Teacher in Heels

Pressing On

The Hub and I talked extensively about why I continue to update in the midst of all this madness.  I have only one answer: because I must.  The collective prayers will help my Charlie.  Also, I hope that if anyone else in the Universe goes through this than perhaps they will feel a little comfort in knowing that they are not alone.

My boy went off blood pressure medicine and then promptly started to have too much blood pressure!  Keeps me swinging and today I finally had to break down and take a Valium (no worries, completely Dr. approved) which I'm trying wean myself off of.  The nurses do not seem concerned, and in the back of my mind I have started to plan for the next day which isn't something I dared do before.  I still leave the hospital in terror that something will happen while I am away. 

A feeding tube is planned for today or tomorrow as is another CAT scan.  I am going to do my best to ignore that CAT scan since I believe strongly in the regenerative power of the brain (and, of course, in miracles).

I will now take a second to count my blessings:

1. That I have had so many days with my boy.
2. The amazing out-pouring of prayer/love/food/well-wishes that has appeared from every inch of the universe.
3. That the military, which made me so mad last week, is enabling us to worry about our son, and not his bills.
4. That I am a school teacher with a summer off to devote to my boy.
5. That the Hub and I pinched pennies for five years so I could be a stay-at-home mom.  Now, it seems, I have no other option.
6. That we were stationed in Arkansas--one of only five places in the country that has a cardiac unit for newborns.

Continue to pray for my boy--your prayers sustain him.

KM

Where We Are Today

Another day and still my Charlie is here!  I thank God for the opportunity to be with him.  My list of thank-you's is miles long, and I have been greatly touched by every message that has been left here on this site.  You have never met me, but I feel the prayers over the miles. 

Today was the first time anyone mentioned any sort of future for Charlie.  The battle for his life is still great, but FINALLY someone has given him a chance.  I am clinging to the chances and keep hoping for the next day to come.

No more bleeding in his brain.

Blood pressure continues to rise. 

Keep sending those prayers.

KM

Update

Charlie is still with us and for that I am grateful.  There has been extensive damage to his brain and heart, but his heart is showing signs that it could recover.  Some would be concerned about brain damage, but I am not that girl.  If I get a chance to take him home, I will love him into oblivion.  Despite the doctor's "questions" as to whether or not we should continue, the Hub and I politely say "screw you."

The prayers and support of each of you are what is keeping him alive. 

Much Love

KM

Blog Interrupted

My dear sweet baby Charlie was born Thursday morning after an emergency C-section.  Unfortunately, he is gravely ill and in intensive care at a local hospital. 

Yesterday, they were trying to help us figure out how to let him go peacefully.  Today, we have a glimmer of hope and we are clinging to it. 

If you are a person of prayer than I ask you to please pray for my boy--his life depends upon it.  He is still in the scariest of places and all we have is faith and hope. 

This has all been extremely painful to write so I will go now.

 

Pray for my boy.

KM

Suckfest

What She Wore: Black running pants; navy blue and white polo shirt I stole from my husband; navy blue tennis shoes.  Virtually nothing fits me, and I have no desire to get any more maternity clothes, so I've sunk to stealing clothes.  Sheesh.

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I while back, I blogged about one of those life-changing events that happened to my husband.   You can read the long version if you want, but the short version is this: a minor heart-defect prevented my husband from pursuing his life-long dream of flying air planes for the USAF. 

Well, when he got his diagnosis from an Air Force doctor, it was recommended that he have it checked periodically to make sure the condition wasn't deteriorating.  He had this done about two years ago by a cardiologist, and after he checked out OK, he never really looked over his paperwork again.

Last week my husband took a class on re-entering the civilian world, and one of the items discussed was disability.  It was recommended that you go over any long-term diagnoses that you received while on active duty.  We have no intention of filing for disability, but my husband thought it would be a good idea to just go ahead and look over all his paperwork.

The report from the cadiologist contained some very interesting news.

According to that doctor, my husband doesn't have a heart condition: he's fine.  

The amount of profanity I'd like to share is unbelievable.  Some hack doctor completely changed the course of our lives and put us through an unbelievable amount of misery.

The Hub is non-plussed.  He thinks all is for the best, and we'd have a whole life-time of this if he had become a pilot.  As it stands, we have just a few more months. 

He's probably right, but I'd still like to cuss somebody out.

KM

Draggin'

What She Wore:  red, short-sleeve polo with a small ruffle on the collar and cuffs; navy blue skirt with white polka dots; black, strappy sandals.  I can't match any more.  I've reached the "I can't wear my shoes because my feet are so puffy" stage.  Curses.

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I shoud be posting today.  Or at least blog-walking.  Something.

But truthfully, I'm such a mish-mash of crazy emotions that I'd rather not try to blog it out.  I'm just going to stew.

There are good things and bad--really, I think I just can't wrap my brain around all the changes that are getting ready to take place.  My husband is looking for a job, there's a baby coming, and it's the end of a school year which is always a little bitter sweet. 

So I'm trying to breathe:  Going to watch a soft ball game at the park.  Eating a sno-ball.  Sitting outside on the back porch.  Anything to keep me from thinking too much about the impending craziness. 

Only two more days of school. 

KM

Buzz Teaching

What She Wore: red, short-sleeve, v-neck tee with cap sleeves; blue jean shorts; red flip flops.  Shorts on a pregnant lady?  I looked like freakin' Daisy Mae, but we were barbequeing and I was too hot to have any pride.

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Today's topic may be a bit too technical for some people--I'd like to apologize in advance for that.  Even if you don't get the math concepts I discuss, hopefully the point of the story is still there.

Once the big tests are gone, we slow down the year, and begin teaching the kids some things that we know they'll need in eighth grade.  We take advantage of the fact that we've got a lot of time to cover something, and the big test is a year away. 

Usually, we devote this time to teaching slope of a line.  Here, in seventh grade, we're leading them towards some unknown territory. 

First, we remind them how to graph points on a coordinate grid.

Then we talk about what the slope of the line looks like--without numbers.

Then we start counting rise/run between two points.

FINALLY, after almost two week of this, we'll teach them the formula for slope.

Unless you're a technical person, I think this formula looks pretty intimidating.  For seventh graders, it looks like Greek. 

I had a new idea this week, though.  While the students were counting rise/run I taught one student the formula--only I didn't call it a formula--I called it a "trick."  He looked at me in amazement and said, "does it work every time?"  Without realizing it, he was doing higher level math than his peers.  Soon kids were whispering about the trick, and I showed a few more, but I was careful not to show everyone.  I told the other teacher in the room, and he wanted to go ahead and show them early, but I said "no."  I wanted it to keep its mystique. 

Pretty soon all the kids had heard about the "trick" and were eager to learn it.  Viola!  Teaching the icky formula was a breeze because they all wanted to know it.   

I call it buzz teaching.

I hope everyone's weekend was as wonderful as mine.

KM 

I'm Such a Spaz

What She Wore: Peach and white printed short-sleeve top with key-hole neckline and empire waist; white denim capris; strappy peach sandals with a one-inch heel.  My Lord, my feet swelled today--it's like I had two sausages tied up with string. 

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This originally started as an e-mail to my friends since it is far too disgusting to share with the general pubic, but hey, when have I ever been above disgusting?  Besides, I promised some potty humor. 

Feel free to laugh at me. . .

I had childbirth class this  past weekend, so now I have baby on the brain.  I'm examining every little twinge to make sure it's not a contraction even though I still have several weeks to go. 

ANYWAY

The other day I went to the bathroom, came back to class, and after a few minutes I realized I had a big wet spot on the back of my pants.  I panicked.  I thought that my water had broken early (this is extremely rare and almost never happens, but no matter!).

I RUN to the bathroom, and start bending over this way and that trying to get a better look at "the spot."  Finally I determine that I will have to take off my pants so I can sniff the wet spot.  This is disgusting, but that's what they tell you to do.   Have you ever tried to take off your pants in a little bathroom stall while wearing heels?  It's no easy task.  Not to mention being eight months pregnant which throws off your balance a bit.  After getting them off, I got a whiff of something very familiar--toliet bowl cleaner. 

You see, the maternity shirt I wore  had a tie around the waist and the ends hang down in the back.  Apparently, one of these pieces ended up in the toliet and then got water all over my pants.  Disgusting, yes, but a complete relief.

Told you I was a spaz.

Apologies in Advance. . .

What She Wore: Peach, v-neck tee; khaki capris, brown strappy sandals.

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I'm rarely one to get political, and I almost never get political on this blog, but today is going to be a different kind of day.  Yesterday, I heard something that made me so mad that I can't keep my mouth shut, so here goes:

The Army and the Marines are strained to their limits and enlistments are down.  They don't have enough people. 

The quick and dirty solution to this problem is to re-train Air Force Airmen to do infantry jobs.  Basically, you may have signed up to be an Airman, but you're in the Army now. 

I hate this more than I can express.  Right now, in this country, military service is OPTIONAL.  When someone signs up to be in the Air Force, then they want to be in the AIR FORCE--not the Army and not the Marines.  They usually join that branch because they desire to do something with air planes or air defense.  If they wanted to run around on the ground with an M-16 then they would have joined the Army in the first place.   

As far as I'm concerned, this is tantamount to the draft--they are drafting people into another branch of the service.  Some people would argue with me that military service is military service--you sign up, and that's what you get.  I disagree.  I signed up to work for a certain city as a teacher.  If I showed up one day, and they asked me to collect garbage then I'd quit.  Military personnel don't have the option of  quitting--they go to military prison. 

This is govermental slight-of-hand.  They don't have enough people to fight in this war because not enough people believe in it.  Now they're begging and borrowing from other branches to fill in the gaps.   They know that if they just went ahead and instated a draft they'd have people rioting in the streets--people would stop being passive and would get up and protest this war for real.

I apologize to those I offend with this post.  I am a great supporter of the men and women who are willing to give their lives in defense of this country and its ideals.  I think we owe it to these brave souls not to play around with their lives or their integrity.  I respect them so much that I want them HOME guarding us and keep us safe--not torn from their family and friends holiday after holiday, year after year.  I have a great many friends in the military and I want one thing for them--that they be allowed to defend our country in method of their choosing--be it air, land, or water.  I don't have their strength or their courage, but I can do one thing--stand up when I think they're being taken advantage of. 

My two cents.  Disregard as needed.  Tomorrow, potty humor, or somthing else more my style.

KM

Figuring it Out

What She Wore: white, cap-sleeved tee with a v-neck; navy blue skirt; navy blue and white striped espadrilles.  People can't believe I'm wearing these shoes, but I PROMISE you I feel better in these than in a pair of flats. 

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This blog has swirled around in my head for weeks.   In its place I keep typing things that are easier to talk about.  It's confusing too--you want to say something, but you don't want to offend anyone, so you end up not knowing how to say it at all.  Well, I'm not sure if your feelings ever come out quite right when you write them down, so forgive me if this is rough.

Right after I got pregnant I was talking with a friend who said, "It's so crazy that you're pregnant--I was talking with so-and-so the other day, and we are SO not in that place."

Now this was a casual comment, and knowing this friend's life situation, she's definitely not in the baby-making place.  There are a bunch of other things she'd probably want to do first.  Even so, I caught it, the "we."  Suddenly, I was on the other team--the team of people who had babies and talked about poop and percentiles and mucus plugs (surely they could have named it something better).  I was one of THEM. 

Last year another friend got pregnant, and I definitely felt like she had become one of them.  I was completely happy for her, but had no idea what to say.  Her e-mails were about things I had never heard of, and I struggled to respond.   I had no way to relate, so I felt myself pulling away—and wishing that my old friend would come back. 

Having been through that scenario, it’s disconcerting to find yourself on the other side. 

Being one of them means having some friends that aren't.  And that sucks.  You would hate for people you've been friends with for years to suddenly see you as boring or self-centered, or even worse: un-relatable.  Because these are the people that "get" you, and to not have them around would be a tragedy.  Maybe you don’t see them or talk to them every day, but we all need people who remember our glory days.  People who knew us and liked us even when we weren’t sure who we were—people who helped us figure it out.  Keeping these people in my life is very important to me, and the effect the baby would have on these friendships never crossed my mind. 

I guess all you can do it hope that the friendship is bigger than all of it.  Hope that having a baby isn't the death of life as you know it, but merely the next step.  Hope that if you do become an un-relatable bore, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt and see if you get over it.  Hope that when (if) they have babies, you'll be there to help, and there to remind them of who they were before they became "mom."