Febuary 2013 Update!

A lot of things are going horribly wrong this year and the stress is building! I've found myself breaking down and crying a lot lately! In my last post I told about how my Uncle had died, how the docs had found something in my mother's lungs, and how my 7 (now 8) year old has been diagnosed with having a brain tumor! I was thinking that maybe with all these horrible things happening that it would get better soon! I was so wrong! The mass growing in my mother's lung is the start of Emphysema! My daughter has to have another MRI done in a few months to make sure her tumor isn't growing and Medicaid is refusing to pay for some of her bills! My hubby and I went and filed our taxes and the IRS took almost our whole return to pay off student loans of my hubby's leaving us with little money to catch up on bills! We weren't able to buy the kiddos anything, not even clothes because what little they left us had to pay bills! I recently caught the flu and was sick for 2 weeks! I'm better now, but still have a cough and a little bit of congestion! Glenn has been having health problems too! He went to the hospital last week and they said he has anal fistula and possibly has to have surgery to have it fixed which sounds painful! As for my business Twisted Witches, I feel like giving up most days! My business is not doing well and not a lot of people are buying my products! I don't know what to do and I feel like a huge failure! I don't want to give up on it and I know it takes a while to build up a business and spread the word! This is my dream and I feel like if I fail everyone is going to be disappointed in me for wasting time and money! I have other things I want to get done too like becoming a licensed herbalist and certified Aromatherapist! I know it's going to take time and money, but it would be nice if I could catch a break from all the other drama and horrible things going on with my family so that I can focus on bettering my life! Most of all I want my daughter to be ok! I think if I ever lost one of my kids that it would break me! Out of all this bad stuff going on, the only thing that I can think about is if Brianne is going to be ok or not! At this point we don't know what is going to happen with her and it's a waiting game until her next MRI! Hopefully, our luck will soon change! I will keep everyone updated!
                                                  Brianne

                                                    Glenn

The Hits Keep Coming!

The Bad News!

I'm really upset. I've had nothing but bad news for the last few weeks and keep wondering when it's going to stop because I don't think I can handle much more. My Uncle John died a couple weeks ago. I'm not clear on why because I don't know all the details. I just know that he died quickly after being hospitalized. I guess there was nothing the docs could do to save him. All they could do is give him pain meds until he passed. Last week I found out from my mother that she went to the docs and that they have found a mass in one of her lungs. I'm scared for her and still waiting for her next appointment to see what they say. My mother and I have our differences, but we love each other and I really don't want to see anything bad happen to her. And then today I got really horrible news about my daughter Brianne and on top of everything else, let's just say that I'm a wreck and not handling it well.

Brianne's Health!

Brianne has been having a few health problems and she had been having episodes were she spaces off in class. So, we talked to our doc and he ordered an EEG with a pediatric neurologist. We were thinking that it was epilepsy because it runs on my biological dad's side of the family. We got the results back saying that she had abnormal brain activity. Dr. Wolcott (the pediatric neurologist) said that it was coming from the left side of her brain and that he didn't think it was epilepsy. When I heard what he had said I should have known that wasn't good. He ordered an MRI which was done last Friday at St. Elizabeth's Hospital here in Lincoln, Ne. Glenn and I overslept yesterday morning and the kiddos were a few hours late for school. He let me know that he had missed a call from Dr. Wolcott and that he had left a voicemail. Glenn took the kids to school and I waited for him to get back so I could listen to the voicemail to see what the doc had to say. Glenn took his time getting back home and in the house and didn't come back until after he dropped Brendan off at school. When he finally came home I was upstairs in our room watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on my computer. I called his cell and asked if he was going to let me hear the message and he said he'd let me as soon as he took a few messages for the landlord. After a half hour I had to call him again and looking back now I should have known that there was a reason he was avoiding me. He finally came upstairs, handed me the phone, and I listened to the entire message and then just broke down crying. I couldn't breathe and felt like I someone punched a hole in my chest and ripped out my heart. The message Dr. Wolcott left said that the results showed that Brianne has a small tumor on the left side of her cerebellum. I wanted to stay calm and keep it together, but I broke down and cried for over 4 straight hours. During that time Glenn managed to contact family members and doctors. He spoke to Dr. Wolcott and got him to set up an appointment with a pediatric neurosurgeon. We have an appointment with Dr. Mark Puccioni on the 29th to find out what the next step in all this is. I've had very little sleep in the last 36 hours. I can't sleep and can't seem to quit crying. I've turned to facebook off and on as a distraction. I also want to keep everyone updated on what is going on. I think it's horrible that any 7 year old child has to go through something like this, but it's downright a nightmare when it's your own child. I keep asking myself why did it have to be my child? Not that I would ever wish this on anyone else I just didn't want my child to have to deal with something so serious at such a young age. Brianne is my baby and she's only 7 years old. Her 8th birthday is in 2 1/2 weeks. Unfortunately, my mind keeps racing to what ifs and that's not helping my sanity any. I keep thinking about what if they can't remove it, what if other treatments do even worse damage, and what if I lose her? I don't think I can bear the loss of a child. I want to stay positive and be hopeful, but my mind keeps wondering back to those what if and I break down in tears every time. I haven't told Brianne yet. I need to soon, but trying to figure out the best way to tell her. She's young and I don't know if she will understand how serious this is or how she will react. I can't wait until the 29th , because I need to know more about what is going on. I'll do more posts later after we find out more information.

The following is the results of Brianne's MRI!

Name: SMALLWOOD,BRIANNE L
Phys: WOLCOTT,GEORGE MD
DOB: 02/07/2005 Age: 7 Sex: F
Acct: E00021610909 Loc: MRI
Exam Date: 01/18/2013 Status: REG REF
Radiology No:
Unit No: M000692411

EXAM# TYPE/EXAM RESULT
001614779 MRI/Brain With Without Contra

EXAM: MRI of the brain without and with IV contrast

DATE: January 18, 2013.

HISTORY: Forgetfulness, episodes of staring. Abnormal EEG in the
left temporal lobe.

CONTRAST: The patient received 5 cc of MultiHance.

FINDINGS: The patient has moderate motion artifact on the
post contrast images.

There is a 17 mm focus of abnormal T2 hyper intensity in the left
cerebellum as seen on series 5 image #9. Given the motion artifact
through this area there is no obvious abnormal enhancement of this
focus. No mass effect on the fourth ventricle. Remainder of the
brain appears within normal limits without abnormal signal or
enhancement. The ventricles are normal in size. No restricted
diffusion.

 IMPRESSION:

 1. There is an abnormal focus of signal in the left cerebellum.
 Neoplasm would be a very strong consideration for which a glioma
 would be the most likely consideration. Other entities such as an
 atypical demyelinating process would be considered less likely. A
 short term followup MRI scan is recommended if further evaluation is
 not pursued at this time.

Results telephoned by Dr. Ailes to Dr. George Wolcott on January 18,
2013 at 3:00 p.m.

December Updates!

I've been super busy lately because of the holidays and taking the kiddos to all of their appointments. I need to do more blogs because there has been a lot going on with my family lately. So, here I am to catch everyone up on my life and all the craziness that is going on.

Health Checkups

For the last 6 weeks I have been running my kids around to all kinds of appointments. I made sure that they all got there flu shots this year. Brendan and Landon have been sick a few times so they had to go to the doc for that. I also made sure that I found a good dentist not far from our home for the kids to go to. Up until this year they have been going to the Health Dept. for their dental care, but I get so sick of waiting months for them to be seen. Now they have a regular dentist that they can see and it only takes a day or two to get them in. Lately we have had extra appointments due to Brianne and the problems that she is having. For that last couple years she has been having episodes like she is day dreaming and when she snaps out of it, she acts confused like she doesn't know where she is or what is going on. Her teachers and I have had a few meetings about it and we all came to the conclusion that it was possible that she was having mini seizures. Epilepsy does run on my biological dad's side of the family so I knew it was a possibility that it is seizures. I took Brianne to our doctor who then made an appointment to have an EEG done on her. We received results the same day that her EEG was abnormal. I have an appointment with the pediatric neurologist in charge of her case on January 10, 2013 to see what further tests need to be done. She also has an appointment to see her psychiatrist on January 8, 2013. She's been diagnosed with ADHD and they believe she is bipolar or schizophrenic on top of it, but they are working on her ADHD first. For her to have epilepsy or something worse on top of all this is heartbreaking for me. I hate watching her struggle with all of this. In the next few months we are hoping to get more answers.

Hard Times

Lately we have fallen on hard times. Glenn had job, but was only making $10 an hour which makes it very hard to pay bills with a family of 6 even with help. He just lost that job too, so things are going to get even worse. I'm selling off some of the products that I have made and even have my own website. I'm kind of getting frustrated though, because it's taking longer than I thought it would to get the word out and get a steady flow of products sold. I just started and I know it will take time, but I just don't want to fail. I found something I'm great at and I really want it to work. I don't expect to get rich, but would like a little more money coming in for our family. Glenn and I always find some way to pull through so I do have hope.

Charity

The 22nd of December was the 8th anniversary of Charity's death. I miss that girl so much and it brings me to tears every time I think about her. Charity was my hubby's little sister. She was also my best friend and like a little sister to me. I think the reason her death is so painful to me is because I feel partly responsible for her death. It was my irresponsible sister-in-law (brother's wife) that was the one driving the car and the one who over corrected it causing the car crash. She also knew there was a horrible ice storm coming and decided to make the trip anyway. Charity was the only one who died in the crash. I think it's just as horrible that she risked my niece's life, who was an infant at the time, by taking her on that trip as well. For the first few years I tried to play nice and pretend she wasn't to blame for what happened for my brother's sake. I couldn't take it any more and have not had a very good relationship with her or my brother for the past 5 years. We spent most of that time fighting and staying away from each other. I know that if Charity would have never met my brother's wife that she would still be here today. I feel awkward being around my hubby's family now, because sometimes I wonder if they partly blame me too.

Snow Day!

We had our first snow day here in Lincoln, Ne on Wednesday, December 19, 2012! Of course there was lots of ice & snow, and the kiddos didn't have school on Thursday. We decided to take them outside to play and to build a snowman. My kiddos had a blast. They had a snowball fight, made snow angels, and with Glenn's help, built a pretty awesome snow girl. Hoping to have more snow this winter so we can have more fun days playing in the snow.

 

Yule/Christmas

We didn't do a lot for Yule or Christmas. Mostly stayed home and spent time together as a family. The kids opened part of their presents on Yule and the rest on Christmas Day. We celebrate both because I'm Pagan and my hubby is Lutheran. We have lots of holidays to celebrate in our house. Anyway, I decided to fix a meal between the 2 holidays instead of fixing 2 separate meals. It's just easier that way. My kiddos had a great holiday. Half their presents were tings they needed like bedding sets, new dish sets, pillows, etc. The other half of their presents were toys and stuff to entertain them like remote control cars, puzzles, and play-doh kits. I have to thank Toys for Tots for the clothes and toys, Glenn, Glenn's mother and step-grandparents for the Christmas money they sent, Lincoln Federal Savings Bank for the food boxes, and Glenn's dad and his dad's girlfriend for the clothes they bought. My kids wouldn't have had a Christmas without them. We had a great holiday.

 



Thank you to Lincoln Berean Church for taking pics of my kiddos and for the free photo package.

 



 



Smore's Snack Mix

I found a wonderful little snack recipe on the internet the other day, so had to share it with everyone. Smore's is known as a tasty summer treat, but with Smore's snack mix you can get that same tasty treat any time of the year. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

4 cups of golden grahams cereal
3 cups of mini marshmellows
1 cup of milk choc. chips

Directions

In large bowl, combine cereal and marshmallows; toss to mix. Spread mixture on sheet of waxed paper.

In small microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips on Medium (50%) 1 minute. Stir until chips are melted and mixture is smooth. If needed, microwave 15 to 30 seconds longer on Medium.

Using spoon or fork, drizzle melted chocolate over cereal-marshmallow mixture. Let stand about 1 hour or until chocolate is set.

 

Notes: If you don't want to melt down the choc. chips just mix the unmelted chips in with the marshmellows and cereal. Make sure to store in an airtight container so that the marshmellows don't get hard. This is a very simple snack mix to make and the kids will love it.

Tater Tot Casserole

Ingredients

• 1 pound of ground beef
• 1 frozen veggies
• 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can of milk
• small bag of tater tots
• 1 cup of shredded cheddar

Instructions

1. Brown the hamburger and boil frozen veggies until done. Drain both and set aside.
2. Dump can of cream of mushroom soup in a large mixing bowl and fill the soup can with milk and dump the milk in the bowl too. Mix well.
3. Add the meat and veggies to the bowl of cream of mushroom soup. Mix well.
4. Dump the mixture into a large baking pan.
5. Top with a single layer of tater tots. Put in oven and cook at 425* for 25-35 minutes or until the tater tots are a golden brown.
6. Take out and top casserole with shredded cheddar. Place back in oven at 425* for 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Notes: You can use any kind of frozen veggies, cheese, ground meat, or condensed soup that you like. Dinner rolls go great with this meal. I had to double the recipe because I have a larger family.

End of October, Beginning of November

I haven't done a post on here in over a month so I thought that I would share what I have been doing lately. I'm going to start with Halloween. The night before Halloween we carved the huge pumpkins that we had bought from Walmart. I cleaned them out and Glenn did the carving. The pumpkins turned out pretty good. The kids had a blast on Halloween. We went to Glenn's dad's house and ate supper, got the kiddos ready, and took them trick or treating. Brendan was a dragon, Landon was a skeleton, Brianne was a witch, and Hailey was the wicked queen from Snow White.

Glenn and I applied for early voting this year. We filled out the cards and sent them in and then got our ballots in the mail. We filled them out, but instead of mailing them we took them in just to make sure they didn't get lost any where. We are Democrats living in a Republican state so we don't really trust people. Both of us vote to re-elect Barack Obama as President, Joe Biden for Vice President, and Bob Kerrey to replace Ben Nelson in the Senate. Bob Kerrey lost to a Teabagger named Deb Fischer who I believe to be looney tunes. Obama & Biden did win and will remain President & Vice President and I was super thrilled that they had won that I posted a ton of posts about it for several days on facebook. I lost about 15 or more facebook friends, but also made some new ones. Politics seems to bring out the crazy in some people.

 

 

I've been trying to get some of my Twisted Witches items sold. I have my website up and running again and I have about 2/3 of my products posted on there. Things are going very slow. I've hardly sold anything and there are days were I want to break down and cry, because I feel like a failure. I just need to remember that everything is not going to be sold over night and it's going to take a while to spread the word about my business. I would like to get more products to sell, but I have to sell some of the stuff that I have so that I can have money to order more items. Holding out hope because I really want this to work. http://www.twistedwitches.com/

 

This week we had to go to parent/teacher conferences. McPhee was also having their book fair. I walked around the school with the kiddos to visit all their teachers. Hailey is doing really good. Brianne is doing well, but still having trouble with spelling and reading. I have to take here in and get her checked for epilepsy. She's showing signs of having mini seizures. We are having problems with her lying and stealing like most ADHD kids do. Landon is doing better this year, but never wants to do his homework. He's still struggling with his speech and following directions. Brendan is doing pretty good in preschool. He's not used to going to school so sometimes he doesn't want to participate in learning activities. He's getting better though, but he also has a speech problem, but not nearly as bad as Landon's. All the kiddos are amazing at Math, so that's awesome. After visiting with the teachers we went to the library and let each of the kiddos pick out a book and pencil. I saw a book that I might like so got myself one as well. When I paid for the books I got $5.05 back in change which I donated to the library to help raise money for new books.

 





October Update!

I've been busy lately. It's an election year so I've been busy with that. I can't wait until the election and yes I will be voting for Obama again. Things have been going well for President Obama and I believe he will be re-elected despite a rough first debate. He doing very well in the polls and Mitt Romney may have taken charge in the first debate, but he hung himself with his own lies. I never set out to dislike Romney so much! However, as time has gone by, the more he talks the more I can't stand him. Obama/Biden 2012!

I've been busy doing stuff around the house. We fixed up a bunch of things around the house and have been boxing up clothes and stuff that we don't need. I'm hoping that we can have a yard sale soon. We need the money really bad. Glenn missed 1 1/2 weeks of work when he had an infection in his leg and he missed all this week due to a lack of work to do. So now we are broke, behind on a few bills and we still haven't had a party for our boys whose birthdays were on September 15th & September 25th. It breaks my heart that we have nothing to give them. I'm going to buy them stuff they need when Glenn gets back to work and we still can have a party for them. Just going to take another week or two.

Times are tough and I'm trying to get some of my products sold, but it's difficult trying to do this on facebook. I need to get my website back up and running, so that people can order from my site. I've made a few sales, but need a lot more especially now. Glenn is going to start looking for more work tomorrow and I hope he finds something, because we are in a tough spot right now. I made up some more soaps and I have to get them bagged up and labeled than they will be ready to go. The soaps I made are in Fall scents. They smell amazing. I have talked to Glenn about putting some products out for the garage/yard sale and to see if we can sell some stuff. It's hard watching facebook friends selling out of items they have made while you have only made a few sales. It sucks and at times I just want to give up and break down and cry. I'm just starting out so I'm sticking with it and hopefully things will turn around for me.

Samhain is coming up at the end of the month. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I know that I need to get back into doing some witchy things. I'm actually thinking about having a Dead Dinner, but I'm not sure. I do know I'm going to burn some candles for friends and family that I and my hubby have lost. There has been a lot of death in both families and a few we are still trying to deal with, so I think it's important to do something in their memory. Going to take my kiddos Trick or Treating and I'm hoping we can come up with some costumes before then.

The kiddos are doing well in school. The governor of Nebraska's wife, Sally, went to my children's school today and read them all a book. Each child got a copy of the book, so now we have 4 of the same book. It was great of her to take time to visit the kids, talk to them, and read to them. She's a smart and wonderful woman, but I can't stand her hubby because he has bigoted conservative views. My kiddos said they had a great time and enjoyed talking to her and hearing her read and that's all that matters.

I know I've taken several weeks off from blogging, but there are many more blog posts to come in the next few weeks.