Birthdays, Valentine's, and doctor visits

February 12th was my 39th birthday. Hard to believe that in one more year I will be 40. Time sure does fly when your having fun. We ended up celebrating my birthday on the 13th. Mike and my 2 best friends Rhonda and Bradley took me to dinner at Benihana's (I guess that's how you spell it) then we went out dancing afterwards and met up with a few more friends out to celebrate my birthday with me. We had lots of fun. Mike was even very romantic too. The only jewelery he has ever gotten me since we have been together has been my engagement ring and my wedding band. So I was very surprised when I got home from work the day of my birthday and saw two jeweler's boxes sitting on the kitchen counter. For my birthday he got a a diamond and amethyst ring and a diamond and amethyst necklace. I took pictures of them but they didn't turn out very well.

Usually he combines my birthday and Valentine's day together since they are so so close together so imagine my surprise when I am woken up on Valentine's Day by a phone call from the florist telling me they our outside and they have a delivery for me. I have to say I was pretty surprised because I really wasn't expecting anything since he had gotten me the ring and necklace. The flowers were gorgeous though. Some of my favorite.

Michael had his follow-up with Dr. Arnold and his eye's are still doing pretty good. No significant change so he didn't need to have new glasses this time around. He did give us a new prescription though so we would have it if we needed to get new glasses. He tends to be pretty rough on his glasses. He also had his follow-up with Dr. Geitz and it looks like Michael's legs have heeled up very nicely and he can have the plates and screws removed at any time. We have scheduled that sugery for April 2nd. He also had his pre-IEP evaluation and it looks like he's meeting everyone of his goals that his therapists and teacher have set for him.

Mason is doing pretty good also. I got a letter from his school and I have to call some gal there and discuss his IEP with her. He's met all of his goal so his IEP has to be changed.

As for me I saw the surgeron and I ended up having my gallbladder removed last Thursday. I've been off work for the past 5 days but I will be returning tomorrow. I had orignially taken only 4 days off but yesterday my body was telling me that I needed one more day so I called my manager and he went ahead and gave me today off. I should be ready to go tomorrow. It only hurts now when I laugh, cough, or sneeze but it's getting better. They did the surgery laparoscopicly so I only have 4 small incision marks. Not bad. Mason was such a sweet heart when he came home from grandma and grandpa's yesterday. He knew I wasn't feeling well and that I had just had surgery so he picked out a bouquet of roses for me and a get well card. I almost cried when I saw them. Looks like I'm going to have a romantic son on my hands. LOL

Well that's my update. I'm definitely going to try and not go for so long before posting again.

When it rains it pours

Well this hasn't turned out to be a very good new year for the Street family. Last month my car started making a funny noise almost like I had something stuck in one of the break pads. It got to be so bad that we finally took the car in to have it looked at. Turns out the transmission was going out. Matter of fact when the mechanic opened up the transmission things fell out. We planned on getting a new vehicle this spring. That of course is still the plan but we have to order the car that we want so we ended up having to go ahead and pay to have a new transmission put in my car since it's the only car we have that Michael's wheelchair will fit in. With cost and labor it cost us #3400.00. Can you say ouch!!!! But now the car runs fine but it looks like that the shock on the back passengers side of the car isn't working right but we can live with that.

Now it looks like I may be having to have surgery at the end of this month. Saturday morning around 2am I woke up in the worst pain I have every been in my entire life. The pain from my c-sections didn't even come close to the pain I was in Saturday morning. I hurt so bad that I couldn't even breath so I had Mike take me to the emergency room. Funny thing is if I wouldn't of been having a hard time breathing I wouldn't of even have gone to the ER. I thought that I had a rib out in my back and it was pinching a nerve or something because that is where the pain seemed to be radiating from. My whole chest hurt right down to my stomach. I was nauseous and had the cold sweats. I was in the ER from around 2:30am to 8am. After some blood work and an ultrasound turns out that it wasn't my back after all. I had a gallbladder attack. They found that I have a stone in the neck of my gallbladder. Now I have to go see a surgeron on Tuesday and discuss with him whether my gallbladder should be removed or not.

The ER was miserable. When I got there they got my back to a room almost immediately because I was in so much pain I could hardly answer their questions. I started to feel a little better once I was laying down. Well sort of laying down. It hurt more to lay completely down. I was really nausous though so the doctor had them give me some anti-nausea medication. I should have took the shot to begin with instead of doing the pill. The pill did nothing for me. I thought it was working until they came in to give me the antibiotic the doctor wanted me to take to fight off any possible infection I could get because of the stone. Well about 20 minutes after they gave me the pill I ended up throwing it up. I was also still in pain so they ended up giving me a shot of morphine in the arm and a shot of anti-nausea medication in the hip. I felt so much better after that.

Turns out that the antibiotic I'm on makes me nausous so I have to continue to take a pill form of the anti-nausea medication until I'm done with my antibiotics which is 5 days. The doctor gave me another pill about 15 minutes before I left the hospital and by the time I got home I was ready to throw it back up. I was suppose to work Saturday but I couldn't go in because I was dopped up on morphine and I was very nauseous. I was on the phone with the manager that was working yesterday letting her know that I wasn't coming in and I was fighting off the urge to throw on the phone. I was ok when I was laying down so as soon as I got off the phone I ran to the bedroom to lay down. I knew I couldn't throw up because then the pill would come up. I tried to get some sleep but the nausea wouldn't go away so around 10:30 I ended up giving in and threw up. I knew by that time that the antibiotic and already disolved and made it's way through my system so I would be ok. I ended up sleeping the rest of the day and into the evening. I woke up at 8pm. I'm on a very low fat diet because large amounts of fat will make my gallbladder act up again. I managed to rummage around the kitchen and found some things to eat that were low fat. I was so hungry since I hadn't eaten since 11:45pm the night before and then threw that all up at the hospital.

I'm doing better now. They sent me home with pain and anti-nausea medication and my antibiotics. I go in Tuesday to talk to the surgeron. As long as I stay away from a lot of fat I should be fine. Just please keep me in your prayers.

Happy New Year

Well a new year is upon us. New Year's Eve was quiet around our house. We were going to go out and celebrate but decided to just stay home. My best friend Rhonda and her daughter Tia came over and we played on the Wii and just hung out until midnight. I let the kids stay up because there is usually some pretty nice firework displays in our neighborhood but I guess all our neighbors decided it was just too cold to be outside because there was none to be seen. I ended up heading to bed with a full tummy ,from all the food we ate, and a happy heart around 12:15am. New Year's Day was pretty quiet too. Since both Mike and I had to work the Friday my parents were going to watch the kids all weekend for us. I also had to work this weekend as did Mike. We drove out to my parents house and dropped the kids off then came home and just spent some quality time together. It was very nice.

Now that the new year is here I have decided to cut down my resolution list that I have every year and just concentrate on two major resolutions that mean a lot to me. The first is to quit smoking. I have smoked on and off for several years. I know it's a very bad and nasty habit but it is a very hard habit to break and I'm bound and determined that it stops here now today. I am on day 1 of my not smoking and I'm doing good so far. I've noticed I've been a little grouchy but that is to be expected. I've just been trying to keep myself busy. My best friend is joining my in this quest so hopefully it won't be so hard.

Second I plan on loosing weight. I was suppose to get the Wii Fit for Christmas but they were sold out of it. I have Tuesday off so I think Mike and I are going to stop by the Dimond Center and see if they have any in stock now. If they do we are going to get it. I think with that and the elliptical Mike got me last year for Christmas I should be in shape in no time. I'm not getting any younger and with two kids to chase around the house I want to be in the best shape I can get myself into so I can enjoy my time with my children and hopefully on of these days my grandchildren.

It's been really hard to get motivate to do much of anything around here lately because it's been so cold. It's been in the double digits (minus double digits) for the last few days and just plane below 0 the rest of the time. I really hope it warms up soon.

Holiday Season

I'm pretty happy now. I would say that my season is now complete. My best friend will be here with me for Christmas instead of Iraq and my parents and grandma made it back from West Virginia safe and sound so I will have them with me too.

I have most of my Christmas shopping done. I still have to buy for my two best friends but I already know what I'm getting them so it won't be that hard. Mike and I have decided not to get gifts for each other this year and my mom told me not to get anything for my dad, grandma, or her since we are trying to save up for a new car and eventually buy a house. This will help. I'm behind on my Christmas cards though. I'm barely half way through my address book and Christmas is next week. I have some cards that are going overseas so they may not get there until after Christmas.

I've been trying to get my house in order because we gave our entertainment center to my best friend so we could get something smaller so the house really looks a mess without it but there is more room so that's a plus. I can't complain.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving wasn't the same this year because my parents were gone. This was my first Thanksgiving ever that I didn't get to spend it with my parents. They left on Monday to go to West Virginia to help my grandma get her house and stuff in order and then bring her back with them for the rest of the winter and possibly the summer. I'm not quite sure how long she is going to stay this year. Last year she stayed until the beginning of May. I'm hoping that she will stay long enough to celebrate Mason's birthday at the end of June. I'm also hoping that she will be here long enough that we might be able to go to possibly Seward this summer with her.

Even though my parents weren't here for Thanksgiving it was still pretty nice. Wednesday when I got home from work I got started on making my pies. We had pumpkin and apple. It took me a little longer to make them than I had anticipated mainly because I didn't feel good and because I left for a couple of hours in between pies. I woke up Wednesday morning with a head cold which I still have but it's almost gone now. So I really wasn't in the best shape for Thanksgiving but I had invited my best friend and her daughter over to join us so I had to follow through. I went to bed around midnight after finishing my apple pie. I slept until 8:30 the next morning only because I had to get up and get the turkey in the oven. I went back to bed after that and slept until around 1:30pm when I had to get up and start getting everything else prepared since we were suppose to eat around 3:00pm. I ended up making turkey, stuffing, gravy, corn, green beans, candied yams with marshmellows, mashed potatoes, and rolls. I didn't realized until the day of Thanksgiving that I had forgotten to get one of the most popular things at every Thanksgiving meal besides the turkey and that is cranberry sauce but no one said anything so it was ok.

After dinner I still wasn't feeling well so I ended up laying down on the sofa and taking about an hour long nap. I woke up had a snack and realized that I hadn't heard from my parents yet so I called my grandma to wish her and my parents a Happy Thanksgiving only to find out that I hadn't heard from them because they went to visit my dad's family the day before and wouldn't be back until Friday. My grandma and I ended up having a nice little chat and Michael said hello to her also. I couldn't get Mason to get on the phone. He doesn't like to talk on the phone much. I hope that continues when he becomes a teenager. LOL.....

I had to work Friday so I got the kids ready for bed and got them tucked in, took my shower, and headed to bed myself. I took some Nyquil before going to sleep which I really regretted around 2am. Mason woke up crying complaining that his right ear hurt and he was running a fever. I stumbled from my bed and almost tripped over the cat on the way to the kids' room because I was still half asleep. I ended up giving him some Motrin and around 2:15am after Mike and I both were up with him the Motring started to kick in and his ear was feeling a little better so we went back to bed. Around 2:30am I was still awake so I went to check on Mason and see if he wanted to sleep with us so I could keep an eye on him. He said no that he was feeling much better and he wanted to stay in his room and watch cartoons. I said ok and went back to bed. I of course wasn't able to fall back to sleep until way after 3am only to have to get back up at 7am to get ready for work. Work was slower than normal. We only had one no show but there was quite a few gaps in between appointments which made for a long day but I was glad since I was somewhat tired and still battling my cold. I was glad to get home when work was over. I had talked to my doctor that I work with and asked him about Mason and he suggested that I go ahead and have Mike bring him in to be seen. Neither the kids go to my clinic but since Mike had both of the kids it was so much easier for him to bring Mason there then try and get an appointment with their regular clinic mainly because I wouldn't of been able to take off work to run upstairs and help him with the kids. With them coming to my clinic I was able to get Mason an appointment with my doctor and I didn't have to take off work and I was still able to do my job. Turns out Mason was starting to get an ear infection but because he's to that age that most kids are able to fit it off without antibiotics he gave us a prescription for some but told us to wait a couple of days and see how he's doing. If he's still complaining of it hurting then get it filled if not then it means it's taking care of itself and we don't have to worry about it. So far we haven't had to fill the script and he's not had to take anymore Motrin

My best friend and I ended up going out last night. Friday is usually my night to unwind and let my hair down as Mike would put it. Since I work all week then have to come home and take care of the kids Friday night is the only night he doesn't mind watching the kids if we have them both. He normally works on Fridays but he took this Friday off because I had to work and it was easier for him to get it off than me since there was no school and my parents were out of town. Usually when he works Mason goes over to my best friends house with me and her daughter watches him while we go out then Mike picks him up on his way home from work and they have a little daddy and son time before heading to bed.

Well I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving and that you are thankful for all that you have. I know I am. I have a wonderful family, a great job, and the lord in my life.

Two week curse is officially over

I am happy to announce the the Street 2 week curse is officially over! For those of you that don't know what the curse is I will tell you. When Mike and I met and started dating about 10 years ago he bought the trailer we currently are living in from his mom who was moving to Delaware to go to graduate school. Mike told me that it should take 2 weeks for him to do the renovations he had planned then we could sell the trailer and buy a house. So he took 2 weeks off from work and began the job. We have now been married for 9 years and the trailer STILL is not completely finished. It seems that we have this 2 week thing going with our family. Anytime someone says it will take 2 weeks it always seems to go longer. Just like with Michael casts. About 4 weeks ago when Michael went in his doctor told him to come back in 2 weeks and the casts should come off then. We went back 2 weeks later and the casts still remained and we were told another 2 weeks. Well Michael went in for his appointment yesterday and I'm happy to announce that he FINALLY got his casts removed. We are so happy and relieved.

The first thing I did when I got home from work last night was feed him dinner then he took a very long and much needed bath. He soaked in the tub for almost an hour. I think he was very happy to finally be able to get into the tub and sit instead of having half his body hanging over the side since he couldn't get his leg wet.

Everything looks great. His doctor said he can bare as much weight on his leg as long as he can tolerate it. There is some swelling going on but that is expected. It should go away in a few days. Michael seems so much happier now that he doesn't have his cast on anymore. Now he is going to have intense therapy going on to try and get him back to where he was before he had his surgery. He's not going to be happy about that. Just like any typical 8 year old he doesn't want to work unless he really has to and even then he will protest about it. LOL

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Halloween was pretty mellow around our house this year. We were going to a Halloween party that a friend of mine was having. It was a kid friendly kind of party so Mason was going to go with us since Michael had therapy. Well I got home from work and found that the house was empty of kids. I guess Mason decided that he really wanted to go home with grandma and grandpa for the weekend and not go to the party with us so we ended up going to the party by ourselves. We had fun though. Mike is rather anti-social so he didn't dress up but I decided to wear my old wedding gown from my first marriage and go as a bride and my best friend Rhonda went as a female devil. She was going to go as a gesha but her costume that she ordered didn't arrive in time so we had to come up with a costume rather quickly for her.

Mason did do some trick or treating at my parents house. He wore his Bateman costume and went to 3 houses with my dad before he decided he was too cold and wanted to go back to the house. He had fun though and he got to spend quality time with his grandpa.

Michael baby pictures

I thought that since this blog is about my family and especially Michael's disablity I thought I would post some of his baby pictures that were taken when he was in the hospital. Ther aren't a lot of people out there that have seen these pictures unless they have been to our family website.

This is Michael's first bath.

This one is after he had been moved over to the less critical side of the NICU.

I believe this is the first time my dad (grandpaw) got to hold Michael in the hospital.

This is Michael on the critical side of the NICU. He had edema really bad so they had to keep moving him from his front to his back and vice versa so the fluid in his body didn't build up so much on one particular side.

This picture was taken when Michael was just a week old. He still had all the IV's and lines and the high speed ventilator going.

Going green

With all the talk out there about saving the environment and going green our family has finally taken the plunge and are trying to go green. We are starting out small first. We don't want to get in over our heads and not complete things or maybe I should say I don't want to. So far we have started to collect our aluminum cans. We have about 2 or 3 garbage bags full that we need to take to the recycling center. Just haven't gotten around to it. I think we can take them to the Northway Mall too. I'm going to have to go back to their website and check it out and see. I'm working on the cleaners that I use in our house too. So far I have our dishwasher detergent changed out and our laundry products and the products I use to clean the bathroom and our counter tops in the kitchen. I still have quite a bit of dish washing detergent left because I don't use it that often because of the dishwasher but once it is gone I will be buying environment friendly dish washing soap also.

I have fallen in love with the brand 7th Generation-http://www.seventhgeneration.com/. I love their laundry products and dishwasher detergent. They also have baby products and a lot of other things and the best part about it Fred Meyers carries the line so there isn't a lot of online ordering that I have to do.

We are also trying to eat organically too. When I go grocery shopping I try and buy only organically grown fruits and vegetables and range free eggs and they are now starting to carry organic canned vegetables so I've been getting them too.

We still need to get some cans for our plastics and paper products but like I said we are taking baby steps.

Two more weeks

We Michael had his follow-up appointment with is orthopedic surgeon and we got good news and bad news. The good news is everything is still in place and looking good. The bad news is his doctor did not feel comfortable removing his cast because he wants a little more bone growth so there won't be any chances that Michael could snap the plate in half. So he has to have his cast on for another 2 weeks. Everyone was so looking forward to getting his cast off and getting the therapy going again. He's suppose to have the plates and screws in for about about 6 to 8 months but I have a feeling that his doctor may go a little longer than that since he's been having problems with his right leg.

For those of you reading this that don't know what is going Michael has Spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy. Ever since he's been able to stand his feet have always turned inwards causing him to scissor. When he walks he looks like a pair of scissors. Well they have a surgery called derotation osteotomy that can be performed to straighten his legs out. That is what he had done on both of his legs. His doctor told us that it wouldn't straighten them 100% but they would be straight enough that when he is trying to walk in his walker his feet won't be getting in the way. After his first surgery and the casts came off we could not believe the change in his legs. Michael's legs and feet have never been as straight as they are now. If they are not perfect I can tell you this they are perfect to us. I can't wait for him to get the second cast off from the second surgery so we can get him back up to standing and walking. It's going to so amazing seeing him do it.

Michael also had his follow-up from the eye surgery he had done during the first surgery on his legs. His eye doctor said that his eyes are doing really well and he's very impressed with how straight his eyes are now. Hopefully they will stay that way for a very long time. This is the second eye surgery he's had to have for the same problem. It's all part of having cerebral palsy.

He had his 6 month visit to the dentist too. His dentist said that his teeth are doing really well and he still has no cavities. Yay!!!! When Mason went for his dentist appointment he got a clean bill of healthy teeth also but there was one tooth that he said was a little soft and we needed to take extra care of it so hopefully at his next 6 month visit there won't be a cavity there.

Winter is finally here for us, well kind of. We have already had our first and second snowfall with accumulation that stuck. The first snowfall didn't last but the second one we had did. Most of the snow has melted from our yard but at my parents house in the valley they still have quite a bit. It seems that the other night when we got rain here in Anchorage the valley got 3 inches of snow. There calling for snow today and it definitely looks like we may get some. I was outside a little while ago and saw a few flakes fall but nothing since then. We didn't have much of a summer so I guess I should start enjoying the winter and hope for snow. I'm really hoping that next summer is going to be nice. I was so disappointed because my flowers didn't do very well this year because of the lack of sunlight and all the rain we got. I didn't even take any pictures of them because they were full and luscious like they normally are.

First Entry

Welcome to the first entry of our blog. I've been blogging for about 9 years and have had about 4 or 5 different blogs but haven't been able to find a place where I'm really happy. I'm hoping blogger will be different.



My name is Cynthia but most of my friends call me Cyndi. My family and I live in Alaska but Alaska is not where I'm originally from. My dad was in the Air Force for 20 years and I was born in Delaware but since my entire family is from West Virginia and I've spent probably most of my life there West Virginia is where I call home.



I have quit a few hobbies that I enjoy when I get the chance to do them in between work and kids. I love to garden. I think that is a great passion of mine. I'm more into flowers than vegetables but that is only because I don't have a huge area to do my gardening so I have decided to just stick to flowers. My flower garden wasn't a huge success this year because we had pretty bad summer. It rained just about every day. I think we may have had a total of 3 or 4 weeks of good weather out of about 3 months.



Besides gardening I also love to cook, scrapbook, knit, photography, and do lots of outdoor activities. I also am into collecting shot glasses from the 50 states and around the world. I also collect nic nacs that are cobolt blue and cats.



I put cats right up there with gardening. I have all kinds of cat collectibles including 2 real cats. I had 3 but I had to put one of my cats to sleep right before Christmas last year because he was really sickand the vet told us that his problems were irreversible. He's in heaven now with god and I know that every now and then he is looking down upon me and happy.



I'm also a certified medical assistant and I work for a local pediatric clinic. I absolutely love my job. I started out working ob/gyn but there was just something missing. Pediatrics was my first choice but I couldn't find any openings when I was job hunting right after I got my degree. I ended up quitting the job at the ob/gyn clinic and took some time off to be with my kids until they both were in school all day. That happened last year and in February of this year I found my dream job and I plan to be there for many many years.



Besides everything that I have mentioned I am also married to a wonderful man who I consider one of my best friends and my soulmate. Mike and I use to work together. We ended up falling in love and getting married. We've been married for 9 years now. We've had our ups and downs as most married couples have but I wouldn't change anything for the world. Mike is a network analyst for I have my own personal computer geek to help me out when I get into a jam. LOL...



We also have two beautiful little boys. Michael who is 8 and Mason who is 6.



Michael is a rather special little boy because we almost lost him but thanks to lots of prayers and people behind us he pulled through and is a happy healthy little boy.



Do to some complications that we still don't know exactly what Michael was born not breathing and because his brain was without oxygen for about 3 to 5 minutes he suffered significant brain damage and now has spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy. He's doing well though. He has physical, occupational, and speech therapy once a week privately and once a week during school. He also has an excellent eye and orthopedic doctor and a pretty good pediatrician too. Just this this summer he had what is called derotation osteotomies done on both of his legs and he was in full casts up to the middle of his thighs for 4 weeks then half casts for 2. When they came off finally he ended up having to go in for one more surgery because the hardware on his right leg was coming off so his doctor had to go back in and remove the old hardware and put new hardware on. He has to wear the cast on his right leg for 4 weeks. Next Wednesday he should be getting it off and if all goes well he won't have to have any more surgeries until it's time to remove all the hardware permenantly which should be around January or February I believe.



Mason is a happy healthy and all around 6 year old. He's had his moments though. Ever since he was about 3 I thought that there just wasn't something right. He was always so active and hyper. I kept asking his doctor if this was normal and she kept saying that it was until he hit kindergarden. At that time I mentioned to his teachers that I thought he may have ADHD. They did some testing and come to find out they agreed with me. At the end of the school year I got him in to see his doctor and took the school evaluation and had his teacher do the clinics evaluation and sure enough he has ADHD. We have him on medication now and it seems to be doing the trick. He is much more calm that he use to be and focused. We can really tell the difference when he doesn't take his medication. This past weekend he had only 2 pills left. He had one on Saturday and I saved the other for school on Monday. Tuesday he didn't have one and there was a big difference. I got his prescription refilled so Wednesday will be a better day for him.


Besides school Mason is also taking swimming lessons and is in the cub scouts. He's on a little break right now from swimming but will be resuming in November. There are 6 levels and he is in level 3 at the moment. He's been there for quite some time but I'm glad to know that they want to make sure he knows his stuff before they move him up. As for cub scouts he hasn't made it to a meeting yet. I was hoping to get him to his first meeting this Friday but that's not going to happen because I have to work on Saturday so Michael and him will be going to grandma and grandpa's house on Thursday because there is no school on Friday and they will have them until Sunday when I go out to the Valley for church and to pick them up. I think cub scouts will be a good adventure for Mason. It will give him more useful skills and get him around more kids his own age and for him to have fun because lets face it he doesn't get much interaction from his brother since Michael can't do the things that normal little boys can do. Plus he can't really carry on a conversation with you and pretty much just repeats whatever it is you say. Doesn't give Mason much to work with. It's hard for him to understand at times but as time goes on he will start to understand what is wrong with his brother and learn to work with it.