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2006-10-26 - 11.39pm previous entry next entry
A couple of worries....
Thank you soooo much for the lovely comments about my montage!!!!! I was so touched to read them all! I'm so glad people liked it :)
I have some worries on my mind today, so I am here to try and vent them a little.
My ulcer-ish symptoms are not only still there, they are now getting worse. I went back to the doctor yesterday because my latest lot of medication is running out. She told me she was surprised that they haven't worked, and tells me that I now need to have an endoscopy so they can take a look and see what the heck is up with my stomach.
I am
scared
BRAINLESS
about it.
She has put on the request form that I am anxious about it, so they will give me sedation, but I have to be conscious to swallow the scope tube. Ugggggggggggggggh. I am sooooooo scared I'll gag and throw up but she assures me that I won't. Does she really KNOW though? Hmmm.
I don't know when the endoscopy will be though. I have to wait for a letter from the hospital, which could be next week or in several weeks. I have no idea of the waiting time. The doctor prescribed me more of the same drug I'm on (Omeprazole) which is inhibiting secretion of acid in my tummy. I googled and saw why she's surprised, because everywhere says it should allow ulcers to heal within 4 weeks, but occasionally some may need a further 4 weeks of treatment. I am about to complete 8 weeks of treatment. Which makes me nervous, to say the least. Today is worse than yesterday for symptoms, and yesterday was worse than the day before, and so on. Today I haven't had ANY time without pain or discomfort of some sort. I feel like there is a toothpick under my ribcage, but other times it just feels like a huge-a-rooney bruise along my ribs underneath. And it refers through my back which just hurts like something is pulling on it and won't let go. Being constantly aware of the sensations is adding to my anxiety about it, but that's probably just silly because anxiety may have been one of the major factors in the onset of it anyway. So I should try to NOT stress, but I don't really know how. I wish the waiting list would hurry up for my stress management. They said 4-6 months, so I guess I have a few left still.
My biggest fear has been cancer, but I am SO relieved to read that it's almost invariably in patients aged 45 or over, and cancer is fairly rare in any case out of all the conditions that might cause these symptoms. So that's a huuuuge weight off. I know I'm crazy. But since having kids, I have just got way more anxious about dying. My children NEEEED me. I can't die, not while they're growing up. So I find it nerve-wracking, the thought that anything might be wrong with me that could threaten my life. It frightens me what that would put them through during their childhood and youth. And I couldn't bear not to see them grow up, to know they would grow up without their mummy. It breaks my heart! But it's mainly just anxiety about stuff that isn't likely to happen (another thing I must work on!). It just means that when I have symptoms that don't go away like they're supposed to with treatment, and further investigation is needed, it makes me NERVOUS.
Urgh.
Okay, so that's worry #1 off my chest!
The other one is Arthur. He is having some food/poo issues right now. Yesterday I made a double appt with the doctor, one for me and one for Arthur. If you're eating you probably shouldn't read any more, haha! No, seriously. I am going to write about poo (really gross poo at that). Please feel free to stop reading now if you don't fancy it! Or maybe I should make all the words "poo" in a vibrant colour or something, so you guys can just scroll down till the bright coloured words have stopped happening, haha! ;) But that's too much of a faff really. I just want to get it off my chest and also make note of it for my "records".
For a week or so, he has been doing paler and paler poos, also looser and looser poos. He is really uncomfy doing them and seems to do like 2 enormous ones in a row, one right after the other, in the morning. And again in the afternoon. They are getting to be almost white in colour with a TON of wholemeal husk in them - that's the other issue, Arthur has suddenly become more faddy than EVER with food, and he pretty much won't eat anything except wholemeal bread, cheese, and anything full of sugar like biscuits and cakes (which is obviously a no-no for meals!). So in the morning he'll have wholemeal toast, now that he's refusing cereal and milk. Then cheese sandwiches on wholemeal bread - he won't touch white bread - for lunch (he'll pack these away big time!) and a couple of sugar-free gingerbread men (the best I can do for him re. his thing for biscuits and stuff), and then tea will usually be something I set in front of him that he completely refuses without even putting a touch of it to his lips, or I cave and he gets some form of wholemeal bread again. When I tell my friends this, they say, "Oh that's a good thing to be picky about! How healthy!" Which is really starting to annoy me! Mainly they are saying it because THEIR 2-year-old is refusing everything but chips or something, but as healthy as wholemeal bread is, it's NO fun when your entire diet is fibre and you are pooing husk and liquid. No fun.
Arthur has started to look a bit run-down lately too. He is tired a lot, though still perky and energetic for the mainstay. He has dark circles round his eyes all the time since his gastroenteritis, and he looks much more pale to me these days too. Sometimes he just plain doesn't look well. He is really bothered by the poos and has started to have a really horrid nappy rash, so I thought it was time I asked the doctor about it. I figured at first that it must just be his diet. Which by the way, I CANNOT change. I am trying everything! I have been cooking him soooo many different meals - things that have stuff he'll eat in them, things that are totally new, everything. He won't touch anything. I've tried letting him go hungry but he just gets SUPER hungry by the next meal and then takes one look at it and cries with this really anxious expression, like he is desperately wanting to eat because of how hungry he is, but he just can't eat what's in front of him, for some reason. It's not so much like he doesn't want to, as that he feels he CAN'T. I don't know what to do for him.
He does get a lot of breastmilk. Partly the breastfeeding is kind of getting in the way of a potential plot to fix things, the one that means he doesn't get to eat ANYTHING if he doesn't eat what is put in front of him. That's been recommended to me by a few people, but it's hard to implement while I'm still breastfeeding him. I do NOT want to wean him. I will cut his feeds down perhaps (temporarily) but they are now cut down as far as I'm willing - once in the morning, once at nap time and once at bedtime. He wants to nurse much more often than that and I don't want to limit him any more than I already am. I actually would prefer to nurse him on demand if only he was a good eater as well.
But aside from that side of breastfeeding, the rest of me is just thinking THANK GOD I am still breastfeeding my toddler! What a wonderful thing! It may well just be that he's being a pretty normal nearly-2-year-old and having a patch of faddy eating. It seems awfully common and some kids seem to survive MONTHS on one not-so-healthy food! I am just so relieved that Arthur gets breastmilk through the whole palava. Really I should relax more about his nutrition because he's getting a very rounded diet in breastmilk. Though obviously it's not enough for a toddler, on its own. But yeah. I am really thankful that I am still breastfeeding my toddler, and proud to be able to do that for him. I just hope he starts to improve soon because I am finding it absolutely exhausting to breastfeed two little ones as much as I am. Arthur has BIG feeds. And he'll also nurse if he gets hurt and needs extra special comfort. Sometimes he gets a lot of milk around a nap if he's unsettled and wakes before it's time for him to get up. Once or twice I have given him milk mid-morning or mid-afternoon in place of a normal snack (read: cookie!) because he's asked for it and it's healthier than a cookie (although he will sometimes eat a cereal bar). He occasionally eats peas, yoghurt and apple. But the few things he WAS eating before his tummy bug, like banana and fish fingers and stuff, he won't eat now.
Matthew feeds wonderfully - he pretty much goes 3 hours between feeds, but I sometimes offer it 2-hourly (more out of habit or convenience for going out somewhere or something, rather than him asking for it!). He does sometimes have phases where he wants to nurse 2-hourly, but more often he'll go 3 hours. He can be a bit fussy at the breast, and some of his feeds seem tiny but he seems satisfied and goes the normal 3-ish hours till the next feed. But I know he is taking more from me lately. He's 4 months old and getting bigger and hungrier! He definitely does not need solids yet and won't be offered them in any case till he's 6 months old. But the combination of both the boys and their intake from me is quite tiring, to say the least!
Anyway. I don't know why I'm going on about that. It's not like I want to wean either of them in any way, and I LOVE nursing them both. I just wish it wasn't so taxing on me, physically! I should probably take better care of myself but there is just never the time. I know it's a priority but seriously, there is just NEVER the time, priority or not. I can't make time that doesn't exist! I get 3 meals, don't worry. They aren't always that great because there is no time to make them, or we haven't got much food in the house because of no time to get food shopping. Or something. But I do get my meals.
Anyway. Arthur's poo. So the doctor thinks it might just be his current diet, and she said his faddiness is normal and will pass. And so will the weirdo poo, eventually. She gave me a pot and a little spatula and this morning I had to do the incredibly nauseating task of transferring awful awful poo into this little pot, yeeurrrgh! So we should get the results on Tuesday, but the doctor thinks there will be nothing to report. It's just in case he has some treatable bug or something. She thinks not though.
Anyway.
Now it's an hour or so later and I've eaten some yummy chicken and vegetable soup and wholemeal bread (which, amazingly, I can still face!) and watched Scrubs, which I LOVE. There was a Christian song playing at the end which I loved the sound of, and HOW cool is it that I can watch the credits roll, walk up the stairs to the computer, google the few words that I remembered from the song and instantly find the full lyrics and the name of the artist (Kutless - All of my words), and whip out my new music downloading software, do a quick search and now I sit here listening to that song as I type this! :) I also discovered that Kutless (who I've never heard of before) have done several songs that I have heard a lot on Christian radio stations and LOVED. I have sung some of them over and over, just the bits I know, to let my heart open to God and draw close to him to worship. I feel SO excited to have found those songs at last - not that I was even looking for them!
The ones that have really touched my heart are 'Arms of Love' (except the one I like is a different version than the one I found by Kutless) and 'All Who Are Thirsty'. And 'Better is One Day in Your Courts'. Love them. Ooh ooh, just did some more googling and more downloading (soooo quick!) and now I'm listening to loads of Vineyard music that I had forgotten about from my years as a new Christian. They make my whole heart throb and ache. But in a lovely way. And they are soothing my soul like nothing else.
So, listening to this lovely music as I type, and with my tummy more settled, and having just taken another break to nurse my tiny sleepy Mathie-boy by the light of the computer monitor and just watch his precious little face and his his lovely long eyelashes on his cheeks as he sleeps at my breast, and feel his soft new hair against my cheek as I snuggled him before I lay him down asleep... I just feel soft inside, in-love and beloved all at once.
And I wasn't even THINKING about God this evening - though I should have. With all that anxiety, God is the first place I should have turned, but it didn't even cross my mind. But he knew what I needed, and drew me close to him through quite an unlikely source. God is SO good :) I love him. And now I am going to bed! I'll update again when I can with the latest photos and some general news of little boys! My mummy and daddy are coming next week!!!!!!! Tuesday till Sunday. I can not wait. And my baby boy (the older one!) will be TWO in exactly two weeks. Which can't be true, but it is. So weird. Anyway, I'll be back soon!
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