i haven't taken the time to blog lately, don't really know what that means, but i did want to mention that we had a wonderful holiday together as a family. i worried that i might be "homesick" because my sister was headed to wisconsin to be with my dad and aunt, but upon talking with them on christmas day i realized i was right exactly where i wanted to be.
amazing pecan waffle breakfast, tapas lunch and a prime rib dinner re-embraced the joy of communing around our table. i feel a lot of peace now that i blogged through that last bit. maybe it's your prayers - thank you.
we've just been tucking in here. liam is off for the week and we are doing small projects and hanging out together. we've had mechanic trouble (he's just been so slow at getting everything fixed on the volvo) but it's done now, and computer issues that have seemed to work themselves out. now that the car is back we're heading to the city tomorrow or saturday to do some thrift store shopping - liam has lost at least 40 lbs. slowly since summer and i have dropped a size (i fit into my honeymoon lingerie the other day!) and don't think i've had this body since we got married 20 years ago. sitting with empty really is working. it has somehow become my friend.
i am not weighing myself though as that scale messes with my head. i'll be happy enough to put a size 16 pant on tomorrow and enjoy some clothes that fit again. i told liam that he needed a new wardrobe because he looks like a holocaust victim if he doesn't shave and wears his big baggy clothes. he's dropped at least two sizes. it's amazing how eating one serving and nothing between meals helps me to enjoy the food i do eat and not obsess about it otherwise.
it feels really good. hope all is well in your holiday world!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
counting on me
sue from my father's house asked how it was going with buck's JD. i have tried to get words together and onto the blog, but they just haven't come yet. maybe this time they will. i loathe the math that has forced it's way into my life. it is exhausting me mentally. i know that we'll get past this onerous stage, but right now the calculations, counting and numbers make me angry, resentful and tired. i verbalized this at lunch yesterday with my family. i tried to explain the frantic way meal prep feels again. it used to be cooking that overwhelmed me. since moving here i have found a wonderful groove in the kitchen. we have become great cooks and have a lot of healthy, rich, wonderful meals together as a family.
we are making out own instead of pre-packed, reheated grocery store prepped food. it feels so good. but that is part of the problem. prepackaged food comes with this lovely little chart on the side that tells me how many carbs something has. casseroles do not. meat and potatoes is an easy meal to figure out, but much of our menu isn't that lush. we have a budget and mixed up meals are hard to calculate.
each carb has to be counted and treated for buck to function at his best. i told them in tears yesterday that i am so tempted to just hand him a box of lunchables and say "done" (he would love that for a season - lunchables are the be-all and end-all of lunching extravagance in my kids economy). i said if there were breakfast-ables and supper-ables i'd give them to him too - just to be able to have a meal that isn't so freaking exhausting.
it makes me angry that the joy of communing together has been stolen from me (and the level at which this stresses me out steals the joy from the rest of my family...) pre-packaged crap food would be so much easier to feed him. that is why atkins prepackages everything - people who count carbs get tired of it too. yes, there are websites and places like recipezaar give nutritional info on their recipes - but portion sizes are still so random - never does it say "each serving is 1 cup" or 1/2 cup has 12 carbs... the math is basic, but numbers have never been my friend. if i am interrupted at any point in the calculations i have to start over (and over, and over) and i haven't yet found the flow that i know will one day come - but for today it is mind-numbingly frustrating.
the other thing that happened last week was that buck had 2 low episodes at school. they weren't life threatening or even scary - but that means that he is starting to respond to the insulin - and that changes all of the ratios and we have to be much more aware and alert. that level of alert is so tiring. he got up to pee at 3:00 this a.m. and i hopped out of bed to make sure he was okay. i didn't get back to sleep until about 5:30 and had to get up again at 6:30. hyper-vigilance was something i was able to let go of in recovery about 15 months ago - having to re-engage it makes me mad and feels like going backwards.
i told liam this a.m. that it felt like a sick joke that i have just begun to let go of the obsession i had been feeling towards food in the past couple of weeks (it's been amazing btw) and now i'm forced to think about meals and food nearly 1/2 of the day. i'm not obsessing, but i am forced to plan and engage with food like it's my new job.
my recovery is sweeter than it has been in years though and i am reaping the benefits from that. i just need to put some elbow grease into getting some meal plans charted out and have some "thought free" breakfasts and lunches written out so that i'm not spending all of the mental energy i have in the day before 8:00 a.m. when the kids leave for school.
liam and i have both been sitting with empty for quite a bit lately and we are both seeing the changes in our bodies. he's dropped at least 2 sizes and i am feeling so much better in my skin. i am so tempted to weigh myself, but that always does me in, so i am saying no to that scale and allowing my own body to measure itself instead of some random number on a scale. i feel healthy and mostly serene (except when numbers creep into my day!) :)
thanks for asking sue - buck is doing so well. he's amazing and such a sweet kid. it's been such a joy to learn from him as he faces this challenge. he's teaching me so much. i'm thinking about starting a blog for parents with kids and JD - i figure there must be tips and tricks we can learn from each other, and i'd hate for all of this work i'm doing to get organized just to be for me - i just need to think of a catchy name - anyone??
we are making out own instead of pre-packed, reheated grocery store prepped food. it feels so good. but that is part of the problem. prepackaged food comes with this lovely little chart on the side that tells me how many carbs something has. casseroles do not. meat and potatoes is an easy meal to figure out, but much of our menu isn't that lush. we have a budget and mixed up meals are hard to calculate.
each carb has to be counted and treated for buck to function at his best. i told them in tears yesterday that i am so tempted to just hand him a box of lunchables and say "done" (he would love that for a season - lunchables are the be-all and end-all of lunching extravagance in my kids economy). i said if there were breakfast-ables and supper-ables i'd give them to him too - just to be able to have a meal that isn't so freaking exhausting.
it makes me angry that the joy of communing together has been stolen from me (and the level at which this stresses me out steals the joy from the rest of my family...) pre-packaged crap food would be so much easier to feed him. that is why atkins prepackages everything - people who count carbs get tired of it too. yes, there are websites and places like recipezaar give nutritional info on their recipes - but portion sizes are still so random - never does it say "each serving is 1 cup" or 1/2 cup has 12 carbs... the math is basic, but numbers have never been my friend. if i am interrupted at any point in the calculations i have to start over (and over, and over) and i haven't yet found the flow that i know will one day come - but for today it is mind-numbingly frustrating.
the other thing that happened last week was that buck had 2 low episodes at school. they weren't life threatening or even scary - but that means that he is starting to respond to the insulin - and that changes all of the ratios and we have to be much more aware and alert. that level of alert is so tiring. he got up to pee at 3:00 this a.m. and i hopped out of bed to make sure he was okay. i didn't get back to sleep until about 5:30 and had to get up again at 6:30. hyper-vigilance was something i was able to let go of in recovery about 15 months ago - having to re-engage it makes me mad and feels like going backwards.
i told liam this a.m. that it felt like a sick joke that i have just begun to let go of the obsession i had been feeling towards food in the past couple of weeks (it's been amazing btw) and now i'm forced to think about meals and food nearly 1/2 of the day. i'm not obsessing, but i am forced to plan and engage with food like it's my new job.
my recovery is sweeter than it has been in years though and i am reaping the benefits from that. i just need to put some elbow grease into getting some meal plans charted out and have some "thought free" breakfasts and lunches written out so that i'm not spending all of the mental energy i have in the day before 8:00 a.m. when the kids leave for school.
liam and i have both been sitting with empty for quite a bit lately and we are both seeing the changes in our bodies. he's dropped at least 2 sizes and i am feeling so much better in my skin. i am so tempted to weigh myself, but that always does me in, so i am saying no to that scale and allowing my own body to measure itself instead of some random number on a scale. i feel healthy and mostly serene (except when numbers creep into my day!) :)
thanks for asking sue - buck is doing so well. he's amazing and such a sweet kid. it's been such a joy to learn from him as he faces this challenge. he's teaching me so much. i'm thinking about starting a blog for parents with kids and JD - i figure there must be tips and tricks we can learn from each other, and i'd hate for all of this work i'm doing to get organized just to be for me - i just need to think of a catchy name - anyone??
Thursday, December 06, 2007
officially freaked out... - updated
at 2:00 today i go to buck's school to talk to the teaching team to get them on board w/ his care. this is totally freaking me out. i'm not sure if it's the exhaustion or just feeling like things will get lost in translation or just that i don't know most of these people other than his homeroom teacher (who i love) - and feel insecure and inadequate or what... but i just want to crawl under the covers and hide.
i'm all fluttery inside and can't even identify what is next. i actually think i inherited liam's anxiety this morning over his open house tomorrow. he's not doing so well either... actually even worse than i am. i know that this is good and rescuing him is not helpful in the big picture, but in the small picture my latent co-dependent genes want to kick in. i committed to only doing what i was asked to by him, and only if i wanted to - and so far he hasn't really asked, so i'm not really helping. his lone-ranger act is going to wear thin soon though. he's sick and got all of the family stress on top of it all.
i just wish i could calm myself down. i figured maybe writing about it might help... and a shower... :)
i am up to this time with the staff - it's teaching and i love to teach. and i don't have to be a diabetic expert - i'm the "buck" expert, right? i want to bend their hearts to my son, and that i am prepared to do. i think more than anything is that i'm afraid i will cry. these are total strangers (mostly) and i go too deep too fast and don't want to leave myself out on a limb i can't climb back from gracefully...
please pray if you are the praying kind. much love!
UPDATE: i don't know what i was so freaked out by... well, maybe i do, but it wasn't the meeting, or at least it shouldn't have been. i think it was the fact that this was the next stage of letting my baby grow. educating the school meant he had to go back. the meeting went so well, it was only the teacher and the resource center teacher who handles this already for a 3rd grader. the plan of care is wonderful, he's monitored well and has ample help and support if/when he needs it. it made me feel like it was actually possible to let go.
buck went to school today and all of the details were a bit overwhelming, but i managed it well and he did fine. he posted the lowest numbers he's had yet at lunch, so there was a bit of concern - but it was handled well and he self-identified not feeling "normal" and went and asked for help.
he has walked to and from school this year and really enjoys it. he has a good friend and really wanted to join him again coming home tonight. those last 10 minutes before he got home were a bit anxious for me, but i saw him come up over the hill and slide around with his friends in the back driveway and it brought tears to my eyes to see him being so "normal" again.
we've got a three day weekend here so the doctor is going to get a bit more aggressive about bringing down his blood sugar to normal levels. we should be able to manage by the end of the weekend. we've still got 2 checks in the middle of the night, but i'm sure i'd be up worried like a new mom the first time her baby sleeps through the night if we didn't right now.
thanks so much for your prayers!
i'm all fluttery inside and can't even identify what is next. i actually think i inherited liam's anxiety this morning over his open house tomorrow. he's not doing so well either... actually even worse than i am. i know that this is good and rescuing him is not helpful in the big picture, but in the small picture my latent co-dependent genes want to kick in. i committed to only doing what i was asked to by him, and only if i wanted to - and so far he hasn't really asked, so i'm not really helping. his lone-ranger act is going to wear thin soon though. he's sick and got all of the family stress on top of it all.
i just wish i could calm myself down. i figured maybe writing about it might help... and a shower... :)
i am up to this time with the staff - it's teaching and i love to teach. and i don't have to be a diabetic expert - i'm the "buck" expert, right? i want to bend their hearts to my son, and that i am prepared to do. i think more than anything is that i'm afraid i will cry. these are total strangers (mostly) and i go too deep too fast and don't want to leave myself out on a limb i can't climb back from gracefully...
please pray if you are the praying kind. much love!
UPDATE: i don't know what i was so freaked out by... well, maybe i do, but it wasn't the meeting, or at least it shouldn't have been. i think it was the fact that this was the next stage of letting my baby grow. educating the school meant he had to go back. the meeting went so well, it was only the teacher and the resource center teacher who handles this already for a 3rd grader. the plan of care is wonderful, he's monitored well and has ample help and support if/when he needs it. it made me feel like it was actually possible to let go.
buck went to school today and all of the details were a bit overwhelming, but i managed it well and he did fine. he posted the lowest numbers he's had yet at lunch, so there was a bit of concern - but it was handled well and he self-identified not feeling "normal" and went and asked for help.
he has walked to and from school this year and really enjoys it. he has a good friend and really wanted to join him again coming home tonight. those last 10 minutes before he got home were a bit anxious for me, but i saw him come up over the hill and slide around with his friends in the back driveway and it brought tears to my eyes to see him being so "normal" again.
we've got a three day weekend here so the doctor is going to get a bit more aggressive about bringing down his blood sugar to normal levels. we should be able to manage by the end of the weekend. we've still got 2 checks in the middle of the night, but i'm sure i'd be up worried like a new mom the first time her baby sleeps through the night if we didn't right now.
thanks so much for your prayers!
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
home and exhausted
hi all, don't know how many know as i blogged mostly on my named blog and updated on facebook, (and i can't remember what i wrote here and am to lazy to look) but my son buck is now juvenile diabetic and has a team of incredible doctors/nutritionist/nurse working on his case.
we're home, safe and prepared, but the mental energy it takes to not forget anything is exhausting and i haven't gotten the needed sleep to face even a normal day, let alone this kind of day. i have been writing every day for the past two weeks and my food/abstinence is still good. i'm only eating at meals and have made it through the worst of this storm i think.
hope told me the other day that she could see my recovery was solid because of the way i was able to face this. that meant the world to me. i told her that i have avoided counting and measuring my whole recovery life, so it makes me smile to think i get to do it now out of love for my son instead of out of obligation or legalism for myself. i am learning much.
other than the exhaustion and i fell flat on my butt walking to the house yesterday just was we got home everything is going well. liam is a bit more stressed than normal, but i can't work his program for him, so he'll have to find a way through this all himself. thanks for your prayers - please don't stop. and if you could add pink into the mix we'd appreciate it. she's the only one who really doesn't have anything to "do" for this, so she's feeling a bit left out, some survivor guilt and just the plain old emotions of an 11 year old girl. she's the emotional barometer of our home - and lets us know when we need to be communicating better and spending more time together doing less and being present more.
anyway - i don't even know if this is making any sense, but after lunch i think i'm going to do some good self care and take a nap. much love!
we're home, safe and prepared, but the mental energy it takes to not forget anything is exhausting and i haven't gotten the needed sleep to face even a normal day, let alone this kind of day. i have been writing every day for the past two weeks and my food/abstinence is still good. i'm only eating at meals and have made it through the worst of this storm i think.
hope told me the other day that she could see my recovery was solid because of the way i was able to face this. that meant the world to me. i told her that i have avoided counting and measuring my whole recovery life, so it makes me smile to think i get to do it now out of love for my son instead of out of obligation or legalism for myself. i am learning much.
other than the exhaustion and i fell flat on my butt walking to the house yesterday just was we got home everything is going well. liam is a bit more stressed than normal, but i can't work his program for him, so he'll have to find a way through this all himself. thanks for your prayers - please don't stop. and if you could add pink into the mix we'd appreciate it. she's the only one who really doesn't have anything to "do" for this, so she's feeling a bit left out, some survivor guilt and just the plain old emotions of an 11 year old girl. she's the emotional barometer of our home - and lets us know when we need to be communicating better and spending more time together doing less and being present more.
anyway - i don't even know if this is making any sense, but after lunch i think i'm going to do some good self care and take a nap. much love!
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