Cha-cha-cha-Changes!!!!!!

I love fall weather. It has been much cooler here the past few days and I am lovin' it! The kids have pryed themselves away from the video games to play outside with their friends, and I feel like I want to open all my windows and clean my house! (I said feel like, let's not get too crazy now!) I am starting to come down off the crazy juice and though my new meds are making me sleep alot, it is a welcome change from feeling like I'm on legal speed.

Saturday night I went to the temple with my sister Sarah. It was a really good and much-needed experience. We kept talking about how we didn't want to leave the peaceful feeling we felt there but my intense, ever-growing craving for a burrito got us up and on the road. (But not before a sweet sister who happened to know me and my scatter-brained ways had to search the laundrey room for fifteen minutes for my recommend that went down the laundrey chute in the pocket of my dress!)

Then, Sunday was our Primary Program. I love those kids so stinkin' much! They are so beautiful and wonderful and flawless in all their flaws! They make me feel loved no matter how much I'm hatin' on myself! Could there be a better calling than in Primary? I think not!

I feel like change is in the air. Not just me getting well, er-- I mean well-medicated (there is a difference! But perfection is not the goal here!) But inner changes too. I know the Lord is willing to take me as far and high as I'll let him. Here's to me letting him. Finally!

"I can explain!!!!!"

Okay, so I guess my last post was a departure for me and I gave no explanation for the PG-13 images. It's never fun to be on the outside of an inside joke so forgive me. I was simultaneously laughing at and crying for myself because of a choice experience I had. I wont share all the sordid details because trust me, you don't want to know. (And if you decide you really want to know, ask me and I'll tell you in person.)
In my quest to live a whole and happy life I tend to be stuck in a cycle. It goes like this:
1)Struggle, struggle, struggle with real feelings of anxiety and obsessive-compulsiveness.
2)Realize I'm like a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest trying to handle it on my own.
3)Seek help from a licensed professional.
4)Start taking meds.
5)Start experiencing difficult side-effects from the meds.
6)Begin wondering if the way I was living is better or worse than the side effects that are now becoming almost unbearable.
7)Go off the meds.
8)Begin again.
Okay, so that's the cycle. Only this time I did something different. With a shred of hope and a lot of prayer I stopped at step 6 and did not allow myself to go to step 7. And let me just say that side-effects are one thing, but having an actual BAD and I mean BAD reaction to a drug is a whole nutha ball game! I was insane! I cannot even begin to make you understand! The meds I was on were making me nuts! And every time I'd call the psych. to move my next appt up they were unable. (I know! Don't they know they're dealing with crazy people! Make it happen!)
So, I just kept swallowing the very thing I knew was making me crazy, morning after morning. But somewhere deep down in my spirit (not easy to tap into when you're dealing with a deranged brain!) I knew this was all part of the Lord's plan to get me well.
So, one night I had a massive meltdown. I threw (and I mean, hurled!) an Ensign magazine (of all things! It may as well have been a book about eternal marriage!) at my poor unsuspecting husband. I got in my car and I began to drive and SCREAM! I know much better than to scream AT the Lord but I knew he could hear me, and it was all for him. "I cannot do this! What is the freakin' problem! Am I really asking for that much? All I want is to have a fighting chance! I'm not asking for fancy, just NORMAL! I'm not trying to rule the world, just be a half-decent wife and mother and maybe along the way glean a little joy from it! I don't understand why I cannot catch a break! I guess I'm not worth helping! Maybe this is as good as it gets for me! Maybe that's as much as I deserve! So ya know what? I quit! I totally quit! If I'm working twice as hard to make good choices and I don't even get to feel joy then I'm done! Maybe the other things aren't right but at least they bring some temporary relief! I mean, if I don't get to feel happiness either way, at least I can feel some relief!* (the hatchet picture does not apply to this part of the scenario. Neither do the pullups or cupcake)
So I am driving around at 1:30 a.m., shrieking, tears streaming, eyes bulging and neck veins pulsating like the Hulk. I am feeling like about the lowest most worthless creature the Lord ever bothered giving a body to. Meanwhile, my rant has taken me from my own jipped existence to the perfect lives of everyone around me (but it's still all about me, I'm sure you got that). So I'm screaming about the ease I see in the lives of those around me. I'm siting specific examples of whose got what I ain't got and now I'm really cookin'! I've got a full-blown pity party goin' and no one is invited but me! That way no one can talk any sense into me and take away my fun! So I finish it all off by directing only one comment upward. "Lord, why don't you just throw a few more sprinkles on everyone elses' cupcake for me!"
With that, I returned home, snuck into my sleeping house, wished I had some good drugs for my headache!--and went to sleep!
Well, so that's not the end of this story. The final step in the vicious, previously-mentioned cycle is not: Have a nervous breakdown, put on a straight-jacket and live unhappily ever after!
I returned to the doc and relayed all of the insanity to him. My bad reaction to the one medication helped tell him a lot more about what I really should be taking. He immediately took me off the crazy juice and prescribed me some totally different stuff which I am currently taking. It will, of course, take time to get everything streamlined (right dose, right time of day, etc. etc.)but it is already getting better. And I know without a doubt that the Hulk stuff was necessary to lead me to a more complete and proper diagnosis than I have ever been able to obtain in all my past attempts to get relief. Oh and get this! My new meds cost $32 and the other ones were like $200!
It's so funny how the Lord works. While I was screaming about how there were no sprinkles on my cupcake, he was busy building me a bakery! Yeah, I feel humbled. God is good. He is really good.




*If Bishop Jones comes-a-knockin' at my door, this blog will become invite only! I ain't even playin'!

This is for my sisters..Crank up the volume!!!

The French-Fry guy

Meet Harris Benjamin Pabst. Sometimes we call him Harry-B, but he would like to go down in history as the French Fry guy. He loves loves loves all things super hero but more than that he loves fried potatoes in all their many forms. He is absolutely obsessed with tator tots, hashbrowns, and most of all french fries. So much so that my mom created a book for him in which he gets to be a tator-tot shooting hero known as the French-Fry guy! But his real-life hero is my younger brother Jon. Harris wants to be just like him in every way. He's off to a great start too because he is totally into television, video games, eating his favorite foods and always sounding sarcastic and/or (sorry Jon!) irritated. We have to constantly talk about using a "nice, soft" way to talk to others because he is generally annoyed with anyone approaching him with anything but a french fry. His real-life super power is asking questions. He can (and does!) ask the same question a thousand different ways all the while applying his keen powers of persistence to wear you down and get what he wants. One time, he got a couple of dollars from his Papaw with which to buy some French fries for his birthday. He immediately began asking me,"When can we go get french fries? Can we get some french fries now? How many more minutes til' we go get french fries?" Frustrated I said, "Harris, do not ask me about those french fries one more time!" A few minutes later he approached, asking if he could tell me a joke. Here's the joke. Knock, knock. Whose there? Can we go get some french fries?
Harris was born with spina bifida (a hole in his spinal cord) and so he has required and will continue to require lots of what I call "medical maintenance"". He has had 8 surgeries in his short life (only 4 were more than outpatient procedures) the most recent being the most remarkable. He had an eight hour surgery last November to allow him to catheterize himself through his belly button (crazy-I know!) and clean out his bowel each night so now he can stay clean and dry throughout the day. Children with spina bifida always have major issues with bladder/bowel because the nerves on the spine that control this function are damaged and they can't feel what we feel. He has done well with this surgery-- a big part of our ongoing movement toward independence. He wears AFO braces on his legs but walks really well even without them and he has a VP shunt (small catheter-like drain inserted in his brain ventricle beneath his skull) to drain fluid off his brain. Sorry to give you lots of medical mumbo jumbo but it's hard to explain Harris without explaining Spina Bifida. It by no means defines him but it affects most aspects of his life. Having him in our family stretches us and teaches us on a daily basis and we feel blessed to have this "super"-hero in our midst!