We're going!

It's official, we've booked a trip to Cuba for March break!
We are really excited. My good friend and two of her kids are going to come too! Maizey's papa (donor's husband) is coming to. Her dad can't make it this time because he is in nursing school and has some clinical stuff he can't miss. We'll miss him.












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Where'd we all go?

It seems I'm not the only one failing to keep up with the blog these days. I'm missing the blogs I read on a regular basis. 70% of them are not updating.
I know I can't complain because I'm just as bad.
Life just seems to be droning on for me. Not much new and exciting stuff going on.
Work has been particularly stressful the last 6 or 7 months. I mean, we have brand new staff who have only worked here for a couple months complaining of burnout, never mind that they are part timers. It's been a stressful go for those of us who are full time. There was a period of about 6 weeks that we were short staffed. I earned an extra 10 days of vacation time during that time because of working over time hours. I just need a break from it. The stress I mean.
We're hoping to use the extra vacation time to go away somewhere over March break. Not sure where, but hoping tropical. We'll have to see how money is. No solid plans at this time. Also will see how taxes go, hoping not to owe anything this year but not likely.
I'm starting to wish I had got a hot tub instead of a pool, because I would love to just soak in a hot tub after work each evening.
Maybe we'll work towards adding a hot tub to our back yard oasis. It's a huge expense though as we'd have to expand our electrical panel in order to support a tub.
Maybe in the distant future.




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4 years!

It's so hard to believe that it was 4 years ago tonight I went to bed with "gas" and 7 hours later, I had a beautiful baby girl in my arms.

We had a wonderful family birthday party yesterday. I love that Maizey's dad and his family all make the effort to come out to celebrate. I love that she has so many people who love her.

Still no luck on the baby-making front. It's ok though. It'd be nice to have just one more baby, but we're just thrilled to have Maizey. I can't even believe how amazing she is.



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All clear

Mom's biopsy came back negative. For now she's cancer free.



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Moving forward.

My mom's doctor confirmed that the spot in her lung wasn't and isn't cancer, as it had shrunk in size in a matter of a week, and cancer just simply doesn't get smaller without treatment of some kind. They've suggested that she just had a really bad case of pneumonia.
On the other hand, she needs to go for a biopsy of a spot they've found on her left breast. A similar thing happened last year and it turned out to be nothing, but they want to be sure. It could simply be a scar from when she had a benign lump removed years and years ago. Keeping the fingers crossed.

We have officially switched back to Maizey's father to be the donor for all future attempts at getting pregnant. We did have 11 attempts With his husband with no luck. It is going to be a little more tricky this go around because of the traveling we will have to do.
We have also contemplated the pros and cons of using an anonymous donor. We haven't completely ruled it out, but are sticking to the known donor for now.


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Shhh...

I'm enjoying a fun little app.
Whisper.


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School

Maizey started school last week. I can't believe we're already two weeks in. Wow! She was pretty psyched when we woke her up the first day...
(I've tried to put in a video of Mai waking up on the first day here, along with some pictures of the first day but the blog press won't let me)
By the third day, not so excited. In fact she she came home and declared she was "never going back there again".
Four days into the second week, although she does not like getting up that early in the morning, she has decided that she likes school and wants to "go back after she's done sleeping."
I just can't believe how big and old she is now!
The wetting accidents stopped with the start of school too. I had a feeling.
I'm so proud of our baby girl!



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The scoop.

Turns out that allergic reactions can cause low blood pressure. That was likely the culprit.
Other than some residual itch and a couple stitches and a black eye, mom's pretty good.
Some great news!
Mom's blood work came back showing elevated white blood cells, so the ER doc called the radiologist to ask him to read the CT scan from Thursday right away, thinking there could still be some pneumonia.
The radiologist said that her lungs looked a lot better than the last CT... And, get this, he also said that he didn't see any evidence of cancer in the lungs at all. There was some normal post radiation scars etc, but no indications of cancer at all.
We've had our mini celebration, but are going to wait for confirmation from the MRI today and further conversation from the cancer doctor until we are completely at ease.


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Here I am...

Here I am again, in the emergency department of the hospital with my mom.
What better to do than blog it at 3:50 am?
She had another CT scan this morning. The last one she had, they never had her drink the drinks and didn't inject the dye because at one point while she was in the hospital and had a CT scan she had an allergic reaction to something. They suspected it was the dye, but it was never confirmed. This morning they prepped her by having her take prednisone and Benadryl. They went ahead with the dye to get a clearer picture. She was fine most of the day.
At around 2:30pm she began a reaction. She took some more OTC Benadryl as per her doctor and managed the rest of the day with some itch.
I called her a few times through the evening to make sure she was alright. (I was working the afternoon shift). She sounded fine, and said she was ok except for a little itch here and there. I reinforced how important it was for her to call me if she felt off at all.
At 1am my phone rang.
It was mom. She had become dizzy and fallen on her face in the kitchen and couldn't get up. I quickly raced to her house. I found her sitting on a kitchen chair, blood all over her face, and kitchen floor.
She said she felt a little better and wanted to go lie down on the couch. I tried to assist her but she just went down again.
I didn't mess around, I called an ambulance.
She has low blood pressure, and might need stitches.
They are going to do yet another CT scan, no dye this time just to make sure she's not broken any of her facial bones.
That's where we're at now, at 4:06am.



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Cancer

My mom went to see her cancer doctor last week. She's been told that the "spot" that was noticed on her X-Ray is cancer. Cancer in her lung. The next step will be to determine what kind of cancer it is. They will need to know if it was an extension of the breast cancer, or if it is a new cancer that originated in her lung. She may have as little as 5 years to live depending what they find out. She may also live on for decades. We're hoping we find out it can be controlled.
They can't cure lung cancer.
She will be having some more tests done in the next little while.
I've had a mini breakdown. My mom means a lot to me and I can't even imagine not having her present in my life.
So much worry!


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2.5 days!

In 2.5 shifts I will begin my 13 day vacation. I'm really looking forward to it. We don't have much of anything planned and that feels good. We will be spending 3 nights in Ottawa. We were on the fence about that... To either spend the time and money on a vacation or on re-doing our bedroom. Well at the present moment, there is a promotion going on in Ottawa at many hotels. Third night stay is free. It's been so long since we've visited my best friend in Ottawa so we took advantage of the promotion. We'll have to paint and decorate our room another time. I have some great ideas for our room but it can wait.
We are also going to be hosting a sweet 16 party for my other good friend's daughter (yay! Staycation yard getting used) and then a rib fest - birthday party for my sister-in- law!
With the last couple of days being gorgeous weather I've been a little sad that we didn't do a camping vacation this year. There's always next year I guess.







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Update ...

Ok so I'm a slacker in blog land. Shoot me. I just haven't felt up to it. It all began with the kitchen renovation ... (I still need to take pictures of the finished kitchen). Everything has been haywire since.

Maizey has had some regression with her potty training. She was fully trained in December last year except for a few accidents at night while sleeping, then right at the time the renovation (May) started, she began peeing her pants... All the time! She still continues to have regular accidents. We did have her checked by the doctor and she had high levels of protein in her urine, so we were sent for ultrasounds. They came back completely normal. It's weird. She is just refusing to use the potty a lot of the time. We can clearly tell when she needs to go, and she holds it for as long as possible then just pees herself. Not every time, not every day. She has good days and bad days. It's so frustrating.

My mom has been staying with us for a week now because she has pneumonia. She lives in a multi level home with no air conditioning so it's much better for her to just stay with us. The doctor wants her to go for a CT scan because the lung X-Ray at the hospital shows something that they couldn't tell what it was so they want a better image. I'm terrified it's lung cancer. My mom was a smoker for all of her adult life, and she quit the September before Maizey was born.

We haven't been up to much this summer. We were hoping to have money left in our budget to buy a trailer... Ya that didn't happen. Not even close. So we'll keep the dream and move on. I'm a little bummed about how cool and wet this summer has been. We got our yard all stay-cation ready but haven't had much time to use it.

I'm all mixed up these days too. We haven't tried ttc in the past two months because my donor was away and had just returned at go time last month so I didn't want to pressure him. I really want to be ok with just Maizey and give up trying, but something keeps pulling me to keep trying. We are considering going back to Maizey's dad. It will be difficult because he has moved to Toronto for school for the next 2.5 years. Something in me is saying to just throw away the opk and just go with my instinct. Not be so paranoid, and scheduled.

My thoughts are scrambled up too. I keep having these moments of clarity and fog. Some days the easiest of tasks seems so complicated, daunting and I just don't know where to start, and other days everything seems just so clear and easy.

Work has been difficult as well. It's completely stressing me out these days. We've had a couple changes with the individuals we support, and now the dynamic of the house is mentally exhausting. Emotionally draining. It's hard.

My old cell phone conked out so I lost a lot of my pictures. I'm a little bummed out about that. I need someone to teach me iCloud.

A couple more weeks until vacation again. Usually I have something planned. Right now I'm contemplating either camping at one of our favourite provincial parks, staying a few nights in an Ottawa hotel and visiting my best friend or just staying home and using the time and money on re-doing our bedroom. I totally need a king sized bed ;).















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