Goals for the New Year

Now, I don't normally do New Year's resolutions.  Mainly because I've learned over the years that I just don't keep to them.  But in light of the last year and how much it has changed our lives, my husband and I both decided to make some goals for 2013.  We have made up individual lists and a family list, both of which are still growing and evolving.  We both understand that all of the goals on our lists may not be attainable this coming year, but it is something to strive for.  There are plenty of other goals on the lists that will be easy to attain, so I am praying that we have the strength and will power to stick with them.

Here are a few items from my list:

Volunteer more
Add more healthy foods to my diet (how my picky self is going to do that, I don't know)
Read at least one nonfiction book a month
Be more disciplined in my daily quiet time with God

And a few examples from the family list:

Move towards being more self-sustaining by gardening-vegetables, herbs and fruit
Volunteering more as a family
Continue working on ending youth entitlement


I suppose that the gardening goal should be on my list as well since I will be the one mainly in charge of it.  In theory, gardening is awesome.  In practice, I stink at remembering to stay on top of watering, feeding and weeding. To solve most of the weeding issues, I'll be planting all of our stuff in containers.  I'll add watering as a daily chore for one of the kids as well to help out.

I'm excited about the new possibilities we have ahead of us in 2013 and I'm glad we'll be ringing it in with friends. 

Praising Him

Yesterday morning during my quiet time, I couldn't focus on God or the words in my devotional.  My heart and mind were spinning with worries and anxieties over every day life.  Over things that I cannot control or fix.  As usual, I spent my morning trying to come up with ways to fix it myself.  I am way too self reliant and thankfully God is infinitely patient with that flaw of mine (and with all the others!).  I know that I need to give up control and hand the reins to God but planning and controlling things are what I do best so it's quite difficult to give them up.  Knowing and doing are two totally different things so my prayer this morning was some guidance on how to start giving up control.  As it so often happens, my devotional gave me some insight.

"So when problems are weighing heavily upon you, break free by worshiping Me-in songs, in shouts, even in whispers.  These sacred acclamations decimate the darkness and invite Me into your awareness, brightening the atmosphere around you.  Problems fade into the background while you are engaged in worshiping Me.  Awareness of My presence strengthens you and fills you with joy."

Not only is that a wonderful answer, but perfect timing for me as we plan to go to church this morning.  Praising and worshiping God with our church family always inspires me and opens my heart and mind to God and what He is trying to tell me.  

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout to the Rock of salvation.
Let us come before Him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods.
He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains.
The sea belongs to him, for he made it.  
His hands formed the dry land too.
Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord our marker, for he is our God.
We are the people he watches over,
the flock under his care.
If only you would listen to his voice today!

Psalm 95:1-7

Updates on our Homemade Life

It seems like ages since I've posted anything about how we're doing on our grocery budget in conjunction with going more homemade.  My original goal was to grocery shop once a month and get our budget down to $400 for the whole month.  The monthly shopping hasn't really worked out for us, mainly because we go through so much milk and eggs that I was still going to the store every other week no matter what.  Plus, I get tired out very easily and a full month worth of shopping at once is exhausting to me.  So we're back to the bi-weekly shopping and we're doing pretty good at keeping to the budget.

The past few months have been trial and error on homemade items.  Some are actually more expensive to make than to buy, while others have been great savers for us.  Some of the flops include homemade shells & cheese, taco seasoning and fabric softener.  My biggest money saver is the homemade laundry detergent.  It costs me approximately $0.35 for a gallon and it does a great job cleaning our clothes.  The recipe for it is here.  Other big savers are pizza dough, pancake mix, homemade granola & granola bars, instant oatmeal, English muffin bread, and pasta & pizza sauce.  I also extend our milk spending by buying 1% and when each gallon is half empty, filling the rest up with powdered milk.  We normally drink 1/2% here so no one ever notices a taste difference.  

I am constantly on the look out for new recipes and things to try in order to add to our homemade life.  I picked up this great book up on my Nook from our library called The Homemade Pantry.  It has some great recipes and has inspired me to attempt to do my own pickles and cheese.  We'll see how those work out as I tackle them in the future. 

Christmas Baking

Two days after Christmas and I can't believe how open my days have become.  My two kiddos are down in Illinois visiting their grandparents for the rest of the week and Jimmy's girls will be with us here until Saturday.  I have no holiday baking to complete, no gifts to make....I didn't realize how much the holidays filled my last month or so until it was over with.  So with all this free time, I thought I would take the time to post pictures of some of my baking projects over the holidays. 

M&M Sugar cookies....oh my I have to share this recipe because it was absolutely the best one I made this season.

Candy Cane blossoms-I can't take credit for these....Ani and one of her girlfriends did all the work!

Andes Mint chip cookies

Chocolate chip cookies

Reese's peanut butter chip cookies-these were a big hit with my husband

Egg nog cookies

 Rolo cake cookies

Whopper cookies-for our oldest kid who is a huge Whopper addict

Amish cinnamon bread

 Egg nog cheesecake bars

Candy covered pretzels

White chocolate peppermint cheesecake

Jesus' birthday cake

And finally, an annual family holiday tradition that started with my great grandmother...the cinnamon roll Christmas tree cake

There was also an egg nog cheesecake and some egg nog bread but I forgot to take pictures of those.  Whew, that was a lot of baking and while I enjoyed it, I'm definitely glad to get back to the regular things in life.  

Minus an endless round of doctor appointments that appear to be never ending, my future is wide open so I spent this morning in my devotional/quiet time asking God to help me be a better listener so that I could hear and respond to His plans for me.  I asked for help to be a better steward of my time and resources and He responded in my devotional with this verse:  "In everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success."  Proverbs 3:6  So simple!  I just need to keep praying that I keep God as my first priority and the rest will fall into place. 

Nausea & Me

Over the past year nausea & I have developed a close, personal relationship.  Meningitis, when it's in full swing, causes such a gut wrenching nausea that you get sick until there is nothing left inside your stomach, until the bile has burned your throat and scorched your tongue and all you can do is cry weakly in between bouts.  The poor nurses obviously feel horrible for me as they desperately pump Zofran and Phenergan alternately into my IV as often as they can.  The only relief comes when the anti-nausea medication works in conjunction with the Dilaudid to give me an hour or two of fitful sleep here and there.  I'm not sure if this reoccurring meningitis has given my stomach a predilection for queasiness but I am far more sensitive to certain smells and tastes now.  Foods that I used to love in the past need to be avoided at all costs and the scent of Jimmy's favorite meatloaf in the oven is enough to make me gag.  

Then there's the chemo.  For me, on the pill form, it causes a low grade nausea.  Something that's just stewing in my stomach and waiting for the right moment to flare up in full.  It's like that slight, but very annoying, headache that buzzes in the back of your head all day.  Now that I'm currently waiting for insurance approval of the IV chemo, I can only imagine that the nausea will be worse on a stronger dose like that.  We will see.  

In the last year I have also developed coping mechanisms to handle the nausea.  I have found certain foods that seem to settle my stomach and my amazingly wonderful husband is quick to run out for them at the first sign of nausea.  I was not blessed to have children with Jimmy but I just know that he would have been that husband that ran out in the middle of the night to get me Starbursts, Pringles and a container of cream cheese.  After the first bout of meningitis, the only food that I could eat was cold food such as a Frosty from Wendy's, salads, cottage cheese, pudding or yogurt.  It took nearly a year for me to start drinking hot coffee again and forget about eggs...I used to eat them almost every day but the idea of a scrambled egg now...blahhh!  

Meghan's Nausea Relief List

   1.  Zofran-better living through chemistry!

   2.  A Wendy's Frosty

   3.  A mocha frappe from McD's (are we sensing the cold, sweet, chocolately theme?)

   4.  Laffy Taffy's

   5.  A Slim 4 with cheese from Jimmy Johns

I can't tell you how many times Jimmy has dropped everything and ran to get one, or all, of these items for me.  I am one lucky woman!   

Has it really been a year?

A year ago yesterday was the anniversary of my first hospitalization for meningitis.  What at first seemed like an out of the blue case of bacterial meningitis soon turned into a medical odyssey.  As stressful, scary, frustrating and tiring as the journey has been I can't bring myself to regret it at all.  Without this medical drama, I may never have realized how truly blessed I am.  God has continually shown me how He provides.  He is indeed great!  

Last week my best friend & I took a little road trip to Ann Arbor to meet a new Rheumatologist for a second opinion.  It was comforting to meet a doctor who showed some urgency about the situation and seemed to grasp that a laid back approach just wasn't going to work.  She doesn't seem to think that the Sjogren's Syndrome is the cause of this and she ordered lots of testing to look for a possible Lupus diagnosis.  She also didn't think that the Methotrexate chemo treatment was going to make a difference.  She is leaning towards Cytoxan possibly in addition to Rituxan.  She wants to find a way to get me off of the steroids as it is obviously not ideal to spend this much time on them, especially at these high doses.  In the meantime, she placed me on Fosamax to assist in any possible steroid induced osteoporosis.  She has referred me on to a neurologist in Ann Arbor and also requested a new MRI/MRA.  

I am no longer content to wait patiently for another opinion though, and have a few other options brewing.  My neurologist in town here has ordered a special blood panel that tests for encephalitis.  The lab is scheduled to come to my house in early January to test me for Anti-NMDA Receptor Autoimmune Encephalitis.  I also have an appointment with my GP to get a referral to an Immunologist.  I have a fourth cousin who also happens to have SJS.  She recently saw both her Rheumatologist & Immunologist and brought my bizarre case up.  They were both stumped by the meningitis and highly recommended that I get a full immunologic work up to see if I have any issues on that front.  I'm also on the hunt for a new ophthalmologist....someone who will agree to permanently close up my tear ducts instead of placing punctal plugs.  My eyes are more dry than ever and the plugs are just a stop-gap measure in my opinion.  

Meanwhile....Christmas preparations proceed in the Chase house.  

  A picture of my food prep/baking list that needs to be completed before Christmas.  I suppose it's a good thing that the steroids are seriously cutting into my sleep time.  It gives me the time to bake.  My kitchen looks like a war zone....all the baking supplies and goodie bags stockpiled on every available counter space.

In addition to food prep and baking, it's been a week of volunteering, holiday concerts and doctor appointments.  On Tuesday I volunteered at the Angel Tree gift distribution at the Salvation Army.  Last year was the first time I had done it and I love it.  I hope that I am always able to serve in the capacity.  From there, I went to my baby girl's last holiday concert in her elementary school career which was pretty bittersweet.

 I may be biased, but isn't she adorable??

Yesterday was a doctor appointment for my little man and today is one for me.  Tomorrow is Aidan's holiday concert at school and I may have heard a rumor that he's appearing as Santa Claus.  I don't mind all the busyness....I'm hoping it brings Saturday here sooner.  We get our daughters on Saturday and then our family will be complete once more.  Saturday we'll be spending the evening with our chosen family and Sunday we will celebrate a Christmas Eve candlelight service at church.  I am so blessed to be alive and healthy enough to enjoy all of the bounty God has provided!
  

Catching up

As usual, time can get away with you when you've been spending too much of it in the hospital.  Last Monday was a very normal day for me....running errands and finishing up (thankfully!) our Christmas shopping.  We had our typical evening of dinner and cheer practice and my last memory is of cuddling in bed with the hubs, both of us reading and then me deciding I was sleepy so closing my Nook and heading off to the Land of Nod.  The next thing I know, I wake up in an ambulance.  The nice EMT was trying to get me to speak to him and tell him what my symptoms were...poor guy, I was of no help.  He tried tapping a vein because he could tell I was in desperate need of fluids but I was so dehydrated there were no veins to be had.  Talk about a twilight zone experience...to go from sleeping to an ambulance with zero recollection as to how or why you were there.  Once we arrived at the ER, I was put in a room right away and actually got a new nurse and doctor for once who weren't in on my bizarre medical history.  The poor nurse was trying her best to get a vein....but even the phlebotomist couldn't get one.  They happened to tap one but thought it was bunk because it didn't draw blood.  Thankfully I convinced them to flush it and try to use it for fluids because their next step was some sort of femoral shunt.  Needles?  In new places?  Without putting me to sleep?  No thanks!  Finally my husband arrived to clear things up for me.  Apparently, after falling asleep I woke up, told him to get me a bucket because I was going to be ill and then immediately slid down into the ugly abyss that is meningitis.  I was unable to speak almost right away, only being able to grunt and my arms curled in towards my body uselessly.  Jimmy put socks and shoes on me but once he stood me up, my knees buckled, I collapsed and he couldn't get me back up so he had to call the ambulance.  This was the most ill I had been in quite awhile and that is saying something!  I spiked a temp so they put me in a lovely torture device that was a mattress pad connected to a machine that made it ice cold.  And then they put me in IMC, where they usually stick me if I am conscious.  I was hospitalized until Thursday.  They treated me with the normal rounds of anti-nausea meds, Solumedrol (IV steroids), Tylenol for the fever and Dilauded for the pain.  I was happy to see that I had one of my favorite doctors on rotation....she is actually studying to be a rheumatologist and she's fantastic.  I also had a few visits from my neurologist and was able to talk him into getting me tested for Anti-NMDA-Receptor Autoimmune Encephalitis, a rare disease I recently read about that fits a lot of my symptoms to a T.  While I'm waiting for that lab to contact me (of course it can't be simple...it has to be a special lab that takes a special encephalitis panel that costs gobs of money), he also put me back on Lyrica and MY rheumatologist doubled my chemo dosage.  He is also in the process of trying to get me approved for IV chemo through my insurance company.  

After all the medical drama, we still had cheer Regionals this past weekend.  Yet again, I am reminded of how blessed we are in our friends and family.  Some of our friends brought dinner to Jimmy & the kids while I was in the hospital and prayed with them.  Another friend came over on Saturday to do Ani's hair and make up for the competition because I was in no way up for it.  And finally, a wonderful mom from our cheer team picked Ani up, took her to the competition and made sure to send me lots of pictures and updates!  

My husband has been amazing through all of this as usual.  He won't let me lift a finger.  He has been cleaning, cooking, doing laundry and running the kids around.  He soldiers through it all...even when I say "Aren't you going to put fabric softener in the wash?" or when he adds two cups TOO many flakes to the instant mashed potatoes.  He has this diabolical plan to keep me on the couch and in this house completely for the next month.  I tried explaining that I will need to get out just for mental health purposes....not to mention I have things I have to do!  

Cheer tonight, Christmas baking to be done, knitting and gift making, prepping food like frozen dinner rolls, breakfast burritos & meatballs, a second opinion appointment on Wednesday in Ann Arbor that my bestie is so kindly taking me to, volunteering for the Jaycees on Saturday morning and of course, no one and NOTHING is keeping me from seeing The Hobbit this weekend!  Truthfully....I can do about two of these things a day and still be a slug on the couch..he is going to have to get used to it!