Another Day, Another Challenge, Another Success

If you have been following my blog then you know that I recently had to have a tooth extracted after it broke off and was discovered to be dead. The journey has not been fun. In fact it has been painful, detrimental to the way I see myself, humiliating, and something I can accept and grow from.

The days leading up to my extraction I put myself on a liquid diet. Not a healthy liquid either. It was that of sugary wine. Lots of it too. I thought that if I numbed myself to the reality that was about to unfold then I would feel no pain emotionally or physically once it was over.

I WAS WRONG!

The whole experience of walking into the dentists office with my husband and children by my side was of many rushing emotions. Pride that I have such a loving and supportive family. Humiliation that I was walking in that office to have a tooth pulled as a direct result of my actions. Fear of the unknown.  I was holding my own surprisingly well while he was twisting and wiggling and pulling on my tooth that was so stubbornly hanging on to me, or maybe it was me hanging onto it.

Deep breath. Close your eyes. Let go. It is just a tooth. It is just a tooth. Breathe. Again. Now let go and be done with it.

As I said those words in my head, the inevitable happened. I felt the release and out came my tooth. The emotion swept over me like a blanket being thrown around a hypothermic baby. I felt my lip begin to quiver uncontrollably. I felt the tears well up inside my eyes.

 Be strong, I told myself over and over. Don't let them see you cry. Your kids will be waiting for you and you need to show them that you embraced this for what it is. Just a tooth.

I walked into the lobby where my kids embraced each of my legs with a joy that only a child can hold and I knew right then was my chance to make the change I had been promising over and over but was unwilling to accept. It was time to stop purging.

Not to mention that I was under strict doctor orders to not vomit or I would face painful consequences of the hard work he and I had just endured.

I walked out of the office with my head held high. I went shopping with my family for the things I would need the very next day for the baking prep for Thanksgiving. I went home. I went to bed. I slept for hours and hours. I woke. I looked around. I could not deal. I slept more. My husband took care of the kids and I took care of me.

The next day I woke to Scott leaving for work. I rose out of bed and I did what I do best. I cooked. I cooked for two Thanksgiving dinners. One for my family and one for my friend who I felt needed what I had to give more than words can express. She just had a baby, here third, a colicky one too, and I felt I could give her a peaceful calm Thanksgiving so I cooked for her. I kept all the dishes clean as they became dirty, I swept ten times. I was unstoppable and by the time I was finished at the end of the day I had accomplished 6 pies, 10 casserole side dishes, two batches of cookies, a cookie cake, relish dish, veggie tray and my kitchen was spotless.

Therapeutic.

Then came more sleep. Then came the pain. Terrible pain. By Thanksgiving I had not eaten one good meal other than yogurt, I was drinking my calories in the form of protein shakes. I was miserable. I still am miserable. I sucked it up though and ate the soft dishes I made in attempt to share in the Thanksgiving traditional dinner but was tormented in the end by pain that has yet to cease.

 Stitches are being tugged, broken free, stabbing. The gums are bruised and tender to the touch. The fake tooth looks great but hurts so badly at the moment. I look in the mirror and feel like I look like a white trash hillbilly. Toothless. Embarrassed. 

Last night I spent the night in so much pain I was laying on the couch begging my husband to shoot me, commit me, take me in for a shot. Anything. Nothing was numbing the pain. Finally after a few extra vicodin I passed out. 

Today we went to the store. I had my fake tooth in afraid of showing the dark, bloody, stinky, gaping hole. I was in pain for vanity. We went out to eat. I had mushy french fries, onion soup, soggy bread. I watched as my husband enjoyed his big, juicy, loaded with yumminess, burger. I feel like I am starving but cannot eat because the pain is so bad. 

So I am on day 4 of no purging and yet I am not proud. I am not eating. I am miserable. How is that something to celebrate? I did this to myself. So I ask for no pity. But yet pity would be so nice at this point. 

I know. I'm kinda crazy.

Tomorrow is a new day. A monumental one at that. I am getting on an airplane with my good friend Christy and we are leaving husbands, kids, and our realities behind while we let loose and enjoy a fun 48 hours in Las Vegas. No expectations. No demands. No schedules. No pressure. Just good friends. Good laughs. Good break. A much needed break. A first for me. But it won't be the last. 

No if only the pain would stop. 

My Long Path of Self Destruction

It is amazing to me how so many people can see something so clearly that you struggle with accepting in yourself. I know that I am a good person on the inside and know that I have a lot to offer the world and to those around me. However, I am not nice to myself. I don't give myself credit for those good things but instead I point out and punish myself for the bad.

I started my self destruction when I was ten years old. I had just gone through a major life change, moving from Kansas where I lived with my mom, two step-siblings, her not good husband, and the new baby they shared together, to Colorado where I would join my father, step-mother, and older brother. I had endured a lot of traumatic events growing up with my mother, non of which were ever intentional. She did the absolute best that a young, 18 year old, could do for her child. But we moved a lot and there were things that I didn't understand at the time. Her marriage to my brothers father brought about some unpleasantries that diminished my self-esteem that I don't think I have ever regained.

When I moved in with my dad there was a lot of adjusting on us all. I went from being the oldest in the house to the youngest; my brother went from being the only one to now having to share everything with me; my parents were trying to figure out a comfortable balance of getting to know me as I was them. I was hating myself for reasons that are no longer important but they pushed me then to hit myself with my hair brushes, fists, kick holes in walls, and try my hardest to inflict such physical pain in hopes it would numb the emotional pain.

I went through all my years in school bouncing from one friendship to the next, always finding some way to sabotage it so no one could ever truly get close to the real me. I was afraid of showing my pain, weakness, hurt, and fear of life. I was trapped in a dark torturous dungeon of self deprecating thoughts and feelings and I felt like I was sentenced to a life of isolation from experiencing the possibilities that when presented would open the door to a world of color, excitement, experiences that exceeded my wildest dreams.

So that is the place I stayed.

I assumed the other girls didn't like me, the boys just wanted a piece of me, my parents were burdened by me, I was an inconvenience to those around me. I hated the way I looked, talked, walked. I hated everything about me. I had no real relationships because I could not have a healthy one with myself. I judged myself based on images in society, images of the popular girls, images of what I thought others wanted me to be. Nothing I did was ever good enough, or so I thought. I had been beaten down so badly, sometimes unintentionally, I started to join in and beat myself down even more.

I prayed time and time again that something awful would happen to me that would put me in a hospital just so I could see if anyone would notice. See if anyone would care that I was there. I begged for a way to escape. Not die, let me clarify that, but just to escape. Eventually I found my way by puking in the toilet, taking ephedrine pills for energy, excessively exercising, not sleeping, and changing my appearance over and over again. None of it cured the pain. It just masked it allowing me a chance to shove it deep into the back of my mind where I would close the door on it and throw away the key.

Now I have come to the realization that by locking away those thoughts and emotions and never dealing with them actually gave them a chance to fester and grow to the point of overpowering that door and bursting free. My relapse into my bulimia has allowed those demons to rise again. I have given them power over me and have come to that deep dark dungeon once again where I have been torturing myself. This much I do know. I have lost my focus on the good points of myself and when I make a mistake or a bad choice, I embed it into my head telling myself that the consequences are justified and I deserve to endure the punishment those consequences have developed.

My closest friends (AMAZING FRIENDS!) today were there to hold my hand, embrace my sobbing and trembling body, talk me through this detrimental breaking point of realization that I have once again beaten myself down so bad that I am truly lost as to how I start honestly, successfully, take care of myself. It was even pointed out that I really do put expectations on myself to be perfect with an image that is not realistic or fair to myself. I really feel lost as to how I put myself first and take care of my needs so I am capable of taking care of my family. I don't know how to look in the mirror and acknowledge to myself that I am a fantastic mother, loving and nurturing; I am a great friend who accepts my friends for who they are unconditionally; I am a loyal, faithful, wonderful wife to the man I was blessed to marry; I am a good person who gives more to others than I give myself. I don't know how to say those things, accept them to be true, embrace them, and take myself to new heights.

I do know that I am at a point in my life that I am ready to face my demons, find a way to move on, find a way to start living joyously. I am grateful that I wake up every day, I have these two amazing children, have my husband, have the amazing friends that have now seen me in a state I have been to afraid to share. I am grateful for the gifts of being able to share my pain with others who might think they are alone. I am grateful for the knowledge that I want to change and that I want a better life for myself, rather than this destructive path I have been on that is literally killing me.

I am ready. I just need to figure out the how now.

From the book Each Day A New Beginning:

"Do not compare yourself with others, for you are a unique and wonderful creation. Make your own beautiful footprints in the snow."

~Barbara Kimball

'Comparissons we make of ourselves to other women do destruction far greater than our conscious minds are aware of...Within any moment might be the opportunity we've awaited...We must not miss our opportunities...How wonderful and how freeing to know that we each offer something uniquely our own...Envy eats at us; it interferes with all of our interactions. It possesses all of our thoughts, caging us, denying us the freedom to achieve that can be ours.'

To My Husband, I Apologize.

Tonight I have been presented some challenges, along with some epiphanies.

First I want to apologize to my husband. Scott, I am so sorry that you have had to deal with me being so ill in the many many years we have been together. Through all of the hospital visits, some were weeks at a time, themany surgeries I have endured, and counting the scars there were 8, I am so sorry to have put you through it all. You have been amazing in every aspect as being my rock and holding steadfast throughout it all.

Had I known 11 years ago that I would endure so many surgeries and trying times, I am sure there would be no one who would commit to loving me and supporting me for this long.

It started at 19 when I and my husband found my first lump in my breast, which was the size of a golf ball. I immediately went into surgery to discover it was borderline cancerous and along with it had two others removed. Luckily they were benign. But it set the stage for a life of my body growing things out of my control.

In 2001 I had two other small benign tumors removed from the same breast. I was accused of living a "precarious life" that "resulted in my state". Following that I was hospitalized for a "rare infection of the lining of my organs in my stomach" for a full week and later was hospitalized for a week for hemorrhaging from treatment for endometriosis. I was a mess!

Through it all consistently was a man who later became my husband. He was my strength when I had none.

Then came the accident that forced me to re-learn how to walk and use my back muscles. One that also forced me to loose my job and one that eventually led me to become addicted to pain killers. Not good. Learning to come off of those was like coming off a bad meth addiction and the withdrawls I experienced were so horrific I am surprised Scott stayed with me.

Then came the horrible cystic ruptures on my ovaries, one after the other. So bad that at one point I collapsed at work and was rushed to the hospital where a doctor finally diagnosed me with endometriosis. Shortly thereafter came the news that there was a tumor of some kind growing on the bone in my ethmoid cavity. Of course that resulted in another surgery.

Fast forward to the laproscopy to help me with my endometriosis, which then resulted in another hospital stay because the treatment, a shot which would put me in menopause (NOT FUN) resulted in more hemorrhaging. So comes the verdict get pregnant or have a hysterectomy.

Fast forward another year when I met a doctor who did one more laproscopy in a last ditch effort to avoid the hysterectomy and I got pregnant soon after.

Then was the news of a cystic tumor in my pancreas which was noticed years before but was neglected to be presented to me.

It had not changed over the years til after I first gave birth and then three months later was discovered that it had doubled in size and changed properties so much so that it was advisable to be immediately taken out out of fear that I would develop cancer. So came the removal of half my pancreas plus my spleen. 

Fast forward to giving birth to my second child which soon resulted in the removal of one ovary and eventually my uterus. Not to mention a mole that was "suspicious" but benign but then followed by a removal that turned out to be pre-cancerous lesion.

Now I have to be extremely careful in the sun for I am at a high risk of skin cancer. I have to have vaccinations and flu shots since my immune system is extremely compromised from the removal of my spleen. Added to that my bulimia which has also compromised me. And now I have to have a tooth extracted with a bone graft because I have purged to the extreme, ultimately resulting in a no win situation.

So comes the apology.

Babe, had I known that I would grow so many damn tumors, gotten sick beyond extremes we never saw coming, had difficult pregnancies resulting in so many meds and bed rest, so many hospital visits along with so many surgeries (ha, spinal headache included) I would never have enlisted you to be my partner and put you through so much heart ache, nor would I have put you through my detrimental disease of bulimia, which is now consuming our lifestyle, finances, and well being. I am so sorry.

For all of this, I apologize to you. Scott, I love you and I adore you for being so steadfast, strong, supportive, and my partner through it all.

THANK YOU SCOTT. MY LOVER. MY SOULMATE. MY BEST FRIEND.

I LOVE YOU!

Now this is something to think about

 My Declaration of Self-Esteem:

 I am me. In all the world there is no one else exactly like me. There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone chose it.

                                         ~Virginia Satir

Pain. I feel pain. Bulimia is pain.

Today I am somber. Well more like down, depressed, humiliated, embarrassed, angry (at myself), disappointed (in myself), ashamed (of myself). Why you might ask? Because I have been failing miserably in my quest to be healthy.

So much so that I have once again neglected to focus on what is truly important which is taking care of myself so I can take care of my family.

In fact I have slipped so bad that I am ashamed to look in the mirror and find the strength to avoid bashing myself or even bashing my head against the mirror to try and knock some flipping sense into me.

I want to scream.

I have spent much of the morning in tears after the one moment that I don't know what it will take for me to let go and move past.

This weekend was amazingly calm and cool with my family. Each morning we were greeted in bed by smiling kids, laughing and cuddling and living in the moment. Our Saturday was completely lazy, other than the brief period of Tyler puking after coughing terribly hard, but we lounged in our pj's all day playing and enjoying each other. We built choo choo tracks all across the living room floor, played candyland and life, watched movies, colored, all things that we seem to be to busy to do any other normal day. It was a good day. Sunday was just as great with more productivity. We got some laundry done, spent time with the in-laws, put up indoor holiday decorations, cleaned a few rooms, and once again we played. It was another good day.

Today, however, is different.

The morning started off the same as it has with the added joy of MiKayla racing into our room shouting, "Mommy! Daddy! It is snowing! Look it snowed!!" You would think this child had never seen snow before with the kind of excitement radiating from her little body. Tyler, wanting to be just like his big sister, quickly followed suit and joined in her excitement. They were singing and playing and it was great. Then Tyler changed his attitude back to the needy, clingy, mommy do this, only mommy, do that. I felt my tension start to rise. Maybe he sensed it, Scott was packing a bag once again to make the quite normal occurring trip to Wyoming. It seems we struggle with the stress of daddy leaving more and more each time and it always brings a struggle to find the balance once he returns that we were so lucky to experience within our family over the weekend.

So we all bundled up and the kids got to play outside in the snow while Scott loaded up the truck and we eventually and reluctantly said our goodbyes. Daddy was off to work and we were off to prepare for our normal Monday duties. The kids were in the living room eating cereal and watching their allowed morning cartoons, i fixed myself a bowl of yogurt with a banana and went into my room to watch my morning news. We were good. Then in the midst of a bite of yogurt I crouched down on something large and HARD. The sound alone inside my head was as shocking and loud as a gun shot bouncing off the walls of an enclosed room. I fished around in my mouth hoping maybe I got a chunk of a bad pecan but was mortified to find I was holding a tooth. Not a piece of a tooth but the amount of a full tooth. I felt around my mouth with my tongue and found the large gaping hole that extended past my gum line (thankfully on the back side) with the outer shell of my tooth hanging down so no one would be able to see the damage I had inflicted on myself with this stupid stupid disease of mine. STUPID. 

I didn't know what to feel nor did I understand how I was feeling. I felt some of the obvious, you know the sick stomach and the upset feeling we all get when something goes bad, but there was something else churning inside me that I had no understanding of. 

I called my dentist and he refused to see me unless I could pay in full since I had a past due balance and my insurance was maxed out. If you know me then you know that we struggle financially and there was no way I could honor his request. I was freaking out. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  

I was amazed when my husband exceeded my expectations and called a friend explaining our situation. She called her husband, who happens to be a dentist and the kindest most invested dentist I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and they opened their doors to me helping me arrange the best options for my finances. 

Reality did hit me smack in the center of my face though once I was sitting in his office. My tooth was beyond repair. The whole thing is dying. Dying. Because of me. Dying. It has to be extracted in a surgical extraction. So I am going to have no freaking tooth close to the front of my mouth. A big fat hole. At 30 years old. To get an implant will cost close to if not more than 3000 dollars. So in the mean time I am going to have a flipper tooth. You know one of those teeth that attaches to a piece of plastic like a retainer. Take it out when I eat, don't throw it in the trash. Humiliating. FREAKING HUMILIATING!

But this is my doing. My fault. 

The kicker. Insurance will not cover one penny of any of it, this year or next. 

I have spent most of my day, in the office of this nice dentist and out, in utter tears. (Except for the part when my best friend looked at me and said matter of factly, "you really are my ruthless toothless friend!" sending me literally into a laughter that brought me to tears. Explanation of that to come.) But I must admit that I was astonished by the compassion of this dentist and the fact that he looked at me and said he wanted to help me, not only with my teeth, but HELP me. You don't find that every day. I am honored to have found that today. 

So now I am preparing myself for what is to come next week. The extraction. Until then, I am terrified to eat, wondering when the next part of the tooth will break off, or any tooth for that matter. I am constantly feeling the reminder of my F-up with my tongue which makes trying to let it go almost impossible. I can't seem to stop yelling at myself for being so utterly stupid to let it, being the bulimia, get the best of me and giving into the temptations of binging, ultimately leading to purging, knowing I really didn't want it but yet could not stop it. I say it is a control issue but as Kiele pointed out to me, I kinda lost all control and what I think I have control over, I don't. 

I don't have control. 

Right now, in this very moment, I am wanting, more than ANYTHING, to binge and purge. Badly. But I can't. I won't. Partly out of fear, but also because I know it won't help me in any way shape or form. I know it will cause me more pain.

That is what I feel. Pain. Physical. Mental. Emotional. Pain.

How do I stop the pain?

I am so tired of being tired to the point of feeling lost...

I know I am supposed to be writing about the amazing day on the river with my brother but for some reason I am not ready to give details. Maybe it is because I enjoyed it so much I want to be a bit selfish and save it for myself or maybe I am just plain lazy and can't seem to convince my mind that it needs to work. Either way it will be transferred into words when I am ready.

But speaking of a lazy mind...My mind has been incredibly lazy lately and it is driving me insane! I look around my house at the endless chores that require my full attention and I know they need to be tackled yet I have no burning desire to get them done. How lazy is that! Although I do have the mindset to scold my daughter for the monumental mess that has piled up but I am doing nothing to help rectify the situation.

Instead I find myself pushing myself to pull out the treadmill and work a program on it for an hour, before that though I do a strength training program with the tools available to me in my house, and I feel that at the end of each I should be able to find the energy to go about my chore filled day as I used to be able to, but I feel lost. I feel emotionally drained to the point of an emptiness that never seems to get filled. The satisfaction of accomplishment knowing that the house is clean and perfectly habitual for my family should be enough of a motivation. But all I want to do is sleep. I want to sit and do nothing. So the feeling gets darker and deeper and my body just won't perform the way I want it to.

I would like to blame it on the fact that we have had a long two months. Between the multiple injuries, broken down cars, sicknesses that pile up one after the other, mouse infestation, vacation with it's demands, being a single mom through most of it, having new challenges pop up each day faster than I can process...I am just plain flat out exhausted.

Quit complaining right? The thing is I seldom do complain. Instead I bottle up my emotions, feelings, stress and hang onto them til the point of breaking. Take two nights ago for example. Just picture me curled up on my bed sobbing in my husbands arms because my bottle overflowed and I could no longer hold onto another ounce of emotions. So I emptied a few. Not many but a few, enough to get me through the next day or so and now I am just tired. Tired of being tired. Tired of fighting to be healthy because let me tell you it is not easy. It would be so much easier to quit and give up, reverting to my old habits which are still there, and live the way I was. But I know it would not last very long before I would end up in the hospital or even worse, dead. So I keep fighting. But I am so freaking tired of it!

Where is my Fairy Godmother with her magic wand? I could really use her help right about now. My kids would appreciate it to because then their mother would not be so stressed that she snaps at the most asinine things instantly regretting her behavior and they would have nothing but sheer illuminating happiness surrounding them all the time. What I would give to be able to give them that perfect ray of light all the time that they so deserve...What I would give to be the perfect mother they so deserve...What I would give to shield them from feeling any ounce of my despair...

For now I suppose the loves and reassurance that mommy loves them will have to be good enough for now. So I am going to leave you now and go wrap my arms around my kids and tell them I love them and am thankful for the gift of being their mom and we are going to go about our day the best we can.

Roll Me Away...A Day Closer to Heaven

There is this song, an AMAZING song, by Bob Seger called 'Roll Me Away'. If you have never heard this song then I suggest you click over to YouTube.com and listen. The music combined with the lyrics are so powerful, more so to the music lovers soul, but so powerful that even the most skeptic will feel this fire deep within the pit of the stomach that builds in intensity for a feeling of euphoria bursting in sheer inspiration for peace within.

This song reminds me of an amazing trip I once took with my dad before our relationship became complicated with the demands of the balance between being  a daughter and becoming an adult.

My family was once into motorcycle riding, so much so that I even got my license, and had this desire to make a trip down to Taos, NM. It was the day before we were to leave and Dad had gotten into a fight with my step mother, for reasons I cannot remember, which resulted in him opting out of this trip. So, as planned, my brother, aunt and uncle loaded up and headed out. My day with my parents was relatively normal in the sense of work, stress and more stress. That night my dad sat down with me and asked me if I really wanted to go with everyone and I expressed my disappointment in missing out on what would be a great experience with my family.

That next morning my dad woke me and said we were going. We would take an alternate route and hopefully intercept the rest of the clan, taking them by surprise. I asked about mom and he simply left her a letter with a short explanation. With that, we loaded the bike and left.

We took this amazing route over the mountains stopping in a town by the great divide next to this breathtakingly beautiful lake. I was freezing but did not have the audacity in me to complain, I was having the time of my life with the man I had placed upon a pedestal and looked up to my entire life. It was wondrous in the way I would possibly imagine heaven to be. I was with the person whom made me the happiest, doing something both of us loved with a passion, and the surrounding atmosphere was something out of a fairytale novel. We had the best trip of a lifetime, and even though we did meet up with the rest of my family, I was still cherishing the thought that it was just my dad and me, living vicariously, sharing an experience so monumental that my words cannot even begin to express in the way of the realism of that adventure.

As much turmoil that my father and I have been through, the meaning and enormous emotional impact that that particular moment had on our relationship is completely detrimental to the emotional bond I have with him and the respect that I have towards the man whom not only made life possible for me but also whom spent many many early mornings grabbing cinnamon rolls at a now extinct diner, or secretive stops at a liquor store, or amazing moments working on a piece of art within the garage to metal that once transported human beings similar to you and me but in a different era, but a man whom I am honored to call dad, missing terribly due to the stupid (and I mean STUPID) events that took place in the transitional time of me becoming an adult, and a man whom I respect and thank for teaching me that life isn't perfect but as long as you are honest and follow your dreams, living the life and dreams YOU have, not someone elses, you have done good. You are successful. That is the man I love and am thankful for.

Why is this important? You may be asking yourself this very question. But I assure you that it has a lot to do with my now distorted image of myself yet the knowledge that no matter what pain we have endured or brought onto each other, I still unconditionally love my father, thank him for his teachings, and am grateful that he gave my brother the skills possible to make yesterday, not only a dream, but a kick-ass reality.


So I bring you to the Westwater run I shared with my brother just yesterday.

ER...A Mom's worst Nightmare

I thought I had been through the worst of things when MiKayla got her tonsils removed and the recovery was a bit on the harsh side. Then I realized I was so very wrong when I spent a night at Docs on Call clutching Tyler to me as tightly as possible, 3 other women helping restrain him, while a doctor administered three stitches to the bottom of his chin while listening to the ear piercing shrieks emit from his tiny body.

Then came last night.

I walked into my bedroom to check on my sleeping boy, whom only two hours earlier was in a peaceful and comfortable state of slumber, to find his head twitching backwards with each struggle of a breath, skin a pale white I had never seen before, and a fever. Not just feeling warm to the touch fever, but a fever that you could feel the heat pouring out of his body just by standing within a foot of him. I ran and grabbed the thermometer. 104.8 was the reading. Panicked I rushed to get the Motrin ready and into his system and as he sat, body trembling, fighting to swallow the medicine he had no energy to fight, I knew it was time to make that dreaded trip to the emergency room.

It all started last weekend, Halloween.

MiKayla woke one morning with a voice that sounded like she had been screaming endlessly at a rock concert the night before. She didn't feel badly, just couldn't talk. Later that night she entered our room and woke us from our peaceful slumber, yea I made that up, we never have peaceful slumber, but she sounded like a seal crying.  We cuddled her and gave her medicine to treat her symptoms and the next day she was fine. Halloween night came lots of Trick-or-Treating but without the spark of excitement you usually witness in a child. We knew she was sick and when her breathing sounded just plain weird the next day, it was a trip to the doctor.

Croup.

What we were hearing when she breathed was what they called stridor. Just as quickly as they diagnosed her, they were giving her steroids that seemed to instantaneously cure her breathing. We soon left with a fair warning from the doctor that Tyler would more than likely develop croup so keep a close eye on him. I figured, sure he'll get sick but we will manage as he never has any serious complications, MiKayla is usually the one to worry about and that ship had sailed.

Two days later Scott once again took off for Wyoming and I settled into a nice quiet routine with the kids, taking it easy and allowing us time to rest and recover. That night at 12:10 came the loud, barking sound of my son coming into my room, me scooping him up and cuddling him, loving him, ready to tackle the familiar sickness that he could not escape.  The next day he seemed fine to an extent and we were lounging around the house as I was feeling quite a bit under the weather myself.

It all changed at 3:00 pm when Tyler woke from his nap with a fever of 103.4. I did what mom's do best and filled him with the fever reducing medicine, opened the windows, convinced him to drink water, and then we cuddled to a movie. I was quite prepared to have to take him into the doctor at some point since his breathing was making noises I had never really heard but was telling myself it was part of the sickness and he would be just fine. I gave him his bath, made him his milk, and before I knew it I found him snuggled in my bed, peacefully resting for the night. Or so I thought.

Fast forward to the Emergency Room.

Poor Tyler was so delirious and lethargic from the fever of 104.8 that we struggled to get an accurate weight, accurate temp, accurate vitals, accurate everything. He screamed in the most god awful shrill when the stethoscope was placed on his back which prompted an attack of coughing followed by struggles to breathe. They rushed him into a room where a Respiratory Therapist, reeking of smoke, walked into the room with a scowl on her face that seemed to imply we were interrupting her precious time. She barely said two words other than the bitch that her pager doesn't go off and quickly exited the room.

The nurse came in and tried to check Tyler but he wanted nothing to do with anyone other than me. His arms wrapped tighter around my neck, legs clenched around my waist, face nestled into my neck, all the while crying "Mama, I want mama." The doctor came in to listen to him and without much luck came to the conclusion that no matter where his vitals were at that moment, we desperately needed to get meds into his system to make him more comfortable. The chest X-ray was ordered. The steroids, Tylenol, and epinephrine were ordered. The hell began.

Now I know some kids fight taking medicine and we deal with it. We convince them that it is only for the better and soon they will understand. Usually our kiddos relent and take the medicine because they trust in you.

NOT MY KID. NOT TONIGHT.

Three of us had to hold him down while trying to squirt medicine down his throat. His mouth was being pinched, he was trying to spit the medicine back at us, his legs were kicking me, arms hitting, vocals being stretched to a limit I never knew existed. The strength that came from that little body utterly rendered me speechless. I had a little strong man on my hands. You know those guys that you see on television throwing cars, pulling over trees, lifting obscene amounts of weights. Yea that was Tyler in the ER.

Finally the battle of the liquid meds were over, I was drenched in sweat from both Tyler and myself, he was pooped from the fighting and I wanted to cry from the episode of torture. Then comes in smoky, bitchy, lady, who made the tension and the aura of that room so rash you felt like your body would explode if there was no release of something. Tyler took one look at her and the tube that was going to blow out misty air filled with medicine and the screaming commenced. This time it was louder, longer, more adrenaline filled than the episode before. My arms wrapped around him tighter to hold him in one position, arms were being wrapped around me and him to help keep him from knocking me over, hands were clenching to his poor little head so tightly as the air was being blown into his face. He screamed, cried, tried to hold his breath, would tire out and give in only to have it instantly kick in again.

I was exhausted, devastated, emotionally drained, not sure how much more I could put him through, nor how much more I could handle before I broke down.

Then it was time for the X-Ray. Let me just tell you, I lost it so bad, I had to leave the room and have two other people fight him and pin him into the positions they needed for the two pictures, listening to him scream that all he wanted was his mama.  Me. The one who had to walk away because I could not take anymore. And when it was all over he ran into my arms and held me so tight and I collapsed in tears.

Finally we were done. He was breathing better, the fever broke, there was no pneumonia and we were free to go home. Strict instructions of following up with our doctor were given, I signed a piece of paper while holding my wiped out son and we came home. Tyler nestled himself into my bed again, MiKayla, who woke while we were gone, went back to bed, in my bed and I was wired. Wired with emotions of rage, pity, love, sadness, resentment, distress, pain, every emotion possible. That was me. Two hours later, I was in out of control tears. Thirty minutes after that, I did what I do best and that was to purge my emotions into the toilet. I don't know why, but I did. I went and cuddled in bed with my two kids, dealt with the endless waking and freak outs from my sick baby, finally dozed for a couple of hours and woke to a new day. A day of exhaustion and horrible emotional hangover.

Tyler is now sleeping for his nap, preceded by much effort to avoid on his part, MiKayla is at school, Scott is finally home, and I...

I feel lost. Today I am lost and tired and scared by the events that took place last night and the feelings that followed. My son is OK. Granted he is still sick, looks sick, and yet, smiling at me and loving me all the same. For that I am thankful.

Are we desperate housewives as portrayed on television?

"People don't let us down, it is our expectations of people that let us down."

I had my first interview today with an extremely laid back, kind hearted, amazing woman regarding my blog, the pressures of being a housewife in today's economic times and the need to live up to unfair pressures of complete composure. We talked about how you can turn on the TV and see images of what could be perceived as the perfect housewife.

The conversation focused mainly on the example of 'Desperate Housewives' and the first image that came to ligt was Eva Longoria as the perfectly beautiful wife. She portrays the most unique of them all as I don't believe you will find many people like her in today's society. I tend to lean towards the characters of Lynette and Bree. I find myself struggling to balance both worlds that they seem to portray. Lynette is scattered and overwhelmed with the demands of her kids, chores of the house, medical issues, all the while trying to find balance with her marriage.

All of those things I find myself struggling with on a day to day basis.

Bree on the other hand has dealt with so much turmoil that it has scarred her emotionally. Part of which lead her to turn to alcohol, as I find myself doing from time to time, as a coping mechanism. She fights within herself to hide her addiction from the outside world and in doing so, puts up a front of the perfectly composed, properly dressed woman, baking goodies, and presenting a distraction from her imperfections with her perfectly clean, poslished house and attire. Something I have tried my hardest to do, but in doing so have lost valuable time with myself, my kids and my husband.

So where do we draw the line?

I was then asked the question as to what pushed me to start purging and I am not sure I answered in the best of my ability, might I remind you I have never been in front of a camera, and I am now processing my answer in my head as I wish I had in front of that electronic device that in no way could understand my thoughts the way I once expected my scale to.

Contrary to what most might think, I did not intend to loose the amount of weight I did, nor did I intend to become so obsessed with body image. 

 I was not "fat" nor was I "skinny". I was a woman who had just had my second child and I was perfect then for who I was supposed to be. I turned to the purging for the one reason of control. I was loosing all control over the events of my life at the time. The economy was taking a horrible downturn, my poor husband was being forced into an impossible position with his job, I was putting unrealistic expectations on things that I had no business even trying to, and we, or maybe it was I who, truley began to drown. We went from happily surviving to the point of drowning that we were grasping onto arm floaties to keep our heads above water financially. My coping mechanism with our newfound stresses quickly became the purging.

I started to think about how everywhere I turned was someone who's life was so much more manageable, perfect, and full of the promise and stability I was aching for. They had the perfectly put together homes, the perfect hair, clothes, nails and even shoes, the perfect family life with gifts, get togethers and projects that we never seemed to have time or opportunity for. But once I looked deeper past the surface of what was being presented to the outside world, I discovered each one of those homes I had envied so much, had the same despair I was dealing with, only each circumstance varied. Some were dealing with divorce, others with addicts, a few with chaos that never made any sense to anyone. And each was dealing with it in their own ways. Alcohol for some, denial for others, and for me, bulimia. 

We each are faced with similar and compelety different challenges that affect us in the same ways emotionally, but we each cope in our own ways. The one thing I think we all have in common is we see the images of housewives portrayed on our televisions, prime-time dramas or even day-time soaps, and we feel the need to follow in those portrayals. For me, it was trying to dress in the cutsie tops, tight skinny jeans, perfectly clean house, stick thin body (most of what you would see a woman on TV portraying), none of which made me any happier.

I don't know if ever there was a time when a woman on television portrayed an image of a housewife that was true to it's time. Ifind myself thinking back to one sitcom in particular, Leave it to Beaver. His mother, June Cleaver, was always in a proper dress, high heels, apron, cleaning and baking, serving dinner on the table when her husband got home, happily smiling 24/7.

I am perplexed to think that living like that can even be possible. Can it?

For me absolutely no way in hell could I have dinner on the table the same time every night, bake all the time (and not gain 200 pounds from all the sampling of the goodies I was baking), smile constantly, look as good as she did day in and day out, have the laundry all caught up all the time...I am exhausted even thinking of the possibility. The one thing I do know, is that if I lived that kind of a life, I would probably miss out on the little things that I am finding mean more to me than a clean house. Those being the moments of growing and developing my kids experience on a daily basis.

I still feel like the cross between Bree and Lynette are closer to reality than most would like to admit. If only I could have the outgoing voice that Lynette posesses then maybe I could rid myself completely of pouring my voice into the toilet...

"It is who I am, not what I do, that makes me worthwhile..."

Then the question came up as to why blog about my life and my journey.

It's funny because I am not sure what the one reason was or even if there was one reason. I just knew that if I continued on the path I was on, lying to those around me, lying to myself, I was eventually going to end up in a deep dark spot that I am almost sure of, I would never have been able to get out of. I most likely would have let my thoughts and actions consume me to a state of self destruction that scares me now to even imagine. I turned 30 and looked around at the house I had, the two precious children I had produced, and my husband with whom I could not imagine my life without. I just knew I needed to change and the only way I could truely work on making that change was by being openly honest with those around me and myself. So the blogging began.

Right now, at this very moment, I am questioning my decision to blog.

 Questioning the importance of sharing my experiences with the world. and I find myself automatically thinking that I am kidding myself of the amount of people whom I am hoping that might even be glancing at my writings. All of the sudden I am not sure that I am holding any kind of importance to anyone with this information.

Funny isn't it? 

 I started off motivated and excited with these reflections and now, I have this burning desire to cry. Incredibly I am second guessing myself and the meaning behind the events of today as I thought they should be, but seem to be playing out into something different. So comes the question I must now ask myself.

Have my expectations once again let me down?

"they say that pain is inecitable but suffering is optional. If I learn to accept that pain is part of life, I will be better able to enure the difficult imes and then move on, leaving the pain behind me"

"...difficulties remind us that oaks grow string in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure..."

~~ Peter Marshell