September: Mundane and Meaningful Autumnal Reflections

March 2022: I joined restart with a group of 6 amazing women and embarked on a sugar detox journy.

Little did I know this journey was about far more than physical health. It was a pathway to friendships and an avenue for delving deeper into my personal path of growth and discovery. Those words do not even adequately describe this experience.

May 2022: This same group of amazing women signed up for Positive Intelligence with our fearless leader. Beyond nutrition, we immersed ourselves in understanding the messages we tell ourselves. The positive and negative messages and how they have served us and a new path towards healing.

July 2022: Four of us chose to continue to work with the woman who first brought us together with Restart which includes weekly zoom meet-ups and daily check-ins using the Marco Polo app and a text thread. Never before have I participated with the same group of people for this length of time on a deep emotional level of connection.

August 2022: I chose to shift my food choices once again to clear myself of sugar and foods that don’t serve me. It felt so much easier this time, in part because I had learned new skills and had continued at least 50% of the time with a new way of eating and looking at food.

It is now September and I am finally seeing the reward for my efforts. I feel better in my clothing and have more energy than I have felt in a long time. I start each day, or most days, more eager to engage in my life. Only one month ago, I had a goal to walk 30 minutes 3 1/2 times per week and I have now walked 7 of the past 9 days, almost an hour and over 5000 steps each time !

I began this blog 12 years ago. My first post was published August 28, 2010. My mind instantly goes to the ages of my children at that time. My greatest role in life is being a mom. Rather than resist the thought, I will embrace it. My son was 12 years old and approaching his 13th birthday. My middle child 8 and my youngest just 19 months old. We were a busy home/unschooling family meeting up weekly with our homeschool group and participating in numerous events and activities. I had returned to work part time that early that year due to my husband’s job loss in the summer of 2008.

I created Child-led Learning with my first blog post in May of 2013 now, further along in our home/unschool journey and with many conferences behind me including multiple times serving as a presenter. My kids now ages 15, 11 and 4. At the age of 43, I began focusing my writing on what had become my biggest passion, learning through living. That title was already taken and so I chose Child-led Learning for my blog as I feel my children have led me in my own journey of personal growth and knowledge. And I have followed their interests to further facilitate their journey of educational growth and enrichment. These concepts along with allowing them freedom of choice including how they spent their time, created a unique learning experience for each of them and for myself. For each of them, day to day life has looked different and also very different from the schedule created by traditional school.

I am a writer.

Writing is my path and my passion. I feel compelled to write and share my thoughts, reflections and experiences. I write for myself and believe that if it helps even one person on their journey then it has been worth sharing. I also share my writing to put myself out there and break out of the negative mindset of feeling invisible. I remember the first time I took that big step out of my comfort zone by selecting, publish.

Stepping further back in time, I launched Charlotte Homeschooling.com 14 years ago. So much has happened in 14 years, in nearly 53 years of life, and also over the past 6 months.

September, the start of autumn. The leaves fall off the trees in the northern hemisphere and as the cycle of plant life winds down, many people begin a new school year.

My personal mental health journey and struggles with bipolar depression have not followed a time rhythm, not in duration of each phase nor in correspondence with the climate seasons. My ups and downs have been created as life challenges have placed themself before me and how I have responded to them. I have often risen to the occasion with a big life challenge and then months later have found myself drained and depleted by the experience. Other times, I have become overwhelmed during a challenge and have fallen further as I felt disappointment in myself for not responding more effectively. I see too how there are times when I have created a more desirable path for myself. When I engage fully in my joy it further elevates my consciousness and allows me to find the positives in any given situation.

On October 15th of 1969, almost 53 years ago, my consciousness emerged into this physical world in a 10 lb, 7 oz package. I believe from a spiritual perspective, that I chose October 15 to emerge into the physical world as a declaration of my intentions and truth. My mother always told me it was world peace day, decided that very year during the Vietnam War. My research lead me to learn about the Moratorium to end the Vietnam War which was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the US involvement in the Vietnam War. This event took place on October 15, 1969 and was followed a month later by a large Moratorium March in Washington, DC where over a quarter of a million people gathered and then marched down Pennsylvania Avenue bearing candles and led by Coretta Scott King.

As I reflect not only on this world famous momentous occasion, but also the at times mundane yet meaningful experiences of my person life, I feel a divine connection and a calling to continue to speak my truth and to share it with the world.

Parenting Ourselves

I feel my own journey of growth and development has been led by my children who are now 24, 19 and 12. I look at those numbers and it baffles me that I have two adult children!

I created my blog, “Child-led Learning” for the purpose of focusing on my journey home/ unschooling my children. Many times, I feel my posts belong on both of my sites.

I envisioned a website years ago as I was first writing on parenting and homeschooling. The tile involved my son’s love of road signs,

“Mommy, Daddy, STOP: Parenting our children, our parents and ourselves”

I have reached the stage in my life where I have elderly parents and at the same time have two dependent children, ages 12 and 19. Both children have anxiety disorders. In addition, I work in adult and geriatric rehabilitation as an Occupational Therapist and my husband has heart disease. What does all that mean? It is recipe for quick caregiver burnout.

As an unschooling parent, I see learning and parenting as one in the same. In the early years of our homeschool journey, I defined time spent on typical school subjects as “Academic Time”. Even before I identified as an Unschooler, I saw learning as part of our life and had no desire to recreate school at home and did not call time spent facilitating my children’s education as “school”. No judgments here, everyone does what works for them. I share and describe my experience both for my own benefit as well as to offer thoughts and ideas for others on their journey as parents.

Today I would like to speak to the caregiving aspect of parenting. And when I speak about caregiving, it is all encompassing for me as I mentioned above.

My immediate family has mental health challenges. I have two children who have suffered with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder along with generalized anxiety and I have Bipolar 2 disorder which involves swings from hypomania to significant depression. As an adult with mental illness, I need to be my own self caregiver. All of us need to be in charge of our health and especially our mental health. The time spent on your own mental health is magnified with depression and other disorders. Juggling my own issues along with finding help for my children has created compounding challenges in my life. I have always had the desire to get help for my children yet when depression grabs hold of me, finding the energy to seek our care for my children has slowed the process of getting the help for them. I aim to forgive myself for mistakes and remind myself that I am doing the best that I can in each moment. Yet, during those times when I wanted to get them help but failed to follow through on phone calls and researching options, my inability to follow through only added to my depression.

“Put your own oxygen mask on before you help the person next to you.”

Based on what I have written above, you might think that I put all others first and have spent little time on myself. Yet, I have taken much time for self care over the years, yet depression still grabs hold of me. When I have been most depressed, I still get up and even go to work in the nursing home and make sure my children get fed and I shower. Somewhere there is this idea that significant depression looks like not showering or staying in bed all day. For some, this is surely the case. Does this mean my depression has not been severe? I write that and realize there is no reason to compare my depression to that of others. For me, it was the media portrayal of depression and this idea of doing nothing that kept me from recognizing the severity of my own depression. I think I first realized it after I came crashing down after a long hypomanic period. A good friend helped me to see it as well and had a talk with me suggesting I get help. That was 7 years ago.

Over the years even before that moment, I have taken time for myself including much time spent working with an EFT practitioner and being part of a group for self empowerment, healing and “taming my ego”, the part of us that keeps us from moving forward in our life, our inner critic. I have journaled and had weekly nights out of the house for time to myself. I have read numerous self help books. I learned Reike and completed level 1 and level 2 trainings along with a group of wonderful homeschooling moms. We got together and had “Reike Play Days” where our kids hung out and we practiced our Reike skills, helping each other.

Despite all of this, I have struggled with depression. I have taken many herbals, supplements and homeopathic remedies along with changing my diet. All these things have certainly helped me. Maybe the reason I did not sink to the level of not getting out of bed for days, is because of all the things I have done to help myself.

I worked with a nutritional specialist, her actual title evades me right now. Yet, it wasn’t enough for me and so I went to a psychiatrist with the realization that maybe I needed to take medication to help move me forward. The first medication I took led me to hypomania bordering on mania and I soon realized I had many of the side effects of the medication including a racing heart beat. I went off that medication at the recommendation of the psychiatrist and was also taking another medicine which I found in a more natural form. I almost forgot about that medicine and I cannot recall the name.

I was good for a few months….

Depression creeps up on me which makes it harder for me to see. My energy level slowly drops, causing me to stop things like journaling and exercising and my desire to do anything slowly lessons. It takes a few months before I find myself at the low point wondering how I did not realize this was happening or thinking that my low point was past me, only to sink further.

I found a new psychiatrist and tried a new antidepressant, an SSRI. I suggested to the doctor that I try prozac because it was working for my daughter’s OCD and so maybe that would be a better genetic fit for me. Again, it helped for a while and then I rose to hypermedia, bordering on mania, only to come crashing down again. I had discussions with my brother over the years because he too had similar experiences. I remember him telling me he didn’t like how the antidepressants affected him and was choosing to ride out his ups and downs. I liked this idea, yet it wasn’t working for me. My family was suffering because of my depression and I was struggling to get my kids the help they needed because of my struggles.

My brother started taking mood stabilizer and he shared this with me. I was reluctant for a while at the idea of that. I like my up periods, my hypermedia helped me accomplish so much. Hyper-mania is not full blown mania. You are super productive and have a lot of energy. I accomplished so many things in my times of hyper-mania. I did not want to eliminate my ups and downs but I certainly wanted to minimize my low periods.

I didn’t really like the psychiatrist I was seeing and so I found a new one. With the help of this psychiatrist, I decided to start on a mood stabilizer and she agreed that because it worked for my brother, it might be a good fit for me. It is also one that has minimal side effects compared to other mood stabilizers. Several other medications can cause weight gain which was something I did not want as I already struggled some with my weight. Like my emotional ups and downs, my weight would fluctuate with me. This was another reason that I enjoyed my hypomanic times, I lost weight and so felt better physically! Who wouldn’t like that?

It took many months of adjusting the dose to find the right fit for me and I remained on a low dose of prozac as well. At one point, I felt like I might be going into hypomania again and so I stopped the prozac. My psychiatrist was on maternity leave at this time and so I was messaging one of her colleagues. It turned out that wasn’t the best idea.

I have now been on 150 mg of lamotrigine (Lamictal) and 10 mg of fluoxetine (Prozac) for almost two years.

I share my medications as a part of sharing my journey. I am in no way endorsing any medications nor making any recommendations for medication. Please speak with your health care professionals.

I have been on a journey of natural health and healing for my mind and body. I was cleaning my diet and reducing additives and chemicals. For this reason, I was very reluctant to begin any medication. I know medications can have side effects and long term consequences. I turned to medication for my daughter’s OCD only after trying many different alternative treatments.

Sometimes, western medicine is necessary.

I learned this message first hand when my husband suffered a nearly fatal heart attack.

I sit here today, looking back on my journey and honoring the process. I still have swings of mood and energy which for me last several months, yet I feel that I am far more functional even in my low periods. My current psychiatrist, my third one I tried, draws on her white board when I go in to see her making waves and talks about reducing the amplitude of the waves. She also stated that most people on a mood stabilizer find them selves just below the midline point. We talked about how just above midline is wonderful and we all would like to stay there yet the reality is the higher you ascend, the lower you fall.

Looking over the past two years, I can see that I have been able to have periods above the midline, what some might call hypomania or for me, feeling like the real me. And as of this point, December 2021, I feel better and more functional than I have in years. I first saw this in March of 2020 when I went to the beach by myself, a second time experience for me. I was energized by that trip and started using Noom and lost weight and overall was doing well until about mid to late summer.

For me, my ups and downs do not correspond with the time of year but typically are 3-4 month periods of time. I was frustrated at my low period and yet felt I was doing much better than any prior low periods. I am currently feeling and doing great having more energy and following through on things. I worry whenever I am in this more functional place that I will slip into hypomania and have trouble differentiating functional well from hypomania.

Is there a difference?

I am aware now of this issue. I am tuned in to my emotions and my mental health on a much deeper level now more than I have ever been. I recognize that I can not plow forward sleeping only 6 hours a night and continue to function at that level. I also feel more level in that I don’t find myself in that pattern. I have a few days of super energy and productivity and then have a day where I need to lay low and rest.

I am trying to describe my experience in a way that you, the reader, can see this clearly. I am sure I am over explaining and realize that only I can truly understand my own experience. We can never expect others to fully understand our own experience because it is uniquely ours.

May you find your own path on your journey. As always, if my experience helps even one other person, publishing my writing serves my purpose. Open document settingsOpen publish panel

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Today: May 17, 2020

My office

It’s taken me 5 months to sit down and write again. I have created this cozy coffee house writing space in my basement. I have everything I need, a comfortable chair, my ipad and Bluetooth keyboard, iPhone and wireless earbuds. Water is heating in the tea kettle on the stove so that I can make a chai tea latte.

My cats run and play. Shadow darts down the stairs and jumps in to the hammock we created, hiding from his sister, ready to pounce when she returns. Sunshine is no where to be found…

Life ebbs and flows

March 26 the governor declared a state of emergency and issued a shelter in place order. The corona virus had arrived in the US and fear set in across the country. The virus was spreading rapidly and people were dying. COVID 19 became a daily headline.

I suddenly had increased hours at the nursing home where I work on an as needed basis. The following weeks, I had no hours. The facility locked down, limiting new admissions, limiting the therapy caseload, limiting the need for additional therapists.

Hope

I discovered that even part time employees can collect unemployment. New federal funding and orders also now made it easier for individuals to receive unemployment due to reduced hours from corona virus. It was not so easy to get an account set up but a week later, I had one and then waited. Four weeks later, I received my first unemployment check and then I figured out how the system worked and what was required to qualify for unemployment each week. Every state has different requirements and different maximum weekly distributions. NC is one of the lowest.

North Caroline is beautiful with mountains and beaches and bass-ackwards when it comes to government programs and policies

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Life will never be the same

We hear this phrase often now. I have said or thought this many times in my life during the many challenges my family has experienced. Yet, each day is a new experience and so the happenings of the prior day, render life Different.

I am both saddened and amused seeing adds on tv showing people connecting more… Parents teaching children at home, parents working from home, families spending more time together. I shake my head and wonder why it has taken a pandemic to get people to prioritize relationships and spend more time connecting.

My family has lived this way for a long time. My husband works from home and has since we decided to start a family. We have been homeschooling our children their entire lives. My husband and I have been growing a business together helping families… to connect.

Connection. And Balance

I have friends on both sides of the fence. Regarding this pandemic and government regulations and controls. We want to protect people and reduce deaths and we want the freedom to live our life. The dichotomy has contributed to the divisiveness that has been growing in the US. My personal.belief encompass both philosophies. And I wonder, why does it have to be one way or the other?

Some might say, you can’t have both.

I am hear to challenge the idea that we have to be on the side of Personal freedoms OR on the side of saving lives.

I have been concerned from day One about restrictions. I work with the elderly and confining them to their room in a nursing home or an assisted living facility can have a negative impact on their health. And keeping seniors in their homes can be detrimental to their health. Yet, these are the very people who are most at risk for complications from the virus and who suffer a higher mortality rate.

Are we merely delaying the inevitable spread of this disease?

I believe in boosting our natural immune system to fight illness and maintain health. The naturopathic medicine philosophy has been a part of my life and my immediate family for many years. Breastfeeding is the best way to begin building our immune system and far more effective than any vaccine. My younger two children never had an ear infection. I have been so much healthier since embracing this philosophy, including improving my diet and using foods to boost my immune system.

How do we allow for the freedom to live our life and protect the vulnerable population, minimize their risk for serious illness and death.

If we all followed a naturopathy philosophy of health, would a quarantine be necessary? Allowing personal freedoms means allowing people to make their own choices when it comes to their health, even if it means they choose things that diminish their physical health. We all choose things that are not in our best interests at some time in our life. We are human and living in this physical experience.

What if we looked at this pandemic from a spiritual perspective?

I think we might label it in a different way then by calling it a pandemic. From a spiritual perspective we could refer to this time as…

The time we became so wrapped into our physical expression of our body that we both lost sight of our higher purpose and also reconnected with our inner selves

It needs a shorter title, or does it?

We live in a culture of quick fixes, instant responses and fear inducing headlines.

From a spiritual perspective, I can see that I still have the freedom to live and be who I am even within the restrictions on entering the community. I can be my true self despite the government regulations and control. Yet, when I think of parenting and raising children, I see it differently. As adults, this is only a small period of time in our life but for our children, this is their childhood. How they experience life has an impact on how they develop and limiting their experiences can have a detrimental affect on their mental health.

Any drastic change, sudden change or disruption to our routine can have a detrimental affect on our mental health, for all of us, no matter our age. It can and does also impact our physical health as well as our mental health in a cyclical manner.

I invite you to share your perspective. I challenge you to find a blending of the needs of personal freedoms and protecting the vulnerable. Please share. I would love to revisit this idea with the input from others. Respond in comments or feel free to private message me if you prefer to be anonymous.

I leave you with these thought provoking lyrics as you contemplate. These words are even more powerful listening to Kenny Loggins sing them:

Where are the dreams that we once had?
This is the time to bring them back.
What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues?
Do we forget or forgive?
There’s a whole other life waiting to be lived when…
One day we’re brave enough
To talk with Conviction of the Heart.
And down your streets I’ve walked alone,
As if my feet were not my own
Such is the path I chose, doors I have opened and closed
I’m tired of living this life,
Fooling myself, believing we’re right, when…
I’ve never given love
With any Conviction of the Heart
One with the earth, with the sky
One with everything in life
I believe we’ll survive
If we only try…
How long must we wait to change
This world bound in chains that we live in
To know what it is to forgive,
And be forgiven?
It’s been too many years of taking now.
Isn’t it time to stop somehow?
Air that’s too angry to breathe, water our children can’t drink
You’ve heard it hundreds of times
You say your aware, believe, and you care, but…
Do you care enough
To talk with Conviction of the Heart?

Many thanks to Bob Dylan, Kenny Loggins, Azlyrics, YouTube, and to all of you who read and share my posts.

December 4, 2019

Five weeks ago I was sitting in a hospital room waiting on results.

Five weeks ago my concern was that they were going to send my husband home from the hospital with no answers.

I left the hospital that morning to take my youngest to a therapy appointment.

I did not know I would return to find out he had failed his stress test.

I did not know the critical care ambulance would be driving him to the main hospital.

To Presbyterian main where he spent 12 days recovering from his heart attack 8 years earlier.

I did not know he would undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery, CABG,

Open heart surgery

On November 1,2019, my husband had open heart surgery

His heart was exposed

His heart was stopped, his lungs were deflated, he was intubated and put on a heart and lung machine while they replaced his clogged arteries

The arteries that supply blood to his heart so that the heart can beat

So the heart can beat and send blood to the lungs and to the body

So he can live

Genetics,

And stress

Stress

Stress can wreak havoc on the body

He does not look like a man with heart disease

He never has

He is tall and thin

Unlike his cardio thoracic surgeon who has a large gut

Ironic

His surgeon was wonderful and even personal

We are grateful for him

Yet, it has been hard for me to look at all the overweight people

To see obese people in the hospital waiting rooms, in the cafeteria

Not the people in the hospital beds, but the ones visiting

And wonder why my husband is the one with heart disease

It is what it is

The past month has been a whirlwind

Driving, waiting, wondering

Juggling responsibilities as a parent, as a wife, as an employee

Driving my family members to appointments and making sure the kids were fed

Being there at the hospital most hours of the day to hear what the doctors had to say

Accommodating the lack of schedule in the hospital

Managing my two prn jobs, where I work as needed

Canceling work hours and trying to find work hours

The game is continuous

The flexibility is my life line

The flexibility is a must for being the mom I choose to be

For being a homeschool parent

For putting my family first, making parenting my top priority

I used to say, if I could only get paid to be a parent

Now, I have that opportunity.

Don and I have spent hours developing our program for families

We have given presentations and spoken to groups of parents

We have been growing our business

To help families who have challenges, where anxiety resides in the home

For families with children with behavior issues

For families looking for a better way to help their children thrive

On October 1, when I lost nearly all of my regular hours at my primary job,

I declared to the universe that I was ready

I said, “I am all in”

I knew it was time to give 100% to growing our business

To my writing, growing my blogs and working toward that book I will write

To spending more time growing our business, speaking and finding clients

I need to continue working at my “jobs” as we grow our business

Yet, the stress of finding hours and dealing with the latest change in reimbursement for therapy services at skilled nursing rehabilitation facilities

The second change of its kind in the course of my 27 year career as an Occupational Therapist

I declared the stress of all of this, the job stress, behind me

I have bigger and better things growing and am working toward

No longer depending on that income to support my family

Live is so unpredictable

When I was a child, I used to find my life

Boring

Most children declare that sentence often,

“I’m bored.”

My life now is anything but boring

I joke about wishing I was bored

I am going within

I am going within to find the strength and fearlessness that I felt on October 1

When I declared to the universe, “I am all in”

Maybe Don undergoing urgent, but not emergent bypass surgery

Is what we needed to dive fully into our business

Now his heart can function better

Now his arteries are free and clear

Now we know he has at least 10 or 20 years of life…or more

Now we can live more freely

I have gotten wrapped back into the stress over the past several weeks

As I have poured time and energy into finding work hours

Finding hours to make up for missed hours

Finding work hours to meet our expenses, or at least not completing deplete our savings

The savings we had build while I worked 30-40 hours all summer

Today

Today, I declare to the universe once again

I am all in

I am ready to dive back into my chosen life

I am ready to stop the life of getting through the days

I am ready to begin to live with more intention

I am ready to live the life I choose

I am a writer

I am a parent

I am a wife and a partner to an amazingly strong and resilient man

I am a parenting coach, a behavior transformation specialist

I am a business owner, a co-owner of

Focused Healthy Family

Even amounts the chaos that life can bring,

Our vision and intentions for our family have focus and purpose

We might lose sight of our core values and beliefs from time to time

Yet, we have done the work and continue to do the work

To be the best parents we can be, to empower our children to be the best they can be

Our desire and our mission for our business is…

To help other families find and achieve greater harmony and balance in their own homes

To live with intention, connection, and respect

To collaborate with their children

To have coping strategies to deal with anxiety and other challenges

To find the life that works best them, so that each member of the family can be empowered to be fully who they are

Life will still be messy at times

We will make mistakes

Life is unpredictable

How we handle life is the key

We can learn to respond to life challenges

Instead of reacting to the challenges,

Instead of reacting to our children’s behavior

We can choose our words and our actions

We can choose a new way of parenting

And live a more empowered and healthy life with our children.

Sneaking around at 5am

I used to be a night owl

And still stay up late on occasion…

Yet, now I wake up and feel like I was out drinking the night before

I think that feeling began to happen about twenty years ago when I was 30

Since my husband returned home on November 6, after open heart surgery…

I wake up early and am eager to get up to have time to myself

Some mornings, my youngest child has fallen asleep in my room

Her anxiety often flares up at night and can quickly escalate to a panic attack and a meltdown

Snuggling to sleep with mom, helps to dissipate or prevent the meltdown

I wake up and slowly move out of bed so as not to wake my sleeping child

If my child stirs, then I stand still in the dark, waiting…

There is a sound machine we use to drown out noise

I make sure the volume is turned all the way up

I move very slowly on the hardwood floor, waiting for the ocean waves to rise

Waiting for the sound machine noise to be at its loudest before taking a step

If I make too much noise when my child stirs, they might wake up

A child with an anxiety disorder needs all the sleep they can get

An almost 11 year old child with an anxiety disorder definitely needs more sleep…

Pre- puberty… oh my

Parents worry about “the terrible twos” and teenage years…

The real challenge in parenting is the pre-puberty years

Around age 9, 10, 11

That is when the most change happens, emotionally

My other child with an anxiety disorder, had a major flare of her disorder just prior to her 11th birthday and it continued to escalate when she turned 11.

She didn’t have a birthday party that year, the year she eagerly awaited her Hogwarts letter

We would have been happy to invite her friends over as we had done every year since she was 2

Having her friends all come over for her birthday is something she cherishes

And still does at age 17

Yet, the year she turned 11, she couldn’t even touch the birthday presents we bought her and didn’t want her friends over, she was stuck in the house for months…

She doesn’t remember much about that birthday

Much of her life when her OCD, her sever anxiety disorder, was flaring its ugly head…

…Is a blur to her

Now my next child who also suffers from this sometimes crippling anxiety disorder, is a few months shy of turning 11

It brings back tough memories

We know so much more now and have so much more help in place

Yet, the worry, the fears, the anxiety about our child’s anxiety is still there…

It is now 6am and I have made it out of the bedroom with my child still asleep

I have tiptoed down our creepy stairs to get my iPad keyboard and it’s stand

To return upstairs to my child’s empty bedroom in order to write

I have not gone to the basement where my comfy chair sits..

the place where I usually write, my office to be, a work in progress

Because my husband is asleep in the living room in the recliner

He is recovering from triple bypass surgery and is more comfortable sleeping in the chair

He wakes easily at any noise

He needs his sleep as well

Recovery from surgery is a slow process…

Recovery from open heart surgery is a very slow process

I sit with a desk top light shining

I am long sitting on the bottom bed of my child’s bunk bed

There are no pillows in the room for me to lean up agains the wall

Clothes are scattered about the floor, and tissues…

I resist the urge to pick up the clothes and the tissues and all the random things scattered on the floor…

My left foot is going numb

I reimposition myself

I now appreciate time alone

I never used to understand my husbands love of early morning hours in the quiet…

While everyone else was asleep

I always said, “I enjoy late nights when everyone sleeps”

Now, I understand

Now, i value this early morning time alone

Now, I look forward to being the only one awake

This is the best time for me to write

Before I dive into social media on my phone

Before I chat with my husband, which I do enjoy

Time first thing in the morning, to talk together while kids sleep is also wonderful..

I have found peace in the silence

I have my earbuds on but have not yet turned on my music

I am alone with my thoughts in the dark silence of six-thirty am

Writing first thing is the best way to begin my day

I now can see how much better my day proceeds when I take time to write first thing

When I take time alone with my thoughts before doing anything else

My day proceeded with intention and a sense of peaceful calm

I look up and see the sun rise behind the trees outside the window

The blind is drawn up about 4 inches,

Just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the sunrise

Getting up to raise the blind, I realize my left hip is sore from sitting crossed-legged

I am reminded that my body is fifty years old

the same age as my house

The cats who sleep in our basement, meow

And I know that will wake my husband

It is time to walk quietly downstairs to feed the cats, to quiet them…

Incase my husband can still fall back asleep

Getting up early and moving quietly through my house has been well worth the effort.

My letter to all: 4 Days Post Triple Bypass Surgery ( I am)

Saturday, November 2: I wrote the post below (at the bottom of this long addendum) on Facebook while updating friends/ family about my husbands status. He has been recovering from CABG surgery after a failed stress test.

It began as A midnight trip to the hospital due to mild chest pain (3/10) and mild shoulder/ arm numbness.….

**** Never ignore chest pains OR the atypical signs of a heart attack (or a stroke)!

*Seek medical help immediately and call 911 if you are alone*

*Do NOT drive yourself to the hospital*

*Call 911 if the pain increases or If the pain is unlike anything you have had before.

***There might NOT be chest pain. When my husband had his heart attack, *he had NO chest pain. He had *pain that began in the middle of his back and went up to his neck and then around his ear* He had numbness in his RIGHT arm which then became cold and clammy***

I have had healthcare provider CPR training many times in the past 28 years. Yet, It took ME almost too long to realize what was happening and to call 911.

It has been 8 1/2 years after he suffered that massive, nearly fatal heart attack/ cardiac arrest resulting in a 12 day hospital stay, 3 stints in his coronary arteries, home health services and then 3 months of cardiac rehab.

That “event” happened on May 4, 2011 in front of me and our children who at the time were ages: 2, 9 and 13.

It left scars on all of us that were reopened when I brought him to the hospital with similar symptoms.

Today is Tuesday November 5, 2019 and exhaustion got they best of me Saturday night and Sunday. Monday I had to stay home from the hospital because I was sick. Lack of sleep, emotional stress, and being spread too thin as a caregiver = an opportunity for a virus to invade.

It was a big slap in the face that I needed to take care of myself. Sure I knew that, but who was going to make sure my kids had clothes to wear, clean dishes to eat from, Provide then the Love and support they needed as their father was once again in the hospital for heart disease, AND establish plans for them to have help, AND be there for my husband as an advocate for his care, support for him in his healing and oversee his recovery, and be his wife and best friend.

Because I have written the post below in the context of my husbands recovery, I will add this additional information.

I have been working in adult and geriatric rehabilitation for 27 years. I have worked with people recovering from traumatic brain injury, strokes, falls, a variety of illness and all kinds of surgeries including open heart surgery. I have worked in an acute rehab center, subacute rehab, long term care and home health. I have worked primarily with people ages 18- 100.

Now that most post hospital rehabilitation happens at the sub-acute level in “nursing and rehab centers”, I see many people under the age of 65 in addition to those over the age of 65.

As an Occupational Therapist, I am the person, who helps facilitate their return to living all aspects of their life including Activities of daily living: bathing, dressing, toileting, hygiene, meal preparation, home management and anything they did before their illness or injury including return to community and their job.

My degree included learning all the aspects of physical and mental Rehabilitation. I had classes in anatomy and physiology, kinesiology, neurology, psychiatry, and normal and abnormal human development from birth through death. It included 3 different level 1 clinical experiences and 2 twelve week, 40+ hours per week, fieldwork/ unpaid internship working and learning alongside a supervising OT where by week 9, I was completing all the responsibilities of a licensed therapist. I took a licensure board exam and maintaining my license requires 15 hours of continuing education every year.

Yes, helping your husband in the rehabilitation process is much more personal and I rely on the professionals involved in his care to oversee his care. Yet, I know very well the extend of his recovery and how slow recovery is/can be. And I know what is required for him to return to living his life again.

The following is my unedited Facebook post:

Thank you family and friends for all of your prayers and thoughts, and healing energy.

Side note: I am a writer and my writing style is raw, honest and real.

I blog about my life For my own healing and to help others who might be having similar struggles in life. I get my family’s consent before sharing anything publicly. And these Facebook updates I put only out to friends and family.

I “tell it like it is” when I write and when I write in the moment it is just that, my in the moment thoughts. I also write reflectively.

I believe that we are all one and connected and we are more than our bodies. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. I believe in the law of attraction and a student of Unity principles. And a reader of Conversations with God.

I believe in being my authentic self and am so much more confident at being who I am not at age 50, then when I was younger. I had low self esteem issues from my teen years forward. Well …since I am sharing all… In case you haven’t read my blog. I have type 2 Bipolar depression and finally on a mood stabilizer after trying different anti depressants for a few years. The SSRIs helped maybe but then Led to hypomania. Hypomania is different than mania. This disease runs in family. Anxiety disease is as real as cardiac disease.

I believe in wholistic medicine and supporting the body to heal because our bodies are amazing and have remarkable ability to heal when supported. I believe in western medicine. I know ALL TOO well that my husband would NOT be here on this earth without it. I had that hard slam in your face lesson in 2011 and once again am FOREVER GRATEFUL for all the medical staff including EMTs, doctors, nurses, aids, therapists, etc. and hospital staff who have treated my husband, brought him back to life, and given him longevity for his life here on earth.

Don is my best friend and my soul mate.

I am so relieved that he had this surgery because now my worries about him having another heart attack can be eased some. in the past 8 1/2 years, I have always known he could have another heart attack any day, that he had 50% diffuse blockage in multiple distal arteries (ones that lead to the main ones) and that his 3 stints might not last forever. Sure, my worries and fears calmed over time. Yet never went away… when I woke up in the middle of the night and he wasn’t in bed, the fear crossed my mind more often than not.

I lectured him over the years on paying attention to his blood pressure and not ignoring any symptoms that were similar to his “atypical heart attack symptoms”.

And am so glad that On November 28 just before midnight when he felt some mild chest pain and arm tingling, he took a nitro and when I came up to the room about a half hour later, he told me he wasn’t feeling well. I told him to take another nitro and we talked to Abby quickly and got in the car. His pain level was never more than a 3. Our drive to the new hospital by our house is 2 miles away on 1 road- state highway. I watched him anxiously as we drove there. His symptoms were so mild, and as his tests came back all normal at the ER, I began to worry they would send him hime with no answers to his symptoms.

Everything tested “normal” until he did the nuclear stress test. And Tuesday afternoon sent him to the main hospital via critical care ambulance with 2 critical care nurses. Back to the same hospital he came to 8 years ago in May of 2011. The same hospital where Harrison was born nearly 22 years ago…

I also know that complementary and alternative medicine, modalities and support have added to the quality of life and have helped everyone in my family heal in many ways and with many issues.

I am so grateful for all of the doctors. Specialists, and practitioners of EFT, Reike and many other things as well as supplements and the myriad of things that have helped not only Don, but everyone in my family.

Life is not black and white.

I believe in embracing all that is needed.

Don and I have very similar spiritual beliefs as well as similar nutritional / medical beliefs/ opinions.

I have worked in health care for over 25 years and understand the pros and cons and know the value of traditional western medicine and it’s limitations.

I spent too many years of my life not wanting to offend anyone and focused on “doing the right thing” and being the person I thought I was “supposed to be”. Trying too hard to work within the system and taking care of other people, at work, with my family and friends. I thought I was taking care of myself too.

I have been writing and journaling for 40 years, since my first journal at age 10. it took me along time to start a public blog for my writing. It took me a while to share my writing openly for others to read… for anyone to read. …

This is who I am

I am a writer,

I am a mother, a wife, a sister, an aunt, a cousin…etc

I am a homeschooling/unschooling parent

I am an Occupational therapist

I am a mom who loves being a mom

I am a child-led learning coach

I am a behavior transportation specialist working with families in a new business created by Don and myself.

I am a spiritual being having a human experience.

November 1, 2019 Part1: the waiting is the hardest part

Neale Donald Walsch had CABG surgery on this very day 3 years ago.

I learned that from a Facebook friend who I recently connected with on a more personal level when I learned she created a curriculum based on NDW Conversation with God books.

“Nothing happens in the first hour”, the cardiac surgery Nurse practitioner told me yesterday.

Don went to ER about 6:30 for his 7:15am surgery. To have a triple coronary artery bypass graft. CABG x3.

It is now 8:06 am

It is now 8:10am

My oldest woke up and my youngest was on discord on the server so I saw she was awake and so I got to text with them and also my sister-in-law.

I choose a “daily mix 1” for my music this morning.

Music is my meditation.

The randomness of playing songs that I did not specifically chose is how the universe speaks to me, how God speaks to me, how my angels speak to me, how my loved ones speak to me, both those here on this earth and those beyond.

For some reason the internet is is frozen and my song won’t play and the messages I just sent to a few people are stuck in mid- stream

Maybe it is time for me to be in the quiet…

The quiet of a surgical waiting area… with 18 people in it.

I am still surprised how small this waiting area is for the size of the hospital.

My dad had back surgery at the other local major hospital and the waiting room felt more like an airport waiting area. Now that I say that out loud… I guess smaller can be better. I just wish they had a soft reclining chair for me to sit in.

I can leave the waiting area. They have my phone number and will call me with updates. I kind of hope that i get an update from a person from the surgical team and not just the receptionist. They do that on Grey’s Anatomy.

Code blue on coronary care unit, 6th floor.

That is where Don was 8 1/2 years ago. The CCU

He won’t need the CCU this time.

Now they are canceling the code blue.

Sending love and healing to the CCU and their family members.

I am now chatting with my 10 year old via text. Handling OCD and anxiety when mom and dad are not home is an added challenge but my child is rising to the occasion.

The waiting room gets busier and I will be talking more with my kids and family and friends.

I am empowered to write in the moment and this is one of those life changing moments.

The anesthesiologist told us that he will heal faster because he is young and that things should go very well and he is low risk for any complications from anesthesiology.

We found out Don’s family had no problems with anesthesia in their past. Genetic factors play a part in all of this.

For Don’s coronary arteries, genetics plays a HUGE part.

Never smoked, never overweight, rarely drinks,

Eats healthy…well he has improved his diet greatly over the years… he did have his fried apple pie and coke breakfast phase in his 20s. He didn’t meet me until he was 34 and so his diet improved at age 34.

Here we are.

It has been a long journey since May 4, 2011 when we first learned, the hard way, that he had heart disease.

it is 9:06 am. 1 hour ago, they told me surgery had started.

I guess 7- 8 was prep time. I am not sure what is considered the “start of surgery”

My playlist plays:

• Along Comes a Woman from Chicago 17….I love Peter Cetera
• John Denver..we both love John Denver
• Fleetwood Mac .. Monday Morning (today is Friday.. but Fleetwood Mac!)

And now…

• Longer by Dan Folgelberg
• I”ll Be Around by Carly Simon

Call me crazy, but I believe Don is speaking to me through songs.

I believe we can connect on a spiritual level while he is sedated, under general anesthesia…right now.

I heard him speak to me 8 years ago…in this very hospital, through song

Not sure about this one!

• Slip Slidin’ Away, Paul Simon.. Don’s sense of humor is what lets me know he is ok

We have been together for 25 years and our kids are growing up… the years are moving forward.

This waiting area needs an exercise room, with yoga mats.

I need to create that for all waiting areas.

Who want to sit in an arm chair for hours?

Maybe the orthopedic surgeons set this up, to have back surgery patients…just kidding

I did my stretches and yoga positions anyhow…

Sun salutation with my headphones on

As I swing my hips to the music and mouth all the words…

Harrison is heading to the house and will then be heading here.

It will be good to have my oldest, nearly 22 year old son with me for the rest of this time and for the post op parts. For when we see dad slowly wake from anesthesia.

Someone in scrubs comes in to talk to a a family and I get hopeful

“I want to break to free”

“God knows I want to break free”

“I have fallen in love.”

“I have fallen in love for the first time and this time it’s for real”

Don knows how much I love Queen.

Meet Don

Born October 5, 1958 in St. Louis, MO

Born to Regina and Harold Grothoff

The sixth child born in the family and the last born, the baby.

Don is 61 years old today as he undergoes his first surgery in his life.

Triple Coronary Artery Bypass Graft, CABG x3

Warning: graphic description ahead…

His chest is cracked open at his sternum

They have spread his ribs apart and…

And Lobo sings, “I’d Love You to Want Me”

I forgot about this song.

I love this song.

His blood is run through a heart lung machine

And they stop his heart….

…they induce cardiac arrest

My heart stops remembering when his heart stopped in our living room

Or went into abnormal fatal heart rhythm as it desperately tried to keep him alive..

“Do you want to dance” by Bette Miller

I have never heard this song before.

Don and I love to dance

I am eager to hear the next song and want to rush through them.

I resist

My oldest sends me a picture of our outside guard cat preventing him from parking in my parking space in our driveway.

“Everything I Own” by Bread

Don is dreaming of bread, full of gluten… real bread…and so am I

I tried to research CABG procedure because I am pretty sure he goes on a heart and lung machine… but wanted to be sure before I added that description

People get called up to speak with surgery team members, people wearing scrubs including scrub hats

Families get brought into “consultation rooms”

I sit, knowing it will be awhile.

I hear a surgeon speak to a woman in the waiting area.

Does that mean they only take people to consultation rooms if it’s bad news?

Or does it just mean that this surgeon didn’t take the time to bring her to a consult room.

Or maybe he had a simple procedure.

“Oklahoma Hills ” Argo Guthrie sings in my ear

Oklahoma?

OK

Does this mean Don is ok?

“Cowboy life”

That makes me laugh…

Don as a cowboy

“Love, soft as an easy chair. Love shared by two… I have found with you.”

Barbara Streisand?

Pretty song… yet, are they playing elevator music in the operating room?

Surely not…

Humor… going with humor again

People come and go in the waiting room.

I sit and wait.

I look around and see different people then when I arrived 3 hour ago.

Three hours? Is it really almost 10am ??

There are a few people who have been here almost as long as me.

Where is Harrison?

I need him here when they come to update me.

He hasn’t answered my texts since our discussion of our guard cat.

He is doing the dishwasher now and then will head here

I asked him, last night, to do that.

This morning, I don’t really care about the dishwasher getting unloaded…

But with our clogged sink… it helps …I guess.

Let the roads be free and clear for his safe travel here.

“Did you grab and apple and a fig bar from the pantry?” I ask him again.

I paid over $5 for water this morning. Buy one 20oz bottle and get the second for $1.

So I paid $4 for a bottle of water?

Oh my…

There is the Mediciad application that I really need to fill out for the kids.

As of today, my two kids have no health insurance because I “make too much money”

I got the letter from NC MEdicaid/ NC Health Choice one month before I lost nearly all of my hours at work. I went from 30-40 hours per week all summer to a week of 0 hours. My next paycheck will be about $500 for 2 weeks. I was called off for many days that I had signed up for and lost all my regular weekend hours. I have worked nearly every Saturday and Sunday for them for the past 1 1/2 years… It is not the company per se… it is healthcare, sick care…

She walked over to me this time, with a smile on her face!

I quickly removed my ear buds and she told me,

“They called to let you know that he is still in surgery, and everything is…..

……going as planned.

Phew….

Frantically, I text the groups of people who I am updating.

…First Harrison,

….And then Text messages to Don’s siblings

….and messenger message to my sibling and my parents

“Song song sung blue… sleeping on my pillow”.

I need to move around.

Been sitting too long

Hey everybody, lets do some yoga!

Time to get out of your chairs and move!

Sitting still is not good for you.

We could dance! I will pull up a play list…

Just heard the lyrics….

“Got my man on my mind…”. Carly Simon was singing the song Man on My Mind

More messages.

“Hello girl it’s been a while. Guess you’ll be glad to know that I have learned how to laugh and smile.”

Paul Davis, I Go Crazy

“When I look in your eyes, I still go crazy. My heart just can not hide that old feeling inside.”

I am eager to talk to Don to see if he remembers anything from his slumber time.

Harrison is on his way.

I continue to debate ending this post vs continuing until they are finished with surgery.

And the battery on my Bluetooth keyboard falls out again. I lost the back to the battery area in the hustle of the past 4 days.

Four days…

Life changed late Monday night… It was after midnight, Tuesday Oct 29, when I went up to bed and Don told me:

” I don’t feel right. I have pain in my chest and I am feeling tingling across my shoulders and down my arm.”

Authority Song

John Mellencamp

“Dying to me don’t sound like all that much fun”

Time to get up and move.. this is a dancing song

“Said, Oh no… no no no”

“I fight authority and authority always wins”

Now I am laughing more. Don resists western medicine and yet here he is.

New song

“Sometimes all I need is the air that I breathe…

And to love you…”

My butt is sore… I missed dancing with Mellencamp.

Move, Gina.

Right here, write now…I live

I write because I must

I write for my own healing

I write to share my experiences

I write hoping my experiences might help others

I write because writing is how I figure out my feelings

I write because it is my creative outlet

I write because it is my passion

I write for my sanity

I awoke about 3am

Peri-menopause

Bipolar 2 Depression

Parenting

Children with special needs

Just when we thought we had a grasp on their needs….

Just when we thought we had an understanding of how to best help them…

Anxiety

Public speaking anxiety

Today my husband and I are giving a short presentation for 40-50 people

I secretly hope only 10 show up, despite my desire to grow our new business

I try to explain my fear to someone who loves and lives for public speaking

“It’s is like being in a room with 40-50 snakes”, I tell my husband.

I don’t know that he can really understand

Only those who experience something themselves can truly understand

…Any issue, challenge, fear, experience

Parenting

My greatest love

My greatest challenge

Myself

Dealing with the demons in my mind,

Dealing with my anxieties,

Taming my “ego” the nay-saying voice that keeps me from being who I truly am

Embracing where I am

Embracing who I am

Being who I am

Right here and right now

Dreaming

Envisioning

Manifesting

Creating

The grandest vision of the greatest version of who I am

Hope when you take that jump
You don’t fear the fall
Hope when the water rises
You built a wall
Hope when the crowd screams out
They’re screaming your name
Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Hope that you fall in love
And it hurts so bad (Yeah)
The only way you can know
You gave it all you had
And I hope that you don’t suffer
But take the pain
Hope when the moment comes,
You’ll say

I, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
Yeah with every broken bone
I swear I lived

I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony

Hope that you spend your days
But they all add up
And when that sun goes down
Hope you raise your cup
I wish that I could witness
All your joy and all your pain
But until my moment comes
I’ll say

I, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
Yeah with every broken bone
I swear I lived

I’d like to teach the world to sing

Thank you, One Republic, for writing and singing this amazing song.

Vacation

Things I have learned on vacation…

Hoping everyone want to do the same things at the same time sets us up for disappointment

Instead,

• engage everyone in a conversation about what they would like to do and how important it is for them to do so with others.
• Be an example of letting others know what you plan to do and inviting them to join.
• Have a conversation about how we must each choose what we want to do and that others may not want to join in and we can not change other people
• Repeat this message every day to yourself and to everyone

Allowing our children to be who they are is a booster of self confidence and stopping them from being who they are, sends the message that they are not ok

• If your 17 year old just wants to stay in the room, don’t fight it
• If your 10 year old wants everyone to do the activity together, help them to let others know this and listen to what they have to say
• If your child wants to push the elevator doors open, allow this, it hurts no one
• If your child talks loud in the elevator, let them
• If your child wants to pile up rafts in the lazy river, join in the fun

I can build a sandman structure and a sand angle all by myself and have a sense of accomplishment

Joining in my child’s sand building adventure and following their lead/ instructions is a lot more fun for all than telling them what to do/how to build

Listening to my child describe their building plans on the beach is more important then giving them suggestions on how to build a sandcastle

Listening to my child’s requests for what they want to do and doing what they want is a very powerful tool in engaging cooperation, building confidence and connection. It is something that may not seam obvious at the time until we shut them down by telling them “lets do it this way” or worse, ignore their requests.

Not everyone loves the ocean and the sand as much as I do.

My children’s interests in the beach may change as they get older and I need to allow them to be who they are.

Determining what is a change in their interest and what is an irrational fear that strengths the power of OCD is the MOST difficult thing to do!

Sugar causes meltdowns and flare up of any condition your child might have

Sugar in moderation and along with protein can be a good compromise

For children with anxiety, change in environment, even being at the beach with beautiful weather, is stressful and can cause an OCD flare up. (You think I would have remembered that one by now after going through this with child number 2)

For children with anxiety, disruption in plans and a disruption in their expectation of how things will go, can cause a flare up of anxiety/ a flare up of OCD that brings a scratching halt to fun

Accepting where we are in our journey and accepting the circumstances we are in, is far more powerful than trying to change it or wishing it wasn’t so

Reminiscing with your child on how much fun they had the last time at the beach or when they were younger, does not help them to have fun this time

Showing my children memories from our beach trip 9 years ago does not help them have more fun today.

Getting lost in how much fun we had 5 years ago or 9 years ago, takes me out of the present moment and sets myself up for disappointment

The sunrise and sunset at the ocean is one of the most beautiful sights and can not be fully captured with a camera

Talking a walk on the beach without headphones, helps me go within and allows for connection with other people

Random short conversations with strangers can be inspiring, bring joy and help me feel more connected to myself and to my life

Walks on the beach with my favorite music is the BEST form of exercise ever!!!

Dancing on the beach and singing (or lip syncing) along to the music heard through my ear buds is energizing, and so much fun! It’s better than dancing at a nightclub.

Getting up early to have time to myself, to write, watch the sunrise, walk out the beach, sit in the silence, is the best way to start my day

Five nights at the beach is the right number of days/ nights

When at the beach for 5 nights, I don’t have to try to cram all the fun in as quickly as I can… and it took me until day 3 or 4 to realize that

Going on vacation is an art that must be learned from experience and approached with patience and calm or it can turn into a nightmare

Looking forward to going home after an enjoyable vacation is a really good feeling.

Challenges to Change: we can miss the writing on the wall

Inspiration happens in many ways.

I often listen to music as I write and when a song captures my attention, it sparks something within me, and I begin writing, finding my own meaning in the words.

Growin’ up you don’t see the writing on the wall
Passin’ by, movin’ straight ahead you knew it all
But maybe sometime if you feel the pain,
You’ll find you’re all alone everything has changed

In my journey of self discovery, I have been reconnecting with old friends.

This time, I met up with someone I had known for years from when I began homeschooling. We first met about 14 years ago. We saw each other when our kids had shared interests and therefore we found ourselves at the same events. This is typically how I have met people and have made friends over the years of homeschooling my kids. We knew each other and became Facebook friends yet never spent time together as friends. Life circumstances connected us more, yet our connection remained virtual.

You know how you meet someone and feel an instant connection?

I knew I liked her from the time I first met her, yet our paths never led us to getting together with our kids.

We got together and what I intended to be a casual meet up turned into a 4 hour conversation with us discovering we had so much in common, our lives had taken similar paths and we found ourselves sharing things we had never shared with anyone before.

We both talked about becoming a mom and how it changed us.

I always wanted to be a mom.

I remember looking forward to the day when I would have my own daughter, and imagined what she would be like.

I remember going to college with a new passion for this field of study I had chosen, yet I always envisioned that I would work for a few years until I had children.

I found myself enjoying being an Occupational Therapist and happy with the field I had choose. When my husband decided he wanted to go into business for himself as he was tired of the corporate world, we talked about having children, and I recall telling my co-workers, it doesn’t matter who stays home with the child. Dad staying home with the child is just as good as mom.My co-workers with children disagreed.

After 3 1/2 years of marriage and a year of my husband left his job to grow his own business, our first child was born.

I didn’t have that instant connection with my child the way I have heard people describe. I loved him from the start and was so excited to be a mom, yet it took me time to develop the sense of a strong connection.

At the end of my twelve week maternity leave I found myself saying,

What have I done? I don’t want to leave my baby and go back to work!

Life changes us

We talked about how if someone had told us years ago that this is what our life would be like now, we would never have believed them.

Play the game you know you can’t quit until it’s won
Soldier of only you can do what must be done
You know, in some ways you’re a lot like me
You’re just a prisoner, and you’re tryin’ to break free

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazing sky
I’ll be where the eagle’s flying higher and higher 
Gonna be your man in motion
All I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where the future’s lying St. Elmo’s fire 

Burning up don’t know just how far that I can go 
Soon be home only just a few miles down the road
And I can make it, I know I can
You broke the boy in me, but you won’t break the man

I also enjoy discovering why a song was written and the author’s meaning.

In a search for the meaning for this song, I found this information on song facts

David Foster and John Parr wrote this song specifically for the movie St. Elmo’s Fire, but the song itself is about a Canadian athlete named Rick Hansen, who was paralyzed from the waist down after a car crash when he was 15. On March 21, 1985 Hansen began his “Man In Motion” tour, traveling about 70 miles a day to raise money for spinal cord research. At first, Hansen had trouble getting media attention and donations, but when this song was released with the movie in June, it became his anthem, and as the song rose up the charts, interest in Hansen’s journey grew. By the time the “Man In Motion” tour was completed on May 22, 1987, Hansen had put over 40,000 Kilometers (24,856 miles) on his wheelchair in 34 countries on four continents, raising $26 million. He became a national hero in Canada, where he is closely associated with this song.

How ironic

My children’s anxiety disorders and my own undiagnosed Bipolar Depression, paralyzed our family.

Now, my husband and I have created a business to help other people struggling in the ways that we did.

I am passionate about educating people on mental illness and in particular Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I have really enjoyed digging into this song because I found so much behind it.

St. Elmo’s Fire describes a weather phenomenon involving a gap in electrical change.

It is a phenomena that looks like dangerous fire, and is an electric charge, but in reality, it does not give you an electric shock the way lightening can.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD, is a condition in which the brain tells a person that they are in eminent danger, when in reality they are not.

My life has had many challenges and twists and turns.

The unexpected challenges and changes in my life have led me to where I am now.

I now feel like I am being the person I was always meant to be.

And I am so excited to move forward in my journey…

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazing sky
I’ll be where the eagle’s flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion
All I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where the future’s lying St. Elmo’s fire

I can climb the highest mountain, cross the widest sea
I can feel St. Elmo’s fire burning in me, burning in me
Just once in his life a man has his time
And my time is now I’m comin’ alive