Let’s start with the positives. Chris is doing very well in school. He struggles in Math a little bit, but that’s ok, I personally don’t know tooo many kids that don’t struggle in math a little bit. I love crunching numbers but I can’t even begin to explain how to do mathematics to someone. Explaining addition and subtraction is one thing, but I don’t possess the teaching skills to explain anything else.
I’m a little more confident in Andrew after my failed conference (thanks to Ava MisBehavia). I have to have another conference in a few weeks to discuss things child-free and actually be able to focus. Andrew is just a lazy learner and for some reason doesn’t want to show us here at home what he is learning and wants us to think he’s lazy or something. I don’t get his process of thinking but as long as in reality he’s doing ok, and not terribly behind that’s ok. I get some fascinating art work here at home of animals and stories he shares at school. I am getting kind of sick and tired of his story telling though. It comes back on me for some reason and it pisses me off. Like yesterday, the school calls me while I’m in farmington hills, which is like at least 60 miles from my house, to tell me his shoes and pants are wet. Why? Because he told the school that his dad said he could chase frogs in the ditch and if he caught one, could keep it. Um, no. Where did that story come from? In little Dewey’s mind fascinating stories emerge and the school actually believes it and that makes me even more mad. It won’t be their education that pulls me from the school, it will be whoever’s on the other end of that phone’s attitude to me that causes it and that’s unfortunate. I just love the fact that when Andrew was like 2 or 3 years old his first crazy story was when we were driving in the car to some function with my BFF Julie and right in the back seat he was like, “Remember when Julie ‘drownded” me in the bath tub”, and we just busted out laughing because a) Julie had never been near him in a bath tub and b)It was just so random it was funny. Since then his teachers, even in Southgate, knew that the stories were great but not real. One time he went to school and announced he had a pet alligator in his basement.
Ava is doing well, no more further problems or anything to remotely figure out what happened that landed her in Toledo Children’s hospital for 5 days. It was the craziest thing. She is a monster though, and I wish this brat phase would end. She is easily forgiven though when she comes up to me and wants to “share” her sucky and rests herself on me so I can rub her legs and back 🙂
Matt is on the hunt for a new job. GE is not a good employer and their benefits suck. What the hell is the point of having a $2,000 deductible and $3,000 out of pocket max if you are a healthy person. Sure I’ve already maxed that out for the year, combined with Matt and Ava both paying the hospital a visit, but in a normal healthy year I wouldn’t experience those kind of costs. My insurance won’t pay for nothing until I have met my $2000 deductible, including prescriptions. This shit insurance costs $400 a month too. You’d think one of the largest companies in the world, who also has divisions in health care could come up with awesome benefits. Nope, not only do they not pay taxes in the millions or billions, they also don’t care about their employees… which is why Matt is on the lookout actively. He’s hoping for $110K a year for the next job, so hopefully he goes up in the chain and not sideways again. Health insurance is very important as it has been the last couple years and it has failed us big time. Just because a company advertises that they offer Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO as a benefit does not mean it’s cheap or even good. Whoda thunk a company like General Electric is that cheap. We should at least get free light bulbs or something. The G.E. discount on appliances is almost non-existant too.
So woohoo, obviously I have no cast on anymore because otherwise I wouldn’t write this much. It feels good to have it off though, casts suck. I just need to be extra careful because I break things too easily these days.
Now onto the typical depressing stuff, ha ha:
Other than that, I don’t know what to say really, I’m tired. I don’t have the motivation to even write anymore, and for those that know me would find that hard to believe. I quit my iron treatments pending a 2nd opinion. I have had 8 iron treatments, so 2 months worth. Any improvement? Not an ounce. It’s really frustrating and depressing blood results every single week fluctuate so badly that it just wasn’t worth it. Since I started infusions, aspects of my CBC (complete blood count) were actually getting worse. My hemoglobin and hematocrit would bounce from being badly out of range to just slightly in range, my differentials (4 types of white blood cells) started going downhill, my white blood cell count is tanking, and why????? What happened to me, or what is happening to me? I can’t blame the gastric bypass, it makes no sense whatsoever. I put my body through hell with a pregnancy just after gastric bypass and my ferritin (iron stores) and iron levels remained good and constant the entire time. Why 2 years later would I have an issue, it don’t make sense. There is only one thing that happened the month my values started declining last August and those that know me and read know what happened. I don’t have the energy to get into it yet again, but lab work doesn’t lie.
I have to go under anesthesia one more time again, like the 9th time in 3 years to hopefully get some answer. The rheumatologist ordered a bone density test that I had yesterday checking for osteoporosis because of the fact that I have busted bones a couple times in the last year. Now i have to get an EGD again. It’s a scope that will once again check the lining of the bottom of my stomach pouch to determine if/what kind of damage was done last August. I really hope they find something because none of this makes any sense. On paper it all makes sense, now I just need to back it up with some physical evidence. I am suffering because of it and that is the only thing that makes any sense that was ignored. It was ignored on purpose, otherwise they would be liable. I have to get to the bottom of this, the qualify of my life is horrible. It could be worse, and I’m thankful it’s not, but for someone like me, this really sucks. I have what they would call severe anemia, and it’s starting to effect me cardiology-wise now. I have also been diagnosed with Raynaud’s Phenomenon, which is an auto-immune disorder, but it’s hematology-related.
There is something someone is missing. After 8 iron infusions into my blood, it’s not working. That leads me to believe that something else is happening. The rheumatologist told me to please get a 2nd opinion, she thinks more aggressive treatment is necessary. She agrees something else is going on somewhere. The hematologist didn’t ask why she thought this was happening, never ordered any testing, nothing. She said start treatments, i’ll see you in 2 months. Well, almost 2 1/2 months later I’m not any better off, and I feel like i’ve wasted 2 more months of time.
I have no help whatsoever. Ava is going through a nightmarish period of getting into trouble and screaming so I can’t really even leave my house during the day. Even going to the store is impossible because the minute her behind gets buckled in a car she throws a temper tantrum. I tried to go to Hobby Lobby the other day and peacefully shop for some stickers and she just wouldn’t have it. I didn’t care though, and I could give a crap because nobody was there, only a couple old people, and oh well, I was going to find my stickers! I found some packs of jingle bells though and thankfully that kept her quiet for about 5 minutes. I have a hard time focusing right now as is, I certainly can’t focus when my baby is freaking out and screaming like she’s being tortured. At Chris’ conference I had with his teacher the other day, it took everything I had not to bust out crying as soon as I left because she would not let me talk to the teacher. She would not stop climbing onto the tables so I had to jump up every minute, then she would freak out. At one point I strapped her in the stroller and she managed to still flip herself out the front of the stroller and hit the floor. At one point she managed to climb on the table, then she fell off, smacked the seat of a chair on the way down, and I felt pretty sheepish then. It just never ends.
I have no babysitters, and I don’t ask Matt to help anymore because I don’t want to affect his job. My mom asks for money every time I leave the kids with her and I don’t feel like I should have to pay her or be sucked into a guilt trip for doing it.
Things that make me happy though is like this even when I awoke from the sleepy state i’ve been in for a few days now, Caitlyn says, “MAMMA!!!!” and comes in the living room, puts her hands on my cheeks and says, “Are you ok? Are you happy?” And I say, ‘Yeaaaah, I’m happy” and she responds, “Ok, mamma, do you feel better?” Then she will grab a wet wipe and put it on my forehead and rub my face (like I do for her) and say, “Ok you’re better” and I say, yes “I love you” and she says “I love you back”. At least 1 of my 4 kids cares, lol. I love my kids. Caitlyn is a darling sweetheart, an angel, and the sweetest little girl, but man oh man, she can throw the biggest “bitch fit” when she’s mad, ha ha. I call it the “baby B.F.”