Death an Its Many Faces

    Death changes people. I don't know who said it first but it is as true as true can be. When you think of death, most people will think of a death from old age or even a car accident. People change after these quick deaths. Grief, anger, depression, and so on as the stages of grief entail. Now what most people don't realize is how the impact a quick death and a slow death differ so much from one another. At this point, you are probably thinking that no it can't be that different. Let's list the differences between the two now.

    Say you had a loved one die in their sleep. It's quick and painless. No dragging out in misery.  Closure might be an issue with family, i.e. not being able to say goodbye. While you are grieving over the loss of your loved one, you eventually get over the bad parts of death and remember the good times and will have fond memories of the life you shared.

   Now say you have a loved one dying of, and to use my own personal example, brain cancer. Now different types of cancer will affect everyone differently. Brain cancer, however, will affect someone completely. It can turn an intelligent individual into a child. Now with a slow death not only will you get your chance to have those last moments with your loved one, you will be able to spend a little more time with them. Sounds better, right? This is one of those moments that is too good to be true. Yes, you get to spend more time with your loved one, but no one will tell you or warn you that as they decline in health their attitude towards you or any individual changes as well. Now at this point you might be saying well of course I would think so. And here I will agree. I knew my mother was going to change over the last weeks, but not as drastic as she has. No one warned me that my highly intelligent mother who loved her family will turn into a apathetic child. 

   Because I live with my mother, I became her 24/7 primary caregiver. Now even if I wanted a break, I can't. There is no one else. When I have tried to ask for help from my blood family, they are too busy or can't be bothered. So they don't see her decline like I do. They do not see her acting like a petulant child refusing to take her medicine or to eat food. She sleeps around 20 hours a day or more. I have been blamed for everything from starving her to poisoning her by my family.

   This goes back to the difference between a quick and slow death and how it affects family. A quick death is mourned and settled. Reality is faced and dealt with. A slow death tends to give the family the idea that there is still hope and they can be cured when more than one doctor has said no. They refuse to face the reality. 

   On a personal note, I do not speak to my family anymore nor do they talk to me. I am actually happier this way so I do not have to hear the blame and new ways of how I am horrible and selfish. To me, family is not determined by blood, it is who you choose. My brother has seen my mother less than ten times since she was first diagnosed seventeen months ago. He tells me I am an worthless, immature leech. My aunts live outside the city and only have opinions about how my care for my mother is lacking. According to them, I have stolen food, starved my mother, stolen money, and am killing her by agreeing with her decision of no more treatment. And lastly, my mother, who I know still loves me, curses and ignores me. She is at times afraid of me, angry at me, hates me, or just not interested. Now my mother has an excuse of a growing brain tumor. My family has none.

   I apologize because this post was not meant to be a rant. Only to share my experiences.
  Also, if you click the title of this post it will take you to a website that discusses symptoms, timeline, and general information about patients with brain cancer. It helped me understand a lot. So if you are going through my situation or if you are curious, check it out.

Single Moms, I Praise You!

When I was a child, my father was in the military. He was stationed in Germany. He would come home for months but then he was also was gone for months at a time. My mother had my brother and then me as babies, toddlers, and small children while my dad was going back and forth to Germany. She was essentially a single mother. What was even worse for her is that she had ulcerative colitis. For those who don't know the symptoms of that are severe diarrhea that cause painful stomach cramps, severe vomiting and nausea, and just all around pain and misery. So while my mother had two babies by herself with a constant debilitating sickness, she was by herself until my father retired when I was eight years old.
I used to take all of this for granted until I had my own child. I knew it would be difficult. I knew it would not be a cakewalk. I want everyone who reads this to understand that. I also know that if I did not have the support I have through my mother and my husband, I would not be able to do it. In the beginning after I got out of the hospital, my recovery took a lot longer than was expected. While I was still in the hospital and the baby was at home it was my mom and husband who played parents. While they were at work my friend, Tamara, watched the baby. When I finally made it home I still couldn't take care of my baby because how bad off I was. If I happened to have been a single mother, I am sure that I wouldn't have been able to do it. I was heavily medicated for the first six weeks because of the pain that delivering the baby caused me.
Fast forward a couple of months. My baby by this time is rolling over and trying to crawl, but hasn't got it yet. I have developed hypothyroidism but I had no idea and I couldn't get it treated at the time. Symptoms of this is fatigue, depression, severe mood changes, etc. I was always tired and always wanted to sleep and having a baby who didn't want to sleep didn't help. Our marriage became strained for a little while because even though I was always tired, I still managed to take care of the baby and clean the house enough that the baby couldn't find something to choke on. The dishes weren't done everyday and the tables weren't completely cleaned off but for the most part the house was clean. Even though I wasn't by myself, I never got time to myself because my husband only spent a few hours with our baby between work and his sleep. When I wanted to sleep on his days off he told me that I need to spend more time with our daughter. I am not going to lie, for a while we slept in different rooms. If I was by myself at this time, I don't know what I would have done. I thanked my mom every day at this point, but I felt like I was abusing the help she was giving me.
Fast forward again to the present. Our beautiful daughter is now nine months old. She crawls at the speed of light it seems and wants to put everything she finds into her mouth. I am currently being treated for the hypothyroidism and depression. I have energy to clean the house, take care of my baby, and run errands. I can get so much done now. Even though I am much better now, I still rely heavily on my husband and mother. So I don't have to get my baby up when she is asleep just to go get my husband from work, I hand her the monitor or ask if she can watch the baby. If she says no I don't force her to, but she is a huge help to me. If I didn't have the support of my family and friends I still don't think I would have the strength to raise a baby.
So to sum up, I praise the single mothers out there who raise their children  and raise them well. I am not talking about the single mothers who let their kids run wild. I am talking about the single mothers who have respectable children who know what is right and wrong. I praise the single mothers who have the strength to do whatever it takes to make sure your children have food by doing anything they can. I especially praise the single mothers who are severely ill but still manage to get up and go to work to make sure your child can eat. Mothers who even though they work and don't have people to rely on, they still manage to make they kids understand they are loved and they should love others, all the while being violently ill and dealing with it. I have a new respect for single mothers since I had my own child.

Playing catch up

So it has been a really long time since I posted anything. Not like many people even read what I type anyway. I think the last time I posted was before my in-laws came to visit. If that is the case, then let me say that it went a lot better than I thought. we were walking on eggshells for little bit, because both me and my mother-in-law, Laurie, were afraid to say the wrong thing to upset each other. After a while I realized that I didn't care too much. There was only one or two pointed remarks but they were minor. One was about me not breastfeeding. It didn't seem to get across that I don't even make milk anymore. Never made enough in the first place. My mom jumped in and told them how I almost died after birth. Listening to her, I thought she was making it up. When I sat and thought about it, I don't remember much after the delivery except I could barely move. Between talking to my mom, my husband, and my friends I found out later that it was true. My organs were on the verge of failing or something like that. Failing organs is always scary in itself. I do know it took me a long time to recover and because of that and other things I couldn't make any milk for longer than a month and half of that month I was in the hospital.

Sorry I sidetracked. The other remark was about how if the baby holds her own bottle that it breaks the bond between parent and baby and makes a lazy parent. For a 2 week vacation that was pretty good. They fell in love with her immediately. It was fantastic. We went to Myrtle Beach and had a huge blast. It was sad watching them go. They were a big help and gave me and Jon(my husband) a break. They helped us not have to worry about food for a long time and bought tons of stuff that we couldn't have afforded on our own for a while yet. Because of that we now have a dresser, a crib mattress, a bedding set, and so much more. They doted on her as if she was the only child in the world. I honestly wouldn't have had it any other way.
After they left there was sadness and tears all around but happiness at the same time because they finally got to see their granddaughter.
Meeting her great-grandmother however was not so good an experience for me.
My grandmother has always been vain and extremely critical. Those were the nicest words I could come up with.. It used to be how fat I was. I was always fat, fat, fat. I got used to that eventually. This time when she found out that the baby sleeps in her own crib, she threatened to call the "child people" on me. I am now not only fat but a bad mother. I have moved up in the world. Despite that I am a bad mother and I don't know what I am doing, all of my family loved her. The one night visit was plenty long enough though.
The 6 month checkup went great. She is still almost off the charts for height but average for weight. She is still healthy. She is now crawling like a speed demon. She has a new walker and loves it. What is cool about it is that it can play mp3s. I found my old mp3 player and hooked it up. It was worth it to get this one because she loves to dance to the music.

I don't think there is anything else that is new to say. As always if there is, then I am sure I will blog about it.

Not a good day to be me...

Apparently, I am stuck at getting this wrong. I ordered several things that were to be shipped to me. Only one thing came right and undamaged. I ordered new Living Room furniture, a bathtub caddy, and an Otterbox(ruggedized phone case). The teak cross tub caddy I ordered was from Bed Bath & Beyond. It was supposed to look like this.

Instead, I got broken pieces of wood. Not once but TWICE!! I gave up took it to the store and got one that they didn't have before made from bamboo. It looks like this.

Simpler design, but way sturdier and made better all around.

That was the simplest one to fix. The living room furniture I ordered from Ashley Furniture was another story. I was so excited about getting this new furniture, too. Everything but the sofa was correct. I ordered a sofa and love seat. I got a sectional. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but my living room is not huge. In case you were wondering this is what the sectional and sofa look like.

I can't fit the sectional. I don't even like sectionals!! I get to use the sectional until they bring me my new furniture on the 14th. Which is a busy day. The day my in-laws come to town. The day of my mother's knee surgery. And of course the day my furniture arrives.

This was just a ranting post. I had to get it out of my system. I feel better now.

Pictures

It has been been pointed out to me that I suck. I have not posted any pictures of my baby. Here you go for anyone who wants to see!

 The surprised look on her face is constant after every time you change her clothes. Weird but cute!

Cute sundress! Had to take a picture! 

 This is the look you get everytime you feeed her. She stares you down almost angrily.

 My mom called her little tomato when she wore this.

Chillin' is what she does best. 

 I hate to say it, but she looks high in this picture.

Waitin in the doctor's office. 

 Daddy loves her! Spoils her rotten, too! : )

 Sleeping so peaceful like...

Her hand tasts goooood!! Ignore the demon eyes for the next few shots. I was having a bad camera day. 

I am not even going to say anything... 

She was cuddling up to me when I took this.

I will have more as I take them. There are also pictures on my Facebook. Just sayin'



A Mother's Habits

You prepare yourself to lose your mind for the 9 months you are pregnant. You hear the horror stories about how you will forget things seconds after you thought of them. The baby makes you lose your mind quite literally. What no one tells you because it is hard to put into words is that the baby also replaces your mind with something of its making. Every habit you had may or may not disappear but new ones will form that will not go away until long after your child is grown. I can only give examples but to truly understand I would think that you would have to experience it firsthand.
The best example is the gentle sway. Now the gentle sway is quite different than swaying in general. I used to sway from side to side and back and forth before I had a baby. I am a fidgety person. I can't hold still, even in sleep. My swaying movements were wild and monkey-like compared to now. I move side to side so gentle as to not wake the baby. Even when I do not have the baby in my arms I sway in the gentle rocking motion subconsciously. I have to make an effort to stop, actually. Another example along these lines is the back and forth motion with the shopping cart. With or without baby, I gently rock the cart. In less than a month it has become habit. Truthfully, it was less than a week. I used to laugh at the women who did that because I thought they were mental. Weird things that a crazy person would do. Now I have become one of those crazy people. The only other people who know what is going on is another mother. I guess we are all crazy in some way.
My mother who has not had practice with a baby in 27 years picked up these habits as if she had only had the baby yesterday. Proof positive that years from now I will be the same. For all you expectant mothers out there, you may have a grasp of what I am talking about, but when your baby is born you will definitely know.

On a personal side note, the in-laws are coming for a visit. There is great excitement and trepidation in the  house. Although, once they have seen the house, I will post the picture of the newly remodeled place on here or Facebook.

The Firsts!

There have been a lot of firsts this month. She has really started smiling. One of the things I look forward to as I drag my tired, fatigued body through the day is to see her smile. It brightens my day and renews my strength. She makes so many faces now. She is mimicking almost every face you can make at her. It has been stated that she has inherited my ability to stick out the bottom lip an inch away from her face. Apparently, I had the most pitiful pout and my mother swears she was looking at me the firdt time she saw her pout.

Another first is the ability to blow spit bubbles. This is almost gross but it is still cute. It makes having a bib on her a neccesity now. Even if she doesn't drool on it, it keeps her from eating her clothes and soaking them.

She has begun to coo and goo for enjoyment now. Jon enjoys making her laugh.

She has also established the fact that she is a huge flirt. Anytime a man walks by she smiles and laughs at them whtner she knows them or not. She expecially loves her daddy and uncle, though. Their voices can wake her from a dead sleep. She gets so excited and wants to make faces and coo at them. It doesn't matter that she gets cranky when they are gone because she woke herself up from her nap. Then it becomes my job to put her back to sleep.

She is slowly learning to hold her bottle. She almost has but makes herself angry when it falls out of her mouth.

She loves to look around so much that she has given herself a bald stripe from ear to ear. My mom calls it a reverse "C". Usually when one goes bald, the hair on top of the head goes first. Not in this case.

She makes every day special. I absolutely love her to pieces.

I never understood that from the minute they are born, the personality is so evident. It only grows more evident as the days go by. It is going to prove that the mother's curse is more than true in my case. Not only will she be like me, I think she will be worse. With that thought, I try to focus only on here and now. These are the good and happy days and I hope to have many more ahead with her.