I just can’t figure it out

And it’s driving me nuts!

So here I am, at 3:30 in the morning, writing about it.

Though it has nothing to do with why I’m still up at 3:30am.  I’m not sure why I’m still up.  Maybe because I like to be up late at night, when everyone else is sleeping.  This is MY time and I like it. :)

Anyways, back to what I am really here to write about.

I’m thinking back, trying to remember when it all started and I honestly can’t.  I probably should’ve written it down.  Maybe I even wrote it in a blog, but I’m too lazy to search. I’m guessing it’s been almost a year now, if not a year.

No, wait, oh my god, it HAS been a year.  Jeezus, poor kid.  Ok, so, a year ago….  Well, technically I guess we could go back 7 years ago in April Ashley was having trouble breathing.  She was sick, and we thought it was just a cold but she wasn’t getting any better and we could see that she was having real difficulty breathing, so we took her to the hospital.  We thought she’d be given some antibiotics and sent on her way.  Long story short, she spent 3 days in the hospital.  She wasn’t terribly sick or anything, really.  They had no idea what was wrong with her exactly, but treated her for “Asthma-like symptoms” and kept her on oxygen.  Once her oxygen levels were back up to normal she was sent home.

Many years passed…well, 6 years, I guess, and although she sometimes had trouble breathing, it was never like it was that time and it was always when she had a cold, which was to be expected.  Then last year, now that I think about it more it must’ve been early December, she was sick.  Had trouble breathing. Then she got whooping cough also known as Pertussis.  Boy was that a trip! lol  I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was pretty scary.  She would cough and make a crazy whooping sound (hence the name) and then hack up some horrible looking white pasty looking stuff.  It was pretty awful to watch.  I can’t remember now why or how we got the idea but I ended up Googling it and pretty much knew she had whooping cough but took her to a doctor anyway.  It was confirmed, she was given antibiotics and eventually got better.  But a regular cough remained.  We had her referred to an asthma specialist.  She was put on 2 different inhalers, one being a steroid.  She was on that steroid for months and months!  One side effect is weight gain, and she did gain some weight and wasn’t happy about it.  It’s not easy being an 11 year old these days.

So, after many months of these inhalers and many trips to the asthma specialist, nothing changed.  We finally decided to take her off the steroid inhaler, against the specialist’s judgement.  This was in June.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, she got better!  For the summer months she was better anyways.  And she’s lost weight since then and is now so happy with the way she looks.  Well, besides the usual things like not liking her teeth, or her cheeks when she smiles, or her chin or… well, the list goes on.  But at least she’s thinner and feeling good about that.

The summer came and went and then, around the beginning of September, she got another cold and the cough came back.  The poor kid has been coughing and coughing all day and all through the night ever since.  She was still taking the one inhaler once in a while to try to get some relief, and she says it worked.

We were just recently thinking maybe there is something in this house that is causing this… Oh yeah, we also had an allergy test done.  She’s allergic to the usual things, cats, dogs, mold… So we got to thinking, maybe we’ve got mold in this house somewhere that we’re not aware of and it’s hurting our poor girl.  We decided that once we were done with this Christmas business we’d set to work cleaning out the downstairs and giving the house a real good once over and see if we could find and eliminate the problem.

This got me thinking, and so I Googled chronic coughing and did some reading up about it.  There are many factors, one of which being mold allergies.  I read something about Benedryl being the allergy medication of choice for such things.  I just happen to have some left over from my summer with hives (I took those things like candy!) and decided that I would give her one and see if that helped.  I gave her one Christmas Eve about 10pm.  She was passed out on the couch by 11pm. lol  I remember those things made me pretty drowsy at first.

Just after 11 that night I got her up and to her bed, where she fell back to sleep, while watching tv, about half an hour later… and slept for hours cough-free!!  She woke up at 4am coughing and says she couldn’t get back to sleep.  She was in our bedroom at 6am, and we all got up for Christmas morning activities at 7am.

But she didn’t cough much all that day.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

We went to Jimmy and Ellen’s for dinner.  They have 2 dogs, a cat and a degu.  All things that should have and would normally have set Ashley off.  I don’t recall her coughing once the whole time we were there, and we were there a good 6 hours!

We came home, she went to bed and slept all through the night without coughing.

She did that again the next night.  And last night.  And right now she’s in bed, she’s been there almost 2 hours, and I haven’t heard a peep.

I am very VERY happy my baby girl is no longer coughing her face off every night… but I’m also very puzzled by all of this.

She still breathes a little heavier than she should.  Sometimes you can really hear her and we have to remind her that she’s doing it and she stops, I think she just gets lazy or something. lol  My brother used to sound just like that, I remember, and he has asthma.  So, she isn’t completely cured as far as breathing goes, and we have no idea exactly why she breathes the way she does.  She did have an asthma test done but I think she was kind of nervous about it and screwed it up.  But the good news is, for now, she’s getting a good night’s sleep with no coughing.

I’d just really like to know why or how this has happened, so we can keep doing whatever it is so we can keep her this way.

 

 

And so this is Christmas

All week I’ve been calling it that “shitty holiday” and wishing it were over already.

Now that it’s over, it wasn’t so bad.

For just a brief moment, about 10:30 this morning, I looked at the clock and thought “Oh, better call Mom”, but the thought quickly passed, and without tears.  That’s an improvement.

I had plenty to distract myself with though, so that’s good.

The day started with Sean crawling in to bed beside me at 6am.  “I know it’s too early but I can’t get back to sleep”.  haha Poor kid.  I told him he could lay there with me until 7am. Half an hour later, we’re both still awake.  Pretty sure Scott was awake the whole time too but he wasn’t saying anything.  Then Ashley comes and crawls in bed beside Sean.  We all toss and turn and finally get out of bed at 7am.  We come out, check out all the gifts under the tree, the new electronic toys on the coffee table (iPad, Galaxy tab) then the kids go through their stocking stuff.  Candy and chocolate, yum!

We make coffee, Ashley calls Lorna at 7:20, just as her alarm goes off.  Nice timing, that.

Lorna and Brandon show up about an hour later, we all open gifts.

Spent the rest of the morning/afternoon playing with our new toys.

Went to Jimmy and Ellen’s about 5pm for dinner, got home about 11pm.

I got some new books that I’m pretty excited about.  Didn’t get some of the things I was hoping for.  That still feels kinda weird, I gotta say.  Scott has always been so good at getting me great things, things I want, things I didn’t know I wanted…  Oh well, there’s always my birthday in less than a month! lol

Oh, can’t forget to mention, Ashley got a Blackberry, Sean an iPod Touch.  Both are very happy with their gifts from us.  Ashley says she almost cried. She was on that damn phone all day!  And Sean spent a lot of time on his iPod, as predicted.

It’s going on 3am, everyone is asleep.  I just finished some TF2 and now I’m just sitting here with that ‘not quite right’ feeling.

Something is missing.  My Mom is missing.  I want so badly to be able to call her up and talk to her.  Tell her all the things that have happened over the past year or so.  Mostly, I’d just really like to hear her voice again.

I’ll try this again…

Earlier tonight while playing TF2 a friend of mine made a comment about my blog, and how I don’t do anything with it anymore. I’ve been thinking about it the last little while, and almost wrote something about a week ago, but didn’t.  So, because of his comment, here I am.  (Hi friend! :P)

The problem is, my life isn’t all the exciting, and while I want to write stuff down here so I’ll be able to look back at it later on, I still struggle with that little voice in my head that says “This is dumb.  No one cares. Keep it to yourself.”  But, I guess just one person telling me they read it is enough to get me here again. haha!

So lets see…  I woke up, had coffee…  lol  Kidding!  (Hi again, friend!)

Yesterday Scott and I went out to the newly renovated Wal-Mart on Upper James.  It’s one of them fancy Supercenters now, so it’s huge and a huge improvement over what it was.  Way back when I worked at Wal-Mart at Eastgate Square, this particular Wal-Mart was kind of known as the “loser” Wal-Mart.  They never had anything in stock, it was small and kinda shitty looking.  Well, not anymore!  Apparently we headed up there for a particular reason but Scott couldn’t remember what when we got there.  Old age strikes again!

We did end up with a few things though.  On our way to the check-out I got slightly sidetracked in the clothing area.  Scott thought I was behind him, but I showed up about a minute later.  By this time, a woman was already behind him.  He actually started talking to her but as he turned around he realized she wasn’t me.  So, I show up and get in line with him.  Some dude then joins her in line and this is how it went:

Me: Sorry, got distracted.

Woman: Are you in line?

Me and Scott: Uh yeah, sorry… (or something like that), before we could finish,

Woman: Oh, it’s ok.

Dude: You got rooked by another couple.

Woman: What?

Dude: You got rooked by another couple.

Woman: Oh yeah, well…

(At this point I’m tempted to say something but keep quiet and listen…)

Dude: You go get in line honey and I’ll just go grab a few things.

Woman: *laughs a little*

(At this point I’m all “on no you don’t! And turn around…)

Me: Yeah, sorry, that was my fault. I was supposed to be right behind him, got sidetracked a little.

Woman: It’s ok, no problem.

Scott: Yeah, I actually thought you were her, that’s why I turned around and started talking to you.

Woman: *laughs* Hey, no problem.

Scott: You can go ahead of us, we’re not in any rush.

Woman: Oh, we’re not in any rush either, it’s ok.

So yeah, she was ok, but the dude… I just wanted to punch him in the face for being a dick.  We had 4 items, no big deal.  I could see if I had a huge cart of stuff… but whatever.   I just immediately wanted to punch that guy when I heard him talk.  Then Scott says to me “That guy kinda reminded me of your brother, he had that face…” *makes the face my brother makes*  BINGO!  That’s why I wanted to punch him, even though I never actually looked at “that face”.  I could sense “that face”.  I’ve wanted to punch “that face” many times over the years.  Pretty sure I sometimes make that face too, though. haha!

We ended up waiting forever in line. Not sure why.  Cashier girl was way too happy to be there, probably new, Christmas help.

After that we went to the grocery store (after stopping at Tim Horton’s for coffee, where I waited forever for some girl who looked like she was on quaaludes to give me two coffees.  Ugh.), picked up a few things, then waited in line forever AGAIN for some old dude to first find his debit card, and then to figure out how to actually use the damn thing.

But through it all, even though I was bitching, I stuck to my “new attitude”.  Yeah, that’s right, I’ve got a new attitude.  Being miserable sucks.  Shit pissing me off sucks.  So, no more!  Well, I still get pissed off, and bitch about stuff, but I don’t let it get to me.  “It’s not gonna ruin my day!” is what I keep saying.  lol

And it didn’t, so that’s good.  I guess.

Off to a better start, sort of

So, I was right about the uneasy feeling of yesterday.  Mostly.  Sean came home in a mood.  Not sure what to call it. It wasn’t a bad mood, he wasn’t sad or angry…I guess he was mostly confused because a girl told him something was his fault but he didn’t see what he did wrong.  And from what he’s telling me, I don’t see it either.   Oh well, no big deal, 10-year-old drama.  :)

After he told me about this, though, he then told me that he was trying all day to think of how to say sorry to me, but his thoughts kept getting jumbled up in his head.  Awww.  This kid breaks my heart sometimes.  So we discussed our morning, I told him I was sorry things happened that way, and that I could’ve handled it better.  He said “I could’ve handled it better too” and I was all “wow!”  He has gone from a kid who almost always blames everyone and everything else for all of his problems in life to someone who’s willing to take some responsibility for his actions.  I’m impressed!

He really has improved his behaviour a lot.  And at the beginning of the month he brought home a short note from his teacher, kind of a monthly progress report where she says just a little bit about how your kid is doing.  Usually these things say basically the same thing “he’s a good kid but…”  and then the list what’s “wrong” with him.

I nearly cried when I read this (alright, I’ll be honest, there were tears haha):

I would like to begin by noting some very positive changes I have noticed in Sean within the last 2 weeks.

Sure, doesn’t sound like much to anyone reading this, I’m sure, but you don’t know my boy! haha!

Anyways, he’s improved in many ways over the past couple of months, and because of that, I decided not to really punish him in any way for his behaviour.  I wouldn’t take away the video games, or the guns, but instead he’s to go to bed a little earlier each night.  I explained that some people need more sleep, and he’s one of them, so I don’t wanna hear any complaints that his sister gets to stay up later!

I know it was just one morning, but this morning was so good!  He woke up without any problems at all, in fact, when I went to wake him up he was already awake!  He was all ready to go with over half an hour to spare, so I let him use the computer…

Unfortunately I was cold and laid down under a blanket on the couch to warm up, and sort of dozed off a little.  He may have been late for school.  Oops!  lol

This uneasy feeling

I hate this uneasy feeling I get  whenever I have to fight with Sean to go to school in the morning.

We were doing so well.. HE was doing so well.  Even though he was getting to bed kinda late, he was still (with some prodding and poking) getting up fairly easily every morning.  At least easily for Sean.  He has never been a morning person, never easy to wake up.  He’s much like me that way.  I hate waking up in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I got out of bed without first hitting snooze at least twice.  I use my cell phone as my alarm, I’ve been doing this for years because I don’t hear regular alarm clocks, but I hear the ringing of a phone…  well, my current phone doesn’t ring when the alarm goes off, but it does make an annoying sound that’s enough to wake me, at least for a few seconds, until I turn it off and fall immediately back to sleep.  lol

Anyways, Sean is like me that way.  Takes some time to get him out of bed.  Time, patience, a little joking around… he does NOT respond well to being yelled at first thing in the morning.  I don’t respond well to being told “no”, or ignored first thing in the morning.  Perhaps you can see where this is going?

So we fight.  I threaten to take away all the things he loves the most – his iPod, his DS, PS3, Xbox/360, Wii, PC…  it wasn’t until I got to his Nerf guns that he got really upset. haha  The kid loves his guns!

Long story short, he eventually got up and got dressed with 10 minutes to go before he had to leave for school.  It doesn’t take him long so I wasn’t worried.  He ate his breakfast, brushed his teeth.  His friend Blake came to the door.  He waited while Sean finished getting ready, then off they went.

I got a kiss and hug.  I told the boy I love him.  He seemed sad.  It made me feel sad.

A few minutes later I realized that, on good days, he’s too busy talking to Blake, or telling me about something he’s dreamed up in his head, to give me the kind of hug and kiss I got this morning.  The hug and kiss I got this morning was the same one I get when we’ve gotten into it over something and he calls me names, then feels bad.  I think if Blake wasn’t here Sean would’ve cried before leaving.  This is why I have that uneasy feeling.  I sent my boy off to school feeling sad. I don’t like doing that.

He’s probably forgotten all about it by now.  I’m sure he cheered up some when he got to school and saw his other friends, and the girl he’s had a crush on for ages now.

Not me.  I’ll sit here drinking coffee and playing Cafe World on Facebook (yeah, don’t judge me!) and feel uneasy.  This feeling will stay with me all day, I know it will.  I’ve been here before.  I’ll try to do a number of things to help get my mind off it, but it won’t work.  Then he’ll come home and, hopefully, be in a great mood (he usually is when he gets home from school) and that’s when I’ll feel better.  I’ll give him a big hug and kiss, tell him I love him and I’ll feel much better.

Until bedtime, where the possibility of more fighting and uneasy feelings is huge!  *sigh*