Swimming Against The Current

There is nothing in the world I've ever wanted more than being a mother. The most important people in my life have always been my family. My mother is the greatest woman I've ever known and I wanted nothing but to be just like her when I grew up. She has guided me through life, making me smile and wiping my tears when I needed her to. She has been there for me in more ways than I could ever express. Every time I'm having a bad day, my mom always makes it better. She is an amazing sister, aunt, grandmother(mooma), daughter, friend, but most of all she is an amazing mother. Another very important person in my life is my father. Constantly having a smile on his face, he makes everything and everyone happy. He's been there for me in so many ways and I cant thank him enough for all his love and support. I always hoped to someday have a relationship like my parents, who have been married over 30 years. All of my hopes and dreams came true the day my daughter was born...

December 8, 2004 came sooner than I hoped. I had gone to my pre-op appointment and was in good health overall to do this surgery. I was at Children's Hospital in Boston and ready as I was ever going to be. I was diagnosed with subacromial impingement with anterior instability and was going to have an open subacromial decompression with closure of the rotatorinterval. I was petrified to go through with this because of how badly my first surgery went but I knew I could get through it with the help of my family. They brought me back to the OR, did the surgery and I woke up with a sling and ice pack, extremely sore, nauseous and exhausted. After a few hours, I didn't feel as bad. My sling was big but nothing like the gunslinger I wore last time and they gave me anti-nausea medicine so I wasn't as sick. The doctor let me go home that night and told me to follow up in two weeks. I was able to start physical therapy after the two weeks and the whole experience wasn't n...

I got a letter in the mail yesterday saying my insurance has ended. I do not qualify anymore. Even though no one wanted to take my insurance anyways its still annoying that I don't qualify anymore. I don't know what I am going to do. I guess any kind of medication and/or botox is out of the question now. Hopefully these spasms slow down a bit. 9 more months in Florida then maybe I can get insurance in MA and go back to my neurologist there. I'll just keep my head up and hope it doesn't get any worse before that!

Monday was a bad day. I counted 8 spasms in my foot and my neck also got stuck. I felt scared to move, petrified to pick up Hailey and depressed at how fast its progressing. Tuesday was better. I went for a long walk and did wii active, I felt good and had a lot of energy. Yesterday was bad again. I lost count on the spasms but they were there. I'm having a hard time thinking positive at this point. I'm still in the process of finding doctors here that are willing to help, I dont know why everything has to be so difficult and take so long. As I sit here and think about this dystonia, I feel like it has taken over my life but then I think about people who have it much worse and think that this isn't bad at all. I recently heard about my old principal's 6 year old daughter who is dying of cancer. How could I complain about anything when they are going through that? I see her smiling face on her facebook page and it makes me want to be a better person, she has b...

I started my senior year of high school happy as could be cheering once again for the varsity squad. My sophomore and junior year went great and I was expecting the same for my senior year. I was tumbling, stunting, and everything else I never thought I would be doing when I first injured my shoulder. Both my shoulders bothered me a little but nothing worth quitting over. I made it through the season and was getting ready for our last game. It was Thanksgiving and we were going to Nashoba high school. I was so excited because I was almost able to do a roundoff handspring tuck by myself and thought I would try it out at that game. I asked a couple girls to stand near me incase I needed someone to spot me. One...Two...Three.. and off I went, running down the track ready to do this. On my way, I tripped over my foot and still tried to do it. There was no way for anyone to spot me and down I went. I fell on my right shoulder and could not move. Just when I thought things were gr...

My daughter is what keeps me going. Every morning when I wake up in pain, I look into Hailey's eyes and realize how lucky I am to be her mother. She is absolutely perfect in every way and I can't imagine how I ever lived without her. She's growing quickly, already 3 weeks old and becoming more and more alert. She loves to be rocked, loves her hair bows and loves to look into mommy and daddys eyes. I am so excited about our life together and watching her grow. My dystonia is getting worse and worse. I am really getting frustrated with it and with the health care here in Florida. My right hand goes numb when I carry something on that shoulder, I get spasms in both my feet and my neck has been getting stuck. The skin on my left hand is just falling off and is now bleeding. Taking care of Hailey is so difficult because I never know when a spasm is going to happen and it scares me to death. I have called what seems like every neurologist in the state of Florida and no one accept...

September 29, 2010 was the happiest day of my life. I went to the hospital at about 6am with an appointment to be induced. The labor and delivery floor was packed, I guess it was a popular day to have babies. I had to sit in the waiting room for about a half hour and anxiously wait for a room to be available. Once I was in a room they hooked me up to the monitors, gave me an IV, did some blood work and told me I was 4 1/2 cm dilated. I was having contractions but not strong enough so they started pitocin to get the labor going. By about noon time I was having pretty strong contractions that were getting more and more painful. My plan was to not get an epidural but by 7cm, I changed my mind. After I got it I was really happy I did and things seemed to go much quicker from then on. Around 5:00 I was 10cm and ready to go. I started pushing and at 6:34 pm I heard the most wonderful sound I have ever heard, my little girl cry for the first time. They put her on my chest and the s...