Neurology

I went in to see a neurologist today for all of the weird symptoms I've been having.

Well, after showing up five minutes late because I got lost (apparently a lot of people do trying to find the place), I skipped the check in process (which had a 50 person line up) and went straight to the neurology department. The lady at the desk understood my plight and let me in, telling me to check in after my appointment. Whew!

She took my weight and checked my blood pressure and heart rate, which of course were high because of being both lost and late to my appointment. She understood and said she'd check me again after my appointment.

She lead me to a room where I got to change into a lovely hospital gown. They let me keep my underwear on though, so that was nice. I sat down and did a bit of Sudoku while I waited, trying to calm my nerves.

Not long after, the neurologist showed up. She was really nice. She pulled up my records, asked standard questions about my family and general health, then asked about my symptoms. I'd written up a paper with all of them, but she wanted to hear it from me, so I waded in.

For those of you who are not aware, I've been having strange sensations throughout my body these last four weeks, from tingling in my hands and feet to tingling in my face, lips, and the crown of my head, to cold sensations down my spine, in my hip, and across my abdomen, to the feeling of raw nerves all over, and so forth. A lot of weird stuff.

Anyway, after all of the interrogations, we started the physical exam. She asked a lot of basic questions like "What day is it?", "What year is it?", "Who is the current US President?", "Who were the last two presidents?", "How many nickels are in a dollar?, and "how many nickels are in three dollars?". Then she had me spell "earth" backwards and told me to remember the words "balloon, umbrella, and pineapple" to see if I could remember them five minutes later.

After that, she checked my heart, my reflexes, my coordination, my blind spots, my sense of coldness in various areas, and tickled my feet. She also checked my eyes, looking back at the retina, I think. I got to get up and walk across the room, on regular feet, on my tip toes, and on the heals of my feet. And she also took a look at my spine because I had told her I have mild scoliosis.

After all was said and done, she said she didn't think that I had MS, but she wasn't willing to commit to anything. Her guess was that it was some viral or other such passing illness. Even so, she would really like to have an MRI done to know better what's going on. She also ordered a few more blood tests for me. She said that I should let her know if anything else comes up and that she wanted to see me again in three months.

By that time, I was crying. Stress, anxiety, PMS, and stress relief all pulled together, and I couldn't help it. She understood.

After she left the room, I took some time to calm down, then I went out to the front desk to set up my next appointment and get my blood pressure and heart rate re-checked. They were really good this time around.

Then I went back down stairs to check in and have my blood drawn. That made me mildly faint (I've never been good with needles). I didn't faint or anything though, so that was good.

Now we get to just wait and see what time and the test results say, and try to find a way to pay for an MRI.

Happy 4th of July!

Have you ever tried to get up very early while on vacation? Well, if you're ever visiting Provo, UT during the 4th of July, I highly recommend it. Provo holds their Freedom Festival every year. It's a week long celebration full of fun. There are multiple parades, multiple balloon launches, fairs, fireworks displays, 5 and 10K runs, and more.

This year we got to participate in a bit of it.

Dark and early Saturday morning, we got ourselves up to see the Balloon Launch. The launch started at 6:30 am, so we wanted to be there by 6. Amazingly, we made it. We brought a sleeping bag to sit on, and a blanket to cuddle in and sat ourselves down while the hot air balloons were being laid out on the field. Soon enough, we were allowed to walk among the balloons as they were filled with hot air. The noise was really loud, but it was really neat to watch.

There were a lot of fun balloons to see. There was Smokey the Bear, Toni the Tiger, a piggy bank, a dinosaur, a few patriotic balloons, lots of fun colored ones, and even a fall themed balloon. My guess is that there were somewhere between twenty and thirty balloons participating.

The hot air balloons have a contest each day that they can participate in. On the 4th, they were to launch, catch the high wind, float north, descend to the low wind and come back south. When they reached the field on their return, there were stationed helium balloons that they were supposed to try and pop.

After they launched the first time, we headed over to the adjacent McDonalds for breakfast. I sat outside with the kids watching the balloons as they did their rounds while Seth got the food. My brother's family joined us there, and soon after we headed to the parade route.

My sister had gotten up before 5 am to secure us seating for the parade. When she got there (at 5:10 am), there was only a small sliver left. Luckily, it was in the shade and stretched 15 feet from the road to the sidewalk. Turns out it was a really good spot. There are a lot of people who camp over night to get good spots for the parade. By the time the parade starts, it's practically standing room only.

We were stationed at the end of the parade route, so for us, the parade started at about 10 am. There was a pre-parade though that was fun. Some small groups came along breaking up the silence while we waited for the big event. And boy was it big. By 11 am, we'd had enough, and it was still going. There were floats, marching bands, dancing groups, political cars, balloon characters, police groups, and everything else that you see at parades. I think that the parade was about an hour and a half long. Parking was crazy too, and even though we left early, it took a while getting back to the folks' house.

After that, I took a shower, put the kids down, and took a nap. My husband went out to lunch with a friend that was also in town.

Sometime around 5 pm, I was woken up for the BarBQ. Fireworks for the kids started around 8 pm, and around 10 pm, the Stadium of Fire fireworks display began.

It was a VERY long day, but we had a lot of fun.

More Then I Can Chew

It all started on a beautiful Monday morning by the lake. . . 

I was jogging along, happy as can be, when I got a pain in my right leg and my foot started to tingle. OK. Nothing new there.  It was just like my shin splints that I'd had a week before.  I kept jogging.

Then my right arm had a pain in it, and my hand started to tingle. That was new! I stopped jogging and walked the rest of the way back to the car.  The pain and the tingling disappeared on my way.

When I got home, I e-mailed my father in law (a family doctor) to see what he thought about it. While waiting for his reply, I set up an appointment with my doctor and went on with my day. Not long after, my hand started tingling again, and it didn't stop. The pins and needles spread up my arm as well, and occasionally it was back in my foot too. Nothing too painful, just annoying. 

My father in law thought that it was just over use type injuries. I hadn't told him about the persistent tingling. I thought I would just sleep on it and see if it went away. Other then the pins and needles, I felt perfectly fine. It even subsided during the night. 

Tuesday morning, I decided to go swimming. I wasn't likely to have any over-use symptoms there. I've been swimming for years, after all.  Well, turns out the elevation in my heart rate set the pins and needles going stronger. 

I was getting worried. I called up my doctor's office to see if I could get an earlier appointment. When the receptionist found out why, she put me on the line with a nurse. When the nurse found out that my Mom had heart surgery at a "young age", she told me to go to the ER, and not to drive myself. 

Panic attack! When I was done crying, Seth and I took our kids over to a friend's house and went to the hospital. They checked me for a heart attack. None. Pregnancy? None. Stroke? None. My physical came out all clear. They couldn't find out what was wrong with me, so I got to go home and was told to come back if it got worse. 

Things seemed to be getting better, but Wednesday night I figured my father in law ought to be told what was happening. His response, go see a neurologist. My doctor concurred. So, now I get to go in for an MRI, have more blood work done, and talk to a neurologist to see if they can figure it all out. It will take about a month to go through all of these steps. Hopefully, it's just a one time trauma.

In the mean time, I still have homeschooling with my kids, something that's not easy to do when I'm stressing out.  Sierra knows something is going on that's making me stressed, and it stresses her, sending her into unnecessary panic attacks.  We both had a total melt down yesterday.  Bailey only finished half of her school work before I called it quits.  Sierra, bless her, stuck it out and finished her morning work while I cried my eyes out in my room.  

I'm slowly feeling better though.  I've been taking it "easy" for the last few days, and my symptoms are almost unnoticeable now.  Today we took off of school, and we cleaned up the house.  Cleaning always makes me feel better.  I should be able to cope with school by Monday, and then we leave for vacation on Friday.  Life will go on.

But, I'm afraid to go running again.  I don't want to cause another episode.  I'm even leery of biking because I've put my foot to sleep while peddling and have even tweaked my wrist before.   So much for my Triathlon Training!  I've decided to pull out of the competition.  I only had a little over a month to finish getting ready, and it will be a few weeks before I have any firm idea as to what's going on.  The worry would stress me out too much.  I'm getting close to my limit.

All is not lost, however.  Walking and swimming I'm OK with.  I've been doing those for years, and the ER doctor told me to keep exercising.  I just need to keep it low key for now.  One step at a time.

The Battle Plan

We've just about finished our first week of our new school year, and things seem to be settling down into a workable schedule. Sierra is now doing second grade work, and Bailey is doing Kindergarden. Blake, he gets to entertain himself while we work.  Here's a quick run down:

Step 1: Clean up and snack. Anywhere from 30-60 minutes, depending on the mess, our moods, and the day.

Step 2: I help Sierra with her grammar for about 5-10 minutes.

Step 3: Sierra goes off and reads a book to Blake while Bailey reads a Bob Book to me. About 5-15 minutes.

Step 4: Sierra does Math while I help Bailey with her Math, Handwriting, and Reading lessons. About 30 minutes.

Step 5: Sierra does her Handwriting and Spelling.  About 15-20 minutes. (Monday and Friday have Spelling Tests.)

Step 6: Monday=Library.  Tuesday=swimming/shopping/errands.  Wednesday=Church Play Group.  Thursday=swimming/shopping/errands.  Friday=Homeschool Play Group.  Anywhere from 1 to three hours.

Step 7: Lunch/Break

Step 8: Blake goes down for a nap.  Monday & Wednesday=History.  Tuesday=Science.  Thursday=experiments/projects.  Friday=Free Day.  About 1 hour.

Step 9: Quiet/Rest Time.  Decompression.

We just move from one step to the next until we are done.  Typically, we'll start the whole process around 9 am.  Rest Time starts around 3 pm.  It's busy, but not half as crazy as I was afraid it would be.  Only about 2 to 2 1/2 hours are actual class time.  The rest is fun stuff and errands.

Sierra’s Reading Chapter Books!!!

I used to wonder if this day would ever come. There were times when it was literally like pulling teeth to get my daughter to read. She would look at a word, realize she didn’t know it by sight, and start hollering that she couldn’t read it. Words like "get", and later words like “print” would send her into a total melt down. We’re not talking that long ago either.

Only a year ago, she would agonize over reading a simple book like “Hop on Pop”. We’d been using “The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading”, and she would sulk every time I brought it out. It was dry (no pictures) and put a lot of pressure on her to perform. We kept at it anyway. I didn’t know what else to do.

Last fall, however, my sister who works at an elementary school offered to let us use an on-line reading program through her school for free. I jumped at the chance. Headspreout turned out to be a lifesaver. Sierra was able to review all that she knew in a non-pressure environment and even go on to learn things she didn’t already know. She played games that helped her sound out words, taught her a number of sight words, and took her through sentence structure and reading comprehension. In a matter of weeks, she went from hating reading and thinking that she couldn’t read to actually enjoying herself. She flew through the program, completing it in just a couple months.

Sierra was now at a second grade reading level, but she was still lacking in confidence and fluency. I still worked with our old book (which she now accepted and sometimes wanted to do), but it wasn’t enough. I started having her read a book a day. “Hop on Pop” was a good start. So was “Ten Apples up on Top”. She knew these books well because her Daddy had read them to her a number of times. The hard part at first was making her actually read instead of reciting from memory.

I eventually dropped the reading primer when it started teaching all of the strange words in our language that we borrowed from other languages. At that point, it started to feel more like memorization work, and I was bored with it. Instead, we focused more on her book a day. Sierra was getting braver and reading longer and more complex books of her own choosing. Again, she would read books that Daddy had read to her, so they weren’t scary. She was learning fluency, which is all I was asking for at that point.

During Math and Spelling, I would make her read the instructions. She hated this at first, especially when I made her sound out a word that she didn’t recognize, but now she does it routinely. She’ll even read the word problems on her own without asking for help more often then not now. Occasionally, she would branch out and read short stories that she hadn’t read before. I also stated pointing out to her how well she could read and what she could do with a little more practice.

Well, it worked. Daddy has been reading the Tinker Bell books to the girls at night, and I’ve been telling Sierra that she could probably read them if she wanted. They’re just longer then the books she’s used to reading. That’s all.

She took my word for it, and last night, all on her own, she got out and started reading one of the Tinker Bell books. She’s read three chapters already, putting it down when she’s had enough, and picking it up again later. Daddy and I are thrilled, and that makes her want to read more.

We’ll still continue reading a book a day. It’s just good practice, but seriously, she made my year. All of my hard work hasn’t been for nothing. That’s good to know.

My Son Wants to Be an Arborist

Our neighbor had his old, dead cottonwood tree cut down today. It was really fun to watch. They had a big crane-like claw attached to a huge dump truck and another truck with a crane arm ending in a bucket. They used the claw to grab the branches while the man in the bucket chain-sawed his way through the dead wood. It only took them about 2 hours to cut down a seventy foot tall cottonwood and haul off the waste.

We all sat in out backyard to watch as they worked. The kids were mesmerized, especially Blake. At one point, he was sitting in my lap watching, and I asked him if he wanted to be an arborist and do what those guys were doing. He paused, thought, and said matter-of-factly, "Yep."

My husband came home while they were in operation, and we decided to ask if they would haul away all of the branches and stump pieces we had piled up from our two cottonwoods that had been cut down last winter. They were happy to oblige, with pay of course, and they cleared off all of the wood in our side yard in a matter of 20 minutes. (It would have taken us hours.) Again, Blake stared and watched from our front window as the claw lifted and dropped the stumps and branches into the back of the dump truck. He wanted to go outside to watch, but we wouldn't let him.

Arborist, a boy's dream job! They get to work with trucks, cranes, claws, trees, and chain saws and get paid for it.

Preschool Graduation

My four year old graduated from preschool last week. Her class had a little ceremony where they sang songs, danced a little, and paraded around wearing graduation caps. They even got a little diploma. It was really cute! Their teacher does an absolutely wonderful job. I honestly don't think I could have found a better preschool.

Even so, I'm glad it's over. I'm such a snot. I like doing things on my own time frame, and I really got annoyed at having to plan my day around drop-off and pick-up times. If Sierra got her school work done fast, we'd be sitting around for a half an hour with nothing to do. Sometimes Sierra took too long and she wasn't done by the time we had to get Bailey. Then we'd have to break off and pick it up again later. Not as easy as it sounds. Then there were those days where Bailey had preschool and we didn't have school at home. A couple of times I just kept her home.

Really though, I'm glad Bailey got to have the experience. She got to make her own friends away from her sister, explore, have fun, learn songs and do projects. Best of all, Teacher Wilson worked her though the beginnings of handwriting, counting, cutting, pasting, and so forth, and Bailey always came home with a huge smile.

It was a good year, but it's time to move on.

Thank you Marilyn.