Christmas was great. Happy smiles all over and the usual tussles sometimes. I think all were happy with their gifts tho. Biggest happy petson is garrett tho since he got a starter drum set finally. :)

Baby girl playing with my hair makes me so tired.

Cats and dogs

Can get along.  :)

it does take me a while

to post that is. I really should try to do better. I forget that not everyone follows me on FB these days. ;)
Had follow up appts with all the brain drs this month. the latest MRI scan is "stable" so I wont need another one for a year (yay!). still having what seems to be simple partial focal seizures, so had to do another EEG to see if they could find anything this time (it was much more intense than the last one. maybe due to being at a different facility?). still waiting to hear the findings from that. have had my Keppra upped. moving up to 3K mg a day. this week moving up my night dose and next week (on thursday) will up my morning dose as well. it makes me more tired. I warned Robert beforehand and still warning myself. lol
had to leave church early today cause I stayed too long last week and was way too tired to be driving home. :p tired today, but no nap for me, trying to stay up til bedtime even though I'm worn out.
I have to say I'm very thankful for the migraine meds I have. I dont get them often anymore, but when they are starting up, if I take my meds quick, I can get them to back off before I'm down for the count. yesterday was close. I was already starting to get the shakes (how my body now reacts to pain) but thankfully it kicked in not long after that. dont want to repeat what they felt like before having the meds. awful stuff!
I see a neuro ophthalmologist next month. interestingly enough, he's also the same dr who did Gavin's last eye surgery years ago. maybe a good sign? we'll see what they have to say. the double vision I was having has cleared up most days, but it was a migraine that brought it on last time (my right eye feels like it swells up during those, strange!) so I may get down there and find nothing. but at least we'll have a base to follow up with next time. my previous field tests have already been sent down from february after first finding the tumor, so we'll see if anything has changed, and we'll get his opinion on how the tumor effects my eyes.

the kids are doing great. cant wait for halloween of course. usually we have our costumes already done and ready by now, but with me working full time at crazy hours, its been hard this year. :( I'm off work today and tomorrow, so I'm hoping I can pull it all together during that time.

having all the kids in school is still something for me to get used to. its so quiet during my days off during the week. LOL! but my brain needs the break, so I usually have no tv on and just a quiet house if I need it.

all the babies

on sunday, all our babies will be another year older this year as we wrap up all the birthdays. Canaan will be 18. doing well in college and loving the baseball team. K is 16 and finally thinking about getting her permit. Gav is 13 and acting like he's already in high school. H is 11 and doing proudly in his classes. G2 is 7 and is having a great school year with a new teacher. S is 5 and loving kindy.
proud mama and daddy to this little clan of kidlets! :)

Realization

So i just realized the other day that its only been 6 months since the UFO was found. Only 6 months. It seems like so much longer. *sigh*

my how time flies

our oldest boy, Canaan, will graduate on the 18th.
seriously.
graduating from high school.
already.
how can that happen so fast and yet it just at times seems to take so long then BAM it's just here and you're going "whaaaaa?!"
we're so proud of him. proud of them all actually. he's set a good example (mostly LOL) for his siblings.
Can't believe graduation is so close. *sniff*

yesterday was my appt with the neurologist. I did like him, which I'm relieved about. he like the neurosurgeon didnt think the size/place of the tumor would cause seizures and the complications like I'm having. so, I had 6 more vials of blood drawn and the paperwork had a lot of Epilepsy terms in them. they'll have the results of that today, but I dont think I'll find anything out til I go back to see him. he's ordered an EEG (brain wave test) and will also do in-depth memory and thinking skills to see how I do with those. I think I failed the balance test yesterday.  so if they cant get me in for those extra tests before 4 weeks, I'll go back in 8 weeks. a whole game of wait. meh.
in the meantime, I'll be reading up on epilepsy to see what I find on it. I've seen it while searching seizures, but have skipped over most of it since they found the tumor. so many questions still.
he did say my keppra dose was almost the lowest possible and since i've not had any more known seizures, we'll keep it at what it is for now.

I, like anyone else, hate the waiting game. I wanted to call today, but I dont think they'd want to give me news over the phone. they didnt call me to say anything either. guess I can call tomorrow morning to see if they got the appts set up for the other tests at least and can maybe slip in a question about the bloodwork. though, IDK if I'd want to know if it was a 'yes' without being at the drs office so I can start rattling off a lot of questions! 
and I did find this on an epilepsy site:

Quote:

When are people most likely to get epilepsy? New cases of epilepsy are most common among children, especially during the first year of life. The rate of new cases gradually declines until about age 10, and then becomes stable. After age 55 or 60, the rate starts to increase, as people develop strokes, brain tumors, or Alzheimer's disease. (All of these disorders can cause epilepsy.)

nice to know i fit in there somewhere. 

and another:

Quote:

There is a fine balance in the brain between factors that begin electrical activity and factors that restrict it, and there are also systems that limit the spread of electrical activity. During a seizure, these limits break down, and abnormal electrical discharges can occur and spread to whole groups of neighboring cells at once. This linkage of electrical discharges creates a "storm" of electrical activity in the brain. This is a seizure. When a person has had at least two of these seizures, that's called epilepsy.

I of course had 2 in one day and a 3rd had begun while in the hospital that night, before they got me laid down and it went away. (is that even possible to stop one? or maybe it was a mini seizure? IDK!)

I'm not going to dwell on it now though. unfortuneatly, I've chewed up the inside of my cheek. I chew on it when I get nervous or aggitated and its kinda sore right now from me doing that over the last day. :p 
note to self: STOP IT!!!!

things I've noticed about the 'new me'...

 I've noticed changes in myself over the last few months and I dont know if its the effect of the M on me, or maybe the keppra (I only take two 500mg pills a day). all I know is that I'm not the same person I was before January this year.
my memory is the worst thing that bothers me. I worry sometimes that what if one of these days I dont remember the important things, like my kids or hubby? birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I already forget the simple things. like when my daughter and I were out eating, I forgot that I'd eaten my bread, so when I came back from teh buffet, I was sad the waitress had taken my plate because she'd taken my bread. my daughter tole me I'd already eaten it. it sounds so simple, but it bothers me so bad. one night I couldnt remember if I'd actually washed my body during my shower because I couldnt remember what bath adn body scent I'd used. it's every day things that do this. I try to joke about it, but it really bothers me.
this week we're on vacation. love it as its only my 2nd time to the beach and only our 2nd vacation in our 21 years together. it was so stressful getting everything together for a family of 8 though! one thing I noticed when we got here, we're on the 8th floor and I swear I could feel the building moving when we got off the elevator. I do have vertigo and have trouble going up and down stairs, but dont have issues standing on the balcony. I attribute it to standing still and not trying to navigate my way down the height.
I almost had a breakdown emotionally when we went to walmart to get groceries the other day though. our own walmart I can handle, but this, being bigger and not known to me was like dunking me in a bath of cold water. we made it through getting the food and I still needed to pick up a hair dryer. I didnt know where to go, so hubby was walking and I was trying to follow. I eventually just stopped at an endcap and was kind of lost. he asked me what I was doing adn I wanted to cry and kinda went off a bit saying I didnt know where to go!
I feel silly for these things, being so randomly emotional, not being able to walk without putting a hand out to bounce myself off a wall or table so I dont go sideways. forgetting something 3 seconds afterwards, being off in a daze some days and just not being all there becasue they're my 'bad days'. it's not the me that I've always known. it freaks me out and I'm still coming to terms with it.
I go in for my 2nd MRI in a couple of weeks. I'm nervous and butterflies started last month! how do those who have been on W&W deal with this for years?  
my family has been great. so great. my close friends have been wonderful. I think they probably take it more seriously than I do, or worry more than I do, or perhaps voice their concerns more than myself. I'm a kind of quiet person and dont like to worry others with my 'issues'. my hubby wants me to quit this and open up to him more. I broke down about my memory issues this week and how they bother me. he was glad I talked with him and even cried some himself. but at the same time, he mentioned me dealing with this so I can get back to being the person I used to be. I've read the stories, I've been researching the way things change. *sigh* I konw he'll love me no matter what, but I'm having a hard time learning to love the new person I am so far, even though I know its not been that long yet. and I've not even been through much yet. bleh.
guess this is what happens when you hold stuff in, it just kinda gurgles out. lol!

Another headache moving in. Id been doing so well the last week.
*sigh*

today has been a good day physically. those have been few and far between since Jan 15th, so this is nice! I feel normal today actually. sometimes I wonder if that's good or not. If i feel good, I may tend to forget that I need to take medication to keep me that way. :-p not that I want to feel bad, it's been a booger dealing with that. it's always just an up and down thing. one day I can be great and then *BAM* it's in the crapper.
bleh.
I'll take my good day though! I'm thankful for it! *whew!*

Things have changed

yeah, I know I've been quiet in here.
For those who hang out with me on FB, you'll know (probably) what has made this year be a doozy so far.
On Jan. 15th I was taken to the ER after having 2 seizures. No, I'd never had any type of seizure in my life. After much testing, another 'almost seizure' and many more testings, we found out I am housing in my brain a meningioma tumor. yes, they're benign (supposed to be). the one that is nesting in my head is nestled under my pituitary gland, skull based in the cavernous sinus, about 1" and egg shaped. it's wrapped around my left carotid artery as well and pushing up on my left temporal lobe. that's what caused the seizures. it was messing with my head, literally.
We've recently had our 2nd opinion at Baptist Hospital in Nashville and have decided we've found our neurosurgeon for when the time comes. As of now, I'm under Watch and Wait (W&W) to see how the tumor decides to play.
I go back in mid-April for another MRI to check against the first one I had in Jan.
Right now, no one wants to touch it because the risks definitely outweigh the benefits because of its location and all the sensitive type stuff it's snuggled up and around. Yeah, I do like feeling my face, having the use of my eyes and stuff like that.
I'm on medication for the seizures. It took me a good month to adjust to that. harsh stuff that it is, and I'm on a pretty low dose. I feel for those who have to have a high dose.
I did have symptoms before anything happened, but I wrote it off as "getting older" (I just turned 40 this month!) Now, I know what I've actually got going on. I also find new things that make me wonder "is this part of that, or should I just ignore it?" I hate doubting myself.
Its been a bumpy road already. I have faith that everything will be fine. But still, I'm only human and I've gotten a shake-up. My hubby (of 20 years now) is wonderfully awesome! I cant ask for better. My mom has been by my side almost every day as well. She's my taxi cab too since I cant officially drive til mid-april now.  Dont know what I'd do without her!
The kids are fairing well. the older ones understand better than the younger ones of course. we try to keep things as normal as possible. the best thing I think.
This will likely be a long fight. whatever it turns out to be, I'm wearing my boxing gloves and am ready to fight!

Our kitties

Ho hum

Very bored at work...