Beautiful and Broken

"I'm having a hard time!" says my 6 year old.  Almost immediately the giant doberman puppy that I willingly acquired knocks over a brand new decorative glass bottle and "crash!" it breaks into pieces. She's having a hard time?!

I loved that bottle...someone else was willing to part with it for two dollars!  I suppose it's true what they say that "one man's trash is another man's treasure."  I'm oddly upset by the demise of this two dollar turquoise bottle that was most likely manufactured for pennies.  I begin gluing it back together as the defeat sinks in.

I cannot blame anyone, I think that's the worst part about this situation!  I could blame the mindless black blur that is the dog but it's not as if he purposely sought out my new bottle and maliciously destroyed it...or did he???

These are the thoughts of a mother who is completely and utterly tired.  I'm pretty sure that half of the women that you see in the mug shots on television are mothers that just needed a vacation or perhaps a nap.  Exhaustion does crazy things to a person, especially to a person who already exhausts themselves.

It's not the actual bottle that I'm upset about...or is it?  It's what the bottle represents which is a beautiful thing that is now broken.  A beautiful thing that won't be the same despite the immense amount of super glue puzzling it back together.  There are pieces. Lot's and lot's of pieces.  The bottle will turn it's broken side to the wall and be forced to stay that way.  Always broken, always facing one way.

The idea of this is sad to me yet alarmingly familiar.  At the risk of being a complete downer, this bottle is the perfect parallel for a mother battling everyday challenges mixed with a fair amount of anxiety and depression.  Like the bottle she is still beautiful and serves an important purpose.  She brings color and usefulness to the family all while trying to hide the broken parts of herself.

I have battled depression and anxiety from the time I was thirteen.  Looking back I can see that the anxiety started long before that but the official diagnosis and medication didn't start until my teenage years set in and I seemingly lost my mind.  Being a mother to a twelve year old I now feel the overwhelming need to apologize to my parents for my very existence.  Now that I spend my days in what can only be described as terrorist negotiations, a swamp of cheerios and last nights dinner dishes, I understand better what my parents were talking about when they said "I brought you into this world and I can take you out!"

Being a mother with depression and anxiety disorder presents a whole realm of challenges that I never considered before I decided it was a good idea to procreate.  It honestly never occurred to me that laundry and a dirty kitchen floor could leave me balled up in a corner on the couch crying.  I didn't know that Xanax existed until my second child was 6 months old.  Shouldn't that stuff come standard when you have a child?  "Here!  Have a diaper bag with a months worth of baby supplies and a standing prescription for Xanax, you're going to need it!"

I honestly don't know how some of you mothers do it!  I stand in awe of the women that show up to school and church with a row of tiny duckling little little humans all in a row.  They look like they were sent through a primping assembly line and there's a smile on moms face!  IF I show up at all my hair looks like something out of an 80's magazine my expression is that of a crazy person and there's most likely toilet paper or a baby wipe stuck to the bottom of my shoe.  My kids file in eventually and we most likely can't find my two year old.  You laugh but it's happened!  Their socks never match and I'm not sure when they bathed last but they are usually smiling and that has to count for something right?

The majority of the time I feel broken and put back together, trying to hide my flaws from the world.  I am so thankful for those seemingly perfect women that I see because they show me that there is life out there where depression doesn't cripple human beings.  I am also incredibly thankful for other women who every once in a while show me the broken sides of themselves.  It shows me that there are other mothers out there fighting my same battle and probably using just as much Xanax as I do.

Gloriously Good in Our Flaws

Oh my goodness... I'm not even sure how to begin.  You know that overwhelming feeling where your mind jumps from thought to thought as if your brain and your heart are playing leap frog?  Well many of you do but I hope a good number of you don't.  As someone who suffers from mental illness this is a common feeling.  I leap frog through each day and some days the game is fun and child like and other days it's like losing and getting pushed in the mud. Tonight I feel muddy...

It's not an easy thing this business of living.  It seems to me lately that I am doing it all wrong!  There are so many things to keep track of.  So many things to worry about.  Am I not eating enough dinners at the table with the kids?  Are they going to turn out to be heathens and crazies because mom couldn't cook enough family dinners?  When is the last time they bathed? I had way too many cokes today, I am bound to be morbidly obese.  I should be eating green and clean like everyone else I see on my Facebook feed.  My house is a mess and because unfortunately we rent we are bound to be kicked out.  My son has never potty trained at night so I must be doing something to emotionally scar him.  I mean the struggle is real people!  Without some Xanax this girl is a hot mess!

When did we become such a society of worrisome people?  I know I have always been a worrier and that is a trait that I am sad to report I have passed down to some of my children, possibly by not cooking enough previously mentioned family dinners.  I hate that I worry and I hate that I feel as though I always fall short.  I know so many other people who feel this way and hate the same things about themselves so I am here to say IT'S OK... Take a deep breath... YOU ARE OK!

You are an amazing compilation of gifts and insecurities that make you amazing!  For reasons I cannot explain we are taught to dislike the people that we are.  Instead of being happy with what we have we are constantly bombarded with new ways to change ourselves.  There are labels of every kind that we are slapped with and sent out into the world to be judged upon.  I am so tired of those labels.  I am so tired of falling short of everything that society and the internet and even other people I know and love expect from me.  My soul is tired...Somehow I have to learn to love myself and except what I can and cannot do and refuse to fall victim to the scrutiny of others.  We need to believe that we are enough.  We need to believe that we are great.

This does not mean that we need NOT push to be the best version of ourselves.  We should always strive for greatness.  We need to accept however that some days we will be great and some days we will be good and some days we will simply be lucky to get out of bed.  What matters is that we try and try and try again. Muhammad Ali once said that "Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra power it takes to win when the match is even."  How many times have we been defeated down to the depths of our souls?  I know I have felt that way too many times to count.  I always get back up with new conviction.  Perhaps this is the message behind the madness that we feel and experience, that we come back with conviction and the power to win the fight.

I wish that positivity came easy for me.  I think that we are sometimes scared into being positive all of the time.  Hide the negative, only tell others the positive.  No one wants to hear all that negativity. Well I do...  I want to hear your worst fears and the hopeless feelings that you sometimes have.  I want to know and more importantly I want you to know that you are not alone!  Often when we speak our insecurities and release our demons we can become anew.  We can begin again.  It's our way of coming into emotional Spring, where everything has new growth and new chance.  Where the old insecurities of our emotional Winters die and the new found strength steps out with wobbling legs and endless potential.

This life is hard and it is filled with challenge and defeat but it is also glorious and good!  Be glorious and good in all of your flaws and you will not have failed.  You will have shown others that worry is something that we create to hold ourselves back from reaching for things we never knew we could have.  You are beautifully flawed.  Release that worry into the the air and let it rise to the heavens, where through the Atonement of a loving brother we can be healed and happy.

I Lost A Friend

Tonight everything is good!  Everyone is home and healthy and happy.  Although everything is good and everyone is happy I am fighting a feeling I cannot quite describe.  It is not necessarily dread although that is the word that comes to mind to describe it.  It is almost a feeling of homesickness.  I am homesick for...where?  I don't know!  Maybe I'm just cooped up.  I have not had many nail clients lately and its changed things for me.  I knew that over the summer I wanted to decrease my hours but I thought I would be in charge of it.  I wasn't expecting things to just go dead.  It's like this every summer but I tend to forget and then I panic.  So my days are left to tasks I used to do and time I used to have but they have become so unfamiliar to me.  I feel out of place and out of sorts.  With this extra time comes a feeling of unrest.  I want to leave.  I want to pack my family in our little minivan and go to someplace other than here.  I don't know where it is that I am longing to go.  I think anywhere but here.  The beach?  The city?  I don't know but I know I don't want to be here.  I don't want to see the walls of my house.  I don't want to deal with the cleaning and the dishes and the nails. I just want something new.  I feel like this once and a while.  It's an unsettling feeling.  I've lost my sense of home.  There are days where we hunker down within these walls and just feel at home but I do not feel that lately.  Perhaps that is what I am lonely for, a sense of home.
I have been making changes in my life.  They are much needed changes but they are requiring me to re-evaluate myself and grow out of my comfort zone.  I ended a friendship that has been close to the  center of my world for 11 years.  I had to end it.  It was a negative and draining friendship in the end.
It didn't start that way.  I thought it was the best friendship I had ever had.  This person was my person.  I don't miss this person, I miss who this person was.  This person was the one person besides my husband that I called if ANYTHING went wrong and so now if something goes awry or something big happens I pause for a moment because I don't have my person to call.  So I want to leave and find a place that does not feel unfamiliar because of what I have had to let go.  The problem is that I can travel from place to place and it will not fix what I am feeling.  It must come from within.  I must become "my person".

Tough as Nails

Yesterday I went and got this tattoo and I love it.  I thought so long and hard about this tattoo.  Of course I went back and forth on whether or not I should get it.  I am an active LDS member and I know that tattoos are not something that our church encourages or condones but this tattoo is something just for me.  It is a constant reminder that I can do hard things and have done hard things.  I have struggled so much for the last 3 years.  It's actually been much longer than that but Matt's stroke was the hardest thing I have ever been through.  It became the start of a new life for us and also a new me.  Something inside me died that day and I have spent the last 3 years nurturing the new person that I have become.  Nora's accident was also so hard for me.  I still can't look at air med helicopters without having a panic attack.  Those were two defining moments in my life that changed me forever.  I think that what we have been through in the last three years was harder than anything I've ever experienced and I've been through a lot.  I survived a brain tumor and a rare disease at the age of 19 and that was nothing compared to the last three years.  Recently I was diagnosed with Addison's disease.  I have been completely depleted of energy.  I can't find a balance between being mom, wife, working full time as a nail technician and raising my kids.  I was really struggling before the diagnosis and now I just feel helpless.  The other night I was watching one of my favorite TV shows and one of the characters lost her baby.  She said something that really got to me because it was the first time someone had said what I feel out loud.  She said "This isn't fair. It isn't just.  And I have spent my life believing in a God who is just.  He gave me a calling and I followed it...I finally feel like I am becoming the person that he wants me to be...and then this?  To be handed this?!  It's cruel.  And I feel like God is laughing at me.  If this is a test, I fail.  All these years trusting and believing and praying...and if this were just, even a tiny bit, then I could maybe...I can't..."
Now before anyone freaks out and thinks I've lost faith or don't believe in God I have to say this.  I love my Heavenly Father.  I know that he has a plan for me and that he loves me too.  I do believe however that part of the plan of salvation included our ability to mourn and question what we know to be true.  There are days where I feel like I am being punished for something.  That God is sending hard things my way because he is unhappy with me but those are the days that the fibromyalgia, Addison's disease, work, house, kids, everything piles up and crashes down on me.  Those are my pity days.  They don't happen too often but when they do I cry and I struggle and I feel DONE.  Then I have days where I know that I CAN DO HARD THINGS.  There are days when I finish work at 10pm and am dead tired but I feel like I accomplished so much in taking care of my family.
I know that my Heavenly Father hears and answers my prayers.  I know that he loves me and that I am his daughter.  Satan also knows this and works on me everyday.  It is hard.  These are the days that I need to be reminded that I CAN DO HARD THINGS.  These are the days that instead of taking up drinking or giving up I tell myself over and over these 5 words.  I CAN DO HARD THINGS.  So even though there are days where nothing seems fair or just and I feel like I am being handed way too much I know that I can handle anything that God needs me to with his help.  I know that he loves me.  I know....I just have to remind myself sometimes that he made me tough as nails.

Shenanigans

Tomorrow I am doing something I HATE doing.  Something so scary and dreadful.  Something that I should have done a long time ago.  I am going to the dentist.  UGH!!!  I will be honest here, I haven't been to the dentist in six months and 7 and 1/2 years.  When I put it like that it doesn't seem so bad does it?  8 years I've let myself go without seeing a dentist.  Of course nothing hurt until tonight and now every little thing has me crazy worried that they are going to have to do hundreds of dollars worth of work on my teeth and it's gonna hurt!  Of course I brushed them like crazy tonight and at a 45 degree angle just like they showed the kids so that the gums get clean.  Then I spent the next 5 minutes looking at them in the mirror and finding all of the spots that could be cavities.  One tooth hurts in particular now and I am convinced that it's going to need a root canal or some other horribly painful procedure because that's just how I roll!
I don't know how I get myself mixed up in these shenanigans.  My niece works at the dental office and so I took my kids in for their regular visits.  YES I take my kids to the dentist every 6 months.  I am not an irresponsible mother, just irresponsible when it comes to taking care of myself.  Well I took Claire and Ivan in and because Ivan was so nervous I promised him I would make an appointment if he settled down and let them look at his teeth.  What a stupid promise! My appointment is on Friday the 13th as well.  Oh Geez...
Well it's a good thing we are getting our tax return because man I think we are in for a lot of money on this mouth.  Truth be told this appointment was made out of vanity.  If you let them clean your teeth and do all of your work there they will give you free teeth whitening for life.  They make the trays that custom fit your teeth and then give you whitening gel 6 months at a time.  I look at and talk to people all day which means that people are looking at and talking to me all day as well.  I want my teeth to be amazing.  I want that "Mentos" smile.
Because I am a nail technician it is important for me to look my best.  I try and dress business casual and a bit trendy so that people can tell I am up to date on the world.  The hair and nail industry follows fashion trends as well and so it is important to wear clothing that reflects the latest trends and shows that although you are sitting behind a nail table and being covered in dust all day that you care about what you look like.  Well I want my teeth to match!
So tomorrow I will take myself to the dentist and I will be brave.  I am going to take my earbuds and listen to my music or a show and just let them do their thing.  I will not let them lecture me though.  I will let them know up front I am happy to have the work that needs to be done but do not lecture me on the amount of time in which I haven't been to the dentist.  I think that is a big part of why I haven't gone yet, I don't want to hear it.  So wish me luck!  Here's to the whitest teeth a girl can have!

Why I Am Insane

They say the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results."  Well then by all means I am INSANE.  Although we all knew this.  I have decided that this whole being a mom thing is just not something that I am good at.  I know it's a little late after 5 kids but I give up.  I sit at a nail table in my living room all day and work and work so that we will have the money to support these children and they don't care.  They just don't care.  I put them in the best schools so that they have the opportunity to have more than I do and they don't care.  I buy them nice things and they destroy them because they just don't care.  Somewhere along the way they learned not to care and I didn't think that I was the kind of mother to teach them that.
I am to the point where I give up.  They do what they want when they want, they talk to me with total disrespect and they know that because I'm behind the nail table with a client that there is nothing I can do.  I am so tired of friends and their "if I had talked to my parents that way..." comments.  What am I supposed to do?  It has become nearly impossible to discipline our children anymore.  If we spank we get turned in for child abuse and I'm sorry but grounding them or taking things away does nothing.  I was better at this at one point.  I had it down when there was only three of them.  I knew what to do and how to get things done when I wasn't a working mom but now that I have to work they seem to have lost all respect for me.  It's like they don't care about me or my existence.  I am ready to walk out for a while and see if it would make a bit of difference to them.
I would be lying if I said that I don't care about them anymore.  It breaks my heart everyday.  I spend so much of my time worrying and crying because they don't seem to care.  It hurts so much.  I don't know what to do to fix this.  I just seem to be "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results."  And that is why I am INSANE.

Living Through Trauma

      Today was a hard day for a very dear friend and her family as well as my family and I.  A very close friend of ours had a hysterectomy and did not recover from the anesthesia.  We just got home from the hospital.  She was moved from our local hospital to one in the big city near by so that she could receive proper care.  In the beginning they thought that she had suffered a stroke but after a CT scan and an evaluation from a neurologist they are saying that it is more likely that she has had an allergic reaction to a medication and cannot come out of it yet.  She will open her eyes and try to look around but they roll back in her head and she has not spoken at all since the surgery.  She has spasticity in her arms and legs and her blood pressure keeps dropping.  We are asking everyone we know and even those we don't to pray for her.  She is so important to so many people and she needs to come out of this.

It was hard to watch this family grieving the way that they were because it took me straight back to Matt's stroke.  I watched her husband and daughter go through the same stages of grief and shock that I did and unfortunately there was nothing I could do to help them.  When something traumatic happens the mind protects itself by completing each stage of grief and then repeating them in no particular order.  There is nothing anyone can do or say that will make it stop or make it better.  You have to feel what you need to feel and then move to the next stage.  There are those that try and comfort by telling you to have faith and to rely on God but at first those words don't necessarily comfort.  You know that God is watching.  You may ask why and if you really pay attention in small moments of clarity you will get your answers.  You will see why things happen the way they do but each individual needs to discover those answers for themselves.  You know that faith is needed and that prayer is necessary and being reminded over and over in the moment does not necessarily help.  

After the initial trauma is over and you have had a chance to assess the situation and wrap your mind around what to do next and how to put the pieces of your heart back together one by one you can begin to listen to others tell you to have faith and to pray and know that God will take care of you.  This is needed but in my experience it was needed after the initial trauma.  I knew that God was in charge and hearing it while I was going through the stages of grief only made me angry.  I knew that God would take my husband if he needed to and that either way he would be okay but in the initial moments of trauma I didn't want to hear that!  I wanted my husband to live!  The next day when I had been able to sleep a little then I could begin to accept that God was in charge and acknowledge that his hand was guiding us.

I think that many people mistake faith for avoidance.  There is a big difference between having faith and avoiding what you are feeling.  If you are feeling mad you need to FEEL it!  If you are feeling heartbroken you need to FEEL it!  Faith will give you answers and help you move past the anger and the heartbreak but if you refuse to feel what you need to feel then you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle.  Our Heavenly Father gave us the ability to feel these emotions because he knew that we must feel extreme sadness in order to feel extreme joy.  Often times these feelings can lead to deep introspective that in turn can change your life.  For me, the reality that I might lose my husband and the extreme desperation and heartache that came with that helped me to look inside myself and find a renewed testimony of the Plan of Salvation and eternal families.  I found such comfort in the knowledge that we were sealed together as husband and wife for all eternity.  I knew that if he left this earthly life early that he wasn't going anywhere I couldn't follow.  It would feel like an eternity until I joined him but I would indeed join him.

I look back through the massive traumas that we have encountered and I am actually thankful.  Sure it would have been nice not to have to learn the lessons that I learned through those particular incidents.  It would have been nice to have had my testimony of eternal marriage strengthened without watching my husband dying and it would have been nice not to learn to never take your children for granted without having one hit by a car but this is how the Lord teaches us.  This life was meant to be a hands on lesson in so many things.  If you are not living it hands on then you are missing out on so many things.  If you are not living it hands on then you aren't truly living at all.

Happy Third Survival Anniversary!!!!

Three years ago today our lives changed forever.  Three years ago today my husband left to go to work and had a mini stroke in the driveway.  I took him to the local hospital to make sure that his shunt was still working and right in front of my eyes he had a massive stroke.  The artery on the right side of his brain burst and I watched him flatline in front of me.  I watched them start his heart and load him onto life flight and there they went with the glue that holds my life together.  I couldn't let this day pass without writing about it here on this blog.  I couldn't let this day pass without thanking my Heavenly Father and those doctors and nurses who took care of us during his month long stay at the University of Utah hospital.  It became our home away from home.  I barely saw my children during the entire month but I was where I was needed most.
These last 3 years have been the hardest we have ever had to endure during our thirteen year journey together.  We lost everything.  We were our own little ground zero.  A mess of trauma and tears, separation and fear.  Fear that we would lose our Daddy and my amazing husband.  These last three years have tested us in ways that we never could have imagined.  We have started rebuilding and although it has been a slow process we are starting to see our lives rise from the wreckage of that damned stroke.  My husband is a fighter.  I am so proud of what he has overcome in the last 3 years.  Somewhere whether he knows it or not during those first few hours of that stroke he made the decision to stay with us and fight.  I saw him fight everyday in that hospital.  Some days were good and some days were horrible but we were together and he stayed with me.
I didn't even realize that today was his survival anniversary until half way through the morning.  I am shocked that it didn't dawn on me a few days ago that it was close.  This means that I am healing.  This stroke has lost so much of it's power over us and I am so thankful.  I know the Lord has so much in store for us.  I can feel the changes coming.  I don't know what they will be or when they will happen but we are going to be on our feet again.  We can do hard things!!!

Matt's first day home from outpatient therapy

The staples where they took out the old shunt that failed during the stroke

our little family visiting together in the stroke rehab unit

our first family dinner after the stroke in the hospital cafeteria 

just after surgery number 3 following the stroke, he was doing rather well

cuddling with kids in stroke rehab.  we visited daddy everyday

more staples.  we couldn't even count at this point

day 2 after stroke, he was hanging in there but not breathing well

in stroke rehab and happy to be there

I think I will hate the sight of these for the rest of my life

Hanging out in daddy's room

the day before he got to come home the rehab team took us to the museum to test matts walking abilities

the morning after matt got out of surgery.  Breathing tube is out but he's not looking too hot

more staples

first dinner as a family.  Ivan missed his daddy

just wishing he would wake up

notice the facial swelling on the left, that's where they removed his skull

For those of you that have not heard or experienced the last three years with us, here is the blog post I wrote the day after Matt's stroke:

Today was probably one of the hardest days of my life and I know it was the hardest day of Matt's life. I will say however that reflecting on the events of today it is easy to see how the Lord guided us through every step and every decision we made and left my husband here on earth with me. We are not out of the woods, he has not woken up completely but there is neurological function where before the was none. It has been a long hard day but I will start at the beginning and try to tell you everything that happened.
Matt woke up to go to work this morning and was having a hard time. He was pretty grumpy which is rare for him. He woke me up to say goodbye and I asked him to stay home. We have not had a lot of time together lately and I missed him. Being the faithful employee that he is, he said he could not stay home and headed out the door to work. Being the lazy bed head that I am, I was not out of bed yet. About 10 seconds after Matt left his father Paul had a prompting from the holy ghost to look out the window and when he did he found Matt lying on the ground. He ran out and Matt was just coming around, he had lost consciousness. Paul helped him inside and the kids alerted me that he had fallen. I rushed downstairs and he was on the couch with an ice pack on his forehead where he had hit.
We decided that we better have the shunt evaluated so we got kids off to school and the neighbors and headed for Tooele hospital. On the way he became very nauseated and began vomiting. When we got there he could not walk into the hospital so I grabbed a wheel chair and rushed him inside. I checked him in and we headed to a room in the ER. When we tried to help him out of the chair and into the bed I noticed he could not open his left eye. Honestly I thought he was faking at first just to freak me out, he loves to do that. He tried to talk to the nurse and I but his speech was very slurred and the left side of his face was drooping. It was then that he lost control of his bladder and we knew something was seriously wrong. He was having a stroke right in front of me. They wheeled him to the trauma room and things went from bad to worse. He could no longer breath on his own and so they began cutting off his clothes and intubating him. I was watching from the corner in the room. He was foaming from his mouth and began posturing (worse than a seizure, nurse said you don't usually come back from that) on his right side. They then took him to CT where they found a very large 3 inch hematoma. From there they got him ready and loaded into the air-med helicopter.
My inlaws had come to the hospital and drove me up to the U of U. When I got here he was already in surgery. The trauma surgeon came out to talk to me. He said that there was no neuro function but they did not know if that was from the medication or if he would regain neuro function. We were taken to the surgery waiting room where we stayed for five and a half hours while they worked on him. At one point they came out to tell us they were trying to decide whether to keep the part of the skull they had removed or use a plate. After it was all over the surgeon came to speak with us. He said that Matt's trauma was very severe. He said that when he came in he was on step above brain dead. He explained that they were able to save the bone and that it was an artery that had burst. Matt was a very lucky man according to the surgeon but I prefer blessed :)
From there it was another 3 hours until I could see him. When I did see him he was still intubated and could not open his eyes but he squeezed my hand with his good hand. He was restrained so as not to pull out the breathing tube. They were also using a tube to empty his stomach and he did not like that at all. He didn't know where he was and I can imagine that was very frustrating to him. The night went well and at 6 am his stats were well enough to remove the ventilator. When they took it out they asked him if he knew who I was and he said " that's my wife, I want her...I always want her." I have never been more happy to hear his voice. My heart took a picture.

Forgotten

It's been so long since I have blogged, probably due to the fact that we have no working computer. You have to forgive any errors or autocorrect issues. So much has happened in our lives. I had a baby boy a year ago and if I'm not mistaken I've posted pictures of our Walker on here. Well I've had a lot of issues through this last year that led to the need for a hysterectomy. I got to keep one ovary but there was a 3.9 cm cyst on the left overy that was causing so much pain. They removed it and are checking it for cancer. That has been a little unnerving but I'm not thinking about it too much. We got to the bottom of why I haven't felt good for the last year. I was diagnosed with Addison's disease. This means my adrenal glands have just had enough and are not working anymore. So now I get to take steroids to substitute the adrenalin I'm missing. I can't tell if there's a difference yet because I'm still healing from the surgery but time will tell. I've had a lot of help from my relief society at church, they have brought meals and taken kids and helped around the house. I have been discouraged because the friends that I go out of my way to help have been absent. It's hard to feel like you have no one. I guess I've been focusing my energies in the wrong places. I should have been focusing my energy on the people around me that really care. I honestly just feel like shutting myself up in my house and leaving the world to itself. I think this surgery has just really effected me more than I thought it would. I'm trying to deal with big stuff and it's all drama because of the medications I'm on and the adjustment to this disease I have. I'm just overwhelmed.

Gratitude and peace

Had an awesome experience I wanted to share. I have really been struggling with life in general since the baby was born. Our circumstances are very hard although I have to say we are blessed! I've been missing days past. Missing the days in our old house here in Tooele before we moved to Arizona. Missing Arizona and our beautiful house and friends there and longing to go back in time. 

I had the opportunity to talk to an amazing friend and read some inspiring words from the ensign that showed me that I was letting fear interfere with my faith. 

I talked with a some more amazing friends and came to the conclusion that I had to stop praying for things to be what they were. Those experiences are in the past for a reason and I was meant to learn from them, build on them, not relive them. I stopped praying for things to get better. I stopped praying for a miracle and instead began praying that I would be at peace with where we are, the circumstances we live in and the things that we have. It did not come at once. A few weeks have gone by and I do find my mind wandering back to easier times but today I received an answer to my prayer. I left the house to walk up the street to get Naomi from preschool and as I walked across the lawn it just kind of came to me. This thought and feeling of gratitude! Gratitude for the house that we love in, for the fact that as I leave my house to pick up Naomi I have 3 other friends headed the same place and their lies warm my heart. I am so grateful for everything we've been blessed with! I cannot begin to list the many charitable acts performed for us daily by friends and especially family. Without my father in law we wouldn't have a home. I will admit some fear creeped in and I though "what if we lose this?" But I quickly pushed it aside. I got the answer I had been praying for, my heart was softened and I feel true gratitude for where we are in our lives. I can testify that prayer works! I have a testimony that God listens intently to the pleadings of even the most desperate housewife a and I know that if we can be happy with where we are, God will get us where we are supposed to be.

Damaged but Brave

A friend of mine has posed some questions to me.  She wants to know about stroke aftermath, "Whats normal and what's not etc."  I have been thinking about what I can say to her.  Unfortunately she and her family have been blind sided by their father having a stroke.  I don't know what to tell her because there is so much heart break involved in surviving a stroke, both for the victim and the family.  In my opinion everyone is a victim when it comes to a stroke. There are people out there that refuse to be classified as victims and I wish so much that I knew their secret because it has hit every aspect of our lives and sent us spinning out of control.  There is no word that describes how I felt when Matt had his stroke.  It was a moment that he and I shared. A moment that I never in my life thought that we would have to share but there it was staring me in the face.  I looked at him in the ER and asked him what was happening and I'll never forget the way he was trying to answer but couldn't because the words were lost in the trauma that was happening inside his head.  I'll never forget watching the side of his face droop and his eyes roll back in his head.  It still didn't click with me what was happening until I heard water.  I was so confused until I looked down and saw that he had lost complete control of his bladder. At that moment it clicked with me what was happening and I called to the nurse who had just left the room or rather screamed out that he was having a stroke. From there is was complete chaos as they began to work on him to save his life.  I stood quietly in the corner in shock watching everything that was happening and I will forever be haunted by this.  Matt was life flighted to the University of Utah and this became our home for over a month.
Now for the answer to my friends questions.  Unfortunately with strokes there is no normal.  It effects people so differently that normal is not something that exists in the world of stroke survival.  We have been told that things will wax and wane for Matt and as that happens it does so for the rest of the family as well.  After the stroke he was a happy person. He did well with rehab and his behavior toward the family was happy.  After a few months he began to get angry.  The slightest things would set him off.  This is where we sought help through counseling.  On an average day Matt gets up and gets to work on the bus.  He calls me on all of his breaks so that I know that he is okay.  Sometimes he calls twice not knowing that he already called.  There are times where he doesn't know what day it is.  Matt's short term memory was drastically damaged.  Our lives are a constant hunt for keys and work badges and remotes lol.  Chances are if Matt picks it up it gets lost.  But he functions so much better than the prognosis he was given.  We are very blessed. Matt is still able to do his job because that is long term memory.  It is easier for him to be at work than at home and although that is a hard pill for me to swallow, I understand.  I cannot speak for Matt but I do know his life is very frustrating.  He does not talk much about how he feels about the stroke.  For me it is a monster that rears its ugly head daily.  Counseling and medication make my days bearable.  I worry about him constantly.  The smallest thing can bring back memories that break my heart over and over again.  So I don't know what to tell my sweet friend.  There is no normal and not normal.  There is just what there is left after the stroke.  You have to get to know them all over again.  You have to be pliable and forgiving.  You have to release your anger and hatred of that monster stroke into the universe because there is no one to be mad at.  You cant be mad at the survivor and being mad at God will get you nowhere very fast.  I realize that my friend is looking for different kinds of answers.  She wants to know what is neurologically normal and what behaviors to look for. I have read so much and studied up on so much so I can give her those answers but for me the word STROKE holds so much emotion that each time I hear it I either want to curl into a ball and cry or scream at the universe and give it the finger.  Neither gets you anywhere but it happens whether I want it to or not.  I cannot watch a movie without it affecting me.  I cannot go a day without the aftermath of what happened to us.  Because of this stroke all of us are damaged in our own ways but we are re-building and dammit that make us BRAVE.

Spit up and Acrylic

There is nothing in the world like being a working mom. C.S. Lewis once said "The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career."

For 12 years now I have had the ultimate career. I have loved being a homemaker. As a young girl I would occasionally entertain the idea of being a teacher or a veterinarian but I always came back to the idea that I wanted to be a mother. 

Since being married I have had jobs on the side like daycare or an occasional temp position but I have never had a career outside of "the ultimate career"...until now. What do nails and spit up have in common? Me, that's what. An average day around here is full of tears, laughter, macaroni and cheese, bottles and spit up on my newly washed work clothes. In addition to that you'll find acrylic fumes and a large amount of acrylic dust. This summer has proven to be very challenging but I have managed to bring in the clientele I was praying for. God has certainly been good to us. I often feel guilty when I tell people I'm a working mom. There is a stigma that seems to follow it and I'm ashamed to say that I used to fall into the habit of thinking what others think of me now. I used to wonder how in the world women could leave their children for a career that was far less meaningful than "the ultimate career." I have been taught a huge lesson in humility. I have spent days fighting with the children. Sometimes these days are so intense that I completely understand how some women choose to work outside of the home. Some people are better for it. I respect these women. My circumstances being what they are I have  not chosen to work but have had to work to keep a roof over our head. I am blessed to have a career that has allowed me to work from home but it adds so many challenges. This is where the spit up and acrylic nails collide. At the end of the day I have to laugh it off and thank The Lord for both!

Every Now and Then

Today was a good day. Today the kids and I got to spend some time with one of my best friends and her girls, they live in AZ. It was like no time had passed other than the kids are all older. I knew I missed my AZ friends but I didn't realize just how much before today. I love Utah. I never wanted to move to AZ in the first place when Matt was transferred but I knew it was right. I knew it was what The Lord wanted for us. It was so hard to pick up and move away from family and friends here in Utah and head to a place that we knew hardly anything about. What I found out through living there is that The Lord knew we needed the friendships that we made there. We didn't need them to replace the friendships we have here in Utah but to add to them. We met some of the most amazing families in Queen Creek and I thoroughly miss that little community. We were out in no mans land and had to drive quite a ways to get anywhere but I loved it! I miss driving up to the gas station everyday for my coke. I miss daily walks to the park where I could sit and talk to friends while the kids covered themselves head to toe in sand! I miss walking my kids to school everyday in such a tiny community. It was 10 times smaller than Tooele. We lived in a residential area away from the main roads. There were no busy streets and we all knew each other. I loved the diversity among my friends. I miss the landscaping and the parks but most of all I miss the people. I have amazing friends here in Utah and I know that it was The Lord that brought us back home but when we left, a piece of my heart stayed in AZ and every now and then that piece of my heart aches to go back.

Why I Became a Nail Technician

Today was a different day. I usually get up, feed children and get ready to work.  Working from home has been quite a challenge this summer but we're surviving it and my amazing clients are so understanding. My first appointment didn't show and I was a little disappointed until I got a call from the sister missionaries.  I guess that word has traveled that I do free gel for the sisters.  It was meant to be only for the sisters in my area but it was so fun to have 4 sisters in my house and to get to know them.  It had been a hard day and that helped a lot.  This afternoon I had a new client and it was so nice to talk with her.  She too was a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we had the opportunity to talk about things you don't normally talk about during a nail appointment.  It was just what I needed.  After she left I was tired but I kept myself going.  I cleaned up the house and harvested apricots in the front yard.  From there I went to the store and fixed dinner.  It is more than I have done in a month!  It felt so good to be MOM again.  I have struggled so much with being a working mom but today I finally felt like I can do it.  It felt so good to be everything to everyone today.  My schedule has been a little less busy this week and although it worries me a little it is giving me the opportunity to clean, organize and be the mom I want to be to my children.  When Matt had the stroke, I knew that things would never be the same.  It didn't dawn on me that I would have to work and help support the family as much as I do.  Months after the stroke when Matt had gone back to work I was trying to budget what little income we had.  I couldn't make it work and I was at a loss.  The kids were screaming, the house was a mess and I felt so alone.  It dawned on me that I should get on my knees and pray.  I couldn't find a quiet place in our crazy house so I secluded myself to the bathroom.  I was hoping the kids wouldn't come looking for me or pound on the door.  I needed to speak to my Father in Heaven.  I poured out my heart.  I laid everything on him.  I let him know how scared I was, how I didn't know if my husband was ever going to get better.  I was so afraid that he was going to die and I would be here with the children and no way to support them.  After a while I got the impression that education was the key.  I had been talking to Matt for years about how I would love to nails and the thought came to me that I should give it a try.  I never expected my Father in Heaven to be so specific but the minute I decided I was going to go to nail school I felt calm.  I talked that night with Matt and later that week with the bishop and it was reaffirmed to me that I should follow the promptings I was getting from the Lord.  It was then that a whole new chapter of my life started.  The rest of the story will be told another day.  This experience has taught me to go for it!  If it's hard and scary, hit it head on!  I am so thankful for the strength that this experience gave me.  I'm so thankful for a Savior that loves me enough to talk me into something as crazy as nail school.  He knew that it would be just what my family needed.

To Become Real

“To become a real boy, you must prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish.” 

― Pinocchio

                 I have wondered as of late and often voiced my thoughts and questions on a subject that has poked and gnawed at me. I have wondered when we will finally be "real people."  To me this idea of "real people" means that we wont struggle with our finances, in fact we will have enough to meet our needs and save for rainy days because we seem to have quite a few of those in our forecast! It means that we will join the land of vacations and campers and children playing sports or twirling through ballet class as they have always wanted.  I have seen these "real people." In fact I know some of them and they seem to be some of the nicest kinds of people!  I had wondered if someday a switch would flip and we would suddenly be a part of this group.  I guess I had kind of hoped it would happen that way but past experience has shown me differently.  We were on our way to being "real people" once! We were hiking that path! We had the house, we had owned three of them in fact! Not all at once but we were actually grown up enough to be aware of how to buy and sell a house! we had the nice minivan that I cleaned out once a week and drove back and forth to the store to buy the items I had so carefully price matched. I only had two kids then as opposed to my crazy 5 now but things were working and I felt like an adult.  I knew we weren't quite where some others were but we were headed for "real."
Now, after an abundance of trials we have no house to call our own.  We live in a house but it is not one that is ours and as much as we want it to be it probably won't.  We are very blessed to pay a very small amount of rent but even then, most months it is hard to pay even that. I knew things were at their worst a year and a half ago. We were as far from being "real people" as we could ever be and so I prayed. I prayed so hard and got a clear answer.  I put myself through nail technician school and it has been the best thing that could have happened to this family right now.  It helps to fill those gaps when the paycheck can't stretch any further.  I thought then that we were closer to real but we are still as far as ever.  I just wonder at our age how in the world we are going to make it to real.  My dad was 10 years away from retirement at our age and we have very little retirement to look forward to.  I will do nails until the day I die or we won't eat! It is hard to see some of our friends hitting the milestones that we so badly want to hit but are so far from but we are undoubtedly happy for them! we celebrate for them and have nothing but happiness for their success.  It is well earned and well deserved.  We have had to start over earning our "real people" status and that is discouraging but we'll get there someday, wont we?

Hold Your Tongue!

I had an experience over the last few days that has left me rattled and discouraged. My husband and I took our kids on a vacation and we got to see a lot of family members we don't usually see. As we were swimming with the family one of our dearest family members told Matt and I that we need to lose weight. She also told us that when she saw us she "just felt sick"

I am not handling this well. I guess a little background on us will help you to see just why this was so heart wrenching to me.

At the age of 18 I got very sick with a cancer like disease called cushings disease. My poor 160 pound body ballooned up to 360 pounds within a year! It took the doctors so long to find the problem and diagnose it as something more than just obesity. The cause of it all was a tumor beneath my brain surrounding my pituitary gland. I had NO control over my body or my weight gain. At one point I starved myself, praying that the fat would melt away. After the removal of the tumor I lost over 100 pounds and then I got married and started having babies! My poor body has housed 5 living children and is tired. I have lost 46 pounds since the birth of my last child though and it has been hard work! I have been so proud that my skinny jeans are baggy and that I need a new pair! So for her to tell me that the sight of me made her sick was especially devastating. Matt takes these things better than I do. Matt has had a stroke and life for him is very hard. If only she could see past his physical limitations, she would see the amazingly sexy man I married. I guess we all say the wrong things at the wrong times but as a whole we need to just hold our tongues!!

Breaking ground

You come to a point in your life where you can continue on one path because it's easy and comfortable or you can change your path and find happiness through hard, hard trials. I am at such a point in my life. What's comfortable is no longer acceptable for me. What's comfortable has become hateful and hurtful. I'm changing my path which includes building some walls, thick walls. No letting people in so quickly. I would be perfectly happy to just be with my little family in our little house all of the time but I guess that can't happen. It will as much as possible though! I'm tired of friendships that are more work than anything. I'm tired of giving an inch and being dragged a mile. I just want love and comfort in my own home. It's going to take some growing and a lot of building but I do believe it's time to break ground.

Always something to be grateful for

Our little family sure has been tested and tried in the last 3 years. We lost our home in AZ after Matt had to have several Neuro surgeries. We almost lost Matt to a stroke, my daughter was hit by a car. 2 kids were hospitalized for severe infections and Nora broke her wrist last week! It sure doesn't seem to make much sense why we have been through so much but someday it will. In the meantime we have been so blessed. We lost our home in AZ and were able to move back home to be with family. We have a roof over our head due to extreme generosity from our dad. Matt had several Neuro surgeries that will keep him here with us longer. Matt survived his massive stroke and it taught us all that we are stronger than we ever thought we were. Nora was hit by a car and as a result we learned the incredible power of forgiveness and now have new friends that we absolutely love! Our 2 kids that were hospitalized for infections qualified for Medicaid so we were not hit with extreme medical bills. And in a all of this chaos our little Walker was born. For some reason he chose us! We have been extremely challenged in the last 3 years but more than that we have been EXTREMELY blessed.

Life These Days

Life is so different these days. Being a working mom is not something I ever wanted to do but I must say I have it so good. I love what I do and I get to do it from home so I see my children as much as ever. There are some days when that's not such a good thing! They can be very difficult during nail appointments sometimes but luckily I have the best clients in the world and they understand. I never imagined that my career in nails would take off the way it has! The Lord has blessed us in so many ways. I am so thankful to our roommates for their help with kiddos during nail appointments. 

We are headed for big changes here. Next week I have my tubes blocked so that we cannot have anymore children. As of now I am excited about that. I'm sure there will be a little bit of sadness, we're closing a chapter in our lives but a new and fun one is starting! I have to say I will miss having babies in the house . They are so amazing. Everyday I fall more and more in love with Walker. He's perfect. He's a lot of work but worth all the effort. I'm so grateful for all that we have. Life for us has been a struggle, things have not come easy but I'm happy. 

Overdue Update

It has been entirely too long since I have posted and several people have asked me if I still keep a blog so I HAVE to update more regularly! So much has happened in our little world! Nora had her third and final surgery for her broken femur. It broke in her accident. They took the rods out that were holding the bone in place while it healed and everything went very smoothly! She is doing great. She has a little bit of a limp but with time I'm sure that will be corrected. I had the opportunity to work in a salon here in Tooele and learned a lot from that experience. I only worked there for 3 1/2 months before I needed to quit. It was a hard decision but it wasn't working for our family and the OB said I needed rest. This pregnancy has been very challenging. My body is so run down after years of consecutive pregnancies, fibromyalgia, Cushing Disease, a brain tumor and several other ailments. I feel so much peace knowing that this will be our last child. I am anxious to have my tubes tied! I am currently sitting around waiting for this baby to arrive. I have a very hard time walking. There is something wrong with my pelvis, it's either cracked or dislocated. So I sit and wait and hope that my water will break. I'm 39 weeks this Thursday and hoping they can induce me. This last weeks appointment was very discouraging. I was still dialated to a three and the baby was very high. He was at a -2 station so the doctor could not schedule an induction. I just cried. My poor doctor was so sweet. He just hugged me while I cried. I will be so relieved when this baby comes. We are very blessed to be adding this little boy to our family and I am thankful for him everyday.