Post Surgery

As most of you know, I had surgery on December 21, the Wednesday before Christmas 2011. I decided to go with a doctor who is a plastic surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Walding. He is a bit young but kind, down to earth, and thorough. I felt good about my decision. My surgery was scheduled for right before Christmas and I have 3 children, so decided to go ahead and let my children open their Christmas presents, and to also celebrate my middle son's birthday, which is on the 23rd of December. We enjoyed a nice, fun birthday dinner at Beef O Brady's. I said a couple of prayers and then left it in God's  hands to look over my children while I was in surgery at Flowers Hospital and to look over me during surgery. For anyone who missed my 2nd surgery, it was very bad! There were complications and the doctor, Dr. Champ Baker Jr. with Houghston Clinic treated me incredibly bad! So I was very very nervous to have another surgery. To my surprise, everything went very smoothly. Everyone was great. The hospital staff was wonderful. Dr. Walding made sure I was given something for nausea before my surgery and afterwards because I get sick from the anesthesia. He removed a lipoma, as I had suspected, and also removed 2 cysts of old blood and dead tissue that was probably a result of the 2nd surgery I had, an under scapula arthoscopic bursectomy. He checked the muscle further up to make sure there was nothing else there that shouldn't be. I would like for the right side of my neck to be checked for any lipomas as well (since that is one of the main spots my pain has been this entire time) just to put my mind at rest, but I don't know if that was a possibility at the time. The dr. says lets give it 6 weeks and see how I am doing. One of the very prominent lumps I could feel going across one side of my back turned out to be a consistently spastic muscle. My follow up appointment was Tuesday of this week. I had hoped to have the drain tube that is in my back removed but it is still putting out a lot of blood/fluids and the dr. wasn't quite ready to remove so I go back Tues. of next week. Hopefully it will be taken out then. The incision runs completely across the right side of my back, but if it helps at all then it was worth it!

An Early Christmas

This past Saturday the kids and I decided to go ahead and open our Christmas presents. I thought this would be a good idea since I'm having surgery this Wednesday. This will be my 3rd surgery concerning my chronic neck and shoulder pain within the last 1 1/2 yrs. I wanted to make sure that just in case anything does happen to me during surgery that my children's last memories be of us all celebrating Christmas together, and not of depressed sad feelings every year there after that Christmas rolls around. The boys all got to open a lot of presents and had a good time. The only thing we're saving for later is my youngest son's "Santa Claus" surprises, which we plan to do Christmas morning. Hopefully I won't be feeling too bad by then.
My middle son's birthday is this Friday also so we are going to celebrate that a little early too. Tomorrow night we plan on going to Beef O Brady's (his choice) to eat and wish him a happy 15th birthday. I will feel much better knowing everything has been taken care of and my children are happy and settled before I head in to surgery. Then all I will have left to focus on come Wed. is me. I pray that I've made the right decision and that I will finally get some relief. I feel good about it.
Merry Christmas!!!

Stuffing Doesn't Have To Be Stuffy

Guest post written by Annabelle Schumaker
For years now I've been eating stuffing at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. It's like eating the stuff is even second nature to me now. But it's become a little boring, so I decided that when I'm fixing my family Thanksgiving dinner this year, I can fix a different version than the same old stuffing that I've eaten year after year.
I went online to see if I could find a really good different kind of stuffing recipe. When I was online looking up that stuff, I ran across some information on internet service in my area and I decided to switch over our home's service to that provider.
I found all kinds of interesting kinds of stuffing that I really canÕt wait to try out. I was thinking about all of the different kinds that I could try out for different types of meals too! I might just try out some of these different versions for different normal meals as a fun addition. ThereÕs just something so inherently great about stuffing as a dish itself and I love enjoying it!

Memories

The other day my children and I were talking about how cold it has recently gotten. That reminded me of how my mother would make snow ice cream when we lived in Tuscaloosa, Al when I was little, before she died. My kids wanted me to make some for them, but I didn't know if it was real or it was just something creative my mother came up with to entertain us kids. She did that a lot. She was very creative, and made lots of wonderful memories for my brother and I before she died of a brain tumor when we were young.
Ironically, I was reading a magazine a day or two ago and viola, there it was, in black and white, a recipe for snow ice cream!! So I wanted to share it with everyone else. I have not tried it, but this is the first time I have ever come across an actual snow ice cream recipe. Here it is. Let me know how it turns out if anyone tries it.
-1 cup of milk or cream
-3 Tbsp. sugar
-2 Tbsp. mini chocolate chips
-almond flavoring
-Snow
-1/4 salt
1. Mix milk, sugar, shocaolate chips and a few drops of almond flavoring in a small ziplock bag, seal bag.
2. Fill a gallen-size zip lock bag halfway with clean snow and add salt. Put smaller bag inside bigger bag; seal bigger bag, squeezing out air. Knead bags until milk mixture soidifies, 5 to 10 minutes. Open bigger bag and remove smaller bag. Rinse outside of smaller bag in cold water before opening. Squeeze ice cream into a bowl and serve.
Kimberly Danger,
mommysavers.com

Trick or Treat

The kids and I went to Wiregrass Commons Mall on the Northside of town tonight to find some school shirts for my oldest son. We got there a few minutes before 4pm. When we first arrived we noticed the parking lot was way more packed than normal. When we walked inside, there were  little trick or treater's every where. I had forgotten all about the mall having trick or treat on Saturday night. I was going to take Alex, my 8 yr old, back home and put on his costume then come back, but it would have taken a little while. So we crossed the parking lot and went to Toys R Us. They only had a few costumes and they were all a little big. We found an Obi Wan Kenobi, and it worked! They were 50% off so I got the costume and his candy bag for under $12.00! Now that's a bargin! Next year I will also be able to sell it for more than what I paid for it, unless of course he wants to wear it next year. I'm sure it will still fit. The funny thing is that his original costume was Darth Vader. Any way, he had a lot of fun, and got some candy as well. Eventually we finally found my oldest son 4 school shirts at Khols and only paid $40.00 for them all. My middle son we dropped off at Carmike Cinema 12 because he wanted to meet his friend at the movies and see "The Three Musketeer's". So all and all it was a good night.

Corndodger's Haunted Maze

My two oldest boys and I had a good time last night at Corndodger's Corn Maze. I first found out about Corndodger's thru a friend's post on facebook. My youngest son was spending the weekend with his dad so I thought the older boys might enjoy going on the haunted trail in the corn maze. One thing I didn't really plan on was having to go through it with them. I'm a big baby when it comes to haunted houses! Despite being hesitant I went anyway. The first guy that jumped out of the corn field scared me so bad I felt my heart jump out of my chest! My oldest son thought he needed to show his braveness and stood there and stared the scarey people right in the eyes! They were a bit disappointed that they couldn't scare him. My middle son just kept laughing and telling me to let go of his jacket! At one point I just froze and buried my face in my hands. When I looked up "Jason" was still standing there right over me with that white mask of his looking down at me! I almost freaked out! I felt like a bad mama afterwards because I had ran ahead a bit and left my children standing there with the bad guys. The whole maze didn't last long but I was soooo happy when we reached the end.  In spite of me being a big scared baby, it was still a lot of fun!
http://corndodgersfarm.com/

BEWARE OF LYRICA

I have been taking Lyrica for about 6 months or so now due to cervical dystonia (constant muscle spasms and tightness of the muscles) on the right side of my upper body, neck and shoulder. It has helped with the pain to the point that I am able to get up and funtion during the day and get my errands run although I'm not pain free.
Recently I started feeling a lot of pain in a tooth that was broken. I made a visit to the dentist only to find out I needed a root canal and crown on the tooth that was hurting, and was also told I needed crowns on 3 other teeth. I have never had a root canal or a crown. I didn't yet connect it to the Lyrica. After getting the root canal and crown 2 months ago I am still having some pain around the gum. The endodontist said he is baffled. He said if the root canal failed the tooth would be hurting, and there's no infection that we can tell.
A few days later, I started to chew on a couple of Pringles, and suddenly felt very hard peices of something in my mouth. Low and behold, it was a top back tooth that had just crumbled and broke apart in chunks for no apparent reason and without warning. Not only was I devastated, but then I started wondering what in the world was going! It reminded me of stories I've heard in the past about meth addicts. The way there teeth can just suddenly fall out of their mouth. I knew I wasn't doing any illegal drugs to cause something like that so that made me think about my prescription medicines I am taking. The only new prescription I'm taking is Lyrica. Even though I didn't really think I would find a connection with tooth decay and Lyrica I was curious so I looked it up on the internet. To my surprise I found post after post after post of people who not long after taking Lyrica started having major dental problems. Some people had never even had a cavity before until they started taking this medicine and suddenly ended up with their teeth just breaking apart and falling out of their mouth, just as I described. I'm not talking about 1 or 2 or even 3 teeth. I'm talking about them loosing all of their teeth, or 8 to 13 teeth. They had to have teeth pulled, have many root canals, crowns, and even dentures. These people have spent thousands of dollars trying to have their teeth restored.
They are also complaining of sore and bleeding gums, permanent hair loss, short term memory loss, confussion, permanent damage of their vision, unable to find the words they're looking for, unable to write or type due to not being able to put the right letters together. There were complaints of major tooth decay after only being on Lyrica for time periods as short as 2 months or so. Some of these people had been to their dentist right before they were put on Lyrica and were given a clean bill of health, so to speak. I was terrified after reading all of these posts! I am only on a small dose and it is already starting to ruin my teeth! I know people who are on very high dosages, and started thinking about how they probably had no idea of what this medicine is capable of doing. I called one person that I knew was taking it and asked her if she has had any major teeth problems since she started the Lyrica. She said her mouth was a mess and she has been trying to figure out what was going on for awhile now. She said she was to embarrassed to even go to her dentist for a cleaning because that's how bad it has gotten. She said her teeth are breaking off in peices! Some of the posts commented that they had tried to find an attorney to file a suit against Pfizer, but no one will even take the case. That being said, there are lawsuits going on concerning suicides and suicide attempts due to taking the drug Lyrica. Oh, did I forget to mention the suicidal thoughts connected to Lyrica. This is a very dangerous drug!!! If anyone that reads this is taking or thinking about taking Lyrica please just take a few minutes to google Lyrica and teeth problems or side effects of Lyrica and check out all the blogs and posts about damage that Lyrica has caused. I plan on reducing my dosage and being off of this medicine by this weekend! I will let you know how it goes.

Dolphin Encounter

The boys and I went to the beach this past weekend. We had a pretty good time, despite the pain I was in with my neck and shoulder. I have been promising my oldest son for years now that he could swim with the dolphins one of these years for his birthday. Well I'm happy to say that it finally happened. I think he was pretty happy about it too. It was a great experience for him and the dolphins were really cool! We went to Gulf World in Panama City Beach, Fl. Cory got to swim with a dolphin named Sandy. He held hands (flippers) with her, got a kiss from her, and then got an exciting pull around the pool by her. They are really amazing creatures. I hope we can go back one day and all of us can swim with the dolphins. I know the other boys would enjoy it a lot too. I am posting a couple of pictures for everyone to see.

The picture uploader is acting up right now and won't let me add any more pictures. I will try to add more later.

Fun toys for kids

My youngest son Alex enjoys playing with his toys more than anything else in the world. He probably has way more toys than he should. I guess that could be due to the fact that he has his two older brothers' old toys as well as some new ones of his own. Despite having so many toys, he has certain ones that are his favorites that he plays with all the time.
One of Alex's favorite things to play with is his super heros. He will sit and play with his little super hero men for hours. He doesn't even have to have anyone else play with him. He will just sit right by himself and use his imagination. He loves Spiderman the most out of all of them. We have watched the Spiderman movies over and over many times to the point I feel like I'm going to loose my mind if I have to watch them one more time.
Another favorite toy of Alex's is his Video Now. I have definitely gotten my moneys worth with that toy. He started watching it when he was about 3 years old, and still watches it to this day. You can buy many different videos to watch on it. We have Scooby Doo, Spongebob, and Ed, Edd, and Eddy just to name a few. It is nice to take in the car with us when we go places, and a lot of fun for kids. I suggest it for anyone who has younger children. 

Family

Hi. My last blog was about our vacation trip to Bryson City, North Carolina mountains. I didn't post any pictures with my blog so I'm adding them now. Thanks for looking.

                                                     Tubing in the Smokies National Park

                                                                   (Alex, my youngest)

                                                              My oldest son Cory

                                                             My boys and myself

Enjoying a night out

                                                                  The campground

The Indian Villiage

Ocunuluftee Island

Alex building a dam

Checking out all the pretty rocks

Relaxing

Cory, and Devin (my middle son) taking a break

Digging our own gems

This is hard work!

Sluicing

                                                                  Find anything yet?

Please don't look at my dirty nose.

Check out my rubies!

Our Cabin

Peek a boo

Extra cash for our trip

A few weeks ago we decided to take a vacation to North Carolina. We went a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed it so I vowed to go back one day. After making reservations months ahead of time I soon realized that it was going to be incredibly difficult for me to drive nine hours to North Carolina with 3 fighting boys and just myself. I asked my ex-husband if he would come along and help with the kids, and he agreed.

I knew we would need to take as much money as we could scrounge up so I decided to cash in my "mypoints" points, and my "inbox dollars" points which I had been saving up for awhile. I received $85.00 from mypoints, and $30.00 from inbox. My cash from mypoints was quickly distributed into my paypal account within a few days. Inbox made me wait a few weeks and then sent me a check in the mail. It was the first time I had cashed in my points and was really excited to receive money for basically nothing but clicking on emails. I also sold a few things on Ebay which I do occasionally and made a few extra dollars.

Needless to say, the trip was a little hectic, but yet fun all at the same time. We stayed in a cabin at Deepcreek Campground. It rained just about everyday, but only for a few minutes at a time. It didn't stop us from doing everything we wanted to do though. We went to the National park so the older boys could go tubing. That was quite the experience. We visited Cherokee Indian Village and thoroughly enjoyed wading in the water at Ocunuluftee Island. After visiting the shops nearby, my youngest son decided his new favorite thing was Indians and had to have a bow and arrow. He has been playing with it ever since. We also went digging for gems while we were there. I am in the process of tumbling the gems now. I'm thankful we had the chance to go back and make some memories for the boys.

Caylee's Law

An online petition has been started in Caylee Anthony's name. It would make it a federal offense if a missing child or the death of a child is not reported within a reasonable amount of time. Please sign this petition so we can better protect our children.

Change.org

Start an Online Petition »

Mini Vacation

                                       "My boys at the beach this past Monday and Tuesday"

We made a one night trip down to P.C. Beach the beginning of this week since the kids were out of school for spring break. This was the big chair they had at our hotel where we stayed. Of course I had to have a picture. It was a lot of fun! I can't wait until we can do it again soon!

Stories About Jesus by Gwen Ellis

Stories About Jesus by Gwen Ellis is a children's book of very simple kid friendly bible stories. It's a large hard back book full of big colorful pictures. It consist of about thirteen short easy to understand stories. I read it to my 7 yr who thoroughly enjoyed it. What I really loved about it was that the stories were all presented as loving and positive. I remember trying to find a children's bible story book to read to my two oldest children when they were little, and quickly realized that the stories that were presented were presented in a very negative and scary light that little children did not need to be hearing. They told of horrific things that God supposedly did. That's not the message I wanted to send to my children about God! This book does not do that at all. It tells of many good deeds that Jesus did to help people, with God's help of course. It's a wonderful kid's book. I'm glad I chose it from BookSneeze's list of complimentary books. I would recommend it to anyone who has children.

Lack of Sleep

Why in the world does it take me sooo long to get the kids and myself in bed every night??? I start trying to get the kids in bed around 8:30pm every night, but for some reason I can't get everyone to actually settle down and get quiet until about 11pm every night! We are usually running around and busy all day. After I pick the kids up from school, I usually head to my second job, tutoring. Many times when I'm on the way home, I stop off at the grocery store, and by the time I get home it's late. Even so, it's still non-stop when I get home. I have to make sure everybody's homework is done, cook dinner, wash clothes, check email, make sure everyone has taken their medicine, give my little one a bath, and then try to find time to give myself a bath. There have even been times when we were so busy that I forgot to get my first grader to do his homework, and remember it after we have finally laid down in the bed. Then I feel like a terrible mama! Don't get me wrong, I love my boys dearly, but what I can't understand is why does it have to take a good 3 hours every night to get them to settle down and in their beds?! I'm tired! I've also noticed that the last few days my 7 yr. old has been very very irritable. He crys at the drop of a hat, and doesn't want to get up in the mornings for school. He's obviously not getting enough sleep either. Mix that with all 3 of them fussing and fighting and that equals one very exhausted mommy!!! I couldn't even take a shower tonight. I actually ended up having to step out of the shower butt naked to yell at my kids because they wouldn't stop fussing and calling my name. I hope I didn't tramatize anyone!! On top of everything else, my 15 yr. old just decided he would stop talking to me about 4 months ago. I have tried everything, punishing him, bribing him, even taking him to counseling. Nothing has worked. It's like trying to play a constant game of charades! My middle son's right behind him, at the age of 14, totally different personality though. Wow, who knew this would be so hard?? My children are my life. They are what keep me going everday, but I could definitely use a little R&R right about now!

Beach Trip For The Day

The weather has been beautiful these past few days and I got a crazy whim to put the kids in the car Saturday morning and take off to the beach. The trip down to Panama City, Fl was a little hectic with 3 boys. Especially since my middle son had been grouchy that morning. Although once we finally got out on the beach, everyone seemed to calm down and enjoy themselves. The water was beautiful and clear, but very very COLD! My 7 yr. old (Alex) was ecstatic. I don't think he stopped smiling the whole time we were there! He wanted sooo badly for me to go out in the water with him, and there were lots of people in the water surprisingly, but seeing as how my ankles and feet were numb from just stepping in the water, I had to decline. So he turned his interest to helping his brothers dig the biggest hole in the sand ever! That held their attention for quite sometime, which was nice. My oldest son and I enjoyed laying out and catching some warm rays from the sun, and watching Alex try to catch one of the many seagulls flying overhead.

After spending 2 or 3 hours on the beach, we were all getting pretty hungry! We packed up and headed out in search of somewhere to eat. We decided to eat at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville in the new Pier Park. It was the first time we had been there. We sat on the top deck and enjoyed the beautiful weather while eating our GIGANTIC hamburgers and sandwiches! It was delicious, but needless to say, we all had leftovers which we ate after we got home. The kids wanted to go to the arcade afterwards since I usually always take them there when we're at the beach, but I told them mom was tired and it was time to go home. They were a little disappointed at first, but got over it pretty quickly. The only thing that would have made it better is if we had stayed the night, but all in all, it was a good day!!

Sorry It's Been So Long

First I want to say sorry for taking such a long break from blogging. I have had so much going on. I always have a ton going on, but I guess more than usual this time. I've had some personal issues with my oldest son; he's 15 now, and not liking his mama very much these days. I'm doing everything I can to make things better, but I'm pretty much at a loss at this point. I just hope these teenage hormones and attitude problem doesn't last too long, because I don't know how much more of this I can take.
Besides that, I just had another surgery on Dec. 30. Shoulder surgery this time. Recovery has been sooooo painful! I had no idea. My cervical fusion I had in June was a breeze compared to this!  On top of the normal pain, I also had complications and ended up in the E.R. twice a few days after surgery. I had bruising from the base of my skull down my right side and down the bottom of my back bone. I couldn't breathe, was very light headed, in unbearable pain, and running a fever. I called the surgeon- Dr. Baker Jr. @ Houghston Clinic in Columbus, Ga and he asked me "what do you want to do, it's Sat. night; what do you want to do?" First off, it was Sunday night, and Second of all, it doesn't really matter what night it is when you think you're dying! I thought he might be able to give me some of his educated knowledge and tell me if what I was going through was normal or should I be worried and maybe head to the E.R. Thanks, doc! Didn't mean to mess up your weekend! So I spend the day in the E.R. and find out my blood pressure is high, my blood count is at 21, and I have internal bleeding that they can't be sure has stopped without admitting me and observing me overnight. Since I had 3 kids at home alone I told the E.R. Dr. I would have to go home for the night and come back the next morning so they could recheck my blood count. The next morning my blood had not decreased from since the night before so the bleeding seemed to have stopped, thank God! The Dr. told me to start taking iron pills, which I have done, and am feeling much better. My BP is still up a little and my I can feel my heart flutter every so often, but it's going to take some time for my body to adjust. My middle son was absolutely wonderful those first 3 days after I came home and did everything for me. If it had not been for him I have no idea what I would have done! Thank you so much, Devin! The next week I went into the office to see Dr. Baker Jr. for a check up. I sat in the office for almost 3 hours before seeing the Dr and when I did see him he left the room before I was through speaking with him and never came back. I asked him a question about exactly what he had found during the surgery, he was going to show me the pictures and called for the girls in the office to come in and bring them up on the computer. At that point he left the room, got on the phone, and never came back!! That was MY TIME, MY 5 or 10 minutes that I sat there all day waiting for! It was very RUDE, to say the least!
To add a little more stress to my life, I am in the process of applying to graduate school. I have been working on getting up everything I need to apply since my surgery. I need to retake the GRE exam because I made a 900 on it last time and that's probably not good enough to get me in. I just hope my new scores will have time to be processed and sent to the university before the deadline. Everything is due in by Feb. 15 so I am cutting it really close. . If I don't get in this time I will have to wait a whole other year before applying again. I trust that whatever happens though was meant to be. So wish me luck!