Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Migraine hangover

I think I jinxed Dave by saying his migraine was the third he's had this year and that was abnormally low because since then he's had two more! Once he gets one he tends to get a few, I think they call them cluster migraines. So he's had 3 in the last couple of weeks and this last one on monday was the worst so far.  He was sick to his stomach which just bumps up the concern a million times over because if something gets stuck in his throat he runs the risk of choking and there's no real good way for me to help him if that happens. I'm glad he only ate soft things that day! Now he's suffering from the migraine hangover. Dehydration and weakness and  being overly tired with a sensitive stomach.  Poor guy. I guess I'll baby him a bit longer. ;) (he soaks the attention right up!)

On top of that he didn't take his advil for his neck and shoulder aches and pains because his stomach has been bothering him.  Small meals, sips of water and ginger ale (and a little dr pepper) but he can't take much else so far. The lack of advil is easier on his stomach but not so great on the rest of him.  The massage nurse came today and helped him relax a bit.  I love when she comes, she does such a good job working out some of his kinks.

Owen is plugging away at school, doing great so far. He had an orthodontist appointment last week and his teeth are looking stellar although he needs to brush a little better. *mom glare* I'm trying to help him be more organized for school and he's coming up with ways to keep himself organized. It always works better when he participates in the solution.

I've been... tired.  Really tired and not sleeping well.  Melatonin has helped a little but it makes it hard for me to wake up in the middle of the night to turn Dave so if I don't take it by 10 or 11 I can't take it or it screws me all up.  We take a lot of naps these days. Maybe it's because I started on a more healthy diet.  We've only had non-homemade food once in the last 2 weeks! That's some kind of record around here. It's good food but it's severely less calories than before which is good for all of us, it just provides for a little less energy. I'm sure my body will get used to it soon but for now the gym is on hold so I don't completely fry myself.  I realize this isn't the best time to start a program like this but I have to take care of myself and the dr I talked to suggested that at least food is something I can control in an otherwise uncontrollable situation.  TRUE! I'm supposed to keep a food journal but that is hard, using the myfitnesspal app makes it a lot easier so I'm doing that instead! Easier is good. Oh and to make things more fun I think I pulled a muscle in my side/back.  Actually it kind of feels like I got kidney punched on my right side but I'm pretty sure it's muscular. Unpleasant at best. Maybe I should be taking the advil!

I got some books from the library and one that I happened upon was "How to Feed Your Teenaged Son" or something like that.  Owen claimed that if it didn't say "With a shovel" it probably wasn't accurate.  Seriously, he's such a goat these days. I started getting milk from Costco (2 gallons at a time) because if I get one at a time I end up at the store every couple of days. I got some other books about healthy eating and terminal illness/caregiving and yoga.  Actually the yoga book is called "Yoga for Anxiety" and I thought it was funny to be walking around with caregiving books and a yoga for anxiety book.  If the library was amazon the books would probably be listed under the "people who bought this book also bought... " section.

We've noticed that it's getting harder to stay upbeat. I don't mean for this to sound all depressed because it's not so much that but I've noticed I cry a lot more easily these days. (For anyone who has known me since I was young this is no surprise) I think it's just wearing on us and we've noticed it a bit in Owen as well. Not the crying because he's a big tough man-child now but the obvious stress that bursts out of him on occasion. I'm not sure how much of that is the thirteenness and how much is the stress of David being sick and me not being as ever-present in his activities.  We're present, just not quite as much as we were before and we still spend time together as a family and talk a lot... I mean A LOT.  I'm so proud of the young man he's becoming and his ability to express his emotions even if he doesn't do it until I corner him.  HA! He was doomed to be fraught with emotion having me as a mother. At least he still talks when needed and I'm appreciative of that.  I hope that trend continues. 




Monday, September 3, 2012

Your Platelets are low... JUST KIDDING!

Dave and I started hanging out with Tim and Rose a little over 15 years ago.  That would make their three oldest kids about 6, 5 and 3.  They were on this kick where they were always "Kidding" about things. Even things that weren't actually jokes which are our favorite ones, like, "Have you seen the skating movie? JUST KIDDING" (the skating movie = The Cutting Edge.  Random, yes.) That is definitely how we felt this week after the visit with the doctor.  Oh, Have you seen how low your platelets are? JUST KIDDING! It's all the lab's fault.  Here we were wondering what combo of meds he's on that are making his platelets drop. We even talked to my uncle who is a pharmacist and he cleared up some things that the evil internet was wrong about, go figure.  We were a little baffled and then the dr said it has basically been a series of lab errors that make it look like his platelets are low.  After having them retested at a different lab and then recalibrating their test they decided that it's a lab problem not a david's blood problem. That would have been good to know since I was kind of on high alert and half expecting him to bleed out at any moment.  Me? Dramatic? I have no idea what you're talking about... *whistles*  We did increase his pain meds this week so he's now on 60 mg of MS Contin instead of 30 but really it's not a huge increase because he was taking enough liquid morphine doses to make up the difference.  This way he's getting an even dose instead of fluctuating doses.

So tomorrow/today is labor day.  School starts for Owen the day after, 8th grade. It's the first year I'm not at all excited for him to go to school. Not even a little. It's been so nice having him home this summer and he's been a tremendous help. I'm glad for him though, kids don't need that burden on their shoulders but it's awfully nice that he's old/mature/capable enough to lend a hand when needed.
On top of the just not having him here during the day there's the little added bonus of the district not running bus service.  We live about 3/4 of a mile from the school which isn't really bad for walking
except that we live on the opposite side of a 5 lane busy street from the school.  There are LOTS of other kids who fall in that same category who also took the bus, a couple of whom have talked about carpooling. I walked to and from middle school probably 90% of the time and I lived further than 3/4 of a mile but it was backstreets and no big deal. Ok... now I'm going to have to drive by there and clock it next time I'm down in that part of town, it might have been only about a mile or so but in my memory it was much further! uphill... in the snow and all that. Right now it's not a huge deal to drive him but as time goes on there will be days I can't/don't want to leave the house.  Oh and to top it off I forgot school started tuesday so I made an appointment for me for 2:00 and he gets out of school at 2:30.  Oops. So much for my summer scheduling where I think "oh yeah, I can't do that during the day, owen will be home"  Doh. Time to retrain my brain!

Dave is doing mostly ok except for a migraine yesterday. We figured it's probably the third one he's had in the last 8 months.  That's some kind of record for him, normally he got a lot more than that.
I'm always afraid to give him his imitrex because the first time I did that he had seizures the next day.  Totally unrelated but it still gives me a mental block.  He took his meds and napped for a bit and today he was much better so no worries. He had treatment on wednesday, where we found out about the platelet non-issue.

I only made it to the gym once last week. Not exactly my plan but with dr's appointments and errands that needed to be run and migraines and laundry and Owen had a party to go to and well... after doing those things I felt bad about being away from the house as much as I was taking care of business that I didn't want to leave again to go to the gym. Excuses, excuses. I'll do better this week!

The party Owen went to was such a cute idea! My friend Rachel has 4 kids, the two oldest girls are Owen's age and a sophomore in HS.  They had a Hunger Games party in their backyard where they projected the movie on the back of the house and all the kids brought chairs and blankets etc etc and laid out back and watched the movie.  They're brave, when I dropped owen off there were kids EVERYWHERE! My best guess is around 50 and I know some got there after I left. The kids were asked to bring snacks or drinks to share so Owen brought Pita Chips and Sun Dried Tomato Hummus. Only fans of the story would appreciate this but he put tape over the labels and wrote "Peeta Chips" and "Sun Dried Tomato Haymitch" (two of the characters names from the book/movie)
When he showed me he was beside himself giggling.  We both laughed about it all the way over to their house. I'm glad he's as easily amused as I am!  He had to call me before the movie was over because he had a stomach ache.  Too much junk food for Owen! HA! That's what being a kid is all about, right?

That reminds me of the time..... We have a tradition that we go to parent/teacher conferences and if all is well (which it always is) we go out for Dairy Queen. Every time he would beg and beg to get a banana split and we always told him it was too big and to pick something smaller so finally we caved and let him get one. I think it was 4th grade maybe. So he ate it, the whole thing, all three mounds and the toppings and the bananas and ALL the whipped cream and the cherries.  All of it.  His stomach was puffed out and when we rubbed it we could feel the cold on the OUTSIDE of his stomach.  Yes, the outside of his stomach was cold.  And then he said he didn't feel well, go figure... then he ran to the bathroom and proceed to throw up most, if not all, of the banana split. I'm glad he chewed the bananas.  Dave and I silently laughed heartily but gave him the appropriate amount of mock sympathy when necessary. It's one of those things that sometimes you have to learn the hard way, he's never asked for a banana split again although I'm sure his big teen stomach could probably handle it these days. Don't give him any ideas. At least Farrells isn't in town anymore, I'm having high school flashbacks to the two guys who ate the zoo all by themselves and threw the whole thing up. 19 scoops of ice cream is not intended for two people!

Speaking of big teen things, I just bought him new shoes.  He wears WIDE 11 1/2, yes, in mens! Dave only wears a 10 1/2.  He's got the wide Hernandez feet and the big Wach feet, poor guy.  The cashier said she felt sorry for him because its' going to get hard for him to find shoes.  Shhh, lady!  He's going to be a monster.  He did tell me when he was two that he was going to have very big feet.  He says it's a fulfilled prophecy.

Thursday is Dave and my 15 year anniversary. YAY! We honestly didn't think he was going to make it this far but here we are a few days away. We're ordering a cake from Sweet Life, the bakery we got our wedding cake from 15 years ago. They were just two sisters working out of a garage back then and now they are a very very busy store front. For our 9th anniversary we forgot to order a custom cake so I went during the day to pick up a cake to surprise Dave, just whatever looked good in their bakery case.  Then Dave came home from work and yelled for me to come to the kitchen.  In the kitchen I found him laughing with two cake boxes on the counter, he got one to surprise me too! Then I realized that he DIDN'T take my cake out of the fridge and he actually got two small cakes because he couldn't decide between them so in reality we had gotten THREE small cakes from the same bakery, luckily none of them were the same flavors. To us, the 9th anniversary will always be known as the three cakes anniversary.

We don't have any big plans to do anything but be thankful. Sometimes we need moments like that, especially with how rushed people are to get things done.  We find ourselves caught up in the day to day stuff and sometimes we have to stop for a minute to just hold hands and talk and be present. Being present is such a present. (HA! that was super cheesy)