The struggle is real

When I started this blog, it was supposed to be a place where I could just unload. I wanted to help people who also have children who have been diagnosed with crazy acronyms and the diagnoses do nothing but tell you that your children behave a certain way. What those diagnoses don't do is tell you how difficult life will be and what to expect. Every child is different. Today is the beginning of Autism Awareness month, and I have changed my profile photo on Facebook. I don't call it Awareness ... because we are ALL aware there is autism. What we need more of is acceptance. Accept that neurological disorders manifest in very different ways. No two children are the same and the parents who battle behind the scenes are doing everything they can to protect their children's hearts ... and help them to become a functional member of society when they grow up.

That brings me to my latest battle.

Been a trial

The past few months ... actually years ... have been a lesson in weathering trials. As I have stated before, I suffer from anxiety and battled postpartum depression. I was misdiagnosed with bi-polar, but my therapist discovered that it isn't bi-polar, it is simply massive anxiety attacks that I was having.

Unfortunately, my children have had to feel the brunt of my quirks until I learned how to handle them and get the help I needed. Now that I have though, our family is beginning to operate like a normal family. We are finally to the point where we are surrounding ourselves only with people who will continue to lift us up and propel us to the successful future that we know we have in store. Thanks to this, we have seen MASSIVE success in our family. I want to share a little with that now since I have not been online lately.

Redoing the basement

If there is one thing about me that has not changed since childhood is my inability to be happy with the way things are organized in my house. When I was younger, my father actually made me a scaled version of my room out of IBM Punch Cards that were tossed out as the university no longer used them. I absolutely loved being able to rearrange my room and know that things would just "work."

Since moving into the townhome, it has been a constant battle to figure out the best way to use the space. Maybe part of it is because there is so much more space. However, part of it is also because we try something and it just does not seem to work the way we have envisioned it to. I think that's been the biggest thing with the latest remodel.

What is living in acronym hell?

So, I thought it would be best to start a new personal blog, and leave my Redbird Empire blog to be more about business related topics. While I absolutely love talking about my kids and my life, it is hard to separate that from coding, electronics, technology, social media, and everything else that Redbird Empire is about. It only made sense to start a blog that was my personal life. I thought for a long time about what to call my personal blog, because there are so many cool names out there.

However, after the past few years of being diagnosed and treated for PPD, having suffered from PTSD, having a psychiatrist tell me that I have ADD (in addition to bi-polar and OCD), then being told I DIDN'T have bi-polar ... but rather GAD & OCD. I started to wonder how much more of the alphabet could be shoved into my life. You know what, never wonder these things! My eldest daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD & OCD. She talks about her life on her blog at Marvel-ously Talented. My son has been diagnosed with extreme anxiety, and possibly Asperger's (pending more testing). Oh, and he has SPD. My second daughter, who is four, has been diagnosed with SPD, which is now classified as a manifestation of ASD.

What in tarnation am I talking about? For those who do know, you are probably crying along with me. But for those who are just visiting my site because you know me from Redbird Empire, let me define.

• PPD - Post-Partum Depression
• ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder
• PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
• GAD - General Anxiety Disorder
• ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder
• SPD - Sensory Processing Disorder
• ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorder

My goal with my new site is to show you what life is like in my house. However, maybe more importantly, it is to give me a place to talk about what I go through and feel a way to breathe. Maybe someone who has already gone through the same things would love to give insight for me. Maybe someone else is feeling so overwhelmed and they do not know which way to turn. I am not deleting my past blog posts at Redbird Empire. You can still find them. I will edit this post after I get the finalized location set. I plan on making them accessible through a link so they do not distract from my budding business.

I hope this site continues to grow and become a place where I can feel that it is no longer hell ... but just normal life. Parenting is hard. Parenting with severe anxiety is extremely hard. I just want one day for it to feel "normal."

That Moment When You Learn You've Been Misdiagnosed

I battled on going back to my psychiatrist for a couple months now ... however, I knew that my OCD was getting worse. I was constantly battling with myself about how things needed to line up, be in specific place, feeling overwhelmed because things WEREN'T where they should be. I knew I needed to go back, but I also knew that I had been off my bi-polar meds for a few months and really didn't want to have the "talk" with my psychiatrist ... which, really, is funny since I LOVE who I go to now.

Well, I decided to bite the bullet yesterday and walk over to make the appointment since I was there anyway (my daughter's psychiatrist is right next door). I was able to get in to see my doctor the very next day (today). Course, that gave me no time to try to back out of the appointment. See ... I know myself well enough to know that if I give myself enough time to back out of something, I will. But I also know that with enrolling in school, I needed to get in and get things taken care of.

She called me back and immediately asked if I was okay (cause she hadn't seen me since October). I told her that for the most part, I was doing great.  However, I wanted to chat about my diagnosis and some questions that I had. She smiled and looked at me ... then she said, "let's chat, cause I have had a lot of question marks on my file for you."

My guard went down immediately and I started to tell her about how I felt and the questions I had with the bi-polar diagnosis, especially with the stuff I have been filling out for my children. I talked to her about how I felt like I really never have had the swings that people talk about and I felt that I was never listened to. She sat and asked me questions based on the flags that had been raised to dive deeper into them. Then she added:

"I have had problems with your bipolar diagnosis since you came in and let me tell you why. 1) You have never had swings that last for days/weeks/months. 2) You have never had feelings of grandiosity. 3) You've never been suicidal or self-harmed. 4) You have never been prescribed a high enough dose of bipolar meds to make me feel like you every had bipolar. Your prescription strength has been the same since you were diagnosed. I know, I pulled the records."

I wasn't really sure what to say. Honestly. I immediately had questions on if bipolar can go into remission. Maybe I had it once and then after babies it went away. I mean, that is a pretty heavy diagnosis ... right?

That's when I learned that many psychiatrists don't fully understand bipolar, just like they don't fully understand Autism. They are very hard to diagnose and things are thrown around. It is easy to look for a few key red flags and slap the diagnosis on there. What she thinks happened is my psychiatrist at the university took the mood questionnaire and had me check yes or no. While that is a great start, it should lead to further questions and further investigation. Unfortunately, many times, doctors will count the check marks and make a decision. Then you are stuck with a label.

I am NOT denying that I have issues. I know I do. I have anger management issues. I have issues with sounds and textures. I have issues with OCD. I have issues with not bouncing around with my ideas ... mainly because I am good in MANY areas. It makes it HARD to settle down in one area. Does that mean I have ADD? Possibly. However, it is not severe enough to hinder my abilities in life. It is not making life hard to live or preventing me from doing things. It has been put down as a mild case, but since I am able to follow through, I am not going to worry about it .. .neither is my psychiatrist. Does this mean I have SPD? No. Everyone has things they avoid. I know what textures and sounds I dislike and I avoid them. I will talk to a therapist if necessary to learn how to cope with them.

So ... what is my diagnosis if I am not bi-polar?

I have OCD. My OCD causes me to have anxiety and my sensory issues can cause that anxiety to heighten ... causing my OCD to worsen. BUT ... I just have OCD as a diagnosis. I'm being taken off of ALL my bi-polar meds and it has been deleted from my file. They are upping my Prozac and I will go back to the doctor in a few weeks to see if we need to add therapy to the medication. If I do therapy, it will be in the form of Cognitive Behavior ... or Exposure & Response. Basically, I will learn how to train my body to NOT go into fight or flight mode when exposed to triggers.

 May is National Mental Health Awareness Month. I have spent the last few weeks working on helping my children get the help they need to become better people. I realized that I needed to also fight for myself. Know that you are not alone. We need to get over the stigma of talking about mental health. Not only am I okay with knowing that I have a need for a psychiatrist in my life ... I am becoming okay with knowing that I am a parent with mental health issues. I NEED to be open and honest with myself. I need to not feel guilty (although I do, daily) for the issues that my children struggle with. I am not alone in the struggle to parent with inside battles. I am also not alone in parenting children who struggle with inner battles. Let this be one of the many times that I state ... if you have questions about mental health or you feel like you are struggling ... reach out to me. A label is nothing more than that ... a label. It is what you do with that label that is who you are.

*please note - I have no intention of going after the initial psychiatrists who diagnosed me with bipolar. It was 13 years ago. I am moving on.

Getting back into a routine after illness

One of the hardest things about being a mom is really having no time to be sick. There is no good time, but when sicknesses get the best of you, you have no choice but to make time. It's a fact. I posted my last update when I was feeling better after round one in the ER. Yup, round one.

Saturday was great for me. I was able to eat and drink again. I still had trouble eating some things as I had this huge swelling in the back of my throat, but I really thought the antibiotics had a chance to kick it. I was SO wrong. Some time overnight ... the pain meds and the steroid just no longer were hitting me full force. Or maybe the infection had just decided to remind me how horrible it really was. In any case, by 9:30pm on Sunday, I found myself BACK at KU's ER department. An IV was being put back in and another round of shots were being given. I got more morphine, steroids, and antibiotics. Then my ENT resident came back to visit with me. Same one that I had Saturday morning. We decided that draining was the next option.

My husband ... I felt so bad for him. I really could have grossed y'all out and decided to keep photographic evidence, but I was feeling awful. I told my husband no to all cameras. The doctor pulled 6 cc's of fluid out of my tonsils and Jeremy had to support me from the chair. It really was gross, I'm not even playing. I have NO idea how he was able to stay in the room. He says he feels like a wuss, but he was there holding my hand through the whole thing ... he's my superhero.

We were then told with how bad it was, they were keeping me overnight. I sent hubby home to relieve the babysitter and be there with the kids. There wasn't anything more he could do for me anyway. I finally got a room around 4:30am and passed out after they did their first round of vitals ... only to have the crap scared out of me 2 hours later when my nurse paid a visit. I was up the rest of the day. Visited by tons of residents, specialists, nurses, etc. I was given the all clear to go home by 1:30pm. I am able to eat and drink and there is only mild pain. However, I have been informed that if I get strep again, they are just taking my tonsils. It as really bad.

So ... my fever is completely gone and everything is returning to normal. However, I am just so exhausted and overwhelmed by everything and I am so behind. So ... how do you get your routine back and catch up when you have been SO sick? :(

University of Kansas Hospital - Kansas City, KS

Where I've Been ... and no I'm not back

I am battling a major infection in my throat. The jury is out whether it is viral or bacterial. In fact, that doesn't even matter to me right now. What matters is I can hardly swallow, my right tonsil is swollen, my right ear hurts, and my throat is swollen (with the right side very tender to the touch.

I have been battling this since Sunday night. I immediately wrote it off as tonsillitis since I have gotten that in the past. It actually WAS getting better. Them BOOM on Wednesday, my fever came back and so did the pain. I have barely been able to eat and drink. Last night I decided to up my Ibuprofen to 400mg every 6 hours. This has at least allowed me a little more sleep, a little more food, and a lot more water.


I know y'all are missing my posts and I have a LOT to catch up on, but I really am spending most of my time laying down. I did get a strep test run at the Minute Clinic at CVS on Wednesday, but that came back as negative. However, most strep tests make me gag and this one didn't, so I'm not sure if she even administered the test accurately.

My children are being such helpers (even though things are not being done the way I normally would have them done) and my husband is really picking up the slack. I feel very blessed right now!