The Jury's Still Out

Well, I had my CTs.  My lungs revealed no embolisms.....great!  I had a 5mm nodule in one of my lobs, but they said they are generally benign, so we're letting that go.  I vaguely remember that showing up years ago on an xray, but I could be wrong.  My sinus CT revealed an 8mm fluid filled cyst.  The doctor said that is likely the culprit.  It's not blocking so much as it's filling up (snot) and constantly draining.  My problem is that rarely does anything drain out my nose, but down my throat and into my airways.  He said this nonstop irritation is causing inflammation to my lungs and causing me to cough a lot and not be able to breath.  He said he really only saw one more choice for me.  He said it works for some people like me and if it doesn't I'm done trying because he said there's really nothing more to be done.

So, I agreed to his idea of steroids again.  He said the medrol dose pack is not the same thing as taking a months steroids (lighter).  He says if he puts me on 20mg daily and cuts them by 5mg/week for a month it should cause the inflammation to decrease and then I have to stay on some sort of allergy meds daily to keep it under control.  He thinks if we can get cyst to stop filling and reduce all the swelling I should be able to breath.  I took my first steroid dose last night and had not one problem breathing last night, but my cough is back this evening.  I'll do what he said though, so we can exhaust everything.  He said if this doesn't work the only other choice is live with the feeling of suffocation (I'm not exaggerating) or taking steroids every day from now on; at the smallest dosage he can find to help me.

Hoping this works so I don't have to be on it forever!  There's no diagnosis....just bad genes.  :)

Movie Night!

We were all SO tired after all the work we did yesterday, so we decided it was movie night.  We had free movie channels and had DVRd Pirates of the Carribbean and it was time to watch it.  And since everyone got along well, unlike today, and worked hard we bought actual meals at McDonalds.  The little kids were excited to get Happy Meals with toys!

Jaemin on his way to go outside.

Just got outside, can't wait to play.

 The little kids eating their McDonalds and watching the movie.

When moms get to laugh

I probably don't laugh as often as I should, but when I laugh because of how ironic a situation is it's even better.

I felt probably about the same way my mom did when I used to leave all of my clothes on my bedroom floor, as a teenager; clean or dirty.  Then, when I got my own house I turned into this OCD, crazy clean fool.  Well, today I witnessed it.  I'm always getting onto the kids....sometimes maybe more than I should, about getting into my car or coming in the house filthy or what I deem dirty.

Last night we bought Cole his first car.  Nothing special, just a 9 year old Grand Prix, but it only had 102,000 miles, sounded good and was beyond what I consider gross and dirty.  And I broke my rule of not buying from a smoker, but it was a decent deal; barring the car will run for awhile with no major issues.  Today since I was washing and waxing my car for the year Cole decided to pull his up and clean his; after he got his turkey for the day (it's youth turkey season).  I had to laugh as he was trying to vacuum it out and Chase decided to help and then I heard it.  Cole told Chase not to get in his car with his shoes like that and then made him take his socks off because they were too dirty as well.  Then he took his own off to clean it.  I will not tell him how funny this was for a very long time for fear he'll stop, but it was really funny!  I told Brian and he just busted out laughing.  Our slob kid might actually take care of his car.  Precisely why I was pretty pushy about Cole being totally satisfied with what we ended up buying.

So after about 3 hours of cleaning and Brian and I joining in the effort it's clean.  There was nicotine stains all over every knob and dial in the control panel.  Cigarette butts in the ash tray and ashes everywhere.  No burn holes, oddly enough.  There were soda and/or coffee stains all over the floor and it was just dirty.  A dirty I hope I never have to clean again.  We even employed a toothbrush to clean out the nasty crevices that contained what looked like soda and tobacco remnants.  We scrubbed with soap and water to get all the vinyl parts cleaned.  Then Cole put protectant and shine on the whole thing.  We scrubbed the carpet after spraying it with cleaner and brushed off the ceiling, yes the ceiling.  We vacuumed every inch of it.  It now looks pretty sharp and doesn't smell near as bad anymore.  It will air out over time.

Cole did realize how gross smoking is.  He noted the guys apartment and the yellow, stained walls.  And Cole realized he didn't want to end up like that poor guy.  I'm hoping this experience was really good for him.  Sheltered lives can be good, but sometimes they need to get out of their element to see how others live and realize what they're thankful for and might want in life.  He's pretty excited about his car and I'm glad to see it, because it's not like we can afford another one like this if he doesn't take good care of it.

I'm left with nothing left to try

And it's all okay with me.  I have tried so hard for so long to figure out why I struggle to breath sometimes.  As of Monday I will have done everything medically possible to figure it out.

I went to a pulmonologist today.  My doctor had told me to go last year and I guess I just never got around to it and needed desperation to force me to go.  He did a chest xray and lung function and it was all fine.  Great!  In the end, he said he thinks it my allergies messing with my sinuses.  Okay no new information there.  He said, though, there is a chance that it could be clots in my lungs.  He said it is possible (though it seems remote to me) that there are small clots in my lungs making it hard for me to breath.  He said the only way to know is a CT.  He also wants a CT of my sinuses to make sure there's nothing else going on there that we're not aware of.  So, while it will cost (chaching) I know I will have exhausted all of my options.

I asked him if I should go back to allergy shots and he told me it probably won't do any good after this many years of shots.  I asked him if I should have another sinus surgery and he told me he though I just kinda had bad genes here and in the end there's nothing I can do but make myself comfortable.  I told him I wanted as few meds as possible and NO steroids.  I've gained enough weight after years of steroids and don't want to do all this stuff to my body anymore.  He said the vitamins I've been taking and the nettipot is all good.  He said to keep it up and take some mucinex everyday too.  He said it won't hurt me, but will make my life a lot more comfortable.  I take it almost everyday anyways.  So, in the end, after I get the all clear from my CTs I'm good to just go on with what I'm doing now, which means some struggling to breath, but not constantly second guessing myself.

This is all good....to me anyways.

Inviting thoughts in?

Am I inviting thoughts into my kids' head if I ask them questions?  Is it leading?  Or am I just trying to keep it open and at the same time calm my internal fears?

I'm pretty much sure it's the latter.  I asked Kaelin, since she's the oldest and can convey her feelings to me better, what color she thinks she is.  We don't talk of race or color often, but every once in awhile I bring it up.  She said she's 'white'.  I compared my skin to hers and showed her that though our skin is pretty much the same color she is Asian, which isn't really a color, but race is sometimes likened to color.  I told her that when talking of skin color people will say Asians have 'yellow' skin.  She just shrugs and says she understands.  I only bring this up to make sure she's aware she is Asian and to be comfortable with it and embrace it.  I know it sounds silly to those outside adoption (interracial anyways), but I don't want her to wake up one day, look in the mirror and go 'oh crap I'm Asian' and be upset along with a multitude of other possible, relevant feelings.  And again  I know this sounds crazy that she's going to wake up one day and realize this, but a lot of Asian adoptees eventually view themselves as twinkies or bananas...yellow on the outside, white on the inside.  This isn't necessarily bad, but some adoptees perceive it negatively while others just see it as a reality of who they are or how they are viewed by others since they can never be truly Asian in culture.  We could try hard, but we're not Asian and we can replicate what it's like to grow up in a household with Asian parents.  We know this...so we embrace their culture and love it.

I asked her if anyone ever says anything to her about being Asian, Korean or if they just call her Chinese since most Asians are likened to Chinese by a lot of people.  She said no one says anything.  I even went out on a bit of a limb and asked her if anyone ever pulls at their eyes around her.  She didn't understand.  I showed her what some might do to her one day, hoping no one does, and told her that's not okay.  She can be a little naive and while naive is a good place to be sometimes, I was that way growing up, I don't want her to be naive in this area.  Not that I ever want my kids to pick every fight over every idiotic comment or connotation, but I do want them to be aware.  This sounds weird coming from a white mom, but when I was younger I had kids that pulled their eyes at me and made fun of me.  I guess partly my dark, dark eyes and then when I smile my eyes squint.  I know it impacted me some, then, because I used to look in the mirror of our hall bathroom and practice smiling without squinting so no one would say anything anymore.  When I was growing up blonde hair with almost black eyes was VERY different.  Now I see women like me more and more. and I was fine as I got older when I was younger, but when I was very young I definitely didn't like being different; as little as it was.

I know I'll never get this ever so complicated parenting thing right, but oh I try.  Moms think it's complicated to parent anyways and sometimes I try to deny that adoption made it more, not complicated, but intricate.  Adoption does put a different swing on things and while it sounds good, in theory, just to love them and bring them up, it won't work that way.  It's naive of me to think that curiosity will not be piqued out of any of my 3 younger kids on where they came from, who they came from and you can't just shut them down and tell them "it's in the past, don't worry about it".  I have no right to do that.  Just like it wouldn't be good for a child with a medical condition to not see a doctor, ignoring this piece of their life is not good for their mental health.  It doesn't have to consume them or us, but it has to out there, in the open and ready for discussion at any time.  And by bringing it up and asking my own questions I'm hopefully getting them to realize that I'm here to talk when they need to or want to.  Little by little, I get more questions out of Kaelin.  Just little questions, but I'd rather them be a little at a time so she has time to ponder and process all of 'her' information.

Voice of Love

All families who have adopted from Korea were asked to make short videos for the Voice of Love project. They are planning to send the videos to the South Korean government in an effort to allow them to hear from adoptive families and adoptees as to why adoption is important.  The Korean government has been reducing the numbers of children allowed for international adoption for some time.  I believe it's around 10% every year.  This doesn't mean there aren't any children that need adopted, it means they're trying to curb the numbers.  The only problem, is now the children are waiting longer and eventually, they could potentially end up without families at all.


This is our little video.

brotherly and sisterly love....????

Brian had the girls last night because he had to take them to religion class and pick them up. I stayed home with the 3 boys. This morning I told him I just had to tell him a funny story about the big boys from last night. He was like 'no, no, I have to tell you a funny story about the girls first'.

So he goes first and tells me how he was quizzing Chelsi on who was singing what song as he always does because she knows almost every artist. Kaelin told Chelsi that she needed to watch more CMT because she wasn't as good at it as she used to be. Chelsi sort of took offense and apparently waved her hands up in the air by her head and said 'well at least when someone asks me who sings a song I don't say Jason Aldean to everything'. BURN!  Note:  the hands went in the air waving just as she was saying 'Jason Aldean'....I could totally picture it.

I was sitting with the boys and a commercial came on for 'Hunger Games'.  I asked them if they had read the books and Cole said he had and Chase is reading one of them now.  So I asked what the story was about and Cole starts in telling me everything and right when he got to the part Chase was on, Chase sticks his fingers in his ears and starts yelling 'la, la, la, I can't hear you, la, la, la'.  I really was pretty funny because Cole just kept on going.

Those are the little moments I live for.....my entertainment.