I have fallen.....

and I can't get up.
You ever have one of those days????
I woke up in a complete fog today.
Soooooo tired and NO energy.
Not sure if it's the MS or what,
but this happens more than it used to.

So for now, I am chilling in bed.

I also seem to have fallen off the blogesphere (is that a word???) ;)
My scrapping mojo took a vacation and I have just felt blah this last week.

I thought I would spend the weekend scrapping lots....but I ended up spoiling my girls instead.

We enjoyed a little girls weekend as the boys headed up to Utah to see a Jazz game.
They had fun, partied hard.....and SO did we ;)

We had a sleepover with some best friends ;)
I made them dinner and served their soda's in our "fancy" glasses.

 Kristen and Blake are wanna be rock stars and they have been writing songs for a few years now.
They fine tuned a few things and put on a show for us ;)
Here is the audience.....

 Here are the rock stars!

 They sang songs about food ;)  Their big hit is "Watermelon"  it's quite clever and cute really.
And I've completely forgotten all the others!
The paparazzi was there too ;)

They've started a new song.
Licorice Coma...it's sure to be a hit ;)
They are ready to head into the studio to record their album.

 They got silly late at night and watched princess movies (cause they are so big now)

Ended up out on the trampoline the next morning talking girl talk I'm sure!

After the guest went home the girls and I headed out to the salon for some mani's and pedi's.

Hit the movies after that and saw the new Diary of  Wimpy Kit.  It was hillarious and so fitting considering the weekend we just had ;)  It was awesome.

We ended our day snuggling in my bed watching another movie.
It was such a fun weekend with my little girls.

I did squeeze in a little scrapping here and there and will share what I came up with tomorrow.
I'm excited about it ;)

Ok, now I really need to get my act together and get up today.
Seriously, I feel like a brick laying here!

One Little Word

I've not "really" participated in this notion before.
I've thought about it.

{If you've never heard of this it's the idea of picking a word for the year that represents what you want to be/goal/inspiration for a better you type of thing. Ali Edwards talks a lot about it on her blog, you can go there to see the phenomena of it all!}

Last year I went so far as to pick a word that represented something I needed to have more of.....but I never wrote it down, or documented it. It was just there....in the back of my mind. And actually, it served me well, it was well chosen considering the year I had. My word was faith. We've had our fair share of !&%$!! happen to us over the last several years. In 2009, For the first time I had asked "WHY??" Why do we keep getting dumped on??? Seriously, I couldn't take it anymore. I had reached my breaking point. So much of what has happened I have not shared here. Just know...life has been extremely unfair. So when 2010 rolled around I was depressed. Was not looking forward to the new year....in fact I'm pretty sure I posted how I felt about the new year and it wasn't really good! So I determined that all I could do was have more faith.

Faith that my Heavenly Father had a plan for me and that all these horrible things were for my growth and learning. I decided that I would go forth in faith and be grateful things were not worse. For they could always be worse. Those were my thoughts a year ago.

I'm going to put this out there....it might make you think I'm more weird than you already do.....but I had this sense of impending doom. I felt strongly that something would happen to me in 2010. After the initial feeling I kind of let it go, I wasn't obsessed about it. Then things started happening. I had several serious medical scares. Then, as you all know, MS became the talk of my town. As difficult as all of this has been, I stood my ground. I held on to my faith that things would be ok (seriously, I was SO grateful it wasn't worse...that it was something I could(would) live with).
Don't get me wrong....there have been many tears.
I don't want this.
And the stress of it all has taken it's toll.....

Which leads me to my word for 2011. Honestly, I wasn't really planning on choosing a word. But then, it found me. I'd been thinking about what I wanted to accomplish this year. No hard core, let myself down in the end type of goals...I don't do that. But things I wanted to improve on. Things I need to step up to the plate and take responsibility for. I needed to stand up for myself and be the boss of me. When I heard this word it clicked. Instantly. I knew I had decided to play this game ;) It represented what I wanted to do in so many areas of my life.

This year I have hope that things will go well. That it will be a good year. And I also know that my actions will help in making it a good year. So after all that....if you're still interested and reading this....my word is Stand.

I need to stand up and take responsibility for how I treat myself. Physically.
I need to take better care of myself, eat better, move more. Like I said, no set "you will do this" type goals, but just a mental mindset of what I know I need to do. So far, I've been better.

I need to stand up and take better care of my spiritual self. Those daily things I've not done well at. I've let the last few years completely break me. Kind of given up in some ways. No more. I want to be better and I'm working on it. I'm grateful our ward has implemented a goal with a strategy. I am following it.

I want to be a better mother, wife, homemaker, friend. All of it.
I am done sitting.
It is time for me to stand.

In a Holding Pattern

Went to the Dr. yesterday. Good news.....no NEW lesions on my brain, but the others are still there. No lesions on my neck (which is awesome!) Though they did find early signs of arthritis in my neck....wahhh, no wonder it hurts all the time. I guess I really am getting old, sshhhh, don't tell anyone!

The medication my dr. put me on seems to be working well. I've been feeling pretty good for a while now. I've also been doing some massage therapy which has helped immensely! I even got a prescription for it, but we'll see if ins. agrees ;)

From here, we are going to just watch. As long as I'm feeling good they'll leave me alone. When my symptoms flare up again I'll go back in for more tests. I am gathering my things for a specialist, to get a second opinion. But for now I've been told that I do have MS, but at the moment it's under control and we'll figure it out along the way. I'm not really worrying too much about it at this point. It is what it is. I'm feeling pretty good and the future is certainly not hopeless.

In scrappy news ;)
I played along with the Crate Paper blog sketch and got a mention. Didn't win the big shabang....but came in close. You can see me here ;)
Here's Jack on his first day of preschool BEFORE he realized none of his friends would be there!

Seriously!?!

So I had my big appointment yesterday.
Before I get into all the nitty gritty of that, I'm gonna tell you what happened in the middle of all that nitty gritty!

Doug and I have just started talking to the Dr. listening to all her explanations of my test...waiting on pins and needles for her to spit out the dreaded words.

My phone starts ringing and I ignore it.
It rings again. Ignore it.
Doug's phone rings, it's the office, he ignores it.
It rings again.
I said answer it already.

He does and steps out of the room.
I keep talking to the dr.
He comes back in for a minute as the Dr. decides to move me into another room.
Next thing I know he says he has to leave right now!

What?????
He said to call him when I'm done.
Excuse me????????????

So I do and he's racing back to the other side of town to pick up Kristen at school cause apparently she passed out outside and fell and split open her chin. She needs stitches.

Seriously.

So I race back to meet up with them at quick care.
The poor thing did a doozy on her chin and had to have 5 stitches. She missed the rest of the last day at school and got blood all over her pretty little outfit she had dressed up in. :( It was heartbreaking. She's never done anything like this before and she's like me....a big fat chicken. But she survived the ordeal and feels like a new woman. I told her this was the bravest thing she'd ever done. She was proud of herself and seems to have some new found strength.

It wasn't until mid afternoon that I was even able to talk to Doug about everything the dr. said.

Which was this...we don't know.

Honestly, I went into the appointment braced for her to say it was MS. She had told us this 5 weeks ago after my brain scan came back bad. I've spent the last 5 weeks trying to accept the fact that this is what it would probably be. I have been tortured by it. Through both prayer and blessings we have both felt like this would be the outcome. I was certain. So for her to say she wasn't sure. Was kinda shocking. A good shocking, but still unexpected. The spinal tap was supposed to confirm it. It did and it didn't. The symptoms are their, but there are not enough of them. She thinks we are too early in the diagnosis to meet the criteria.

So this is the plan. We will re-do the MRI of my brain in October to see if there are any new lesions. Next week we are doing a round of MS treatments to see if it helps my symptoms. If it helps, that means we are treating the right thing. They are IV treatments that I have to do 3 days in a row. Get hooked up and hang out while it drips into me for an hour.

I have another dr. out of state (through my mom ;) who is also looking at my test results and basically he thinks the dr. here...is crazy. He thinks I need to see a specialists and have MS ruled out.

Basically I've been told I have carpel tunnel, MS, not MS, lupus, nothing...etc. etc.
Either way, I have test that are coming back bad and that cannot be denied.
I am confused and don't know what to think at this point.
My dr. here is still pretty certain that we are looking at MS. Only time will tell at this point.

During all the testing I've had done they found a mass on my liver.
Seriously, were we adding cancer to the list????
I had to have an ultrasound and ct scan on that to rule out a tumor.
It's a benign mass that I'm not to worry about.
Thank you very much!

********************************************************************

I'm feeling like I'm the brunt of someones sick joke on my life.
I'm over it.
I'm feeling good today and will just try to move on and not worry to much about everything right now. For what ever reason it is not time to have this resolved.
I'm definitely going to just have to trust in the Lords timing and I'm sure someday I will look back at all this and realize why things happened they way they did.

Someday.

Thanks so much for all the calls and thoughts that have been coming my way.
It means the world to me.

Love
Carol

Oh Nellie.

It's been super busy around here this month. May is like that for us. A few birthdays, anniversary, trip out of town, mothers day.....those post will come.



For now....my nerve conduction studies.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

oh

Nellie.

That

hurt.



I wouldn't recommend it.



They did the electrode one first.

That was annoying, but tolerable.



Then they did the needle one.

Several went in my arms,

then several in my hands.

The palm....................................shiver.





Anyhew...the dr. said she doesn't think I have any damage coming from my spine. I definitely have carpel tunnel in both hands. I still need to see her for a follow up visit after she thoroughly reviews my tests.



As for my legs...she totally blew me off. And I'm ticked.

Even though she said we would test them, she didn't schedule them.

She doesn't think there is anything wrong with them.



Well, legs aching and going all tingling and numb ALL. THE. TIME. is NOT normal in my book.

She is scheduling me for a different test on them, but I already feel like I can't trust her now.



She doesn't want to do surgery on my hands, she said to just wear the braces at night and see if that helps.



I'm feeling frustrated and like I still don't have any answers. I have several questions about my arms. Like, I thought carpel tunnel only affected the wrist and hand area. I have pain shooting all the way up my arms, and my elbows often hurt too. Is that normal????? Does anyone know???



That's where I'm at.

No where.



But it is Monday,

my favorite day!

And I'm hanging some stuff on my walls,

still trying to pull the downstairs together...I have some ideas.



Hangin' with this little fella...


who said to me today..."hey mom, I could use a little help over here!"
{really, how old is he???}

Cause I feel like I have to...

blog, that is.

Here we are nearly done with March and I have 4 posts under my belt.

At least it's twice as much as February.
I mean really, as if the world is going to shrivel up and die if I don't post!!! tee hee hee.

I'm laying here in bed nursing another migraine.

Wondering...what on earth should I talk about?????

I don't really feel like I have anything to say.

I guess except, I might as well be pregnant for the way I've been feeling this year!

Though I'm not!

Here's the deal.

With all of my pregnancies I've gotten prego induced carpel tunnel.
So bad that I would get to the point where I couldn't do the most minor of things with my hands. Like cut food, button stuff, blow dry my hair, sleep., etc. It always went away, eventually.

The last few years my arms would act up, going numb and stuff.

The chiropractor could always fix me up and resolve it.

My backs a mess from prior injuries and a few good adjustments would unpinch nerves and the numbness would subside.

This January, it all started up again.

Only this time, it has been much, much worse.

My chiropractor and I have decided it's time to seek further diagnosis with this.

As both my arms (not just the hands) and now legs go numb and tingly all the time.

My right arm is the worst and is quite painful a lot of the time.

Which leads me to my lack of computer time.
Editing pictures is not so fun.

I've made an appointment with a neurologist,
I get to see her in ONLY 2 months!
I hope I still have limbs by then;)

*****************************************************************************

On to other things.

The kids have been their usual busy selves.

Nathan just finished up his basketball season.

He loves it, and I think would play everyday if he could!

This picture cracks me up. I was clicking away trying to get

some good action shots of him playing. Here he is passing the ball.

And the ball is what I got in focus!

Doug found himself another daughter for the annual daddy daughter dance.

These four had a good time.

Kathryn is a good friend of Kristens and she has never been able to go to the daddy daughter dance. Doug was so sweet and offered to take her too.

Here's Kristen and Kathryn at the School Talent Show.

They made up a dance to Another One Bites the Dust.

It was awesome and they worked really hard choreographing the whole thing.

It was funny though, cause I knew they had run out of ideas towards the end of the song. So for most of the song they have lots of action and cool moves and at the end, well, they got a little boring.....but they were so cute and I'm proud of them for putting themselves "out there!"

I think my next post will be on Jack.

That boy is killin' me these days.

Killin' me with laughter!

Happy Monday ya'll.

(i've decided Monday is one of my most favorite days of the week..a fresh new start)