SYTYCD - My Guilty Pleasure

Yes, I'm talking about So You Think You Can Dance again. So?

Is anyone else surprised about the top 4? I'm glad Kayla, Janine, and definitely Brandon made it, but Evan - seriously? I've been surprised each week when he's made it through to the next round. I think he got the puppy dog vote. But, as my husband keeps reminding me, it's America's favorite dancer not necessarily the best dancer that wins. Speaking of the best - is Brandon even from this planet??? HOLY COW:



And this piece between Kayla and Brandon has been added to my list of top favorites. It is a contemporary piece and suppose to be about a mistress who can't find the strength to leave her married man. Not that I condone that, but this is pretty intense. I love the lines in it and think it is danced to perfection. Chills, chills, and more chills...

Funny Boys

My kids crack me up. A lot. Not that they are comedians per se, but the way their minds work and the things they come up with are a constant source of entertainment to me. Unfortunately, only a tiny handful of those things get immortalized on this blog because I usually try to make a mental note to include it later but then life happens and I forget. Anyway... that being said, I thought I would note a few things that made me laugh as of late.

Exhibit 1: This was a while ago, but Little J asked me when Little Miss's penis was going to grow. Hmmm.... This began a frank discussion on the fact that girls do not indeed pee out their bum holes.

Exhibit 2: The boys have recently gotten back into playing Rock Band. Consequently, Little Man has been going around singing, "Ooh! Oh! We're half-way there! Ooh! Oh!" Except he says we're half-way here and that's the only line he knows. Every once in a while he'll throw in a "Take my hand..." but it's pretty much a continuous loop of the one line punctuated with ooh ohs. (*For any of you who do not recognize that song - shame on you, but that is beside the point - it is Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer). They now also know the words to Eye of the Tiger, so I consider Rock Band time spent on an essential education. ;-)

Exhibit 3: Big J and Little J are often concocting plans, as you are well aware. A couple of weeks ago they decided to turn their room into "Robots Inc." They tried to convince me to let them set up shop in the attic, much to their disappointment. Big J was deemed the scientist and Little J was the one in charge of building the robots. They posted signs around indicating this, including a few on their door. However, I recently noticed a few ammendments had been made to the signs:

If you can't read it, what was added says: "If a friend or a family member has trouble reading this, pleas help them!"

Added to include: "He still needs: a desk, tubes, beakers, chemicals, guinea pigs, fish and hamsters."

Oh, the woes of a struggling business!

And last, but not least, Exhibit 4: The boys were watching an animated DVD about the Maccabees and I overheard Little J ask Big J, "Are we Jewish? We're not Jewish are we?" to which Big J replied, exasperated,

"No! We're half Mexican!"

Little Miss - One Month Old

The Perfect Storm Part 2

If you haven't read about my "perfect storm" yet, go here first. Here is the continuation:

So I came home Thursday night after being in the hospital for 2 days. Friday things seemed to be going well. I went to bed around 11:30 after feeding Little Miss. About 2:00 a.m. I woke up suddenly. The best way I can describe it is how people wake up in the movies when they are having a nightmare, only I wasn't having a nightmare (of that kind, anyway). I sat straight up in bed with a huge gasp. I don't know exactly what happened, but I think I had stopped breathing.

I could tell something was just wrong. I felt for my pulse. It took me a second to find it because it was so weak. I timed my pulse. And I timed it again. And again. I thought I was doing it wrong because I never got a pulse above 36. JC kept insisting that couldn't be right. I was coherent and talking and could walk. Again, I kept thinking something was just weird and I didn't really have a pulse that low. So basically, it wasn't until about an hour later when I went and woke my mom up that we went to the ER. At least someone was thinking straight!

When they took me back, I know the nurses were dubious about how low my heart rate actually was. But as soon as they hooked me up, I could tell on the nurse's face that something was very wrong. She kept staring at the monitor and finally says, "You are low..." and hustles out the door. I look up at the monitor and it says my pulse is 32. The next thing I know I have people hooking feeds up to me and sticking an IV in my arm and all kinds of stuff. They took my blood pressure. Then switched the arm and took it again to make sure it was right. That is because my blood pressure was 214/107! They gave me a dose of high blood pressure medicine to get it under control.

The doctor came in and basically said they didn't have any idea why/how my pulse could be so low and my blood pressure so high. They sent me off for a CT of my heart. It came back fine. Then they admitted me to the hospital.

I was in the hospital from Saturday early morning through Tuesday late afternoon. I was continuously hooked up to a heart monitor, and for the first 24 hours, a saline IV to flush out my system. For the first couple of days, my pulse stayed in the 40s, dipping into the 30s when I slept. Then it started hanging out in the 50s, but still dipping. The last days I was there it was staying in the 50s - 60s. My blood pressure was all over the place. They gave me blood pressure medicine to keep it under control. I was continually dizzy. I had an echo cardiogram done, a head CT, an MRI, blood work, urine samples, etc. etc. and they couldn't find anything wrong at all.

On Sunday morning about 4:00 a.m. I started to break out in hives on my legs. It was nothing compared to before, but they were coming back. So the nurse gave me an IV steroid and Benadryl through the IV. When she gave me the Benadryl, I immediately felt something was wrong. It is hard to describe, but it was like I could feel a heaviness over my entire chest and in my throat. I told her something was wrong and to take my vitals again. She had just taken them about 3 minutes before she gave me the IV. She took them again and my pulse had dropped by about 10 and my blood pressure was up. She started making phone calls because apparently no one reacts to Benadryl - it's the drug they give people to counteract reactions.

Thankfully, the pressure feeling passed and everything was ok. But it was obvious I had had a reaction to the Benadryl. I told her it is probably because I had been juiced up on it since Monday. I think I was OD'd on it. Needless to say, I was scared to go to sleep again. You know it's a bad sign when the nurse is trying to comfort you by telling you that they are monitoring your heart continuously and that if something did happen, they had their handy little atropine shot taped to your bed for immediate use.

The next day they wanted to give me an oral antihistamine and steroid to keep the hives at bay, but I wouldn't take them. I was freaked out and basically had a mini meltdown on them. I wasn't rude or anything, but I'm sure they made note of the crazy lady in room 15. I was mad, though. I felt like I had been there and no one was doing anything except trying to give me more drugs and no one had any answers. The cardiologist who was assigned rounds had spent a total of about one minute with me. On top of that, they had moved another lady in the room with me and so now I was in this little cramped room where there was no way all my, shall we say "energetic", kids could come and see me. And I missed my new baby. A lot.

The new shift of nurses were the ones who got the benefit of the meltdown, but they were very kind and did what they could to make me happier. They didn't make me feel dumb for not wanting to take the additional meds especially since no one could say whether or not all the meds I was on was what had put me in there in the first place. They moved me to a private room so the boys could come up without disturbing (or harming) any other patient. They unhooked me from everything and let me take a shower. And the atropine shot was moved to the wall instead of taped right on my bed. JC and my mom brought the kids up and that raised my spirits. They would come up once a day, and then JC would come back at night, usually with the baby.

But there were still no answers. There still are no answers. They kept me monitored and kept giving me the high blood pressure medicine. I was still dizzy. And my heart rate would change quite a bit between lying down, sitting up, and standing. But by Tuesday my pulse was staying in the 60s and my blood pressure was under control, so I was discharged that afternoon. I was pretty wiped out, but now that I've been home for a few days the dizziness is less and I don't feel as wasted.

I am taking Norvasc for high blood pressure and have to wear a heart monitor 24/7 with live monitoring for 3 weeks and then I will see a cardiologist. The best they could tell me is that it was probably just a one-time glitch that my body spazzed out because it brewed the perfect storm with being postpartum, having such a severe allergic reaction, being on so many meds, etc. I hope that is the case and things will get back to normal.

I feel like I have always been grateful for my strong, healthy body, but something like this really makes you value your health even more. My hat is off to those people who have to deal with a chronic illness, because just dealing with this for the past week has been one of the toughest things I've ever done. I was having to give myself positive pep talks, just so I wouldn't get demoralized. And that was just dealing with it for a few days!

Something like this affects everyone. I feel bad for my parents. I feel bad for JC - I think he lost about 10 pounds and got about 150 more gray hairs. I feel bad for my kids. Little Man still doesn't want to go anywhere without me. I feel bad for Little Miss. I've never been away from any of my kids when they were this young. And because of all this, the time away, and the medication I'm on, I'm not able to nurse Little Miss anymore which made me sad. It still makes me sad. I had already gone through the crappy part at the beginning and things were getting good and then I had to stop abruptly. Not that I'm a nipple nazi and think you are a bad mom if you give your kid formula, but I guess I never fully appreciated being able to breastfeed my kids until that choice was taken away. I guess the bright side of it is that JC got more bonding time than he has ever had with any of our new babies.

I want to send a special THANK YOU out to my mom. I am so so so grateful that she was here during the week. She kept the house intact and running, kept the kids fed, clothed, and entertained, and enabled JC to be up at the hospital with me. Mom, you are a ROCK STAR. I know it was exhausting. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I will keep you posted on any changes or on the follow-up when I see the cardiologist. Thanks for your well-wishes and prayers!

The Perfect Storm Part 1

The last week has been an interesting, scary, not fun experience for me. As some of you know, I have been in and out of the hospital. Here is the story:

Let me preface this by saying, I am 4 weeks postpartum. So who knows what role that has had in all of this. Our bodies are amazing, but something like creating and then delivering another human being can do strange things to it.

A couple of weeks ago, I got mastitis. I don't know why I am prone to this infection, but I have had it at least once (sometimes more) with each of my kids. I was happy that this time I caught it coming on early and nipped it in the bud, because the last time I had it with Little Man I was sick in bed for a week with a 103 fever and it totally kicked my butt. When I woke up with it this time, I called the doctor and they called me in an antibiotic that day. Let me also preface all this by saying I have never ever had any type of reaction to anything.

So I was suppose to be on the antibiotics (dicloxacill) for 10 days. On day 8 (Sunday the 5th), I woke up and was wiping down the kitchen table before breakfast and noticed what I thought were a few mosquito bites on the inside of my right arm. We had been out for the 4th of July the night before, so I didn't think anything of it. But as the day wore on, my "mosquito bites" started multiplying. I've never had hives before and so I was totally naive to what was going on. I seriously thought there was a bug following me around and biting me. I changed my clothes, my sheets, showered, all in trying to get whatever was biting me to stop. Duh! By the time JC and the boys got home from church, my arms were covered.

As I said, I have never had hives before, but from the little bit I knew, I thought they usually came and went within 24 hours. So I put some cortizone on them for the itching and didn't think much more about it. Monday morning I woke up and my arms, torso, chest, and the lower part of my face were covered. I was running a 101 - 102 fever. I called the doctor and told them what was happening, they told me to stop taking the medicine, start taking 50 mg of Benadryl around the clock, and that they were calling in another prescription since I hadn't finished the antibiotic round. They called in cephalexin, not in the penicillin family, but come to find out later, there is a 10 -20% crossover rate for people who are allergic to penicillins to also react with cephalasporins. I only took two of those and then didn't take anymore because the hives were getting worse.

And when I say worse, I mean that we are not talking about a few spots here and there. We're not even talking about spots anymore. They were like giant areas that were raised, red, burning hot, and extremely, painfully itchy. They started to spread to my legs and cover any remaining area of skin they hadn't already. I had hives on the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. I took cold oatmeal baths, cold showers, wrapped my legs and arms in wet towels, used an entire bottle of calamine lotion in one day, all in the name of finding relief. This is on top of the Benadryl every 4 hours. There was no relief. I would wake up all during the night (in sopping wet towels) and run into the bathroom and jump into the shower just trying to get it to stop itching. It was miserable. For the sake of proving my point, I will show you a couple of pictures. Please ignore my fat, stretched-out postpartum belly.

On Tuesday morning I woke up and called the doctor bawling and emphasizing that I don't think they understood how bad it was. They had me come in and everyone at the doctor's office who saw me had that "HOLY CRAP!" look when they saw me. The nurse practicioner I saw said she had never seen such a bad reaction before. She prescribed a corticosteroid pack for 6 days and told me to keep taking the Benadryl and that I could take ibuprofen for the pain and inflammation. Come to find out, ibuprofen is an NSAID that can actually increase the effects of a drug reaction.

So I started the steroid pack. And it did relieve some of the hives from my torso. Or maybe they were just done by that point (since hives are migratory) and they had decided to move on. Either way, I had a glimmer of hope that it was going to work. Surely this would work. No one has massive hives for days and days, right? I want to interject here also that we talked to several different people associated with the medical field who had told us that it wouldn't really do any good to go to the ER because since I wasn't having difficulty breathing, all they would do there is give me an antihistamine shot, which was basically what I was already getting through the max Benadryl I was on around the clock. So we didn't think there was anything else we could do except wait it out.

That night was even worse than the nights before. My legs were attacked over and over again. I could literally see new patches welling up right before my eyes. What little skin wasn't covered in hives was purple. I remember at one point I was in the cold bath filled as high as it could go, crying, scratching the heck out of my legs with a freaking hairbrush and thinking that this was the dumbest possible way to die. I consider myself a pretty tough cookie with a high pain threshhold - it takes a lot to get me to complain - and that is the point I was at. I seriously thought I was going to die in a cold oatmeal bath wanting to rip my skin off.

Wednesday morning I woke up and the hives were all over my face and up into my scalp. My face, eyes, lips were swollen. We called the doctor again and they said to go to the ER. Finally! Thankfully, my mom had already decided to fly up to help out since I had been so sick. We texted her while she was at the airport to tell her we were going to the hospital. I walked in and they took me straight back. They hooked me up to IV steroids and antihistamines right away. I was there for about 4 hours before they admitted me to the hospital.

**Warning: extremely ugly picture below**:

By that afternoon, after being on the IVs continuously, I already had marked improvement and the itching was kept to a minimum. I still had my legs and arms wrapped in wet towels, but compared to how it had been, it was sweet relief. I stayed in the hospital all that day and night until Thursday night when they released me with 4 prescriptions (60 mg Prednisone for 3 weeks and 3 different antihistamines for a week) and the instructions to keep taking the Benadryl.

I came home happy to be over the worst of it, filled my prescriptions like a good girl, even charted what time I took each of my many doses of medicine. We thought things were going good until Friday night...

**To be continued**

The First Chills of the Season

If you've read my blog at all, you will know that I love the show So You Think You Can Dance. Not that I am or ever have been a dancer, but I can appreciate it. I've enjoyed this season so far, and think it has some really strong dancers, but I hadn't had the "chill" factor happen to me until I saw this dance choreographed by Mia Michaels (of course) and performed by Kayla and Kupono. It is suppose to represent addiction. It's just w.o.w.

Some Fourth of July pics

This past week has been, well, let's say an experience (one I hope I never have again), that I will write about at a later time, but for the meantime I wanted to post a few cute pics of the Fourth of July. This is one of my very favorite holidays and I continually feel so blessed to live in this country and have the opportunities and blessings it gives us.

Oh, to be so uninhibited

Today, Little Man came and stood beside me. I could hear him happily slurping up his orange Fanta with a straw and didn't really pay that much attention to what he was doing. When he asked me something I looked at him and then busted up laughing. There he was sans underwear and shorts merrily gulping the last drops of drink from his cup completely unphased. It was the way he stood there like "Yeah, I'm drinking my drink commando - what?" that cracked me up.

Then when I suggested he put back on his pants, he complied, but only after he trotted off to put his cup up with a *toot*toot*toot* following. He turned to me smiling and proud and announced, "Me toot three times!"

Bare-naked soda drinking and flatulance in the wind - ah, the joys of toddlerhood.

For Your Entertainment

Is the saying that boredom is the mother of all invention or something like that? Maybe it's creativity. Either way, my kids have been keeping themselves entertained in creative ways during this summer vacation, especially since we've had to kind of lie low the last couple of weeks.

My favorite boredom buster has to be their rabbit trap, however. Little J came up with the idea. They got a box, balanced it with a stick tied to a string, and put carrots underneath it to lure unsuspecting rabbits into their trap. Then they hid under the steps on our back porch waiting for the right moment to pull the string and make the box fall down onto their prey. They also camouflaged the steps with all the weed and grass clippings, and had their fortifications of apples and water bottles for when they needed a snack.

The first day they seriously sat under those steps in sweltering heat and humidity(the heat index was over 100 degrees that day) for two hours straight, waiting for a rabbit. Since then, they have gone out several different times to wait. Even Little Man got in on the action.

The kicker, however, was what I discovered after their first time out. When they finally came back in, they had one of my nice, very SHARP, Cutco carving knives. Apparently, they had brought it out because when they caught the rabbit, they were planning on killing it, skinning it, and then eating it for dinner. Since no rabbit appeared, I found out they had used my knife to kill a few spiders and clean out the cobwebs under the steps instead.

Once the knife idea was nixed by me, their next attempts included arming themselves with sharpened sticks followed by large rocks. They really thought they were going to capture a rabbit and then beat it to death and skin it for dinner. Besides the fact that they have absolutely no idea how to do any of this, I couldn't help thinking about that poor tortured rabbit! I was praying they didn't actually catch one. So far only one rabbit has been seen venturing near the trap, and that was when none of them were outside to see it. And I didn't tell...

In other outdoor adventures, they have been dutifully digging for gold in our sand/pea gravel pit. (I have been informed that we are soon to be rich.) They also were found yesterday taping sticks all over their bodies in order to camouflage themselves. From what, I'm not sure, but hey, it kept them entertained!

For your viewing pleasure (a totally unrelated photo of Little Miss at 2 weeks):

And a video I have been laughing about for a month now. The literal video version of Total Eclipse of the Heart. Am I the only one who thinks this is hilarious?: