Every year we get some fruit from my in-laws for Christmas. It’s typically oranges, this year we got some grapefruit as well (I adore grapefruit). My in-laws were here during Christmas and each morning they prepare a bowl of fruit. They always do this. They have the ability to get just the right amount for the number of people in the household. It’s always nice to wake up to a bowl of cut up fruit to go with breakfast.
I wasn’t always as interested in fruit. I’d even say six months ago I was less into fruit than I am now. I’ve been trying to eat more non-processed foods, more natural sugars and overall just make better food choices. As a result, fruit looks a lot more appetizing to me now than it used to.
We have two bowls of fruit in our kitchen right now and it all will get eaten. Our house wasn’t always so fruit-filled. While my in-laws were here for Christmas, my mother-in-law mentioned something about the card that went along with the fruit when it was mailed. She said she ordered it over the phone each year and every person she sent the fruit to she would give a little message to go along with it.
This year when she got to ours she told the man on the phone, “I usually put, ‘Eat more fruit. Love, Mom.’ This year I think he’s gotten the message.” The man on the phone laughed and told her he thought that was a great message.
We have been eating more fruit. Thanks for the good advice, Nana.
The Big Boy Update: My son is in one of those phases where he says funny things all day long. For instance, this morning he was doing something on his iPad. He looked at it for a second and said, “you’ve got to be kidding me, iPad.” Then tonight at dinner at a restaurant he was watching a football game on a screen across the room. He casually said, “this is Kyle’s favorite show.” (His cousin Kyle is the kicker on his high school football team.)
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We depart for Detroit tomorrow morning. My daughter vacillates between absolutely not wanting to go and being happy about taking a trip and seeing her doctor. Hopefully this will be an easy trip for her.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Facade
You're there you're just behind the mask,
They know they shouldn't, but still they ask,
The pain you hide, it's not for free,
The cost you pay so they don't see.
Facade, it's just another happy day,
Facade, to keep the tears away.
Facade, because of what you have to say:
"There's
still
hope."
You're in the crowd among your friends.
You know it's on their minds again.
What have you heard?
Is there good news?
Facade, it's just another happy day
Facade, to keep the tears away.
Facade, because of what you have to say:
"There's
still
hope.”
But is all lost,
What can be done?
Can things thought gone,
In fact return?
So many hands and hearts aligned,
The goal to see, maybe we'll find.
Facade, it's just another happy day,
Facade, to keep the tears away.
Facade, because in truth you say:
"I
still
hope.”
They know they shouldn't, but still they ask,
The pain you hide, it's not for free,
The cost you pay so they don't see.
Facade, it's just another happy day,
Facade, to keep the tears away.
Facade, because of what you have to say:
"There's
still
hope."
You're in the crowd among your friends.
You know it's on their minds again.
What have you heard?
Is there good news?
As time goes on, the more we lose.
Facade, it's just another happy day
Facade, to keep the tears away.
Facade, because of what you have to say:
"There's
still
hope.”
But is all lost,
What can be done?
Can things thought gone,
In fact return?
So many hands and hearts aligned,
The goal to see, maybe we'll find.
Facade, it's just another happy day,
Facade, to keep the tears away.
Facade, because in truth you say:
"I
still
hope.”
Not All The Time
I wrote a post a while back about how most emotions last ninety seconds or less. Some emotions can be very strong, especially those associated with infatuation and particularly those surrounding grief. Sometimes it can feel like we’re stuck in an emotion and it feels like it will go on forever, with no happy thoughts ever coming again. Those feelings are tough (or intoxicating in the case of the infatuation/love ones).
It’s typically those strong emotions that seem to be the subjects of song writers and poets. Find something gut wrenching or euphoric and write a song about it.
It was about the time we got a depressing vision prognosis our first day in Detroit that I wrote a poem, potentially a song my mother and I would work on together. I’m going to post it as the next blog post. I wanted to introduce it here though, saying it was how I felt right then, not how I feel minute to minute and day to day. Sure, I have crappy nights like last night (if you read my blog post, you’ll know what I’m talking about.) Overall though, it’s not how I feel all the time.
The Big Boy Update: At dinner tonight with my parents my son did something cute and we laughed. He replied, “I’m five, don’t laugh at me!”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I tricked, I mean asked my daughter to do a test, I mean game, in the bathroom tonight with the lights out…for candy. Oh, candy? Sure, sounded good to her. Especially since it was for Pez, her favorite. I put a cloth patch (the bandage kind used for lazy eyes) on her good eye. I turned out the light and used a pen light to see if she could see light or dark. She could see light. She could tell when it moved. She could see the red laser light when it was near her (no, not in her eye, sheesh.) She was able to tell if the light was turning on and off and if and how it was moving. I got the theater light gels and shined the light through them and she could tell each of the colors. I was getting pretty excited. I am still pretty excited, but my husband wonders how much she could see through the patch. I tried it and I could see some, but I don’t know that she was using the left eye. I asked her afterwards which eye she was seeing the light with and she told me the right eye. I am still hopeful.
It’s typically those strong emotions that seem to be the subjects of song writers and poets. Find something gut wrenching or euphoric and write a song about it.
It was about the time we got a depressing vision prognosis our first day in Detroit that I wrote a poem, potentially a song my mother and I would work on together. I’m going to post it as the next blog post. I wanted to introduce it here though, saying it was how I felt right then, not how I feel minute to minute and day to day. Sure, I have crappy nights like last night (if you read my blog post, you’ll know what I’m talking about.) Overall though, it’s not how I feel all the time.
The Big Boy Update: At dinner tonight with my parents my son did something cute and we laughed. He replied, “I’m five, don’t laugh at me!”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I tricked, I mean asked my daughter to do a test, I mean game, in the bathroom tonight with the lights out…for candy. Oh, candy? Sure, sounded good to her. Especially since it was for Pez, her favorite. I put a cloth patch (the bandage kind used for lazy eyes) on her good eye. I turned out the light and used a pen light to see if she could see light or dark. She could see light. She could tell when it moved. She could see the red laser light when it was near her (no, not in her eye, sheesh.) She was able to tell if the light was turning on and off and if and how it was moving. I got the theater light gels and shined the light through them and she could tell each of the colors. I was getting pretty excited. I am still pretty excited, but my husband wonders how much she could see through the patch. I tried it and I could see some, but I don’t know that she was using the left eye. I asked her afterwards which eye she was seeing the light with and she told me the right eye. I am still hopeful.
Friday, January 1, 2016
One of Those Depressing Days
There are good days and bad days with my daughter’s vision. And by that I mean in how we think things may be going, how much hope we might have and how she seems to be seeing overall. Today I think is one of those very bad days for me.
We return to Detroit in two days for another evaluation under anesthesia to see what help the surgery did on her right eye. We’re hoping to get a refraction done on her eye so we can get her some glasses that will correct for the lack of lens in that eye. In the meantime, we hope things have begun to flatten out in her retina and vision is becoming more stabilized. We don’t know though, because she can’t or won’t tell us.
We do a test from time to time which she doesn’t like by covering her left eye. We ask her if she can see anything like a color with the right eye. She is always highly anxious when we do this and has trouble understanding it’s only for just a moment to do the test. On three occasions now we’ve covered the left eye with a patch to get a little longer observation of the right. Today we tried for three minutes and we could hardly make any observations because she was so upset by not being able to see.
She can see something though, but what? She says she can see a waving hand, but we’ve done the wave a few times now. I think she can see that though. She does this thing where she rolls her eye way back when we cover the left. I’m worried she’s only able to see things if she does this and all this work with the right eye is going to get her two percent overall light vision.
The left eye my husband is worried is getting worse. I’m worried too. I just gave her a book with a big elephant on the front. She pulls it so close to her that she can’t get the overall picture because it’s just too close. I tried from a distance of ten inches but she says she can’t see. We tried several things and ultimately she guessed it was a squirrel, but we’d told her it was an animal and she could tell the grey.
Tonight after dinner my daughter couldn’t even tell where the car was when we were standing by it after dark. Yes, it was after dark, but we were in a parking lot with lights all around. Is this worsening or the same as before? I just don’t know if we’re gaining nothing and losing more.
She has so little sight right now. I don’t even know how to entertain her. She can lie on her back and watch things on her iPad, but she has to be so close it’s not something you can do with her. Every game we have for children is a game that needs sight in some way or that she needs help with or would be unfair to play with her and her brother because he’s sighted. We’re trying to come up with options, but she has limited things she can do because of the solution in her eyes as well.
It’s frustrating as hell and depressing and she’s so independent she doesn’t even want to be hugged and held because she’s too busy living her life, not mourning her situation like I feel like I’m doing every day. I am hopeful for good news on the fifth. I would really like to have at least one eye turn around and begin to see something more or better instead of seeing less and worse which is all that’s happened since August when this started.
The Big Boy Update: My son love the “Light Savers” from Star Wars. He has no interest in any other, inferior, pronunciations of that phrase no matter how many times you tell him.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I may have written about this, I can’t remember. We put up some butterflies on the wall of the children’s bedroom recently. My daughter named them each after a family member, with some family members getting two butterflies because there was a regular and a baby version of them. The only outlier was a very special big butterfly she told me was “The Kona Truck.” I messaged Aunt Kelly and Uncle Eric to tell them their Kona Ice truck was a member of the family.
We return to Detroit in two days for another evaluation under anesthesia to see what help the surgery did on her right eye. We’re hoping to get a refraction done on her eye so we can get her some glasses that will correct for the lack of lens in that eye. In the meantime, we hope things have begun to flatten out in her retina and vision is becoming more stabilized. We don’t know though, because she can’t or won’t tell us.
We do a test from time to time which she doesn’t like by covering her left eye. We ask her if she can see anything like a color with the right eye. She is always highly anxious when we do this and has trouble understanding it’s only for just a moment to do the test. On three occasions now we’ve covered the left eye with a patch to get a little longer observation of the right. Today we tried for three minutes and we could hardly make any observations because she was so upset by not being able to see.
She can see something though, but what? She says she can see a waving hand, but we’ve done the wave a few times now. I think she can see that though. She does this thing where she rolls her eye way back when we cover the left. I’m worried she’s only able to see things if she does this and all this work with the right eye is going to get her two percent overall light vision.
The left eye my husband is worried is getting worse. I’m worried too. I just gave her a book with a big elephant on the front. She pulls it so close to her that she can’t get the overall picture because it’s just too close. I tried from a distance of ten inches but she says she can’t see. We tried several things and ultimately she guessed it was a squirrel, but we’d told her it was an animal and she could tell the grey.
Tonight after dinner my daughter couldn’t even tell where the car was when we were standing by it after dark. Yes, it was after dark, but we were in a parking lot with lights all around. Is this worsening or the same as before? I just don’t know if we’re gaining nothing and losing more.
She has so little sight right now. I don’t even know how to entertain her. She can lie on her back and watch things on her iPad, but she has to be so close it’s not something you can do with her. Every game we have for children is a game that needs sight in some way or that she needs help with or would be unfair to play with her and her brother because he’s sighted. We’re trying to come up with options, but she has limited things she can do because of the solution in her eyes as well.
It’s frustrating as hell and depressing and she’s so independent she doesn’t even want to be hugged and held because she’s too busy living her life, not mourning her situation like I feel like I’m doing every day. I am hopeful for good news on the fifth. I would really like to have at least one eye turn around and begin to see something more or better instead of seeing less and worse which is all that’s happened since August when this started.
The Big Boy Update: My son love the “Light Savers” from Star Wars. He has no interest in any other, inferior, pronunciations of that phrase no matter how many times you tell him.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I may have written about this, I can’t remember. We put up some butterflies on the wall of the children’s bedroom recently. My daughter named them each after a family member, with some family members getting two butterflies because there was a regular and a baby version of them. The only outlier was a very special big butterfly she told me was “The Kona Truck.” I messaged Aunt Kelly and Uncle Eric to tell them their Kona Ice truck was a member of the family.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Breathe
My sister-in-law gave me a necklace for Christmas. She had texted me earlier in the month asking me what my favorite word was and I replied, “anything but the word ‘awesome’”. She picked ‘breathe’ because she likely guessed I needed to take a step back and just breath sometimes.
It’s hard dealing with my daughter’s eye situation. It’s hard on her, it’s hard on her brother and it’s hard on us, as her parents, to not know if she’ll lose more vision or if through a lot of drops, hospital visits, surgeries, glasses, lenses, etc. be able to function as a seeing member of our society. It’s a lot of unknowns.
It’s not only hard for my husband and me, it’s hard for the grandparents, aunts, uncles and everyone who counts my daughter as someone special to them. We’re all struggling with the implications and the grief of what may be lost or the pain of having to go through so much medically to just try and be as close to normal as possible.
It’s good to breathe and know things will turn out some way and that way will be supported by us all.
The Big Boy Update: My son was eating some Star Wars Jelly Bellies today. I don’t know what transpired between him and my husband but from the kitchen I heard him say, “they taste like storm troopers.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: On the sad front, my daughter wanted to take a turn on the scooter yesterday. I told her she could have a turn when her brother was finished. We’ve had that rule in place for as long as they remember, but this time she said mournfully, “but I won’t know where the scooter is when he’s done.” I told her I would show her where her brother left it.
It’s hard dealing with my daughter’s eye situation. It’s hard on her, it’s hard on her brother and it’s hard on us, as her parents, to not know if she’ll lose more vision or if through a lot of drops, hospital visits, surgeries, glasses, lenses, etc. be able to function as a seeing member of our society. It’s a lot of unknowns.
It’s not only hard for my husband and me, it’s hard for the grandparents, aunts, uncles and everyone who counts my daughter as someone special to them. We’re all struggling with the implications and the grief of what may be lost or the pain of having to go through so much medically to just try and be as close to normal as possible.
It’s good to breathe and know things will turn out some way and that way will be supported by us all.
The Big Boy Update: My son was eating some Star Wars Jelly Bellies today. I don’t know what transpired between him and my husband but from the kitchen I heard him say, “they taste like storm troopers.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: On the sad front, my daughter wanted to take a turn on the scooter yesterday. I told her she could have a turn when her brother was finished. We’ve had that rule in place for as long as they remember, but this time she said mournfully, “but I won’t know where the scooter is when he’s done.” I told her I would show her where her brother left it.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
The Flooded Creek
We’ve been on adventures before to the creek behind our house and today turned out to be another adventure with a water twist. My husband said the children were going a bit stir crazy with the continual raining and given the temperature of sixty-six degrees (unseasonable for certain) perhaps a jaunt down to the creek was in order.
Rain boots and coats donned, we all four trudged carefully down the slippery slope that is the mountainous-feeling incline behind our house towards the creek we can barely make out when the leaves have fallen. There were a few slips but we made it to the silt fence and then beyond to what is the “flood plane” around the creek.
Flooded it was. We’d been getting flood warnings from our phones and the television for two days and it was apparent what the words ‘flood’ and ‘plane’ added together meant because it was flooded all across the plane of the ground. Fortunately for the three of us wearing rain boots (my husband got me some for Christmas) our feet stayed dry.
The splashing in deep water was fun and the creek looked more like a fast-flowing river close to bursting over the top of the creek walls. We made it close to our neighbor’s exit path but decided to go a new way home, mostly because my son found a mini-waterfall. Exiting at the top into the back yard of one of our neighbors was much more challenging than we anticipated, mostly because of my daughter.
We had her eye patched but she can’t see branches and there were not only branches, there were brambles. We all got stuck and she was angry. We made it out eventually and all wished we could have fit through the small apertures the dog was able to squeeze through without getting attacked by sharp thorns.
When we got back to the house it had stopped raining and the children wanted to stay outside for longer in bare feet. My husband took down the holiday lights while I got rain jackets and boots cleaned up inside. It was our rainiest adventure yet.
The Big Boy Update: My son called the neighbors children ’stupid’ to their face early this morning. He lost screen time for the rest of the day. He was mad at me, but I was madder.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is much less interested in her iPad now that we’re asking her to spend some time during the day on it. Keeping her in front of a screen is more challenging than I would have expected.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Eyelashes
From the title of this post I bet you’re thinking it’s about my daughter because it’s related to eyes. It is not. It’s about me. It’s about a fun Christmas present my best running buddy and friend gave me. Several weeks ago she had me block off time on my calendar for this afternoon. She said it was for a surprise.
Today she told me I had an appointment with her to get eyelashes put on. I knew nothing about this artificial eyelash thing until a few months ago. I was having dinner with some of my girlfriends and they talked about how they needed to get their eyelashes redone. I was curious. I was interested. I asked lots of questions.
It turned out to be some serious eyelash action. It’s not a sheet of eyelashes you lay across your top lid and then peel off later. This is individual eyelash pieces, each glued on to an existing eyelashe to make what you have bigger, longer and more dramatic. It’s eyelash augmentation.
When we arrived at the appointment I took off my shoes and lay down on a table similar to those used for massages. The technician taped down my lower lashes so they would stay out of the way. Then, she very carefully and delicately dipped individual lashes in an adhesive and connected them to my natural lashes. She put about fifty lashes on each eye and I tried to lie still and not move (a difficult task if you know me.)
I told her if I was doing this I wanted big. I wanted bold. I wanted eyelashes that could start a small tornado if I batted them fast enough. She told me she would see what she could do. She used the “C” shaped lashes for a big, curved look and selected ten, eleven and twelve millimeter lengths to achieve a natural look across my eye.
When she was done and I sat up I was really, I mean really, impressed. I mean my eyes looked so, well, wow. They were all laughing at me because I was having such a good time giggling and looking at the mirror and saying I couldn’t believe what a difference the lashes made. I feel much more dramatic now. Hell, I feel like I’ve even put on make up (which I never wear.)
I can’t even tell the lashes are there, which is very interesting, because they look so big I would expect to feel something. They’ll naturally fall off over the next three weeks. For the next three weeks I’m going to feel rather like a movie star with my big, bold eyes. What a great Christmas present.
The Big Boy Update: Two comments direct from my son over the past week. Both are very true. “I’m a messy eater.” and “I’m the sloppiest eater you’ve ever seen. I’m a caveman.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter and son were playing a game where you make hamburgers with different ingredients in them. They love this game and over time had moved the hamburger pieces all over the house. With the help of my mother and our recent organization efforts we were able to find all the pieces. As they were playing a modified, kid-improvised version of the game my daughter said out loud, “if you’re all done eating your hamburger, you may go away from this restaurant.”
Today she told me I had an appointment with her to get eyelashes put on. I knew nothing about this artificial eyelash thing until a few months ago. I was having dinner with some of my girlfriends and they talked about how they needed to get their eyelashes redone. I was curious. I was interested. I asked lots of questions.
It turned out to be some serious eyelash action. It’s not a sheet of eyelashes you lay across your top lid and then peel off later. This is individual eyelash pieces, each glued on to an existing eyelashe to make what you have bigger, longer and more dramatic. It’s eyelash augmentation.
When we arrived at the appointment I took off my shoes and lay down on a table similar to those used for massages. The technician taped down my lower lashes so they would stay out of the way. Then, she very carefully and delicately dipped individual lashes in an adhesive and connected them to my natural lashes. She put about fifty lashes on each eye and I tried to lie still and not move (a difficult task if you know me.)
I told her if I was doing this I wanted big. I wanted bold. I wanted eyelashes that could start a small tornado if I batted them fast enough. She told me she would see what she could do. She used the “C” shaped lashes for a big, curved look and selected ten, eleven and twelve millimeter lengths to achieve a natural look across my eye.
When she was done and I sat up I was really, I mean really, impressed. I mean my eyes looked so, well, wow. They were all laughing at me because I was having such a good time giggling and looking at the mirror and saying I couldn’t believe what a difference the lashes made. I feel much more dramatic now. Hell, I feel like I’ve even put on make up (which I never wear.)
I can’t even tell the lashes are there, which is very interesting, because they look so big I would expect to feel something. They’ll naturally fall off over the next three weeks. For the next three weeks I’m going to feel rather like a movie star with my big, bold eyes. What a great Christmas present.
The Big Boy Update: Two comments direct from my son over the past week. Both are very true. “I’m a messy eater.” and “I’m the sloppiest eater you’ve ever seen. I’m a caveman.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter and son were playing a game where you make hamburgers with different ingredients in them. They love this game and over time had moved the hamburger pieces all over the house. With the help of my mother and our recent organization efforts we were able to find all the pieces. As they were playing a modified, kid-improvised version of the game my daughter said out loud, “if you’re all done eating your hamburger, you may go away from this restaurant.”
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