Please Pray for My Friends!

I need your thoughts and prayers for a wonderful family that has just suffered a huge and tragic loss. I work for a family business where everyone is emotionally close to everyone else. The owner and his family are some of the kindest people you will ever meet. But they are also some of the most unfortunate when it comes to personal tragedies. After a couple of previous tragedies, the family had finally begun to move on and experienced extreme happiness when my bosses daughter became pregnant. It was my bosses first grandchild and the first great grandchild for the owner of my company. My bosses daughter, Ashley, and her boyfriend, Mike, became the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy, Riley. Ashley and Mike are extremely proud and absolutely adore each other and their new baby. They were looking forward to the upcoming holiday as it is Riley's first. Ashley and Mike had been together for many years and were an absolutely wonderful couple that deserved all of the good that could come their way.
On this past Saturday night, Ashley and Mike decided to go out for the evening with some friends. As the night progressed, Ashley became tired and left the bar earlier than Mike. When the last of their group prepared to leave, they realized that Mike had disappeared. They searched everywhere for him but he was nowhere to be found. The following day, he was still missing. The family and friends all began an extensive search because this was not like him to just not return home. By Monday he still had not shown up. At approximately 8pm, a friend located Mike's body beneath a downtown bridge. Apparently he had fallen from the bridge as he was intoxicated when he was last seen. It appears at this point that it was just a tragic accident, but an absolutely huge loss for his son, his girlfriend and all of this wonderful family. I am sure that Ashley will blame herself at some point and I can only imagine the what ifs she will experience. This family is devastated! Mike was a great man that absolutely adored his son and Ashley too. He and Ashley have been together for many years and he had bought them a home and even gutted it before remodeling it to make it perfect for her and their son. He was a hard worker and everyone reportedly loved him. I only had the opportunity of meeting him once, but he seemed like such a nice young man. You can only imagine the loss and the helplessness this family is going through right now. So I ask all of you to please pray for them. Pray that they find the strength to get through this and move forward bringing with them all of the greatness that was Mike. Help them to pass this on to his son who will never know the man that adored him most. Pray that Ashley will not blame herself and that she can get passed the what ifs while remembering all of the greatness and joy that Mike had brought to her life. Just pray for their strength as a family and that they can get through this together. My heart just bleeds for them right now. It is just so devastatingly tragic. I thank you all!

Just A Quick Update...

I apologize for my poor blogging habits lately. I have been incredibly busy and I just have so much going on. I appreciate those of you that continue to check on a regular basis and even leave a comment when I do get an opportunity to blog. Today, I want to try to catch up a bit. I have had a few interesting things happening around here. And they are not all necessarily good interesting. As a matter of fact, most are "not-so-good" interesting. But worth blogging about nonetheless. Last week, Zachary had an MRI of his brain done. The purpose was to follow up on a previous MRI where we were told he had some sort of cyst. The original doctor that ordered the first scan, basically said..."he has a small benign cyst in the left temporal lobe of his brain. Nothing to concerning." And that was the jest of her explanation. Oh, and that was in a voicemail. She didn't even have the audacity to wait until she spoke to us so she could explain. I was pretty angry about it then but after receiving the newest results of his MRI, I am downright pissed about it now. I am aware that most of us are not doctors and big technical medical words can be very confusing, but please read the following MRI findings, and tell me if you think that this is just an insignificant benign cyst?!

As previously described, there is a SIGNIFICANT abnormality involving the medial left temporal lobe. The left hippocampus is essentially absent. There is associated loss of volume and atrophy of the adjacent left parahippocampalgyrus. In association with the absence of the left hippocampus is a very atrophic left fornix and mammillary body. Patient is also incidentally noted to have cavum septum pellucidum and cavum vergae. There is mildly dilated distal left temporal horn of the lateral ventricle which does not appear to be contiguous with the previously suspected arachnoid cyst in the anterior left temporal fossa. There is no definitive cortex on the coronal image necks to be arachnoid cyst raising the possibility of porencephalic cyst or some other neuroepithelial cysts simulating an arachnoid cyst. Also noted is a focal area of T2 hyper intensity in the sub cortical white matter in the most extreme anterior/superior lateral aspect of the left temporal lobe.

Now, first of all, shake your head back and forth while allowing your tongue to swing freely and saying, "ay-ay-ay-ay". If you though that was hard to read, imagine me trying to read it out loud on the phone to Zachary's dad! And go ahead and laugh about the fact that, apparently, we all have a college of hippos living in our brains! "Hippocampus"...I had never heard of it myself. But Stevie and I thought it was a pretty funny name for a part of the brain. Now, back to my issue with all of this...

After reading this report, I was left thinking..."small benign cyst? WTF?!" The very fist sentence says that he has a "significant abnormality". Then, like any other curious parent, I went to Wikipedia and looked up some of the big words in an attempt to figure out what was wrong with my sons brain. First of all, the hippocampus affects memory and is he first part of the brain affected by Alzheimer's. Basically, the hippocampus allows you to remember an entire scene, without it you could only remember the objects in the scene but not the backdrop. So I am thinking, this is not really hampering anything at this point, but definitely something to remember in his future. But then I looked up the porencephalic cyst and look at what it says...

You have been diagnosed with an extremely rare disorder of the central nervous system involving a cyst or cavity inside the brain tissue. The cysts or cavities are usually the result of some injury to the brain following an illness or trauma, but they can also be the result of abnormal development. The condition can occur before or after birth, the diagnosis usually being confirmed by CT, MRI, or ultrasonography. The exact cause is often unknown. The prognosis for individuals with porencephaly varies according to the location and extent of the cyst. When discovered in early life, the more severely affected infants show symptoms and signs of the disorder shortly after birth. These may include delayed growth and development, spastic paresis (slight or incomplete paralysis), hypotonia (decreased muscle tone), seizures (often infantile spasms), and macrocephaly (an abnormally large head) or microcephaly (an abnormally small head). Those severely affected individuals at one end of the spectrum may have poor or absent speech development, epilepsy, hydrocephalus, spastic contractures (shrinkage or shortening of muscles), and mental retardation.

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO?! I bold-ed the things that my Zachary has issues with or has been suspected of. He had an abnormal EEG a few months ago that showed an extremely high probability of developing epilepsy. He has previously been diagnosed with macrocephaly and, obviously, the speech delay, delayed development and possibly some mild form of mental retardation. It looks to me that somebody missed something on the first MRI because to me, this is what is wrong with my son. Or maybe the cause of his Autism. But definitely more than an "insignificant benign cyst"! I can not wait for his new Neurologist to read this report and meet with myself and Zachary's dad. I am absolutely certain he will find it to be extremely significant. Thanks for reading and thanks i advance for you thoughts, prayers and well wishes.

I know its Christmas time but....

I HAVE TO RANT! I can't bite my tongue anymore! Did you all know that we are in a recession? And, apparently, we have been since December of last year! Yea...really! They said it on the news yesterday. I say to them...DUH! You dipwads! It takes you a year to figure this out when the entire time people are steadily losing everything they have?! How stupid are these people anyway?! I mean, all year long they kept telling us, "no...its not a recession, its fine", while we were all screaming at them that "HELLOOO" we are broke as hell! So now that the government is with us, are they going to do anything about it? Of course, they aren't just going to sit back and do nothing, they are going to help. Yes, really! They are going to give more money to those people who already have it anyway. WTF?! How are they going to continue to bail out all of these CEO's making 6-7 figure incomes while me and my family are struggling to make a 5 figure income and provide dinner for our children? Why are they going to give more money to people that are just going to use it to give the big wigs in their companies a huge bonus and the take some fancy freaking vacation? Are they stupid?! I say...give it to the little guy! Give it to the blue collar workers struggling to survive. Cause guess what...they are going to spend it! Yeah! And guess what they are going to spend it on....cars, house payments, Christmas gifts etc. And when they spend it on these things, guess where the money goes from there?! Eventually, it gets to the big companies and winds up benefiting everyone! I received an email a while back that basically stated..."if you take the bailout money and tax it first, it would put some $300,000 plus back into the government. Then, you divide the remainder amongst all working Americans over 18 and we would each get something like $250,000! Imagine what we could do with that! And again, guess what?! It would go through "the system" and everyone would benefit! So if you agree with me...say it loud and proud! Blog about it, email your family and friends! We need to raise a big stink and see if we can convince these morons in charge of our money that we, the American working people, deserve a bailout! UGH!

WOW! What a LONG Weekend...

Am I complaining...no,not really. But I am really glad it is Monday and we can all get back to normal again. Am I crazy....probably just a little! I am not glad it is Monday because the weekend was bad or because of anything that anyone did, I am just incredibly bored! I have been sitting around on my duff since Friday and I just need to have a reason to get my hiney off the sofa and rejoin the real world! I never even got out of my "comfy clothes" yesterday! It was a cold, rainy day and we had nowhere to go...so why change clothes...right?! But I am ready to pull myself back together and rejoin the real world. I think if we could have a 4 day weekend once every month, it would really help everyone destress and refresh, which would in turn, make the world a happier place. What do you think?
I sure hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was nice and we all had plenty to eat. It was the first year, however, that we had absolutely no leftover turkey! I even went out on Friday and purchased a turkey breast to cook so that we could have turkey sandwiches (my husbands favorite). But guess what...They ate all of that in 1 day too! It reminded me of the Tasmanian devil or something...one minute you have this beautiful golden brown turkey...the kids fix their plates in a hurried rush...then when they are done...you only have a turkey carcass. It was crazy! But I am glad they enjoyed it! By the way, my turkeys were both incredibly moist and flavorful...even the kids noticed how yummy they were...my secret, rub it down in mayonnaise from top to bottom and then throw a few cloves of garlic into the cavity. Bake it in a turkey oven bag and wallah...a super yummy, moist turkey!


And as far as "black Friday" goes...Stevie and I went out to the mall and Target for a bit. Just mainly to people watch and stuff. We, like most people, didn't really have any money to spend. But amazingly, the mall was very empty considering the day. I was shocked! But I guess the economy is just hurting people more than you even realize. I know that this household will be having a very small Christmas this year and that we will be putting off some bills just to do that. But it gives me an opportunity to teach my children that it isn't about the amount of gifts anyway. The house is decorated, the Christmas spirit is here and we will soon be doing some holiday baking together. Hopefully, they will take something positive from all of it too. If not....there is always next year!

WHAT...TOMORROW IS THANKSGIVING?!...

OMG! I can't believe how fast time flies these days. I knew Thanksgiving was right around the corner but I didn't realize I was standing on it! WOW! I guess if I had plans of travelling to see my family or something like that, it would have been more evident how close it was getting. But we aren't doing anything special around here. It will be me, Stevie, all of the kids (except for Brandon who is stuck in Ft Stewart Ga) the grand baby and Nate's mom. So really it will just be like any other dinner except for Nate's mom. I am a little jealous of the people that get to travel to be with family that they never get to see. My family is in Arizonia and I would love to be going there. But that just isn't in the financial picture right now. Don't get me wrong...I love having my own little family get together, I just miss the rest of my family so much. We are planning the full fledge menu though, complete with all of the trimmings. I just don't think it would be right to not have all of the traditional dishes. My oldest is making a homemade apple pie and she is attempting to recreate my famous sweet potato casserole. I didn't feel like making it this year so she volunteered. It does my heart good to teach her traditions that she can spread to her daughter one day. I am making a pumpkin cheescake and banana pudding and Nate's mom is making lemon squares. If you are wondering why I am only listing the desserts, I have just one question..."Ain't it always about the desserts?"! For the meal, we will be having turkey, gravy, rolls, cranberry sauce (the canned kind...we love that stuff), brussel sprouts, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole and yams with marshmallows, deviled eggs, and I am making this new recipe for artichoke-mushroom stuffing. It is sure to be fantastic! I would like to wish all of you a Happy, Healthy, Full of Friends and Family, Fun Filled Thanksgiving Day! And I would like to complete this post by listing some of the things I am most thankful for...

I am thankful for...
my childrens smiles
my husbands unconditional love
my families health
my sons willingness to defend his country
having my little family together for Thanksgiving
my new job
my new friends from my new job
having a nice home
having a dependable vehicle
having my sweet golden retriever "Theodore"
my daughters willingness to babysit my clan so that I can work
the far and few times my youngest uses the potty
my wonderful Santa collection
those stolen moments I get with my husband
a quiet evening when I get one
a cold glass of wine before bed
and....for you...my faithful readers!
Happy Thanksgiving! May all of your turkeys be moist!

I Need A "Blogging for Dummies" Book...

I have managed to get this far with a little bit of luck, a little bit of "let's see what happens if I do this" and a little smidgen of knowledge. But there are a few things that I just can not seem to figure out with this whole blog thing. For instance...the previous blog with the "elf yourself" link that is totally white making it invisible. I have tried adjusting my title text colors etc, but it is still white. If you can't see the link...how can you follow it?! The most frustrating thing is the "change template to minima" thing. I have tried to follow the directions on a few websites, but it hasn't worked. Either I am an indiot or they just aren't explaining it simple enough for my "self trained" brain. But either way, I have this really cool background that would look even cooler if I could change my template to minima. So...I beg you...could someone please tell me how to change my template? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasssssseee?! I would greatly appreciate it. And I promise that you will no longer have to come back to this page and think..."if she would change her template to minima...her blog would look so much better!" Someday, when I get the money to do it, I want one of those fancy new customized blog title thingys too. But I am sure that isn't something a "dummy" like me can do. Even with a book written especially for me! Thanks in advance for any help you can give. You guys are always so awesome and I know that, ifyou can help, you will. And if any of you ever need assistance with something I am an expert on ...childbirth, sock matching, dish washing, sandwich cutting, pull up changing, pleasing a very picky Autistic child, shoe tying, shopping and spending money I don't even have etc., let me know. I will be glad to help!