The Fortune Cookie...

So, once a quarter I check Kayla out of school and take her out to lunch. Who needs 5th period health class anyway!?
She picked Chinese this time. My fortune cookie said: A New Challenge Is Coming ...Are you kidding me!? Seriously? I'm all "challenged" out!
Apparently Kayla is coming into a fortune soon and will be doing some traveling. I think I got ripped off!!!
I tried to return my cookie... I scared the man behind the counter... :)

I knew my need to do everything myself would come back to bite me sooner or later... ouch!

*warning: the next entry is "lengthy"...

Answers... finally!!!

So, as you all know I have been going crazy waiting and wondering what exactly happened to the relatively healthy girl I once knew...
Since April 6th I have seen 4 different doctors, had 3 CT scans, 3 MRIs, an ER visit and had my arms poked again and again and again to do lab work. 3 of the 4 doctors told me that I needed to be evaluated by a neurologist for MS, possibly Lupus... spending 6 weeks wondering if I have a chronic illness like MS has been completely exhausting!!!
I finally had the appointment with the neurologist this past Tuesday... all I could think about the weekend prior to the appointment was to prepare for the worst... prepare for him to tell me I have MS, or worse, Lupus.

Blessing in disguise...
The evening before my appointment with the neurologist my entire body was completely overcome with extreme pain... and when I say extreme... I mean indescribable... worse than labor pain in my opinion. I refused to go back to the ER, so luckily a good friend of mine who is an ER nurse was in town for the night and she somehow got the pain to subside enough that I could sleep for a few hours.

The neurologist...
The neurologist took one look at me and said that he was 99% sure that I don't have MS simply because of the amount of pain I was in. Apparently MS is painful, but not the kind of pain I was feeling all of the sudden. All of my other symptoms are very common in MS patients... the numbness in my arms and legs, muscle stiffness, difficulty walking, loss of strength in my hands, etc... He said, had I not walked into his office with the pain he probably would have pursued testing for MS, which would have resulted in a very painful spinal tap... just the sound of that makes me cringe!

The diagnosis...
We talked extensively about my symptoms, specifically my headaches. I had told all 3 doctors prior to him that I was having headaches and they ALL told me to just take ibuprofen... hmmm. After an hour of questions he determined that my headaches are actually a secondary symptom. The pain was actually originating from my cervical spine. I've been complaining since December that I've been unusually tired... that my head felt too heavy for my neck to support, and all I wanted to do was rest my head and sleep. Then the constant "headaches" started in February. Needless to say, the doctor was very concerned at that point and sent me to have another MRI... this time of my spine. The findings... herniated disks and a bunch of nerve damage. This kind of injury would cause numbness, pain, weakness, etc.... Oh how I wish that a doctor prior to him would have asked about the headaches! So, he has put me on bed rest for the next 2 weeks (yes, 2 MORE weeks of lying in bed!) while we get test results back and put a treatment plan together. I am opting for physical therapy... he is supportive of that. We'll see how that goes, taking it one day at a time.

The culprit...
Well, there has to be a cause for the injury right? Anyone who knows me knows that I've been on my own for 6 years now and because of that I have just learned to do everything myself. I'm actually quite stubborn about it! (and there are a few of you smirking right now because you know what a pain I can be!)... Anyway, I was packing up the Christmas decorations... 3 pretty heavy containers, a boxed Christmas tree that has a warning label on the box that reads: Team Lift, contents weigh over 75 lbs., and a very heavy solid wood armoire that in my opinion needed to move 8 inches to the right in order for the room to look balanced. After trying to move the armoire with no success, I called 2 of the young men in my ward... it took BOTH of them to move it those 8 inches. That's not all... apparently I aggravated the injury further in February when I took a trip to Las Vegas with my friends. I was miffed that the airlines were charging to check bags, so I packed 2 VERY heavy carry-ons... I showed the airlines! :)

Yes, feel free to call or email me with your mockings... I will be spending yet another 2 weeks lying in bed, bored out of my mind... the more humorous the email, the better... just be gentle! :)

My stubborn, independent attitude came back to bite me REALLY, REALLY hard!!!

Dear Heather, (um excuse me... my name is MOM!)

Mother's Day.... I always LOVE seeing what my girls come up with for Mother's Day. This year each of the girls made me a gift and a card. All 3 of my girls began their cards with Dear Heather, .... um .... (I don't know what to say!)
Every time I think about it, it makes me laugh!!!

Kayla made me a cake that was to die for... so YUMMY!
Cammy made me lip gloss... (don't ask, I don't know where she learned to do this!) and
Krystian made me about 15 different cards telling me how much she loves me!
This is why Mother's Day is by far one of my favorite holidays!!!

Can we put Mother's Day on the calendar at least once a month... please!?

Letting go...

So with the recent streak of unknown health issues, I finally gave in and "let" my bishop release me from yw's camp director. I'm not going to lie... I'm completely broken hearted!!!
It may seem silly, but choosing to plan girls camp over my health was a no brainer for me... (choose camp!)... my bishop thought otherwise and in all honesty I knew it was the right thing to do. I will definitely miss being there with "my girls" this year... I love them all so much!

When I was released from the yw's presidency last fall it was soooooo hard. Funny thing was when my bishop released me then he said to me that it was time for me to start dating and he wanted me to have Sundays free to go to the singles ward if I chose to (that was the last thing I felt like doing!)... a few months later I met Brad who happened to attend the singles ward (although we didn't meet at church) that my friend and I were attending once a month. Anyway, shortly after meeting Brad, I was called to serve in yw's again... go figure... :)

I still have mixed emotions... I truly love those girls and want to be there with them so badly, but I can't deny that this is just how it's suppose to be for now.
Letting go isn't always an easy thing to do...

Waiting.... patiently....

After 5 weeks of being told so many different things, I took matters into my own hands!
I've had 3 different doctors now tell me that I need to see a neurologist... apparently getting an appointment with a neurologist is not an easy thing to do around here. The average appointment was 2~3 months out. I consider myself a patient person.... but personally.... that's a little more patience than I (or anyone) can deal with!

Long story short... I admitted myself to the ER at St. Mark's on Monday and told the doctor that I wasn't leaving without seeing a neurologist and getting an MRI. The ER doctor (Dr. Paradise... hmmmm... I just like saying his name) took me seriously... and the entire staff there took VERY, very good care of me! I was there for about 6 hours... they ran blood tests, did 2 more CT scans, set up an MRI and got me an appointment with a neurologist next Tuesday. Oh, and he's also sending me to an ENT to see why I'm still having vertigo 6 weeks later. All in all I finally feel like I can breathe because I feel like I'm actually getting somewhere. I talked to my dad last night and he told me that this was the first time in weeks where I am actually starting to sound like myself again... I think that not only am I feeling physically drained, but waiting and waiting has drained me mentally and emotionally as well.

There is light on the horizon.... I had the MRI yesterday and the results came back in my favor! Of course I'm very grateful that all of the tests so far have been clean... but then again we still have no idea what is wrong! I'm suppose to follow up with the neurologist next week and I guess we'll just keep going from there... please tell me I'm not crazy and this isn't all just in my head! (no pun intended... seriously!) :)

Thanks to all of you for your love and prayers!!!

A sunny spring day...

After spending pretty much the entire month of April cooped up in the house I was completely elated to get the heck out of here!!! I was surprised when the sweet guy in my life... Brad... rescued me from what feels like eternal house arrest and took me out for a relaxing, much needed day out!
He took me to one of my favorite restaurants.... Harvest (down at Thanksgiving Point) and then to the Tulip Festival there. I was soooo excited... I was sure that I was going to miss going to the festival this year, so the outing was a GREAT surprise! It is one of my spring favorites I look forward to every year!
...I didn't even have to ask him to take me there... (aaaaaawwwe sweet I know!)


The gardens were incredibly beautiful and so peaceful.... just what the "patient" ordered! :)

Lots of pics... enjoy...

3 little reasons why life is GREAT!

MY 3 sweet girls... the month of April has been crazy, but my girls have really kept things in perspective for me. I've been writing a lot about all of the medical junk that's come into our lives this past month, and while I feel it's important for me to get healthy for my daughters' sake, I no longer want it to completely consume me! If any new developments happen, I'll update...

My little girls have been doing their best to keep up with their everyday routines... here's whats been going on in the real world!

So, one of my favorite things to do is to sit and listen to my daughters conversations, either with each other or with their friends. Dang, I hope they never catch on to this because this really is one of my favorite things to do! :)

Well, Kayla had a friend spend the night at our house the other evening. Ceanna has been a friend of Kaylas for several years. Kayla has been doing all kinds of missionary work with Ceanna.... inviting her to church and young womens etc... well, Ceanna has decided that she wants to be baptized. She has a baptism date set for June 20th! YAY!!!

So, Kayla and Ceanna were chatting rather than sleeping (as any kid does at a sleepover) and it was kind of late, so I thought I'd get up and ask the girls to keep it down and go to sleep. As I got closer I realized that Kayla was reading scriptures to Ceanna. I don't think I've ever felt my heart warm so much like that before in my life... obviously I left them to their reading and went to bed... one happy mom!

Cammy recently had her 5th grade DARE graduation at school. I absolutely LOVE this program... police officers and the mayor come in to the school for about 6 weeks and talk to the kids about drug and alcohol abuse. I was actually very surprised by how upfront they really are with these kids. Cammy was so excited to graduate from the program with all of her friends!

Alicia, Cammy, Zarina and Jaelynn

Cammy giving the mayors mustache a tug...

he told her to btw... he's a rather funny man!

Krystian's class recently went on a field trip to the Children's Museum at Gateway... I had volunteered to be a chaperon over 2 months ago, so when Krystian came home from school Monday and looked at me with those big brown eyes and asked if I was going to be better by tomorrow so I could go on the field trip still, feeling up to it or not, I just had to go... I wanted to go! I thoroughly enjoyed just sitting and watching her and her friends play!

Shopping at the Market...

Krystian and her best friend Evelyn... they were having so much fun, we had a near miss hit and run incident! Thankfully no one was harmed!
Making sweet music... "sweet" to their ears anyway!
Attempting the rock climbing wall...
All passed out on the bus ride back to school... oh how I wished that could have been me!!!