Update

Just a quick update before I take a much needed nap! Colonoscopy results were 100% normal! I don't even have diverticuli (the infection of these colon wall "pockets" is know as diverticulitis) so they don't know exactly what caused my pain on Oct 31st but unless it returns, I can carry on as usual. Nothing to indicate cancer, no cause for special diets that exclude my favorite things (popcorn, poppyseed salad dressing, strawberries, etc..). Thank you all for your prayers and support! To bed I go!! 😃

Superstitious

Today (in about 4 hours actually) I have my first colonoscopy.  We'll leave it at, it is thus far unpleasant. If you find yourself in my shoes and have any questions I can answer, ask away. Until then, hold on to your innocence. Hahaha. But seriously, the prep is what everyone always says is the worst, I believe that. The good news is, after about 12 hours of not eating, you do eventually stop feeling hungry. The bad news for me is, I plan to have a lot of these. Why? I'm very superstitious.

 What most of you probably don't know is that I lost my father to colon cancer. One week ago today marks the 10 year anniversary of his death. It's too coincidental for me that I should be having my first colonoscopy right now. Originally the Dr tried to schedule it for Dec 16 but that was too much. So, starting at age 40 I will begin having these lovely procedures every ten years, religiously, in the hopes that if I do inherit my father's disease, I will have a fighting chance to beat it. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men and women combined in the U.S., it's scary stuff. Luckily, if caught early (stage I or II), the 5 year survival rate is 90%. With a first-degree colorectal cancer relative, my chances of getting it go up from 5% to 10-15%. So, as unpleasant as this may be, it could always be worse. If these tiny blips of discomfort and unpleasantnes over the course of my life result in early diagnosis and treatment of a deadly disease, then why wouldn't I get screened? I'd do it every 5 years if the Dr thought it was necessary. My life is worth it. And that's what's at stake. 

Colonoscopy: go out and get yours today! ;-)

I would like to note, I am getting this as a result of my diverticulitis diagnosis, even though the Dr came back and said he doesn't think it's really diverticulitis, not because of my family history with cancer. I just have a hard time not believing they'll somehow be related, because as I said, I'm very superstitious. 

My husband assures me that I'm going a bit crazy with all my superstitious stuff these days and he insists I'll be fine and they won't find anything resembling cancer today. I know he's probably right. 

Blessings

I didn't realize this post didn't publish immediately so the dates are all sorts of off...sorry! It was written the week of November 18th sometime. 

I realize for some of you, I've left you hanging for a while. So sorry! Monday was the big day, I had my hysteroscopy in the office and my Dr was able to see what was going on. The IUD had indeed perforated (it looked to have done so on insertion in May 2012) my uterus. Everything looked normal and uncomplicated so he went ahead and tried to pull it out using the scope. He couldn't quite get it so he removed the scope and then just tried pulling it out "blind". I was told to let him know if it became too painful and he would stop. About the time it was too painful and I told him to stop, he held up the stupid little thing. Just like that, it was over. He checked with the scope to make sure I wasn't bleeding internally and that nothing looked out of place and then actually asked if I wanted him to put in another one. I told him thanks, but no thanks. The pill would be good enough from now on, so he gave me a prescription and sent me on my way with some ibuprofen. It's been 5 days and everything is going great. I have no complications and no more pain. No surgery, and he said this wouldn't have any bearing on my ability to have more kids in the future. Next stop, gastroenterologist on Wednesday. 

I also went on Thursday and had my labs redone to make sure everything was back to normal with the diverticulitis and everything they found on that fun trip. They came back fine. Overall it's looking up and I'm praying it keeps going that way! I have learned a lot about counting my blessings this month. It's only fitting that it's November! Here's a fun little picture of what Halloween looked like for me (minus the 1:20 appointment that I blew off for obvious reasons!)

Finally some good news

Well, I got the call from my Dr this evening. My insurance company will cover an in office hysteroscopy (apparently I've been spelling that wrong. My bad.). Yay!! So I go in Monday afternoon and it should take about 30-45 minutes. My understanding is he will only perform the procure if I will be able to walk out of the office on my own. If he finds something to complicate it, he'll stop and just put me under anesthesia on Friday (11/22) as planned and remove it then. I'm really praying for an uncomplicated, easy to recover from, event. For now, that's all I've got. I'll update again Monday 😊

Well that was unexpected

***Some of you might find this to be too intimate for your liking. Especially if we don't know each other well***

I went in for my pre-op appointment this evening expecting a run down of how the surgery would go and a chance to ask some of my many questions. Instead it went more like this: Dr comes in and says, the notes from JT (the PA I saw last who ordered an ultrasound when she couldn't find my IUD strings) were a little confusing, she said the strings were too long. I say, that's not at all what she told me, she said she couldn't find them. Dr then asks if he can do an examination to check for himself. I agree and low and behold he finds my IUD strings, right where they should be. He even has the nurse look to verify that he's not seeing things. Sure enough, strings! But, the CT still shows my IUD is not exactly where it should be. So now where do we go from here? At this point I don't even know. Dr is calling my insurance company tomorrow to see if he can get authorization to perform an in-office histeroscopy to actually visualize if the IUD has moved or if somehow the CT was wrong. If he can't get authorization I will most likely go in for surgery on Friday as planned and he will perform the histeroscopy before he does anything else. He says it's great news and greatly improves the chances of being able to remove the IUD (if it is indeed perforated) without having to make any incisions. So, I left my pre-op with even more unanswered questions but also some hope. Thanks for the prayers!! I'll keep

updating as I get more info. 

When it rains it pours

On the good news front, I'm feeling immensely better this week than I was over the weekend. Antibiotics are awesome. :-). Yesterday I got a call from my OB/GYN, I'm his first patient ever (in 20 years of practice) to have a perforated IUD. Cool...or not. Here's to being a first though, right?! In a nutshell, I'm scheduled for surgery on November 22nd to remove the IUD. Happy Thanksgiving!! He won't know what kind of damage there is or how severe it may or may not be until the surgery so prayers are greatly appreciated. He did assure me the procedure is disgustingly safe for me, so there is that. Today I got a call from the gastroenterologist, he wants to see me sooner rather than later for a consult. I'm trying not to read anything in to that. I greatly appreciate all the prayers on my behalf lately, it looks like I could use just a few more. 

Halloween ER visit

Let me tell you about my super fun day (sarcasm intended)! On Thursday Oct 31st at 4am I woke up in agony, much like waking up in labor with Noah. I didn't know what was wrong and I was helpless to end the pain. It hurt if I was laying, standing, sitting or walking. It was in the same area as my gallbladder pain was last year. The night before I had eaten barbecue chicken for dinner and a few hours after I had a stomach ache and had thrown up. Maybe this was related, it had been a new sauce and I was the only one to eat it so it might have been bad. At about 5:15 am I called Maria (my mother-in-law) and asked if she could take me to the ER while Ryan stayed with the boys. After getting to the ER I was taken back to a room almost immediately and then played the waiting for a Dr game. After all my vitals were taken and questions asked and what seemed like an endless amount of waiting, the Dr finally made his appearance just before 6am. He asked me all the same questions and then told me the game plan; he would give me a GI cocktail (something like mylanta mixed with a numbing agent) he told me it would taste terrible (not a lie at all, I wanted to throw up) but it would numb my mouth, throat and stomach. If the pain stopped that meant acid reflux, if not they'd try a different approach. So down went the awful cocktail and after about 5 min my pain was gone. I was incredulous! And I felt immensely foolish for going to the ER with nothing more than acid reflux. The shift changed at 6am and it took about 45 min before the new Dr came in to check on me. After hearing I was pain free, he gave me some prescriptions and sent me on my way. I filled the prescriptions and started the meds along with some tums for the immediate relief factor. I still felt ok, the tums were helping and I was getting ready for Noah's preschool harvest party. Then I threw up the pill I had taken. Weird, but upon reading the side effects, it wasn't unexpected. I took the liquid next, it was supposed to coat my stomach and help with pain relief until the pills started working. We went to the party and I really started to feel like crap. My pain was climbing back up the scale and I was sure I would soon be getting sick in the bathroom. We left early and sure enough I threw up again in the car (luckily I had one of those blue vomit bags in my car from when I gave birth to

Teagan). We got home, put Teagan down for a nap and I got in touch with Brianna to let her know I wasn't up for taking Rhys and Reagan today. I got on the phone and called my Dr to try to get in for a follow up and get something for the pain until the pills started working. She was full, if I wanted to wait until Friday at 130, I could see her. The receptionist told me my best bet was back to the ER or Urgent Care. When T woke up, we went to UC, after taking my vitals and asking questions the nurse went to get the Dr. She came back and said, the Dr wants you to go back to the ER. At this point I'm crying, can hardly stand up straight, and I'm ready to die from the pain. Ryan drives me back to the ER. As I'm coming in, the Dr who had come on at 6 happens to be in the hallway and asks what I'm doing back. Through my tears I tell him what has been going on since I left the ER at 7am. He orders IV drugs on the spot and gets me in a room. He also orders a full work up with blood work and  a CT scan. They hook me up to the IV and start the meds, the relief is amazing, the nurse tells me he knows they're working because my blood pressure just went back down to a normal level. They take blood, the imaging tech comes in and talks me through the CT procedure before he does it and then I'm back in my room, pain free and drifting in and out of sleep. The Dr comes in after a while and tells me two things, 1) my blood tests show abnormal liver (or maybe kidney, I don't remember) function and I need to see a gastroenterologist to find out why. 2) The CT shows that my IUD has migrated through the back wall and is no longer preventing pregnancy...awesome. He says they're just waiting on results from the CT and as long as they're normal he'll send me home but with some strong pain killers this time. After a while he comes back and says the results are in, it's not acid reflux, it's transverse colon diverticulitis. The part of my colon that sits just under my ribs by my stomach, has developed pouches along the wall that have become inflamed and infected. Hallelujah! I wasn't crazy, and I didn't go to the ER for acid reflux. He told me how great it was that I came back because I knew there was something more going on. He gave me four new prescriptions (two antibiotics, one for pain and one for nausea) and referred me to the gastroenterologist for further review of the liver/kidney abnormality and to follow up with the diverticulitis, and he told me to call my OB/GYN about the IUD. My day was a crazy, painful, whirlwind of a day but I'm so glad to have gotten it all figured out. Upon reading more about diverticulitis, I'm pretty lucky. If it's not caught early enough you will most likely end up in the hospital for about a week receiving antibiotics through an IV, and sometimes the colon wall actually ruptures causing all sorts of problems and requiring surgery. 

Today I'm finally starting to feel better and can actually keep down some food. A huge thanks to Maria for helping out so much with Noah and Teagan and thank you to everyone who checked in with me to wish me well and offer help. It has been wonderful to know I have you all in my corner. :-)

Time

Today at church I listened to a powerful message about time. The essence of it was this, what are you doing with the wonderful gift God has given you? Are you maximizing it in pursuits pleasing to Him or are you squandering it away on useless pursuits? I've heard it before, time and time again but this was the time the message was for me. It was finally the right point in my life to receive this message as was intended, for my betterment. It's a humbling experience. 

This will be a short sweet post to explain some changes coming your way. 

My focus is changing. As hard as it is to admit, I've neglected aspects of being a mother and wife and even a friend in the pursuit of...I don't even know. But I know this, it's not what I was given time for. I have deleted my Facebook and social media apps (not accounts, I'll still get on after the kids have gone to bed to update and be updated on those not so close to me. I hope it won't be nearly as often and I hope you'll understand and respect the decision. I also will be deleting my friends living close enough to visit regularly. I don't want to keep up with you via the internet. I want to make time for you. Count it as it's meant to be, a plea for closeness and not a shun. Facebook has made me lazy with you all. Forgive me. 

Again, short and sweet. For now something more worthy is requesting this all too precious time. I'll try to update my blog a bit more frequently and indepthly when I can. So much love to all of you and God bless!

Tiph

Cloth diapers

It makes me sad that I don't find the time to update my blog anymore but I can't even find the time to clean my house so unfortunately the blog isn't going to be a regular thing anytime soon, unless I go all crazy and hire a cleaning service or something. Hahaha. Maybe. 

Anyway, I have had a lot of people asking me how cloth diapering is going lately. I'm sure as soon as they ask they regret it because I tend to not shut up about it once the door is opened. I LOVE cloth diapers. Crazy, right?! Except its not. Let me tell you all about it 😉

How and why I started CDs: I never in a million years would have thought I would be the type to cd. EVER. I mean its terribly gross and time consuming and why would you ever want to add to your work load just to save a few bucks?! But then they are SO cute! That's what piqued my interest in the very beginning. I hadn't ever actually paid attention to them before, but I joined a co-op for a great deal on an Ergo carrier and they were running CDs as well. Picture after picture of adorable diaper prints. They didn't phase me much at first but they were always there being adorable. So I started to research it. I had never considered it as an option so I knew NOTHING about them. I called my lovely sister-in-law who had tried it and talked to her, I called my wonderful friend who was still doing it one year later and talked to her. They both told me the same thing, it's not nearly as bad as you think it will be. Hmm, maybe. But the upfront cost is appalling, especially if I hate it and decide not to continue. Then what? 1. CDs hold their resale value well. You don't actually lose much money if you use them for a bit and then sell them. 2. I have an amazing friend who had more diapers than she needed and offered to mail me a trial package. Risk free!? Really?! Definitely worth a try. If I hate it, I just pay to mail them back. I can handle that. 

  As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not very environmentally conscious. I rarely recycle and I'm not all too worried about the amount of garbage in the landfills (please spare the lecture, I know I'm terrible for it) so the environment was not my motivation behind starting this. What was? The cost effectiveness of them (ok, and if we're being honest, the adorable factor). So I took the plunge. My package of diapers came in the mail and dived right in. My trial pack contained 9-10 diapers all of them pockets except one. That one was a cover with a pre fold so I could try another style that I thought might be easier. That amount of diapers meant doing laundry every day and I totally thought that alone would make me hate it. 

Why I continue CDs: I didn't hate it. Even doing laundry every single day for over a week, I actually kind of loved it. I was excited to try it in the beginning and I think that helped A LOT. I loved how cute they were and I REALLY wanted to like them and not have to buy disposable diapers anymore. And I found that I did. I think what deters a lot of people is the perceived mess. Pee diapers are nothing, you take it off roll it up like a disposable and (in my case) put it in the wet bag in the bathroom. That's it, done until laundry time. Poop ones are obviously a little more involved but still not nearly as bad as I thought. Firstly, did you know they make diaper sprayers? It's like a kitchen sink hose that attaches to the toilet (at the wall where the toilet water hose attaches) and you can literally just spray the poop off into the toilet. I do not have one of these ingenious things and I still don't mind the poop. A poop change looks something like this, take the diaper off, wipe the bum (sound familiar?) replace diaper with a clean, dry one and send baby on his way. Take soiled diaper to the bathroom, dump poop into toilet and then roll up diaper like a disposable and put it in the wet bag. Just like that. Does my bathroom stink? Nope. Not at all (I can't say if it would if you went the diaper pail route, I haven't tried it) the waterproof bag with a zipper contains it all, even the smell. Now when I open the bag that's a different story, but easily fixed by a spray of air freshener once it's closed again or in the wash. 

What about washing you say? I take my wet bag to the washer and dump them in (this part is the worst by far, because it smells terrible but it luckily can be done I under a minute). Once all the diapers and wet bag are in the washer I turn it on cold and let it do its thing (no soap this time as its just to rinse them out and loosen up the solids that may have held on). When it's done I start it again with a hot wash and soap (I make my own, equal parts baking soda, washing soda, and oxyClean) depending on load size I do 3-5 scoops and once every three days or so I add a squirt of original blue dawn dish soap to help keep my inserts fully absorbent. Once that cycle finishes I rinse rinse rinse until there are no more bubbles. Then I dry everything on low for about 15min, and then pull out my covers and wet bag and finish line drying those. The inserts usually take two dry cycles and by then my covers are dry and I can stuff them. Easy peasy. For a lot of you some of the words and phrases won't make sense in their context but if you're considering a switch you'll soon discover just what I mean. My favorites are pocket diapers and diapers are only as good as their inserts. Hemp has been good for me as well as microfiber/bamboo blends. I don't love microfiber by itself and I find bamboo by itself to be much too floppy and shift around a lot. I haven't tried a lot of other options so that's as far as I can recommend. Please don't hesitate to ask questions and let me know if you've tried it, are currently using them, or just thinking about it. 

P.S. I love preschool days when the "babies" also take a nap. I probably should have done some housework with my alone time. Oh well...