~~Update On Life

Boy, it has been awhile and so much has happened since the 16th too. I have been so busy it seems like. I actually had to buy a personal planner that I take with me everywhere in order to remember appointments. I have never done this before. Every week I have at least 4 appointments to go to, 3 of these are my physical therapy. I go Mon, Wed, and Fri. for 1 hour each day. I still have not seen any improvement with the pain. In fact I think that it is causing my knees to hurt more. It has been really scary to go up and down, especially down, my stairs lately. Usually I am only going down those stairs once a day now.
My other appointments have been with either my doctor, my therapist, my nutritionist, my pain management specialist, or my psychiatrist. I see way too many people! My last doctor appt. he decided to try me on Nerontim to help with the leg pain. He also upped my Methadone to 2 tabs every 8 hours now. It has been a little improvement. I'm sleeping better now that my legs are calmer BUT now that I take something to help me sleep I am not moving at all and I wake up completely stiff. If my hands were in a fist when I fell asleep they stay that way and in the morning I can not open them for awhile. I hate this. I feel like all I am doing is trade-offs. I take something for the back pain then it causes something else so I take something for that then it causes something totally different. The ultimate worse has been that my knees are absolutely killing me. I do not know if it is the P.T. or not moving at night or even my meds, but I am having a hard time walking, sitting, and squatting is an automatic "NO". This is really scary on the stairs. I'm falling apart and I can't do anything about it.
The rest of the family is doing good. It is strange only having 1 kid in school, but definitely a lot cheaper. Between class fees, pictures, new clothes, school supplies, and other things, it adds up fast. Stephen is to start College in the Spring but we are hoping that grants will take care of that. My husband has been really helpful to me. He does everything he can for me by getting what I need or helping me on the stairs. He has been cooking dinner every night now and he is such a great cook! He loves to cook and now he gets a chance to experiment with things and it is always so good. One of my meds is causing my taste buds to not want anything spicy or hot. When I do eat something like this it is magnified by 10 and it hurts so bad. Even soda bothers me because of the carbonation in it. See what I mean about trade-offs.
Well, I am falling asleep while typing this which means I need to go to bed. I will try to keep up a little better. I don't like going this far apart. Goodnight!

~~Happy Birthday SO!!!!!!!

Woo Hoo!! It is the start of the SO Birthday Crop!! I am so excited. Today in fact is our blog hop. This will be so much fun, I can't wait. A whole week of fun, games, challenges, and just blast of a time with all our SO members :) I am really looking forward to the challenges and the great prizes that will be given away! It is not too late to join in on the fun. Just go to http://www.simplyobsessed.com/ and create a profile and have a great time this week. Well, the blog hop will start soon so I guess I need to give you all my link to the next person. It is Janet! Here is her blog: http://www.janet-duncan.blogspot.com/ . I hope that you have had a great time so far with the blog hop and I hope you have an outstanding time at the crop. This will be one exciting circus, so lets head over to the big top and start seeing the show! Julie :)

~~Vacation Time

Just a quick "Hello" to everyone. I just got back from a great time of a vacation. Friends of ours to my husband and I to Las Vegas for 6 days. It was so much fun. I did a lot of walking which just about absolutely killed me, but I did it :) Then we went to Cottonwood, AZ for 2 days. It was just so much fun to get away from everything for a little bit. It helped with my depression a lot. I even got to go to a huge scrapbook store while in Vegas. I just had a blast in there. I got a ton of paper and ribbon. I can't wait to use some of it. I have some plans in my head already. I also got some more mats for my Cricut. My other one wasn't holding paper very well anymore. Well, I hate to cut this so short, but I need to go to bed. I am so tired and sore after my vacation :) What I really need is a vacation from my vacation I think. Write again soon, love Julie.

~~Quick Update

I know it is after midnight, but I wanted to do a quick update for those of you who follow my blog :) It has been an up and down week. On Monday I met with my Diet & Exercise Specialist, her name is Dawn and I REALLY like her. She is super sweet and so easy to work with. Because of a miscommunication at the front desk I only got 1/2 hour with her instead of my whole hour so I get the second half today at 11:30am, right before my therapy appt. She explained to me that when I am having trouble eating to just take a bit of something, anything to tell my body that it is getting food. That way I body does not see me as starving it and start storing fat instead of losing it. The best things are peanut butter on a piece of bread or celery, cheese on a tortilla, even a protein shake that I keep in the fridge that I can take a couple of sips from. I am now down to 216. I started at 234 on May 21st. That's 18 pounds!!! Today, we are going to talk about the food pyramid and exercise I can do. I am really excited to finally meet my therapist. I have so much I want to talk about and only an hour to do it in. My friend Kate is taking me because she has some work to do almost next door for her accounting business. Afterwards, we need to go to Walmart for a few things and then I am going to her house to help her with some accounting stuff. A little bit of money for Vegas next week. Ooh, I forgot to mention that we are going to Las Vegas next week with our friend Kate and her husband Jeff. We are staying with them at their timeshare. They are taking their youngest girl, Annelise, so I am going to help watch her while she attends her accounting conference. I love watching her! She can be a handful for most people, but her and I get along great. She calls me "Mom" too and Kate has no problem with it. She actually told me that she feels very happy that her daughter trust someone else enough to call them mom too. Kate is very secure about it, unlike my ex husband who would not let any other man be called "Dad" by his boys, even after I remarried, but we won't go there. Well, I think I am actually going to head to bed. Tonight I am really tired. I will try to get on here a little more often then once a week. I hate going that long without posting something. I will definitely post before I leave for Vegas. Post soon, Love, Julie.

~~Depression

I finally got a pix of one of my layouts on here! I have finished a few others but I will wait until day time to take pix of them and then I will upload them. Well, it has been one crazy day. It has also been long too. It started out with me watching Zoe. I love watching her :) She is so important in my life right now. I told my boys that I am so ready to be a grandma, but not to get any ideas because they can wait until they are married! She had the hold me's today. Her nose has been so stuffed up lately and so it has been hard for her to breathe through it. We have been giving her Benadryl per the Dr's order but all that does is make her groggy and tired. Grandpa came and picked her up at 2pm so I could head to my therapy appt. I met Gyna today. She was my intake specialist. She ask me a lot of questions about my life. She learned of my abusive first marriage and how he stills tries to control me through the boys. She learned of my back and the pain I am in. She learned of the 18 pounds I have lost since I started my new med's. Gyna has determined that I am suffering from both depression caused by my Degenerative Disc Disease and the pain associated with it, and PTSD(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) brought on by my ex-husband and his mental, emotional, and physical abuse on me. I feel so messed up right now, which of course makes me feel more depressed. She recommends that I see a diet & exercise nutritionist to help me with my weight loss and not eating because of the med's side effects. She also wants me to see a pain management specialist to help me with learning non-med coping techniques. Then I get to meet my new therapist, and next Friday I get a psych eval. It's a good thing I get a gas voucher from them. I don't think I could afford this much gas.
Well, I'm heading to bed. I am really tired, hurting, and I'm falling asleep on my desk while I am typing this. All I can say is thank goodness for spell check! Thanks for following my blog, Julie.

~~Hospital Trip

Here I am again :) This has been a busy week it seems like. Since the last time I wrote Ben got a job, our neighbor almost died, Zoe has walked 3 steps, and I had to take Stephen to the hospital because we thought that he broke a rib. WOW! I will start with the first one: Ben got a job. Well, technically he got a job as soon as there is an opening at Taco Bell, Linda will hire him. He took Sour Patch Kids to her on Tuesday, which is her fave candy, and asked when she was going to start him. She told him as soon as she has the hours. He can't wait. He already has the money planned out that he is going to make. He wants an Xbox 360 and a new sweat jacket. I believe that this will help with his behavior problems. He is a great kid but sometimes he steps into adult shoes when he shouldn't.
Next thing on my list is our new neighbor went into a diabetic coma. He told us when he moved in that he was a diabetic and that if it was OK that his kids would come knock on our door if he needed help. We told him sure. Well it happened, there was a knock at 6pm on Tuesday. Billy was unconscious when I got into the apartment. Our other neighbor was already calling 911. I checked his pulse and asked him if he could hear me. He moved his head. My DH who is also diabetic took his blood sugar which came back as 402. Pretty high! Billy turned to me and asked me to tell his children that he loved him. I'm thinking in my head, "Don't you dare die on me!" Finally the medics showed up. They got him moving around and finally talking very clear and everything seemed alright. Except that at 9:30 it happened again and this time Billy went to the hospital. He had been drinking and had taken a few extra pain pills and this threw his blood sugar way off. He returned home around 1 in the morning feeling much better.
Next, the sweet little girl I watch has decided to walk! She is only 10 months old. It was so neat to watch. She just let go of the chair and without even realizing it, starting walking. Yea! I was so glad I got to see it.
Finally on my list is Stephen. A couple of weeks ago he fell off of his bike and when he landed, his elbow went into his lower rib cage. It hurt him but he did not seem to mind. This morning he said that while he was laying in bed all of a sudden it felt like he was hit in the same spot and he heard a snap. The pain jumped tremendously. So off to the emergency room we went. After an x-ray we found out that there is no break and he has just severely bruised it. He is to rest it, take some pain meds, and ice it. It will just take some time to heal.
See I told you it was a crazy, busy week, and I think I missed a few things. I am totally exhausted now too. I did however have time to go to the scrapbook store today :)

~~The Phone Call

It seemed that every time I tried to start typing, I would get distracted by something else. Don't you hate that! Well here I am now...finally. It was a pretty good weekend until today when I got a phone call from my ex husband about the boys coming to see him. All I am going to say about is this, tomorrow I am going to call the court to get the visitation agreements modified and straightened out. I hate the fact that I am wanting my kids to grow up faster so I won't have to deal with him much longer. What mom wants this? Don't most moms want their kids to be kids forever? This is not fair. Okay...on to other stuff before I start crying again.
The flare-up I had last week with my back is finally calming down a bit. I see the PT again tomorrow so I hope I will get to try more. I have to do this for a month before the insurance will pay for the MRI. This is so frustrating! Why am I going to PT? There is nothing wrong with the muscles, IT'S MY SPINE...IT'S BONE. Somebody explain this to me please. How is doing PT going to fix my back? The PT alone said that this probably was not going to help and I probably would need surgery again. Don't you hate it when the insurance companies tell your doctor what you, their patient, needs. Hello, who went to medical school here ?! I just want the pain to end...I want it to be like it was when I was younger, like other people who can do all those things I can't anymore. This is absolutely not fun anymore. Is this what I signed up for?
Yesterday our neighbors DH came home after 2 weeks out so we had a little get together last night for him. It was a lot of fun. We stayed outside talking until 11pm. I haven't done that in a while. I ended up going to bed at 12:30 but did not get to sleep until 2am. I hate this but my legs are just not letting me sleep. I usually take a pain pill for it, but it is not helping. I'm just a mess.
Well, I going to work on some scrapbooking. I'm trying to get some of them post on here too in the slide show.

~~Clean-Dar

Today was an up and down kind of day. I watched Zoe again but only until 1:30pm. She was in a much better mood then yesterday as her teeth have popped through a little more. I did get some cleaning done though hence the "Clean-Dar" title (short for clean radar). I focused mainly on Stephen's room. It looks so much better now. I had to quit way too early though because my back is still recovering from it's flare up and the pain kicked in quickly. I try to control it with pain meds, but I feel like I am only playing catch up. I need to talk to the doctor about getting something for my legs to stop or just mellow out the constant nerve pain, especially at night. I am having a hard time sleeping because my legs want to move due to the pain, burning, pins & needles, and numbness. No wonder my depression has gotten so bad. How can I enjoy life with this much pain and constant limitations in it? Tonight is a bad night. I am really feeling the depression. I guess that's why I am cleaning out my scrap stuff, because if it is clean and easily accessible then I will have at least one happy thing to look forward too. It will be easier to scrap and I will get more done instead of always having to look for stuff. Well, I am going to go finish my organizing and head to bed. Goodnight :)

~~Physical Therapy

Well, today was my first physical therapy appt. There wasn't too much the PT could do as I had a flare up yesterday in my back and I just could not move very well. He was very nice though, his name is Russell. He taught me some basic movements that will help me improve my muscle strength, but I am to only do what is comfortable for me. He believes that I am going to need surgery again. Yuck!