Thankful

This year, Thanksgiving is going to have more meaning to me than any Thanksgiving that I have ever had. I have had an eye opening year this year starting out with Popee passing. January 21 will be a year, and I cant believe it has almost been a year, it still hurts everyday, no matter what I do. I have a problem on holding on to things longer than most. My grandparent are still in the forefront of mind even 9 years after they have passed. Its very hard for me to let go of such great people, I think its easier to lie to myself and say they are on vacation or I just missed them when visiting home, because if I actually believe it I will break down.

But this year was surprising for me despite that. The most important thing I have learned was to be thankful for family. Family has always been everything to me, but even more so now. There were some strained relationships within the family that were resolved and I met family I never knew I had. I know that next year my husband wont be here for Thanksgiving, which makes this even more special this year. One of my good friends has given me a very real perspective on life this year and she doesn't even know that she did. She has been through one of of the worst things imaginable, and her strength inspires me everyday. I am just grateful to have such wonderful and supportive family and friends in my life, I really am.

I have learned a lot about myself and who I want to be in this life. I know that life doesnt last forever as much as I want it to, and that I need to make the best of everything. I have seen my family so much more this year, and honestly I love it. I love my family, they are some of the best people ever. I am always afraid that I wont spend enough time with my family and I just hope they know how much I love them, and how much they mean to me.

I am thankful for the opportunity to have my daughter's life changed forever with the feeding program we are going through. I am thankful that she is independent, strong, feisty, caring, loving and a firecracker.

I am thankful for my husband. If you would have asked me in high school if I would have been married to Stephen Hamann, I would have laughed in your face. But he is one of the most caring people ever, although he is stone faced. I got lucky with him, and I got lucky that he is such a great dad to our daughter. 10 years together and I am grateful we made it through some hard times, just to come out stronger. I think sometimes people give up too easily, but we made it.

I am thankful for my mom, who is behind me and supports me no matter what I want to do. She has always let me be me, loved me unconditionally, and been proud of who I am, even if I dont have a degree from college yet. According to my mom, I have always traveled my own road and I am thankful they let me do that and let me explore my own life the way I wanted too.

I will be eternally thankful for my dad. I cant even talk about thankful I am to him without crying. He took us out of a situation that was bad and brought so much joy to my moms life, and to mine and my brothers life. He loved us from the moment my mom brought us into his life, and he was only 22 when that happened. He taught me a lit of valuable lessons in life, especially being an honest person, being strong, and pursuing anything that I want to do, and do it with hard work.

I am thankful for my brothers and sister. We have so many different personalities between all of us kids that its just a blast when we are all together. We all keep each other young and push each other to excel.

I am thankful for our friends that we have known for a long time and those that we just met. Every person we know has a permanent stamp in our hearts, and makes us better people.

I just hope that this Thanksgiving people can look past the turkey, potatoes, and such to really enjoy the family and/or friends around them, and to take the time to tell them you are thankful they are in your life, because they may not know, and life is too short.

Happy Early Thanksgiving Everyone.

Just Say No To Drugs.

I find lately that I am starting to get really tired of having to medicate my child. I feel like she cant just be herself due to the meds she has to take. As of right now, we only have a few more days left of her Amoxicillin that was for her Strep Throat, thank goodness, one less syringe to fill in the morning and evening time.

She is on Celexa for her anxiety, Cyproheptad for appetite stimulant, Zyrtec for allergies and her inhaler.

The problem is I feel like we are screwing with her brain. I am not entirely sure that the Celexa is actually working. It is actually an antidepressant, but used to treat anxiety, but I personally dont think she needs it. Bear with me as I explain, I tend to jump around a bit.

I think that the problem last year (when she started Celexa), was that her Kinder teacher was just way too nurturing and Caitlin took that as weakness and proceeded to turn the teachers world upside down. This year her teacher is a no BS teacher and there is a line that is not to be crossed. She started Celexa in November of last year, and throughout the rest of the year in Kinder she had the same destructive behavior. Now she is in first grade. From the first day she was at school there were no issues. She stayed the entire almost 8 hours without fault and without any of the behavior that she had last year with kinder.

Now I believe the difference is in the teacher. I do not believe that in 2 1/2 short summer months that the Celexa magically kicked in and "made" her be good. Her teacher is very strict, but a little nurturing as well.

I have now talked to 3 doctors who believe that the reason she has any anxiety is due to her sensory issues. Their take on it? Fix the sensory issues, then that fixes the anxiety issues. I am compelled to agree. I havent seen anything in the medication to convince me that is the reason she is calm and enjoying school. So this summer I believe we are going to do a trial with her not on it and see what happens. We dont want to do it during the school year as you have to come off of it over a longer period of time, you cant just stop taking it.

Now to the appetite stimulant. I was totally on board with that until I read about the side affects. I am aware ever drug has side affects. But when I found out the appetite stimulant is actually normally used as a antihistamine and I was to give it to her at night, it made me feel like I was drugging my kid to go to sleep. I know that this will help her, I think I just need to get around what it is normally used for and just keep thinking its going to help he be free from her tube.

I think what it comes down to, is that I just want to see Caitlin be a "normal" kid. I really and truly have so much hope and faith in this feeding program to help Caitlin achieve that, but I am just so frustrated right now with the fact that I feel like I am pumping things into her that maybe I shouldnt be.

Ok rant over. Sometimes I just need to write it down to not feel so lost.

Time for Change...

Time for Change. Seems to be the name of the game lately.

We went to CHOC today for a feeding team evaluation and it went great. There are going to be a lot of changes in the family as well as with Caitlin and her feedings, but it is going to take some time to change things from the way they are now.

For the past 5 years we have been told to feed Caitlin whatever she will eat, whenever she wants to eat it, wherever she wants to eat it, because when shes distracted by TV, she would eat more, and in turn eat more calories. I got to feel like a bad parent today when I told the feeding team this. They didn't judge us, we were just doing what we were told by the other doctors, but now the feeding team feels that we should do just the opposite.

They would like us to give her an appetite stimulant every night so that every morning she will wake up hungry, and would possibly eat breakfast, for the first time in a while. That would be a miracle.

They would also like us to not let her "graze" during the daytime, but instead have 3 set meals and meal times and 2 snacks in between, and not let her have anything in between. Give her 30 minutes to eat what we are eating and if she doesn't take it away and do not let her eat anything else. THAT right there is going to kill me. Knowing that if she doesn't eat, that shes not eating for the rest of the night and will be hungry is just hurting my stomach just thinking about it. But I know CHOC knows what they are doing and its for the best. Its just going to be rough.

We are also going to be switching Caitlin from regular juice boxes to special ones with vitamins, and such with 250 calories per box. That will help out a lot with her calorie intake. We will also be switching her formula so that she gets less amount of fluid, but the same amount of calories, which in turn will help have a shorter pump time, so she wont get up and shut off her pump and lose calories.

She will be admitted in February for the 3 week inpatient therapy, and then follow up feeding therapy. For now until then she will do feeding therapy at Rady's until she gets admitted so that they have a more cooperative Caitlin :)

Hopefully I have enough strength to do this :)