Note to self...

Funny thing life is, I am amazed at how awful it can feel one day and a few days later I feel just peachy again!  When I re-read  my last blog post I completely cringed…I so mustn’t blog when I’m down!  So I officially apologise for sounding so “all doom and gloomy”.

I think it is just taking me time to get my head around the fact that life as I knew it is no more, but I am sure that that is not the end of the world…I am just going to have to go through an adjustment period and learn to get over the frustration that I sometimes feel, and get used to my new normal.

My very wise mom always taught us that “you can do anything you put your mind to”, so clearly I just need to put my mind to this! It’s always worked in the past and is probably a contributing factor as to why Livie and I are here today!
So instead of longing for what was, I will have to redirect myself to focus on the little things that make my heart melt, make me laugh till I cry and just plain make me thankful to be alive…

For example;  Ballet watching day for parents at Izzy’s school, being able to be there and help for Kayla’s Zulu Day at school, watching Livie cuddle the baby bunnies with absolute glee, celebrating Father’s day with my long suffering husband (and reading the special cards our girls drew and wrote in for him). Being tickled by my nephew Tyler, the tickle monster and enjoying his subsequent waterfall of giggles! Laughing at my husband’s silly jokes, spending time with special friends, baking pretty things for my girls and the list could go on forever….

So in essence it always comes down to the little things and finding joy in them, and for that I will count my blessings daily!

Happy Father's Day!

These are my precious Girls as they are right now… we had so much fun taking these surprise pics for Shane for Father’s Day and I thought I’d share.

So enjoying my photography, and so enjoying my girls…

Very blessed.

Hospital Blues...

It’s been a tough two weeks for me, first Olivia had her next set of vaccinations on Tuesday. Three jabs, one in the leg and one in each arm…I thought by the third child I was pretty tough and could do this thing, but I had not banked on my littlest’s response! After distracting Livie after the first Jab, the clinic sister routinely swabbed Olivia’s arm for Jab #2 but my tiny girl knew exactly what that meant and starting shaking her head vehemently saying “ no, no, no”…my heart broke there and then…I felt like the meanest mom ever while trying to console her as she sobbed uncontrolably in my arms. Being a mom isn’t for sissy’s…

Then on Thursday Olivia had her one year ( insert EEEK here)check-up at the paed, which I was kinda dreading as I knew she had not grown like we had hoped. And sure enough, although her milestones are ahead of a full term 12 month baby {Go Livie}, her size and weight is still just dinky! At 11 ½ months she weighs just 7.02Kg’s and is still very comfortable in 3-6 month clothes. {So in essence she looks like a seriously advanced  5 month old  baby.}

The Paed ordered a full blood work up to see if we can find any contributing factors or problems…

Now that is where my tough week got worse, my little mite’s veins are just as tiny as her so you think the nurses at the pathology lab could find a vein!? I very dilligently an hour prior to going applied emla patches in all the relevant places to numb her so as to minimise any pain. What a joke!

After trying with no success while holding down my screaming baby, it was concluded that the standard technique was not going to work, and we’d have to revert to the “messy way” {insert cringe here} this meant inserting a tiny needle into her vein on the top of her little hand (which by the way, was bent backwards in a way that shouldn’t be possible) and over the course of the next hour I proceeded to hold her down while the nurses dripped her blood into the seven vials needed for testing! I don’t know who it was more traumatic for; Olivia, the nurses or me…

Fast forward to Monday morning 2am…I awoke, as I do now and then, wanting to crawl the walls in pain. I dragged myself up, careful not to wake anyone, took my painkillers and warmed my trusty bean bag in the microwave, crawled back into bed and braced myself.

A few hours later, the alarm went, Shane got up dressed for work, brought Livie to me for her feed and left, as he does at 6am…usually by then I have managed to get ontop of it and can get up, get the kids ready for school and take on the day. Not this morning… Kayla came through complaining of not feeling well and Izzy had been up a few times the night before with what I thought was a bladder infection. So I decided to just let them stay at home, as the thought of trying to get up was intimidating to say the least.  By 9am I called Shane at work as I could no longer handle the pain and he rushed home to help and took me straight to the nearest hospital.

There I proceeded to update the General Surgeon on Duty in Casualty as to my condition…here I received the normal expressions such as “you are one lucky lady to be alive!”…But I’ve got to say not feeling so lucky now!!!

Anyway after much discussion, Xrays and failed anti-inflammatories, it was decided to just take a 20mg shot of Cyclomorph (morphine mixed with an antiemetic to stop nausea) intravenously. This eventually numbed the pain and it was agreed that Shane could take me home and if I needed another dose or started vomitting (a sign of a full intestinal obstruction) I would just come back.

Sigh…Today the pain is a bit better and I can function again, but I must say this really is starting to get me down. I know that I should feel lucky to be alive, with all the good things in my life, but…being told that this is it, there is no more that they can do for me for now, that the adhesions are the result of saving my life and that until it is a matter of life and death they will not operate (not that I want another op anyway), and that who I was and what I was capable of is no more – well that just totally sux!

So today I have the blues…but not to worry tomorrow I will put on my big girl panties again and I will be better.

I haven’t scrapped for 2 years!

Right…my technological disaster is behind me now, although I am still in mourning for the loss of a few years’ worth of photographs, I have upgraded my computer, replaced all hard drives and set up an overkill backup system so that this NEVER happens again!

And so now I’m back to blogging and telling you all about the joy I find in the little things!

One of those “little things” is my scrapbooking… after the surprise birth of our first litter of bunnies; Kayla was desperate to take the bunnies to school for Show and tell. Clearly I refused due to a number of reasons and the negotiation was that if I took nice photo’s and did a scrapbook page, she could take that instead. *{all her idea}

Hence I was sentenced to a week or two of incessant nagging as to whether I had done “it” yet! Finally I pulled myself towards myself and voilà…

 Needless to say through the process I was reminded why I was so addicted to this hobby…it is sooo rewarding and I just love the feeling of achievement that I experience upon completing a layout. And the adoration of my biggest fans {Kayla & Izzy and Livie too} just completes the whole feel good process!

Being able to create just so feeds my soul! {Although Pinterest  has kept me going in the meantime} But the point is that I realised that I had not created a complete scrapbook layout in almost TWO YEARS!!! What was I thinking!?

So I’m going to attempt to do a layout a week {give or take} and here is my next one…

  The first layout of my beautiful baby girl – I just love it!

Well – watch this space as this afternoon if the weather holds, I’m going to attempt an autumn shoot with my Gorjus Girls xxx

Have a very happy weekend everyone - I plan to ;)

The things that count...

Sigh! Well today is a day of highs and lows... did my usual 4am pain wake up call, where I wake up in so much pain I feel like I can’t breathe and then, thanks to my very special and dedicated D K I had a new pain med to try this morning {insert grin from ear to ear here!).

And what do you know...it worked!? Well I was so excited once I realised that the pain was actually dulling and that I didn’t need to double over anymore and steel myself against it ... I then did the next thing one does in these situations... I pathetically burst into tears! Tears of utter joy and relief! Then I thanked God for yet another small miracle.

I can’t explain what a relief it is to finally know that when I really just can’t bare it anymore there is something I can do! Until you have faced this pain on a daily basis, you will think I’m potentially bonkers. In fact my own husband thinks I am bonkers I’m sure and he has been there every step of the way and is the poor sod woken by my tossing and turning and frequent trips to the kitchen to warm my trusty wheat bag, which until today was the only form of soothing I had.

Okay so that was the “high” part of my day – moving on now to the “low”...just a few hours after realising that I had {help} I started to feel an uncomfortable itching sensation moving from my chest and neck up to my face and my face began to swell. Then the hives started over the rest of my body...sigh...so now I’m thinking how bad this itching thing in the big scheme of things actually is? Because the pain is way worse so I’d pick a little itching anytime!?

But the conclusion is; never a dull moment it seems in my post operative rollercoaster...maybe tomorrow will be a better day?

In case some of you are confused...I was hospitalised again last week with excruciating pain in my abdomen...no it didn’t just suddenly start again – it has never really gone away but it was totally manageable for some time and then it slowly stated to escalate till I reached my threshold.

Turns out that after my three abdominal surgeries last year, and all the packing and fiddling to stop bleeding etc. and scraping of innards to get rid of all traces of that nasty placenta of mine and of course the hysterectomy, a lot of invasive stuff was done to my abdomen leading to adhesions forming as it heals. Now adhesions are these nasty bits of call it scar tissue that form between your innards almost gluing them together like dried chewing gum and they stop your innards from being able to move around voluntarily with your body movements like they used to and thus causing quite a bit of pain for me!

So in a nutshell I was admitted to hospital put on a drip so I didn’t have to eat and therefore no peristaltic movement and supposedly no pain...and it would allow the sub acute bowel obstruction that had formed due to all of this to sort itself out. Now they can operate and try to cut away and fix all the adhesions but that could potentially leave me worse off than I am, as they will just form again and there is also all sorts of risks just opening me up and to be honest...the mere thought of another op terrifies me!

So I was discharged after a few days with the knowledge that this would not be my last trip to hospital, that full bowel obstructions, perforations and twisted intestines are expected at some point and these if untreated can be lethal so I need to learn to manage my pain??? i.e. live with it indefinitely and know when to get to the hospital! Rather a daunting thing to be told at 34 years of age with a young family to raise!  

So for now I am “processing” all of this and trying to be thankful for mine and Livies lives at least and manage as best I can without being a grouchy Grinch to my children and husband.

But onto happier more creative things... cause despite it all I’ve been a busy girl since last we spoke J

Planned and pulled off my big Girl, Kayla’s 8^th Birthday party – a rocking one at that!

I have done a Preggie photo shoot for my friend Mia, thrown her a baby shower along with my sister-in-law:

Had loads of fun with my weekly Project Life challenge <3

{for more info or where to get yours call Project life on 011 2814859}

Finished off Olivia’s Butterfly mobile for over her changing station <3

Celebrated Valentine’s Day with my special Guy and made the cutest Valentines treats for Kayla’s class which I am reading mom for...

So in amongst it all I am still trucking and finding joy in the little things, as they are the things that count!

xxx

Turning over a new leaf...

Okay so I have absolutely no idea where the last few months have gone, but I am totally committed to turn over a new leaf and getting back to business!

My little Livie is now 7 and a half months old, enjoying the joys of food {albeit rather sloppy and bland, but you gotta start somewhere}, sitting, crawling, laughing, screaming, happy and whole! I still can’t get over how blessed we are and what a miracle she is.

My older Girls, Kayla {almost Eight – eek} and Izzy {three going on thirteen} are good and have settled into the new school year remarkably well and I am just so proud of them!

So now that the routines are falling into place, and I’m completely out and about and LOVING it, I am ready and finally able to get back to finding the JOY in the little things!

First up on the agenda is Project life {www.projectlife.co.za – have a look see I think it is a fantastic concept!} There are so many ways to tackle project life and you can do as much or as little as you want! I was sent a Clementine Kit by Scrapping Fever {thank you x} and am loving the simplicity of it!

I have decided that my project life album is going to be a layout a week and all about “Living life again”! I thought it would be such a great way to appreciate my miracle baby, my beautiful family and my multitude of blessings!

So watch this space and let me know what you think as I go along!

xxx

Making sense of it all…

There is no denying it now, that this year my family and I have been on quite a journey, and to be quite honest I am more than happy for it to end now.

I have been asked on numerous occasions whether if I had known what I was in for, would I have done anything different and my answer is no, but if I had known all I was to endure ahead of time, I’m not quite sure how well I would have taken it!

It is probably a good thing that I had to take everything day by day and only learnt about each obstacle in these delayed steps so to speak, as now when I summarize the whole story from the beginning for anyone – I am always taken aback at how horrified they look, and when I listen to the whole story it does just sound way more awful than I am ready to admit.

But the interesting part for me is that at no point have I been able to focus on the sheer terror of the physical stuff…it has always been just taking it “day by day” and struggling from one goal to the next as I do believe and have believed all along with all my heart that we will all be “normal” again and that we have been so blessed with all the miracles that although some days have gotten me down, I can’t really complain when I think firstly of how bad things could have been and secondly, each time I look at our beautiful baby girl I am just filled with gratitude! Aside from Olivia, I had so many good things waiting at home for me to fight for – so how could I not?

My main regret is for what I have particularly put my husband though…to watch the person you love, physically fading away, in continual pain and fighting to survive through 4 major operations and more, must have been soul destroying for him. But he has been so strong and so {together} and for that I am very thankful  and proud of him too.

After our little scare earlier this week, I am now praying desperately for this all to be over. Olivia is doing so well, this week she turns 0! August 15^th was her due date so we can now start to “age” her normally… she has just been the most amazing little mite and also been so strong with not one setback! I just want to be able to enjoy her properly, and be able to be there for my other two girls too! I feel I have missed out on so much of their lives this year.

Don’t get me wrong, the support we have received has been amazing! My single older brother has come to stay with us and taken on the job of “aupair” and has been simply fantastic with the girls – I couldn’t ask for more! And the support and love from the rest of the family and friends and both girls schools and so many others has also just been overwhelming!

But I have missed ballet concerts, sports days, and all the other little triumphs and tribulations that my girls have faced in the last year without the normal support and “on looking” from their mommy! Definitely some guilt issues for me to deal with there…

But as usual I always seem to come back to the fact that I am still here – alive and kicking! It could have been so much worse and I am once again so so thankful.

So to everyone who has supported us in any way I thank you from the bottom of my heart and ask that you all continue to pray for a full recovery and the return of our “normal” life!

xxx