January

January: The Highs and the Lows

January is my least favorite month. I hate un-decorating the house after the holidays are over. Everything seems so bleak and blah. I am always done with snow and ready for Spring to arrive toute de suite. Last year I attempted to embrace January and use it as a time to renew and relax, to nestle in and get cozy, to read, go on dates with Tyler, and binge watch TV. It made it a bit better. I tried to do it again this year with mixed results. January is just so long, cold, and gray. It drives me crazy. The fact that 2016 got off to a bit of a rocky start didn't help.

The Highs:

It's all about faking it until you make it. So I have been pretending it is spring until it actually is spring. I have purchased three different bouquets of tulips this month. It helped. I am about to start forcing branches off of my crab apple tree to bloom as well.

Kameron had a rare opportunity to try out for Wind Ensemble this month. This is the premiere band at his high school. He tried out this fall and didn't make it. His teacher told him that he was very close. Luckily someone moved and another opportunity arrived to audition. Kameron jumped on it and practiced his butt off. HE MADE IT!! This has pretty much been the highlight of his life thus far. He is a little peon freshman trumpet player in a sea of juniors and seniors. It's awesome!!

It was RUBBER CHICKEN and that is always a lot of fun!! Rubber Chicken is the spirit competition between our high school and our big rival. The varsity girls play a basketball game, the cheerleaders perform, the dance team performs, and then the varsity boys play a basketball game. At the end of the LONG but FUN night Chuck the Rubber Chicken is awarded to the school with the most school spirit. They take into account who wins both games, who wins the cheerleading competition, who has the best half time show (which is elaborate), who wins the dance team competition, plus the elaborate props and costuming that the both student bodies put into the night. The students buy bags with all kinds of props and t-shirts. It's awesome. This year the theme for our school was Peace, Love, Chuck so we had a 60's hippie theme.

Reilly was texting me non-stop wanting to know who was winning and what was going on and how the dance team did. She loved performing at Rubber Chicken when she was on the dance team in high school.

It is such a great community event full of parents, students, and siblings. It felt like our whole stake was there. It was officially our combined youth activity for mutual that night. It was a blast! We saw Kameron once. He was off in his glory with his friends and we were hanging out with ours so it worked out great!

Sadly we did not bring Chuck the Rubber Chicken home this year!! (Technically this was the picture we texted to Elle when we found out that her pet bird died...but it served two purposes.)

Speaking of Reilly, she is doing great with school and work and getting all kinds of practice cutting hair. I think she cuts the hair of most of the people in her ward now. This is her very devoted home teacher. He goes to BYU.

It was Disney day at school for Ailey and Bryn. Ailey and her friends went all out. They made tutus and hair things (not show in this picture) and planned for weeks.  Bryn, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less...which was actually a little surprising. Like I said on Instagram I asked her what she wanted to dress up like (Elle was all decked out as Minnie Mouse) and she just threw on an old Frozen t-shirt and said, "I'm good." Hilarious. I volunteered in Bryn and Elle's class that day and most of the girls were dressed up and I asked Bryn if she wished she would've done more and she just replied, "Nope." I didn't get a chance to run up to Ailey's class while I was there but luckily her friend's mom texted  pictures to all the parents.

Ailey has a great group of friends and they have a lot of fun together. They are getting so much more social and teenager-y. No more play dates. "Drop us off at Starbucks please" or the yogurt place or wherever they want to hang out. There is constant texting and chatting on the phone. So far not much drama this year which has been absolutely fantastic.

Tyler and I were laughing (in a crazy hysterical fashion) and shuddering that Ailey is right in the pubening (See the tv show the Goldbergs for meaning) and unfortunately due to the fact that boys mature later than girls...so is Kameron! Instead of one emotional roller coaster we currently have two. Here we were thinking that we were so smart having our kids four years apart and thinking that it would save us from multiple teenagers at one time. I mean... hello... we just barely survived Reilly!! I thought we might at least get a break for a year. Nah. (Maybe this shouldn't be filed under the highs.)

Kameron is doing great with his bagpipe lessons.You start out on the chanter and then after you play that for a year you move onto the full bagpipes. He made his first move from the chintzy plastic chanter that he started on to this nicer wood one made in Scotland. He was excited when this arrived!! The boy loves music!!

Ailey had New Beginnings!! I can't believe that she turns twelve in June and will be with me in Young Womens. That will be fun!! She was so excited and had such a fun night as we celebrated all the incoming Beehives for 2016.

I didn't take a whole bunch of pictures this month. Things were equal parts low key and equal parts crazy. I did have several fun date nights with Tyler which were much needed, we had a great time with the kids, and I had some much needed outings and lunches with friends. It was nice.

Now for...

THE LOWS:

There was really only one low but it was pretty scary and all-consuming. The Sunday after New Years I was at church and had a bad headache and eye ache. I had had this off and on for about a week but while I was at church I was thinking about my head and eyes aching and it reminded me of having hypertension with my pregnancies. I felt prompted to take my blood pressure when I got home. I dusted off my old bp monitor and sure enough my blood pressure was really high. I was pretty shocked because whenever I have check ups and things like that my bp is always normal. I have only ever had issues when I was pregnant and once our babies were born it went away. That afternoon I laid down, read, and took it easy. I checked it multiple times and it had come down a bit but was still running high.

The next morning was Monday and I kept an eye on it and it stayed high. I called my doctor's office and made and appointment for that Wednesday. Tyler went with me and I got checked out. My bp was even higher there. It was surprising to my doctor and PA because I don't fit any of the criteria for high bp. No family history, none of the other lifestyle issues that can cause it, and my BMI is normal etc. I was prescribed a low dose of blood pressure medication to bring it down; they ran a whole battery of blood tests, and I was told to follow up in two weeks. All my blood tests were normal. The first week was okay. My bp was lowered but not super low. But then I started to have dizzy spells and I felt so run down that I could barely function. I was assured that bp medication can cause fatigue for the first few weeks. After I had been on the medication for about a week and a half I felt like I had been hit by a truck...tired and dizzy. I would drop the kids off at school and literally come home and take a two hour nap. I would get up and try to accomplish something and be so tired and miserable that I would have to lay back down again. I would go to bed at 6 pm. At around my two week mark it was once again Sunday. I had been having some tingling  in my arm and leg on and off for a few days which my doctor and PA knew about but this particular Sunday it was really bad and didn't go away. I went to church and it just got worse and worse. I ate something thinking maybe that was the problem. That didn't help. I went and laid down thinking maybe that would help. No. I rested for maybe 15 minutes and my symptoms got so much worse. By then the whole left side of my body was numb and tingling then my face was numb and tingling. Then my tongue on one side was numb. NOT GOOD! I told Tyler and we headed to the ER. I was pretty sure that I was having a stroke.

I was immediately taken back and run through a whole battery of tests to determine if I was having a stroke. I didn't have any face drooping or things like that but it felt like my left arm and leg were working very sluggishly. My blood pressure was fairly high so an IV was put it, an EKG was done (to see how my heart was functioning), and another slew of more intensive blood tests were done and more tests were done to test how my brain was reacting. Thank heavens I passed them all. My blood work and EKG also came back normal. I wasn't having a stroke but they didn't really know what was going on. The ER doctor didn't feel that I needed an MRI based on my test results and sent me home and told me to follow up with my doctor at the appointment I had scheduled for Wednesday. He explained that just like blood pressure can spike for unknown reasons so paresthesias (numbness and tingling) can occur for unknown reasons. He didn't feel that I was having a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack) either. Thank goodness. The ER doc wanted me to monitor my blood pressure regularly and record it at a particular time each day for a week and continue taking my meds. Then after about three hours I went home. The picture above is of me and Ailey after I got home from the ER and had been facetiming with Reilly.

I had another appointment on Wednesday. I was still having tingling and dizziness but not to the same crazy extent. My bp was high when I was at my appointment but it had been normal to low every day prior. I explained what had happened the Sunday before and why I went to the ER. It was pretty baffling to them. They were wondering if my medication was causing my symptoms but none of the side effects common to the meds were the ones I was experiencing. I was told that they were sending my records over to a neurologist for a consult. He said that they would probably want to see me to rule out MS. Terrifying. (There is a large MS cluster in my area. No one knows why.) As I was handed my papers and was leaving my appointment I noticed his notes at the bottom that said if my bp was below 110/75 to call him. I told him "I would be calling you every day." My systolic number (the top #) is usually in the low 90s. Then he said that I now might be hypotensive. My bp dose was halved and I was told to continue to monitor my bp and follow up in three weeks and that I should hear back from the neurology group in a day or so if they wanted to see me.

That night my sister, Jordin, who is a nurse called me to see how my appointment went. She asked me in detail for my bp log and absolutely flipped out. Apparently my bp was way too low to be taking meds to lower it further. Even my half dose was taking it way too low. No one ever told me this. I would test my bp before bed and my systolic would be in the low 90s to 80s. She told me to absolutely not have my systolic in that range and then take meds to lower it further. (Apparently you can go into cardiac arrest if it gets too low. Swell.) That night before bed my systolic was around 90 (my diastolic was normal) and she told me to hold my meds and to test again the next day. My bp stayed low. I held my meds all day. That afternoon the doctor's office called me to say that the neuro group definitely wanted to see me ASAP. I was scheduled for an MRI the next day. My bp continued to stay low. I was worried that me worrying about getting an MRI done would make my bp spike...it went up a little but was still in the normal range. I'm sure it was up when I was at Inland Imaging getting my MRI done but by the time I was home it was low again. My sister was convinced that I didn't need the meds that I was taking to lower my bp. She said that they never just immediately put someone like me on bp meds right away. Having my bp be super low could be causing my terrible fatigue, dizziness, and tingling.

I was trying not to freak out about having an MRI and potentially MS. Not an easy task. Tyler's cousin has MS and it has been a very difficult road for her. I was scared to have the MRI. The office asked me if I suffered from claustrophobia. Hells Yeah!! They were like "How bad?" "Try I couldn't breathe because I had a cast on my arm bad." (Remember that? Good ol'cast claustrophobia.) I was prescribed a sedative. THANK GOODNESS. Well... then I started worrying about that. Tyler was crazy as all get out from his sedative for his vasectomy. Then I was freaking out about everything but trying to look and act like I was okay. I failed miserably with Tyler but I think the kids bought it.

Obviously I wasn't given as big of a sedative as a person who is having a vasectomy. I took one tablet expecting to be whacked out. Nothing. I was told I could take two pills if needed. Tyler told me to "TAKE THE OTHER ONE!!" I was like...great...you're the one that's going to have to deal with me. Turns out it felt like it just took the edge off. I wasn't so jittery and my heart wasn't racing. The MRI was extra confining because they were taking pictures of my head...obviously. Well... the good news was I did not freak out while getting my MRI done. Not remotely. I thought it was pretty cool and felt like I was on a space ship so CLEARLY the sedatives were working.

Unfortunately this was done on a Friday afternoon and I had a whole weekend to wait to hear the results. I figured it wasn't an aneurysm or they wouldn't have sent me home. I researched how to live with MS all weekend. Monday morning I got the call that my MRI was normal. Hallelujah!!

So now I am completely off the bp meds. My bp has been normal for almost 2 weeks now. I am starting to have more energy and feeling a little more normal. So yeah...January got off to a rough start but it REALLY could have been so much worse.