HysterSisters.com Was a Lifesaver!

During the entire process of deciding about and going on with my hysterectomy, this website was king (ahem, princess!) Full of great advice all the way through. I highly recommend it.

Modern-day Scarlett Letter

I'm sure there will be a huge outcry, starting with my wife a bunch of other people, about this humiliating and scarring this kid.

I think it's great. Wish I'd thought of it first.

Mom makes daughter wear her offenses

MEMPHIS, Tennessee - A Tennessee mother fed up with her daughter's misbehavior took an unusual tack in for latest punishment, making her stand on a busy street corner with an attention-getting sign.

Tashara Wilkins, 13, held a sign Sunday reading, "I don't obey my parents, I'm a liar. I steal from my mom. I have a bad attitude."

Mom must be a Nathaniel Hawthorne fan.

Hysterectomy Surgery Tomorrow

I am finally going to have hysterectomy surgery tomorrow after bleeding for six long years. I am not looking forward to surgery, given my horrid surgery history. But I am looking forward to getting rid of the flood and whatever else may be lurking in there.

At age 22, I started having stabbing horrible pain every month, which increased drastically over a six month period. Yes, I saw a gyno, but he did nothing to suggest anything was amiss. Finally, after being doubled over in pain at work, the coworkers sent me home. I took tylenol and laid on the floor, it was so bad. I finally took it upon myself to go to a doc in a box, who took one poke at me and assumed I had appendicitis. His wife drove me to the hospital. I assured anyone who would listen that this was anything but appendicitis, including the surgeon they sent to consult. They finally listened to me and sent over my gyno at 10pm. I had been calling all day. He did an ultrasound and said he saw a "little cyst". I spent five days in the hospital with no definitive diagnosis by the doctor assigned to me (what a surprise). I had an infection, that was all they said.

Shortly after, I thankfully relocated back to my hometown and went to my old gyno and explained what had happened. He started following me on ultrasound and the cyst grew and grew, so within a few months, surgery was set. I had no idea what to expect. I don't do well on narcotic pain meds and ended up allergic to morphine. The surgery revealed extensive endometriosis and a consuming endometrioma in my ovary, which the doc thought had burst and caused my prior pain and hospitalization. That cyst wasn't little, it consumed my ovary.

Well, that surgery was successful, cause I went on to have two lovely kids via C-sections. However, neither of those surgeries were easy or without their own troubles. The first one, they did a dural puncture when putting in the epidural, which only happens to less than 2% of patients, which then caused me to have breathing troubles and the most horrible headache for two weeks. No drug could touch the headache and they even did a blood patch while I was in the hospital and it did nothing!

Amazingly, we decided to have another kid and this time I opted for spinal anesthesia to hopefully not repeat the epidural problem. Instead we got a new problem. Aside from it hurting really bad (as bad as the epidural did), it wore off. I repeat, it wore off DURING surgery. I could feel the doctors making snips with scissors, etc. I got more and more panicked but they said they could not do anything to not hurt baby. As soon as baby came out, drugs went in. Awful!

As you can see, I am not a prime candidate for much of any surgery....except twilight sleep. I have done exceptionally well with this....go figure.

Applebee's Gets Children Drunk

Applebees's (not my favorite restaurant either) made a baby boo-boo. A big baby boo-boo by serving a baby a margarita. Every time we have gone to Applebee's in recent memory, they have also made plenty of mistakes - but at least I haven't brought home a drunken todder...yet!

Cicada Mania!

Check out the Cicada Festival website I found at Cicada Mania today. Here is a photo I found there too. (quite educational don't you think?)

Why, you ask, was I looking at this? Well the cicadas have also emerged here in Florida in droves. It is cool that they only come out every 17 years. We found a "skin" yesterday on our screened porch screen. I loved grossing out the kids by actually being the one to extract the skin to use in their makeshift science museum on the porch. (this was one of my better ideas to keep them busy when they were bored...I said get your binoculars and your magnifying glass and find some science outside....and they did very rapidly) I explained that when we were little we had lots of fun collecting and wondering about the cicadas.

Apparantly, the folks in Illinois and midwest have quite a time celebrating the cicada! Enjoy!

Like Father, Like son.......???

Enjoy the photo! The apple doesn't fall from the tree does it? Happy Father's Day in Advance!

Help Find Missing Madeleine in Europe

Another update to the ongoing mystery of where little Madeleine McCann is. Here is a link to the latest news. Take a look at the linked website and pass it along. Hopefully it will help.

Job Hunting After Staying Home with the Kids

I'm back at job hunting again, after a big pitch last summer to get a teaching job with no results. What's different this time? I finally got my Statement of Eligibility last October, well after all the teaching positions for the prior year had been filled. I got my alternative teaching training via the America Board for Certification of Teaching Excellence (ABCTE for short). It is a viable alternative to a second college degree in education for those who wish to pursue a second career. My first career was in banking/human resources. About the time child number one came, the bank was going through its second merger and my job was going to be sent out of area to Charlotte, NC. I took (really asked for) the buyout and have stayed at home with the now two kids for the past eight years.

During this time I have not been skill-idle (new word). I have been very much active on the internet and working from home doing telephone sales and service, a little pit of project work and an off/on stint as a substitute teacher. I have been very active in the lives of the children by volunteering and advocating for a great public education for my gifted one (no doubt soon to be two).

The schools are starting hire again and it is with trepidation that I look at getting back into full-time work. It is something I would not actually choose to do. I would love to continue to work part-time and look after and advocate for the children. I believe this is my true calling, especially given the special needs my children have. But my better half lost his high paying corporate job some time ago and our finances seem to dictate my return to the world of work. He is working but didn't get a new job that was equal to or better than the last one, so there is something of a deficit.

Hurricane Season - what to do for the kids......

Hey it's that time again, Hurricane Season in dear ole' Florida. As always, with good cause, they say to be prepared, be ready! We can vouch for that as survivors of the messed-up 2004 season of hurricane love.....4 storms criss-crossing the state with two going right over our prior abode in Brooksville, FL. I can't say enough about having proper, non-electronic kid entertainment ideas on the ready. Given our kids' ages at the time, coloring books and other art gear were used daily. Books, the radio and a flashlight ranked high on entertainment value, not to mention "camping out". That is sleeping on the floor or wherever at some relative's house until the electricity was restored at our home (last count: two weeks each outage). Yep, that part is not fun for the adults! I'm sure many of the adults reading would assure me that a good stash of liquor/beer/wine is mandatory for post-electricity outage fun! Your choice!