*The Secret Life of Kat - A Typical Southern, Suburban, Soccer Mom….or maybe not..

I have been reading “Kat” for a few days now, and love her STYLE! I have taken quite a bit from her writings, and simply loved her last two posts - on parenting and “where were they”. Such a great inspiration!

recovery is going beautifully, I can do most of the things that I was able to do before the stroke, but now I am learning that I am losing my mind (actually, I was losing it before the stroke, but at least now Ihave an excuse!! Thank you God!)

On Sunday we were driving home from Church discussing how we wanted to spend the day. I was feeling pretty good after a bad day on Saturday (which was also beachgirl’s birthday, more on that later) so we decided to go to the pool, have an early dinner and hit the beach for a twilight session of skimboarding and relaxing. Sounded like the perfect plan for a beautiful afternoon with the family.

TO THIS DAY I do not know why I went home and looked at my planner (which hasn’t gotten a lot of use since early June) and realized that OMGoodness, Beachboy is supposed to go to camp THIS WEEK and check-in is at 3:00 and camp is 2 hours away …

I had not packed
I did not have his physical form (to my defense, the form had been dropped off two weeks before with plans to pick it up this week because he was leaving for camp NEXT WEEK)
He didn’t have a sleeping bag because a friend was using his
I had not packed
He was not ready and was a bit shell shocked

Well, a bizarre PEACE came over me as all of the kids started to frazzle … hubbie called the doctor, who JUST HAPPENED TO BE ON CALL THIS WEEKEND … AND … WHO JUST HAPPENED TO BE IN THE OFFICE ON A SUNDAY MORNING and hubbie went and picked up the physical form, the kids and I got beachboy all packed in 40 minutes flat (AMEN that we have kept up with the laundry for the last month), and beachboy was ready to go to camp in under an hour. We stopped at the trusty wal mart to pick up a 9.99 sleeping bag, and now my precious first-born is having a ball at camp and while I miss him terribly, I know that he is meant to be there and he will be well taken care of!

a side note from “stroke speak” for today - yesterday at 3:39 in the afternoon, hubbie and I left our middle child - the red-headed beachgirl at mini-camp for two nights and three days! To many, this may not mean a whole lot, but when I think about the road of shyness that child has traveled to get to this point, it is still stunning to me that she is there!

Beachgirl dropped out of 2 & 3 year old pre-school (2 hours of fun a day) within the first week both years because she could not be separated from her mother. She never ever spoke to anyone outside of the family, she was so painfully shy she started crying as soon as we got in the car to go anywhere, even the playground. Yes, this drove me crazy, and I lost lots and lots of sleep thinking she would be socially backward for the rest of her life. She came around a bit when school started and loved going to Kindergarten and so on, but she still was extremely hesitant about doing anything new.

When her older brother started going to camp, she expressed no interest at all, and let us know that there was “no way” she was going to sleep away EVER - again, a tidbit that caused me much grief. Life started changing in small baby steps when she turned 7 and she went on her first sleep over birthday party. She didn’t last all night, but she did make it until 10:00 when she got tired, found a phone and called us to come home to go to bed.

I am sure she just hit a new level of “readyness” when she started swimming, but I fully credit swimming with breaking beachgirl out of her shell! I laughed when I realized that the child was going to have to dive off the blocks … she would never put herself out there like that for people to watch her (or so I thought)! No problem though, the first meet she just jumped right up on the blocks, dove off, was disqualified in the race, laughed, and that was the absolute end of the shy, demure, quiet little girl with whom we were so familiar.

And now she is at sleep-a-way camp! What a transformation!!!!!!

When hubbie and I moved back to my hometown 8 years ago, I knew that I wanted to raise our kids in a community where I was comfortable and where I knew the “majors” - doctors, babysitters, preschools & schools, dentists, etc. The last two weeks have been an unbelievable reminder of the love and support that you can find in a small town (or three small towns to be more specific!)

The cards, flowers, best wishes, offers to take the kids, meals dropped off, you name it, are still flowing in, and I have no doubt God is absolutely tired to hearing all of the pleas, requests, begging and anguish from friends and family to protect me and out family. The outpouring of love and concern has been nothing short of amazing … what a wonderful community we live in.

“Googling” Brain Stem Stroke is an eye opening experience! Certainly a reminder that someone was looking out for me through this fiasco, and letting me know that I had better get my life in order since He gave me a “warning” but the opportunity to make good on my issues! I am scared half to death that if I don’t take care of myself this could happen again and next time I could not survive, not regain consciousness, or need constant care. WHOA, I have three kids to raise and a wonderful husband who loves me (yes, all of this was a huge reminder to the two of us just how important we are to one another!)

On a lighter note, though, the most bizarre after-effect is this temperature “thing”. The right side of my body cannot sense temperature at all. When I am put in a warm bath, the left side of my body feels the wonderful warm water as it surrounds me. The right side, feels the water and I can feel all sensations of things touching my skin, but I cannot feel the temperature AT ALL! Interestingly enough, if I put my right hand under hot water, the nerves must still sense the heat because my hand jerks out of the water, but it kind of does that by itself - really a strange sensation!

Hi blogging world, I am back … and BACK WITH A VENGEANCE!!!

Two weeks ago, this 38 year old mother of three was given the opportunity to re-examine my life, my priorities, my family, my decisions and my God. On Tuesday June 10th, the day before the last day of school, I was sitting at the YMCA playing tic-tac-toe with a really great friend of our daughters, his mom came in the door behind me, and I turned my head to say hello to her.

“Hi ___________, (I don’t remember what I was about to say to her) OMG, I feel sooooo dizzy” She told me to put my head down, and I started throwing up and sweating as I had never sweated before, and passed out. This cycle repeated itself 5 times, the ambulance came and took me to the hospital. Whenever I opened my eyes, the world was on a 90 degree angle and the nausea just came in waves and waves and waves.

The hospital staff was certain I had vertigo and tried to make me comfortable until the spell passed. I remember everything very clearly, and I remember not being able to keep down any medications for the nausea, and I always knew the throwing up was coming because the sweating would start and I would once again be soaked.

While the hospital doctors were ready to send me home, my blessed husband would have no parts of that whatsoever! My blood pressure was sky high, and he let everyone know that there was no way I could “get” home in this condition, and they had to come up with a reason for the blood pressure being out of control. I was admitted to the hospital at about 3am Wednesday morning … and spent the entire next day dizzy, throwing up, sleeping, throwing up, eating bites of jello, throwing it up, sleeping … you get the picture.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the hospital doctor (my doctor was volunteering in China at the time) did a couple of tests to prove that “all I had” was vertigo and it was time for me to go home. THANK GOODNESS, my mom was in the room at the time, because I was so sick after he was done with the “dizzy tests” that without my advocate, he probably would have sent me home. He felt that he had proven the vertigo issue, until Mom asked him to explain why I had passed out and why my blood pressure was so high. Apparently he had not seen the portion of my file regarding what happened at the Y. After a few minutes, he decided to keep me in the hospital and went ahead and ordered the MRI that the neurologist had recommended if I didn’t get any better.

Early Thursday morning, I woke and realized that the nausea was gone! It was such a strange sensation to realize that I no longer felt like throwing up. I was getting better … my head was still spinning like never before and my blood pressure was sky high, but I didn’t want to throw up anymore!!!

My excitement with the prospect of eating was short lived as the neurologist came in my room around 7:30 to let me know that something showed up on my MRI, and with my permission, he wanted to transfer me to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore … to the Stroke Center.

At this point, my blood pressure was 210/180 … and I was warned not to move my head too drastically in either direction (thinking about the “dizzy tests” the night before still causes me to sweat), and by noon the helicopter was on its way to take me to Baltimore. The father of one of beachdude’s preschool classmates just happened to be the pilot of the flight - and I was completely at ease in his hands.

Once in Baltimore, I was treated like a queen in my bed as I was not allowed to go to x-ray, mri’s or ct scans in a boring old wheelchair or on a gurney, I was not allowed to leave my bed, so they wheeled me around the hospital in my lounging bed. Boy, it made all of the technicians mad, but I was able to just keep sleeping and resting while they figured out what was going on.

I was honestly on an episode of “House”! Within an hour or two, the first group of residents showed up - Chase (the blond student who thought he had to be soooooo serious), Vera, the sweet neuro resident who carried 5 million tools in the 2 pockets of her white jacket and could never find the exact one that she wanted, and Dr. Z who was the chief resident and listened, and kept watching my eyes, and often schrunched up her nose at one of my answers who answered every one of our questions with “I am sorry, but until I look at all of the test results and your file AND talk to the neurologist I don’t know anything”.

Later that night, the group of doctors tripled as they squeezed into my tiny little room. This time, the neurologist was with them, and she let me know that I had a dissection in the left cerebral artery which caused a brain stem stroke. HUUUUHHHHH? Now, I must admit to reading romance, chick lit and medical mystery novels … and the words “brain stem stroke” were almost laughable because in my books, I wouldn’t be sitting here listening to you doctors telling me that I had a brain stem stroke. It really freaked me out … how could this have happened to me? And no one had any ideas, nor was there anything other than observing me they were going to do. Surgery was really not the optimal solution because of the location of the dissection, plus the dissection appeared to have closed, and the symptoms were slowly easing. And, I was released.

SOOOOO, now I am back home, and a week later I am doing beautifully! I am still dizzy, however, not at all like in the beginning, just a wicked lean to the left, but I am getting more and more stable on my feet every day. I started physical therapy on Tuesday, and can already achieve many of the balance tests which I couldn’t do when I first started. My doctor started me on blood pressure medication (beta-blocker) on Tuesday as well, and after 3 days on meds it is back to normal. Hopefully in another week, I will be able to back off the meds and the pressure will stabilize itself.

The hardest part is not being to be active like I am used to being … and I am getting really bummed about that. I want to be back to normal now and while I am certainly grateful for the recovery that I have made so far, I want to get up in the morning, go all day, sleep at night and get up the next day and do it all over again.

I just love days off from school, especially when they happen in the middle of the week! Mondays and Fridays off extend the weekend, and are great fun as well, but usually I use the day off to make up for goofing up during the weekend when hubbie was home so the kids don’t get to really enjoy the day. A day off in the middle of the week kind of feels like a “skip” day and we thoroughly enjoyed it with no work and just hanging out together along with a special lunch with Daddy!

The other great part about yesterday … it was our first visit to the beach this season, and it was BEAUTIFUL! Although it was down right foggy, the sun was still out and felt so good on all of us! The kids built sand-castles, played “flops” and lots of lacrosse. We were on the beach for almost 2 hours and now I can’t wait for summer!!!

FINALLY, the third marking period of the 2007-2008 school year has come to an end. I am not sorry to see the last term end as it brought with it much drama, tears, arguments & life lessons that are always hard to learn. I am not certain I truly thought we would see a happy ending to the term, BUT WE DID!!!

Both kids made the “A” honor roll, which is certainly terrific, but more importantly Beachboy learned just how important organization is when it comes to his life at school and his life at home. I think even he was shocked that he managed to pull up two fairly miserable grades by working hard and being “present” in his life at school. He really pulled it off, and I am just so proud of him! Beachgirl didn’t have quite so far to go this marking period, but she has grown from a solid B student early in the school year to a solid A student by the third marking period. She has taken a little longer to “get” how important it is to do your best, but the amazing thing about her is that she felt such a sense of internal pride - what her dad and I thought were secondary to how proud she was of herself for improving just so much. She definitely has a genuine love for learning and what an amazing opportunity it has been to watch her grow.

Beachdad surprised everyone by coming home with a double chocolate cake that said “super job kids!!” That was a great treat for everyone, and how cool that daddy thought of it all on his own!

Today was a GREAT DAY!

and I am only allowing myself a half hour on the ‘puter! Of course, I have a zillion blogs to read (hello-mark all as read), 20 ad packets to email out and of course, I am spending the first ten minutes of my 30 posting!

Last night was an interesting one in the “little house at the beach”. Beachboy had lax practice and when he got in the car was in a FOUL mood! I asked him what was wrong - I got the completely disrespectful “hands up, head bob” combined with the glassy eyes. Could I leave it alone - NO, so I kept asking various probing questions to find out what had happened and he kept answering the same way “nothing is wrong, MOM” but he was still being nasty in the car.

We got home, everyone took their showers, Beachdad came home after a fairly crappy day at work, and when Beachboy came down I again asked him if everything was ok … and (unfortunately in front of his dad he FLIPPED OUT!!!) “STOP ASKING ME, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG, THIS IS STUPID, I’M NOT EATING,” and on and on. Now then, respect is a big deal in our household so Beachdad was taking none of his outburst - all dissolved into an allout argument.

Beachdad was mad (really mad) at both Beachboy and me - Beachboy for being disrespectful and me for not letting the fact that he was in a bad mood go. But as his mother, I couldn’t let it go because I had no idea what had happened! I didn’t know if he had gotten hit by the ball, a stick or another player and was just being a “tough guy” and playing with the pain … and he could be seriously hurt (yes, that has happened before), I didn’t know if there was a problem with the coach or another player or what it could be. And the more he didn’t tell me, the more I was getting upset that I have a 10 year old son who has decided that he can’t tell me all that stuff going on in his life that is bothering him.

Turns out … after 3 hours of a fairly intense practice, he was exhausted and didn’t understand something one of the coaches was telling him and continued to do it wrong. But mainly, he was exhausted and didn’t have the patience or energy to keep re-living it! PLUS, he knew it was silly to be so frustrated and angry about that, so he just wanted to forget about it.

Poor guy - I know being my son is not a walk in the park, and I kept him awake long enough to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that I love him more than the air I breathe, but when I ask what is wrong, JUST TELL ME … and I promise to do my very very best to not suggest potential solutions (what have I gotten myself into????)

this pic came from beachgirl’s game this past Saturday … and is such a commentary on the “crowd” that hangs out on the girl’s lax field every weekend! I kept seeing Lilly, Vera, Pappagallo (I thought that brand didn’t exist anymore), colored duckboots, Polo & kate spade on the field in spite of the spitting rain and eventual downpours.

Such a trip down memory lane - the names are just updated today, but when I was in high school, the preppy look was “in” and our school fell for it hook, line, and sinker! I had so many covers for my wooden pocketbook it took an extra 10 minutes each morning to coordinate which corduroy cover best accentuated my outfit!

And the headbands … bad, bad memories … won’t even go there!!