank.

He's doing much better now. He's still wheezing and sometimes breathing heavy, but that could continue for up to a month. He's likely to develop asthma now and we've been warned that he could wheeze with any respiratory illness in the next year.

Through it all, he only acted "sick" for about a day. He's been a little extra fussy the last few days but he's also drooling like a hounddog so I think he's getting some teeth in. He's such a strong little guy and I am so blessed to be his mommy.

Alex playing with his yellow block in the hospital.
He still used his IV hand to play so I had to give him toys he didn't have to grasp.

One Stressful Week

Saturday:
Alex and I were out running errands. He had been napping pretty soundly for awhile and had slept through a feeding. He had been pretty hungry the week before so I figure he's having a growth spurt and that's what made him so sleepy. We're at Drug Emporium when he wakes up. I change him and fix him a bottle. I feed him while looking at some of the baby/toddler foods they had available, after all it won't be too much longer before he starts solids. He eats most of his bottle and then throws up, big time. He's covered, his carseat and stroller are covered; it's gross. I change him and wipe up his seat as best I can. He still had about an ounce or so left in the bottle so after a few minutes, I offer that to him. He pukes again. Well, I only had one set of clothes with me so we high tail it out of the store and back home to get him cleaned up.

Sunday:
We stayed home from church. Philip had a migraine and with the vomiting the day before, I'm thinking Alex's reflux meds aren't working and I don't really want to have him spew at church. Later that day he throws up again. Again there are two spews close together. I make a plan to call the doc in the morning so we can discuss his reflux meds. My mom recommends giving him a tiny bit of rice cereal and mashed banana to help soak up the extra stomach acid. He enjoys his first tastes of real food, but his tongue thrust reflex is still pretty strong so he only gets a few bites. Alex sleeps a full eight hours plus some that night.

Monday:
I have the day off for MLK Jr. Day but Philip has to work. Alex has a large, loose bowel movement in the morning. He eats about half his bottle, then vomits and falls back to sleep. I call the doctor's office and leave a message for the nurse. When Alex wakes up again he has mucusy, bloody diarrhea. He eats a half bottle then falls back asleep. I call again and the receptionist says there's no appointments until the following morning so I leave another message for the nurse and call my mom. She thinks its serious. I debate on taking Alex to the walk-in clinic near the apartments. I want him to be seen but don't want to expose him to the flu which will be in all those waiting rooms. I send mom a picture of his bloody stool and she calls back and says to take Alex to the doctor or the emergency room. I text Philip that he needs to come home now and call the doctor's office again. I tell them I will be taking my infant to the emergency room if they cannot see him that day. He has an appointment at 1:30.

I pack a simple diaper bag thinking we'll only be gone a few hours and go to the doctor, bloody diaper in tow. They weigh Alex when we get there. He's 11 pounds, 14 ounces! We see Dr. L who confirms that it was blood in his stool. That stool combined with him sleeping through feeds has her worried. She gives us orders for him to be admitted to the hospital for tests and to make sure he stays hydrated. The office is on the hospital campus so it's a quick drive to the main hospital. Philip drops us off at Admissions and goes back to the office to wrap up the project he was working on. I fill out the admissions papers and we wait for his room to be ready.

Once we get the room, the nurses start his vitals and the tests that Dr. L ordered. He's a full two feet tall! He hated the infant pulse-ox and blood pressure cuff. They take him blood, but not from his heel like I was used to, they take it from his arm and both nurses have to hold him down to do it. This was worst part of all the tests. He screamed and screamed. When he caught my eye, he just stared at me and cried his lungs out. I held his little hand and stroked his hair and they were done not nearly soon enough. I held him for a little while and then we were off to get his ultrasound done. The tech tells me that the scan looks normal but they will have to wait for the doctor to give the all clear.



On the way back to the room (themed after the Berenstain Bears Go On Vacation) the nurse tells me that he's positive for Rotavirus so we have to be very careful to wash our hands, especially after any diaper changes. The nurse doesn't know if that's the problem though. He can't eat until the doctor gives the all clear on the ultrasound so the nurse gives me some sugar water to make his paci sweet and help keep him happy. A little while later she brings in some Pedialyte and says the doc gave him the okay to try to eat as his ultrasound was clear and he wasn't going to be needing surgery.

He drinks some of the Pedialyte but obviously isn't happy with it. I think he only drank it because he'd gulp it so fast before he could taste it. When Dr. L comes by for rounds she says he can have formula again. He loves that idea! He eats a whole bunch and sleeps pretty well that night. When they weighed him he had lost a little weight, but the nurse assures me that it wasn't much (they weighed him in kilograms so it was hard for me to tell as I was never very good with the metric system).

Resting after a long day

Tuesday:
In the morning, Dr. Su. checks on him. She says that if he keeps his food down he might be able to go home that night. She assures me that his weight loss was minimal and was the difference of having eaten or peed recently. All his tests had come back except his bacteria cultures which could take 24-48 hours and the only positive so far was the Rotavirus, but she couldn't say if it was from the vaccine he got a week ago or if he caught a wild strain. He does really well that day and is on full formula feedings by about midday. He spits up quite a bit a couple of times, but it's not enough to be clearly vomit. He does still have very liquid stools during the day. Dr. Sh. sees him that evening. He's not quite comfortable letting him go home yet, especially since the bacteria cultures aren't back and he wants to rule out Salmonella and E. Coli both of which can cause bloody stools.  He suggests Alex get Similac Sensitive formula as it's made for those with lactose sensitivity and having diarrhea can lead to temporary lactose intolerance. We switch his formula and he does well that night.

Wednesday:
Dr. L sees Alex in the morning. His bacteria cultures came back negative. He's free to go home. He can even return to daycare after a day of no diarrhea or vomiting. Because he got sick so soon after getting his first Rotavirus vaccine (it was just a week prior to symptoms) there's no way to tell if he got it from the vaccine or if he just caught it. He won't be getting the second dose of the Rotavirus vaccine. He got the virus so he has the antibodies now. She'll note this incident in his chart for when he goes to school. We go home and I bleach all his diapers and sanitize everything in sight. That night we try going back to his regular formula and he throws up again. We call the doctor. Dr. Su is on call and says to put him back on Pedialyte and try formula again later. She says that if we want, she will readmit him, otherwise we can just bring him in in the morning. He does well with the Pedialyte but shows a few symptoms of dehydration so I decide that I will make sure he takes at least two ounces every two hours. He also develops a bit of a cough during this time. It doesn't sound like his regular reflux cough. He also has a low grade fever.

Thursday:
Alex still has some very loose stools. Some of them look a little red. I'm pretty sure it's just the dyes from the Pedialyte but I bring a diaper with us to the doctor just in case. Dr. Su sees him that afternoon.  She says that he looks good and he's okay to stay at home as long as he doesn't do any more backsliding. She also says that he could have diarrhea for a week and that would be okay. She takes a listen to his chest. It appears he picked up a cold at the hospital. We don't have any vomiting or bowel movements that night but he does spit up a bit when we try a thickened feed.

Friday (today):
We had healthy stool today! It was a bit dark and pasty, but definitely not diarrhea! He's still had a slight fever and a bit of a cold. He seems to be teething too. He's done really well. He's spitting up a bit, but I think that's because we haven't been thickening his feeds. He's happy and eating great.

This has been the most stressful week ever. I hated being at the hospital but it was better safe than sorry.  I'm so relieved that he's feeling better and that it wasn't something more serious. I just pray he's never in the hospital again (unless he decides to become a surgeon).

One Year Later

Yesterday was one year since my LEEP to remove precancerous cells from my cervix.

A year ago, I thought my life was about to take turn dramatically for the worse.

A year ago, I was scared, make that terrified that my dreams of becoming a mother would be gone forever.

A year ago, I had no idea how strong I was.

I was terrified of what would happen. I was worried that they would find out that it was worse than the biopsy showed. I didn't think anyone understood or could understand. And I had no idea what I was doing.

I took it one day at a time and leaned on my husband more than I ever thought I would. I learned that in all of his discomfort with my tears and emotions, he would always be there for me. I learned that he is my rock and my teddy bear all in one. He really was amazing (and still is).

I struggled with what it meant to trust God and be faithful to the command to not worry. I struggled even more with what it meant to take your cares to your brothers and sisters in Christ and ask for prayer. I found myself conflicted in the role of care taker for so many and needing to be cared for, and I learned the importance of being vulnerable even as you care for the broken.

And now I find myself "as big as house" with a wiggling, kicking, little baby growing inside of me and a clean bill of health. I feel closer to my husband that I did before even when he's hundreds of miles away. I feel more at peace and content with the situation and world that God has placed me in. Most of all, I have been humbled to a place of deep appreciation for the glory and majesty of our Lord and the life that we have within him.

I am honored to be able to share my story with anyone who might see this and pray that I might provide hope to someone who needs it.

To read about the events of last here, click here.



My ever growing "very pregnant" belly. :)



Season of Gratitde

Today has been a good day. Philip had the day off (yippee!!!). Usually his one day off for the week is Sunday which is generally a pretty busy day for us. So, we were both excited. We slept in (though Simon wouldn't let us sleep in too much). We had a lazy morning with Simon sleeping on my lap while I napped on the couch and Philip played Fallout 3.

Then we had lunch at Jason's and went to see The Lion King in 3D! The Lion King was awesome. You see so much more definition and you can see all the layers of the animation. It was seriously great. Afterwards, we got ice dream from Chick-fil-A and then we went to Hastings to walk around.

Little did we know, Hastings had put out the new DC Heroclix Superman set that Philip has been looking forward too. His birthday gift is his order of this set as he's been waiting for it for a very long time. (If you're interested in Heroclix and want some early info click here to see more.)

Then, as we got home, I got out of the car and what did God surprise me with? A large group of monarchs was flying around a tree outside our apartment! I absolutely love butterflies and their presence has been a constant reminder to me of God's amazing grace and transformative power. This sighting was just another of God's little love notes.

(I hope to post a picture soon, camera cord is missing.)

So, the husband and I are both blogging. Then, we're having grilled cheese and soup for dinner and watching The Big Bang Theory season 4! There's a lot to be grateful for today.

Season of Gratitude

Today I am very grateful for my wonderful husband and our time at the fair last night. It's been a crazy week for him at work and I know he was tired and wasn't really feeling it, but we had a great time. We ate yummy fair food, walked through the carnival and all the displays, and fed the animals at the 4H petting zoo! The petting zoo is my favorite every year. Philip just sits back and laughs at me. I'm such a little kid there, but that's okay. Last night really helped me remember how much fun I have when I let my guard down. Oh, and I had my first fried Oreos! They were really yummy. Plus, it rained! It seems to always rain during the fair here, and the rain was such a blessing in this time of drought.

All things considered though, I am just so glad that I got to spend that time with Philip.

A Season of Gratitude

A lady from my church recently posted on Facebook her Summer of gratitude. Everyday she posted what she was grateful for that day. Well, I feel like I could use an attitude make over so I'm going to copy her. From now until Thanksgiving I will post one thing I'm grateful for. I will keep a running list here on this blog and at the end of it all, I pray that God will change my heart and help me to recover the sense of awe and wonderment I once had with the world.

Today I am grateful for the cooler weather which signifies a change in the seasons.

Big Boy Food!

Simon turns one next month so when we had to get him more food this week, we got him adult food! He has a little kitten food left so we'll mix it for the next week or so. It's the same flavor as his kitten food so I don't think it'll taste all that different, but just in case it's a rough transition for his tummy.

Surreal and yet so real...

I've been meaning to write this down for a while now, but have been too chicken. I know theoretically that it is good to talk with others and to write when one goes through a difficult situation, but that doesn't make it easy. However, some of my friends have done just that recently and have given me the little encouragement push I need. So, before I chicken out again, here's what's been going on the last few years. (Heads up, I'm going to be honest, so this may be TMI at some points.)

August 2010: I went in for my annual Pap and check-up to renew my birth control. My doctor informed me of the new federal guidelines for someone my age without any abnormal paps or HPV positive testing and told me that I didn't need to have the test done this year. I told her that my mother had cervical cancer when she was very young, and that I wasn't going to risk it. A few minutes exposed to the world was worth it to me. A week later, the results came back, Atypical Squamous cells of unknown significance, HPV negative.

I immediately began to freak out. My doctor calmed me down and explained that this could very easily be a simple infection, and given that I had a really bad yeast infection a few months prior, it was likely nothing to be concerned about. She gave me a list of symptoms to be aware of, and I felt a little bit okay.

One of the symptoms to watch for was unusual bleeding. I noticed that for the next month I would bleed after sex. It wasn't much, and I had noticed it on and off before, but there wasn't any pain so I didn't think much of it, but I called the office and they suggested I come back in.

September 2010: I went in for another exam. The doctor took a new sample and examined it in the office for the presence of any bacterial/fungal infections. She didn't see anything unusual, but suspected that there was a Gardnerella infection. Being a natural bacteria in the body, it may have simply gotten out of control during the previous yeast infections. She sent a sample off to the lab just to be sure. The lab test however only looks for bacteria that are STDs and my doctor told me that it was a precaution that was in the "best practice" but that she was expecting a negative result. (In fact, she told me that if it came back positive, she'd be having a talk with Philip, a talk that included baseball bats.) The tests were negative as expected, and Philip's knees remained safe. We went ahead and started a course of antibiotics for the Gardnerella.

Halloween 2010: Some idiot decided not to look before turning left and slammed into my car. Sally the Sexy Saturn was DOA. I felt fine for a few hours, but that night my back began to hurt like I had just been hit my a giant SUV... Oh wait, I had. I went the chiropractor the next day. There were some disks that were out of line, and my right hip's range of motion was almost not existent. The Wednesday after the accident, Philip lost his job at GameStop.

Fast forward a little bit...

Late March/Early April: Philip got hired at RadioShack! During his first week of training, I had my repeat pap. The doctor said that cervix was inflamed and friable. It bled from just a cotton swab. She sent off the new pap specimen and put me on a vaginal antibiotic cream. This was to serve two purposes, 1-kill any infection that may be present, and 2- help to strengthen the cervix. A little over a week later, the new results came in. They were the exact same. Atypical, unknown, no HPV. Because of my family history, she wanted me to have a colposcopy with a possible biopsy. We still didn't have insurance yet so she told me about the Alliance for Women and Children and that they could approve me for federal coverage for the procedure.

May 13: I went in for the colposcopy. Philip came with me as I was scared to death. The nurse was very reassuring and told me that this new doctor would have probably waited another year before doing the colposcopy, but that because I went through the Alliance, he had to do it, but he most likely wouldn't take any biopsies. The colposcopy is essentially the same as a vaginal exam for a pap, except that he uses a microscope type machine to magnify the cervix.

During the procedure, he talked with Philip about taking Latin and his time at ACU. You can't go more than ten feet without finding someone who went to ACU around here. And he told me that he was going to take three biopsies, 6, 9, and 12 o'clock. My heart sank, but I just focused on the conversation between him and Philip about ACU's ministry programs. After the biopsies were done, he told us that he saw a section of leukoplakia. Watching him draw the diagram, it looked like it covered over half the cervix. He told me that I did not have "woman-eating cancer" and that the results would likely be in on Wednesday. He also had taken a swab to check for bacteria, just like they had done in September.

May 19: I got the call from the office while in class. Dr. B. explained to me that they had found grade three cervical dysplasia and that they needed to schedule a LEEP where he uses an electric scalpel to remove the bad cells. Someone from his office would call me to schedule the appointment. That was it. I immediately called Philip, but he was at work so I left a message for him to call me back and called my mother. I was freaking out. All I kept thinking of was that this had left my mother where she couldn't have any more kids. "I'm just 24, why is this happening?"

My mom tried to be comforting, but she was crying herself. She kept apologizing for giving this to me, which even at the time sounded strange to me. Almost like she gave me a Chucky doll, but this was the real psycho-killer toy. Even then, I didn't, and still don't blame her, or think it's her fault. There are far worse genetic gifts that I could have gotten.

Philip called me back within minutes. He was great. He kept telling me that we can get through this, and that it's good news. He was expecting cancer, so yeah, this was good news.

June 3: This was to be the "big day." My LEEP was scheduled for that morning. I went in and peed in the little cup. They took my blood pressure and walked me through the consent forms. Philip was in the car finishing a call, but got into the office before the room was even ready. I got in, got undressed, wrapped myself in the paper and sat on the table. And sat. And sat.... Dr. B. had gotten held up at the hospital delivering a baby. When he got in he told us it was a little girl.

We then started talking about the test results and what everything meant. We had so many questions. Poor guy probably felt like he was being interrogated on Law & Order or something. Anyways, while Dr. B. was explaining something to Philip (I honestly can't remember what), the nurse held up this little plastic tray with two red lines. "What is that?" I mouthed to her. "Pregnancy test." I look her dead in the eye and forget everything I know about manners and decorum, "Are you fucking kidding me?" She just shook her head.

That got Dr. B.'s attention. It was a weak positive, but a positive none the less. He told us that it might be a false positive, but that we could not do the procedure if I were pregnant as it would cause a miscarriage. Therefore, I needed to go get a blood test, and if that was negative, we could reschedule. Otherwise, we would just have to keep a close eye on it, and do the procedure in nine months. We went to the health department (BTW- $4 blood serum pregnancy tests, if you ever need). The test came back negative. I was not pregnant.

Part of me was relieved, but a large part was disappointed. I kept thinking, that this could have been my chance, that maybe we would have a baby. I think Philip had even gotten a little excited. The false positive may have been what is called a "chemical pregnancy" which is a very early miscarriage. There's no real way to know for sure without the doctor seeing it happen, or watching the HCG levels change. Sometimes I think that it doesn't really matter, after all if I hadn't been having the procedure, I would have never now. Other times I think it's silly to think about because we don't even know if that is the case or not. Then sometimes I think that I could have been pregnant. On the Fourth of July, I got really upset thinking about how far along I might have been. Then I got mad at myself for being so silly.

I think that's something about ambiguous loss: You can read about it all you want, but once it's there in your face, no amount of research matters. It could be something to mourn, or it might not be and you can't even decide for yourself if it should or not. It's an emotional mess.

However, one thing was sure. We were not ready to give up our chance at having children. That Monday, I dropped the results off at the doctor's office. Later that day I called them and said that I wanted to talk with Dr. B. about fertility after the LEEP before we rescheduled. A few days later the main nurse called to answer my questions.

There are risks to my fertility after the procedure. My cervix could narrow so that sperm would have difficulty entering the uterus. If I were to get pregnant, my cervix could become incompetent ("incompetent cervix" is still funny to Philip, I don't know why). She assured me that Dr. B. would very careful and would watch for signs of incompetence and that if it were to happen, it could be fixed with a simple purse stitch to keep the cervix closed. I felt much more at ease and we rescheduled the appointment.

June 24: After a long week at KDK camp, I went in that Friday morning for the LEEP. Dr. B. went over a lot of the fertility questions again and talked us through the procedure. He wanted to get it all at once, but also wanted to conserve as much cervical tissue as possible. He showed us the "Deep D" and "Shallow D" tools and told us that he would use the shallow D to help maintain as much tissue as possible.

He got started with the lytacaine with epinephrin. My heart started racing like crazy, which they had told me to expect, and I started to shiver. The nurse kept telling me to take deep breaths, so I focused on my breathing like I learned in yoga. Philip kept asking if I was okay and making little jokes to make me giggle. I told him not to make me laugh so that I wouldn't move too much. The procedure itself was rather quick and I didn't really feel anything. I  did feel some of the cautery when he was stopping the bleeding, but it only hurt for a second. I had one little bleeder that didn't want to quit, so he had the nurse watch it for a few minutes. It stopped on its own. They went to have me sit up, but I got pretty light-headed so I had to stay laying down for a little while and then they sat me up slowly. Philip went over to see the parts of cervix in the little jars. I was not that curious. The nurse talked to use while she cleaned up and then I was free to go.

Recovery hasn't been too bad. I had some pretty bad cramping for a few days, but I didn't have to use the Codeine they gave me, Advil was enough. Through out the following two weeks, I've had some occasional cramps that might get pretty bad, but nothing horrible. I had started the antibiotics the Thursday before the LEEP and by now, I'm sure every bacteria in my body is dead and my digestive system is none too happy.

I haven't gotten the pathology results yet, so I still don't know if they got it all. I go in to the doctor tomorrow to make sure that my cervix is healing properly.

I'm sure that this is way too much information for some people, but I want to get this story out there. If I had not pushed to have that pap in August, and if I had not pushed to retest, and to go for colposcopy, this probably wouldn't have been found before it became "woman-eating cancer." My last pap was Atypical Squamous cells of undermined significance, HPV negative. According to the federal guidelines, I shouldn't have had another pap for another two years. And then, maybe they'd repeat in six months, and after those six months, maybe they'd do the colposcopy, and by then, this would be a totally different story.

Simon!

We got a kitten! The weekend before Thanksgiving we took in a little grey tabby kitten from a foster home.  He's just now 8 weeks old. His name is Simon Belmont (Philip's choosing). He's a ton of fun, but such a little hellion... He's in that stage where he attacks anything that moves or looks like it might move at some point. Here's a picture of the newest Campbell!

Musings...

So, I'm sitting here in class, and I'm pretty bored. All I really want is to be snuggled up in bed with the husband. But, that's not quite an option. Instead... I'm going to think about pumpkins. Oh my... I just have to say, I love pumpkin. Now, I'm not a big squash eater, in fact, pumpkin is the only squash I eat, and it's always baked, not in soup or anything like that. You know what else is yummy? Hot apple cider... I made a really yummy cider last year. I hope I still have the recipe somewhere. I'd also really like some hot tea... It's still pretty hot out, but it's starting to feel like Fall, and it's cold in this classroom so I'm wanting some Fall. Also, a classmate made some pumpkin whoopie pies (pretty good, the cream was a bit too rich for so early). I'm wearing a sweater which is comfy, but it smells from sitting in my car for a week or so... Yep, I'm done now.

Brains, Brains, Brains!

We went to Hastings the other day and found this awesome jell-o mold. Yes, I said jell-o mold. It molds jell-o into the shape of a half-brain!

And so, I tried said mold with Lime Jell-o. It turned out alright, but I had a really hard time getting the jell-o to come free of the mold so there's not nearly as much detail. They said to shake the mold to loosen the jell-o. I wonder if I maybe shook the brain a little too hard, or not hard enough. Well, for now, that's it. Hopefully I can have this perfect by Halloween!

Welcome to my crazy life!

I do a little bit of everything, and probably a little too much. I am married to a wonderful man. I am currently in my last year of grad school (M.MFT) and I make and sell various crafts. I also write video game reviews when I find the time and am working on several other writing projects. This blog is meant to be a catch-all of sorts. I'll write about the things I'm making as well as what's going on in my life. I hope you find it interesting!