So you want to be a SAHM?

So I have been thinking about writing this year in review post. I honestly can't believe it's been a year. I think about all of the things I have accomplished and failed at. There is a whole list of both. In the grand scheme of things none of them really matter, not to anyone else any way. They're my triumphs and missteps, for me to learn from.

Sure I am proud that I was able to learn and grow and keep things running on my own while dealing with  medical issues and a needy preschooler. There were days I was so ready to give up, but I just kept pushing on. One thing was constant, those bad days ended and I got to start over the next morning.

I saw this post yesterday about being a stay at home mom. I try not to let things bother me, especially people's opinions or observations because, well...they really don't matter to me. When I see someone talking about how easy it is to be a stay at home mom however...that makes me want to explode. I especially get angry when I see someone complaining about how hard they have it when they're doing a job I did for 3 years in highschool, and they have a husband at home. No, I may not be working right now, but I also don't have anyone to share any of the burden with. I think it would be a fun experiment for those complaining about how little their spouses do to be without them for a week. Just a week. No outside help of any kind. Then let's see if you still think they don't do anything. Let's add onto that, not being able to call your spouse when something unexpected goes wrong and you have to figure it out for yourself. Might change your perspective.

This got me thinking about my stay at home mom status and how much I really do wish to be working part time. Hey, if you think that makes me monster-mom, then that's your opinion and I know a place you can stick it. The truth is, kids and parents need time with people their own age. If you don't get it, you end up with a 3 year old who is telling you that she's in charge, and a mom who is saying things like "macky cheese" and "boo-boo" or "owie"....ugh.

Also, I am good at something. I have a skill and I don't want it to go to waste. I have a passion for something and I want my daughter to be proud of that. I want to raise a child who knows she can grow up and be anything she wants. If she wants to be a stay at home mom, well then that's ok too. There is nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom. I absolutely think if that's what you want to do, then that is wonderful. I have the utmost respect for people who can homeschool their kids and sew the patches on their husband's uniforms. I prefer the tailor and picking out a good school, but we're all different, aren't we? Just because my way is different than yours doesn't mean it's wrong, and vice versa.

One thing I have enjoyed is finding things on Pinterest to keep my boredom at bay. Trying at least one new recipe a week that the hubs might like has brought me some feeling of accomplishment. He jokes that the house is always spotless, so I can't use that for a "gold star" any more. Cooking and baking...now that's where it's at! I don't like to cook. I don't particularly enjoy baking. I am pretty good at both, but the effort and the mess, is it worth it? Yes, I am that woman who is so obsessed with clean, I hate seeing flour on my sparkling counters. I hate the way it floats through the air and lands on my shiny hard wood floor. I am trying to relax though, and of course always have the swiffer vac handy. Hey, I'm not super mom, and in my line of work, clean is necessary. You don't want to be loaded into an ambulance with someone else's blood splattered all over, do you? Didn't think so. Yes, flour is different than blood, but mess is mess. Ok, apples and oranges, don't judge!

Anyway. I have started compiling recipes. I have been hand writing them on pretty little recipe cards so hubs can look through them and pick out which ones he would like to try without scrolling through the few hundred ones I have pinned. I also have the world's pickiest eater in the form of a cute, button-nosed Tinkerbell-ish little girl. I have found a couple successful dishes that she will eat. This is a huge relief since I hate giving in to her chicken nugget or easy mac obsession. Before you ask, yes I have tried making home made versions of both, and no, she won't eat them. If someone could please tell me why the disgusting, processed versions taste so much better to unrefined little palettes, I would be grateful.

Last night I decided to try a new quinoa recipe. I love quinoa. I was hoping these cheesy little quinoa bites would be something Little Tink would eat. I was chopping and shredding the ingredients while cooking my quinoa, quite excited to taste this new creation. Everything was ready to mix together, all I needed were the eggs. I go to the refrigerator. Eggs. OH MYYYYY GOOOOOOOSHHHHH----- NOOOO! EGGGGGSSSS!!!! There was the egg carton. The day after Easter. Filled with pastel colored hard boiled eggs. *Slaps forehead* There is my bowl full of shredded carrots, cheese and other ingredients sitting beside my beautifully cooked quinoa. So I either scrap the whole project or run to the store for eggs. Or...yes, there has got to be something I can do with something I already have. So I reach for my most important kitchen tool. The iPhone. What would I do without it? I know, I know...there are people who live without them. I don't know how, but they do. Egg substitute....searching, searching. There it is! A teaspoon of flax meal with a quarter cup of water! I HAVE THAT! There are a few things I always have: flax meal, applesauce, greek yogurt, coconut milk...and yeah, before you get smart, eggs are usually among that list.

There I am, in my kitchen, feeling smug and proud that I was able to save my recipe without leaving the house. I finished mixing, put the stuff into the cute little muffin tins and popped them into the oven. I'm smiling at my oven like an idiot now. Suddenly I get this image in my head of the 18 year old version of me walking into my kitchen in her combat boots and BDU's, slapping the smile off my face saying "Wake up girl! Go get your hands into a bloody trauma because you, my friend are delusional!" I started laughing out loud. An accomplishment to that girl was getting a suicidal patient to go to the hospital with her instead of having the cops cuff them...or getting the cranky patient who hated everyone to laugh. Figuring out how to get a 90 year old patient who was wedged between the toilet and the bathtub out without compromising c-spine. And there I am standing in front of my quinoa muffin win. Oh the shame. Yeah, yeah, food and saving lives here we go with the apples and oranges again. My point is, I'm not anywhere near where I thought I would be. I never thought life would consist of being a single mom for a year at a time, cooking and baking my way through a deployment. I can't wait to get back on a rig and start using my brain again. I must say though...the cheesy quinoa bites- DELISH!!! Being a stay at home mom isn't the easiest job in the world. Being a working mom isn't either. I would never covet one for the other. You do what you have to do with your situation and take whatever you can to get some happiness in there somewhere.

The cardiac chronicles...and an upbeat tune

"Go ahead, push yourself." Those are basically the words I got as I was leaving the electrophysiologist's office last week. At age 26 this was the 8th one I have been to. 2 of the 8 have actually operated on my heart. Some don't consider cardiac ablations operations, but let me tell you, when it's your heart they're sticking probes and catheters and lasers into while you're out, you consider it a pretty significant thing. Especially when they tell you there is a 70% risk you could come out of it with a pacemaker. 

I guess we should start with a little back story. At age 18, I had been an EMT for 2 years. I grew up with a respiratory therapist for a mom. A mom that had been through a cardiac ablation for SVT (supraventricular tachycardia). One night I was lying in bed feeling sluggish and like my heart was skipping beats. After checking my pulse and finding that it was indeed irregular, I freaked out. The next day at work I was feeling the same way and the medic I was working with hooked me up to our LifePak 12 and found sinus tachycardia with multiple PVC's, or premature ventricular contractions, which were those skipped beats I was feeling. So off to the cardiologist I went with my handy EKG strip in hand. It took 3 years, multiple holter monitors and one very effective event monitor to find the exact problem. I had tried 2 different medications that only made me extremely tired and didn't correct the problem in those 3 years as well. I was thankful to be referred to an electrophysiologist who had also taken care of the Vice President of the United States and who didn't hesitate to say "Let's stop messing around with medication and get this fixed". A very scary experience at the age of 21, but I felt so much better afterward and was able to lose 30 pounds by getting back to the gym and running with my husband. I was eating better and swore off any form of energy drink and limited my coffee intake, as well as watching my salt intake. I was given the go ahead to have a baby, but cautioned that I would need to have special care during pregnancy to make sure nothing went wrong. Some doctors have told me one arrhythmia has nothing to do with the other, some have said that my heart is more susceptible to arrhythmias because I have had them in the past. I tend to err on the side of caution. After Little Tink was born, I was focused on staying healthy and losing that baby weight. I got down to my pre baby shape and was loving walking every day with the little one and going to the gym a few times a week. Then the problems started all over. I noticed my workouts getting more and more difficult. I was getting winded at things I had been doing with such ease before. I had a newborn, but knew the tiredness I was feeling was just like what I had felt before. It was back. There I was again, checking my pulse every 10 minutes to see just how fast it was beating. The fear was overpowering and I stopped going to the gym. I still walked every day, but increasing dizziness and one very scary ER trip landed me right back in another Dr.'s office. This one was not so great. He found the problem, but since it was in the sinus node of my heart (the natural pacemaker of your heart, if you will) he didn't want to operate. So what was I supposed to do? Take a medication that would make me spacey and tired, unable to keep up with a very active 18 month old? Not being able to do the things I loved like working out and being active? Unacceptable. SVT and atrial tachycardia may not be life threatening in the sense that you are going to drop over dead from them, but they can turn into more. They also wear down your heart over time. I wasn't going to settle for his answer. With an upcoming move, I decided to go back to PA and go one of the best hospitals I knew. A family friend had given me a recommendation for his electrophysiologist. I was evaluated and scheduled for surgery. This was the one where I was told there was a 70% risk of coming out with a pacemaker. That was something that almost made me not go through with it. Yes, it's a stupid thing to be afraid of a pacemaker, I would tell any patient that they are more helpful than harmful and they let you enjoy a normal life. But I'm the worst patient ever and I rarely let what I know of medicine calm me down, because hey, it's my body. I ended up having the ablation, and the first words out of the doctor's mouth were "We got it, and no pacemaker for you!". I was so relieved. And then the regret came in the next few days. My heart was fixed, but I was still having abnormal beats while my heart healed. They were different now. Harder, stronger and more like a horrible hiccup in my heart. I was bradycardic and so run down. A friend of mine hooked me up to a monitor when my heart rate dipped into the 40's and it showed a bundle branch block. I was sent to the ER where the nurses thought I was having a heart attack. I was struggling with chest pain and dizziness while they tried to figure out what was going on with this 24 year old girl. Thankfully, my doctor came to the rescue and said "No, she's not having a heart attack, that's the way her heart beats now that we modified her sinus node". By that time the ativan had kicked in and I was as high as a kite, laughing at the fact they got it wrong. Not nice, I know. After that, I felt pretty good and my heart got back to normal after about 3 months. 

I know the importance of keeping your heart strong and healthy. I work very hard at this because even though I can't do much about an electrical problem in my heart, I can keep it as healthy as possible so it is better off if another problem arises. In this kind of life, the military one, I don't have much control over my stress level. Sure, I can choose how I handle it, but cutting down stress? Not sure how to do that. Last summer I bought an elliptical, knowing I didn't want to go through a deployment in Alaska, sitting on my butt in the house all winter. In the summer I was able to jog and bike with Little Tink, but in the winter...forget it. Winter sports aren't my thing. Cold isn't my thing. This lovely machine took a beating, let me tell you. The place I was in emotionally when I bought it was bad. I would have days when I was listening to angry girl music yelling out the lyrics like I was yelling them to a real person while I jogged my way through an iFit workout. Other days I would let the depressing songs play on Pandora and bawl while Jillian Michaels would tell me to "Keep going". 

A few months ago I started having trouble getting through the workouts as they got tougher. So I went back to easier ones. Even those were getting hard. I was having irregular heartbeats again. This time there was no tachycardia. I kept a log of my heart rate at rest and while working out. It was wonderful. I am even at the point now where I have a slow resting heart rate, which my doctors are happy about. My heart is strong, but there was still something wrong. Yes, I am more aware of what a PVC or PAC feels like. I know when I feel bigeminy or trigeminy. I also know that I shouldn't feel dizzy or out of breath doing workouts that I have been doing for months. I shouldn't have to stop and try to catch my breath when I stand up from the couch because my heart is flopping like a goldfish out of water. Here comes Dr. number 8. 

I had seen a doctor in the town where we live who did tests and concluded that my heart was healthy and I was just more sensitive to the minor things that were going on. These records and tests were sent to the new doctor out of town. There were different options that were given. We can do a year long, implanted event monitor. The placement would be much like a pacemaker, under the skin and would record my heart for a year. We could go for another ablation, probably not find the exact problem and it would be a waste. Medication isn't an option because of my previous surgeries. They would now be more dangerous than beneficial. Yes, they could see there was another arrhythmia, but it was benign. I could live with it. Yes, it was disruptive to my lifestyle, but I could choose to push through it. I could choose to ignore what was scaring me so much and go on. With those words and that ok given by someone who knew much better than I did, I made up my mind. I would take his advice and "go for it"...until I fell over or went into a dangerous rhythm, I would be ok. I can't sit around worrying about that though. The worst thing would be to stop the things that are good for me, like running and doing my leg workouts. So knowing now that I need to keep my potassium and magnesium at a high normal level, I push forward. 

The past few days I have been doing workouts that literally make sweat drip off my body. It feels great. I have rid my iPod of any negative songs and replaced them with upbeat, happy tunes that make me smile and run harder and faster. Today I had a little help from Andy Grammer... 

"Only rainbows after rain 

the sun will always come again 

and it's a circle, circling around again

 it comes around again

But you gotta keep your head up, oh

 and you can let your hair down, eh

I know it's hard

I know it's hard to remember sometimes

But you gotta keep your head up, oh

And you can let your hair down, eh!" 

Yeah, I had that one on repeat. Working out is a lot more enjoyable when you're not using anger to fuel your momentum. So I'm all stocked up on dried mango, bananas and keeping my diet heart healthy with plenty of oatmeal and whole grains. Don't get me wrong, there are going to be days when this girl needs to grab a beer and a steak and I'm going to ignore my hands when they swell from the salt. I do believe my recent attitude adjustment and change in my outlook on life has helped a lot too. You can listen to songs that tell people "Forget  you" to focus on the anger you feel, or you can fill your mind with happy thoughts and lyrics that make you feel like dancing around the house like a fool...so now, back to my silly little song...."This is just a journey, drop your worries...you are gonna turn out fine, ooooohh you turn out fine..."

Things you may be taking for granted

I don't intend for this post to be condescending or mean. I don't believe everyone takes things for granted. I know I certainly did. It took a year of being by myself with a toddler, trying to maintain a house, a yard, 2 vehicles, a dog and myself to realize that maybe, just maybe he did more than I thought. Because right now what I'm thinking about isn't that his clothes are going to be all over the floor again, that his PT gear will be sitting in his gym bag, stinking up my entry-way until I wash them, that there will be muddy boot prints unless I ask him to leave them at the door, or that I will have to clean up after a guy in the bathroom again...you know, all the stuff a wife would nag about. 

What I am thinking about is that I will no longer have to be the only person putting our daughter to bed. I will have someone else to talk to at the end of the day, besides a cute chocolate lab. I'm thinking about waking up to he and Little Tink playing quietly in the living room on the weekend so I can get an extra hour of sleep. Having him walk back in the door after he's already left for work because he stopped to buy me a Vanilla chai. Having him come home for lunch to spend time with us even if it means he has to eat on the drive back. Having him drive me home after I have a procedure done, instead of waiting an hour after so I can drive myself home. Cuddling up to him with a good book while he plays the "idot box" as my sister in law so affectionately and accurately named it...that's the PS3 if you couldn't figure it out. Not being the only person that has to drive. That is a huge one. When he was home on R&R, I would just automatically go for the driver's seat...but he sweetly said "I'll drive if you want". Not having to be the only person with responsibility just seems like such a relief. Sure, I'll still mow the yard because he blows up with hives at the very sight of trimmed grass, but he will take the vehicles to get serviced so I don't have to sit with a squirmy toddler and wait for them. I'll have dinner on the table when he's home from work and do the dishes so he can spend time with his daughter, but he'll cook for me all weekend long and maybe surprise me with a night out during the week. I'll gag at opening that gym bag, but he'll hold my hand while they take a pint of blood with a needle the size of a straw. 

I may nag and complain about cleaning up after him. I may accuse him of being a 3rd child (I consider the dog one), and say things like "I'm NOT your mother" when he asks me why he doesn't have any clean socks. I may lament the fact that I am not doing what I am passionate about right now, and curse every dirty dish that is put into an empty sink, but I realize now what I want more than anything is just to have him here. I don't care about the laundry or the dishes or the dust on the tv. I care about having my best friend beside me when I start my day and when it ends. I long for conversations that aren't ended by a bad internet connection or a blast from a mortar. I just want the simple things back. After seeing what I can do on my own, I know I'm capable of many things and taking care of myself and my child, but that's not the way I want it. Life is a lot more fun when you have someone to share it with.