Blog award

  I was given this award by my dear blog friend Kirsten and I thank her immensely.  When blogging first started I wondered why anyone would want to read about anyone else’s life and thought it was the  stupidest thing I had ever heard of.  But now that I am blogging myself I understand it and I have found such a support system of blogging friends out there and don’t know where I’d be emotionally without them.  I would give the award back to her as I think she deserves it too for blogging about life as a woman with a neo-bladder but someone already did so I’ll pass it on to 5 others who deserve it too.

First is to my dear friend Carla aka Mastomama.  She and her two children live daily with a disease called mastocytosis.  I will not try and tell you what that is as I couldn’t do nearly the job she does.  Though I have learned so much about it from her.  She is also the one who helped me really find our Lord when I thought I knew him….thanks Carla!

Second is to Pete Wilson at Without Wax.  He preaches weekly in Nashville, TN and yet is not afraid to keep it real.  He constantly inspires me to be a better Christian in profiling his life as a man of Christ. a husband and a father.  To get a taste of what I mean read his post  Let me go first today.

Third is to Braden at 10 out of 20.  He’s a fairly new ER nurse and is still learning the ropes (though I think he’s learned them pretty well by now!!)  He cares about his patients, shows empathy and makes me laugh.  He shows me that I’m not the only one who feels the way I do about patients sometimes and that that is ok.

Forth is to Brandi at Brandi & boys.  She is actually Pete’s wife.  I don’t get to read her blog as often as I’d like to as I just run out of time.  But when I do I leave filled with joy.  She and Pete are such a great couple and are such great parents.  Her entries just put the biggest smile on my face.  I should really make more time for her.

And the fifth and last is to Angie at Bring the Rain.  She has been through so much in her life and yet she reaches out to touch so many.  I cried my eyes out the first time I read her blog & her whole story.  Oh and Angie…….I’m totally jealous that you know Brandi and Pete!!!  :)

Really paying for the party

Today I’m really paying for having the kids’ birthday party.  Each year we do a combo party since all 3 have their b-days just 4 days apart.  And since it’s a once a year thing we just throw a big BBQ.  It always happens to fall on hubby’s first day of cross country practice too so the majority of work falls to me.  Being the good mom that I try and be I just ignored my body yesterday and forged ahead with it all.  BIG MISTAKE!!!

The party turned out great but today I’m struggling.  I was asleep on the couch by about 8:30 pm last night and was so dead asleep that hubby left me there which he usually doesn’t do!!  Then I could barely drag myself up this morning despite the fact that the kids and hubby needed me.  Usually I get up and get breakfast going etc but today I could have cared less if anyone starved.  That isn’t me AT ALL.

My body feels just miserable today.  I feel like a big bowl of jello and like none of my muscles work.  And if this stinkin elephant doesn’t get off my chest so I can breathe I’m gonna lose it.  And that’s just when I’m sitting doing nothing.  When I get up and walk around it’s quite difficult to breathe.  If this goes on much longer this might be the first day I actually consider visiting the ER for the shortness of breath.  

And to top it all off my week of vacation from work is over.  I go back tonight and start my new job.  I used to work in a cardiac ICU where if it was quiet (which was about 50/50) I could at least sit down for short periods of time.  But now I’m a resource nurse, so this means I’ll be up and walking around for the entire 12 hours of my shift from 7pm to 7am!!!  Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Hopefully a good nap this afternoon will help.

And then hopefully a visit with my neuro this Thursday will help even more……………..

Hello world!

I thought long and hard before starting a new blog but then decided I needed one for MYSELF.  I have several already but they are all about other things and none that I can really talk about myself.  Although I guess there is one that I can but it really concentrates on my spiritual journey instead.  So here I go.  I have all the others on blogger so I decided to change things up a little and go with wordpress for this one.  It’s funny as  you get used to doing something one way and so getting used to this layout is difficult!!  (But I can do this one from work so that makes it nice   )

So, my life…………it’s happy, sad, interesting, busy, fullfilled, scary, hopeful, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world or anything in it.  I’m Tracey!  I’m 31 and happily married to my hubby Shawn.  I work as an RN doing 12 hour night shifts in a critical care unit.  Some nights I love it, some I like it and some I hate it!!  But I think that’s pretty typical of our jobs right?!?  I have 3 wonderful kiddos.  Benjamin is about to turn 5 and start kindergarden!!  Yikes!!  He’s so excited though.  Jennifer and Samuel are twins and about to turn 3.  Jennifer is a spunky stubborn girl!  She needs to be though as she has some chronic health issues.  Samuel is a typical boy.  So physical but oh so happy too!

And then there is me.  If you want to know more about being a nurse you can visit my nursing blog at http://nighttimenursing.blogspot.com.  You may be wondering why I picked the link I did for this blog.  seeingdoublesob.wordpress.com.  For those that are nonmedical that are reading this sob stands for short of breath.  Basically lately that’s how I live…..seeing double and sob along with some other symptoms.  I have been for several months and am awaiting an appointment for a test that will hopefully shed some light on this.  It’s called an EMG and if you’d like more info on it check out this link:  http://www.teleemg.com/new/patient_toc.htm  I went to my neuro that I see for my migraines complaining of the double vision and droopy eyelid and this is what he ordered.  He believes that I may have myasthenia gravis.  Not a great one to have but at least there have been some great advances lately.  It has been weighing heavy on my heart lately though.  And my eyes are especially bothering me tonite so I’m a bit more feeling down about it all than usual.  I’m trying not to worry until I ACTUALLY have the diagnosis but with all the myraid of symptoms I have it really heavily points the finger in that direction.  Hence, this blog and the need to just jot some stuff down.  I figure this one will be the one I will use to update on myself.

In the morning I go for my 3 month routine follow-up for my Grave’s disease.  Another autoimmune disease that I have (myasthenia is autoimmune too).  I have had it since the birth of my twins.  It’s funny though as autoimmune diseases usually run in families and I’m the first on either side in mine to have anything autoimmune.  It’s pretty stable currently though and I don’t yet require any meds for it so I’m sure not complaining too much about that one!! 

My appt for the EMG isn’t until Aug 19 and I won’t get the results until who knows when after it so it will be awhile yet before I know anything but that’s my story…………at least for now.

BTW…….this is me……..