Miserable

Still Miserable. Have a cut on the corner of my mouth where your top lip meets you bottom lip. From my mouth being so dry for so long. Now I can't open my mouth much, of course when I just start to eat normal food, not just liquids.

Have a cold coming. Sneezing, a little cough (horrific feeling!), and a running nose.
Not to mention, still in a lot of pain, but can't take my normal pain killers yet, due to Thanksgiving's fiasco.

Seriously. Miserable.

My grandma said to me today. "I've been praying for you, guess it didn't go through".
I said, "Nope. I think it went through just fine, surgery went well...now the rest of my body is feeling very left out!"

Miserable.

Still no pictures...

Hope your Thanksgiving was one filled with joy and tummy filling yummy food!
Better said, I hope your Thanksgiving day was better than mine.
I spent the better half of the day in the Emergency Room. I was in so much pain. It started the night before. It had been building for days, but was marked worse that night. I took my pain killers and benadryl (for the rash), which knocked me out. I woke up in the same pain, getting worse and worse. (in Andy's words "I have never seen you in this much pain." When the nurse came in and asked me the pain level 1-10 question, I said 8. He looked at me and said, "seriously?! I've never seen you like this!" I responded with, "well it could always be worse.")

Andy took me in. I had a blockage that was extremely painful to remove. It took a few tries and I tell you, I have not been in that much pain without returning home with a kid!
I finally made it home later in the day and slept pretty much the rest of the holiday. My body was beyond exhausted.
I told the doctor all the problems that I have been having, the best I could between the excruciating pain. He shook his head in amazement. I said, but my incisions look good. :)
Of all of this, the actual surgery went well. I just need to get the rest of my body in line.

Thank goodness my husband got this laptop for me, my only connection with the outside world really. It's hard for me to carry a conversation on the phone. With the pain and tiredness, it's too much (b/c of course I am still in pain today, just not the take-away-my-breath pain that was yesterday). A post I can start and stop and finish at my own pace. Thank you, to my incredible husband!

My poor brother. Flew all this way and he's been more of a sitter than a visitor with me. He has been a huge help, and just knowing he is here means all the world to me/us!

So I hope every else's holiday was ER free and full of jolly good 'ol times!
Let's hope my next post is a positive one, maybe one with pictures?

I'm still very thankful this holiday, I don't want that to get lost in all of this.
Thankful for my amazing family and friends. For the support, physical, emotional, and spiritual. We could not make it through these times without everyone's support.

Thank you. Even through these, the many, trials that have been tossed our way, I feel blessed.

YaaaHooooEeee!!!!!

So the day started out with feeling itchy basically from head to toe. Trouble swallowing still, Trouble getting out of bed with the incisions. To add insult to injury, got a bug bite, the last remaining mosquito managed to find my face. The only thing that helps that doesn't knock me out or make me feel silly is a heating pad, which makes the rash worse.

My mom stopped by to see how I was feeling. Hanging in there.

Door bell rang. One of my mom friends. Brought some chocolate. Very sweet of her, she has a lot on her plate, so nice to take a moment out for me.

Door bell rang again an hour later. One of Harry's classmates mom brought an amazing dinner, amazing dinner. I felt very blessed. Such a kind thing for her to do, so thoughtful. She didn't have to go through so much trouble.
My mom left. I took a pain killer, feeling quite sore.

The door bell rang again. At this point it was almost 8 'o'clock.
I heard Andy, his excitement and then I heard foot steps down the hallway, ones that sounded familiar, but distant memory familiar.
Around the corner of our bedroom door...there is
my BROTHER!!!!!

***Tears***

What an incredible amazing loving brother I have. He flew all the way from New Mexico to surprise me and spend a few days with me. He took my breath away, and added tears to my eyes. Harry was so excited, "Uncle Jeffie!!" Nina, wasn't shy she hung around as well.

I love my brother. I don't get to see him all that often, with him living so far away as well as traveling so much. Words cannot express what this means. Well maybe...

YaaaaHooooEeeeee!!!

Wish I was more mobile and not so itchy, but what a thankful thanksgiving this will be indeed!!!!

Thanks Big Bro!

YaaaaHoooEeeeeeeee!!!!

Par for the course....around here at least

An update.
Well, not feeling so hot. Andy took me in to the Dr. today. Turns out I have two different rashes, new allergies to add to the list from surgery (benadine from prep, which of course they put on the majority of your body and adhesives, as well as my latex allergy), and an infection. My doctor kept saying how bad she felt for me, I just shook my head and said that I'm a little comic relief for people. She said she didn't find anything funny. Can't say this surprises me, stinks, but what can you do?
So at this point pretty miserable from my head to my knees.
Hopefully my next update will be better!

I am back!

Thank you everyone for the good thoughts and prayers, I definitely felt them. Surgery went well and I came out of it a lot better than a few months ago. They almost kept me last night as well but I wanted to go, Harry lost his first tooth at school yesterday!!
My blood pressure was pretty low and wanted to stay that way 92/50. My hemoglobin is 9, and I am so itchy. Today about the same, except I was able to add swollen to that wonderful list and a bit of difficulty swallowing. Fabulous. :)
I can't complain though, it went well, now I am waiting to see how much better I feel after the recovery period. Which looks like that will be around 6 weeks.

Thank you again to everyone for ALL your support. I see that Andy wrote this in his previous post, but it's worth saying again...I printed out all of the wonderful wishes from all of you and took them with me. It put me a bit at ease.


A sweet story. The night before we went in for surgery, we went to Mass. There were not many people, it being a Wednesday night. The priest in the middle of the Mass asked if there were any prayers that people wanted to share. This is usually meant to be said to yourself due to the large number of people on Sundays. Anyway... About 4 people had said some things, and then my amazing son stood on the kneeler and spoke up, "Pray for my Mama, she's having surgery tomorrow." I couldn't believe it. I was already a wreck at that point, he just opened the flood gates!
The priest then after church blessed me and talked with Andy and me. I finally felt at peace and at ease. So, going in, I felt good.

Today both of them have been coming in our bedroom to check on me. One of the first things out of Harry's mouth this morning was, "How are you feeling Mama?". Nina kept running in to give kisses and snuggles.

I truly am feeling blessed, In quite a bit of pain, but blessed!

Hopefully I can post some fun pictures soon! Especially since Harry lost his second tooth tonight!! Yep, got a few pictures of him working on it. He was so thrilled about the tooth fairy bringing him money, he wanted to get the second one out.

Hope all is well where ever you are, Thank you again!!
Much love,
Jeanine

Jeanine Update - 1:30 PM - Success!!

Just putting an update out to everyone that Jeanine has come out of her surgery and is doing great!  They did a partial hystorectomy, and found no problems with her ovaries nor a hernia.  Everything went textbook, and she's recovering nicely.  She's in her room now, and I'm sitting next to her.  In fact, she is the one that directed me to update the blog just now.  Thank you to everyone for the huge outpouring of support that you have given to our family over the last few days especailly.  Both Jeanine and I have felt both very comforted and very overwhelmed by the sheer amount of well wishes and offers of help and support.  In fact, Jeanine printed out all of the emails that she's gotten the past few days and brought them with her and re-read them when she was in the prep area, which she appreciated.  Thank you sincerely very much.  - Andy.

By the way, for those that don't know it, I surprised Jeanine with a brand new laptop a couple days ago so she could work on her pictures easier (our desktop is six yrs old) and I have it with me now.  It has a webcam on it and I offered to take a picture of her to put on here, but she politely declined.  I'll offer later and see if she changes her mind.  Fingers crossed...

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Thursday November 19 I have my surgery. I go in early in the morning and am scheduled for 8:30 am. I am hoping that it will go well and even if just a little bit of the pain is gone, I will be happy.

If you could keep me along with my family in your thoughts and prayers I would greatly appreciate it. The support that we have already gotten has been amazing. Thank you.

Andy said that he will post an update after the surgery to let you know how things went. I am praying for a speedy recovery, and to be honest, I need to come to grips with the fact that my recovery will take longer than my brain is ready for. I keep thinking just a few days and I will be getting back to life, I need prepare myself a little better, especially in the view of the fact that I'm going in tomorrow.

Thanks for thinking of me & my family. Hopefully I'll be posting pictures and tales soon enough!

Love,

Jeanine

Slug or Snail?

Our bug girl was at it again. Had to get a bit more exploring under rocks done before the snow hits. Although, this time it was not a bug that had her fancy. I heard her say with such glee in her voice, "Mama, Mama!! I found a SLUG!!!". I figured with past experience that this would probably, most likely be a 'roly polie'. Not this time. I could see from a distance something big in her hand. With one look at her face, I knew I had to keep it cool. She was so happy grinning from ear to ear. She was so proud. There it was as slimy as can be. A slug.

I finally convinced her that it needed to go back home to find someplace for the winter to stay. She agreed. I then said "let's go wash your hands". But a problem. Andy was working on the facets outside and had the water turned off. I have never been so creative with an anti-bacterial pump and baby wipes (yes, we still have some kicking around!).

Later we showed pictures to Mema & Papa and they said are you sure that isn't a snail? So, after some research, it was a slug. Which, we have now quite a bit of knowledge on the topic, a slug and snail are the exact same. A slug has just evolved to not have to have a shell. They both also live for 5-10 years! There was one that was reported to have lived 15 years. Now all of you can carry around the same knowledge. :)

In closing. After Nina put the slug back, these are some of the things she said.
Nina: "His tummy was dirty"
Mama: "Yep."
Nina: "How about next time he wakes up we wash him?"
Mama: "Okay"
Nina: "I'm going to make him my friend, he was so cute."


****there are a few slimy pictures, if you're a queasy type, beware.****



This picture tickles me. Look at the slugs shadow of its head. Cute.

If you look closely you can see his eyes at the end. He looks a bit confused, I guess. :)

So proud.

Nina showing daddy. Daddy saying..."Noooo, sorry you can't put him in your critter carrier, he needs to find his hibernation home."

School Days

Some pictures from school things. First Harry has a new tie for school. In Kindergarten, the boys have the option of wearing a tie on Tuesday's and Thursdays for Mass. First grade, it's a must. Most of the boys don't wear one, because, well, they're kindergartners! :)

Harry has been asking to wear one. He has some clip on ones at home, but they have to be uniform colors. So, Mema surprised him with one, and he was oh-so happy.

The next bit of school business. Harry came home with an art-project for the whole family. Decorate a turkey with whatever you can think of to make it original. Needless to say, I ended up with my fingers stuck together one too many times, and the phrase, "Look at your Mama, she's over there sticking packing peanuts to your turkey all by herself...go help her!", was said quite a few times.
You can't see it, but the tie is plaid. We had him wear his sweater vest over it b/c this is a bit more of a 'big boy' tie. It wraps around his neck and we didn't want him to get hurt on his first outing with it.

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The turkey. Per my previous statement about the turkey making, I didn't get any pictures of it during the process. My fingers were literally stuck together a few times. Here it is up at school. We used packing peanuts cut in half, beans for his neck and of course plenty of glitter. Harry liked the fact that we re-used things we had to decorate his bird.

Here is Nina by her bird. This was done all by herself in her class. No sticky fingers involved, and amazingly, no pink involved either.

Nina, Nina Ballerina

It was our first 'visitor' day for ballet. The place was packed camera's, Mama's, Daddy's, Gparents oh-my! :) The girls were running around which the usually don't do. They were quite excited to have us in the room. We can watch from just outside the room on the tv screen what they are doing, so seeing them up close was surely a treat for both sides! I didn't know what to expect, next time I will be inviting other family members to watch as well. She takes this very seriously.

I love that she loves ballet. It was such a big part of me growing up, and it warms my heart. Most of the girls were goofing off, as kids their age do, but Amelia, she was trying so hard to hear what was said and took everything so seriously. I was proud...and to go with that, as usual, a lot of pictures!

The girls looked so sweet all in pink.

I missed it. Nina had just gotten done showing and telling them about her Halloween wound on her hand.

They were doing the parachute, and when the chute went up they had to be in first position. There's my girl. First position. :)

Ms. Connie Cassidy herself. She was my first ballet teacher! If you look just past her, there is Nina up in the air.

Nina, Nina Ballerina, our beautiful girl.

Halloween/Fall Party at School

Nina's first school party. No dress-up, and we were lucky that we were able to have it. The school had closed for the majority of the week due to the flu. Friday was her first day back, and they went ahead with her party. Harry's party was put-off for a couple of weeks.

I had my little camera that was in my purse, thankfully. Too bad it didn't have much charge. Details. :)

Getting ready to make ghost hand prints. They turned out super cute. They ended up looking quite a bit like pac-man ghosts...am I dating my self?!

To be 4 and flexible. In the song it said 3 times touch your nose to your toes. Not a problem for the kids! Teacher...she passed on that one!

I made sugar cookies for the kids to decorate. I think more frosting was eaten then cookie, which in turn, it was good that it was almost time to go home. They crashed pretty hard.

Getting her coat and backpack to head home.

A Pirate & Butterfly...

This year Harry chose to be a pirate and Nina, a butterfly. Amelia has been looking forward to this day for over a month. Each day she would ask, "Is tomorrow Halloween?". Then she would daily give me a status update, "Mama, that tree is losing its leaves, that means Halloween is soon!" :)

Halloween was a very cold and very blustery day. The first 3 houses Harry rang the doorbell first. The next one Amelia was determined to ring first. She started to run and there she went, right on to the cement in front of the neighbors door. Face first. I yelled, "Nina, are you okay?!" I received, "I'M FINE!!!!". Well then. She walked towards us after she was handed her candy and I saw blood. I said to Andy, she's bleeding, as she yells back, "I'M NOT BLEEDING!!!", "I'm bleeding just a little bit." Nothing was stopping her from getting candy!

I think the thought of getting candy was overloading her brain. So much, it took out the pain threshold so it could make more room for thinking about candy. She went to every house we let her. Harry. When we got to the end of the block he was tired and cold and was ready to go home. He had a saber in one hand and hook in the other, which the hook had a cover on it so that hand was warm. He told Andy that the hand holding the saber was cold. Daddy said to switch the hook and saber hands. Harry said, "But daddy, everyone will think that I'm a different pirate!" Details. What was daddy thinking?!

The next day Amelia saw the hole on her hand with a scab on it and said, "Mama, what's this?!" She really was focused on that candy. Didn't even remember getting hurt. Harry, not as attached to candy, which is a relief. :)

Carving.

Not the reaction of the past couple years, of horror. We were waiting for it, and a mellow yuck look is all we got.

I was very proud of Harry, getting his hands down in there to pull the seeds out. First year he was willing to do so.

Thank goodness their costumes fit fine over many layers.

Everyone we saw, Harry would yell out something like, "ARG! I'm going to cut your leg off!" Or, "Watch out Matie, I'll cut you...". He took the pirate thing seriously.

Our neighbor Ken, the first house.

Gma & Gpa were so kind to come over to hand out candy to the trick or treaters so Andy & I both could go out with the kids. Gpa reading to Nina.

Gma playing the dot game with Harry. He was in heaven!

The first one is mine.

Nina's pumpkin, her design. Happy.

Daddy's in front and Harry's in back. Harry's design. Pretty scary.

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Some more leaf pictures. Andy took these the next day playing around outside.

Leaf fight.