I like to keep my issues drawn

Per my usual, it's 5 a.m. and I'm awake, griped by pain. Last week I thought I'd be tough. I would reduce the amount of Advil I was taking to one dose in the morning. Then take my nerve numbing med at night.

I was resolute: I would get off all these meds and grow accustomed to the pain. Turns out my back is just as stubborn and ultimately more determined than me.

Thursday morning, after a day of successfully following my "toughen up" plan, Herny got angry around 1 a.m. And I mean angry. All I could do to console her was wander the house. Even then, I had to stay close to furniture for support when the nerve spasms washed over me.

Operation Toughen Up turned into Mission Holy Shit. At 6 am, when the hubby woke up I told him he'd need to get Rose ready, and then we'd need to go to the ER. I was so over being tough. I needed help.

When we made it to the ER, the doctor called the neuro surgeon immediately after seeing my MRI. I don't want to brag, but turns out I have a pretty big herniated disc. Little Herny is really a baby Huey!

The Neurosurgeon came in and in two seconds of talking to me said he thought the doc jumped the gun. I was talking, sitting and clearly, from his vantage point, not in too much pain.

I immediately started weeping, as I pleaded for his help. i am not here for surgery, i said, i just want more than three hours of sleep a night.

At that moment, his demeanor changed. Although he had been ready to bolt, he took pity on me and completed an exam. Then he prescribed Vicodin and a muscle relaxer.

I think he was amused I had rejected offers of Vicodin before, especially when my only reason was my desire to be tough. He looked sternly at me and said, "that won't work."

Then he shared news about how big Herny is and said I have a 50% shot of needing surgery despite the success of PT. I was instructed to stop being tough: I needed to submit to this injury. He repeated the message to mike (aka hubby) saying I seem like someone who is a tad stubborn.

So submit I have. I take three strong prescriptions nightly, which ware off at 5 am but I do seem to get solid sleep for six hours. I take Advil regularly during the day, despite the worry of ulcers. I am always on something. I left work early to get a nap in yesterday when the pain was low.

The lesson I learned is I can't just plow through this chanting I'm tough and expect a good result. Yet that internal resolve is definitely what has pulled me through the hard times with Rose. So I'm glad it's there.

The next entry will focus a lot more on dear Rose and much less on Herny. For now, my dose of Advil is kicking in, and I am going to conk out.

I'm going off the rails on this crazy train

It's five a.m. and little Herny has woken me up. Right on schedule, too. In fact, last night, husband and I joked I have a five a.m. wake-up call from pain. And pain doesn't have a snooze button. (ha! I think I need a Clint Eastwood voice over.)

The upside to this reliable pain train is I have time to write while I let whatever self soothing experiment take its course. Today it is three Advil and a heating pad on the spasm filled thigh.

As I lay in bed, pillow under my knees, feeling somewhat soothed by the warmth of the heating pad, Rosie's emergency visit springs to mind.

Specifically, my arrival to the hospital. I came straight from bowling wearing bowling shoes, a bowling shirt with "beastie bowlers" printed in graffiti font across the front and beastie boy song titles altered with bowling themes in the back. For example, "you gotta fight, for your right to bowl."

In top of that, the sweatshirt I had was bright green, and says "Get Lucky" across the front. Even worse, I had beer on my breath.

None of this dawned on me until a doctor looked at me with confusion. Then he looked at mike, and again me. After thirty seconds of deliberation, he spoke only to mike, and implied I was an aunt, perhaps. A Pca?

Mike immediately clarified my role as the mom. The doctor's eyes showed he struggled to believe it. As did other hospital staff.

I looked down at my attire and totally understood why. I was pretty sure I'd wind up on a worst mom list for coming to a hospital smelling of beer and looking like a college student. In my mind, I could see a wall of shame with my mug shot on it, giving the "rock on" gesture, of course.

I didn't let my paranoia stop me from standing up for and demanding what I felt Rose needed. When I found that voice the confusion amongst the hospital staff disappeared.

I was calm, concise, passionate, and articulate. I didn't ask for what I wanted, I politely demanded it. The staff responded well to my demeanor, and suddenly my clothes weren't an issue. I was her mom.

As I drove home exhausted the next morning, I smiled imagining the janitor. played by the Breakfast Club janitor, taking my picture off the imaginary wall of shame and handing it to me.

I'd ask he keep it there to help other new adoptive moms remember to keep speaking up, keep advocating, no matter how many strange looks they encounter.

Some get to have a baby, I get to have a herniated disc

Not to belabor my injury on a blog focused on Rose, but today I realized this herniated disc has some similarities to pregnancy.

First, I had no control over it happening. Sure a lady can choose to want to be pregnant but she really has no control over when or if it happens.

Second, I get a cool cd with pictures of my injured spine and crushed nerves. Wicked, right? I'm gonna call it Herny.

Third, well meaning people with no clue offer me pain management advice.
I try to stay patient but with the utter lack of sleep I'm getting, that's no easy task. And I recall friends of mine in late stages of pregnancy lacking sleep. Some even due to sciatic nerve pain.

Lastly, I have a funny walk, can't drink, and have to see a doctor once weekly.

Of course the difference is my weekly visits consist of a lady pulling at my legs and massaging my spine. And the most stark difference is we are hoping my appts will not require a trip to the hospital because little Herny will have gone back where she came from.

Wish it with me...

A few more September photos

Enjoy!

If you wanna kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel

Holy cow, September came and went. Just as I got ready to sit down and write about the first day of school, something came up. I'll recap the month's events in chronological order to help myself make sense of all of it: the happy, the less happy, and the indifferent.

School started, and I shake my head in amazement as I look at the three photos below. We've made it through three first days of school. This success bolsters me on days when I look forward to being in my 40s cause Rose will hopefully be out of the house. Or on the days I have to remind Rose we are all faking it until we make it.

6th Grade First Day Photo, August 2012

5th Grade First Day Photo, August 2011

4th Grade First Day Photo, January 2011

Minneapolis starts school before Memorial Day. The long weekend provided a much-needed break after a terrible first week of school. Rose ended up having to call home the first day. This ominous sign pushed me over the edge, and I took the next two days off determined to find a better school fit. Then I realized there really isn't a better place. Good charter schools with smaller class sizes have a pretty big waiting list. Private schools can't support Rose's needs, and going to another big public school compounds the same issues.

I visited a few bad charter schools where the special education staff had so many hats I couldn't imagine them managing Rose's needs.  At the same time, I learned a mom who makes multiple calls into the district results in new resources popping out of the woodwork. So rather than move Rose, we decided to enroll Rose in a half day treatment program to help her develop her social skills.

The district supported the idea, which means she would be able to go to therapy half day and return to school of the other half, allowing her to practice the skills she was learning. Plus, she'll keep the fabulous network of support at the current school.  Cause most of her school troubles are peer related.

Feeling good about our decision, we took a trip to The State Fair over the holiday weekend, and we had a great time. The butterfly house was a huge hit, and Rose got to take her first ride on a tilta whirl.

Rose feeding the butterflies with sugar I am certain was also laced with a butterfly drug.
I've never seen butterflies act so crazy.

The first week of school brought the wonderful arrival of our new nephew, Kenneth Charles Schulte, or Kenny.

The same week, we also traded in my Mustang for a Jeep, which is more family and dog friendly and is really a fun car. Rose loves it. So do I.

See what I mean? All of that happened in one week! I'm exhausted just trying to write about it. The second week of school went alright, we got calls frequently, but the staff was very patient as we tried to get appointments with treatment facilities.

At the conclusion of week 2, we visited an apple orchard to celebrate the start of fall. We went to Minnetonka Orchards, which has a small cover charge well worth it for the freshly made apple cinnamon doughnuts.

Queen of the hill!

Sheer delight is an accomplishment for a moody Tween.

The third week of school, though, resulted in Rose having to go into full time treatment in Duluth after she said she had been hiding pills in her room with the intent of killing herself.  When she made the omission I was at bowling. As soon as I got the call, I rushed to the hospital where I stayed until 5 a.m. while arrangements were made. Mike had a terrible cold so I sent him home at around midnight, and had the delight of listening to someone die just a few doors over.

In fact, the intensity of the drama traumatized me more than having Rose there. I had figured she'd probably have this happen at some point, I just didn't think it'd happen at such a young age. Since I'd seen my own sister receive help at 16 and on for her bipoloar disorder, this process wasn't new to me. We would rather she had been admitted to a program closer to the cities, but there weren't any beds open.

Rose left for Duluth Thursday morning, and Saturday we drove up to visit her for the weekend. The five hours of driving to and from seemed almost ridiculous for the 2.5 hours of visiting time we got for it, but we had to visit. As we were making the trip, I started to experience some pretty horrific pain in my left leg. I brushed it off. I didn't have time for it. Rose's treatment in Duluth was only a week, which meant she'd be coming home Wednesday. We had arrangements to make, and fast.

We called the school, and let them know we were going to have Rose enrolled in a full time day treatment program. That means she receives school half of the day and therapy the other half. The school was in complete support, and the district actually provides the schooling and a bus for us.  So between Monday and Wednesday we were busy arranging appointments with the treatment program.

At the same time, my left leg was getting worse. So bad that both Monday and Tuesday I had to pull over on my way to work at least four times. On Tuesday, by the time I made it to a Brueggars parking lot, the pain gripping my leg was so severe, I couldn't walk once I out got out of my car. Instead, I started sobbing. I'm not a public crier. Thankfully no one said anything to me. Once I was able recover, I booked an appointment with my doctor the next day.

Long story short, the doctor reported I'd lost a significant amount of muscle strength in a very short amount of time. I was prescribed physical therapy and an MRI. The MRI revealed two herniated discs, likely from the car accident, one is crushing the nerve running down my left leg. So right when Rose got home from the hospital, I was pretty sad thinking of how I wouldn't be able to run possibly forever. I was even more angry that I'd stayed fit so I'd be a great mom who can keep up with my kid, and now I'm suddenly not.

And that brings us to the last week. Rose has been in her program for one whole week, and she likes it. The attention she gets from the staff is beyond our expectation. Her behaviors at home are even getting less tense as a result.

I'm getting over the shock of feeling so disabled all of a sudden, and the physical therapy seems to be helping, which means I might not need surgery. In the meantime, my coworkers have been very understanding when I need to stand up and walk around meeting rooms.

Lord only knows what October will bring, but after the past month. I just I hope it's fairly uneventful so we can focus on Halloween fun. If you read this, pray for a month of calm for us.