It's a Bittersweet Symphony, This Life

I often ponder why it is that i still feel and receive guidance from what i use to refer to as "The Spirit," despite my atheist/humanist/pantheist beliefs.  But ya know what?  I don't care.  I don't need an answer (good thing, too, because there isn't one that can be proven).  I attribute it to this:  the Universe is a kind and loving place that conspires in our favor at all times, whether we ask it to or not, and whether or not a mere man (despite what title he has given himself) deems us "worthy" or not.

Friday i had a very difficult decision to make regarding the life of one of my children.  As i pondered the list of options, one of them stood out, almost magnified itself before my eyes, guiding me to choose it.  Stupid me that i am, i didn't choose it, but it chose me in the end, anyway.  That option manifested itself despite my moving forward on an option that was faster (though wouldn't have been better).

A person was led into my life recently, too, who has held my hand through the amazing difficulties i've faced with this situation; we wouldn't be in the good place we're in had he not been led to us (again, the Universe has to be thanked for that).

Thank you, Universe, god, flying spaghetti monster, big huge nothingness, cosmic consciousness or whatever else may be here.  You rock!  I love you hugely. 

Namaste.

Allie, In All Seriousness

I have some lovely photos of Allie, but this is the only one she will allow me to post.  She is a turdbucket.  But i love her guts!

4 Years Since D-Day { Allie, I Love You }

It's been four years since Allie was diagnosed with the auto-immune disease called type 1 diabetes.  This has been a rough year, with several trips to the hospital for DKA. 

I was just looking back through old posts about D and the one below brought back so many chilling memories; i can't belive we've made it this far.  It hasn't gotten any easier; i've only gotten a bit more numb.

http://crapstain.blogspot.com/2008/08/we-may-love-glucagon-but-we-love-emts.html

I still have days that make me hide in my closet and cry for Allie and all she goes through with this disease.  She didn't choose it.  She didn't cause it.  There's still no cure.  All we can do is move forward the best we can.  It's hard. 

I'm still in pieces...shattered and untied:

Whip Scorpion Alert Called Off { Wind Scorpion Captured }

A strange sensation woke me from a deep sleep around 4 this morning.  It was an odd "pecking" feeling on my elbow.  I opened my eyes and there was Allie, pecking on my elbow. 

"Mommy, the whip scorpion is in my room.  Come get it!"

Oh huh uh.  I'm not going anywhere near that thing.

"But Mommy, I caught it under a Pringles can and it got out, then it climbed up my curtain.  Now I'm afraid to go back into my room.  PLEASE COME GET IT!"

Wow, that sucks for you!

So, after moaning and wandering around my room for a while (me, not Allie) with a wicked headache, Todd rubbed my back until i finally got back to sleep (around 6:30). 

At 6:45, Bryce comes barrelling into my room to tell me Allie caught the bug.  I got up to investigate.

Sure enough, Allie had cornered the bug in the living room and was holding him under Bryce's "bug scope" cup.  I grabbed some cardstock and slid it under, then flipped the cup over, cringing and mewing all the way.  After a few minutes of freaked-out deliberation, i dumped the wind scorpion (i should clarify--it ended up being a WIND scorpion and not a WHIP scorpion) into a huge (Costco-sized) pretzel jar (that previously housed Allie's used syringes), then sliced a hole in the top for air. 

Right now, on my kitchen counter, in various containers, i have to keep me company during the day:

One katydid, one wood beetle, and one really ugly and menacing wind scorpion. 

Lucky me!

Our friend { as yet unnamed } the wind scorpion.

Pics Allie Took

Yesterday Allie decided to she wants to be an awesome photographer.  She told me to get dressed and be her model.  After a few lessons on exposure, metering, and focus, here are the photos she made (click photo to see larger):

Allie Plays Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Watch to the end to see the "girl-fight" scene. teehee. GREAT job, Allie!

Happy Birthday, Allie!

Allie turned 15 today!

15!

She avoided my dozens of attempts to get a picture of her in her new silver pants and black ballet tutu, haha, but I got her holding my Japanese Black Black Gum!

I think Al had a good birthday. Last night, she chose The Cheesecake Factory for her birthday dinner. It was a fun night. Today we hung out together all day at home and Todd made cupcakes (I'm making an ice cream cake for her sleepover party next weekend).

I love you, Cheeky Cheese! Happy Birthday!

Big smooch from Mother Pony!






~
GelaSkins Inc.

Another Line of Hope?

Researches have found that 2 common Leukemia drugs can cure type 1 diabetes in mice. Todd called a few minutes ago to tell me he had just heard that on NPR.

I fell over myself trying to get to the computer to look it up. I found this article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4AG78H20081117

I read it, then cried. This is the third line of hope in the cure for type 1 diabetes that I am clinging to.

Given how bad Allie's A1c's have been in the past year, how sick she's been lately and how bad her vision has been, these little strings of hope are all I have to cling to. They force me to stay on my feet, to keep pushing forward, to keep climbing back up from the depression that hovers at my shoulder every time I see Allie drawing up a syringe of insulin to keep herself alive.

Thank you to all the researchers who continue to search for a cure. I love you all.


~~~~~~~~~~
GelaSkins Inc.

Cheetah Toes

Yesterday Allie painted her fingernails in such a cute cheetah pattern, I begged until she relented and agreed to do my toes:

She's so creative and talented!

GelaSkins Inc.

2 Years Ago Today

Two years ago today, Allie's pediatrician called with her lab results.

Two years ago today, Allie was admitted into Phoenix Children's Hospital where, for three days, we learned to keep her alive with insulin injections and glucose.

Two years ago today, our lives changed forever.

Two years ago today, I fell into a mild depression that still follows me around like a shadow.

Two years ago today, Allie had already accepted and come to terms with her condition.

She was only 12.

At 14, she still takes this disease in stride. She doesn't complain. She deals with it and goes on wtih her amazing life.

She is my hero.

I love you, Allie. Thank you for being strong when I couldn't. Thank you for continuing to do so.



~~
Be cool and help a girl out. Buy a cool Skin for your iPod, Blackberry, or laptop:

GelaSkins Inc.

Allie's Halloween Habit

Allie has but one goal every year for Trick or Treating: to get more pieces of candy than the year prior. As you can imagine, it gets tougher every year.

Allie LOVES Halloween. She loves scary movies and stories, she loves costumes, parties, getting candy, decorating. You name it, if it's Halloweenish, Allie loves it!

Todd and I told her, when she was 11, that that would be her last year of trick or treating, since she'd really be too old to T-or-T after that. She cried. She's 14 and still Trick or Treats every year.

She even asked me if she could borrow Bryce and take HIM with HER when she really is too old to go on the candy expedition. Teehehe.

Here she is counting and categorizing her loot, circa 2006 (this was only about a week and a half after she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes [which is an auto-immune disease and NOT caused by eating sugar!])

In the background is the pogo stick that I think saved her from DKA (Diabetic Keto Acidosis).

Don't CHEW Me Out

Snort! Haha! I'm snickering at my corny pun in the title. Allie hates it--HATES IT--when she hears someone chewing. And apparently, I'm the loudest chewer she's ever met in her 14 years on Planet Earth. So, here's one for you, Al!




And in this one you get to see 3-day-old bunnies! But the best part is when someone is chewing loudly next to the mic around a minute and a half into the clip. Teehee! Okay, the bunnies are really cute (in an ugly sort of way), too.

Open Mic Night

Allie and her friend, we'll call her "C," did really well at Open Mic night. It was so fun watching them on stage and I was SO grateful that I didn't have to sing. The ears of all in attendance were truly blessed!

I Will Sing This! I Will Sing This?

Oh my oh my oh my. What have I gotten myself into? You see, I've always wanted to be a wild, crazy singer with a loud, rambunctious band, touring the WORLD and making mischief and such. I LOVE LOVE LO-O-O-OVE to sing!

One problem:

Can't.

Can't sing.

Can't carry a tune. I mean, it's

BAD.

REALLY BAD.

But Allie's playing a song at Open Mic Night Friday night and she wants me to sing. She figures the only song I can sort of kind of sing is Demolition Lovers by MCR.

But here's the scary part. Even MCR's lead singer, Gerard Way, has trouble singing it.

See video. Pray for me.

We May Love Glucagon But We Love EMTs More!

Is it really morning and did we really make it through the night? Was it all just a nightmare? Nope, I have the pictures to prove it. (And just so you know, I took the pix to lighten the mood. Allie was in the very capable hands of the emergency workers and she joked that at least she'd have something to blog about, so of course, I grabbed the camera).

Allie comes out from her room about 10 o'clock last night and is totally freaked out. She tells me she thinks she just accidentally took 30 units of Novolog instead of 30 units of Lantus (Lantus is a slow-acting insulin that lasts for 24 hours and Novolog is a fast-acting insulin taken with meals). My mind froze in time when she said that, just for a second or two. Then it quickly contemplated the enormity of that statement. 30 units of fast-acting insulin. Oops. Major oops. This was bound to be a repeat of L's extreme low I had just been part of Saturday morning. Or worse. Much worse.

In order for Allie to pretty much not die from this, we would have to feed her...are you ready for this? 420 carbs. How does a normal person eat 420 carbs in a meal, especially when they've had 3 meals today already? (Just as a comparison, Allie normally take 4-6 units of insulin per meal, on average). Well, Allie realized immediately that there was no way that was going to happen. She was shaking and crying and saying she didn't want to die. She told me to call 911. I obeyed immediately. In the meantime, she sucked down 4 Capri Suns while I called the doc. Doc said just keep feeding her and wait for the ambulance. I didn't think her stomach could hold enough; I kept the Glucagon kit in sight. I was so scared, but kept telling Allie everything would be totally okay.

The EMT's/paramedics arrived so quickly. I love and adore them (thank you, Rural Metro, Southwest Ambulance, and the Sheriff's Office! We love you!). They calmed us down by telling us that if necessary, they would put sugar directly into Allie's bloodstream. That relaxed me incredibly, but my brain could still not think properly. I'm usually good with this sort of thing, but 30 units of Novolog pushed me over the top. I knew we were in for a very long night. (Al finally went to sleep around 1, and I stayed up 'til 2 to continue checking her sugar, which dropped another 100 points by then, but then slowed way down. I got up at 6 to check again and of course, can't go back to sleep...another zombie day...fun.)

I really need to take a more careful stock of what's in our pantry at all times. The EMT's wanted me to get some protein in with her carbs and told me to put some peanut butter on the bagel I had given her. I rummaged in the pantry and the fridge, but no peanut butter, just almond butter which had been sitting for forever and needed stirring. As I struggled to get the almond butter to an edible consistency, I muttered, "Am I the only mom in America without peanut butter? Almond butter? What am I, a hippie?" The EMT's laughed. Laughing is good. If they could laugh, then everything was going to be okay.

Once we felt (and the EMT's felt) that we were out of danger, all the emergency workers left and Allie continued to eat. I lay on the couch and tried to wake myself up from this nightmare. I really thought I could for a minute or two. Then I realized this nightmare is our reality; it's our day-to-day life. It's Allie's reality for the rest of her life unless someone finds that cure.

Happy A1C Day!

Allie LOVES having her picture taken; can't you tell?

Today Al had her quarterly endo appointment. If you remember from her last one (in May) I was completely distraught because her A1C was dangerously high (it was 9.7--ouch!--and should be in the 7's or even better, the 6's, in order to avoid damage to her kidneys, eyes and heart. A little education: the A1C test measures the "average" blood glucose level over a 3-month period. It does that by measuring the amount of sugar stuck to a dead blood cell--they live about 3 months). Her A1C as of today is down to 8.2--a good drop from 9.7! We were happy, but will feel better when she gets it back down to the happy 7's.

TTV photography

I love finding interesting things on other peoples' blogs. Today I found this blog that had a post on doing TTV (Through The Viewfinder) photography. What you do is get your old gnarly camera and take a picture through it's viewfinder with your shiny new digital camera. Of course, I immediately had to rummage through my old camera bags and find my dusty and neglected Mamiyaflex. I took a few ttv pix; need to get in better light to really play with it. A nice digital would be great, too, but don't worry--I'm not going to start whining about that again. At least not right now.

This is my adorable and grungy old Mamiyaflex:

It gives a nice grainy, dusty, "oldish" sort of effect. Only bothersome thing are the two lines running through the viewfinder of my flex. I guess they were there for framing purposes. More light would've been a good thing to play in:

Little man B didn't like it one little bit:

With the viewfinder off:

Fun! Can't wait to play around with it more!

Allie Playing Guitar

Allie worked on several songs during summer vacation. The first one is Back in Black (AC/DC):



The next is just a bit of And Justice for All and One (both by Metallica). She messes up a bit, but that's okay; she still rocks! I have a video of her doing And Justice for All perfectly; I might YouTube 'em.



And the next one Allie refers to as The Funny One. She's playing MCR's Mama and at one point Cayli starts to sing and I say...well, you'll see. And I say it in my best Louisa voice. I have a bad reputation in this house for singing! I'm actually banned by the entire family.



And a little Billy Talent thrown in for good measure....

Home Safe and Sound

A & Z arrived home Saturday afternoon. I was on pins and needles waiting at the gate for their plane to land. It arrived a few minutes early and as it pulled up to the walkway thingie (what do you call that, anyway?) I went to the door and scanned the faces coming up the walk. As usual, because they fly UM (Unaccompanied Minor), they were last off the plane. I saw Allie first and burst into tears. She came RUNNING to me and I squeezed her so tight. Then, I reached for Zane, but the flight attendant said, "Not until you sign the release." She was KIDDING but Zane (like me) is so literal minded, that Zane backed away from me. LOL! The FA told him she was kidding, so he came and hugged me. His hair is soooo long! And Allie looks even more grown up than ever. Six weeks sounds like just a short time, but things do change.

Bryce wouldn't let Zane put him down for anything! He clung to Z fiercely and wouldn't even let Todd take him. Now he follows him around the house. Today, Zane was a minute or two late coming out of Church, and the rest of us were already waiting in the car. Bryce pointed to Zane's seat and asked, "Where's Zane?" He was so concerned. CUTE!


Allie's friend Cayli came with us; I think she missed Al this summer! The girls hung out most of Saturday. They even let me hang with them a bit ;o) I recorded A playing a few of the songs she learned this summer on her guitar (her aunt Chris bought her one in Virginia). I'll have those videos up soon...maybe tomorrow. Right now, I'm sick with a nasty cold and quite miserable. Couldn't resist putting up a couple pix, though!

Allie & Zane Playing Enter Sandman

This was the first time they tried playing music together and I think they did pretty well!