Small Talk: The Prayer Closet

[Happyfatchick]

Sure. Post it. I'd like to see it!

. Never mind. Can't seem to figure it out. Old dog, new trick. Boo! Edited June 1, 2015 by Happyfatchick

[Happyfatchick]

And we're back to the organ donor subject... When I was a little girl, I came down with this "mystery illness". I recovered, but it was a slow process, and was never taken to the doctor. I remember adults commenting on how "yellow" I was. Couple weeks later, my oldest bro (the slug) fell REALLY ill and was hospitalized to find he had hepatitis. Then all the eyes rolled back to ME. The rest of the family then had to go get preventive shots (stinging BIG ones in their hips, so I heard), but I didn't as the assumption was I'd already weathered the storm. Mi was never tested to be absolutely certain, but we "think" so. As an adult, I went to a Red Cross office and offere to let them screen my blood to see if they detected hep C, or any strain, as I was willing to give blood if they'd take it. The helpful volunteers said, "you think you had WHAT as a child??? No thanks. You keep your nasty blood and don't check organ donor on your DL either." So I've still never been tested for certain and feel like a failure every time I see a blood drive.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Happyfatchick

[Happyfatchick]

Is a link better than nothing?
50 ways to leave your lover, 25 ways to skin a cat!

Edited June 1, 2015 by aethera
Removing incorrect link, until HFC can get it properly linked :)

[Happyfatchick]

I had it posted...now I don't. Oh well. It's really pretty. :-D

[Aethera]

I've never given blood, because my veins making getting blood from me nearly impossible. When I had my wisdom teeth out, it took 4 nurses 1/2 an hour to get me set up for anesthesia.  When I had my gall bladder attack a couple of months ago, I warned the nurse in the ER about it, and he scoffed, and then got redder and redder as he couldn't get a line started to give me saline and get blood out of me for tests. In the 4th spot he stuck me (the back of my left hand, which I try to avoid since I'm a lefty) he finally was able, with a really small needle, to draw enough out of me to fill 2 vials, and it took at least 5 minutes. Saline took far longer than normal to drain into me, as well. When I went up to surgery the next day to have my gall bladder removed, they said that line wouldn't do for anesthesia, and finally put one in the side of my right hand at the base of my thumb, which is not at all comfortable.  And that took 2 specialized nurses 20 minutes to get working, contorting me into all sorts of positions to try and raise the veins - they were pretty annoyed. I was slightly terrified I was going to wake up mid-surgery, but it all went fine, thank goodness.  So I don't bother giving blood, though I'd really like to...I'd just be a pain to deal with.

[Readalot]

I had it posted...now I don't. Oh well. It's really pretty. :-D

:-( looking forward to seeing it if you can figure it out.

[Julia]

But people are *so* judgmental, especially if they find out I have to take meds. I've been accused of not wanting or loving my baby, jeopardizing her health for my convenience, etc. Or they ask why can't I just snap out of it and be happy?

 

With all the authority of someone who spent 36 hours in unmedicated Bradley labor with an almost ten pound child at 43 weeks, those people have no idea what they're talking about and I officially deputize you to tell them to go to hell (do not pass go, &c).

[NextIteration]

So I've still never been tested for certain and feel like a failure every time I see a blood drive.

 

As part of my lovely recent annual physical, I was told that it was "time" that I was going to be screened for Hep C, I was also told it is recommended that all of us of a certain age be screened.  Ask at your next annual!

 

I don't think you can put a photo in a post from your computer directly like you can upload a photo as an avatar - but if you upload it somewhere, like Flickr or Photobucket you can link to it.

 

Yay wanderwoman!  I'm so happy that you are both going and that you will be screened, you've been to hell and back and everyone is worthy of help, we have to get better about destigmatizing mental illness as a society.  To that end, not only am I blessed with chronic PTSD, I also have bipolar II, of the pediatric onset sort - chicken and egg maybe with being repeatedly molested when you think about the "kindling" concept attributed to bipolar, it's prevalent in my maternal family tree.  There, I said it out loud. :)  I was diagnosed when my youngest was about three, I am pretty amazed that with all I had on board I didn't suffer from any PPD.

 

...yes, I just came home from my biweelkly therapy session. ;)

Edited June 1, 2015 by NextIteration

[Happyfatchick]

Trying again, sorry.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/brtg8v6bjgg7goc/2015-05-29%2013.31.15.jpg?dl=0

Maybe if you tilt your head juuuuust right (like a puppy) and cross your fingers. Personally I'd rather eat virtual pound cake with strawberries than try to open a pic of some crazy person's birdhouse...

...and I think we have liftoff, even if you don't have Dropbox, just "x" out, the pic is behind the sign up stuff. Good Lord!!!

Edited June 1, 2015 by Happyfatchick

[Absolom]

The bird house is cute.  I think it's worth the trouble you went through to get to see it.  :)

Edited June 1, 2015 by Absolom

[Vaysh]

That looks absolutely charming Happyfatchick. Lovely details on the birdhouses and the flowers are gorgeous; I just love that intense nuance of red and pink. :)

[Seashell Lover]

Trying again, sorry.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/brtg8v6bjgg7goc/2015-05-29%2013.31.15.jpg?dl=0

Maybe if you tilt your head juuuuust right (like a puppy) and cross your fingers. Personally I'd rather eat virtual pound cake with strawberries than try to open a pic of some crazy person's birdhouse...

...and I think we have liftoff, even if you don't have Dropbox, just "x" out, the pic is behind the sign up stuff. Good Lord!!!

I really like that birdhouse.

[Readalot]

Hey Happy I love your darling birdhouses. Thanks for sharing.

[Micks Picks]

Happyfatchick I love the picture.  Thanks so much for posting it.

[Happyfatchick]

Awwwww, thank you all so much!!! Little Pat on the back for me, huh?

[fireice13]

happyfatchick  - if you were under the age of 11 when you had hepatitis you can give blood. It's only if you've had it over the age of 11 that you're permanently deferred.

 

The reason why they're so careful with infectious diseases is that there's some we can't test for like Creutzfeldt-Jacob (Mad Cow), Malaria (the test is too manual and time intensive to test blood donations), and Babesiosis are the ones off the top of my head. That's why travel history and family history is so important. Also there's a window period where new infections can't be picked up by testing. HIV is 9 days, so if somebody was infected in the past week and gave blood then it might not get picked up, but could infect a patient. Hepatitis C has the biggest window period of 12 weeks. 

[Happyfatchick]

Someone posted a screening I could get (and I was definitely under 11 when I "had" it).  Whoever posted that, would you maybe PM me?  I'd like to know that, seriously.  I read it but didn't write it down or anything smart like that...

 

ETA:  Never mind, I found it.  Sorry!

Edited June 1, 2015 by Happyfatchick

[wanderwoman]

Cute birdhouse!

[ChocolateAddict]

Being epileptic, I can't give blood until I can prove that I have been seizure-free for 3 years (it might be 5, I have to check).  And even then, it will depend on my medication :( which sucks because I've given blood before and wanted to keep going with it.  I'm not really sure how epilepsy relates to the blood given it is a neurological condition but I'm not a doctor.  

 

And I love the birdhouse! Very sweet!

[ginger90]

Way to stick with it, Happyfatchick ! It all looks lovely!! Your theme is great !

[bk10]

I just put some salmon in the oven and I'm supposed to go run a quick 1.5 miles while it cooks, but the weather has me feeling so lazy. It's a cold and rainy June 1st over here, so I'm procrastinating by posting here.

[Sew Sumi]

Do I have to join Dropbox to see the birdhouse? It's yet another account I'll never use again. :/ 

[Aethera]

Nope, you can just X out of that sign up box :)

[wanderwoman]

Oh. My. God.

Someone just go ahead and kill me now. My quads are burning. I tried putting Maisue in the frame pack and she's still to small. I put her in the front carrier and her O2 and the radio in my pack. She wasn't heavy the first mile! We planned to hike downhill on a really well traveled trail. I didn't want to be too far from help and it was fun to see how many people were in the valley today. Maisie did great. She fell asleep for the first hour. We stopped near an anemic creek and I put a blanket down so i could feed her and eat a snack. A couple from Belgium got a little turned around and needed to find their trail branch, so Maisie got her first lost hiker save- daddy was so proud. :) She was very awake and interested for the last hour. I need to figure out how to prevent her hearing aids from picking up the rustle of the Nylon on her carrier. She got fussy and I figured out that that sound was the problem by process of elimination. Oddly, she's fascinated by woodpecker noises and even loud speaking, but hates what I would consider to be background noise. The couple from Belgium were shocked she was four months old. They shared how they had their children hiking by age 2, I wished I could've picked their brain a little more. I have a date with some ibuprofen.

[Happyfatchick]

WW, I have ZERO background with hearing loss, except for my parents. My father was MORTALLY OFFENDED in his last days when he caught sight of the HOH sign above his bed. (He didn't know - couldn't HEAR me - telling the nursing staff to get in his face and yell if they needed his input...).

But what I DO remember, oddly enough, is that the "white" noises drove him north of crazy. In church, the sound of someone coughing quietly or rustling paper was SO distracting. Candy papers especially, the crinkly noise. There was no happy medium for him, that he could hear the sermon but NOT hear the unwanted noises. Everything came in at the same speed (so to speak). I'm thinking you're about to get a lifetime of education about noises you never noticed before in your life!

[fireice13]

I'm not an expert, but I remember reading articles about studies and how we take in so much information through our eyes and ears. Our brains learn to filter out what is important and what isn't important. Maybe now that Maisie can hear better and hear more things, her brain isn't filtering out the not important white noise or her brain thinks it's important? I'm sure getting the hearing aids now though will help tremendously for her developing brain.

Edited June 2, 2015 by fireice13

[GEML]

It's not linked to hearing loss, but those of us who have dealt with a child with sensory issues share your dilemma. Many of us had children who have sensory input that comes in unfiltered, including sounds. It takes the child years to learn how to "listen" which isn't the same as "hearing." Good luck!

[amitville]

Oh. My. God.

Someone just go ahead and kill me now. My quads are burning. I tried putting Maisue in the frame pack and she's still to small. I put her in the front carrier and her O2 and the radio in my pack. She wasn't heavy the first mile! We planned to hike downhill on a really well traveled trail. I didn't want to be too far from help and it was fun to see how many people were in the valley today. Maisie did great. She fell asleep for the first hour. We stopped near an anemic creek and I put a blanket down so i could feed her and eat a snack. A couple from Belgium got a little turned around and needed to find their trail branch, so Maisie got her first lost hiker save- daddy was so proud. :) She was very awake and interested for the last hour. I need to figure out how to prevent her hearing aids from picking up the rustle of the Nylon on her carrier. She got fussy and I figured out that that sound was the problem by process of elimination. Oddly, she's fascinated by woodpecker noises and even loud speaking, but hates what I would consider to be background noise. The couple from Belgium were shocked she was four months old. They shared how they had their children hiking by age 2, I wished I could've picked their brain a little more. I have a date with some ibuprofen.

Thank you for sharing i i love to start the day with a smile. Ffhugs kisses, & plenty of Love to you Hubby and our Maisie

Edited June 2, 2015 by amitville

[Westiepeach]

Well, I have been really sick the past few days and I've been taking a lot of NyQuil to get me through. NyQuil gives me really, REALLY funky dreams. Last night I dreamed I was in a courtship with a Duggar. Not sure which one ... might even have been DerickDillardDuggar. Side hugs and everything. Now I am afraid to go to sleep ...

[Bella]

Some of the mods have been having 19 Kids forum-moderating dreams without the benefit of NyQuil. In mine, I argued with JimBob about what I was doing and had to keep pushing him away from my computer.

[wanderwoman]

Well, I have been really sick the past few days and I've been taking a lot of NyQuil to get me through. NyQuil gives me really, REALLY funky dreams. Last night I dreamed I was in a courtship with a Duggar. Not sure which one ... might even have been DerickDillardDuggar. Side hugs and everything. Now I am afraid to go to sleep ...

Isn't that the strangest thing? When I was s in the hospital after losing Maisie's brother, they gave me a sedative and something called promethazine for nausea and I had the most insane dreams. Like you, I had a Duggars dream. I dreamt that I was the kids homeschool teacher.

About the white noise. I spoke to the audiologist and he said it's common for very young children to suffer from this type of adjustment. He suggested I do nothing except gradually let her get used to the noises and said, if it persists, we might be dealing with a sensory issue (which some of you mentioned). I had my therapy meeting. I think it went well despite me crying the whole session. Will talk more later.

[questionfear]

Oh no, Duggar dreams are the WORST. I had a week once where I had a Duggar dream nightly. Every one was a variation of the Stink Bus coming to my house and staying with us, and my wife explaining that the Duggars were distant cousins and we had to let them crash.

 

By the third variation (one in which Jim Bob and I were arguing over the shower while I only had on a towel) my darling wife assured me that she did not have any Duggars in her family tree, and that being an interfaith lesbian couple raising a child pretty much guaranteed the Duggars would never visit us.

 

I hope all of you having Duggar dreams get someone to inject some reason into your subconscious before the dreams get worse!

[Jordan Baker]

A few weeks ago (I think this was just before the scandal broke), I awoke from a dream in which I was trying to figure out how Bruce Jenner was related to Josie. I have NO idea where that came from . . .

[barbedwire]

Well, I have been really sick the past few days and I've been taking a lot of NyQuil to get me through. NyQuil gives me really, REALLY funky dreams. Last night I dreamed I was in a courtship with a Duggar. Not sure which one ... might even have been DerickDillardDuggar. Side hugs and everything. Now I am afraid to go to sleep ...

LOL!  I too would be afraid to go to sleep.

[Readalot]

About a month or so ago I drempt that I was planning a party for them (no I dont want to be Sierra!) and I had to use the family for help. But I couldn't talk to any of the boys and had to go through Jill for everything including rules interpretation as the rules kept changing. But she kept blowing me off. Then the boys kept taking to me but I could respond so they thought I was crazy. And nothing got done. And I think it's funny now that in his dream I did everything possible to not have to talk to Bitchelle or DickBob. What a nightmare.

[Jellybeans]

wanderwoman, I hate white noise. It is at the same "loudness level" as regular noise. Who wants to listen to a newspaper page turning or a computer fan hours on end?

She will learn to tune it out. Me, I have to ask for programming to filter out those sounds lol.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Jellybeans

[Happyfatchick]

I don't think it was a dream - I'm an insomniac, so sometimes dreams happen when I'm fully awake. But I was behind a bus yesterday that had a metal grate between the driver and passengers, and I wondered if the Duggarbus has one of those.

[Wellfleet]

Well, I have been really sick the past few days and I've been taking a lot of NyQuil to get me through. NyQuil gives me really, REALLY funky dreams. Last night I dreamed I was in a courtship with a Duggar. Not sure which one ... might even have been DerickDillardDuggar. Side hugs and everything. Now I am afraid to go to sleep ...

 

Maybe this was just a matter of time, but I also had a Duggar dream last night. Jill came to stay with us in my childhood home. She was about 20 and asked the 15-year old or so Me how to operate the vacuum cleaner. That's it. Twas weird...

[lookeyloo]

Wanderwoman, just adding to the "attagirls" you have been receiving on getting help for yourself.  And, about the crying, well for my first session with my very first therapist ever, after going through a (to me) horrendous situation, I cried so much over the first months of my sessions, that I thought she was going to add on a "tissue charge".    Picture it.  Me surrounded by piles of wet tissues, just sobbing.  But that therapist helped me in so many ways that still resonate and this was a long time ago.  I've been back to her when I had another horrendous (to me) situation to deal with.  Not as many tissues used, and came away with more lessons and able to go on with my life.  So I am a big proponent of therapy with the right people.  Not the Duggar variety, haha.

[Mrsjumbo]

Wanderwoman, my ds3 is 9 & has sensory issues. He wears noise cancelling headphones to bed to quiet thevworld's noise. It took awhile for us to figure out why he went to bed with his hands over his ears every night. He also seems to have supersonic hearing- he will cover his ears seconds before I will hear a police siren, for example. When he was younger I remember him lying down screaming with his hands over his ears on the burning asphalt of the grocery store parking lot, all because a police car with siren blaring drove nearby. He can handle kids playing on the playground with no problem, but put those same kids on a lunchroom & the voices must echo because he has to wear headphones there too. It's been a real learning process. At least now he's old enough to tell us he needs the noise cancelling headphones.

[ChocolateAddict]

I have also had a strange Duggar dream! For some reason, I was "courting" a Duggar boy who had absolutely NO personality, so it really could have been any of them, lol.  I remember that I was wearing a below-knee length skirt and Jim-Boob was telling me that it was immodest and that I had to go put on a maxi-skirt.  Anyway, I ended up being proposed to by the Duggar guy in question and there was a TV exec who told me that I had to say yes and I ended up crying because there was no way in hell I wanted to be a Duggar housewife.   And then I got kicked out of the TTH and was deliriously happy.  

 

Actually, it was more of a nightmare than a dream, hahaha.  

[Jynnan tonnix]

Not Duggar related, but, Wanderwoman, I recall having that same medication for nausea some years ago, and it gave me the scariest, most hallucinatory dream...Every time I dozed off, I would feel as though some demonic entity had me by the ankles and was dragging me off the end of the bed and onto the floor. I'd wake up, reassure myself that it was just a dream and I was still in the same place, then as soon as I drifted off again (the meds also made me really groggy, else I probably would have been too scared to close my eyes), I'd feel those hands gripping my ankles again, and the slow, inexorable tug down the bed to the floor. A couple of times it almost got me out of the bedroom door before I woke back up. Most frightening dream ever. It was over 20 years ago and I still remember it vividly. Not sure that any amount of nausea and/or vomiting would convince me to take it again!

[Mrsjumbo]

Wow Jynnan tonic, that sounds so frightening!

I know with "ICU psychosis" when you are in ICU too long you can start to hallucinate. Many people report seeing demons. My mom saw Charles Barkley & also talked to our old parish priest who had been dead for 20 yrs.

[Micks Picks]

Stop with these dreams already.  I'm afraid I might be suggestible and have some similar dreams and it scares me.  Demons and Duggars, oh my!   Please no.  I have to think of something else.

[Sew Sumi]

Demons, Duggars, and CHARLES BARKLEY! Yikes guys! 

[ramble]

I've been having really funky dreams the past 3-4 nights that wake me up multiple times a night. I've intentionally backed off reading Duggar info as much as I was so I can't blame them unfortunately. It must be my weird brain entertaining me in its own unique way.

My oldest, who is a teen now, still deals with some sensory issues. She needs seamless toe socks, the tags cut out of everything, nothing lacy or that might itch or rub & nothing too binding or stiff. It's a bit frustrating but it's what we do. School uniforms were a bit of a challenge but we've figured it out.

Happy the birdhouse was lovely. Thanks for sharing. I used to have several birdhouses that I enjoyed, but due to the fact that I associate them with the son of satan that I dated for a few years I got rid of them. Looking at them caused me to revisit the fear & feel far too many of those negative emotions. Someday I hope to reclaim birds as one of my interests. I think I'm about a quarter of the way there so yea!

[NextIteration]

Auditory Figure-Ground Discrimination, the inability to distinguish important sound in a noisy situation, one of my children with a list of labels including sensory integration disorder was at 25% for this.  Could "hear" the fluorescent lights at school - would come home daily and fall apart after compensating all day long.  I can't imagine being an infant adjusting to this, so glad that Maisie is coping somewhat!  You'll get the hearing aid adjustments down and her brain will continue to make sense of things.

 

As to all the rest, I had to back off these parts for a day, but thank goodness I don't dream of Duggars!

[GEML]

There are actually some you tube videos out there done by people with sensory integration issues that give us a glimpse into how their world sounds. I'm betting there are also some with implants and the adjustment periods, I just never had reason to look. It's really eye opening just how much sound is out there around us at any given time, but our brain screens out for us.

[Seashell Lover]

I thought I was down with homework :) The oldest one was tested at a 3rd grade level and the youngest tested at kindergarten level. So for half the summer the 4th grade teacher who is tutoring him will be with him and the last part of summer the 5th grade teacher will help him so when school starts in August he will be ready for 6th grade where he belongs and the youngest will have a kindergarten teacher helping him so he will be ready for 1st. grade.  

[wanderwoman]

Therapy was really exhausting. I cried like I haven't cried in a long time. It felt good, in an incredibly illogical way. What was shocking was the anger that came out. I won't go too deep into it, but: I was angry about Maisie's transfer gone wrong, angry about the loss of our son...

I haven't gone into much detail about our boy. He was around 21 weeks. When we lost him, he weighed just under a pound. We didn't do an autopsy or anything and I regret that we didn't mark his passing in a significant way. We were so focused on keeping Maisie in. I know that losing him made me appreciate my baby girl and her struggle all the more. But, it still hurts. The therapist agrees with my self assessment of PTSD, although I wouldn't dare compare myself to war heroes or othef, more horrible events. I started a medication that will hopefully help and its okay to breastfeed with it. I will see the therapist for the foreseeable future. But, I want to thank you for being my internet therapists and support. It has meant the world to me.