May. 2, 2006 - Health update, part 2
I just now realized that I haven't updated again. The neurologists' office called and got me in a few weeks early from my appt that was originally scheduled for May 9. Although I'd already heard from the doc at my mom's work that my MRI came out "normal", I was still anxious to meet with the neurologist and get his opinion on everything. He poked and prodded me while doing all sorts of neurologic tests, had me do some balancing things, as well as a hyperventilation test. I passed everything with flying colors, except that I couldn't hyperventilate as long as he wanted me to. I seriously felt like I was going to black out, so he said I could stop. He emphatically said that I DO NOT have MS, and that my MRI looked completely normal. He said that my tingling episodes could be brought on by stress, panic and anxiety, as I told him that my initial symptoms came on when I was under a lot of stress and fairly certain that I was in somewhat of a panic mode. Just to be sure there is nothing else serious going on, he ordered me to have an EEG, which was done early this morning. I had to go in "sleep deprived", with four hours of sleep or less. So I'm very tired right now and ready for sleep! Apparently this is better for measuring my brain waves and looking for any type of seizure activity, which he thinks is highly unlikely but still needs to be ruled out. I get to go back and visit with him about the results in two days. Hopefully that will be normal too. But if it is, it still won't explain these weird sensations I'm continuing to have.
Its not all the time, but off and on I feel like I have cold spots on my body. Like sometimes my shoulders (or just one) will feel like its cold, and slightly numb. Or the back of my neck will feel like its crawling...almost like I've got something alien underneath my skin. I just generally feel "yucky" most of the time...but okay enough to keep functioning and going on with life. I guess if I didn't have home and family responsibilities, I may spend more time in bed resting, but that just isn't my life right now.
At the end of this week, I get to do a saliva test kit, which has been provided by my alternative medicine holistic doctor. That test will measure my stress hormones at different periods during the day, and will give an indication of what I need to do to get my adrenals back to full speed and functioning. I'll be SO glad when all this is behind me. I just want to be healthy. It sucks having this fear in the back of my mind that something is really wrong and I don't know how to fix it just yet.
By the way...for anyone interested in what ADRENAL FATIGUE is, please click on this link: http://www.adrenalfatigue.org/ I think more people have this than they realize. I just hope I've caught mine in time before permanent damage is done. (my own mother's adrenal glands failed her at age 38 and she has to have meds for the rest of her life).
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May. 2, 2006 - Easter pics of the girls!
Just wanted to share some pics that were taken of our girls after we got home from Church on Easter Sunday! I have lots of others too, but will share just these three for now!
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May. 2, 2006 - Big changes for us this coming year...
If all goes as hoped, our oldest will start attending a private school that is planning to open in our town this coming school year. It is only Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from 8-12 for the core classes, or can be a bit more if we opt for any elective classes. So its not that many hours a week, just enough....and there is no homework other than what they assign themselves. This is a private school that is fully immersed in our religious faith (LDS), and religious principles are taught in each of the core subjects, as well as leadership skills. There are no uniforms, but a strict policy of modest and appropriate clothing for both girls and boys. What interesting is the way the age groups are divided up. Its more like the old fashioned 'one room school' from bygone days. There are three age groups: 6-8 yr olds; 9-11 yr olds; and 12-18. Their average graduate is age 15.5.
My daughter at first was resistant to the idea, she LOVES to be HS'd. But once she learned a bit more, she feels better about going.My little one, age 3, I just signed up for preschool last week, for this coming school year. Her preschool will be Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00-11:30 and is the same one that my middle daughter attended a couple years ago. Both my older daughter's attended private (in home) preschools for two years and totally loved it, so I'm sure her experience will be much the same. The rest of the time she'll be home with me though, just enjoying her childhood through lots of play.
That leaves my middle daughter, who is nearly 7, to be homeschooled full time for right now. I really feel that this will be beneficial for her and I both. She will benefit from more one on one interaction with me, which she really seems to crave. We'll have our alone time while little sister is in preschool and big sister is in private school. I will benefit because my stress levels will (hopefully) go way down. And of course when she is ready to, she can attend the private school as well.
Having these health problems come up in the past several weeks, its made me realize that I can't be super woman, as much as I'd like to be. I have to draw the line somewhere, and find a balance as to what will benefit us all individually and as a family.
Just thought I'd share.
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May. 2, 2006 - My homeschooled daughter soars to new heights!
This weekend my husband had to go up in a four-seat helicopter to take some aerial photos for his work. He gets to do this from time to time, but never before has taken along any of the kids. Well, this past weekend, he took along our oldest daughter! You can tell from the pictures that she had a totally awesome time! They were in the air for about 1.5 hours, and she got to sit next to the pilot! This was a great opportunity for her, and I'm sure will be a special memory for her!
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Apr. 6, 2006 - Health update...
OK, so here's my update. My mom happens to work in a medical office here in our town. The night I had my MRI done, it occured to her that she could get my MRI results off the hospital's website for medical records. She asked if I wanted her to do this for me. OF COURSE I DID!!! My appt. with the neurologist isn't until May 9, and I was told by the receptionist that he wouldn't call me earlier than that with the results, because I'm not already an established patient. So when my mom said she could get the report for me, with my permission, I jumped at the chance. I couldn't stand to be anxious and nervous for the next 5 weeks!
According to one of the doctors where my mom works, who reads MRI reports all the time for his patients, EVERYTHING IS NORMAL!!!!!
WOW, what a relief! He said I should still keep the appt with the neurologist though, to find out the cause of the tingling. However, the tingling has gone away since Sunday evening. Hopefully it won't come back.
After consulting with a holistic doctor in Wisconsin (who is the DH of someone else on a HS'ing website I'm a member of), and my own holistic doctor here, I'm 99% positive that what I'm experiencing is related to adrenal fatigue. Meaning, my adrenal glands have been over-stressed and not working the way they should. I've just started reading a book or two about it, and it perfectly describes me. So I'm making some changes in my life for the better and will likely be on some natural supplements to get feeling better again.
That's my report for now. We've got a busy day ahead. Its my 3 yr old's little friend birthday party this morning. Its normally our day to host her playgroup, so I thought I'd make it her birthday party instead. Made cupcakes last night and assembled the party favor bags. Then this afternoon my older girls have play practice for the Shakespeare play that they're in. Never a dull moment!
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Apr. 2, 2006 - This past week in HS didn't go as planned....health scares
I had such good intentions this past week. Last weekend I spent most of Saturday printing things out and then making copies of different unit study things.
Then, late Sunday night/early Monday morning, I had another episode of tingling and slight numbness, mostly on my left side. This is the second time for it to happen within the past couple weeks. I didn't sleep well after that, because I was up for a couple hours on the internet looking up possible causes. The tingling isn't preventing me from functioning (other than worrying about it constantly), I can still get things done with the kids and around the house, but I am aware of it.
I called my holistic doctor/chiropractor and told him about it. He said for me to get in as soon as possible to a neurologist, or go into the ER for testing. He said we need to rule out immediate dangers such as stroke or heart attack. Well, neurologists in this town are booked out into May, there are only about four of them. So late Monday afternoon my hubby took me into the ER. It was a very emotional day for me. I was trying so hard to be strong for my girls, not freak them out and scare them. But I also wasn't in the frame of mind for teaching, being so worried and distracted about my own health.
I was in the ER for about 4 hours. I had blood testing, an EKG and also a CT scan. All those tests came back as "normal". But, I still had to have an MRI done, per the ER doc's orders. He said they will be looking for things like possible MS. He said because of my age (31) and being female, that I'm at the time in life when MS is most commonly diagnosed. YIKES!!!!
I've had tingling off and on all week. It seems to come and go, but has now also moved into my right side. The tingling is mostly in my feet, but I feel it occasionally in other places too. The night it moved into my right foot, I came unglued. When I tried to go to bed at about midnight, I lost control of my emotions. My hubby had already been asleep for a while, but my crying and shaking woke him up. I cried, hard. I'm so scared. I'm terrified of being diagnosed with something horrible like MS. He and I talked for a while, and he gave me a Priesthood Blessing for comfort. (for those that may read this, we are LDS and have the belief that worthy Priesthood holders are able to administer blessings of comfort and healing). That blessing worked and I was able to sleep peacefully the rest of the night, and I've been relatively calm the rest of the week.
I couldn't get the MRI scheduled until Thursday evening. I had that done and got through it alright. Luckily it only lasted about 15 minutes. I won't have the results until tomorrow (Monday) at the earliest. I'm trying to be optimistic, but also trying to be realistic. If I am diagnosed with MS or some other degenerative disease, I want to have the capacity and courage to do what I need to do to make my life as good as possible. I'm its something else entirely, I need to figure out what it is.
So with all these things this past week, our homeschool didn't exactly go the way I would have liked. The girls are still learning, because of their own internal desires for self-education.. My oldest has worked on several math pages and learned some new concepts with fractions and decimals. She's become really interested in lizards, mostly gecko's and chameleon's. This interest in lizards has sparked a bunch of reading and research, and she has completed a really nice report about the jackson chameleon that even includes pictures she's gotten off the internet (she taught herself how to copy and paste pictures into documents...she says she learned it by watching us). Just last night she started a children's version of Pride and Predjudice. My 6 yr old has had a reading breakthrough and actually read most of Green Eggs and Ham by herself a few times! She's also done a lot of coloring, which is one of her favorite things. They've both played outside and dug around in the dirt, finding worms and other creepy crawlies. So, I guess the week of homeschooling wasn't too bad since they were still learning. It just didn't go the way *I* had originally planned.
Please, for anyone that may read this, I ask you to say a prayer in my behalf for my MRI results and good health. My real name is Amanda. Thank you.
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Mar. 26, 2006 - Our Desert Prairie School
I just wanted to explain why I chose my user name as "Desert Prairie Mama". Usually online, I go by my first name with last initial. For this homeschool blogger, I decided to have something more cutsie. 
Some of my homeschooling friends and I formed a co-op this past school year. After coming up with a few ideas, we agreed that our co-op would be called THE DESERT PRAIRIE SCHOOL. This comes because of where we live. We live in the southwest desert. But thinking back to good old Laura Ingalls Wilder and her days on the prairie, that included her love of learning and many adventures. We tacked on the word 'prairie' to our school name, because we want to instill in our children many adventures through their love of learning. Thus, we became The Desert Prairie School. And now I'm Desert Prairie Mama in my very own little blog.
Our school co-op meets once per month, for about 5 hours each time. Each mom/family takes turns hosting it at their home. We started out with six moms, but recently added a seventh, so that makes about 23 kids (if I've got my math done right.) So one mom is a host, another is a host helper. The host mom always provides the lunch for everyone that day. The other moms rotate teaching different subjects each month. We have classes on geography, English/communications and science. These classes are usually split into two age groups, so that things can be geared according to the ages of the kids. Then we also have a little kids class (I was in charge of that last month and was completely worn out by the end of the day). There is also a craft. Sometimes instead of teaching a lesson on a certain topic, we may have a guest speaker or go on a field trip. This has been something that everyone has really enjoyed (and that includes us moms!) Not only is it a time for learning, but a great social outlet for everyone. You know what they say about homeschoolers and socializing. (ha ha!)
I'm excited for our May school because that day we're actually going to do a little hike and go fishing at a pond. That's going to feel very much like Laura's 'prairie' days.
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Mar. 26, 2006 - Our kitchen table is now sporting the world map....
One of the changes that I wanted to make with our homeschool is to get more use out of our maps. They've been on our school room wall for over a year now, and frankly, they haven't been used much other than in discussions here and there about a particular location. I have friends that have maps on their kitchen tables too, which is who I got the idea from. Last night I bought 2.5 yardsof semi-heavy weight clear vinyl at WalMart, which will cover the map and hold it in place. It cost me all of $4.50. Right now I've got the world map on there, but plan to rotate occasionally with the U.S. map. I may use some poster putty though so the map won't slide around if the vinyl gets moved.
Tonight at dinner was EXACTLY the kind of dinner conversation I was hoping we'd get from having a map right there in front of us all. We talked about many different places around the world. For example, the other day we had a nice young man come spray our home for pest control. He had recently returned from a mission for our Church to Cape Verde, which is an island off the west coast of Africa. I'd never even heard of such a place (it was he who told me where in the world it was)....So tonight we found it on the map, along with many other places.....like when my 10 yr old found Rome on the map, said she didn't realize Rome was a place in Italy and how "cool" it is that Italy is shaped like a boot. Then my hubby then proceeded to tell her more about how huge the Roman Empire used to be. Or when my 6 yr old said, "mom I found C-H-I-N-A, what country is that?" :) I'm hoping having maps right in front of us during our mealtimes will spark even further conversations like this that are both meaningful and educational. 
Along with adding the map to our table, I cleaned off all of our educational placemats and put them out too. Then a while ago I ordered more educational placemats online...I got one on the human body, sign language and musical composers. There were many more to choose from, but at $3 a piece, I couldn't go overboard.
Last night I went to the copy store and made $17 worth of copies of things that I want to do in unit studies for the rest of our school year. I really feel like I've slacked off and like I need to get back up to speed of where I originally wanted to be. We really use the unschooling approach with our girls under A Thomas Jefferson Education principles of learning, but I feel like they could use more from me at this time. At the beginning of this school year, I had planned on using Teri Ebert's "The Four Year Plan" as a resource and idea guide. This year (year 3) is for studying wold geography, English/communications, earth science and The Book of Mormon. So I'm planning to catch up our studies on world geography, do a unit on the five senses, zoo animals, and ocean animals for both my older girls (10 & 6) and do a calendar unit and a Spring unit (mainly for my 6 yr old). I got these unit studies from a place I found online yesterday called learningpage.com I'm really excited about the animals units because we're planning a surprise trip to Sea World (San Diego) in the next couple months. So hopefully with the unit study, the girls will have a bigger and better appreciation for the animals that they'll be seeing.
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Mar. 25, 2006 - Here is our family....
Here is a picture of our family, taken at the beginning of the Christmas Season 2005. I had to re-size it, so it looks a bit blurry. I'll have to post some later where Sarah is actually smiling! (but you get the general idea of what we all look like)
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Mar. 25, 2006 - I can't believe I'm going to try blogging!
I guess blogging is the thing to do these days. I may as well try it and see what happens. 
Here is a brief introduction on us: I am a 31 yr old mom to three beautiful girls, Maegan age 10; Emily age 6; and Sarah who will be 3 in a couple weeks. No boys in this house yet (I'm still hoping we can expand our family by one more....but what are the odds we'll end up with a boy after three girls?).
We are of the LDS faith and were married in the St. George Temple. My hubby and I will celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary later this year. He is a commercial realtor by day, and a weekend warrior gun enthusiast. He is very much into preparedness and being financially independent as well (and of course I support him in these areas completely) I am the stay at home mom who plays the role that so many of us do of maid, cook, chauffeur, nurse and teacher. It is this last role of teacher that I want to focus on in my blog.
This year is our second year of homeschooling, using A Thomas Jefferson Education. For the most part, I'm loving it. I believe in it, and want to be able to trust the process as my own doubts and fears come up, and especially as we are doing our best to be "off the conveyor belt" in letting the kids take charge of their own educations. There are days when I question my sanity, although I know it is what we are supposed to be doing. I don't want to require too much, and I want to inspire more. Its a fine line that I'm constantly trying to stay in the middle of.
Maegan is my love of learner. She is reading SO much more than she used to in her first year of homeschooling. Seriously, in her first year, I doubt that she read much of anything that was longer than a paragraph or a magazine article. Now, she has gotten into the American Girl books and has read several of those sets. She's read the first Harry Potter book, The Life of Our Lord (well, most of it) by Charles Dickens, and she's nearly through with The Diary of Anne Frank. Looking through reference type books about various different subjects is also something she does, then reads up on whatever it is she's looking at. She loves to write, both long hand and on the computer, about nearly anything. Her writing is anything from creative stories, to fairy tales, and about her ideas on healthy living. Her math skills are "behind" as far as grade levels go....still trying to master her times tables and things. I'm trying not to fret about this and allow her to develop her math skills as needed and in her own way and time. Maegan has been taking piano lessons for about 9 months now and has just excelled with it. Piano was something she was hesitant about at first, but then immediately fell in love with being able to make music.
Emily is smack in the middle of her core phase. She mostly just PLAYS! This is good for her, because she has tendencies of short attention span and impatience for things she's not interested in. Because of this, she has an amazing imagination and is able to entertain herself for long periods of time...with even the simplest of toys, or no toys as well. Although she plays alot, its amazing what she's learning, and I don't know where its coming from, because I honestly don't sit down with her and "teach" as much as I should in the traditional sense of desk work. I guess she's just picking up stuff here and there, from all of us. She still isn't reading completely on her own, other than very s-i-m-p-l-e three (and sometimes four) letter words. One of her favorite things to do lately is to sound out different things to write. Some of her spellings are correct, other spellings I haven't a clue what she's written and have to ask her to translate. Her artistic skills are really improving and she draws some really cute things for us. A few months ago, she went through a phase where all she wanted to do was color, or do water paints. According to a holistic chiropractor/doctor we were seeing at the time, its because her brain "needed" those colors to process at that time. I'd still like to get her reading though, because I think that would un-complicate a lot of things in our homeschooling adventures and expanding her interests of being able to read her own books. Emily takes a "Music Together" class once a week with other children of similar age. This is mostly a music appreciation type class where she's exposed to many different types of music, but where she also learns rhythm, tone, singing, and basic dance moves to whatever music is playing.
Sarah...well....she's almost three. Her whole world is playing, and of course she is a smart little cookie. (or at least we think so, but we're not biased or anything! ha ha!) She has an amazing vocabulary and speech skills, most likely because she is with her mommy and sisters for most of the day. Some of her favorite things to do lately are dress up and play with dolls and Barbie's (yes, most of the Barbie's end up naked and in the bathtub too). In January I organized a play group with some other moms in our neighborhood that also have 2-3 yr old children. We take turns hosting, but are able to drop off our child for 2 hours weekly. Sarah has really enjoyed going to her friends' homes, playing with their toys, and having a yummy snack too. Our next turn for hosting playgroup is the day before her 3rd birthday, so that will be a little friend party instead of regular playgroup. She'll be so excited and has requested a Cinderella party. Sarah also takes a Music Together class once a week, with kids under the age of 5. The same music is used as in Emily's class, but everything is geared towards the younger age group. Its amazing to see how far she's come since the beginning (in the fall), how she can sing quite well, recognizes rhythm and pitch and anticipates what's coming next.
OK, so that just about wraps it up about who we are and what we do. I'm going to try to write more tomorrow (Sunday) when I have more time. I'd like to focus on changes that I'd like to make in our homeschool.
