I’m Sorry…

Nate, Abbie, and Anna,

I wanted to write this for you just in case I’m not here to tell you in person when you are old enough to understand. We are not guaranteed tomorrow and I’m scared that my tomorrows are becoming fewer and fewer.

I was 12 years old when I was diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes was a gateway disease and after being diagnosed, I had nothing but hard times when it came to my health. I guess since I’m being honest, I should be completely honest. When I was 15, I restricted my insulin intake so that I could eat what I want, but not gain weight. It now has a name called diabulimia. It continued even with the help of rehab. Only it wasn’t due to being scared of gaining weight, but because of money. It’s expensive to be sick and we couldn’t afford it. Daddy didn’t know I wasn’t being compliant, no one did. I just did it. I was compliant while pregnant with all 3 of you. I didn’t want to risk your lives because of my selfishness. But still you were all 3 born too early, but I’m grateful to God for forgiving me and giving me 3 healthy babies. I love you all more than life and I’m so so sorry for not being the mom you deserve. You deserve a better mom than me. Someone who can play with you longer than 10 minutes without getting tired. You deserve a mom who can shower everyday and take you to a playground and push you on the swings. You deserve a mom who kisses your booboos and makes them all better. You probably won’t remember this, but everytime I got sick (which was often), Nate, you would say “Hug and kiss make it all better?” I would always tell you it would and you would give me the best hugs and kisses everytime. I would tell you as enthusiastically as I could that you made it all better and all I needed was to sleep. Abbie, you would lay with me watching whatever silly show was on. I tried to keep it on things you would like… Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Spongebob Squarepants, or even Little Einsteins. and you would watch your show and be there with me. I loved that. Just being with you made me feel better. Anna… bless your heart. You weren’t even one yet and you would crawl around in the floor playing with whatever caught your eye. You loved cords. Computer cords, cell phone chargers, anything that could plug into the wall. I always made sure they were unplugged, but nonetheless, I wouldn’t watch you as closely as I should’ve. Thank God you never hurt yourself. I love you babies, more than you’ll ever know. And I hope if something does happen to me, that Daddy will find someone who loves you just as much as I do and is able to take care of you better than I could. Remember… no matter what… I AM PROUD OF YOU! I LOVE YOU NO MATTER WHAT! AND I WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU!

You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happppppyyyyyyy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I loooooovvvveee you. Please don’t take, my sunshine, away.

I Love You Nate.

I Love You Abbie.

I Love You Anna.

Where Are We Going?

Crazy… That’s what my dad would say to us when we get in the car and go for a drive when I was younger. I now say it to my 3. I didn’t realize that my dad was being literal. I know he was because I am when I give the same answer to my kids. They like to ask the same question over and over and over again, even if I have acknowledged them. And then when I’ve given them an answer that pacifies them, they will repeat it. It drives me crazy and I love it all at the same time. Here is a typical conversation…

I am packing up diaper bags, snacks, and drinks so that we can go to Gran’s house.

Nate: “Mama, where are ya goin?”

Me: We are going to go bye bye.

Nate: Bye-Bye?

Me: Yes.

Abbie: Where we goin?

Me: Bye-Bye.

Abbie: Bye-Bye?

Me: Yes!

Abbie: Why?

Me: Because we are going to visit Grann.

Abbie: We goin to Grann’s house?

Me: YES!

Nate: Where we goin?

Me: Crazy.

Nate: You goin crazy?

Me: Yes!

Nate: I not wanna go crazy. I wanna go Grann’s house.

Me: *head wall* *head wall*

Good Times. Good Times.

My birthday is in September and when I turned 16 my parents bought me a Mustang. I was one lucky teenage girl. However, I think they bought it to torture me because even though I was 16, I didn’t have my license nor would they allow me to get my license until I completed the driver’s ed course. Who knew the course had a waiting list and I wouldn’t be able to take it until the following summer. The school year had just started weeks before and I was going to have to wait until it ended to take the course and then I was going back to school (in the summer!) OMG… I was going to be 17 before I got my license? AGONY! Thank God my best friend, Lindsey, had her license. My parents agreed that she could drive my car since she didn’t have one. Finally, freedom…. somewhat.

This arrangement worked most of the time, but every now and then I wanted to drive my car and Lindsey had had her license almost an entire year before I got my car… who better to teach me to drive. She would let me drive backroads most of the time, but I did drive in the city some too. I remember learning about red lights. I was in the turn lane waiting for the green arrow. It turned green and so I started to turn, but then I looked above me and saw another red light (the one telling the opposite direction to stop) and so I stopped. Lindsey freaked out a little bit. No more than anyone else who had just witnessed a moving car stop abruptly in the middle of an intersection and I told her about the red light and she explained that it was for the opposite direction (DUH Traci) and so I went on. I’m so glad I made that mistake with her and not with my soon to be driver’s ed classmates. They wouldn’t have been so nice about it.

One of the Firsts…

I remember when I pregnant with Nate and I first felt him kick. It was the day after Thanksgiving in 2006. I was taking a nap, laying down on my stomach with my hands underneath my stomach. I woke up and was laying there trying to remember the dream I just had when I felt a nudge on my hand. It frightened me so I rolled over and realized I had just felt my baby kick. I raised my shirt over my stomach and stared hard at it and not only did I feel him kick, I saw it too. I saw either his foot or his hand poke up. It was the weirdest thing, but it made my pregnancy real. I mean I knew I was pregnant, but it made me realize how serious the pregnancy was. Even though I knew there was a tiny person living inside me a light bulb went off and I realized that within 5 months I was going to meet the beautiful creature that not only made me sicker than a demon possessed human, but my baby. After that day, I was obsessed with everyone feeling him kick. A lot of women don’t want you to touch there belly when they are pregnant… I was the opposite. I wanted to be approached by strangers so they could feel my son kick. I loved sitting on the couch with my shirt raised above my belly and have everyone around me see him move. I was a proud mama from the get go. God Bless You!

I Believe in Angels…

Abbie was a few months old. She had been fussy that night and I was trying to soothe her. We both fell asleep, Abbie was on my chest and I was streched out on the couch. I remember waking up and feeling awful. My sugar was dropping by the minute and I was so weak I couldn’t yell for Tim to help me. I don’t remember a lot, but I remember holding onto Abbie and then passing out. I woke up to paramedics, they had put medicine through an IV to bring my sugar up. My sugar had gotten so low that I had a seizure and Tim woke up because of the loud crash I made when I fell to the floor. All I kept thinking is that I hurt Abbie. That’s why Tim called 911. I hurt Abbie. Apparently I was saying my thoughts out loud and Tim was baffled. He wanted to know what I was talking about. He said, “Traci… You put Abbie in her swing. She was in her swing when I found you?”. The swing was about 10 feet away from the couch. The last thing I remember was holding Abbie close to my chest and wanting to yell for Tim to get her and help me, but not being able to. There was only one explanation… Angels. There had to be at least one angel to pick her up and put her there before I started seizing otherwise I would have surely hurt her when I fell. I know I didn’t do it. I couldn’t yell for help much less pick up Abbie and carry her 10 feet to her swing. I believe angels are all around us and I’m thankful that angels were there to protect her that night and to protect all three of my children of every minute of every day. God Bless You.

Ready to Update.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I hope to change that soon. There hasn’t been much to update. Anna is doing extremely well. She is such a happy baby. She smiles at everyone and I love it. Abbie turned 3 in June and we had a birthday party for her at Chuck E Cheese. She loved it. Nate starts school next week. Pre-K, but he will be going full time. He is such a big boy, it feels like it was only yesterday I was having his first birthday party at our house. And since then he has had 3 more birthday parties, Abbie was born and has had 3 of her own parties, and of course Anna was born and will be having her 1st birthday party in a little over 3 months. Where does the time go?

The reason why it’s been so hard to blog is because of my health. Since I blogged last, I was diagnosed with End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF) and I have been placed on dialysis. I had surgery at the end of June for my access point. On July 5th, I started dialysis. I first went to a clinic for the treatments and while doing them I was also being trained to do them at home. And now I’m completely on my own. I see my kidney doc once a week to make sure everything is working as it should. I feel a lot better and have more energy than I did before. It’s amazing how well I’m doing. I didn’t realize how bad I felt until I started feeling better. I was talking to my mom one day after a long day of treatments that I felt like I had drank 10 espresso shots. I was wired and full of energy and even after coming home and cleaning, I still was ready to go. It was a great but short lived feeling. I have had ups and downs and 3 hospitalizations since that day, but I stay positive and thank God for everyday that I have.

If you still check to see if I update my blog, thank you. And upon reading this… please continue to pray for my family. God Bless You!

Time flies by…

I didn’t realize it’s been over a month since I updated about Anna or my family, things have been hectic with Anna now home and new discoveries regarding my health.

Anna is doing wonderful. She now weighs 8lbs 9oz and is 21in long. I knew she was getting big, but she was only 7lbs and a few ounces last time she was weighed a couple of weeks ago and now she is almost 9lbs. I’m going to look into getting her ears pierced when she reaches 10lbs, but looking at her lobes now I may wait. They are small I want the expert to have more lobe to work with.  We had to have Abbie’s pierced twice because the technician went in crooked on one of her ears. At that time I talked to the manager and we both agreed that it was due to a couple of reasons. 1. Abbie was so small, it might’ve been hard for the tech to get a good hold on to put the earring in straight. 2. Come to find out, the technician was new and probably nervous. 3. She was a baby, and no one wants to hurt a baby. This time, I’m going to let her get a bit bigger than her sister was and request the technician that has been piercing ears longer, pierce her ears.

I was admitted to the hospital… again… a couple of weeks ago. I was having a heart time breathing and had felt very fatigued for a week before. Bubba and Sissy took the kids that weekend and I decided to go on to the hospital and hope it was a quick fix. Hope being the key word. It was revealed that I have chronic congestive heart failure, which we knew I had chf, we just didn’t realize it was chronic. Of course, my blood pressure was high. I was short of breath due to pneumonia, the doctors gave me iv antibotics to ward it off. A nephrologist (kidney doctor) was called since I have Diabetes and other pre-existing conditions. He told me that my creatine level was 2.7 which is bad apparently. He said that I only have 20% kidney function. Kidney failure is 10% or less of your kidney function and you are put on dialysis. And as soon as I get some insurance issues resolved, I will be put on the pancreas/kidney transplant list. It can take 2 – 4 years before a donor can be found, but hopefully I can retain the function I have and maybe not have to reach dialysis before a match can be found. 

It’s quite scary. My energy level on a scale of 1-10 is probably a 2. And that’s not convenient with 3 kids. I give them all I have though. I try to ask as if nothing is wrong, but children know. They are smarter than people think, and I don’t try to underestimate their knowledge. Nate will ask Tim, “is mommie sick?” when I go lay down to take a nap. “No, she’s not sick. Mommie is just tired.”, Tim will reply. And then Nate, with nothing but hope in his voice, hoping he can make Mommie all better, will ask “her need Dr. Pepper? Dr. Pepper make it all better?”. I will usually interject then and tell him, “yes. Dr. Pepper will make me feel all better. Can you help Daddy make me some?”. “Yeah! Come on Daddy!”, he will exclaim. Then they will go to the kitchen and fix me a glass of Diet Dr. P and Nate will carefully and gently bring it to the bed and say, “here Momma”, of course I take a drink and tell him that it made me feel better and I’ll ask him if I can take a nap. He’ll say, “yeah momma, you take nap,” he’ll gently close the door and tell everyone in the living room to “shhhhh, momma seepin”. He is such a sweet boy. Abbie is just as sweet. She will cuddle with me if I’m not feeling good. The couch is my friend and she will be playing, laughing, and bouncing around from room to room, when all of a sudden you realize it’s quiet. I will look in the direction of her room and I see her gigantic eyes peering over the arm of the couch at me. I ask her if she wants to sit with Mommie and she’ll hurry over and climb on the couch and sit beside me for what seems like hours but usually is 20 – 30 minutes.

These are the moments I cherish. This is the reason I blog. I want them to know how much I loved them after I’m gone. I want them to know that it’s the simple things they do that make me happy. They don’t have to be the best at anything to make me proud, they just have to be themselves.