25 years agi...

25 years ago Christmas Eve my mother was murdered by my father in front of all of us kids. I thought for the longest time that I had dealt with it all only to find out in the hospital that I have never dealt with it at all but repressed it. I am struggling with the depression that this time of year brings for me in a major way. In the past it was hard for me to deal with but the wounds are so fresh this year that ut us already difficult for me. I just don't kmow how to deal with all of this and how to get passed it enouh to be able to work on it. I tend to get quiet and withdraw. Chris and is fammily are good about keepin me busy enough for it not to get too bad but this year is going to be quite the challenge. I just hope that I can do it without another holiday that I sleep through or muddle through.

I already have a lot to work on and deal with without these things being drug up and fresh. Please oh please allow me to have the strength to get through it all. I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that it isn't a problem like all of these other things.

I hope that the holidays bring everyone joy and happiness. I hope that this season brings happiness and joy to you all. It is really a great time of year. May you give the gift of joy and happiness and love. Please remember that getting gifts is not the only reason we celebrate and that you are able to share your talents and love with those who need them.

Keep Moving Forward,
Jennie

Thanksgiving Sucked

Well, normally I enjoy Thanksgiving but this year sucked in a major way. I slept through the whole things! Yup, I slept through it all. I have no idea why or what was going on but I couldn't stay awake and I fell asleep at the table before Chris told me to go to bed. I had tried to take a nap for an hour or so before we went out to Chris's moms but it didn't do any good.

This time of year is always hard for me. Christmas Eve is the anniversary of my mother's murder and every year I have a hard time. This year the wounds are pretty fresh because while at the hospital I had to talk about it and deal wtih it. I have never done that, even in all of the therapy that I have had over the years. Chris is worried about how Christmas Eve will be when Thanksgiving was so bad. I don't know what to do other then hope that I have dealt with some of this before it bites me in the butt again.

I feel bad for Chris's family for the most part. This is something that they don't uderstand let alone know how to help me with. Chris wants to help me wtih all of it and all of the pain. The best thing that I can think of is to let me sleep a lot the day before so that I am not tired at all. I have to get into therapy and quickly before all of this and hope that I can talk about it enough that it doesn't hurt me too bad.

I was doing pretty good for a while there but now I am worried about how I am starting to get depressed again and sleep a lot. The doctor warned me that if it happened I should increase the antidepressants. I will have to get into the doctor asap.

Well, I had better go. I just hope that I can handle the rest of the holiday season.
Jennie

Family Fun

So last night we had a family get together at our house to celebrate our finishing our backyard fence. We had the sought after hotdogs and hamburgers which always goes over well. The boys were yelling "Nana, look at me." and the same to great gma and gpa. They bounced as high as they could on the trampoline and swung as high as they could on the swings just to see who would watch their successes. It was great to have everyone over but I won't lie. I stressed all day about what I needed to do to the house to clean it up and get ready. My heart had to have been going a mile a minute just with anxiety all because it has been so long since I have even been able to clean the house let alone have family over for dinner or anything. We looked at pictures from Nana (Chris's mom) and Gma's (Chris's Gma, the kids great gma) vacation to Mexico on a cruise ship. This is the second cruise they have gone on together and since Gma is 80 years old this is an awsome thing. We are so lucky to have this family and especially to have Great Grandparents around to play with our kids. Not only are they around but they are very active in the kids lives and play with them often. I never even knew my grandparents let alone my great grandparents so to me this is very special.

So, in the midsst of all the play, picture peeking and talking we had a blast. Cia (Chris's sister) and I planned our shopping trip for Santa Bingo. This is a long standing family tradition every Thanksgiving. Each year the parents go out and find inexpensive fun things for everyone and put them in a huge pile. We then play Santa Bingo which is an old game that is obviously Christmas themed. We play until everyone has gotten a bingo and then start over again until all of the prizes are gone. The best thing about Santa Bingo is the memories. We used to do it at the Cabin (Gma and Gpa's) and we would have Gpa calling out the tiles. He of course would make funny comments, make up tiles that didn't exhist and funny things like that. It was always a time of laughter and fun. The last 3 years we have been unable to do Santa Bingo because we have not been at the cabin for that long. 3 years ago Chris's Aunt got cancer and very sick. It began to be too much for her to house the 30 plus family members that would cram themselves into her kitchen to play and eat Thanksgiving Dinner. This year we can't go to the cabin but we decided that in light of Sandi's passing (after a 3 year battle with the cancer she lost the battle and passed on) we would bring back the family tradition and begin to play again. This year we are changing the rules and instead of playing and picking prizes for ourselves we are going to play for a family member. We are going to draw names each game and we will play for someone else and pick their prizes for them.

So, anyone looking for a new or fun Christmas tradition or Thanksgiving tradition should consider Santa Bingo. There are a lot of ways that you can do this game and it is a lot of fun. Many of the people in the family will love it and cherish the memories forever.

a-a-r-o-n

Ok, so I am the type of mother who really loves to teach my kids things mixed in with the educational and all that. HAHA, yup, I said try. So last week I was playing in the sandbox with my glorious newly 3 toddler Aaron and thought that sand drawing was the perfect teaching tool and that he would value this lesson until he dies. I grabbed a toy and shaped out a capital A and said "Lets spell your name Aaron." Well, he looks at the letter and then looks at me as if I am a total moron and said"a-a-r-o-n, Aaron." and then proceeds to continue to bury his toes. I would have to say that my jaw dropped about a foot at that moment and then I realized what just happened. Not only had I been unsuccessful in teaching him something, he taught me something. Never think you are smarter then your kid. Now, he just barely turned 3 so I am quite proud of my little stinker. He is only a minor pain in the butt some of the time...

Been MIA, sorry...

Hey everyone. I have been missing for a few weeks because I was in the hospital yet again. I will have to have another surgery but I am going to do that one after the new year. I am going to get to my teeth taken care of this year and then deal with surgeries next year once the holidays are over. I just think that the kids are so used to me being in the hospital or at the doctors office or things like this. I wish that it wasn't so but I have some wonderful news about how things went this time aaround.

I started out worried about how things were going to go. I have Fibromyalgia, Interstitial Cystitis, Endometriosis, Polycystic Ovaries, gallbladder issues, IBS, PTSD, depression, migraines, post herpetic neuralgia (had shingles and this is the pains you get after the sores go away), sciatica and I could go on and on. Each of these things cause a little bit of pain here and there but combined it seems to be a pretty difficult combination to deal with. My husband struggles with the fact that these things seem to be in my head and that I can deal with them without medications. I struggled so much with that because I tried 3 times to get off of the medications only to end up in the hospital or back on the medication. Chris felt that it was the doctor or that it was addiction. Living with Chronic pain is not an easy thing for anyone to deal with but the people we love have to deal with the fact that they are helpless to do anything for our pain. They can't take it away and that has to be a terribly frustrating thing for them to live with.

Well, I was once again struggling with my pain. I didn't want to admit that I needed to increase my medication because I felt if I did it would upset Chris and make him angry with me and only make him more sure that I was an addict and not useing the medications to feel better and not to get high. It is a hard thing to know what is going on especially when someone is trying to get to a dose level that they can live with. The loved ones only see us poping pills and not the other things. They also see the side effects and they worry about how it is changing us.

I got to the point that I felt that I was more of a problem to the family and that they would be better off without me being around at all. I began to think about what to do and I realized that I needed to get help and now. I couldn't wait any longer for the psychiatrist to get things figured out slowly over months. I went to the hospital and talked to them about it and they admitted me immediately. I was scared. I was scared about how I was feeling but even more about how I would be treated. People with chronic pain often run into trouble when it comes to hospital pain management because they naturally doubt people when they come in and assume that they are drug seeking from the start until they see signs of that not being true. From the start however they hooked me up with a doctor who has chronic pain himself and that made a huge difference for me. He met me with empathy and sympathy for what I was going through and my fears were addressed right away. I then began to tell him my history and he couldn't believe that I was doing as well as I was considering what I have been through. He said I should have come in a year ago when things started to get bad for me. I told him how Chris felt about it all and he totally understood. He said that the doctors there would talk to him before I oould go home to make sure that I was on the same page with him from the start. He also said to expect to stay a long time because he wanted to get my pain taken care of along with the depression. He was angry that my psych doctor hadn't put me on antidepressants sooner because of my history. I got myself settled and prepared for a long stay. I told Chris the plan and he made arrangements to have help with the kids for a while. He was glad I was there because they were finally dealing with things from my past that should have been dealt with long ago. He too was upset that it hadn't been addressed yet but understood what the goal of my other doctor was. He just wanted me home and better.

So, I started treatment which turned out to be a huge blessing. They added a new medication, the patch for pain so that I am not sucking down a whole lot more pills then I already was and this would reduce my side effects. They started me on some antidpressants and we began from there. It was hard for me to open up to them and talk about some of the problems that I had been having. I am always so scared that they will begin to think I am an addict like Chris and his family did. They told me that there is about 90 percent of the people who come in who are there for drug seeking but that I showed no signs of this so they were not worried unless I began to show signs of it. I began to feel a lot better and the pain began to get better enough that I could move again.

The meeting that they held with Chris and I went well. They had me explain to Chris what the pain felt like, where and what caused it. He bagan to cry when we did this. It is a lot to take in and it seems like a lot. For me it is just my life and I am used to it all. It hurts but I am used to having it every day. Next they talked to us about learning to live with chronic pain and that they hoped I could find ways to get off of some of these meds but told both of us not to expect for me to ever get off of them. This was hard for me to take because I wanted to believe that I could get off of them once I learned how to deal with it all. They told me that most people in my situation have a hard time living with it all at first but that I was doing amazingly well considering what little help I have had with dealing with it all. They talked to Chris about the fact that I have been trying to get off of the medications a few times and that they wanted me to stop trying to prove to myself and him that I needed the medications. They said we need to accept it and live with it and that they would help us do that. They talked to Chris about my doses and told him that most people with these conditions usually are on low to medium doses of medications. They said however that having all of them together made it so that I had to be on a higher dose of medications and this was why I was on a higher dose then he thought I should be. They told him that they are not worried about addiction at all because I show no signs of it for one but also that people in chronic pain situations have a low risk of addiction. We made a plan for how to deal with it and what I was going to do about it when I needed to take a higher dose. We thought that it was a reasonable request for us to work together and it would help Chris to know what is going on with me. They told Chris that our friends who have over dosed and died were having a few problems. They were either not being treated correctly in that they didn't have enough control or were over medicated and couldn't function properly and made medication mistakes. Those who were not getting enough treatment and they sought out meds from different sources and most times without doctor supervision and took too much. This helped Chris to feel better about that with me and all of the discussion helped us both in a lot of ways. We both knew what was going on and we made plans on how to deal with it when I needed help again. This way I wasn't not telling Chris when I was having a hard time and he knew what I could do and when.

That taken care of a lot of stress was off of me to do things Chris's way and I am not so scared to tell the doctor that I need a higher dose. I didn't go higher before because I was afraid that Chris would think that I was trying to get high and wanted to be on more meds. My doctors helped me so much in this department. It helped so well that on Monday I was sick and threw up all morning. Chris knew I wasn't feeling well and told me not to worry about the house work. Before he would come home and be upset that nothing was done. This is a huge change from the way things were before and because I wasn't stressing I was able to get the rest I needed and was able to get back on track on Tuesday. This felt so good to me that I was under much less stress and I think that Chris felt good not making me so upset.

I was there for a long time but it proved to be worth it. I made a few really good friends there who are in similar situations as me and seeing someone else like themselves helped us all to heal faster. We had fun, we joked about everything and laughing made us all feel so much better. We got pretty close because we had time to talk about everything. There isn't much to do in the hospital when we are not seeing the doctors. LOL. The boys were so happy to see me home and I felt good being able to come home and not be confined to the couch. It hurt me so much that I couldn't move from the couch and do anything much less take care of the kids or the house. It hurt to see the kids watch me go through all of that and not be able to help me in anyway. They tried their best to do what they could but they are young boys, they couldn't do much. They were happy that they got to visit me and I didn't have to have an IV in this time. That always stressed the boys out to see that sticking in my hand or arm. Everytime I go they didn't want to visit. They still didn't want to visit much but it was more fun this time around because I could play with them and was able to get out of bed and stuff.

My doctor was great and worked so well with me. It made my able to be myself again and that alone makes me so happy. I am feeling so much less depressed and now my pain is under control enough that I am not on the couch and have been able to do quite a bit around the house again. I am not trading that for a lower dose of medications or taking them less often because I am worried about how Chris will feel about it. They helped save our marriage because I truly felt that Chris was at the end of his rope and I really felt that they were better off with me not around making thier lives difficult. I have my life back pretty much and this to me is great. I am not in so much pain that it is all I talk about and hopefully I can make some new friends. I really learned who my true friends were in this because the ones who cared stuck around. Everyone else is ready to write me off as a complainer about everything or someone who has so much drama in their life that it is overwhelming.

To all who I haven't been talking to, I am sorry but this is my life and how it goes. I often forget to write or call because my life was so hard for me to deal with let alone remember how to keep in touch with my friends and loved ones. I am already doing much better with this and it makes me so happy. Chris is happy to have talkative me back and I can take his jokes without getting mad that he is being mean. When you are depressed things are not what they seem and it is hard to figure out other people let alone what you want to deal with. It is hard to move and do the things you need to. It is a hard thing for people to understand. Our lives seem like we should be able to jump back and deal with it but when you are depressed nothing is easy. I wish that I could make people understand it.

I am back and in a better way. I love you all who have stood by me.
Thanks, Jennie

Caught the cold...

Oh man! Our poor family have had a very interesting two weeks. First, Chris and I had a wonderful night out for our anniversary. We went to a hotel in Scottsdale which had a hot tub in the room. First thing we did was jump in and soak. Oh man, that felt sooooo good to sit and talk without the kids intruding. So, we absorbed the bubbles and let them wash away all of the stress. We got dressed up and went out to eat. One of the things that we do is we try new places everytime we go out. We went out to a mediteranean place and had some great food.

The night would have been perfect except for one thing...a friend of mine got angry at me and started a huge fight! Why you ask? What did I do? Nothing actually...he had gotten some very bad news and a few nights before had nearly commited suicide. I was scared out of my mind, calling everyone I could to check on him and finally got a hold of his brother to check on him. Apparently, he was watching TV and not as upset as he had made me believe. I was upset and felt like he had said goodbye to get attention. He got it but I was frustrated after that. Well, to continue with the story...Chris and I are out for dinner and I get a text explaining more about why he had been so upset. He had gotten someone pregnant and the woman decided to abort the baby. It tore him up and I can understand that. Problem is this is the second time this has happened to him and before he moved to New York I warned him to wrap up before sleeping with anyone. Did he listen to my advice, well considering where he was I would say he ignored me totally.

I texted him back and told him that I was sorry that he had been hurt so badly but that I needed to focus on Chris totally for a night and that I would talk to him on sunday. He blew up!!! He started saying all kinds of mean and cruel things and I was seriously hurt by what he was saying to me. He brought up things that I thought we had talked about and dealt with but apparently he held onto them to hurt me with.
I finally told him that he needed to take responsibility for his part of this whole mess and told him I couldn't talk anymore if the attacking would continue. It did so I said goodbye.

He pretty much told me when I got to talk to him later that he never wanted to be my friend again and didn't want to talk to me ever. I was crushed because we have been friends for almost 7 years now. So, he has shut me out simply because I told him that I needed to focus on my husband for one night.

After we got home Chris got sick, I mean really sick. He actually missed an entire week of work and didn't move for that entire week almost. Michiel got a fever for an entire day and then Cameron and I got hit HARD. You know Cameron is sick when he lays still for an entire day without his medication. LOL Sometimes them being sick is a good thing. (Ok, that was mean but they are sooo good when they are sick) Aaron got hit and then Logan. Logan just finished with the fever last night so I think that the whining and laying around might be over with...maybe

I am so tired from all of it I still have to load up my body with vitamin B complex. LOL

Well, Chris is done being a baby and I got a full week and a half of snuggles. It was nice while it lasted although Chris sending me texts from the room for things was a bit annoying. HEHEH

Our Eleventh Anniversary!!

So yesterday was our eleventh wedding anniversary. I got up and gave Chris a kiss...he told me to go away. So I have him another kiss and said Happy Anniversary...he said he needed more sleep. Why after 11 years to I think that he is going to be awake enough first thing to respond any other way? So, I went through our wedding book and scanned some pictures in because I was totally bored. I meant to put this blog on yesterday but I ended up running down to Michiel's school, pharmacy, and all over the place. By the time I got home I had five minutes to get ready for the boys to come home and get a breathe of air. After the boys got home I sat down to get to work however there was a knock at the door. One of Cameron's friends had come over to play. I had to go supervise. By the time the two boys were exhausted from playing I had to take the kids to Gma's for homework time. After that we came home, ate and I turned on a movie to wait for Chris to come home. He came home five minutes before bed time toting my gift...



He is such a good boy!!! I get the kids to bed while he goes and gets us some dinner. Sushi!!! He came home with the good stuff like "Sex on the beach" (I swear it is a name for a dish! It is tasty...anyhow, we turn on a movie and eat until we are full. There was so much that we couldn't finish so we called a friend over to eat the left overs. Of course, we kind of assumed that he would take them and go but he sat down and watched the entire movie with us! So much for a night alone.
Ok, so I was scanning pictures and thought that I would take everyone back 11 years to see what we were up to...



These handsome men are Chris, his cousin Daniel (red head) and our good friend Rob.



This is my sister in law Cia and my good friend Stephie (kids call her aunt fuffie), The woman in the wedding dress managed to crash the party somehow. hehe



So this is me, 11 years ago. I think the scanner was dirty because these pictures have stuff all over them. Oh well...



Blush...LOL



Friends there to cheer us on, some of them at least. This was Chris's major hang out crew from the beginning. We added friends here and there as we met new people.



They look so cute in their suits!



Gpa and his brother. They are all 6 foot 4 and BIG kids. Gpa looks so cool in his kilt.



My wedding cake after they fixed their mistake. It showed up with hot pink flowers! I was only slightly pissed. Chris took it back to them right away and said my bride is not happy, fix it...now!



Our wedding march was played by this bag piper whose name happens to be Scott Cameron. Those of you who know my kids full names will find the irony in that. HEHE He looks good in a kilt too.



Gpa walked my down the isle. No one from my adopted family came and my birth (adopted) brother was the only one who came from that family. I was too happy to notice... My brother is below.



He was crying only a little bit I mean, I am his little sister!



And here we are promising to do all kinds of things we never thought would happen.



Sealing the deal. hehe After 11 years he can still give me butterflies when he kisses me.



He was trying to decide if he should even try the shove the cake in my face thing. He got a resounding "No you don't." It is that smile of his that gets me every time.



Gma, she is so awesome!!



Gpa, this picture explains a lot of Chris's behaviors. LOL



And last but not least, the after it is all over picture. So much stress gone and we could enjoy life together without all the drama and crap.
So there you go, that was what I was up to 11 years ago yesterday. 11 years ago today? I was sleeping in our hotel room trying to make myself believe that we were married.