Mommy Guilt

That's what I'm told I'm supposed to feel.  Guilt for giving my charming daughter what she needs!

When I first held her during her first nap she snored.  I asked the doctor about it, was told it's likely just left over fluid and it'll clear up in a day or so.  I took his word for it because he's the professional and the way he worded it made sense.

Life went on.  After a week or so I noticed she had a chronic snotty nose.  Probably just reflux I was told.  Okay, I can handle that, after all my older child had HORRIBLE reflux for the first three years of his life.  I've walked that walk, so no big deal.  Hers wasn't as bad as Mikeal's was, but it was nearly identical, except she still snored.  That bit I was told was just a side effect of the reflux fluid that caused her snotty nose.  She was sleeping through the night, all was well, so okay, makes sense.  After all he's the professional, he'd been doing this for decades.  I'd seen him since I was 12, myself, here I was 25 years old.

Time went on, she made all her mile stones, on time, life was great, she started talking, and boy did she have a lot to say at just 8 months old.  She had a minimum of 25 words she used on a regular, correct basis.  It really helped that she has a brother 5 years older than she who talks non-stop. 

She ended up getting her first ear infection when she was 10 months old.  I wasn't distraught over it, yes she was sick, but my older child had his first one at roughly the same age.

So far, up to that point they were nearly identical...except Mikaila couldn't stand nursing at my breast, she'd fuss, fight, or when she did latch on she had a vicelike latch.  HOLY FUCK was it painful!

Mikeal, my first child to breastfeed latched on perfectly from the git go and it was absolute smooth sailing...outside of that first day when my foggyhead forgot the bit about having to change a diaper too, and let him nurse roughly 8 hours because it was the only thing that kept him from screaming...and he sucked blisters onto my nipples that burst a few days later.  THAT SUCKED...however, we were able to move past that, exclusively breastfeeding for 10 months before I had to go back to work, then we supplemented with real foods until he decided he wanted food & a sippy cup instead of mama milk.  He was great with it, I was okay with it.  All is well that ends well.  Not one time did he have formula, money well saved.

Mikaila, on the other hand, for two months I worked hard to bite my lip through the nursing sessions, often crying out of pain, but I was producing well, was even able to pump an additional 4-6 ounces after each feeding that I wanted to pump so that I could let Mikeal & Brian feed her from a bottle and she LOVED the bottle feedings...so long as the bottle was positioned just so.  I spoke with lactation specialists, I spoke with my doctor, I spoke with his nurse practioner, had a year of my own personal experience with it, including personal experience with blisters, thrush, mastitis, an unsupportive, abusive husband, I tried nipple shields, etc.  Anything they threw at my I tried and I became exhausted & depressed.  By the 3rd month of her life we switched to formula & bottles and life was happy again.  I didn't fail, I provided what worked best for my family, what made my daughter happy and healthy.  I succeeded!

But, as I mentioned, before backtracking, Mikaila had her first ear infection at 10 months old.  Mikeal only ever had 2 his whole life, but I had experience with them with my nephews who had chronic ear infections, so recognized all the signs early, took her in, she was given the standard ear drops & antibiotic, all was well....except...

By the time she was a year old I noticed she'd nearly quit talking.  She was doing more tantrum throwing, she quit sleeping through the night, and life became Hell.  My depression set in, the fingers were pointed at me for not putting her on a consistent enough schedule, not doing this right, not doing that right, you name it, I was failing.  The professionals told me so, and I believed them...not really, but I was supposed to, so I tried all the crap they told me to try with her.

Mikaila & her Uncle Bradley (my youngest stepbrother)

A few months later the bad behaviors were only worse, not better.  I took her again and again to the doctor.  Was given antibiotic bottle after bottle or a pep talk on the importance of schedules and sleep in infants/toddlers...as if I didn't know this or something, fuck I only had a 6 year old child who thrives WAY above the charts in everything, I tend to think I know what I'm doing.  But I was failing with my daughter.  She wasn't talking, she only screamed, she didn't sleep, would only nap 4-5 times a day for 10minutes -2 hours at a time and I was EXHAUSTED.

I lived near my mother, sister, other folks ones would think I could count on to be supportive of me, but instead they only added to the guilt I was already feeling.  Depression dug her claws in deeper.

I googled everything I could think of, talked to other mothers, was eventually left with the impression that I needed to take Mikaila in for more testing.  Specifically testing for Autism or other similar diagnosis.  I needed help and I wasn't getting it.

She underwent all the tests they threw at us.  Vision screenings were good.  Hearing screenings were good.  Just her behaviors were a bit off, but she wasn't consistent with her behaviors.  One week she'd appear to be fully on the spectrum, the next week she seemed normal, just didn't talk.  At 18 months old we started the occupational therapy with a therapist that came to the house once every other week, or so.

After a few months *I* noticed that if I spoke LOUDLY to her or included gestures to specify what she may need or want she didn't scream as much.  I mentioned it to the therapist & the doctor...and was told then to just continue and was given a book in baby sign language.  WHAT THE FUCK!  My daughter's hearing screenings came back good, she didn't quite meet the proper guidelines to be labeled as autistic or as having any actual disability because nothing was ever solidly regular.  Sometimes she was, sometimes she wasn't.  I was told it was just a short coming of my own, because I wasn't consistent enough with her.  Pile on the guilt.  After all, these are the professionals, and I know nothing about any of this.

By Mikaila's 2nd birthday my body was shutting down.  I'd gone almost a whole year with no more than 1-5 hours of sleep a day.

In November, before her 2nd birthday (birthday Dec 13), I laid down to go to sleep with my stomach severely cramping, within 10 minutes I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom.  I'm quite confident that there was absolutely nothing left in my digestive tract ..except blood.  LOTS and lots of blood.  I had to go to my mom's early the next morning to spend the day doing laundry at her place for the week, packed up the laundry, feeling a bit faint, but managing.  I was mom afterall, I can keep going.  I fainted a few times after I got to my mom's and was still shitting blood.  A combination of black & bright red, but it was blood nonetheless.  Enough to make me faint from the blood loss over the 6 hour ordeal.  My mom called a friend of hers to watch the kids and she took me to the ER.  It was quite the busy day in the tiny ER - three car wrecks resulting in 4 people being helivaced out to bigger hospitals, other massive traumas, a motorcycle vs telephone pole accident...I was given an IV and waited. And waited.  The single ER doc there that day, bless his heart, was just plum exhausted.  I rehydrated and was released with the diagnosis of hemorrhoid rupture.  Ok, whatever, he's the professional, I'd been there for many hours already and was feeling at least a bit better...plus my mom was watching my kids and I had laundry left to get done and you know, mom stuff to take care of.

A few more months of OT and no real progress.  We did discover melatonin around Christmas and for about 2 months my life was GRAND!  I was able to sleep!  Still not more than 4-5hrs at a time, but a MASSIVE improvement over the 10-30 minutes of sleep at a time.  Then the melatonin effects started becoming hit and miss and back to the guilt being laid on for drugging my child because I was just too lazy to do everything else that we'd already tried to get her to sleep.

We moved from Oklahoma to Tennessee when Mikaila was 27 months old.  I immediately sought out the Early Intervention program to restart her therapies here and learned SOOOO much!  To start with hearing screenings and hearing TESTS were two totally different things...the screening showed that her hearing was perfect, but her behaviors showed differently.  A referral from the new doc and she was on her way to having a test ran on her hearing by an ENT.  The ENT noticed that she had quite the build up of fluid on her ear drums.  I told him she'd been on antibiotics almost all of the last year for 'ear infections' that weren't quite ear infections, just the beginning stages of one...ear infections without the redness & fever, just the fluid.  Clue #1.


He prescribed a round of antibiotics stronger than amoxicillan, went back two weeks later, fluid still there.  He had also noticed that her adenoids were inflamed & her tonsils were LARGE.  July 1st, when she was 2 1/2 years old she had surgery to remove her adenoids and have tubes put in her ears.  She was a bugger to wake up from the surgery and never fully woke up, but did eat the popcicles they gave her and fought us when we'd try to wake her up, after a few hours they sent us home anyways.  She slept for almost 24 full hours, straight.  I worried and fretted over it the whole time.

When she awoke it was like she was a totally different child.  Normal talking bothered her GREATLY, fireworks bothered her, whereas the year before she could sit right under them and fully enjoyed them, she had to cover her ears after her surgery.  Within a week she was sleeping through the night and her daytime behaviors were so much less frustrating for both of us.  Mommy guilt started lifting.  But then it was quickly added back in by persons who blamed me for not getting this taken care of earlier.  You know, because the professionals were incompetent I should have known that.  I did suspect it, but when you live in the middle of nowhere where there are only two doctors, only one of which accepts your insurance you're kinda limited on what you can do on an extremely limited budget.

By the time Mikaila aged out of the Early Intervention program her assessment was that she just needed speech therapy.  She was transferred into the preschool program at the elementary school and life has steadily gotten better.

She goes to bed every night at 8pm and 90% of the time is asleep within 10 minutes, she gets up between 6am and 8am, and life is as it should be with a 3 year old who only has a speech impairment.

A few weeks ago, on the 25th of August she went in for a sleep study because she still snores, still has muffled speech, etc and due to the HUGE success with the adenoid removal & tube placement I wanted to look into the option of the benefits of removing her abnormally huge tonsils.  You would think this would be a good thing, right?  I have competent doctors who have tried things and we've had GREAT success.  No, instead I get more outsider guilt piled on because I'm now 'mutilating' my daughter because I'm a lazy/unfit parent and don't seem to want to take responsibility or something for my daughter's behaviors & muffled speech.  By these 'professionals' (meaning persons with longer life experience/multiple more children experience) my daughter is behind because of me...and for some reason my son excels, even though my daughter's life has been EASY in comparison to his at this age.  I won't lie, until he was about 5 years old life was a constant inconsistent rollercoaster.  If all the experts and professionals had a cookie cutter clue my son, who is 'perfect' child material - if you take off the tween attitude - should be an absolute hellion who's flunking kindergarten, still.  He just turned 9 and in the 4th grade gifted program, give me a fucking break!


This past Wednesday we went back to the ENT for the results of the sleep study.  Her sleep score is comparable to that of a 500lb, 50 year old man, who smokes 3 packs a day.  She's 3 1/2 and weighs 37lbs and doesn't smoke.  On several occasions her oxygen level dropped below 80%.  Not good, at all.  Her tonsillectomy is scheduled for October 10.  And I am HAPPY about this.  I am looking forward to my wee daughter having surgery, again.

She was cursed with my larger than normal tonsils & adenoid tissue.  I can't do anything about that, that tidbit was the way the genes fell, but I can do something about improving her quality of life.  Lay more guilt on me.  Such a horrible mother I am for being relatively excited over her having surgery to remove her tonsils with the hopeful expectation this will further clear her airway so she can breathe, eat, talk, sleep, etc like a normal healthy child does.

Special tribute to Caryn (@ihave7monsters) and her post about her own 'Professional' run Mommy Guilt here.  We, the mother/father/fulltime caretaker of children, ARE the professionals when it comes to our children.  Just because someone has a bunch of debt and fancy letters after their name doesn't mean they are right when it comes to our children.

Edit to add:  My bouts with depression have gotten a bit better.  I'm getting more sleep & Mikaila has made progress with talking so life doesn't seem as damning.  The support from friends is great, both online and offline; professionals are doing their job - addressing my concerns and sending us off to specialized professionals when the concern is  out of their specialization.  It is still a work in progress, I am still battling some personal health issues that became quite exaggerated during Mikaila's first few years of life, but these problems didn't just suddenly appear, so they're not going to be quickly fixed.  Everyday is a new adventure and life is relatively good.


****Update October 26, 2011****


Mikaila had the tonsillectomy on October 10th.  

So far we have been able to notice that her speaking is MUCH clearer, it no longer sounds like she has cotton in her mouth.  Still has some delay, but quickly gaining ground & catching up.


Mikaila no longer snores at night.  Absolutely the most heart wrenching thing to be laying by your baby girl, who for almost 4 years has snored every night of her life, and then notice that you are not hearing her breathing...took me almost a week to stop rousing her while she was sleeping, just to be sure that she was just asleep.


I have also not noticed a single runny nose, not even an inkling of a runny nose.  I had noticed a difference after her adenoids were removed in July of 2010...but with the removal of the tonsils & regrown adenoid tissue I can't recall a single runny nose.


Her daytime attitude is MUCH better.  She sleeps all night now that her throat no longer hurts, and life is peaceful...once we get past the bedtime battles 2-3 times a week.

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Society Lacks Common Sense

There's not really a day I don't consider just sitting down and writing this post, or any hundred other posts. However, I have a toddler at home everyday, all day, and she requires a LOT of attention. Getting lost in a blog post for more than just a handful of minutes, while she's awake, can prove to be disastrous. By the time she goes to bed at night my mind is completely frazzled and I neglect to make the post.

Currently it's 'quiet time' and Disney's The Jungle Book has captivated her attention, hopefully for more than just five minutes.

Anyhow, onto the post of the day...

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We are considered 'working poor'. Another term so graciously bestowed upon my family has been 'below poverty level'. Hey, I'm not bitching about it, just stating the facts. Facts based upon such models as this one...if you check out the portion between 81% and 100% we fall in there somewhere, BEFORE taxes are taken out.

This is the level that my family falls in because I am not currently employed and my husband works 40+ hours a week, at $2 MORE than minimum wage per hour.

Again, I'm not bitching. I'll get to why not.

Now, this number could more than double if I was to go back to work. I could earn at least minimum wage and work 40 hours a week, putting us into that 175% range. HUGE jump there, you say, so then why not?

For starters...we have two children. One in school, the other not. This would require child care. Of course we could work opposing shifts, you say. That would be WONDERFUL. Only real problem with that is my husband doesn't have a set shift, some days he's required to be at work at 7:30 in the morning, other days he's required to be there until 9:30pm. Leaving me a shift of having to work from 11pm until 7am, if I get out the door, right at 7am and can be home by 7:15am on the days that my husband has to be at work by 7:30am. It could work, if I didn't also have to sleep...see, on the days he has to be at work at 7:30am, he's often not home from work until after 6pm, leaving me roughly 4 hours to sleep, during the hours that dinner is being prepared, homework is being done, and bedtime routines are going on. I don't care who you are, sleep is a necessity.

So we're left with having to pay for child care. Average of $100 a week for the younger one, about $50 a week for the older one, but only if they're picked up by 5:30pm, it can be more than double that if they're not picked up by then. So goes $150 of my $290 paycheck, at minimum wage, before taxes are even taken out. So $140 a week is left, after child care. That would be awesome, granted the only expense to consider was child care, but it's not.

We then have to add in the cost of medical insurance, co-pays, etc. Currently both the kids are covered 100% by state (socialized) medical. This means that we don't pay a dime for co-pays and everything is covered - dental, vision, prescriptions, ALL included. If I go to work and make more than $50 a week, before taxes, we lose this 'luxury'. My husband has a lovely family plan at work, cost is $200 just for major medical, every two weeks. So $100 a week, for all four of us, that's if we go with the $5,000 deductible. This means, in order for the insurance to really start kicking in we have to spend $5000 in that year, cash out of our pocket. We're also responsible for roughly $30 per visit in co-pays, and no prescription coverage. So to meet this quota, based on our yearly averages, we would be spending, an average, of $250 a week just for 'general' medical expenses. This $250 a week would come out of my left over $140 a week, after child care expenses, of course. Now we owe $110 per week, just because I'm working.

I'm not done there. If I'm also working this means we HAVE to have two well running vehicles. We do currently have two vehicles, one is completely paid off, the other will be completely paid off in February or March. So you say no real expense there, right? Again, you would be wrong. If I was to be working I'll need to make a trip into town and home again on a daily basis, so instead of just two trips or so a week, I'm up to 5, but then I'd also have to do my shopping and other kid trips on my days off, so 6-7 round trips, a week. Right now I spend an average of $20 a week for gas, for my two trips, working puts me up to at least $50 a week just in gas. Because I make so few trips at this time, not working, I can get away with just two oil changes a year, and only because we use the 'better stuff' and my husband does the oil changing. This would increase to about 4 oil changes a year, at least. So $3 a week for the oil changes, over the course of the year. Then there's the wear and tear of the tires. As it stands, I only really have to change my tires every two years. Increasing my mileage would put me up to every year needing tires. If I go with 'cheaper' tires, this is an average of $7 a week for tires. So just basic maintenance I can add $60 a week to go back and forth to work, not adding in anything else that may go wrong. I'm now up to it COSTING us $170 a week, for me to go to work, full time, again, before any taxes are taken out of my check.

Speaking of taxes, lets get that out of the way real quick. The average person pays in about 35% of their paycheck before it's even handed to them. At minimum wage this is about $100. So add that $100 to the $170 I'm already in the hole for, I owe $270, per week, above my paycheck, just so I can work and put us out of the poverty range.

Being out of this poverty range also means we no longer qualify for the $250 a month in food assistance. We're now looking at us having to come up with another $60 a week for groceries out of my paycheck. So now we're owing $330, per week, just so I can work, above what my paycheck would be.

To put it in one clear picture, it costs my modest family of 4 $620 per week for me to go to work. In order for us to 'just break even' I would have to make $15 an hour, and not miss an hour of work, in a 40 hour week - $15 an hour being double minimum wage. This doesn't include much of anything else, at all, this only covers the bare basics of me working - child care, medical, transportation, gr0ceries.

I hate that the numbers crunch this way. Because I hate the way the numbers crunch I've gone back to school. I'm hoping by the time I go back to work, with my degree, that it actually works out to my family's advantage.

At the same time of being grateful that there are such programs as 'socialized' medicine, food stamps, WIC, etc I curse the fact that there are these programs and that the numbers do crunch this way. It makes me look like I'd rather be using the system than working or that some how my quality of life and the quality of my children's lives are so much better because we do get assistance.

It may serve one well to know that yes, we have internet and a phone. No cell phone, and the internet service is only dial-up. Okay, I say no cell phone, we do have A cell phone, its prepaid, only 200 minutes a month, no texting, no web, no bells and whistles. We do not have cable or satellite TV services. We bought a $40 digital antenna that goes to our HD enabled TV, so free TV. We don't go out to the movies more than 3 times a year, and that's only if we're lucky. We go out for food, maybe once a month. The kids get a Happy Meal type of lunch or dinner about once every other month.

We have no credit cards. Everything we buy is paid for with money we have saved for such or we have simply done with out. I can only think of two things we have financed in the last 5 years. One being my husband's very gas efficient car, that we bought about 6 months ago, it'll be paid off completely before we've had it a year. It's a 2004 Ford Taurus. He has to have a gas saving vehicle. The other item we've financed was a gas range. We went through four used/cheap/free ones in the span of about 5 months before we broke down and did a rent to own on it. We had to have a stove with a working oven and that didn't leak propane into the house. Outside of that we've financed nothing and nothing has been put on credit cards.

My kids get regular new shoes, clothes, etc, same for myself and my husband. At the same time I refuse to pay $100 for a piece of clothing that has the same function as an article of clothing that only costs $10. Now, shoes are a bit of a different story, at least where my husband is concerned. He works standing on his ski-size feet for 8-12 hours a day, I can stomach spending $100 on a pair of work shoes for him. Unfortunately we've found out that a $150 pair of Nike shoes doesn't last a third as long as a $20 pair of WalMart shoes. But since finding this out we've been able to pair the $20 Wal-Mart shoes with some $30 or $50 insoles and wouldn't ya know, he's worn the same pair of shoes for almost a year now, instead of just a month. Its doubly awesome that we live in an area now that has a Wal-Mart that carries shoes bigger than an 11 for my husband's size 14 feet.

But the bottom line is this. I don't bitch about being 'working poor' or below poverty level because I know when all the numbers are done being crunched that I don't have far to fall. If my husband was to lose his job there's nothing that says I can't go to work and make enough to keep a roof over our heads. If he was to lose his job there's nothing that says he can't find a new one that pays just as much and we maintain our current standard of living. If we were to lose the benefits we get now things would definitely be a bit tighter, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. We still have room to cut things out of our budget and save ourselves another $2-500 a month.

I don't worry about my rent not being paid or my utilities being cut off - those things are paid first. If we don't have the money for some sort of extra along the way we do without the extra. If the money isn't there or something comes up we find a way around it and are able to come up with the money.

My beef is with persons who make more in a single child support payment than my husband makes in a month, while their spouse brings home an additional paycheck that makes the child support payment look like pocket change, and then they bitch that they don't have the money for groceries or worry how they're going to pay their bills or some other bullshit. And not but a few hours later they're telling you all about that $75 pair of shoes they've been eying for a while, and go ahead and buy them because there's something coming up that they want to wear them to, and then not likely wear them again.

Yes, common sense has died in this society. Common sense says that you live within your means. Common sense says that if you don't have the money for necessities you sure as hell don't have the money for something you want. Society says keep up with the guy that makes twice as much because you can always put it in credit now and file bankruptcy later if the money stops being there.

And people really wonder why the economy has gone to shit!? Its not something that has to be evaluated by overpaid idiots with a piece of paper that says they're smarter than someone else. I'm only a backwoods educated high school graduate, from parents who were C average students and not college educated and I can figure this shit out.

In about 18 months I'll be finished with my associates degree, from there I plan on pursuing a Bachelor's, Master's, and then a Doctorate, as I'm working to help support my family, I pray that its not at the cost of my common sense.

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A Post a Day

HA! Who am I kidding?! If you're an avid reader of my blog you know that's me doing more of that crazy talk I do once in a while. I can count you lucky though if you catch more than five new posts from me a month, much less anything more than that, especially lately.

So some quick updates:

1) I'm not pregnant at this time. I'm going to be seeing a "real" gynecologist sometime next month to get to the bottom of getting this Mirena removed.

2) Mikaila goes in on the 1st of July to have surgery done to remove her adenoids and have tubes put in her ears. I guess I haven't given y'all that news... Because of her speech and behavioral issues we've been seeing a number of different therapists and specialists. A hearing test was ordered, but before her doc would sign off on it he wanted her to be seen by an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat Specialist). The ENT noticed a lot of fluid built up, gave me a script of antibiotics to give her, followed up about 3 weeks later, there was zero change in the fluid, so the surgery was scheduled. The general consensus is that her tonsils and adenoids are larger than is necessary for a gal her size...likely have been all her life since she has snored every sleeping moment of her life. She's a big mouth breather as well, always has been, hence contributing to our problems with her being able to latch on comfortably to breastfeed, bottle feeding was slightly better, but I still had to hold the bottle just so. She's always ALWAYS had sleep issues...some months are WAY worse than others. She's always, ALWAYS, had a runny nose. There really is a long list and had she had a competent doctor to begin with most of these problems could of been taken care of a long time ago. Ironically it wasn't apparent or brought up in the traditional sense because she's only ever had two diagnosed ear infections. The fluid was always mentioned at her well-checks and other visits with her previous incompetent doctor's office, but nothing worthy of more note than that, apparently. UGH!

3) My ex has moved out of Oklahoma. He's supposedly living in Missouri now...and I just won't get into that whole can of "what the fuck" right now. There went my $200 a month child support payment...can I get a "big whoopdeedoo"/"what did you expect"?

4) Brian and I both have awesome health insurance now!

5) This week has been one positive after one negative bombshell all week long.

I'd go into more of the details, but I have an ugly stalker and care not to indulge her with everything too.

Later lovies!

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Mikeal has Hypothyroidism

Google is my worst enemy today...

A few weeks ago Mikeal told me that he was having passing out spells, three total that we're aware of to be exact, since around Christmas. Because of him starting wrestling around the same time that these things were going on I at first chalked it up to dehydration. We hydrated him, things seemed to be "fine", but then again there was no specific rhyme or reason to the black out spells, so didn't know what to think of it. Earlier this month my mom had a package for me on my child support stuff, so I had to go over there and get it....now my mom and I haven't talked AT ALL since Thanksgiving, so she didn't know of any of this stuff, etc. While I was there to get my mail from her we talked for a bit, it was actually a pleasant time, so I told her about all that was going on with the kids, what was going on with Mikaila starting therapy, my health issues and how they were resolved, and indulged her in some of the points of Mikeal's new issues. I left her place scared out of my gourd because she was able to tell me that a lot of what I had described about Mikeal was quite similar to my dad's starting issues. In case it's not known my dad had a heart condition that he had all of his life, but it was never detected until he'd undergone some serious tests, at age 32 when he had his first major heart attack. He died at age 44 from heart related issues and cancer.

Today I was called about the results of his blood work. The nurse said that Mikeal's blood levels and thyroid levels were low, so want to start him on a thyroid medication and to check back in 6 weeks for more blood work. Of course we're going to be moving during this time so I'll have to reschedule with a cardiologist in our new area and a doctor there for the follow-ups...

I went ahead and googled a bit to get more information...

BUT the information I got doesn't seem to really "fit" Mikeal...the information mentions things like stunted growth - he's in the 95% for both height and weight - and learning problems - he's in 2nd grade, top of his class, doing most things at a 4th-6th grade level - being the two big "clues" that there may be something going on. Other things mentioned were an increased sensitivity to cold...I have to FIGHT with him to put a coat on, and it's a battle to get him to wear gloves and a hat, even when it's only in the single digits outside and he'd play outside all day in such temps if I let him. It did mention fatigue, but he sleeps from about 8pm until 6-8am (depending on if he's trying to get out of riding the bus to school). Other things that were mentioned were autoimmune disorders such as Graves disease and Hashimoto thyroiditis or associated with diabetes and celiac disease.

I just feel a bit overwhelmed with it all. Supposedly the nurse is going to give me a call back later, after she's done seeing patients, to answer my questions (I hope) but I don't feel really all that "great" about getting to the probable cause of Mikeal's recent black out spells... that or maybe I'm just a bit disappointed that it came back with something I wasn't expecting, instead of what I was preparing myself to hear.

And now I'm full of every sort of question about this, follow-ups, ways to check for maybe one of the other things as being the cause, etc...and feel like I'm going to be brushed off...I'm not fond of the nurse because at Mikeal's last well check-up I had mentioned some things that seemed a bit "off" about Mikeal and she blew it off as just "normal" 7 year old boy stuff. I feel awful now for just rolling with it because Mikeal has never been able to be classified as "normal" ...I really thought that people were exaggerating "terrible twos" because Mikeal was a blessing, and his 3 year old year was only really terrible for about a month...Mikaila has given me a whole new take on "normal"...but Mikeal, no.

And now having googled, and thinking more about it, the concerns I'd brought up with her, back in August, actually match more with the information I've ran across with my google searches. But because she said these were normal things I let it go and didn't pay attention to it anymore as a concern.

Ugh.

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So since starting to make that portion of the post I have talked to a nurse at his doctor's office.

I asked her about the possible cause, specifically the auto immune disease possibilities & diabetes, she reassured me the the only "not good" or concerning parts of the blood tests were his low red blood count (RBC) & low thyroid levels, so he JUST has thyroid problems, RBC should go back up when his thyroid levels go up on the meds. He has to take the med daily then retest in 6-8 weeks to make sure the meds are a high enough dose, etc. She said it is most likely hereditary as his bio father's side has thyroid issues everywhere. Also because it was caught in "later" childhood and caught in its early warning stage phase he should not have any permanent damage...such as newborns can have thyroid issues and if untreated or caught later could cause permanent brain damage. If his issues were to go undetected and untreated into adulthood it could cause a lot of issues as well, such as heart problems, weight issues, behavioral issues, and academic problems..where he's excelling now he could be way behind in a few years.

Treatment is just a pill a day and regular blood work, most likely for the rest of his life.

For more information on Hypothyroidism in children I found this website to be quite informational.

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What the politicians all need...

is a Mommy figure!

Someone to step in, take away all their toys and privileges until they can all learn to get along and actually do their job!

A mommy who isn't afraid to smack their hands, put them in time-out, and can delegate who's in charge of what to get the most done in the shortest amount of time, and if they're unable to do so, steps in and shows them how to do it.

A mommy who knows how to budget on an low income and who doesn't give out "equal" privileges to everyone, just privileges to those who have earned it.

We've evolved into a country that everyone does what they want, when they want to, without consequence, and those who screw up the worse are the ones rewarded the best.

Mommies are given the lowest pay of all, yet have the "burden" of the most responsibilities. And most of them do it happily, not wishing to trade it for anything because they know they have an important job and take PRIDE in a job well done!

We're missing pride in a job well done here! They all want more money, and don't care who they squash in their efforts to get more.

Success is no longer measured in a job well done, only measured in the almighty dollar sign. Compassion has gone by the wayside, greed has taken over.

Take just the issue of health insurance -

All the insurance agencies stress how you need this insurance at (for my family) $1000 a month...."in case of something major". Because my husband and I don't have insurance we're given less than par medical help, doesn't matter our ability to pay the bills or not, we don't have insurance, so they're not going to actually do anything for us...tell us these things are in our head. My PCP has a cash price and a price for insurance. The cash price to see him is $70 a visit, the insurance price is a $30 co-pay from us, PLUS a bill of $150 to the insurance company. If we're to use the local hospital emergency room we're billed $1000 (average) for just the visit (with them willing to take at least 45% off that cost if we pay it off in 90 days)...that same bill, sent to an insurance agency, is upwards of $5000, with us having to pay a $2500 deductible (again, average). The higher insurance rates go up, the higher this difference is.

So is we had insurance for the family we'd pay roughly $12,000 a year just for the insurance. Based on our last year of ER visits and regular office visits our total of co-pays and deductibles would of been at least another $4000, not to neglect to mention prescriptions at about $1500 out of pocket expenses over the last year. So that's a grand total of $17,500 for just one year of "medical" expenses, with insurance. Instead, going with the cash option, settling out the bills at 45%, we spent a WHOLE grand total (after we finish paying off the bills) of ...are you sure you want to even know? Now remember, we would of paid out $17,500 if we had insurance, included in that total is the cost of the insurance... We paid, over the last 12 months, in medical expenses, this includes 2 ambulance assisted rides to the ER, just right at $10,000. That's a $7,500 SAVINGS over having insurance. Of course since we don't have insurance, Brian's trip to the ER, the one where his heart quit beating on the way to the hospital, where they tried to tell him it "just" was a kidney stone, until that test came back clean, but couldn't figure out why his body went BEET red, with 106* temp, sweating profusely, then completely dehydrated, they did a few x-rays, gave him lots of pain meds, for the cramping - cramping caused by the dehydration - did a CAT scan...after 8 hrs couldn't "find anything wrong with him", so sent him home, no reason for his symptons, maybe just an outcry for attention, a form of self-Munchhausen...Yea, because my husband knows how to, in the middle of the night, while sleeping, knows how to raise his body temp to 106*, knows how to turn his body beet red, and stop his heart....Yes, he'd been asleep for about 3-4 hrs before waking up in SEVERE pain. But there's "nothing wrong with him". I can almost guarantee you, with a 99% confidence that had he had insurance they would of found something wrong with him, even if it meant he had to see a ton of specialists.

I also feel that insurance should ONLY cover severe medical issues such as cancer, heart problems, and the like. Necessary meds should not cost a month's salary, in fact I don't feel that necessary meds should cost anything. Anything else should be an out of pocket charge, folks should be allowed to shop around for the best prices in their care and compare that cost with the care they receive, thus having the ultimate freedom to choose their own health care. I don't feel that charging someone a higher price or telling them they're not able to be covered because of "pre-existing" conditions is legitimate in any way.

So yes, we need a competent mommy to take a hold of things and get some sense knocked into these folks who are all about themselves and their bottom dollar.

The whole gas/oil fiasco, nothing more than a way to expand their own pockets. Only problem with that is that as they got greedier they sped up the process, knowing that everyone was at their mercy. They didn't care about the long term effects of this greed though...only cared about their own pockets, didn't take into consideration that everything would have to go up in price, that the economy that was already tottering on a bunch of maxed out credit cards, not to fail to mention the whole Madoff thing with mortgages and the like, it all needed a catalyst to blow up...and so it did. These things by themselves wouldn't of caused the blow-up, it was the combination of all of it.

I stand by it. There needs to be a mommy in charge of all of it, one who takes away everyone's toys until they can be fair and get along and do the right thing.

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Another Note To Self/Adoring Public ..LOL

Health Care and my personal take of what the CEO of Whole Foods had brought up the other day, that was broadcast on the evening news....I have a bit of research to do first, plus a house to attempt to buy in the morning, and it's way after my bedtime at this time, but I do feel the guy hit the nail squarely on the head. I wanted to add in my personal experience with this particular "pricing" of doctors, and shopping around, in contrast with "insurance" costs.

The cusp of my personal experience :

My personal care provider charges me, a cash paying patient, with no insurance, a whole $55-70 per visit to see him, $25-55 to see his NP. Now, if I had insurance I have a guaranteed minimum co-pay of around $20-40 per visit...but here's the catch...my Dr who only charges me, a cash patient, $55 for a visit, will charge the insurance company a MINIMUM of $150 for the exact same visit. And we wonder why I don't pay for insurance? Over the course of a year I pay roughly 75% LESS for my medical care than I would JUST paying for the insurance. I'll expand on this at another time.

Thank you Heather for reminding me, however unintentionally.

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