A-Z Disability Challenge | T : Titanium

I think one of the most popular subjects I tend to talk about, whether it’s online or out in public, is my Scoliosis and time I spent in the hospital to receive my rods in my back to help fix that problem. Honestly, I would like to stop doing it, because I really do speak up about it a lot! So, I’m hoping that this post will mark the end of it for a while.

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I was a newly eleventh year old when I finally had my third and last surgery at Shriner’s Hospital for Children in St. Louis, MO. The surgery actually took place at the Children’s Hospital since it was a major operation. My family and I were already familiar with it, because I had my second surgery there too! I’ve never been too sure about how long I was under but I want to say about eight hours. I’m sure some of my family members will comment below the correct time range if I’m wrong.

I spent about three weeks recovering from the “right side” surgery, which surprised the crap out of my doctor, so they made a schedule to get the final surgery done within a week later. It wasn’t that long of a gap between these two, but neither was the timeline to go home either. I feel like I was there for another week and a half because we came home just before Thanksgiving. For the operation itself, it consisted of stretching out my body, inserting the crushed rib they took out during the previous surgery, placing it into small spaces where the cartilage in the spine is suppose to be, afterwards putting the titanium rods in place; plus the metal pins at my hips. The last thing they did besides sew me back up was unscrew the metal halo I had attached to my skull for almost four months. Yes, we asked if we could keep it, but were told various stories about why that wouldn’t be a good idea. .

Now after 17 years, it is still pretty weird to see these really bright objects pop up on recent X-Rays. Even though I’ve only had one done that wasn’t for a check-up at Shriner’s, was even more surreal because for the whole of my childhood that’s where I went to get a look at the inside of my body, besides the time I got an MRI at Children’s Hospital, just before I was to have the second surgery! Other than that, I really forget that I have them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can definitely sense when the weather is changing drastically because of my rods and I’m certainly not a fan of going through a metal scanner and hearing it go off like crazy and it’s not all because of the wheelchair!

As time rolls by, the less sensitive my back has become to being touched. I use to try to move away from my mom’s hands whenever she gives me a shower, because it was so painful internally, but I’m happy to say I love being scrubbed down because it acts like a mini back rub too! Of course, I still have days where I do not like to be touched back there and it’s usually because of something that I’ve done, like slept in a different way or popped it, and yes, I try not to do that on a daily basis!

Here’s an interesting question for you, do you have any titanium plates or rods in your body? Also, do you get sick and tired of talking about how you got it like me?

Life Lately | Hello Spring!

Howdy!

Since this is the last full week of April, I thought it was only right to blog about life.

Last week I mentioned that it’s been a whole month since I had blogged at all, and I don’t really know why I decided to do take such a long break but it happened. This year I manged to come up with three separate series, two of them are on here and the other on my blog’s Facebook page. I did a lot of work to get everything organized that I think I started to expect a lot of myself that the pressure mounted so much that I began to feel overwhelmed by everything, but once I stopped blogging for a couple of days, I just all of a sudden felt better about things and I didn’t look back.

I’d like to say I got a lot of other things done while I was on my hiatus, but I didn’t. I think the only real thing I worked on the whole time was my “name pairings” Pinterest board! I didn’t take advantage of the time off to read or anything so that’s one thing that makes me angry, because that would have been a perfect hobby to do! I didn’t even watch that very many movies or TV shows either. I was pretty much consumed by Pinterest! It’s so sad to say out loud and of course read it on here too!

One thing that I’ve been really enjoying lately is our weather. Well, technically we had a few strange days where it was producing late spring weather, where the temperatures were like in the 60-70’s and unfortunately, our new house does not have an air conditioner yet. So, for a large number of days we had to rely on opening our windows and leaving our fans on all day long just to cool down. For 4 days alone, my room’s temperature was around 78-80 degrees! At night, it was miserable because when I have my fan pointed one way, but if I wanted to lay on the other side I was hot as hell! I actually spent one day completely in a short sleeve shirt with a pair of very tight shorts. On the day I wrote this post, the temperature had calmed down so much that it was 39 degrees outside! It was also very comfortable in my room too!

A feature about our house that I am starting to really enjoy is I get to see the morning sun. I’m such a nature girl at heart, so the morning sun makes me extremely happy! Now there is one bad thing about my room. Since it’s placed so far back, I am around a lot of trees so whenever it storms, I am in a constant state of paranoia because we have some very tall trees in our backyard and we have had some limbs crash down in various places in the past. One large branch was responsible for tearing a hole in our trampoline! So, being surrounded by trees has its bad notes too.

I have been spending a lot of my time hanging out with my nephew Nolan. He’s grown so much since my last update. I have thought about creating another one, but it’ll be his birthday in about two months so I have decided to hold off until then, but I doesn’t mean I can’t share anything with you though.

Do you remember when he was like three or four months old and he was obsessed with my hands? Well, now he’s starting to fall in love with my feet! When he was around two months and he used to sit in this seat, and he would watch me get a drink and put on my blanket – I literally told him once that I would treat him how I do that. At seven months old, the little goofball learned how to put on his own blanket with his feet! He’s such a smart cookie. He loves grabbing things with his feet, and I’m surprised with myself because I figured I would be offended by the fact he was using his feet to do stuff, but I’m not. I’m just proud to see him paying that much attention to what I do because I think it’s just part of my daily life, I don’t like to think of it as a special thing, but he’s made me think about it differently now.

Whenever he was really little though, I was often upset that I wasn’t able to hold my cutie pie (my nickname for him!) the only way I was allowed to be up close with him was when mom or Blondie would bring him into my room, to take a nap on my bed. We would wrap up in fleece blankets and while he got to sleep next to me, I was making mental images of my little buddy. Now he’s somewhat mobile, since he can army crawl around I haven’t had that one-on-one time with him. Well, he recently exchanged that with giving Auntie Meggie many, many hugs! Yes, he is a big hugger! I love it. In a way, I think that makes up for the fact that I couldn’t physically hold him as a itty-bitty baby too.

Well I think I’m done for now. What is your favorite thing about spring? What is your favorite activity out of your normal routine that you like to do?

A Photo Of Cats | Part 2

Howdy!

So I know I promised I’d have the part two of the photo diary from last week in a couple of days, well I did not think you would have to wait a whole week for the actual post! Unlike the first day of sitting outside, where it was really sunny and actually warm. The next day, which I didn’t go out until like 4:30 so for one the sun was starting to make its way down and in the shade, it was very, very cold! I was an idiot for not bringing my socks with me! I was only out there for maybe thirty minutes because I could not take the temperature and I was literally used by the cats as they decided to snuggle up to me after they finished their meals.

I don’t usually like being around them while they eat. I hate the smell of cat food, both dry and in a can. It’s just disgusting! Our cats are usually very mean to one another when food is presented. My mom gives them three different plates for all 9 cats on the porch. They actually have “cute” little ways on getting more food for themselves. Stormy, is apparently a little badass as he’s found a way to put his paw and scoot the bowl closer to him so the others can’t get anymore! Bootsie and the others go for the lay-on-top-of-a-food move! They are a bunch of weirdos I swear! After they were finished, it was cleaning, snuggle, and chew on Meggie’s purse time!

I have a wristlet and it has the side strap plus a little chain and zipper that hang down over the sides. The first day I went out, Nelly tried eating the corner but I guess he lost interest in it. My man, Oscar decided to go for it and he kept trying to drag it away from me. I had to keep my eyes peeled at Oscar and Felix who decided to join in on the game too! Underneath our porch we have a bunch of old sand that we used to stable our pool years ago, the sands still there and the cats actually–I kick you not–use it as a litter box! We have some smart kitties! They’re all potty trained and even cover up after themselves, which is something we’re really not used to as our old cat Oliver NEVER did that!

The majority of these pictures are from both day two and three! They tried to eat my purse again on the third time I was outside! Anyways, here are the next batch of pictures! Enjoy!

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OOTD: Bloody Nails

Howdy!

So much for only four posts this week. Every time I feel like I don’t have enough I tend to find something to add later on in the week. You get this one today and two others tomorrow! As for the month of November, I’m still trying to figure out posts to add.. hopefully you’ll like them!

Forgive me, I don’t like taking my pictures while inside houses but since the weather outside continues to get colder if I want to keep doing these types of posts, majority of them will have to be taken indoors. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours at my nana’s house, this is what I wore. The pants you’ve probably seen before. I got these at Charlotte Russe for Christmas last year. The top is from Wal-Mart, it was actually purchased by my sister for herself but unfortunately it doesn’t fit her as she thought it would. My mom hates it because of the wide neckline, so it falls right off my shoulders. I like it though, its comfortable and tight around my arms which is perfect for this weather. Technically this is my first time wearing a sweater for the season! Another feature I like about it is the buttons on the sides of my hands. I like little details whether it’s on my hands or feet, I don’t care.

I also got my toe nails painted too! My nana didn’t want to paint her nails so it was just me this time. I recently purchased a few autumnal nail polishes at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago. I think I should have went with the orange since it’ll be Halloween tomorrow. I’ve had that “Unbreakable Heart” screaming for me so decided to go with the red. The color looks like deeper in the bottle, but they look pretty for only having one coat on them. I’ve been calling them my bloody nails. If I don’t get to dress up for tomorrow, at least my nails will be done!

What do you think of my outfit and nails?

Life Lately | Three!

Howdy!

Happy Father’s Day! This past week hasn’t brought anything new and so this post will probably be short too. When I schedule posts, I try to separate them out so I can have room for ones such as these, OOTD, and flash fiction posts! Whenever I do this, you usually get four posts in a week. I just checked and if I don’t decide to switch anything out, there will be five posts going out this week. This one being your starter! I haven’t had a WHOLE week of posts in months and I actually love only having three go out because it gives me a chance to have a break and I’ve been seriously addicted to scheduling posts ahead too. I just hope I don’t annoy the living crap out of you guys!

This past week, we’ve been dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Bill I guess, I kept hearing the name “Bill” everytime I was on the local stations whenever they were discussing the weather. We’ve had nothing but rain and storms. I do have to say, I’m happy we don’t live around the ocean because you know they got a little more than just tiny thunderstorms, they got the hurricane itself! No tornadoes or power outages either! Since it’s done nothing but rain, I’ve been really stuck indoors, I haven’t gotten to see the babies much. I got my hair washed last Sunday and my mom puts me in the push wheelchair so I have somewhere to go after she’s finished. Even before she got started, I spent a few seconds trying to relax and not freak out about going on the kitchen counter and being at the edge of it. I’m deathly afraid of heights and this always freaks me out! Sometimes I do better than others, but anyways the cats were at our back door and the babies are still nursing off of Bootsie, Midget, and Wren. Ozzy (who is our gray/white kitty!) was nursing off of Midget and she decided he was dirty, so she began licking his neck and top of his head. Well, he was returning the favor a bit and was cleaning her too. It was so cute! And then I guess it felt pretty good that Ozzy put back his head and completely fell over backwards. My mom and I just burst out laughing! He seemed pretty unphased by it afterwards.

Our first baby, Tubby has been coming back around the house lately. For the whole winter we thought somebody had him inside because he was bulky and really nervous being around us, which made us really sad! He’s our lovable kitty, he’s the one who use to give Blondie hugs! He’s like a dog I swear! Well, since he’s been spending majority of his time around our front porch because everybody else is in the back. Yesterday I went over to my nana’s and when we came back to the house my mom put me on the porch and I spent a few minutes petting Mr. Tubster. He’s so sweet still and loves rubbing up against my feet! Late that night, I was about to head to bed and I guess my mom went into the kitchen to check on the babies one last time and found Felix (who is apparently a girl!) and Otis cuddling each other on the porch and my mom just scooped them up and brought them into my room for a bit. Felix is from Wren’s litter and she’s a little bit afraid of humans still, but she was really calm this time around. She’s definitely a lot bigger than Otis and I love her big eyes! Otis was getting his mommy lovings! My mom just loves him so much, but he’s been getting more curious of his surroundings and everytime we let him down on my floor or bed, he wants to roam! And he is a fast cat I will say that!

Late last week, it was Miss Chevy’s birthday. She turned three and it makes me feel so old! She’s still this itty bitty little baby in my head. She got a Minnie Mouse themed birthday party! My mom and dad went out to Wal-Mart and got her a few outfits and tutus. Apparently the tutus were my dad’s idea! The other day she came over and she wore this bright green tutu and she looked so cute in it! So now she’s got more! Now I’ll be honest, I love Frozen and my mom knows it but she keeps forgets which character I like the most, which is Olaf! She came home from shopping with two new pairs of shorts for me and she also got me an Elsa shirt. So now Chevy and I both have Frozen shirts. I’m twinning with a 3 year old, how sad am I? Teresa made her cake for her. It was REALLY adorable! While we sat outside, the sun decided to make its first appearance in a while and the clouds faded. The temperature was hot/humid but it wasn’t as bad! The bugs weren’t even that bad either. However, there was mud everywhere and a normal person would want to go through it as hard as they can, but Chevy and I weren’t in the mood! She got a new pair of shoes and she didn’t want them to get dirty and took them off after five seconds of putting them on!

The kittens pictures below are of Penelope aka “Nelly,” Felix, Oscar, and Ozzy! All three are of Wren’s babies and figured out all of them are girls! We’re trying to switch Oscar’s name, but we liked “Felix” so much that we’re keeping it. Poor things! Well I hope everybody enjoys their week! ♥