Happiness is...

this

Wednesday song of the day- Journey through the past

When the winter rains
come pourin' down
On that new home of mine,
Will you think of me
and wonder if I'm fine?
Will your restless heart
come back to mine
On a journey thru the past.
Will I still be in your eyes
and on your mind?

Now I'm going back to my home town
On a journey thru the past
And I won't be back
till February comes
I will stay with you
if you'll stay with me,
Said the fiddler to the drum,
And we'll keep good time
on a journey thru the past.

When the winter rains
come pourin' down
On that new home of mine,
Will I still be in your eyes
and on your mind?
Will I still be in your eyes
and on your mind?
(c) Neil Young

3-day Juice Fast

On Friday, I had to have LANAP surgery (laser oral surgery) and the healing process is about 10 days. The first 3 days, you are restricted to a liquid diet and the next 7 is a mushy diet. I decided to take this opportunity to do a 3-day juice fast. I would have to say, I really made the best of it. I made up some creative recipes and I felt pretty fantastic despite my black & blue bloody zombie mouth!

Here are my tips and pointers that I found important for sticking it through-
Make sure you change your diet to a vegetarian diet the week before fasting and the day before fasting eat nothing but raw foods. To quote a friend of mine "You don't want a cheeseburger to be the last thing sitting in your gut for 3 days."
Lastly, make sure you are stocked up with plenty of great fruits & veggies. Mike went and did some major shopping before the weekend and filled the fruit bowls up with carrots, beets, pineapple, strawberry, oranges, apples, pears, kale, spinach, collard greens, blood orange, coconuts, etc. He also bought some flax seed power & whey protein powder as well as some almond milk to thicken some of my recipes up.

Here are the contents of my 3 days- In between the juice I had only water and green tea (decaf.), you can have caffeinated teas or detox teas, but I stayed away. Plus I couldn't consume anything hot or it would start the bleeding so anything I made had to be cooled before drinking.

Day 1
Blood Orng. apple, pear & kale
Strawbry, pineapple, banana
Grape tomatos, broccoli stalk, carrots, cucumber

Day 2
Banana, strawberry, almond milk
Spinach, bl. orange, pineapple
Vegetable broth (I boiled for a few hours: red potatoes, red bell pepper, onion, carrots and kale)

Day 3
Strawberry, bl. orange, pineapple, pear, whey protein
Spinach, bl. orange, pineapple
Coconut water (straight from the coconut), kiwi, apple
Veggie broth

Now i'm slowly introducing some foods, mostly soups and soft things.

I will tell you though, I cannot wait for Easter dinner on Sunday and actually being able to enjoy a plate of solid foods after 10 days!

Carm's first visit w/ the Easter Bunny!

On Saturday, this cute little shop in Old Lyme had the Easter Bunny there for pictures. I had been asking Carm for days if she wanted to go see her, but she said "No" with that scrunched up facial expression she does that clearly says "no Mom, why would you even ask?"

Anyhow, in chatting w/ Katie she suggested taking her and then acting totally surprised like "OMG Carm, look, it's the Easter Bunny!" Worked like a charm. She was thrilled. We both sat together first and then when we got off her lap Carm wanted to go by herself. Keeping her little cell phone with her all the while...just incase she had to make an emergency call.

What a doll. What a day. This girl is my world.

A trying day for all of us.

Oh my sweet girl.

Last Monday she had a round of vaccinations that caused her to spend the next four days w/ a fever of 102/103. Now that she's older, she's figured out that she doesn't want anything to do w/ a Dr.s office!

We knew going to bed that night that our follow-up appt. was going to be hard on us. We were eager for the ultrasound since we had to cancel our last appt. and now it had been 9 months. What had changed, we wondered? We pray, to whom or what, we aren't exactly sure, but we pray for either better news or no change. 

We awoke at 6 and tried to get Carm to eat, but it wasn't happening. We were in the car by 8 and at the hospital by 9, checking in early for her 9:15 Ultrasound. 9:30 rolls around and Mike asks if it's going to be much longer, meanwhile several people have come and checked in after us yet were taken in already. Turns out, the ladies didn't actually check us in so the Radiologist never knew we were there. We had a 10:15 w/ the Nephrologist, obviously this schedule is now going out the window.

By the time we get in with the Ultrasound Tech, it's after 10. She takes a look  at my wrist bracelet to double check Carm's info...and guess what, the name is wrong, the address, the DOB, it's someone else. (You really have to be kidding me!) The tech apologizes and is completely embarassed that this is really happening. Carm's hungry, but she's awesome and sits on Mommy's lap for the tech to look inside her belly. I swear it felt like 45 minutes. We read books, we watched Sesame Street, we sang songs while the tech. checked everything, both kidneys, her liver and bladder, took hundreds of measurements and pictures.

I could see the cysts, I tried to watch as close as I could. I wish I knew more about reading an ultrasound, what all the colors mean. I saw alot of reds and blues.

Afterwards she went and got the Radiologist and he came in to tell us her kidneys were the same. No change is good news to us! Unfortunately however her liver also has cysts. He said, and as we know and have read, that ARPKD also effects the liver. He had wished he had better news for us.

By this point, Carm has no more patience for Dr.s. We saw our favorite Nurse, Angel, who brought us in for her height and weight which Carm wanted nothing to do with and then something just shifted and she lost it. She wanted out of that place and it got worse and worse and we still had hours to go. We got her weight, 23.36 but not really her height, approx. 31 inches. She tried to get a blood pressure reading 3 times, but couldn't get a straight read. Once we got into the room we tried everything we knew to calm her down. We broke out snacks and her books and all her squeaky toys, we even took all my rings in a little bag that she likes to play w/ and spread them out and the poor thing was hysterical. She wouldn't stop crying and shaking.

Someone came in, I guess he was a fellow and it got worse. He was poor on the introduction front, I had to say, "excuse me, I didn't get your name." Carmen did NOT like him. He tried talking to us and it was really hard to even hear, now that I think back, the whole thing was a mess of words, between Mike and I trying to have conversations and understand what was going on, and we really just left feeling awful. Long story short, the fellow tried and tried to get her blood pressure and it was impossible. If I can put it into perspective for you, today Carmen cried  more than she has all put together in her 21 months. Eventually he threw down the instruments, frustrated. He obviously still has some learning to do!

The Dr. finally came in. She was young. You could tell right away she didn't have children. Or at least, if she did, she certainly didn't have a way with them. I'm not sure we got any information from her at all. It was very hard, over the crying and trying to calm Carm- She tried again for the blood pressure but only got a reading that was too high. Perhaps it's because of crying for 3 hours.

We were exhausted, we just wanted to get out of there and get home. The Doc told us, now Carm has to go to a Gastroenterologist also, they will be the ones to monitor her liver. It's all too much at the moment, to absorb, to comprehend. I feel like screaming as hard as she is.

We end up having function test done, 6 tubes of bloodwork and are finally on our way. With nothing but the fact that we need to go back to this place and see all 3 doctors in 9 months. We left kind of in a haze of emotion and information or lack thereof.

Imagine our lives...had we never had an ultrasound at 4 months...we wouldn't have a clue, we'd just be living.one day at a time. Isn't that all we can do?

Somedays we are not sure it's worth putting her through all this.

Carm's back to herself now, eating, thriving and just being plain awesome like usual.

Bottom line for now, we are glad that day is behind us.

An old friend from high school's talk on juicing.

Jeremiah Gage...a blast from the past... shares his take on Juicing and Juice Fasts. I cannot wait to start my first juice fast next week!
Jerah is sending me some recipes tonight. Here's to summer & healthy living!

Poor sick girl

My poor sweetheart had a physical on Monday and ever since the dtap & hib vaccine she has been sick with a fever and big red lump near the site of her shot. Her fever was even higher this morning than yesterday so they are taking her in at the Dr.'s this afternoon.
I hate that outside of giving her tylenol, there's nothing I can do to make her feel better & I'm stuck here at work...but thankful Daddy can be home with her today.

Beautiful girl in Zebra hot pants

Carm's insisting upon sitting inside her play kitchen. What's with the face!?

Dinner with the Martorellis-

....it may be the last one before Katie pops! Carm can't wait to meet her new best friend baby Ava.

the Mr. made fried sole & it was OUT OF THIS WORLD...as his dinners always are.

Kate & John are one of the few people that Carm doesn't need anytime to warm up to. She jumped up to take Katie's coat and be held the minute they walked through the door & when it's time for bed she gives them both kisses. So cute!

Snow day

I took PTO on Friday & we had so much fun sledding!

Carms first popsicle.

She ate ALL of her dinner the other night so she got to try her first popsicle. She didn't realize how cold it would be and that she needed to take bit size pieces.