baby ticker - almost done!!!

Random Thoughts

~ It was brought to my attention that I "don't reach out" to people. I never thought about this before but it is true. I am a very private person who doesn't like reaching out to others. I tend to push them away. Husband told me he was impressed b/c I was reaching out to one person in particular and how uncommon that was for me. I wonder why I'm like that? Any ideas?


~ A friend gave me a guinea pig. It promptly passed away the next day. Sometimes I feel like the angel of death. I had such a guilt complex over it b/c it was a new friend of mine and this had been a dear pet to her and her children and now I felt like I was somehow responsible for the death of this animal. Even though I know rationally I didn't do anything wrong, I still feel guilty. :/


~ Exhausted. What more is there to say. I'm so tired. I feel like an alien has taken control over my body and I can't do anything like I used to could (like bend over to paint my toenails...). Sighhhhhhhhh

Niki Niki - I mean, Moto Moto....

This is like the soundtrack that plays when I am trying to get up out of a chair, trying to walk across a parking lot - or pretty much all the time... lol....

i hate death.

i hate death. i hate the arrogant way it creeps into ur life and tries to consume every waking moment, every aspect. i hate the way it rips someone or something u love away usually without even the chance to say goodbye. i hate the way it lingers on even after the fact, trying to steal every little ounce of happiness u attempt to grasp onto. i hate the way it makes ur life seem to become frozen in a moment of time, how it changes ur aspect of life to before death came and after death came. it seems to mock u when u think u have finally achieved triumph over it. it always finds a way to sneak back in, to bring up things u could've, should've done differently. i hate death.

Weep.

The Weeping Willow. I have always loved this particular type of tree. The name itself makes you think of emotions and possible story lines of how it was so appropriately named. It's long wavy branches almost reach out to comfort you and hide you behind it's curtain.

The Weeping Willow comes to mind today because my "bess fran"s brother passed away last night. He was a young man. They suspect it had something to do with his diabetes. But wow. The pain that family is going through. It breaks my heart. I have never lost a sibling so I don't try to pretend to know the sorrow she feels. I lost my child so I can only imagine that it is a similar type of pain.


This family is in my thoughts and prayers. Please join me in praying for them as they go through this difficult time.

Belly

Can I POSSIBLY get ANY bigger???? This is what I see when I look down. I'm sure at one point in time I had feet. And they were probably cute and had some funky nail polish on my little toe nails... If anyone sees my feet, please let me know. I miss them....

read this.

whole article was taken from http://crimsonmaverick.blogspot.com/2009/05/beautiful-bride.html

 

A beautiful bride  

Signed, sealed & delivered by Rachel 倪欣薇

May 15,
2009

Something worth reading despite exams time :


Katie Kirkpatrick, 21, held off cancer to celebrate the happiest day of her life. Katie had chased cancer, once only to have it return-to clog her lungs and grab hold of her heart. Breathing was difficult now, she had to use oxygen. The pain in her back was so intense it broke through the morphine that was supposed to act as a shield. Her organs were shutting down but it would not stop her from marrying Nick Godwin, 23, who was in love with Katie since 11th grade.

The girl in the picture is Katie Kirkpatrick, she is 21. Next to her, her fiancé, Nick, 23.
The picture was taken shortly before their wedding ceremony, held on January 11, 2005 in the US.
Katie has terminal cancer and spend hours a day receiving medication.
In the picture, Nick is waiting for her on one of the many sessions of chemo to end.

In spite of all the pain, organ failures, and morphine shots, Katie is going along with her wedding and took care of every detail. The dress had to be adjusted a few times due to her constant weight loss.

And unusual accessory at the party was the oxygen tube that Katie used throughout the ceremony and reception as well.
The other couple in the picture are Nick's parents. Excited to see her son marrying his high school sweetheart.
Katie, in her wheelchair with the oxygen tube, listening to a song from her husband and friends.
At the reception, Katie had to take a few rests. The pain did not let her stand up for long periods.

Katie died five days after her wedding day.

Watching a woman so ill and weak yet getting married with a smile on her face makes us think..... Happiness is reachable, no matter how long it last. We should stop making our lives complicated.

Life is not always the party we expected to be
but as long as we are here, we should smile and be grateful.

God bless us in many ways which our human eyes are just too blind to see. We may question why He took her away at such a young age (a mere 21 years old beautiful woman, mind you, just a year older than I am right now).
But then again, He gave her the most priceless thing ever - Love. A husband. Family. Comfort. Peace. Joy. Positivity.

This actually got me through a short tough period I experienced lately.
If she can get her happiness as simple as that, why can't we?

How are you?

To all the people who ask me ever so politely "how are you?"

Do you really want to know?

I'm exhausted. I am physically drained. Emotionally absent.

My belly hurts, my back hurts, my gallbladder hurts. My feet are swollen and restless.

I want to sleep, I want to soak in a hot tub.

I am stressed about the park, stressed about the shower, stressed about everything.

I feel like I am no longer in control of my life or my body and I do not like it.

I am looking forward to this baby. I am reassured by his movements. I am proud of my size but do NOT like the stretch marks.

Thank God for this precious child. But Lord, please help me get through the next few weeks... I need Your strength. Amen.

Ashley's Story.

This is a picture of Ashley Rain Deloach. Ashley was my firstborn child. She was a beautiful baby girl born on Nov 18, 1998. I was a young and naive first time mother with out a clue of the real world. I had had a pretty uneventful pregnancy other than it being a "crises" pregnancy (meaning I was unmarried and it was unplanned and I lived in a bad situation). I was barely 20 years old when she was born. I went to the hospital in the city where I lived on Nov 18th, 1998 at around 8 am with the beginning of labor. In reality, I probably wasn't even in true labor but I was 38 weeks pregnant so the doctor decided to give me some pitocin to start the labor. I received an epidural so I felt absolutely no pain at all with the labor. At around 8:00 that night, my world was turned upside down. Ashley was born but was not crying, was not breathing. She was immediately whisked out of the delivery room and I was left not knowing what was going on. A couple of times, family members would come in and tell me "she's just having a little trouble breathing..." Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the ancient pediatrician came in. I am so thankful to God that he was there that day. He had the experience and wisdom to know immediately that all was not well and the wisdom of how to relay that message to me. He told me about her choanal atresia which basically meant she couldn't breathe out of her nose. The pediatrician than informed me that this usually a sign of more defects. He told me that because our hospital was a small hospital, they were not equipped to care for her to the level of care she would require and would need to be transferred to a larger city hospital. I was able to see her for just a second before she was transferred to St. Vincent's hospital. I received a call from the neonatologist in what seemed like the middle of the night. He informed me that upon physical examination, they had discovered many more abnormalities. To look at this baby girl, you would never suspect she had anything wrong with her. But upon closer observation, her ears were slightly deformed, her neck was shorter than normal, her hands were shaped abnormally (though they looked normal to me...) as well as other issues. When she was around a day or so of age, a surgeon went in to attempt to repair her choanal atresia. He warned us that the surgery may very well have to be repeated, as the bone could grow back up closed. We were still waiting to hear if she had any heart defects at this time. I went to a hotel that night and remember getting the call from I assume a cardiologist though it may have been the neonatologist again. I was informed that she not only had a heart defect, but that she had two major heart defects, Tetralogy of Fallot and Pulmonary Atresia. I cried so much that night that when I woke up my eyes were swollen shut. I was devastated. The next few months, my life became the NICU. She was transferred to another hospital that I will not name for their own protection. She was transferred there because her heart defects became more and more serious. She did not receive as high quality of care there that she has received at the previous hospital. As a result of their negligence, she ended up getting a staff infection that turned her overall health condition into life threatening. She did have a heart cath while at that hospital to determine treatment possibilities for her heart conditions. We were told if her heart arteries grew, we would be able to repair the pulmonary atresia which was the most life threatening of the two conditions.When the staff infection became severe, she was transferred to our favorite of the three hospitals, Children's Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. She not only received quality care, but the staff consistently went above and beyond the call of duty. She had to have a spinal tap her first day there to see if the infection had spread to her spinal fluid. Thankfully, it had not. She was placed in an isolation room but the nurses always made sure she was clean, dressed and had colorful things to look at. It was there we discovered she had Coloboma. All the different defects together created a syndrome known as CHARGE syndrome or association. The link to their official website is here. Her coloboma was not a severe case though it didn't affect her eyesight a little bit. Her hearing was a whole other matter. I always suspected she was profoundly deaf. She wouldn't respond to my voice or to loud noises like babies usually do and most children who are diagnosed with CHARGE, do have hearing loss. The NICU nurses at Children's placed a tv beside Ashley's bed so that she could watch cartoons (which she LOVED). If the cartoons were on, she pretty much ignored all visitors. One day I decided to try an experiment to see if she could hear. I turned the volume wayyyyy up on the tv (and got in trouble for doing so... lol) and she broke out into a huge grin. That when I knew, she could hear but not very well. Those were her best days. She was on oxygen pretty much her whole life but at this time it was just a mask. She had other defects diagnosed such as reflux between her bladder and kidneys, as well as an esophogeal defect that caused her to aspirate when she took a bottle. She ended up having a g-tube placed for her feeding which resulted in somehow throwing her sugar out of whack. The only solution for controlling her sugar was to place her on a feeding pump to feed her continuously. She had a biopsy done of her liver (though I can't remember why at this time) but it came back normal. Her heart became more and more strained over time trying to pump oxygenated blood through her system and the neonatologist at Children's decided it was time to transfer her back to the "other" hospital for her heart surgery.  We were very unhappy but as this hospital was supposed to be one of the best in the country for heart issues, we agreed. She was back on the ventilator by the time she was transferred - little did we know, this time for good. They did a cath and reported to me that her arteries had indeed grown slightly. I was told that she would be transferred to a hospital in San Francisco for her surgery. At this point, I was being given conflicting stories from the nursing staff. Some of the nurses said she had an infection that had to be treated before we could set up transfer. Other nurses said she didn't have an infection and that we were just waiting for the other hospital to set up the transfer. To this day, I don't know who was telling me the truth or if either one was the truth. On June 12th at around 1:00 am, I received a phone call. I knew immediately it was about Ashley. At this point in time she had swelled up as a result of congestive heart surgery and was nearly unrecognizable as a baby much less as my beautiful little girl. She was miserable. She was in pain. I was in denial. I actually prayed to God about a day or so before that He either heal her or take her because I couldn't stand to see her hurting so badly. That phone call was my answer. I was told that she had some bleeding coming from her mouth and they thought her intubation tube may have nicked her throat. I was told that they were attempting to intubate her again but that it was serious enough that I needed to have someone drive me up there. I can still remember every moment of the next couple of hours. I got to the hospital and the doors were locked. I called the NICU and they sent a nurse down to open the doors. I remember the nurse running back to the NICU and I realized this was serious. I remember walking into the NICU and seeing a nurse on top of Ashley's bed performing CPR. I remember thinking oh. my. God. I remember someone bringing me a chair and telling me to sit down. I remember the doctor shaking his head and trying to quietly "call" the code. I remember being in disbelief, being numb thinking it wasn't true, it couldn't be. I remember them taking me to a room and then bringing her body to me finally free of all the wires and tubes that had held her prisoner for so long. I remember looking at this shell thinking, this is not my little girl...  And that is all I remember for the next month. I still have issues with her death. I still have flash backs to that night. And I still miss her so terribly much. But I am so thankful God finally took her home. She would be 11 1/2 years old today. I miss her.

Forgiveness.