Monday, October 30, 2006

This weekend

This weekend was not a good one…

First of all, Bill worked all day Saturday – nothing new (he works like 75-80hrs a week) – but I was looking forward to seeing him when he got home.

Well, he called from work and told me that my BIL (my sister’s husband) called him and asked him if he wanted to play cards – more specifically a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. What he didn’t tell me (I had already spoke to my sister and she told me) was that it was a Bachelor party. I, of course, said something about it being a bachelor party and Bill apologized for not mentioning it and he felt bad b/c now it looked like he was trying to hide something when really all he wanted to do was play cards. He was asking me if he could go – knowing full well that I wanted some time with him and I told him that he made his own decisions. I was trying to make the point that I’m not his mother; I’m his wife.

So he comes in, helps the guy doing the bathroom remodeling for a few minutes and comes up to jump in the shower. I asked him if he was going and he said, “I want to.” At that point, I told him that it would be a very bad decision on his part but it didn’t stop him. He rushed in the shower and out the door. Man, was I pisssed. Did I mention that I don’t see Bill on Wednesday’s b/c he’s playing Texas Hold ‘Em and he doesn’t get home until 12-12:30am when I’m already asleep (and he leaves the house most mornings before I wake up)? I had to tell Austin that if I was a little snappy that it wasn’t his fault b/c I was upset with Bill – thank God he’s old enough to understand.

Sunday comes around and I’m full of attitude. I asked, “Were there strippers?” And there was. That just put me over the top. Now, I have never been one to mind if Bill went to a “Gentleman’s Club” but he doesn’t go so it’s not an issue (not to mention in a club they are on stage with a no touching rule). However, I did find out bachelor party – sit on your lap, put boobs in your face, dance in your living room – strippers, bother me – A LOT. Maybe it’s b/c I’m 33wks PREGNANT and my husband never tells me that he finds me attractive nor do I feel attractive at 30lbs above normal weight but he was tripping over his own two feet to get out the door to go see some strippers.

Now in all fairness to Bill, I know he wasn’t going to see the strippers but I’m pregnant and irrational and still pisssed about it. I know it; I admit it but dammn it if I didn’t wait all day for an apology and in the end, I basically asked him to apologize. He did and he was actually sincere saying that the only reason he was in a hurry was so that he could eat and he was anxious about playing in a tournament with other guys – it was not at all about the strippers (in my eyes, they were a perk :rolleyes: ). He really wanted to see how well he would do up against strangers in Texas Hold 'Em. He doesn’t expect me to understand. The thing is I do understand but I told him before he left that he was making a [u]very bad[/u] decision – one that he heard about all weekend.

Also, I wonder if I would’ve been AS angry had he told me up front that it was a bachelor party? The fact that he kept that under wraps let me make up all kinds of things in my mind. I really don’t like thinking of the stripper aspect of it all… And he barely knew the guy, he’s met him, I think, twice before.

Was I really all that irrational? Would you have been angry?

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Dumping Syndrome

So I had my appt yesterday with my GP, the one my OB wanted me to make for a heart evaluation b/c of my last sugar episode.

My GP believes that it has NOTHING to do with my heart. He said if it was my heart, it would happen all times of the day not just in the morning. He believes that it is strictly related to sugar.

So he's diagnosed me with Dumping Syndrome. Here's a little of what I found online:

Rapid Gastric Emptying(Dumping Syndrome)
An amalgamation of information from the National Institutes of Health (NIH),the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and other sources.
Rapid gastric emptying, or dumping syndrome, happens when the lower end of the small intestine (jejunum) fills too quickly with undigested food from the stomach.


Early dumping

"Early" dumping begins during or right after a meal. Symptoms of early dumping include nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, and shortness of breath.
After an esophagectomy, food passes quickly into the small bowel, mixed only with saliva and amylase from the mouth, but little or no stomach acid. The molecules (component parts) of the food remain fairly intact and therefore, large. The small bowel responds by diluting what we eat through a process of "water recruitment" into the bowel space. The "richer" the food, in terms of molecule size or sugar content, the more water will rush into the small bowel to dilute it. Suddenly, the heart will pound and beat rapidly; you may feel dizzy, and overwhelmingly tired. The bowels may gurgle and churn, and will feel bloated and gassy. This might be followed by loose stools and even vomiting. It is not dangerous, but it can be frightening to the uneducated patient.


Late dumping
"Late" dumping happens 1 to 3 hours after eating. Symptoms of late dumping include weakness, sweating, and dizziness.
Late dumping is caused by an insulin response to the ingested food. One might feel flushed, sweaty, fatigued, and experience all the signs of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).


http://www.eccafe.org/cnt/dumping.html

Here are some other sites:
http://www.womenfitness.net/dumping_syndrome.htm
http://www.gastromd.com/diets/anti-dumping.html

I must have LATE DUMPING since it normally occurs 1 - 1.5hrs after I eat.
I'm so happy I don't have to go to any other appts: cardiologist etc... and to actually know what's going on. Sounds to me like he nailed the diagnosis.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Health Update

For those of you who don't know, I've been having some problems in the mornings with my sugar levels dropping and causing me to feel faint and crappy. Since discovering that it was "probably" sugar, I changed my diet in the mornings from cereal, which is high in sugar, to plain oatmeal that I flavor myself and things have been good...until Tuesday morning.
Here's a recap of what happened Tuesday:




I have no idea what went wrong but I got ready for work like normal and I felt fine. I left the house and I felt fine. It wasn't until I was driving up a main road to work that I started yawning over and over again, like I couldn't get enough oxygen or breathe. So I tried sitting taller to give my lungs a little more room, didn't help. I wasn't feeling right and I started getting warm so I turned on the a/c so it would blow on my face and a few minutes later is when I felt the color drain from my face. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw how pale I was so I pulled over on the shoulder but kept driving just slower since there was a turn coming up. When all of a sudden I started seeing the dark spots. This was it, I was passing out. I immediately pulled into someone's driveway that was right before the turn. I got parked in time and I didn't pass out but boy did that scare me. I called my mom when I got back on the road so I had someone to talk to until I got to work just in case and right before I got to work, I started feeling funny again but I got to work and I've been okay ever since other than I'm exhausted and feel like I might be trying to get sick with sore throat but that's another story.


So I had a doctor appointment that afternoon and I mentioned it to the doctor and here's what he told me:



When I told him what happened this morning, he told me to go to my GP soon and have my heart evulated. He said from what I told him about this morning (yawning and shortness of breath) he said that it may be an arythmia (sp?). He said that the sugar could also play a part in b/c when your blood sugar drops your body releases adrenaline and if my heart isn't working properly then it may not be distributed properly or quick enough (something like that, I was a little thrown so I can't remember exactly) but he's also concerned b/c I had the oatmeal this morning and it didn't work like it has been - so it leads him to believe it could be something other than the sugar... Clear as mud? Bottom line: I need to call my GP asap and get in for an EKG.


Now I've had "episodes" with my heart racing about 3 yrs ago and they did an echo and everything looked picture perfect and then it all stopped when I changed jobs so they chalked it up to stress. I never bought it but have felt fine ever since... until I got pg. So even though the "episodes" are completely different in symptoms etc. I'm still a little nervous about what is going on.


I have an appt for Monday @ 2 with my GP so I'll keep you posted.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

October 17, 1996

Today is Austin's birthday. He turns 10 and I can't believe it. 10 years ago today I was sitting in the hospital being induced to deliver my first child, my son.

What an incredible little man I have raised. I don't know if I did a good job or if he just got all the right genes to make him such a gentleman but he is the sweetest. I feel bad for him though in the sense that one day some girl is going to coming along and shatter his heart into a million pieces. I've known this for a long time but as he gets older, it gets clearer and clearer. Hopefully, I'll be prepared being as how I could see it coming for years.

I hope his teacher doesn't load him up on homework today so that we can enjoy this evening with him. I'm so so proud of him and just thinking about him sometimes makes me feel like exploding with joy.


Happy Birthday Austin!

Friday, October 13, 2006

My sister - My baby shower

This is a vent.

So my sister is trying to help my SIL plan my baby shower. She's seems adamant about doing so and will take no help from me to even help with food. I could go on about the details but I'll get to the meaty stuff.

April 2004, my sister had her first child, my nephew Kyle. Her best friend and I talked about throwing her a "surprise" shower but never got knee deep into details before she had a tizzy thinking that no one was throwing her a shower b/c neither her or dh had heard anything. I tried telling her that that's what a "surprise" was all about but she wouldn't hear of it and just got pisssy (went as far as calling me liar) and told me to forget it that her husband was going to throw her shower - so he did but not before things got really ugly between us due to her behavior.

Now...

Can you guess?
It's being thrown in my face. Just today I heard how someone should've thrown her a shower blah blah blah... I told her that we tried but she threw a tizzy and she said, "Poor Kyle" (like he missed out on something) "You still could've thrown one." and then "I'm not getting into this..." and logged off of IM without me being able to say another thing.


Why does my family have to be so difficult? I never asked her to offer to help with my shower. I have so much stress in my life right now with the bathroom, Austin etc... and all morning my sister was trying to help relieve my stress when she throws this on my shoulders. I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to do anything for me but she didn't let me.
I can't say that I didn't expect this sooner or later...

Thursday, October 12, 2006

31wk sonogram

First of all, everything looked good.

He's still a boy (we saw testicles) and his heart rate was 134.I was exactly 31wks yesterday and he measured 31wks 1d and approximately 3lbs 9ozs. He's also head down.

We got 4 pics and they aren't that great. The sonographer had several great photo opportunities and didn't take any of them. The picture I uploaded to SN, Jack looks like he's going to cry but just a second or two before he looked so peaceful - if she would've only snapped it then... Oh well. He's still cute.

The sonographer was really nice and I think at the end she was trying to get us more pics but I asked if it was ok that I bend my knees b/c my back felt like it was breaking and she said it was fine and asked if I was ok. I was but then a few minutes later I had to ask if I could sit up b/c I can't breathe on my back and it was starting to make me light headed so she ended the sono then... darn it. I know she was doing it for my benefit but I wanted a GOOD pic. Again, oh well.

And one last thing -
Surprise! Surprise! My placenta is anterior which is why I can't feel him so much. As we were watching the screen she said, "Did you see that? He's kicking you." And I said, "I don't feel a thing." She said, "I do." (b/c she was holding the wand).

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

So stressed out!

I'm ready to curl up and cry.

We are remodeling our bathroom downstairs and we had the wallpaper taken down in the bedroom and the walls painted - this is going to be Austin's new bedroom. However, the contractors are now going on a month since the bathroom has been demo'd and it's still not complete. They told me it would be finished in 7-10 days once the demo was done. The demo was done in a day and now a month later we're still waiting for it to be finished.

This stresses me out b/c I can't do Jack's room until we move Austin into his room. We can't move Austin until the paint and bathroom is finished. I'm going out of my mind worrying that I won't have everything done in time for Jack's arrival. The room & bathroom are a complete and utter mess. I'm going to have to take days off of work when it's finally done to clean and get things in order and to get Austin moved.

Add on top of that, everything that I'm going through with Austin and his teacher and I'm about ready to have a melt down. I really hope that something gets resolved at our parent/teacher conference on Friday. I emailed the teacher today requesting that a guidance councelor or vice-principal be present at the meeting b/c I want to walk away from that meeting with a sense of accomplishment knowing that I'm helping Austin. I don't know where to go from here and I'm not about to take advice from his teacher. I'm afraid I won't have an open mind at the meeting and I need to make that a priority. Please pray for me to have the strength I need to get through this.

On a good note, Bill came home last night. What a relief. With him gone, I felt I was carrying the load alone and I was really getting weighted down.

Also, I get a sonogram tonight and I'm really excited about that. I can't wait to see Jack. I can't wait to see him in 3D! I'll post pics tomorrow!

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Flippin' teacher

She strikes again!

First let me point out that they had THREE (3) tests last Thursday - a bit much for 5th graders in my opinion but at least it was all of them and not just Austin...

So I ask him yesterday if he got his tests results back for math and social studies b/c those were the only 2 I knew about and he said, "No, but I got my spelling test back!" I told him I didn't realize he was having his spelling test on Thursday as well and asked his grade (he's a GREAT speller, I have no worries here). He said, "a B+" A little confused I asked him which word he missed and he told me that he missed a couple of the BONUS words.
Here he didn't miss ONE spelling word but at the end of the test she gave them 5 bonus words and he missed 2 of the 5 and ended up getting a B+ - INSTEAD of which, in my opinion, should've been 3 pts towards extra credit.

I'm about ready to explode here!! I'm trying to contact ex or his wife - since Austin was with them last night - so that they can verify that they saw the test with their own eyes and what Austin said is correct before I call the school and raise a stink!