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alright, fvckers. heres my novel.
let me preface this by saying that i swear a lot. maybe not so much right now (as i haven't written a draft or anything and, unlike allison dubois, i can't predict the future).
ok. so, i had a typical upbringing in a middle class family. middle of three girls, parents divorced. dad owned a small business until recently, mom was a teacher. got myself a stepmom and a setpdad. some step-sisters and a stepbrother that i hate more than anyone or anything in the entire world. thankfully for me he blew his brains out in 97, so he really isnt a problem anymore.
got knocked up at the end of first semester of my freshman year of college with my high school boyfriends sperm. moved home from school after freshman year...had baby (who is now 12) named noah. he was supposed to be a girl, so the penis was a big fat surprise when he emerged from my vag (he is also the one that gave me the vaganus that you will hear tamb refer to every now and again).
noah's dad and i broke up several times...for good just before he turned two. shortly after he became a heroin addict and it was really weird for awhile. eventually he went on methadone. when he was on that i allowed him to see noah. he once took him with hi to the methadone clinic and left him in the car and asked some lady that was coming out of the clinic to "watch" him while he went inside. he wasn't allowed to be alone with him after that until he was off the methadone. bio dad stops seeing/calling noah around age six.
met my husband online (ooooh! the horror!) one night. i was studying for midterms and downloading shiiiit from napster. he was downloading something form me and i im'd him with another song rec. blah, blah, blah...long distance dating for two years, he moves to tampa from baltimore, get engaged a year later.
married in february 2005. it was a great day, save for the fact that my flowers were wrong, my husband's sister got pissed at us for not having a vegetarian kids meal for her 1.5 year old, and my little sister and her boyfriend at the time made a total scene when the wedding was over and at the bar we were at with friends later on.
got knocked up with my youngest in october of 06. my mother-in-law died after a long battle with breast caner in march of 07. evan was born on my husband's birthday in july of 2007.
two days after e was born we found out he had hemophilia. he was getting the regular baby tests and they took him in the early morning for the pku heel prick. a little later he was laying with me and the nurse came in to check on us. she noticed that his ankle bracelet had fallen off and came over to put it back on him and his little baby pants were covered in blood. took over an hour to finally get the bleeding to stop. took him to the nicu to confirm what the doctor thought was either hemophilia or von wildebrand's disease.
tough first year getting to cope with the diagnosis. lots of random crying and anger and shiiit. finally get a handle on it (or so i think) and then he gets a head bleed. there was a hematoma in between his brain and his skull. he had some twitching in the week leading up to the shiiity fvcking morning, but i dismissed it thinking i was being neurotic for being worried. turns out, i wasn't.
two days before thanksgiving, e wakes up and within thirty minutes e couldn't eat his cereal, hold his body up and eventually the same for his head. fly like a motherfvcking bat out of hell 25 minutes to the hospital (why i didnt call 911 is still beyond me). in a panic i am crying and shouting to be seen immediately in the pedi er. immediately get a room, takes forever to find his vein and pump him with his meds. about two minutes later he starts to be able to hold himself up and stop drooling and shiiit. go for ct scan that confirms the diagnosis. four days in picu and eventually he comes home after having a small procedure to insert a line through his arm vein so that i can infuse him every eight hours.
one month later back to the hospital for fever with the line in his arm. no infection. high fevers...seizure. eyes roll back in his head, turns totally blue. nurses breathing the fvcking breath of life to get him to do it on his own. tough recovery for about an hour or so...isnt himself. cue vomit. another seizure that night, but none after.
had a port installed in his chest a month later so i can give him prophy treatment three days a week at home. we've had two other hospitalizations since then, because if he has a fever over 100.5 we need to go in and stay until the fevers have been gone for 24 hours. in fact, i think i spent my fourth wedding anniversary in the hospital with him. i'm not quite sure why i noted that, but whatever.
things with e have been much, much better since. he's now 3.5 and amazing. he adores his older brother and those two are really super close and the best of friends.
also, i forgot to note that in february of 2008 my husband adopted my oldest son. it was a really big deal, especially for noah. he adores him and has called him dad since he was three. he was overjoyed to have the same last name, too.
i went to school for accounting, with my additional 30 graduate course hours to sit for the cpa exam. did one season of taxes, working 12-14 hour days and said "fvck this!" and went back to my receptionist job at a local state farm agent until i took some exams and got a job teaching middle school math. taught for four years and then stopped working after i had e. so i havent worked since june of 2007.
i'm currently thinking of going back to school to become a labor and delivery nurse part time. i really don't want to go back to work, but it might be nice to have a little bit more money and stability if something were to happen with my husband's job.
damn that was long.
Re: alright, fvckers. heres my novel.
I don't know how to ask this question so forgive my fumbling. Is E's hemophilia stable now? Like, do you think it's unlikely he will have to be rushed to the hospital again? What was it that caused his head bleed and seizures? Was it something that is now under control, or is that something that could theoretically happen again?
And YAY for Allison Dubois.
11/11/11 = 5 years. Woah!
I love your novel and you're so incredible and strong.
And you have some adorable kids.
Husbands should be like Kleenex: Soft, strong, and disposable.
I'm not going to read all that. Jeebus.
Okay, I lied. Thank you for novelizing your life for us! The stuff with your son is so terrifying. Even when things are fine are you kind of always on edge? Or are you able to go back to normal (whatever that is)?
I also want to hug you.
I bet her FUPA's name is Shane, like the gunslinger/drifter of literature.--HappyTummy
Welcome!
When I was a kid my mom and aunt ran our small community's blood bank and I would hang out there sometimes. I can remember watching them separate blood and plasma to make platelets for a kid in the community with hemophilia.
Did you see Allison Dubois on RHoBH? She's a d-bag.
his hemophilia is stable...i guess? i don't know if thats the right word, but its as under control as it can be. it is less likely that he would have another head bleed because the medication i infuse him with is a synthetic blood product that replaces what he lacks. of course, there is a half life involved so it decreases over time and needs to keep being replaced. but its there more than it would be naturally.
we're still not certain what caused the head bleed. hemophiliacs are know to have spontaneous bleeds, so there is no rhyme or reason or cause for them. they just happen. however, prior to that he had knocked the side of his head against the bathtub one night when he was sitting and slipped. so it could have been that, too.
we are fairly certain that the seizures were fever induced. he had a small one with the head bleed while i was driving him to the hospital, but it was pretty overshadowed (in my mind) but the rest of the ordeal. he was on anti-seizure medication for a year and hasn't had another seizure since december 2008.
and no worries about how to ask...i am a fairly blunt individual, so bluntness works for me.
yep! i am. and i would hug you even if i wasn't. because i like buddha. and i love cheese. so you are made up of some of my favorite things.
Sara/Sarah Hug! That is a lot to go through, and I'm glad you guys are in such a good place right now!
I have two cousins with hemophilia, and they had a lot of scary times as small children. They're both in their teens now, and really stable. They haven't had any big scares in a long long time, as far as I know.
The nerve!
House | Blog
Wow, I can't even imagine how scary that must have been (and continue to be).
I'm also a hugger.
I think these things are supposed to be a hug, but I always think it looks like a zombie. A zombie hug. But I'm not trying to eat your brains, I promise.
hahaha. i wouldnt want to read it either. in fact, i tried to proofread for errors but got bored with myself after the second paragraph.
yes, i am always on edge. i am always nervous and always worrying. but i've gotten good at hiding it. it bothers my husband and i am sure it would negatively affect my children, so i internalize it.
i also drink
and i don't even know what normal is. well, no. i guess this is normal. i try not to be too overbearing or helicopter-mom-esque. some days thats hard. like the other day the neighbor kids wanted to play with e and i heard them cough and sniff and they were sick and i picked him up and ran for the freaking door with a "sorry! you should go home and feel better and come back and play another day."
it probably wasn't the best way to deal with it, i mean...kids get sick all the time. but i try to keep him from it as much as i can because i know if he gets a fever its a minimum 24 hours in the hospital. and if for some reason he gets a port infection, then its a minimum 14 day stay. and fevers signal infection and he can get one from the common cold.
sorry, that was kinda long.
thank god they don't use real blood products on him. that idea scares the hell out of me.
and heck yes i saw her!
OMG Napster!
I too am a hugger and after reading that I want to give you a big one.
nope.
we're actually doing genetic testing to find out if i was carrying the gene or if he mutated while i was pregnant.
we recently got e's work back and they have found his mutation, so now i need to go get my blood drawn so they can look for that same mutation in our dna.
holy crap, that's awful. this here is 90% of the reason I was/am terrified to have kids. I can barely handle regular life, I can't imagine trying to get by day to day with something like that to worry about.
Cheers on the booze therapy, though. I find that works quite well.
"As of page 2 this might be the most boring argument ever. It's making me long for Rape Day." - Mouse
I'm sorry that one of you is a mutant, that sounds rough.
I like you, but I've been shy about hugging lately. I don't know why.
I also have kids with a 10 year split. I had my first, my girl, around the same age as you. Found out I was pregnant two weeks after I left my abusive ex. It was one of those cosmic jokes that you don't quite get the punchline, but I love my daughter more than anything and definitely came out ahead.
No one in my family has the same last name.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
"Once I got a bath bomb that, once exploded, filled the tub with confetti. Little sharp metallic pieces of confetti. The product description said nothing about confetti. Oh look, there's a tiny, sharp metallic blue star stabbing me in the labia. HOW RELAXING. " - NoisyPenguin
How does that work with Dmitri? He has both of your last names?
"That chick wins at Penises, for sure." -- Fenton
i haven't heard anything about him at all. the last time i saw him was in february of 2008 when we met and signed the relinquishment of parental rights papers. his wife and two daughters were with him. i offered to take them all out to lunch as a thank you, but they declined.
noah doesnt ask much about him at all. every now and again. he actually had written his bio dad a letter around the time we were asking him for permission to adopt telling him why he wanted to be adopted by my husband. he also included his school picture in the letter. it was very sweet.
i told his bio dad he could call any time he wanted, but he never has.
I guess maybe I get people who don't want to parent at all, but I can't understand anyone who would give up one child and raise another family. Or being willing to have and raise children with a man who could sign away his rights to a child. It sounds like Noah is better off. I just can't understand someone willing to do that.
yeah, i don't either. the raising other kids or being married to someone that pretty much casts their own child aside.
but noah is much better off without him as an influence in his life.
Yes Dimi is a Mouse Smith.
And I'm dumb, Bug and I have the same last name, I gave her mine. She keeps wanting to go by a mashup. Smouse sounds awful though.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
I dig you. I read your post today about the canoe trip, and the more I learn about you, the more I dig you.
I know we have talked a little bit about raising kids with medical concerns, but wow, I can't imagine what it's like to live always worrying about E. And now, maybe worrying that Noah's worrying about E. Since bringing M home, I get always being on edge; most our time has been like that, and I get that becoming the new normal. But in my case, I can see it getting better, and cling to the hope of it dissipating, and I see myself becoming less and less on edge and letting go more. So while I understand the feeling, I also understand how strong you must be to cope with that heightened sense of--well, everything--indefinitely. I also understand how you can say that it's still pales in comparison to all the blessings E brings to your life.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I hold you in great esteem for being able to life the life you do and still have a great outlook and sense of humor and je ne sais quoi about you. I wish you the best of luck with E, and the rest of your family, in the future, and I hope you stick around in the Caribbean.
2013 Calendars and More!
OMG! You're story is amazing. I can't add anything so I will just say Wow!
I'm a long-time lurker around these parts. If you still live in Tampa I'd be up to GTG. I'm not as hilarious as these ladies but I'm a good egg and would be happy to share in your alchohol therapy.
Gah, I loved Napster.
That story terrified me and make me thankful at the same time. Like Thanksgiving with zombies.
Welcome!
For less then ten cents a day, you can feed a hungry child.