Christmas.... yes, it's been 6 months

So, I haven't posted in 6 months. Crazy isn't it. Sorry about that.

Life has been whizzing along even without my blogging.

I just haven't been in the blogging mood for awhile now. Haven't felt so good. Come to find out, there is a good reason for all of it.

First, I was diagnosed with Diabetes (Type 2) a few weeks back. Now I know why I've been so extremely tired and lots of other symptoms. My blood sugar has been pretty high for quite awhile it seems >240+. For those with the big D, my A1C was 9.7. For those who don't know what that means, normal is 6 or below. A1C is kind of a running 3 month indicator.

Several of my symptoms I've had for at least 2 years, but thought they were other things even seeing doctors for their treatment, like my recurring eye issues. The supposed best corneal specialist in the city is my eye doctor and he's looked at my eyes for the past couple of years and never once mentioned my issue could be diabetes related. Well... now that my BS are in the normal ranges, my eye issues have all but gone away. So... who knew? We (he and I) thought it was related to an injury to my eye 10 years ago. Good news... since he's been looking at my eyes so frequently, I probably haven't developed retinopathy, which is a permanent diabetes eye complication. That's good.

I found out I have diabetes through trying to find a solution to other symptoms that acted and looked like hormonal problems - thyroid, etc. My hair was falling out, hot flashes and other temperature issues, etc. I decided to go see a doctor to help figure out my hormonal issues especially given I was also about to have the Big H (hysterectomy) which was last Friday, 12/10. While doing all the lab work for the hormonal discussion, found my BS to be 240. And.. that was a fasting BS. Not good. Normal is 120 or below.

The blood work did show my hormones are all out of whack as well, but the first thing to get under control is my BS. In fact, my Gyn would not do the Big H surgery without my BS being under control so she sent me to a internist immediately to be seen (2 weeks before surgery date). Was put on a daily injection med called Victoza. It's not insulin, but rather stimulates the pancreas beta cells to make more insulin as I need it. The shot doesn't hurt... just still have to get over the psychology of giving myself a shot every day.

The other thing I did immediately (even before seeing the internist) was remove all sugar and all the simple carbs (think white... starches, bread, potatoes, corn, rice... boo hoo) out of my diet and began eating a very low carb diet. Trying to learn a new way of eating at the moment and how to live this way forever.

Victoza is also supposed to help you lose weight as it slows down digestion of food through your system so you feel full all the time. It certainly does that for me. I lost 10 pounds in a week and half between it and the low carb diet.

The combo of the two was dropping my BS like a rock. I felt a little lightheaded here and there during this period as it was changing quite a bit so quickly. But.. Dr. was quite impressed that I had my fasting BS down to 100 within a week of starting the meds combined w/low carb. Yea.. I'm an overachiever and had a goal in mind. I needed to have the Big H on 12/10 and just didn't have time to mess around.

So... had the Big H on 12/10 and it went very well. Enlarged uterus, lots of fibroids and excessive bleeding = hysterectomy. Was at Woman's Hospital for a few days where the care was pretty good but the food is absolutely AWFUL. Did I saw AWFUL? I meant ATROCIOUS! Ridiculously BAD. I don't know how they get away with serving food so bad.

Came home after 3 days and am now just healing up at home for the next several weeks. My bed is so much more comfortable then the hospital!! Mom came and stayed for a few days this past week and that was great having someone around to help me. I can move around some, but get tired really easily and of course, am very, very sore. Lots of recorded TV to keep me company right now.

It's Christmas!! I did a lot of preplanning at least to have most all of our presents bought before surgery so just had the wrapping to do. Between my doing some of it in spurts and Rachel helping as well, most all of the presents are wrapped now. YAY!

The kids are going to spend the week with their Dad for Christmas and we'll see them on Christmas Day for dinner! This is the very first year since they were born I won't be spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my children. It's going to be strange and I'm sure.. a little emotional. I'm just not going to think about it too much today.

Mom, Dad are coming in for Christmas and Laila, Justin, Ariane and Stephen are coming on Christmas Eve for dinner. I'll be excited to see everyone!! Love the holidays!

More to come! Need a nap!

MA

Crested Butte & Taylor Park Pics

Well, we are nearing the end of our time in this beautiful part of the country. It's been so nice and cool and I've enjoyed every single stinkin minute of it! I really wish we didn't have to come back to hot and humid Texas right now... really. Wish I was one of the fortunate ones that could just come and stay here all summer long. Oh well... life is what it is! Luckily, while we will start making our way back to Texas tomorrow, I still have another week of vacation so all is well!!

Here are some pictures of the last couple of days. Thursday we went into Crested Butte and wandered around. Pretty little town.

Yesterday, we went back to the area Travis took us too and had a great time! I caught and released 5 brookies and Dad caught more than that and kept 5. John didn't have quite as much luck as we did yesterday but we think he is at a disadvantage as the fish can see him coming a lot easier! :-) We had a lovely picnic lunch along the river and it was nice and cool. Gotta love it!

Here are the composites of the pictures I took yesterday! Enjoy!

We are going to have a big ole fish fry tonight!! YAY!

Later!

Fishing... Fishing and more fishing....

We've been fishing! That's what we've been doing.

Our first day was at Spring Creek and while it was beautiful there, we were not successful in catching any fish. However, we did have a lovely trout dinner from some of the fish the boys caught earlier at Quarter Circle Circle Ranch. Yummy stuff!!

Pictures from Spring Creek:

Yesterday, we had our fishing day with Travis. He's the owner of High Mountain Drifter Guide Service. My parents and Perry have been using his guide service for the last couple of years and he's a really nice, cute and good guide!

We wanted to do a walk/fish trip vs a float trip because we wanted to keep some of the fish for eating. Floating around here on either the Taylor or Gunnison Rivers is fun, but is catch & release only so no keeping and eating! So.. Travis took us WAY WAY far up in Taylor Park and probably more north out of Taylor Park really. We think we finally stopped at about 10,500 elevation where there were some absolutely beautiful creeks and beaver ponds and the fishing was excellent.

We all caught a ton of fish. Many were really small and we put them back, but we ended up keeping 19 of them, mostly brookies and one cutthroat. I caught the largest of all!

There was a lot of walking, climbing, maneuvering around holes and creeks, walking through dense areas of willow and who knows what else. I kept having to remind myself there are no poisonous snakes this high up in Colorado because you really couldn't see a lot of what you were walking on or through. Just kept praying there would be no bear just pop up his head while I'm out there. :-)

We are a bit on the tired side today from yesterday's adventure, so we are going to wander our way into Crested Butte to do a little shopping. Later!

Here are some pics from yesterday:

Day 1 - Harmel's here we come!

This was our (well, my!) first full day in Colorado and let me say, it was quite nice. I can't recall if I mentioned what we did last night (Sunday), but we went to Garlic Mike's for dinner which was really good! Italian (if you couldn't guess) and sitting right on the Gunnison River. Was nice!

This morning, we lazily got up, had some breakfast at the great Holiday Inn Express breakfast bar and packed up. Even gave some lessons on Facebook to my dad AND helped him to set up an account. He's a cool facebooking 72 year now! LOL

Once packed, we hit Gene Taylor's Fly shop to get my fishing license, then the grocery store for provisions, and then made our way to Harmels. We got here about 1 pm and our cabin was ready! This is quite a nice place - not luxurious - but nice. Our cabin is facing the Taylor river, you can hear the river sitting on the porch. It was a bit on the hot side again today at about 87 degrees or so. That's pretty hot up here and remember, there is no AC, so we sat outside in the shade under the porch. By about 4:30, we got our fishing gear on and took the few steps to the Taylor River in front of us. Dad hung out with me to give me some lessons and I had one strike. Nothing else, but I did get some good practicing and I sure did look good! So did John.

Dinner tonight was care of the very popular Harmel's BBQ - steak/crab night cookout. Lots of other folks in a nice clearing with a accordion musician and polka music. Was a fun time! John ate TONS of crab. His portion, mine and Dad's since we only had steak. Picture below of the damage!

After dinner... Dad wanted to learn more about Facebook, so we had a few more lessons and even a funny conversation with my sister, Stacey!

Pictures - most are on my Flickr website HERE and a few below!

Ok - we're getting ready to hit the creeks again today.. fish beware!!

"Stinky Boys" Trip - a few pics

This is apparently the "mountain" they climbed down to get to the creek where they fished one day!


THIS, my friends, is why I don't go on the Stinky Boys Trip!


These are the fish the Great Fishermen caught!


Our cabin at Harmels


This is right in front of our cabin practically!


Great pic of my Dad!


Yea.. that's my man!


Look at me!!


The fishing couple!


Captured these faces last night! Crazy boys.


John's Pile O Crab last night!!


Dancing last night!

Check out the rest of the pics in Flickr! Click HERE!!

Travel Day to Gunnison!

After a long day of washing clothes, packing, packing and packing, paying bills and doing Band stuff, I went to bed around midnight. Alarm went off at 4 am!! Yea... that's early and 4 hours is really not enough sleep. Up and ready.. off to the airport by 4:30 ish for my 6:15 am flight out of the Big Airport (IAH). Little Embraer plane (really not a fan of small planes) and 2 hours later, I'm in Denver where I'm writing this at the moment.

Waiting for my next flight on an even smaller airplane over to Gunnison. Oh - how I love little planes. Praying for a calm flight with little turbulence.

Just for the record, the temps here in Denver are pretty much the same as in Houston.... forecasted to be 98 - 100 degrees today. Yuck!! Gunnison - luckily, is not quite so hot at about 86 today and getting a bit cooler the rest of the week, with Almont (where we'll be) another 4/5 degrees cooler then that. Thank goodness... hate it when I'm trying to escape heat and just transfer myself from one hot place to another!! Our cabin in Almont doesn't have A/C (I didn't realize this btw) which is not a problem during most of the day and evening when the lows are in the 40's with highs around 80. We'll probably be outside most of the days, so probably not an issue.

Excited to see my husband and dad in just a bit and catch up with the survivalists and see if they managed to catch any fish.

Later!

VACATION 2010!!!

Finally... vacation has begun! Colorado here we come. Will keep the blog updated with pictures and info along the way.

John and Dad left earlier this week to go to Quarter Circle Circle Ranch for some ultra rustic man time fishing and cooking over coals.

I am joining them early Sunday via airplane for more fun at Harmel's Ranch Resort in Almont, CO.

The kids are not able to join us this time. We're going to miss them on this trip.

Packing... packing.. packing... :-)

More to come!

MA

Wisdom Teeth & Growth Hormone

Hi all -

Well the little chipmunk has survived the wisdom teeth surgery as did her parents. Although - barely! Just kidding. She did great. Round the clock ice and pain pills for about 48 hours but she's feeling better and more like a human again as of yesterday - 2 days out. Still resembles a chipmunk somewhat though and can't eat anything that isn't mushy yet, but she's getting there. Lots of salt water rinsing, etc going on. All is well and we're on our to passing this mini milestone of life now for her.

Stephen hit a milestone of his own on Tuesday night in the midst of the wisdom teeth recovery. He received his first injection of growth hormone! YAY!! He did VERY well and remarked "That's it?" after the first injection. Whew!! It's a tiny little needle like insulin needles and is given in the fat and not in the muscles. We have to rotate the injection each day to one of 8 different spots on his body. Some he can reach and will eventually be able to do himself, the others are probably more difficult for him to do and will need one of us to help with.

Just a refresher but we've been moving down this path for the last couple of years as his growth has slowed and slowed and slowed, becoming almost non existent. Just for the record, he is 13 years old, 4 foot 8 inches and 79 pounds currently. He's been about that same height/weight for the last maybe 3 years, growing no more than about 3.3 cm/year at this point. Blood work was done and his IGF-1 factor is 120 and a boy in puberty should be around 600. Other tests were involved like bone age scans and growth hormone stimulation testing, all of which shows he's very delayed. The reason... probably a combination of the side effects from the medication he takes plus just a general low production of growth hormone which could be genetic.

We are now trying to get the insurance company to pay for the treatment which, at his current dosage, will cost somewhere in the $50,000 range per year. Likely, that number will be more like $75K or $100K as the dosages are increased for him. Yes... it's a ridiculously expensive medication. If insurance ultimately denies all the appeals, we will have to make some pretty significant life changes to ensure he gets the treatment he needs as this is something effecting his entire life at this point AND we have a short window while he is still in puberty.

Prayers would be especially helpful for all of us... Stephen... the rest of us..... and prayers for the insurance company to do the right thing.

Everyone have a great day! We're off yet to another doctor this morning - Dr. O'Neill - for Rachel's shoulders. One of them is still giving her some problems.

MA