Alex

I don't often blog about Alex being Epileptic. Somehow I feel if I do , I am giving the seizures power. More power then they already have. Maybe in some ways I'm still frozen in time, stuck back in 1999 , still in denial that these vicious things called "seizures" could possibly have affected my child. He was 4 when they started and now he is staring 15 right in the eye. I'm not sure where the last 10 years went, he wasn't even in kindergarten and now he has started high school. It was so much easier when he was younger to protect him, not only physically but emotionally. Sometimes I feel as if I've been overprotective, and not pushed him out of the nest enough, and other times I'm pretty sure I should have been more so. I know now, that he is going to be hearing the word "no" to some pretty important things in the next year or so, not just from me but from his neurologist. It gives me a very large lump in my throat, and ache in my heart to know he won't be driving with the rest of his classmates, and that the names they call him when his body seizes hurts him more then any physical pain they could impart. I used to be able to protect him , I don't feel like that anymore. He is coming to the age where he isn't oblivious to what Epilepsy means for his future. Its raw and right there in his face. I hate having to wipe away his tears and not have answers for the "why me , mom?" What we talk about is this. We don't have time to sit and feel sorry for ourselves, we are alive, we can walk, talk, eat, drink, laugh, run ,we have all our limbs, we can see and hear, we are breathing! That's so much more then many others can say. Even though somedays my heart feels like its being ripped out of my chest, and it feels like I'm being washed out to sea, I will keep his chin up and his hopes even higher.

They make me smile

Me, the Enabler

Enabling, I've been lost in thought once again and trying to define a few situations in my life and somewhere out of the clear blue that word popped into my mind, and it was like the light had been switched on . I even googled the word to get a deeper meaning ... ( what did I do before I had google ? ) Seems like everywhere I look, it applies. I know I've been bombarding my poor blog with a whole lot of heavy "stuff" . The past few weeks have just given me a heavy heart . I feel as if I've been dragging the same issues with me for years and I need to shed them. Its so much easier said then done, where is the fairy with the fairy dust to make everything ok again?

Pieces of me

Maybe its the dawn of a new school year looming in front of us, or absence that brings about new realizations. Its yet another signal that the boys have grown , and time is marching on. I look at my boys and wonder if I've instilled the right values, if I've given them enough that they will have wings to fly. Have I been a positive influence ? have I made the right choices? I always wonder what shines through when I'm not around. Are they kind ? respectful of themselves and others? what part of me have I planted into their being? I notice their friends and characteristics that I see shining through from the parental units , or in some cases lack of parental units. I see parents completely oblivious to what their kids are doing outside of parental presence and wonder ... am I one of those? am I missing the big picture? Someone at work made the comment to me that I was "one" of those moms... the kind that checked her kids myspace page and flipped through text messages . It wasn't said in a positive tone, but that's ok. I don't feel shame that I check on what my teenager is up to. It goes without saying that I started having kids much younger than I should have, so many mistakes, so many bad choices. Now I feel the urgency to know that despite all of that , I will have raised 3 young men who know what love, compassion, and joy feels like. Only time will tell what piece of me they've taken with them, I'm still learning, still stumbling, still praying.

What they've been up to!

With Alex and Aaron in St Louis, and Andy in North Carolina ... I'm pea green with envy, but glad they are all home and all had a fantabulous time! As you can see Alex and Aaron spent loads of time in the hot tub and pool, Aaron snapped the cool picture of the Arch, and I finally got a picture of the boys and their personal chef ! He feeds my boys good while they are visiting. Andy had a blast in North Carolina with his friend Cole, they did some wine tasting, ocean fishing, and sand castle building and about a hundred million other things. Kudos to Cole's parents for being brave enough to take Andy for an entire week ;o) Its good to have the house back to its chaotic crazy normalcy!

Forward Ho!

Things have been moving at an incredible pace at the Adkins household! After getting Aaron back on his feet, we have managed to resume life at a breakneck speed... Andy left last Saturday for his second beach vacation this summer, his friend Cole invited him to spend a week at the beach with the family, about a mile from where we went in early June. Needless to say I'm green with envy. Doug has gotten a wild hair up his hoo-hoo and purchased a Jeep, it needs help, but all the fellow Jeepers tell me that's the perfect kind to have... hmm.. last weekend we went to Tappan Lake with our friends and ended up tubing,boating and doing a little fishing. It was Alex's first experience on a tube... ohh I cannot believe I didn't have my camera .. it was priceless! Tomorrow I'm packing up Alex and Aaron to go on a trip to St Louis with my parents, and yes that leaves just Doug and myself here at the house. I gotta say ... that's kinda scary. I don't think we have been without all or at least some of the kids in .... 14 years? I've got PLANS for him... NO NO not that ... hopefully he will get our bedroom painted , carpet taken out and a new light fixture put in! hey... I can dream .. right?! side note --- school starts in 14ish days... I have nothing purchased . Serenity Now!

2 hospitals, 1 Ambulance, & 9 hours later

We are home! Last Wednesday Aaron was diagnosed with Mono. His tonsils were huge but didn't show strep, his pediatrician prescribed a steroid to shrink up the tonsils , the same steroid that Alex and Andy have taken off and on for years when they have bronchitis, or strep throat. I didn't notice any improvement from the tonsils with the medication but he wasn't declining either. Sunday morning we woke up to the sound of Aaron vomiting and screaming, when I get to the bathroom he has the toilet filled with blood and he is dry heaving. I checked out his tonsils and attributed the blood coming from his tonsils. After 4 episodes like this, I decided it had to be more. I bypassed the local ER or as we call it, the band aid station, and took him an hour north to another hospital. They needed to stick a tube down Aaron's nose and into his stomach to drain the blood out of his stomach. He wasn't amused , but sat perfectly still as they poked and prodded him. When the ER doc saw what was coming from his tummy, he immediately called for us to go to the children's hospital in Akron.
I was praying for both of our lives in the back of that ambulance, the driver was young, talking on his cell phone and jamming out to music and FLYING. The older medic in the back with us had to keep telling him slow down. Holy Smokes that was scary. After making it to Akron, they finished cleaning out his stomach, stopped the bleeding, and removed about 7 tubes from his body. They also gave him some morphine for pain, and that was almost funny, he was seeing rainbows, and smiley faces on that stuff ;o) Basically what had happened is the steroid he had been on for 5 days had eroded his stomach and he had been bleeding from his belly. He is on a strict diet for the next week, and has 3 meds to take for his stomach for the next 8 weeks. He has slept most of today and that's a good sign, no more vomiting, no more blood from strange places. So I think I will try to catch up on my sleep too!