Harsh Reality

I've been on edge this week.

The lady that used to do my job retired. I took her place. Every now and then she comes back to help us out. No big deal. She sits at the front desk answering phones, doing basically...well, my old job, actually. I'm totally fine with that.

But this time has been different. This time they stuck her in the empty area at the other end of my office. The area they use for storage. So she's sitting over there, listening to everything I do. Every phone call I make. Every swish of an invoice, every typed word. And every time she leaves her "area" I can feel her eyes prying into me, watching my every move. Judging me because right now I'm OBVIOUSLY not entering an invoice. Judging me because I can't do the job NEARLY as well as she did in the 12 years she held this position. JUDGING.

I'm not going overboard here. Believe me.

So yea, I've been on edge...I mean it would be hard NOT to be in this situation. I don't want to have to explain to her. I shouldn't HAVE to explain to her...the fact that I can't do as well as she did because my body is failing me while she's the epitome of health at retirement age.

I already feel like crap as it is, with piles of work sitting around me. Knowing that there's no way I can get it all done. Because I'm sitting here with sharp stabbing needle like pains shooting down my arms and through my knees...with throbbing hips and aching fingers. And so drowsy I could drop off to sleep in a second if I were able to lay down. I'm trying. But it's not enough. And it's stressing me out. I can handle my personal life. I can't handle the immense workload of my job. While I'm here I feel like I'm barely staying afloat, with my head just bobbing above water. When 4:30 comes it's like someone's pulled me to safety. No matter what I have to do that night, what errands I have to run, what tasks I have to complete at home, it's ok...I can handle that. Because I can go at my own pace. Make my own schedule. Spend time with my little cutie patootie and just be me. No stares, no looks of judgement, no whispering...no never-ending piles of work. Dishes didn't get done tonight because I spent time doing crafts?? NO BIG DEAL! Taking two hours to make my sister in law's baby shower invites instead of just one? Who cares!

I know I'm not able to go fast enough at my job or work non-stop all day with no rest, so I fall behind. I know this. I don't need super AP clerk from the past coming back to judge my every move, reminding me every day what I already know in my heart. That I'm not cut out for this job. Not anymore.

I went to the dr. this morning. She's sending me to a rheumatologist. I go see him on the 20th. She also put me on Lexapro for my OCD. Hopefully it will help and I'll be able to cut back on my anxiety over things being germ free, spotless and organized so my stress levels will go down some. I also have to have a sleep study done. She's really concerned about my level of fatigue since I'm falling asleep on the way home from work and things like that. And since I NEVER wake up refreshed, ever. After that, if I need to she'll send me to a neurologist. But she really thinks I might have some sort of sleep issue because the extreme lack of good sleep could be causing all of my problems. My feet going numb/white is something called Renard's syndrome and she doesn't really know why that's happening every now and then. It's something about the small blood vessels contracting?? Basically it's the least of my problems right now though :) I'm going to go through with all this and even take the medication even though I'm pretty highly against medicines in general, especially ones like Lexapro and Prozac. Sorry if you need to take them, but it just personally scares the poop out of me. Especially after my experience with Cymbalta I tried to take to help with my pain. But she said this one is very well tolerated, not like the effects you get from Cymbalta, and should really help with my OCD.

I'm doing all this because I want my life back. I want a normal, happy life. And I'm doing it to save my personal relationships, esp. my marriage. I know my craziness hasn't helped anything any. D and I had a long talk this weekend and he's really trying to reassure me more and be more supportive instead of just telling me I have issues that I need to get help for. He's seeing that I'm really trying to work on things so he's trying to. Hopefully everything will start to get better from here on out. I'm feeling more positive about everything now since my dr. visit.

Also, I got to work this morning and found out I'd won one of the giveaways over at Joanna's blog party! Oddly enough, THIS was the item I won. I told my mom that I think God's trying to tell me something. She told me I better start going to church :) I'm super excited that I won this necklace, I absolutely love it. And it really put a positive spin on my day :)

Apalling

THIS article was a real eye-opener...it just goes to show, you really can't eat out and eat a "healthy" meal anymore. I knew it was bad, but not this bad!!

I'm buying THIS book when it's released August 19th. I'm marking my calendar.

Just amazing!

After reading THIS article I am just absolutely amazed at the things they can do nowadays and at how far medicine has come! To think that an unborn baby can be taken from the womb, operated on and then put BACK to be born at a later time, is just astounding!!

At least someone's concerned!

Canada bans BPA baby bottles...

Why does this crap always seem to happen to me?

I take a pill every night (Toprol XL) for some heart issues I have (PVC's and PAC's)...I currently take the generic, Metoprolol ER. It's an extended release beta-blocker. The generic doesn't work quite as well as the name brand Toprol XL...my dr. said some people can only take the name brand because of this. The generic has been fine for me except the fact that I can't miss a single day of it w/out my problems acting up. For the last week or so I've been having more problems than I have in a long time and I actually started wondering if maybe I needed to have my dosage upped. Then last night when I went to take my pill I figured out what was going on...

The generic Metoprolol made by a certain manufacturer is an oval shaped pill--this is the one I've been taking for months. Normally I just reach in the bottle and grab a pill with my finger without a second thought. For three nights in a row (at least) I actually thought to myself after I took my pill "Wait, did I just take a Zofran? Because that pill was round..." but the pill had just come out of my bottle of heart pills so I just brushed off the feeling. Then last night for some reason instead of reaching into the bottle, I dumped the pills in my hand to get one. And I was shocked to see that half of the pills weren't my heart pills at all. They were little round pills that I've never seen before. I got out my Zofran to see if by some weird coincidence they were Zofran and of course they weren't. I looked on the pill bottle to see if they were possibly just from a different manufacturer. One time I had them change manufacturers on me and not tell me except to label the new pill description on the bottle...but I've never had them do half and half like that. It said nothing about any new pills on the bottle or the patient handout. I called Walgreen's and the first guy listened to what happened and when he realized it wasn't just a different manufacturer he went and got the head pharmacist or whatever he's called. It took him over 20 minutes on the phone with me to realize what the pills were and what happened. By that time I was almost panicking, I was shaking, my teeth were even chattering I was so freaked out. Luckily he finally figured out that somebody had dumped a regular bottle of Metoprolol into the Metoprolol ER (extended release) bin. Thank God the pills were the same type of medication. The problem is my body/heart was getting a single dose of 25 mg all at once and then nothing the rest of the day instead of the extended release 25 mg over a period of 24 hours. The guy was very apologetic of course. He told me they'd refund me my $10 and replace my 30 day supply of pills. They also have to file a report with corporate headquarters or whatever and notify all their employees as well as notifying my dr. of what happened. The guy also told me "Don't throw the pills away--I'm not going to tell you to destroy evidence." What the hell is that supposed to mean? Do people sue for this sort of thing? I'm not sure what to do. I'm still really freaked out by the whole situation and it's made me not trust pharmacies anymore. I'm not doing this post as a bash on Walgreen's or anything. This was just my experience. And I'm definitely not getting my prescriptions filled there anymore. Part of the reason I say that is when I first got on the phone with the manager he was yawning really loud and apologized for it. I told him "It's okay, it's late" because it was after 11:30. I was trying to be nice because I was so nervous. He said something like "Well I've still got 8 hours left to go. Usually when I have these midnight shifts I try to take a little nap before I come in but I didn't get to this time." Greaaaaaaaat...just what you want to tell somebody that ended up getting the wrong medication from your pharmacy. That you're soooo tired and didn't get a nap before you came in. Maybe he was the one that made the mistake because he's sleep deprived! I've just lost confidence in people in general, it's just scary to think that these people (including drs. and hospital workers etc.) have our lives in their hands but they may be so sleep deprived they're having trouble thinking, working etc.

Anyway that's what happened to me last night...I couldn't sleep for a while afterwards either because I was so freaked out. I had to call my sister and talk to her to calm down. I didn't get to sleep til at least 2:00. At least being an Accounts Payable Bookeeper means nobody's life or health is in my hands... HAHA

Pain

I had another stomach episode last night. My stomach was already queasy, from about Tuesday morning on, with me throwing up Wednesday morning early. I didn't eat much yesterday, a little cup of soup and half a turkey sandwich for lunch, a tiny piece of baked plain chicken breast and a couple tablespoonfuls of chicken rice for dinner. That's it. My mom dropped by for a few minutes right around 7:30 and D left for work. Then all of a sudden I started having the stabbing pains in my stomach again like I did a while back when I had to go to the ER. My stomach was gurgling like crazy but for some reason since I had Hailey I can't really have diarrhea...I get all the horrible pain and gurgling and none of the relief. Last night I FINALLY was able to go but it was a mixture of constipation and diarrhea if that makes any sense. It was horrible. I was on the toilet for over 2 hours. WHY do they not make toilets more like the benches that are in outhouses? You know, the bench with the hole??? This would be SO much more comfortable to sit on than trying to perch on top of this little tiny toilet. My stomach hurt worse because I couldn't get comfortable. Finally I gave in and asked my mom to stay til D got off work because I was going to take a pain pill. I didn't think I'd ever have to use them when they prescribed them to me. Course I didn't think I'd ever have this happen again either. I was already fighting throwing up so hard that it was extremely hard to get that pill down. I finally did and about 45 minutes later it started to kick in and dull the pain. I was finally able to get off the bathroom floor (I'd been using the dirty towels/clothes pile in the basket as a pillow, ew) and go lay in bed. I talked to my mom for a little bit until D got home. I got to sleep around midnight but it was a really weird sleep...the pill was making me a bit funky so I was having really weird dreams where I was half in/half out of consciousness and I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. Finally I realized Hailey babbling was real and got up to find her standing at her door in the dark. Just picking her up and carrying her back to bed made me almost throw up. It was about 2:00 by that time. I laid in bed w/ her til she went back to sleep and finally went back to bed. I didn't get much sleep at all. Today my stomach is still really queasy and my whole insides hurt. I also have an almost flat stomach which I haven't had in years. Tuesday at my dr. appointment I was down two lbs. to 107. As of this morning I'm down another three lbs. to 104. I haven't weighed this since oh, high school? I don't have the stomach flu. I just can't eat, can't keep anything down, keep having poop issues. Hopefully it won't last much longer. I'm so worn out and lightheaded. My stomach is still gurgling too, ugh. :(

My daughter is such an absolute sweetheart. I didn't want her to see me like that but she insisted. At one point she walked in the bathroom and kissed me on the knee. Later as I was kneeling face down in the fetal position on the bathroom floor she walked up and patted my shoulder and rubbed my back. A little later I was calling for my mom between waves of pain and my mom said "What honey?" Hailey came in and walked right up and looked me in the face and in the sweetest little voice imaginable said "What, honey? What, honey?" It melted my heart. I looked at her and told her--not my mom--"You know the chair in the living room? Can you go get Mommy's fuzzy PJ pants off that chair and bring them to me?" and off she went. She ran back to the bathroom and gave me my pants. She is just the most caring, kindhearted, thoughtful little girl. I am so incredibly lucky to have her!

My stomach problems

For a few days now my stomach problems have really been acting up for some reason...I've woken up nauseous, been bloated all day, the whole bit, which hasn't happened this bad in quite a while. Then Saturday evening I wasn't feeling so hot but I thought I just needed to eat. After I put Hailey to bed Dan ran to Taco Bell and got me a chicken taco platter. I didn't even eat half of it--totally not worth the money btw--and started to feel even worse. By the time we went to bed at midnight my stomach was hurting and making me feel a little nauseous. I woke up at 3:30am with the worst stomach pains I've ever had in my life. I curled up on the bathroom floor. It felt like somebody was stabbing me in my stomach from the top of my stomach down to my belly button. The pain would always be there but it would get worse in waves. Finally the pain got so bad it made me nauseous and I threw up. I called my mom and told her I needed to go to the ER when throwing up didn't make the pain stop. It was horrible, I've never felt pain like that. Not even childbirth, seriously. I could barely walk and I couldn't stand up straight. I got to the ER and they took blood and put an IV line in and gave me a shot of Zofran and Toradol in the IV finally and then made me drink a GI cocktail which consists of either Maalox or Mylanta I don't know which, something to neutralize the acid in my stomach and something they put on a patient's lacerations when they get hurt. The stuff numbed my throat so I was hoping it would numb my stomach too. After a while I was finally able to get up and pee in a cup and then lay back down. The meds helped but didn't make it totally go away. By the time I left the sun was up and I was able to walk to the car and even have conversations with my mom. I was still hurting some, but nothing compared to how I had been a few hours before. Thank God for the dr. at the ER...he gave me a prescription for Zofran and Percocet. That way if this ever happens again I'll be prepared. I came home and passed out on the couch and woke up a few hours later to Hailey saying "Mommy?" I woke my mom up and she went to get her from her bedroom. She was SUPER excited that my mom was there in the morning, it was a huge surprise for her. My mom got her ready and took her to her house for the day. Hailey never goes anywhere without us except for daycare because I miss her so much after working all day...so spending the day with my mom was really good for her, she had so much fun. I slept til about 11:30 on the couch and then went and crawled in bed and slept til 1:30 or so. I woke up and sat around for a while and then went back to bed and read for about 30 mins. and fell back to sleep til about 4:30 or so. My mom brought Hailey home around 6:30 and brought me some chicken noodle soup, PB crackers, lemon lime gatorade and jello. Thank God for her, that's all I can say. Hailey was wonderful all night, giving me my crackers and making sure I drink my "juice." She also told us she needed to go potty and she peed in the potty again!! YAY!!!

My stomach problems have gotten bad in the past, but never THAT bad. Hopefully this was a one time thing. I woke up this morning when my alarm went off and I still didn't feel so hot. My cat had just pooed in her litter box which is in the master bathroom and my husband's stale morning breathe was filling the room so I went to the living room and laid on the couch. I reset my alarm for 30 mins. later. I did that until right after 7:00 and then called into work to tell them what was going on and my boss told me to stay home and get to feeling better. D got up and went to school and I slept til Hailey woke up about 8:30 and I got her ready to go to school. She peed in the potty AGAIN this morning! She is such a good girl! I didn't even ask her, I was just about to put on a clean diaper and she said "NO! I have to go pee in the potty!" and she went and peed. That's 3 times the past few days, YEA! Of course she didn't tonight, but oh well she's still making progress. I laid on the couch all day and tried to make myself eat crackers and some soup for lunch. My husband called like 3 times to see how I was doing which is so unlike him and very sweet. The ER called to check up on me (I love our hospital) and my sister called bored from CA while her husband was at work. It wasn't the most restfull day unfortunately but I did get to lay on the couch most of the day. D came home from school and we went to pick Hailey up early because the roads were getting icy. We were completely out of diapers so we had to stop at Walmart which I was not happy about at ALL. I hadn't even washed my face or brushed my hair today, I looked and felt like hell. We grabbed one of those rotisserie chickens they make (so good and only like $4.50) and when we got home I actually cooked some cheesey potatoes, green beans, biscuits and cinnamon biscuits to go along with the chicken. I haven't done squat around here for how many days now, it was the least I could do. I ate a little bit and then D played with Hailey for a couple hours til he had to go to work. She was such a good girl tonight watching my show with me on TLC and then going to bed really easily. I'll be able to go back to work tomorrow, thank goodness. I'm still feeling a little off but at least I'm not getting sick anymore.

Oh and the blood tests all came back okay from the ER...no gall bladder problems etc. so that's good.

Hailey's finally had a few good nights as far as her nightmares go which means I'm more rested and in a much better mood than I have been. Thank God for that. Of course the warmer weather we're having could also have something to do with my good mood...too bad it's not supposed to stick around! I have definitely been experiencing the winter blues and cabin fever. Have I mentioned I'm ready for Spring?????

I'm reading the book The Girlfriend's Guide to Toddlers in hopes that it'll help me understand Hailey a bit more. I know I've said this a million times(or at least a few) but all of a sudden I have this kid. She's not a baby anymore at all, besides the fact that she's still wearing diapers. Before when I'd said that it was maybe how I was feeling on that particular day. Now, it's hit me like a ton of bricks. She's a kid. She eats sandwiches and wants to watch particular movies over and over and knows what it means to go to the library and check out books...I can reason with her (sometimes), tell her what we're going to do the next day and God forbid I change the plans because you better believe she remembered and is very upset that we're not doing what I said anymore...she makes her own choices, she talks about her day...she's just a kid, what can I say. I can't explain it. I sort of feel like 'when the hell did this happen??' but at the same time I feel like it's taken forever to get to this point. And just as I was getting so confident in my abilities at mommying a baby, POP she turned into a kid that I have NO IDEA how to parent. So far it seems like I'm doing pretty gosh darned good at the whole bit if I do say so myself. She seems to be coming out okay, if not a wee bit sassy. And what's funny is when she was a baby I read the parenting books and thought "well hell I'm doing that wrong!" And now I read the parenting books for toddlers and I think "well that's nice if it works for others, but that's not how we do it!" Funny how that changed over the last year...

I have my 2nd physical therapy appointment today. Not sure what she's going to do this time. I only got to do my exercises one day this weekend, yesterday. I really have to be more diligent about that...

Now I can really say, FINALLY some answers!

I had my appointment with my new dr. today. She's a general practitioner. My mom has gone to her for a while and they diagnosed her allergies and asthma so I was really hopefully she would be able to figure out what the heck is wrong with me as well. My previous dr. basically tested me for rheumatoid factor and when that came up negative said she was referring me to a rheumatologist. And then never did. That was the last straw. Thank goodness this new dr. accepted me as a patient. My first impression of the office when I walked in was great. It was nice and quiet, only one other person in there. The receptionist was really nice. I was nervous since I don't do well with change but I was so hopeful she was going to be able to help that was sort of outweighing my nerves. I didn't have to wait long and the nurse called me back. She sat with me and asked me a lot more questions than the questionaire I had already filled out asked. Very in depth and thorough. After a while with her and after she took my vitals (my heart rate was a little low, she asked me if that was normal--I honestly have no idea) and then had me put on the most lovely paper dress LOL then had me sit back in the chair. I told her the dr. was really going to appreciate the fact that I hadn't shaved my legs in quite a while! LOL She laughed and said they're all women around there and that they say in the winter it's just extra insulation! The dr. also joked about hairly legs w/ me and shared her own hairy leg embarrasment story with me! That put me at ease, that they could joke with me about something like that but yet be so professional at the same time. The dr. came in and was very nice. She went over my history again and we briefly went over my IBS issues. I told her I think I'd found a solution that works for me for now (MiraLAX, if you have issues you need to try it) and that my real issues were with my joints and muscles aching, mostly my hips and knees. We talked about everything a lot and she actually listened to what I was saying...she came to the conclusion that she doesn't think it's an arthritis problem. She said typically arthritis is a problem when you wake up and moving around can help it. I have the opposite problem...I wake up maybe feeling just a bit stiff and by the end of the day some days I am hurting so bad I can hardly walk. Motion worsens me, it doesn't make me better. Because I was born with congenital hip dysplasia she thought it was probably related to those issues. First she did a pressure point test for Fibromyalgia which I knew I didn't have. My aunt has this so I knew it's not what I had a long time ago. Sure enough, she said I didn't have a single one of the pain points you typically have with Fibromyalgia. Then she did a range of motion test on my hips and was pretty surprised to find that my range is half that of a normal person my age. She also tested my knees a bit and she exclaimed how easy they were to pop in and out. I just kind of shrugged and told her they've always pretty much done that and she told me what they're doing isn't normal! She called it something specific, which of course I can't remember now. I always just attributed my loose joints to being just that, loose joints. No problem. Apparently it IS causing me problems. She said I need to get started on physical therapy right away to help strengthen certain muscles in my legs to help my knees and hips. She also had me go get xrays taken of my knees and hips to determine how much damage has been done. Along with this she wanted to do a full blood workup, testing me for thyroid issues, blood count etc. to make sure everything looks okay there. I also had to give a urine sample (having to pee in a cup was one of the things I hated the worst about pregnancy!). She also gave me 6 weeks worth of Cymbalta. It's a low dose, only 30 mg. She said while it can be used for an anti-depressant they also use it to treat generalized pain that isn't associated with inflammation--therefor it isn't helped by Advil or Tylenol--like the aches diabetics get. Since Advil and Tylenol do nothing for my aches, she thinks Cymbalta might help. My other dr. mentioned trying this but never went any further with it. The whole visit lasted over an hour! I cannot begin to describe how glad I am that somebody finally took the time to sit and listen to my issues, believed what I was saying and really tried to get to the root of the problem. I'd started to think I was crazy, that it was all in my head somehow because my other dr. didn't take the time to help me figure out what's wrong. It was such a good feeling to have somebody sit there and say "This is your issue, and I think we need to look into this further and see how bad it is, and this is how we're going to try and help NOW before we even know the severity." Basically I start my physical therapy Monday after work. I'm supposed to take the Cymbalta for the 6 weeks, and then I have another appointment scheduled with her next month. I'm not sure if we'll go over the tests results then or they'll let me know when they get them back or what...I honestly don't remember. It was a lot of info in one day to remember! One point that was brought up that I want to note is that this started getting a lot worse after I had Hailey. It's been going downhill ever since. I didn't understand why until today, now it all makes sense. Carrying her for 9 months put so much extra strain on my hip and knee joints...I could barely walk by the time I was at the end(that didn't stop me from hobbling down the hill from the parking lot to eat me some Chipotle now did it??? LOL Even if it did take me a good 10 minutes to get down there! Good times...)...that it basically caused my joints damage. That's why they've been hurting worse since I had her. So now I'm nervous about having more kids...will it get worse with the next one? Am I going to be in a lot of pain in my joints when I'm pregnant next time? And we're wanting to wait a few years...is this something that's going to get worse over time and I SHOULDN'T wait to have more? That would be really unfortunate because we're really wanting to buy a house before the next one. But I guess we'll figure all that out when the time comes. I'm relieved to finally have a good doctor that I can trust and have faith in and I'm relieved to finally have some answers. On one hand, I'm also relieved to find out it's not arthritis...but on the other hand, it's scary to find out that it's actual physical "deformities" or whatever you want to call it. All I could think about was my grandma and her knee replacements and hip pain. As he dr. was telling me the physical therapist would be able to teach me some wrapping techniques for my knees, I was picturing my grandma sitting there in her bed rubbing rubbing alcohol on her knees and then wrapping them tightly in ace bandages. Is that how I'm going to end up? Having to have knee replacements and all that? God I hope not. But at least now I know what's wrong.

Progress

I finally went back to the dr. today to follow up on my lab results from months ago when they tested me for rheumatoid arthritis. She went over my labs which were negative--not only for the rheumatoid but also for immune disorders of some type--and asked me more about the pain. I told her about the WebMD search I did that led me to Psoriatic Arthritis. She said she had no idea I had Psoriasis. I told her I never felt the need to say anything because I had no idea it could be connected. My psoriasis is getting worse...my pain is getting worse. I showed her the list of symptoms I printed off the National Psoriasis Foundation website and told her as I was reading over it for the first time I thought to myself "OMG, this might be what I have" and she kind of laughed and said "you were like, I have THAT and THAT and THAT"....she was really nice, took the time to address my concerns and really seemed concerned about my situation. One of the other drs in the practice is partners with a rheumatologist and he only takes patients by referral...she's supposed to get in touch with him, let him know my situation and get an appointment for me. I need to find a solution soon. Yesterday morning I hurt so bad it made me feel nauseous...I thought I was going to have to leave work and go home. I took some Advil and it took the edge off, but I still hurt. I'm starting to get really scared. It's never been this bad in my life. It's already to the point where it's getting hard for me to do my job, and even take care of Hailey and do housework etc. And Psoriatic arthritis, like other types, is progressive and degenerative. I'm terrified this is my problem, and it's just going to get worse. If this keeps getting worse, I might as well flush my dreams of having more kids down the toilet(and hope and pray Dan gets a decent job right out of school in a year). I'm half hoping they'll tell me I don't have arthritis at all, that it's somehow all in my head or I just need to eat more of some vitamin or something and it'll all go away. I guess we'll see...hopefully it doesn't take too long to get in to this other dr.

Bum Genius

Ok I had NO idea cloth diapers had come so far. While doing some further research on the subject I found that Kushies are sort of a cheaper version of a brand called Bum Genius. These diapers sound AMAZING. They look so comfy and soft, and they come very highly recommended. While the Kushies got (mostly) rave reviews on Walmart.com, that wasn't the case on other websites. The biggest complaints being that they're bulky and the outer layer of the diaper, the waterproof layer, is not soft and gets hard after washings. Apparently these aren't issues with Bum Genius diapers. They are more expensive, which is a downside, but I think the extra cost would be worth it to have a better diaper. I did ask Hailey's sitter last night if she would object to using cloth diapers on her(apparently most daycares refuse???) and of course--since she is wonderful and all--she said it would be no problem whatsoever. The main problem is the initial investment would be quite large. At about $14.95 a diaper, if I bought enough to ensure I wouldn't run out it would be quite a large sum. So what I'm thinking is this...I'm going to order a couple, use them on Hailey over the weekend, see how I like them, and go from there. If she LOVES them and they work well, I may order more. But I'm thinking I'll probably just test them out and see how they work...see if I'm comfortable with doing the whole cloth diaper thing, see how Hailey likes them, and then use them on our NEXT child...since Hailey's only got a matter of months left til she's potty trained (I hope...) Any thoughts??

Kushies, anyone?

Has anyone ever heard of Kushies? It's a brand of all in one cloth diaper that has gotten really good reviews. I just happened to see 2 packs at Walmart while I was there on my lunch break today that someone had returned to the store. I've wanted to try cloth diapers FOREVER. I seriously contemplated it when I was pregnant. But the whole diaper liner/separate inner liner thing seemed like such a pain, and too leak prone for me. These diapers are supposedly leak-free for the most part...no more leak prone than a disposable. They're machine washable and dryable. If you buy them on walmart.com they're only $42.74 w/ free shipping to the store for a 5 pack. We normally use the size 3 White Cloud Supreme diapers, which I LOVE...they are only like 13$ for a big box, which is I think 72 diapers? That normally lasts us a week to a week and a half maybe? I'm not really sure. Would it really be that cost effective to switch? The cloth all in one Kushies cost the same as about 3.3 boxes of the White Cloud diapers. Do I really want to have to wash diapers every night or every other night? I think I need to make a pros/cons list...anybody have any opinions and/or advice I would really love to hear it!

Pros:

Re-usable
Better for her sensitive skin(she's prone to rashes)
Supposedly cost effective
Better for the environment(I see you rolling your eyes Kayce!! HAHA!)

Cons:

Expensive initial investment
Have to wash them every day or every other day at least
They seem sort of bulky?

**

The concert was awesome...after we left I had a message to call my mom, Hailey had come down with something pretty suddenly. After we got back in town, I picked Hailey up (3:00 in the morning). She has croup. I've been home with her since then, except this afternoon my mom was able to take off work so I could go in to work for a grand total of 3 hours. I spent the afternoon basically doing odds and ends and barely making a dent in my stack of work that has piled up.

We still haven't gotten any loan money yet. The disbursement for the 2nd loan we were approved for was mailed today. It says to allow 5 to 7 days. I'm hoping the mail will be extra speedy and we'll get it by Fri. or Saturday. Needless to say, we need it bad. Things just keep going from bad to worse, financially.

Since Hailey is doing better D and I are going to the live broadcast at a local movie theater tonight of the last Garth Brooks concert(my mom is watching Hailey at our house, much to Hailey's delight). Pretty excited about that. We've already planned on wearing our Garth TShirts we got at the concert Monday night. Because yea, we're nerds like that. :o)

Finally some answers!

I’ve been so achy lately it’s been ridiculous. It’s a constant, every day thing, and by the end of the day most days my body is just throbbing. I had a test done a while back to test for the rheumatoid factor in my blood, and that came up negative (which means I don’t have rheumatoid arthritis). After that I got on WebMD and read up on the different conditions it could be. Psoriatic arthritis caught my eye, but WebMD didn’t have a whole lot of info on the subject. So as it’s been getting increasingly worse, I decided to try a different route, and found the National Psoriasis Foundation’s website.

I finally have some answers. Now not only am I almost 100% sure that I do in fact have psoriatic arthritis, but I also know the exact type of psoriasis that I have (I used to get a few spots here and there as a kid on my tummy or wrists, but since I was a teenager I only get a few spots here and there on certain spots on my scalp…nothing big, and unless I’ve told you I have it you would never know) and what triggers it. Surprise surprise, one of the things that can trigger a flare up is the use of beta-blockers. Which is exactly what I take to treat my heart condition. I would bet money that this is the reason I have had a constant flare up for oh I’d say a few years now…exactly the amount of time I’ve been on this medicine. In highschool and for a few years after, I’d get a flare up every now and then. Usually from stress or environmental factors etc. but nothing constant like this. So, now that I have some answers (finally!) the next step would be going to the dr. and getting this sorted out. Unfortunately, given our current financial situation, I can’t afford to find a rheumatologist and go about getting treatment. :o( So, I’m not sure what to do next. I’ll be looking into home treatments until I got something figured out. This is actually a very positive thing…I’m so glad to finally have some answers!