Mommin' It Up!

October 1, 2009October 1, 2009

Sleepdate

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve had a rough month. I am still getting over the virus from hell. Yesterday I was starting to feel human again but then this morning I woke up with my nose full of snot and a giant headache so who knows? Maybe I’ll just have it for the rest of my life! Anyhoo, I realized that in the midst of my giant pity party, I had forgotten to update you, the Inquiring Minds, on my various and sundry SLEEP problems. And I know you were just DYING to know what’s going on.

On September 21, I had a sleep study done. This is where you go to a doctor’s office with bedrooms, change into your PJs, and let some strange dude hook you up to 27 wires. Many of these wires come out of your head, and he uses a yucky goo to attach them to your very hairy scalp. This takes about 45 awkward minutes, during which your stomach growls the whole time, and you feel so self-conscious about it that you feel the need to comment about it every time it happens.

After you are wired, said strange dude takes you into your bedroom and tucks you in. Thank God they let you take your Ambien CR first cause there is no way anyone could possibly sleep naturally with 27 wires attached to them.

You sleep some, and strange dude comes to re-connect wires twice during the night. You have a really bad dream at one point, and wake up with your heart racing. You bet the monitors attached to the wires are loving this!

At 5:30, Strange Dude comes back in the room to wake you for the day. “Good morning Jenny,” he says kindly. You find this rather odd, since, as you had no wild nights in college, this is the first time since you were a child that a man besides your husband has tucked you in and woken you up in the morning.

Strange Dude takes all the wires off. Your hair stands up matted with goo in many places. It reminds you of the movie There’s Something About Mary.

You drive home to find your husband is sick and you have to take your son to school. You jump in the shower as fast as you can to wash the nasty goo out of your hair. This would not go over well at the Christian school!

You go back to the doctor October 5th to find out if they actually LEARNED anything about your various and sundry sleep problems from the study. You can’t WAIT, because you’d really love to know what the heck is wrong with you!

As I have said many times before, stay tuned…

(and P.S. we are giving away SIX months of Kroger Deluxe ice cream on Reviewin’ It Up! Go enter here!)

September 30, 2009September 30, 2009

Thumbs Up for Love

Yesterday was an anniversary of sorts for Bobby and me. Not the anniversary of our first date or wedding or the day we got engaged or anything like that, but still, a day we remember every year.

It was the day he cut his thumb off.

At school.

Romantic, yes?

September 29, 1995 Bobby and I were seniors in high school. We weren’t even dating but we were close friends, and had been since he’d ripped my heart out and stomped on it our freshman year (you’re welcome for that one, honey.) Yes, we’d been a couple our freshman year, but then he had the GALL to break UP with me! And somehow, we remained good friends after that. Weird, I know.

Anyways. Bobby was in 2nd period Junior Achievement class making I don’t know, wooden checkerboards or something with a saw, and the board jammed, and fast as lightning drew his hand into the saw, taking off a good part of his right thumb.

Did I mention he had a substitute teacher in class that day? Poor girl!

(Of course we had a group presentation in Personal Finance 3rd period that day and Bobby was in my group. Since he was um, indisposed, he ended up getting the same “A” the rest of us got, you’re welcome again, honey!)

Anyways, fast forward through sirens, lights, EMTs, and emergency surgery, and all the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men cannot put Bobby’s thumb back together again. My mom and I went to visit him in the hospital the next day. When we were saying goodbye, my mom gave him the “thumbs up” sign and said “Hang in there, Bobby!” The THUMBS UP sign, people! It’s a legendary family joke to this day!

To make a long story short, after this incident, Bobby and I started spending a LOT of time together. He missed about three weeks of school and since he was in three of my classes, I brought him all his homework and helped him with it. Since he couldn’t write and he was on narcotics, you know, he needed a “hand” (ba-dum-bum-SHHHSSHH!) He was bored out of his gourd being home all the time so I took him to the mall and the Family Bookstore to buy Christian rap CDs in my ’87 Toyota Camry station wagon. Those months, despite the giant bandage on Bobby’s hand, were some of the most fun of our lives.

And after my long-distance boyfriend of the time broke my heart, Bobby was there to pick it up. Homeboy made his move on December 16, 1995 and we’ve been together ever since.

So, Bobby cutting off his thumb was kind of one of the best things to ever happen to us, because it brought us together.

Half a digit? A small price to pay for a lifetime of love!

I love you, Bobby.

September 28, 2009

Pandora’s Box

So since this is ovarian cancer awareness month, and since I’ve been telling you people to watch out for the signs (have I mentioned that time I skyped with Kelly Ripa?), I thought I’d go a step further in my quest to set a good example and tell you about the time I had my genes tested.

You see, there are these things called BRCA genes, and sometimes they’re screwed up. Mutated, I believe, is the technical term. So having these mutated genes is not cool. According to cancer.gov (now that sounds like a fun website if I’ve ever heard of one), having these mutated genes makes a woman five times more likely than the average woman to develop breast cancer, and 15 to 40 times more likely to develop ovarian cancer. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, the gene mutations are also linked to cervical, uterine, pancreatic and colon cancer.

Awesome.

Years ago my OB/GYN told me that since my mom had ovarian cancer at such a young age, I should have a special ultrasound on my ovaries every year starting when I was 30. (As an aside, I want to mention that this ultrasound is only done on people with family history of ovarian cancer. It is not a routine test – there is no standard, accurate test for ovarian cancer, which is why it’s absolutely critical for women to be familiar with the signs and symptoms.) So, when I hit the big 3-0 this spring, off I went to have my ovaries checked.

While I was there, my doctor suggested doing a test for the BRCA gene mutation as well. You know, since I was already there and everything. I had heard about the BRCA test, read brochures about it in the doctor’s office before, and had done a little internet research (shocking, I know). I even figured it would be prudent to be tested for it at some point. However, I wasn’t planning to do it that day… just someday, after I had gotten around to all the other things on my to-do list like climb Mt. Everest or sky-dive. (Who am I kidding? We all know there’s no way on earth I’d do either of those things.) But I was already there and I was at the advanced age of 30, so I figured I might as well do it. I signed a few forms, filled a few vials of blood, set an appointment to get the results in six weeks, and I was off.

I was not, however, prepared for the complex emotions having that test brought out in me. As I left the parking lot, I called Jenny to tell her about my appointment, and I remember saying to her, “I feel like I just opened Pandora’s box.”

I didn’t really think I had the gene mutation. We don’t have any other instances of breast or ovarian cancer in our family, so while we can’t say for certain that my mom didn’t have it, my highly-qualified (I got my MD on Google, thank you) guess is that she didn’t… that her disease was a fluke, and she was in the lucky 1.4 percent of women without the gene who wind up with ovarian cancer. But like I said, we don’t know.

The thing about the BRCA gene mutation is that once it’s identified, women who have it suddenly have to make a lot of very difficult decisions. Because the likelihood of cancer is so high, some women choose to take preventive measures like having a mastectomy or an oophorectomy (which is a fun way of saying having their ovaries removed). The idea of making decisions like that freaked me out.

My initial reaction to the “what if” was to say “yank those puppies out,” but really, not having ovaries anymore is a pretty serious situation for someone 30 years old, and I’ve read enough blogs written by women fighting breast cancer to know that a mastectomy is not a walk in the park. And if I did have it, what did that mean for my sister? For my daughter? It was a lot to digest.

Fortunately, six weeks later, I went back to the doc and she announced that I was perfect. I don’t have the gene mutation. And while this doesn’t mean that I’m not at increased risk (I still have to have that ultrasound every year), it does mean that my ovaries can remain right where they are for the time being.

And I am so glad.

So there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about my reproductive system. But I wanted to bring up the subject again (I hope you’re not tired of hearing about ovaries, because seriously I am going to keep preachin’!) before the end of ovarian cancer awareness month. Once again, I encourage all of you to visit the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund website and familiarize yourself with the signs and symptoms. It’s so important that you know your body and listen to it.

Thanks for indulging me and my soapbox once again. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.