Hospital Stays

 

I want to start this post by saying how lucky my family is when it comes to medical conditions and hospital stays, even though Faith has a critical congenital heart defect her hospital stays have been limited to surgeries and caths. Overall her health has been perfect and average, this past March (March 29th) she had an open heart surgery to replace the pulmonary valve that was put in when she was an infant. Though that surgery and hospital stay she was a rockstar! Only four days after open heart surgery she was discharged!! It is nothing short of amazing.

Now with her heart defect a sickness is always taken a little more serious, last week (12 days ago to be exact) she developed a fever, I brought her up to the pediatrician’s office, and they believed it was a viral infection that would clear up in a few days. Well a few days went by, and she was not improving so I called the cardiologist, he had the suspicion that she developed something called endocarditis which is an infection that traveled to her heart and attached to the new valve. This, of course, is very serious, so she was admitted to the hospital.

Well four days and multiple tests later they have dismissed endocarditis and any other major infection that stems from the surgery, and they think she has Lyme disease.

I am happy to have an answer finally, this time has been so hard on my family. My younger daughter is with my brother and his family and my husband is at work then comes to the hospital for a few hours then goes home to an empty house. Also, yesterday was my younger daughters birthday party which Faith and I could not attend.

Being in the hospital I have seen multiple kids run down a hallway saying “Mommy!!” because it is the first time they are seeing their mom for a few days, I have seen the pain in siblings eyes as they see their brother or sister with IV’s and attached to machines and they can’t understand whats going on. This is an emotion I saw in my daughter as she sat on Faith’s bed asking questions that no 7 year old should have to ask.

In the end, Faith has Lyme disease, she is now being treated and we are home and a complete family again. She will be on the antibiotic for 21 days but I know she will get better. This morning life is normal the girls are playing and fighting. This hospital stay was 5 days, it was hard but she is the strongest girl that I have ever met and she was a rock star.

Her mom, on the other hand, has a lot of healing to do…..

Surgery is set

Hi everyone, I wish I could be writing a happier post but now is not that time. My older daughter has Truncus Arteriosus (to learn more about her and her heart read this post).

Just to give a background, she was diagnosed when she was 7 days old and had her first open heart surgery at 11 days old, this surgery repaired her heart but it was not a permanent fix. The piece they placed in her heart does not grow with her body so naturally, this is what needs to be replaced. She has also had 2 heart Caths.

We usually see her cardiologist every 9 months or so to see how things are going, well we saw him in January and found out that it is time for her to have her replacement. So surgery is scheduled for the end of March, and along with the surgery, she will also have a cath.

Now I know nothing could ever prepare me for this, it’s just one of those things that you never want to happen. I have been in this position before, and with the experience, I know what to expect. I will tell you that no I am not ready for them to take her away from me, I am not ready for the update telling me she is cooled down and ready to go on bypass, I am not ready to hear that she is in fact on bypass. From this point forward I know that until I get the news that her body is warm and her heart is beating again, I will not be able to take a deep breath.

Then once the surgery is over, I have to prepare myself to see my daughter who loves horses and all animals, who is looking forward to her Make a Wish trip to Hawaii and
swimming with dolphins, lying in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for her. She is such an amazing girl and to see her so helpless…………words just can’t describe.

What is new this time is that I now have my younger daughter, during this time she cannot get attention from me, she will be away from her mother and best friend, yes I will have family around her to support her, but it can’t be me, and this kills me.

I know once this is over I will be grateful to be on the other side of surgery, to know that we are set for a few more years. We will no longer be at the edge of our seat at every cardiology appointment, that I can’t wait for. But as for everything else, it could never happen, and I would be happy…

So if you see me, and I don’t look okay, know that I am not. I am in fact teetering on the edge of a breakdown, I am using all my energy to keep it together. But also know there is nothing that can be done, this is life, this is my life, this is my daughters’ lives, and now this is my Fiance’s life. We will all get through it, and it will hurt like hell, but there will be a brighter side.

New Year

I know for a lot of people 2016 was a hard year, even looking at the news we were surrounded by tragedy there was the Flint Michigan water crisis, (which is still going on) the Zika outbreak which caused Olympians to not compete in the games, the Ecuadorian earthquake and lets not forget Donald Trump becoming President Elect.

For me this year was awesome! It was officially the first year in 8 that I was not married (I was separated at the end of 2014, and the divorce was not final until 3/2015) and also the year that I would say goodbye to single life!!!

I know that I will look at these years and I will always look fondly at them, it was at this time that I realized just how much I can do. I saw that I am so much more than a wife and mom, I am a woman that has goals, and that has fought through adversity and won. I returned to school and got a new job that will help give me experience that will be vital once my degree is obtained.

I became comfortable with being a 20 something that was divorced and has 2 kids. A funny story with this actually had to do with my high school reunion. I was talking to a classmate and showed her a picture of the girls Aaron was with me, and after she had looked at the pictures, she gave me a concerned expression and said: ” I see you in them but no offense I do not see you (pointing at Aaron) at all.” You can imagine what our reaction was we both looked at each other and laughed! Then I replied “well that’s a good thing cause their not his! I have been married, had kids and divorced in 10 years, what have you been up to?”

This has been a remarkable year, right now on my tree I have an ornament that is of three snowmen on a sleigh. I got this once my ex left, and it has three names, Mommy, Faith, and Becky. I will never get rid of this, and I am sure it will always hang on my tree, but next year I look forward to hanging another one (maybe right beside it) that has 4 (or maybe 5 😉 ) names on it. 🙂

 

Happy New year I hope your 2017 is extraordinary!!!!!

Finding love

About 2 years ago my life was just being put back together, I was coming out of the darkness that my divorce caused. By the end of January of that year I was healed and ready to move on. Now, this did not mean I was ready to date, but it did mean I was ready to live my life, so one weekend when my children were with their dad, I called up an old friend. Now calling this person a friend is using the term loosely, the connection is hard but give me a minute to explain this…

Okay so this person is Aaron

My ex-mother-in-law was in her 4th marriage when I got married, she married a man named Dale and Dale has triplets that are my age and a younger child (who I think is 5 years younger) so for a time Dale’s children were my step siblings in-laws.

When I was pregnant with Faith, Dale’s daughter (one of the triplets) began dating Aaron. I actually met him for the first time when I was 36 weeks expecting!

They dated for about 4 years and broke up when Becky was around 1, in this time we would talk and were friendly but nothing more (we were both in love and in committed

Faith playing with Uncle Aaron

relationships) Faith actually called him Uncle Aaron!

 

Fast forward 2 years and I was at a gas station filling up when I saw someone I recognized at another pump, it was Aaron. Now, my looks had changed since he had last seen me, the baby weight was gone and really he only knew me when I was either pregnant or postpartum. I was excited to see him after so long so I went over and he didn’t even recognize me! We talked and I invited him to dinner so we all (myself, my ex-husband and himself) could catch up. This dinner never happened and in retrospect, it’s probably a good thing 😉 .

Now fast forward another 2 years I knew he was living in the area and really I just wanted to go out one night. I called him to see if he was available and we talked for 2 hours and decided to meet that weekend for “a girls night out”. Well, to say the least, that night did not turn out to be a girls night out it was in fact, our first date. From there, our relationship slowly grew (of course we began dating right before my ex-husband took his 1st month long hiatus) so we had to take things slow. The beginning was hard and I relied on family and friends to watch the girls for me so we could see each other, and in this first month, I think we saw each other a whopping 3 times!!

But regardless of the time, we spent together our relationship continued to grow and then the weekend of Mother’s day 2015 he met the girls for the first time!

1st time fishing!

With Aaron Nelson

Since that point, things have just gone up and this past September he proposed and I said yes!!

The wedding is scheduled for June and we are all so happy, the girls love him and so do I. I am thankful that he is in our life and am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him.

Way too long…..

Okay, I know it has been a year since I last posted but life has been crazy…GOOD!. I am happy to say that the new relationship I discussed in some of my previous posts has progressed and I am getting married! I am also back in school and have completed 2 semesters and am starting my third one in a few weeks. My girls are doing great and really there are not many complaints.

So if anyone if still out there I am sorry and will try my best to post at least once a week (no promises though)

Up next: Finding love again

Mine!!!!!

When you get divorced as a stay at home mom it’s an understatement to say that your life gets turned upside down. Everything that was once stable is now on a active fault line that is ready to rock. For me this was horrible, we had one car in our family (as my ex works from home) and it was under his name. When he left he did buy another car but that meant I was responsible for the old one (it’s name is speedy, my kids picked it out) this was terrifying. Even though I had a phenomenal credit score (800) I had no income! No income = no loans, even for speedy which is a 2012 Sonata and only had a $4,000 loan attached, I could not qualify for a loan without a cosigner. My ex refused to co sign and I did not what to have to ask my dad. So I talked with my ex and asked him if as long as I made the payments could he carry the loan until I had 4 months of work under my belt, he agreed. So I worked paid the loan and eventually went to my bank and got it refinanced and had my ex taken off. Speedy was officially mine!!

Well not really, to get this loan they stretched out my payments to another 5 years! This was hard because for years I (and my ex) had actively worked to get ahead on our payments and we were on track to have it paid off ASAP. The monthly payments were low but with my budget that was really all I could put on it, a couple of months I was able to put more more towards this but it was the exception not the rule. So in the last 6 months I have made my payments and in turn have gotten the loan down, I had accepted that it may take me 3 or more years to officially own speedy and it was okay.

Well it is tax season!! And I am more than happy to report that once I get my return I will officially own Speedy!!! The best part is that he has only 77,000 miles (I know it’s a lot living in NH requires lots of driving) and I have a bumper to bumper warranty until 100,000, so hopefully if anything is going to go wrong it will happen before the warranty is up.

Life has definitely had it’s up’s and downs lately (more of that in a future post) but this is an official up. The goal once I have the title in hand is to put that payment into savings and start to grow that. Little by little I know my finances will get in order and I will be better off financially than I was while married.

Nothing like a sick Child, and the very beginning of this journey

Okay so by now my Un-Anniversary has come and passed. To be short the day and night was uneventful except for the fact that my youngest was terribly sick. Now she was not throwing up but a VERY  high fever and really bad cold symptoms to go along with it. I must say that the day was not bad at all! It did get me thinking about my wedding day and then my age…

The Beginning:

So I met my Ex when we were just kids I was in 4th grade and he was in 5th, we lived in the same neighborhood but went to different schools (I went to a private school and he attended public). I have memories of playing jail tag with him and memories of him and his best friend chasing me and my best friend down the street while they pretended to be gladiators. So we really grew up together.

From the beginning I had a crush on him but he never thought twice about me until I was about 13 and that was only for about 2 days (maybe a sign I should have paid attention to). When he went to middle school (7th grade) we lost contact. Then 3 years later when I was a freshman in high school our paths crossed again. 

Now this time I did not look like a little kid and immediately got his attention, which I gave back because that crush I had developed still existed, I was 15. We stated dating October of my Sophomore year and were married in October 4 years later, I was just 19.

To me my ex was everything and getting married young was what God wanted for me, I was so excited to start this new journey in my life and to build a life with him. My wedding day was a mixture of emotions I was so happy to be marrying this man but at the same time worried because I knew I was breaking my Mother’s heart. She did not agree with the marriage and on my wedding day actually told me I was ruining her life.

That day I felt so beautiful and it was perfect, it was a small wedding which is exactly what we wanted, I had my best friend there and if I had a maid of honor it would of been her.

I have no regrets about this day or even about getting married so young. I know when I first was faced with the divorce all I could think was “who would want to be with me? I have been married, divorced and have 2 kids by the time I am 28! Yeah I’m a real catch” but now I see getting married young as a blessing, I have two beautiful daughters who I wouldn’t give up for the world and a life already full of experiences. Plus I am still young enough to get remarried and celebrate a 30 year anniversary with someone!

To that young women who was married years ago I would say, yes the road will be tough but every decision you make will work out and even when the road gets hard you will learn to walk through it with your head high. So feel beautiful and soak up the day because that memory will always be cherished and it is that day that the children that you now hold so dear became a possibility.

A young women was married that day and 8 years later a mature women is the one who shook off the dust and began her new life again. It was not my first time staring over, it was not the first time that odds were against me but it was my first time stepping out alone and facing the unknown. I must say being at the other side of this “unknown” it really was not that bad. Yes there are still struggles but that is life, and this life that I live is just awesome!