This is from a recent status update on FB that I will get to in JUST a moment...I feel like if I don't record THIS week...of all weeks...than I might as well be done with blogging forever...
It's been crazy town...
to the max
BUT...the good thing, is that SOMEHOW...through it all...I am surviving...although, I look forward to a time where I am living, or even thriving...but we'll get there...for now...let me just tell you about my past week...
Shall we??
SAT: Oakley was baptized. She was beautiful. It was a perfectly crazy day filled with last minute dress shopping, ice cream, cooking, and getting ready. It was hectic, but we still made it on time. I surprisingly wasn't feeling terribly emotional or stressed. I was enjoying it, and was super proud of Oakley. She was beaming. Once they greeted her with a towel, I went back there...I immediately gave her a huge hug, in which case...I could not let go. I held on tight, because I was holding a perfect angel...and I felt it. We both cried, and the words we exchanged are mine to cherish, but it was a moment not expected, but I will remember always...
We then had a BBQ with friends and family. It was a nice evening...no drama...we were unable to confirm her that day because there wasn't a bishopric member in town, so we were planning on doing it the following evening...
SUN: Day of confirmation. ALSO, day dishwasher floods EVERYWHERE in the kitchen...NO GOOD. We sopped it up and texted the landlord...
Later in the evening it is about 7:15, and most of the family is to the house, and the counselor to confirm her is to be at our door any minute...but wait...we are missing a crucial element...BRIAN!!! After several phone calls, and different routes, I find that he is getting off work late. There had been a miscommunication somewhere...SIGH...in the hustle and bustle, and the craziness, I decide to step outside, and get some fresh air where no one can see me fall apart...I am just a little overwhelmed in life trying to organize schedules for 7 people, and many times, I have to reschedule these schedules...it's very consuming...
While out there, family members had come out front to express their frustration not knowing I am there as well. It was just too much. I walked away. I didn't want that spirit in my home on the night my daughter was to receive the spirit...so I left.
MON: I was a big fat mess. I am evaluating and re-evaluating in my head myself, my life, just everything...I definitely try super hard to keep up. Romy generally has 3 appts a week...but most of the time it's more. She goes to three days of therapy, and then sees an ophthalmologist, neurologist, cardiologist, ENT, GI specialist, and her regular pediatrician. This is just her...we have four other children that have their own needs...and a house, that has it's own needs...I was just feeling the stress of this, and the stress of my husband who works SO INCREDIBLY HARD seven days a week.
TUES: Oakley and Parker have surgery. Oakley was oddly excited for it. It quickly faded into a poor lifeless recovering girl. She was miserable. Parker on the other hand was feeling good...he was weak coming out, but by the time we got home perked up and wanted to play his DS. Oakley laid lifeless on the couch. I had to keep telling Parker to relax, that doing to much would not be a good thing. I was so lucky to have a friend from high school come and help me. She had seen me post about the kids, and wanted to help...I know it was answers to my desperate prayers for help. With Brian gone, I needed another set of hands...and I am so thankful for her...!!
Later that night, Oakley was just so miserable...in pain, and we felt helpless. We had our home teacher come over and we gave her and Parker blessings...
WED: I wake up sick. I had a cold already, but this was a stomach thing...I felt awful. There should be a rule about parents getting sick that have to take care of sick kids...or ones that have just had surgery for that matter!! Just as I come out of the bathroom from loosing my guts, Oakley is standing weakly crying in my room saying she threw up and Blazer was jumping and playing in it. I just wanted to cry. I wish it ended there. She couldn't keep anything down that whole day....including pain medicine. I could tell we were in a bad downwards spiral....
MEANWHILE...we have a guy in our house tearing out our kitchen. Remember that dishwasher that flooded?? SIGH...
By about 3pm I call in to the Dr office to see what I can do for Oakley...they told me to take her to the ER. So I packed up my poor sick girl, and took her in. They immediately gave her fluids via IV, but didn't give her anything for pain or nausea. Her oxygen levels were low, so they did an xray to make sure she didn't have fluid in her lungs. Finally after about an hour and a half after the bag of fluids had gotten in her, they ask her to take a couple sips of water...she IMMEDIATELY threw it up. They realized how bad she was, and gave her nausea meds, and morphine. I was annoyed that they let her lay in pain for as long as they did.
Once she was stable, we took her home. She seemed better, and even asked for Popsicles. I was relieved.
The neighbors' kittens serving as pet therapy...so cute :)
THURS: Our dishwasher guy is tearing out the floor, but is only tearing out a 2'X2' section...I was concerned and called Brian who does this type of thing for a living, expressing that I could see moisture on both sides where he was tearing it out, and the section he was tearing out was awful, he was scooping it out like butter...and it was covered in mildew on its way to molding. We tried expressing the dangers to the landlord who had full confidence in this guys' experience. We were mortified. We sent out our own guys after he left to get second opinions, and took some moisture readings...they were up to 50% about two more feet on each side of where he had torn out. On top of that all of the interiors of the cabinets were saturated. This was a disaster cleanup project, and more importantly it's a health hazard. Without drying the floor out, it will be mold in a week. We aren't sure what to do at this point, because our landlord won't listen to our concerns. We took pictures of everything, and are just trying to figure out if moving is the best idea or not...
Oakley was feeling better, but Parker is now going downhill. He did too much that first day...!! He threw up a couple of times, and we just couldn't seem to keep his pain away. He luckily didn't get to a point where he couldn't keep anything down, but he wasn't doing good at all.
Thursday nights are my nights. Brian was home early for once (early being 9pm) so I thought I would go to volleyball like I do most Thursday nights. It was such a great release until....BAM...ball in face. One of the girls served the ball, and the one receiving it kicked it for some reason, and I took a direct hit to my eye...
IT SUCKED.
My eye blacked out and lost vision on half of it, and my pupils went crazy...one was huge, and the other was small. The girls around me had the "this looks serious but we're trying to stay calm" voices, so I knew it didn't look good. It sure didn't FEEL good either!! They got me ice to put on it, and we decided to see if my pupils would even out. After about 15 minutes, they seemed to go back to almost normal...so I decided to go to Denny's like we do every night after volleyball.
My eye HURT...I was getting concerned because my vision seemed extra blurry. I decided to google it, and everything that I saw said to go in immediately in case there was a torn retina. I called Brian, and let him know what was going on, and he wanted me to go in.
SO, for a second day in a row...I was BACK to the ER.
JOY
They checked my eye for immediate and obvious damage, and luckily I didn't have anything emergent going on. So they sent me home with the advice that I be seen by an ophthalmologist within 2 days unless my eyesight changed, in which case I should go in immediately.
When I was going to bed, I noticed that something seemed weird. The part of my eye that had visually blacked out seemed to be coming back. It was almost like when you look at a flash and then close your eyes...the negative light feeling....only with your eyes open. I called back into the ER, to make sure it wasn't something to be concerned about but they thought it could have been the drops they put into my eyes.
FRI: It wasn't the drops...after flushing my eyes out the night before and sleeping...I still had this weird vision thing...So I went in to the DR. He found that my retina had been pulled. He explained it as being similar to pulling a ligament. He also found some nerve damage in several places on the right and in the bottom of my eye...which is explaining the vision disruptions. We are hoping that it heals itself and my vision returns to normal in several weeks...I'm not going to address the "if not" scenario here...
This is about when I write my FB post I referenced in the beginning of this post...it went like this..." Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the ball...well, maybe not...if I would have seen it I'm time I would have ducked and avoided the nerve damage and pulled retina...oh what fun...the Lords go marching on..."
Sometimes I feel like that is what we are doing...just marching on.
The moral of the story is: No matter what happens...you just have to get through the day, because tomorrow will be a new one...and even though I wonder many times how I will get through tomorrow....some how....some way...I make it through...
