A Tale of Two Bodies

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….
Not that it’s really anyone’s business, but I feel the need to publicly divulge some sort of explanation in retort to the anticipated question… “What were you thinking?”
A quick re-hash/catch up…
I’ve not been feeling “great” since Tess was born, nearly 7 years ago with some symptoms evolving even years before her birth. I’ve been through the gamut of diagnoses ranging from:
“it’s anxiety/depression” (you know, when antidepressants were “all the rage” and doctors thought these widely advertised pills were the answer to every ailment. BTW, I got to meet people with REAL anxiety and depression up close and personal and let me tell you… that ain’t me. I’m angry that I let doctors tell me that it was me; that I forgot who I am or that I didn’t believe the inner me screaming “hey, wtf, something’s wrong, but it’s not your brain chemistry”. and, listen, I’m no dummy… I recognize that I have anxiety just like anyone else and I’m pretty upfront about when I’m feeling anxious, but most of my anxiety is normal anxiety – I get nervous in traffic on the bridge [my car rolled over in a car accident on the bridge, so there’s some reasonable anxiety there], preterm contractions, postpartum hemorrhage, someone pushing off blame on me or trying to make me feel bad about myself or just being confrontational… These are all instances where anxiety is a normal response. I could go on and on about this particular label because it frustrates me so much, but I’ll cut it short for now.);
“it’s the beginning stages of MS or Lupus” (I keep flying in just under the radar on those diagnoses to date, positive ANA and SEDrate and symptoatic, but titers just aren’t high enough and no spinal lesions.) If I were a betting girl, I’d say something autoimmune MAJOR (not just thyroid) will be officially written in my future, but for now it’s still a “we’re not sure”;
“it’s just your autoimmune thyroid disease” (besides the antibodies and the destroyed thyroid organ in imagery, my thyroid levels (TSH, T3, T4) appear somehow within range… go figure);
“you randomly test positive for Lyme, Babesia, mold allergies and a number of other very rare and very odd infections, just take these antibiotics for a really long time and you’ll be fine” (my infection titers are low and one month they will be positive and the next negative with no rhyme or reason or changes in symptoms and besides, I gave the antibiotics a shot for a year and never felt any better);
“your lymph nodes have been painfully growing to 5 times normal size for over a year, so they’ve been surgically removed and deemed ‘reactive’, you have elevated liver enzymes- quadruple the maximum limit for months on end, hives and rashes that wax and wane and actual chicken pox, not shingles, twice in one year, low platelet counts numerous times a year, random bouts of anemia, random low white blood cell counts, all possibly infection or autoimmune related” (yet, somehow not one of those puzzle pieces fit together for any one doctor);
“it’s just fibromyalgia” (oh, dear, sweet, made-up “fibromyalgia” diagnosis, you are my favorite because you are frankly, bullshit… there is no known cause, no known treatment, and no real criteria for such diagnoses other than “I have no idea what is ACTUALLY wrong with you, so I’ll tell you “fibromyalgia” and hope that you never come back to my office, but thanks for the $300+ for this short office visit where I have to do virtually, nothing”).
I’ve been to neurologists, endocrinologists, chiropractors, naturopaths, rheumatologists, hematologists, oncologists, psychiatrists, cognitive/behavioral therapists, geneticists, gastroenterologists, acupuncturists, cardiologists, ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists, pulmonologists, physical therapists, surgeons, allergists, dermatologists, infectious disease specialists and the uber-expensive out-of-pocket so-called “Lyme Literate Doctors”. I’ve searched for 2nd and sometimes 3rd opinions in many of those fields of medicine. I have done everything within my own “common sense” reasoning that they have requested of me.
In all of my efforts to try to be the best me that I felt I could be, I have racked up a lot of missed time at work and giant medical bills for my husband, who sometimes sighed and sometimes doubted, but never complained. We made family day trips out of many appointments and often had a bit of fun. Most importantly, I learned throughout my 7+ year long search that something very real is wrong, it’s not in my head. All of these symptoms and those positive test results mean something. I’m not just sensitive to pain. I’m not whining or complaining, or lazy or antisocial, or a hypochondriac… Nope, something very very real is physically very very wrong and not to toot my own horn or anything, but fuck if I don’t have to give myself little credit for the mental and physical strength that I’ve literally pushed myself through. “Just one more flare, Carol. You can do it. Moan and writhe in pain behind closed doors and cry in your closet if you have to. Just push through.” Also, if the symptoms aren’t the absolute worst, the “try this” med/sugery/study can really make a girl feel like death.
And through all of this, I’ve learned that I’m not alone. At first it was encouraging and relieving to know that there are others, but the more people I found with the same problems the more people I personally knew came forward to talk to me the angrier I became. All of those blank stares from doctors who said, “that’s weird”… how can it be weird and yet, seemingly common enough for it to be happening to one-in-thirty people I know and yet, still EVERY single person that I know, knows someone personally that is going through the exact same thing?! If you ask me what I think about the fact that doctors don’t know anything about something that is increasingly common, I would say“that’s weird”.
So… for nearly a decade I’ve learned a lot.  I’ve left a lot of medical terms out of this entry for clarity, but darn if I can’t go toe to toe with a lot of doctors on the subject. I’ve not only come out of this with a bit of medical knowledge, but I’ve learned so much about myself, I’ve matured and have learned to trust myself and sometimes even like myself, not my symptomatic body and all of it’s oddities, but myself… myself is pretty damn cool for all that with which it is enduring.  As the years passed by and I learned about autoimmune and infectious diseases and I received no answers, no relief, I started to become hopeless… not depressed hopeless, but a kind of “what the fuck” hopeless.  Then one day I just said “you know what, Carol?  you can’t keep rotating your days from desperate and hopeful to hopeless.  you have to live your life the way you want to as best you can considering.”  And I did just that.  I did it in a very meticulous, dot all of my i’s and cross all of my t’s kind of way.

I very much wasn’t done having babies.  All I ever wanted to be was a mommy.  Sure, when I was young I told people “astronaut or ballerina”, but always a realist, my inner self smiled and thought “Mommy.  I want to be a mommy more than anything in the world”.  And I was lucky.  I got to be a mommy…. 4 times over.  I’ve lived the absolute dream.  I’ve been the best mommy I could be.  I’ve not been perfect, but who is?  If you think you are, check yourself, boo.  My kids are almost always the kindest, most well behaved and most attended to (by both parents and not helicopter style) in the room.  And now, I wanted to be a mommy to another, and I wasn’t going to let “whatever this is” stand in my way any longer.  But because the people I love more than myself, my babies, are all affected by this decision.  I had to make sure that I wasn’t being selfish about my decision.  I spent the last 2 years going to every doctor that I had ever seen, practically.  (There were a couple of handfuls of doctors that need their licenses taken away, so I’ve not seen nor wanted to see them since.  Trust and believe, that the bell-curve is responsible for a good portion of medical degrees.)  I’ve checked and double checked all questions and concerns regarding me getting pregnant and then they checked and doubled checked with tests and all stated that pregnancy would only limit certain meds that may ease my symptoms and since there has not definitively been one med that has helped my symptoms, we all came to the conclusion that it was ok for me to get pregnant.  It was not even a quick decision after I got the doctors’ oks.  I still had worries of my own and spent a good year really really pondering getting pregnant.  And then I got pregnant and I was happy…  I am happy, and besides my stupid gastric system (which feels worse), I, as a whole, feel better.  You hear that… BETTER.  This baby is healthy… really, really, healthy and happy and thriving.  I have had annoying contractions since 15 weeks, but I swear if I could heal my gut they would stop.  Once I hit 32 weeks and officially in baby “safe” zone, I plan on telling everyone my happy little secret, but for now only a handful of people know (well, only a handful were told by me, at least) and of course, everyone who has seen me.  7 months is hard to hide.  I’ve seen judging eyes and heard judging questions.   I’ve tried to avoid them because I do HATE confrontation, so here’s this blog entry to those who pass their judgement.  Hopefully, this will answer your questions.  If not, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.  I’m working on living the best of times… my way, finally.

Second wind and then a crash and burn

After 3 short days of starting to feel human again, I’m back at- achy, twitchy, itchy, sore, tired, and frustrated.  It’s like having a never ending flu bug and allergic reaction at the same time.  My body feels like it was in a car accident and then decided to become allergic to itself.  Eye drops, nasal sprays, tons of water, lotions, ointments and magnesium isn’t touching it.  I tried meditating today and found myself distracted by the constant twitching and lack of strength to even have my body sit up straight.  I finally just decided to succumb and let myself go limp, so at least I could let my mind slip from focusing on what I just don’t have the strength to do.  It’s a daily constant to force myself to just do things.  Easy things.  Things I could do even just the day before.  I find myself pushing forward- not taking each day as it comes, but taking each hour as it comes.  One hour I can feel like I’ve fast-forwarded 50 years, the next I get a second wind.  And I always take that second wind and exasperate it.  “Oh, I have a little energy… let me do everything I’ve wanted to do last month and get it done in the next few hours.”  “Oh, I’m hungry and my stomach is accepting food… let me eat everything I’ve craved this week and eat it in one sitting.”  “Oh, I can think clearly today… let me research and read everything that was seemingly a blurry mess of nonsensical symbols.”  That’s why I haven’t posted in a few days.  I felt ok.  Not great, but human and so I did things.  As many things as I could before I hit the pavement face first again.  I just wasn’t expecting to crash and burn so quickly.

I finally had my dermatology appt today, bc 3 weeks after the onset of “chicken pox” makes sense.  With the inability to get an appt in a timely matter, it makes it nearly impossible to get proper treatment… if there is such a thing.  I did have my extremely itchy rash going full force today, but it’s just the smaller bumps that are not forming blisters, so the doctor didn’t really get to see the full picture.  And then there’s my whole love-hate relationship with “hope”.  So with my appt, I traveled Hope mountain again today.  The “maybe”s, the “what if”s, and the final  shrug of the shoulders.  Can someone just push me off the trail or drag me to the end of it, already?

Before my phone dies… here is the link to a great summary of the stuff that I said would “blow your mind” in the last post:

http://www.actionlyme.org/LYME_FACTS.htm

I have more links to more techical documents, but I think the summary will serve as a great first time read.

If it makes you sick to your stomach and scared, congratulations… you’re human!

Playing chicken

3 weeks ago I came down with a gnarly case of Chicken Pox. Not Shingles (to the surprise of Urgent Care doctors bc I had Chicken Pox when I was a child), but full blown adult Chicken Pox. I was put on antivirals and sent home to let my body battle it out. I knew that this wasn’t the first time that these strange itchy and pattern making bumps had plagued me in recent years. In fact, according to the photos evidenced on my phone, I’ve had them as recently as May of last year and possibly the year before that and the year before that. I’m uncertain as to why I get an outbreak so frequently, but I would venture to guess that Lyme has something to do with it. Clearly, something is breaking down my immune system.

A few days after I was put on the antivirals, I could feel something was not quite right and I asked my husband to come sit with me. I felt disoriented and light headed and very weak. I took my BP and it was its usual low. I drank water and added salt to try and bring it up and then laid in the floor to try and elevate it further, but soon my vision became doubled and, though laying down, I felt very very faint. I told my husband that I recognized this feeling and that something was wrong. I curled my toes and concentrated very hard on staying conscious. Fainting is possibly one of the scariest feelings.  Especially when you’ve been ill for so long bc what if I just don’t come to this time. So anxiety took hold and quite naturally raised my BP as the ambulance took me to the hospital. All the while, all I could think was “I hope none of the neighbors saw me being carted off”. (To my complete embarrassment, one of the neighbors came over to ask Mike if everything was ok. It was precisely the one new neighbor that I didn’t want to bother with my ambulance adventure. This particular very kind neighbor had just buried his son hours prior to me being shipped off to the hospital on a stretcher. Can you believe it, here he was on his darkest day asking if WE were ok?! We truly have the most remarkable neighbors.)

The ER doc suggested that my outbreak was either autoimmune or due to Lyme and ran a battery of tests- all which would not yield results for days, so she told me to just go with it if I faint bc I’d likely come to within minutes and sent me on my way. I’ve read the results and there is no rhyme or reason in the odd low and high markers, but the low platelet count stood out to me as a possible cause for the feeling faint. The autoimmune markers were normal and my Lyme results just said “negative”. I’ll write more about the Lyme test- Elisa and Western Blot and “bands” and what they mean and precisely why a simple “negative” without ALL band results means nothing. Here’s a clue though- some states, including our nearby state of Virgina, have made it a law that “doctors have to tell you that just because your Lyme test results say negative doesn’t mean you don’t have Lyme”. How’s that for reliability?! I will furthermore explain why the Lyme test is inaccurate to the point states have passed such a law in another post. IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND! Again, I will state the similarities between AIDS and Lyme are staggering and we ALL are at risk, so if you are reading this in the comfort of your Lyme-free healthy body, pay attention you are not immune and you can fall ill with Lyme without ever have being bitten by a tick. That’s right. You heard me correctly. It is not just transmitted via ticks and without a reliable test… it’s spreading like wildfire. More to come with plenty of proof positive various medical university and NIH journal documentation. The whistle has been blown for years, but no one is listening. With the number of reported cases of Lyme multiplying 10 fold every year (and remember these are just the reported cases, there is still an inaccurate test that leaves 80% of those who are symptomatic and tested with a false negative. Again, WILDFIRE!) soon, but all too late, people are going to start listening.

Anywho, today there was a lot of pain and suffering, but my motto is “fake it ’til you make it” these days, so after much begging from Pheebs, I hopped my butt onto my bike for a quick ride around the block with the girls followed by getting dinner in the oven and sidewalk chalk with Tess while it cooked. How can one’s day suck so much, yet be so fabulous?!

Everything and everything

So, months ago I wrote my final thoughts on the election and just before I was going to hit save, my phone died and that was that. The post was lost and my fire on the subject has fizzled and faded. It is still present, but like my thoughts about everyone’s passion regarding the election, my passion too, means well… nothing.

Since then more important issues have taken stake in my life and I’ve decided to just be honest about them. I’ve lost touch with this blog and documenting my life, my children’s lives, the humor in the everyday mundane activities of a stay-at-home mom trying to find her own identity… again.

And as I sobbed outside of my newly organized closet yesterday evening, I said to myself. THIS is my identity. THIS is who I am now and I need to be open and honest about it. I need to document it. I need others to know about it. I need my children to one day, sit down and read about it and see it through my eyes. I need everyone to understand. I need to look back and either say, “hey, I got through it” or “you gave it your all”. Most of all I need to do this for peace and clarity.

THIS is me struggling and lost inside of a body that is just not functioning as a nearly 40 year old body should. To put it mildly, I am sick. To put it boldly, dozens upon dozens of the best specialists in the world can’t figure out why I am sick. Can I just say that the worst part of being sick, is the hope that there is someone or some process that can make me not “sick” anymore? I used to think that the worst thing the doctor could ever tell me was “there is nothing wrong with you. Try an antidepressant.” I used to think that once they finally figured out that I truly was physically sick that I would feel vindicated and I could be treated and that would be that. Happily ever after. The end.

Not the end. I now know that the worst thing a doctor could ever say to me is “that’s weird. I don’t know. Go see [this specialist].” And so begins the treacherous mountains of specialists all sending you off to the next specialist until you find yourself full circle without any answers or help. It’s lonely and expensive treading those mountains of hope. And with nothing gained, I don’t like them… I passionately loathe them. I now know that some diagnoses you don’t want to know about. I now know that the worst is when they give you several diagnoses that are not only completely and utterly untreatable, but dismissed as even being a diagnosis altogether. Confused? Yeah, me, too.

My first diagnosis was… bluntly, “crazy”. I had several doctors actually convince me that everything was all in my head. It’s anxiety or depression or a fast-track to bipolar. All the while, I knew here, inside this body that felt so sick, non-crazy-Carol remained and struggled to get anyone to believe that I was emotionally ok. Besides being depressed that I couldn’t get a single person to listen to me and being anxious because I felt so awful, yet physical symptoms went ignored without so much as a single blood test or scan. Simple things like BP, weight changes and temperature were always waved off. “You’re BP is really low, but you’re skinny, so that’s probably why.” “You’ve lost a lot of weight. Are you sure you’re not anorexic?” “You’re temperature is pretty low. You’re not running a fever, so that’s good.”

My second diagnosis I had to beg and plead for a test. Dozens of doctors appointments repeatedly asking for the same test. I was right, I needed to be tested. It was my thyroid. I was sent to a specialist who gave me a prescription and then washed their hands of me bc I was being treated, so therefore, I was fine. And when I wasn’t “fine” after months of treatment, I was sent on another trail of specialists through hope mountain. It’s not just thyroid disease, I was told, “it’s autoimmune and it’s not only one, but both autoimmune thyroid diseases a very rare untreatable combo, but you should be fine. Your blood results otherwise look good.” But since I wasn’t “fine”, I sent myself down another trail of hope mountain and stumbled upon my third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth diagnoses all of them which revolve around the third bc they are sort of a package deal.

My third diagnosis and the diagnosis that I promise you, mark my words, will be as equally detrimental to the entire world as the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s/early 90’s, if not more. I’m no conspiracy theorist. I don’t read too much “crap” on the internet and I don’t, as you will note from my previous post, believe everything I read or even see for that matter. I research and research and research until I want to poke my eyeballs from their sockets and then I dig even deeper. And if that’s not enough, I realize I’m living it. I’m your first-hand prime example… I am your truth regarding this medical epidemic. THIS is me. I am Lyme and I’m going to document it all every day.

Everything and nothing.

So… there was a presidential election (in case you’ve been under a rock and to whomever is under said rock please scoot over because I’d like to join you indefinitely).  I started writing this post the day after the election to spew my frustration with the onslaught of Facebook wars and media coverage and to say that the sky is falling and yet, wait… it might be just an acorn.  Also I was going to express my frustration that I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times I’ve opened a link to an “acorn throwing” post that either came from a source with a fundamentally bias agenda and/or was posted by someone who didn’t even take a moment to read the very link they thought was substantial.  If posters actually read the link, in their own post (like I took the time to do, not to counter-argue, but to honestly support and try to understand their viewpoint) they might realize that they themselves are part of the problem and not the solution- false information by headline/meme reading and sharing spreads like wildfire and it’s really hard to put out a wildfire no matter how it started.

Fun fact- the Internet and the modern media as a whole can manipulate anything and everything to make a mountain out of a mole hill AND conversely, it can also keep a mountain at a far distance making it mole hill. Don’t give them that power of manipulating what you know and what you don’t know.  Be aware that for every one link that argues one way there are 10 to counter argue it and for every video shot from one perspective, there is one from another perspective capturing a different version.  I get it though, in some instances right is right and wrong is wrong and there are no blurred lines.  Just be sure to use your filter before you sip the tea.

So know your stuff.  Read articles that not only support your stance, but also read those that you think might knock you off your feet.  I took the time to read your link and fact check it and ponder about what it means to you.  Sometimes it turns out to be a moment wasted because it’s an old post or it’s an engineered post and it’s already been debunked, but sometimes I’ve walked away with a bit of knowledge.  If it’s a moment wasted, rarely do I point out in a comment to the poster that the link should actually be read or fact-checked by the poster, but I promise you that mostly I’ve just rolled my eyes and have decided that said poster is either a headline reader or had a moment of soon-to-be regret and just scroll right past any of their future posts on the topic.

But this is my blog… my personal diary… my safe place where I can type my opinion and have the option to publish publicly or keep it for my eyes only (I don’t actually have private posts because if there is one thing I know for certain, it’s that I either say it publicly or keep it all bottled inside, but if I wanted to hit “private” I could).

So here I am a few days later, still feeling as though the 2016 presidential election will go down in history as the election that meant everything and yet, nothing.  Beyond the fact that historically every president EVER has not been able to fully reign over the United States.  I recently watched an eye-opening video about the electoral collage (which I’ve never fully understood, have been frustrated when it worked against my personal vote, and frankly, just wanted the public to do away with it).  I’m questioning my stance on doing away with the electoral collage now.  Our founding fathers really thought things through to the very last detail as far as fundamental government structure goes (including the prediction that party affiliation would be detrimental, but unfortunately, they never figured out how to work that kink out).

Part 2:  My opinion- “you get what you look for”

Hall0we-lujah, on to Christmas!

It was a long haunting weekend.  Halloween was on a Monday this year and the kids had an extended weekend with a two hour early dismissal on Friday and no school on Monday, so the celebrations began on Friday with a costume party at school.  Phoebe’s costume was an underwhelming last minute choice of Foxy Woxy from Henny Penny (just a crappy fox mask and a clip on tail that we have laying around in a costume bin).

On Saturday, we went to Baker’s 2nd birthday party where I met Isabelle for the first time and got my baby fix.  She’s so sweet and such a good baby.  Jan is one lucky mommy.

Then we rushed home to make it to a friend’s 46th birthday party and Halloween celebration for the kids.  It was awesome, but I left my phone home, so no pics.  Boo!  My costume was the underwhelming Foxy Woxy mask and tail that Phoebe wore to school, but I did attempt to create drama with a badly drawn smoky eye under the mask.  I was too tired to hose my face down when we returned home at 1 AM, so I woke up with some seriously stained white pillows and a face that looked like this

On Sunday, we had Trunk or Treat at the pool and it was supposed to be followed up by a Skate Night, but once again the Skate Truck didn’t show up, so the kids enjoyed their own personal scooters on the tennis courts while we set up the old school Ghostbusters movie on the big screen.  5 minutes into the movie a storm started brewing, so we had to call the whole thing off.

And then Monday… Halloween… finally came.  Time to Trick or Treat!  Phoebe’s costume cost all of $5 for a can of yellow spray paint.  Mike drew on the SpongeBob face and I painted it (and then repainted it after an accidental throw of a dog toy ripped a giant scar down the front of SpongeBob’s face.  It had to be surgically taped and touched up with another layer of not-so-well-matched paint).  It was a chilly year for trick or treating, but we survived… save for many houses that left their porch lights on, but were not handing out candy.  What’s up with that?!  Tess was hilarious though in her disappointment with said houses.  “Why don’t they have candy?”  “Why is their light on, though?”  “Why don’t they like Halloween?”  “Who doesn’t have CANDY?”  “Why… Why… Why… won’t they give me candy?”  Then she would stop at the end of their driveways and glance back at the candyless house as though she was memorizing their location and possibly thinking to herself this is the house that I’m going to egg tomorrow.

Jax roamed the neighborhood with his friends again this year and since they just went to each other’s houses, he pilfered all of the candy that Tess had received with peanuts/peanut butter in them from her plastic pumpkin.  Such a good big brother, looking out for the safety of his peanut allergy plagued little sister.  I managed to get one lone blurry picture of the boys before my camera died, but since I can’t find my charger, I can’t upload the photo… so you get none.

Leila went trick or treating across town with a few friends and apparently they decided to go to a haunted house along the way.  According to her text, she “barley screamed”.  I get a kick out of her misspelled texts.

As the long, several different costume-change-filled, Halloween came to a close, I was happy to say so-long to Halloween.  Bring on the Christmas!!!

 

Failed it!

So, I know it’s hard to believe with all of those fabulous forehead lines (*note to self: ask dermatologist “how much is botox?”) that I’m not 16, but nope, I’m 38 and taking my driver’s test… again.  [because remember this]

This is me in line, ready… or not… to go.  I passed the written portion with Jaxon, my 16 year old son, with flying colors a couple of weeks ago and spent a few hours prepping for my 2 point turn.  Maryland no longer requires you to do a 3 point turn or parallel parking, so yay, me… this is cake, right?!  Not so much.  2 point turns aren’t that easy, especially when you don’t have giant cars on either side of you to judge your side mirror distances.  I kinda sucked at it when practicing, but finally became more comfortable and decided it was now or never to take the test.  Of course, I was nervous.  I don’t often drive and when I do, I basically concentrate on the important things like stopping at stop lights/signs, using turn signals, checking my mirrors, not hitting cars or pedestrians and defensive driving tactics, so that I’m prepared for all of the idiot drivers making illegal maneuvers around me.  It’s a lot harder than you think (or remember from 22 years ago) to focus on turn signals (in empty parking lots), proper speeds, making sure to look over your shoulder and in all of the mirrors at all times, counting your trailing distance from the car in front of you, reading signs, following every minute traffic law possible, etc.. etc.. etc…  Though these things do come naturally over years of driving, you get into a comfort zone and stop focusing on 30 things at one time… and for good reason to be honest, because who can focus on 30 details at once and not be missing something critical because your focus is literally everywhere all at once?

Well, apparently it is critical to keep your hands gripped to the steering wheel with your palms facing away from you.  Seconds after the test started the instructor told me to stop and said “watch the position of your hands”.  I assumed that she was trying to tell me that I wasn’t keeping my hands at “10 and 2” and simply replied “ok” and resumed motion focusing on braking, signaling, mirror checking and her instructions on what to do next.  The 2 pt turn was straight out of the gate, as I started backing into the spot I immediately got flustered because those darn flags are just not visible in the mirrors until your turn is in place.  I noticed the instructor nodding in disapproval from the corner of my eye as I was backing up, so I doubted my position and decided to pull forward and reposition myself.  She nodded again.  Clearly, I was screwing up, so I sighed and thought “screw it, just back in”.  I had overcompensated when I pulled forward and readjusted.  Apparently, I was actually good to go on my first attempt and should’ve ignored her nodding.  Though close, I was still inside the cones and just continued on my way backing in.  She asked me to pull out of the space and pullover.  Focusing on blinkers and mirrors and cones and looking over my shoulder all the while, I pulled out knowing that her tone meant I failed even though I cleared the cones.  After I pulled to the side she said, “remember when the test started I asked you to watch the position of your hands?  As you turn your steering wheel, you turn your hands and grip the steering wheel with your palms facing you.  You can’t do that.  I had to give you a point every time you did that and you did it 6 times during the 2 pt turn, so you failed.”  She continued to say that it happens all of the time with drivers with expired licenses.  Us, more experienced drivers, get into a habit of gripping the steering wheel wrong or using palms to turn or letting our grip go of the wheel, so that the steering wheel slides through our hands (palming) as we turn.  Though, I never lost my grip of the wheel and didn’t palm it, I was turning my hand and gripping the steering wheel subconsciously from the wrong side.  She said she even does it all of the time and when she drives she thinks to herself “I would fail my own test”.

So, that was that.  38 years old and Failed it!  Though, I didn’t wreck the car or hit a pedestrian or run a red light… this failure sucked almost more… I mean, that’s a really obscure fucking technicality.  The instructor wished me luck next time and told me to go ahead and schedule a retake tomorrow, but as I drove home Mike and I noticed that this “moving my hand” thing is a pretty bad habit that is going to take a lot more practice to shake.  Poop.  I’m not going to lie, I did cry afterwards because what’s more embarrassing than failing a test that you easily passed 22 years ago… that your 16 year old son is getting ready to take?!  But that’s just it.  I have to take a deep breath and show my son that it happens.  Whatever.  Try, try, again.  I think I’ll try again after a bit more practice this time, though.  And who knows… since I technically didn’t get to drive the course at all, maybe there are a couple of more habits that could fail me that I don’t even know about?  Stay tuned for “Failed it: Part 2“.  In the meantime, watch out for a dangerous white minivan roaming the streets with a seriously old female student driver who dares to turn her grip when she turns risking the lives of anyone who is in and around her vehicle.

Monday, Monday

I had this grand idea to get organized.  The pool season has ended and so it’s time to stop neglecting the house/kids/myself.  As I do with most of my grand ideas, I looked to Pinterest (aka “Carol’s brain” because how did I ever do anything or have an idea on my own without Pinterest).  And with any great idea that can only be completed with the help of Pinterest, I had to spend hours searching and pinning and then clicking on pins and filtering through pins.  I finally decided to do this…

Yep, 147 pages!  Not to be confused with 148 pages which would totally be overboard.

…and then there were all of these checklists that had to be printed out and organized.  (because you have to organize your organization binder to help you organize)

…and then I had to fill in checklists, make menus and plan a whole week of cleaning.

The more lists I completed the more overwhelmed I felt.  *This is already backfiring.  Why do I feel less organized.  What’s that?  What’s happening?  What’s going on?

So I worked and typed and penciled-in this and that in my binder all weekend.  And finally, at 3 AM this morning, I had the week ready to go.  I looked over my Monday morning checklist and thought to myself “Ok, it seems like a lot.  I’m overwhelmed, but wait… some of this I can really knock out in the hour that I have in between dropping Phoebe off at her bus stop and dropping Leila off at her bus stop.  Tess will be asleep.  This may work!  I’ve got this!”

…But then Tess woke up at 4 AM crying and I couldn’t get her back to sleep until after 5 AM and feeling exhausted I started reasoning with reality.  “I have to get up at 6:30 AM to get Jax off to school.  Let’s be real.  I’ll be too tired and want to take a nap after all of the kids are gone.  I’m going to have to add “nap” to my to-do list.  Is that contradictory?  Can you add “nap” to a to-do list that is supposed to keep you organized and timely?  Screw it!  Adding “nap” to my to-do list will be the first thing I “to-do”.”  Zzzzzz…

As predicted, I was exhausted to the point of delirium, but I got Jax up and ready, then I got Phoebe up and ready, and then I opened my binder and set to cross things off quickly, so I could get to “nap”.  I did a load of laundry, took care of the dog, woke Leila up and got her in the shower, realized that most of the things I actually do weren’t even on my to-do list, but thought things were going well… until Leila walked up to me in the hallway mid-“laundry” check-off.  Soaking wet with tears in her eyes she stammered, “Mom, I just remembered, I was supposed to do a project this weekend.”  

“A project?!  Not a worksheet or a chapter to read, but a whole PROJECT?!”

“Yes!  I need to make a poster about something for health class.”  Still dripping under her towel, she shuffled through her binder and handed me a sheet with her project requirements. 7 research bulletin points, to be exact.

“Crap!  Ok, get dressed.  Seriously, Leila?!  You have to be at the bus stop in 20 minutes.  It’ll be fine.  Dry your eyes.  Mommy to the rescue!  Let me see what I can knock out.”  I quickly turned to the computer and tapped away at the keyboard, scrambled for a gnarly piece of leftover posterboard, a glue stick and my paper cutter.  Frantically, I searched, copy and pasted, printed, cut and glued and all the while it was killing me that I couldn’t rephrase most of it and that it wasn’t pretty.  It dawned on me that most people with OCD are probably unorganized because if it’s not perfect then it’s not good enough, so why even try?  I had completed 5 bulletin points before she had to leave for the bus stop.  She walked out of the door without a project and both of us were deflated, but I trudged on and when it was completed I jumped in the van with what is quite possibly the worst looking poster on “Stuttering” the teacher will ever be handed.  I zipped to the bus stop just as the bus was coming down the street to pick her up.  *Yay!  I got to be her hero!  She gave me a giant hug, as I told her to study the poster on the bus and really learn her topic.

I left the bus stop smiling, but even more exhausted.  I came home to stare blankly at the mess the haphazard project had left behind in its wake and then look over even more blankly at my “to-do list” with its one… lone… check.  Nope, “do Leila’s weekend project for her” wasn’t on there.  Just then… *crunch* *crunch* “Shit!  What’s the dog into?”  Fabulous, “cleaning up shards of gnawed on colored pencils” isn’t on my to-do list either.  F U, Monday!

When life gives you pink eye, make pink lemonade.

So you know how things never quite pan out how you envisioned them.  Yeah, well that’s the definition of Carol Trader.  I don’t think I’ve pulled anything off quite how I meant for it to be.  And I’m talking the small things, the haphazard moments that make you go “really?!”, not the life-altering atrocities or the as luck would have it happenstances.  Matter of fact, the very definition of haphazard

1. disorganized, unsystematic, careless, slapdash, helter-skelter.

is pretty much the very definition of me.  Most of the time I really do just kinda fumble my way through things and try to just. get it. done.  But even when I try to be careful and meticulous it always backfires and I just end up sitting at the head of a table caving in under a heap of mess.

So my girl, Jan is having her third baby, but first baby girl.  I’m so excited!  I thought to myself, “Carol, you kind of sucked at the Maid of Honor thing for her.  You know, like when you left the bachelorette party that you had planned for her (DC 101 Chili Cookoff concert then bar hopping) to go grab a car to meet up for bar hopping… but then your husband, who picked you and your friend Renee up in his police cruiser to go grab Renee’s car ended up in a haphazard car chase while you and Renee were in the backseat… which was kinda time-consuming and left Renee skittish and no one wanting to drive anywhere afterwards.  (Also, as it turns out, I think one of the girls was roofied while bar hopping without us, later that night.  Though she ended up being fine, it was scary, to say the least.  Yep, that’s me-  Friend of the Year!)  Or like, when the time came for you to give a speech at her wedding reception, but you had to to tell the DJ that you were haphazardly chickening out due to speech anxiety and you had your speech printed and framed for her instead.”  Yeah, I’m that Maid of Honor.  So, I owe her and something like a surprise baby shower might be an awesome way to show her how much I love her.

I sent Jan’s husband a text to see if a baby shower was already in the making, first.  He said that a neighbor threw a tiny neighborhood Baby Sprinkle for their last baby, Baker, so I asked for the neighbor’s name and number and quickly went to work on a surprise shower.  While waiting for a guest list and confirmation from the neighbor, Jan’s mom beat me to the punch and I received a shower invitation in the mail.  Crap!  But all wasn’t lost, Jan’s mom’s shower was being held on the shore an hour and a half away from Jan’s local friends & neighbors, so I thought we could still pull it off.  Jan’s neighbor thought it would be best to ask Jan if she was cool with it first, so no surprise, but the shower was still a go.  Yay!  I set to pinning things to make for the shower and sent out the digital invite.  I made the bunnies for the cupcakes the night before and woke up early to bake.

The cupcakes turned out adorable and we loaded the gifts, cupcakes and girls in the van (they would play with Jan’s boys, while I attended the shower).  Things were going well, until I turned to hand Tess a juicebox to drink during our ride and noticed that the eye that looked a bit irritated when she woke up was looking more like pink eye.  Crap!  Crap!  When we arrived at Jan’s neighbor’s house, I pulled Jan aside and said that it was looking like Tess had pink eye and that I didn’t feel comfortable staying and letting her play with Jan’s boys.  Mike took the girls to the neighborhood park, so that I could unpack the cupcakes, drop off the baby’s gifts and give Jan a hug.  Boo!  And that was that.  The carefully planned – I’m going to make up for being a horrible Maid of Honor – solo- surprise- shower that ended up being a second, non-surprise, Sprinkle that I wasn’t even able to attend.  I don’t mean that quite as negatively as it sounds because everything turned out just perfect, I’m just harping on the somewhat hilarity that it was not quite how I had envisioned it would go down on my end.  Jan’s mother’s shower was fabulous (Thank goodness I was in attendence).  And in the few minutes that I was at the Sprinkle, it looked as though Jan was having a great time and that was all that mattered, whether I was able to stay or not the ultimate goal was achieved.

On the way home, we passed Great Falls Park and since we had a surprising amount of time to kill that day, I asked Mike to stop.  The weather was perfect to take the girls on a small hike down a Great Falls trail, so we took the time to stop and enjoy our pink-eye-filled life.  And though even the Great Falls hike was a haphazard family outing, sometimes haphazard is… *sigh*… kinda nice.  Not what I envisioned for the day, but still nice.  When life gives you pink eye, make pink lemoade.

P.S. We made the right decision about not letting Tess stay and play.  It turned out that she had viral pink eye, which apparently is more contagious than bacterial and there is no treatment.  You just have to wait it out.  Thankfully, it was short lived.  2 days later, she is well and on the mend.

There are really good days, too.

So we missed Jaxon’s Bowie High Swim Team Banquet tonight.  To be honest, somehow I wasn’t even aware that they were having a banquet.  Bummer!  Anyway, much to our surprise we were visited by a responsible parent of another swim team member after the banquet.  He stopped by to drop off Jax’s varsity letter and a plaque that reads:

Bowie High School

Swimming Team

Freshman of the Year

2015-2016

Jaxon Trader

Shut up!  How freakin’ awesome is that?!  I’m not going to lie, I got a little choked up.  I hope he’s as proud of himself as I am.  He smiles and blows off his accomplishments, but I hope that he’s just being humble.  I hope deep down inside he gets how big of a deal Freshman of the Year really is and is just masking it under a goofy grin.  I hope that he continues to grow as a swimmer and begins to really enjoy the sport.  Most of all I hope that he stands a little taller and speaks a little louder knowing that he’s capable of so much more than he ever thought.

Don’t just dream bigger Jax, dream broader.

 

 

I love you and am so proud of you.