A Year Ago...

A year ago the last thing I wanted was a Christmas tree.....this year we delighted in putting up a huge tree.

A year ago I was despondent because I saw no hope for my daughter...now I see Hope every day as she runs happily through our home.

A year ago I was fat and unhappy....now I'm not quite as fat, and I'm very happy.

A year ago my daughter was hospitalized for at least a week out of every month....now Brandi hasn't been in the hospital for 5 months.

A year ago my daughter sat me down to plan her funeral....now we sit down to discuss a trip to meet our dear friends in Florida.

A year ago I couldn't walk up a flight up stairs ....now I can RUN up the stairs.

A year ago I never left home unless it was to go to work because I was afraid to leave Brandi...now I have no fear about leaving for hours at a time.

A year ago my daughter was a walking skeleton....now she is at a healthy weight and looks lovely.

A year ago I couldn't zip up my coat due to my weight...now I can not only zip it up, I can zip it up while wearing a three layers of clothing.

A year ago I refused to make plans because I didn't want to think of the future...now I plan to walk in a marathon, ride in a 100 mile bike ride, and walk 50 miles to celebrate my 50 years of life.

A year ago I was flat broke....now, I'm working harder and have even less money because we bought a diabetic alert dog, but I know every day it was the best decision I ever made.

A year ago my son was a college student who was living at home because his sister was too sick to be left alone...now my son is graduating summa cum laude and making plans to begin his own life outside my home.

A year ago my granddaughter made the same wish every time she saw a star or blew on a dandelion, "I wish my mommy wasn't sick"....now, she wishes to be a mermaid.

A year ago our family struggled every day to survive what felt unsurvivable....now we are living...actually LIVING again.

There are times in life when you feel as if your standing on the edge of disaster and the slightest breeze will have you falling out of control.  Don't give up because sometimes miracles do happen,  sometimes dreams do come true, and sometimes sick young women survive against all odds.

As 2012 comes to an end our family wants to thank all our friends and family...all the people who have read about Brandi, prayed for our family, and given us so much love and support.  We wouldn't have made it through the last year without you.

Wishing you all a happy and HEALTHY New Year.

The Christmas Fish

We have never claimed to be a "normal" family, and nothing illustrates that more than our tradition of placing the Christmas Fish on top of our Christmas tree.

When Brandi was very little, kindergarten or first grade, her class made decorations for their family's Christmas tree.  I'm sure there were lots of angels and stars, perhaps a Santa or two, but my daughter decided she was going to make a fish to place atop our Christmas tree.

When Brandi walked into the house after school she was absolutely beaming with pride at the wonderful fish she'd made. It was bright orange (her favorite color at the time) and she proudly told me how she'd made it all by herself.

That night we decorated our Christmas tree and when I went to place the angel on top of the tree Brandi quickly told me to stop and ran from the room. She returned a moment later with her Christmas Fish and asked if we could place it on top of the tree instead of the angel.  I looked into her big blue eyes and saw all the hope and excitement in them, so of course I told her "Yes".

Over the years the Christmas Fish has taken a few beatings.  DJ decided to use it as target practice for his BB gun one year (hence all the holes in it) and a couple years ago the tail finally fell off...but every year without fail the Christmas Fish has sat proudly at the top of our tree, reminding me of my beautiful Brandi and the excitement in her young eyes.

This year Bella was old enough to hear the story of the Christmas Fish and she was excited to be chosen to put it at the top of the tree.

I imagine Bella one day telling her children the same story as she places the fish upon her family's Christmas Tree.

27 Minutes

For the last hour I have been battling a clogged drain in my kitchen sink.  It occurred after I decided to throw some old food down the garbage disposal and it was absolutely disgusting. Imagine a double sink full of remnants of spaghetti, chicken and dumplings and vegetable beef soup. It was stinky and greasy and I was so thankful that this was the worse thing I had to deal with this morning that I started crying.

Like most people I spent many hours in front of the television after the senseless slaughter of the children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT.  The day was made even more tragic after hearing of 22 school children stabbed in China and a police officer killed in Memphis, TN.  When I finally fell asleep last night is was with a heavy heart.

This morning my phone woke me up with an alert that my sister had made a post on Facebook.  I sleepily looked at the posting which was about a Washington County deputy that had been shot and killed.

I was out of bed in a flash, immediately calling my old friend Paul. Paul and I met when we took a written test for Jefferson County Sheriff's Office 30 years ago and immediately became friends.  We were hired the same day, went through the police academy together, worked together for many years and have remained friends to this day.  We have shared marriages, deaths, our children's achievements, divorces, heartache, joy...just about everything you could share with a friend.  Paul has been a deputy in Washington County for many years and I immediately fell on my knees praying he was alright.

For 27 minutes I called, sent text messages, called mutual friends asking if they knew anything, and posted on his Facebook page.  For 27 minutes I didn't receive any response. For 27 minutes I thought a dear friend was dead.

I was relieved to hear the deputy who lost his life was not Paul, but my heart still aches for the family and friends of the deputy who was shot, because they will not know the relief I found.

So I'll happily work on my clogged sink and I'll give thanks that it is the worse thing I'll have to deal with today, because there's a lot of broken hearts and shattered dreams in this country today and I realise how blessed my family is to have gotten good news this morning.

Feeling like a failure

Brandi and Hope

As I write this I'm sitting on my couch having a good old fashioned cry. Not a gentle little tear or two rolling down the cheek, but a red eyed, snotty nose, splotched face kind of cry.

After 10 weeks of consistently losing weight, this week I gained 1.8 lbs....but that's not why I'm crying.

This "Dieting for a DAD" that I've been doing has never been about losing the weight...okay, let me correct that statement, it's been a LITTLE about losing weight, but what it's really been about is keeping my daughter alive.

For three years I've watched my daughter fight for her life while I sat by and felt helpless. Do you have any idea what it's like to watch your child while they're unconscious for days at a time? Do you know what it's like to watch them go from a robust athletic child to a walking skeleton? Do you know what it's like to see them be so weak they can't get out of bed or in so much pain they can't put on clothes? Do you have any idea how heart breaking it is to tell your grandchild that they can't hug their mommy because it will hurt her too much? Do you know what it's like to check on your child 10 times a night and wonder as you were walking down the stairs to her room if this was the time you are going to be too late, if this was the time you'd find her dead? Do you know what it's like to have your child sit down and tell you what they want you to do for their funeral? 

I do.

I'm the mom, I'm the one who is suppose to help her, to make everything better...and when we got Brandi's Diabetic Alert Dog things were FINALLY getting better. Hope (our diabetic alert dog) has changed everything.  She alerts...constantly...so we're able to keep on top of the crazy changes in Brandi's blood sugar levels.  We've gone from Brandi spending at least a week or two of each month in the hospital to Brandi being home for 5 1/2 months. Do you know what a miracle that is for us...5 1/2 months with NO hospitalizations...it was beyond our wildest dreams and yet it's happened...and it's all because of Hope.

Hope is expensive...$20,000 for this miracle covered in black fur, but worth every single penny. Unfortunately I don't have a spare $20,000 to pay her off, hell..I work my ass off just to be able to pay the co-pays for the 26 medications Brandi takes everyday, so we diverted our fundraising focus from Brandi's pancreas transplant to fundraising for her D.A.D., because while the pancreas transplant will help her live many more years, there's no guarantee that one will become available in time. That's why her doctor recommended we get a D.A.D. - to keep her alive long enough to actually get the transplant.

From time to time one of the other families raising money for their D.A.D. will post that they received notification that someone heard their story on the evening news or read about it in the newspaper and donated the money needed to pay off their D.A.D.. I'm happy for the families have been blessed with such generosity - really I am -  but I know it's never going to happen for us.

While Brandi is a beautiful young woman with the heart of a warrior, she is not a cute little 5 year old in pigtails whose picture tugs at people's heartstrings. We've tried and tried, we've called, we've written letters and press releases, but the news agencies in our area just aren't interested in doing a story on her fight, which means her story doesn't get out, which means no magical donation will ever happen. 

I'm okay with that, it just means that I need to work harder to raise the money...and THAT'S why I'm crying. I feel like I've failed my daughter.

Our last two fundraisers have been dismal failures. We lost money on the carnival, and barely broke even on the Little People's Gift Shop. We''ve learned important lessons, but lesson's don't pay for a diabetic alert dog.

Dieting for a DAD was a fundraiser that didn't cost me anything but would raise money to help pay for Hope, and all I had to do was eat right, exercise, and lose weight.  It sounds easy enough, but it's not, it's actually really hard...much harder than I thought it would be when I started.

I know why I gained weight this week. I gained weight because I ate crappy food and didn't exercise. It's that simple. I convinced myself if I didn't go over my calorie limit that I could eat anything I wanted and that's not the way it works. I've learned my lesson and it won't happen again...but my renewed determination doesn't gain back the week I've lost.

So I'm going to finish crying, take a shower, and get back on track. I'll lose the weight I gained this week and continue my weight loss fundraiser, but I also need to figure out fundraising ideas that will actually make money because I have to raise another $15,000 to pay off our D.A.D....and no matter what, we can't lose Hope.

Brandi is counting on me and I won't let her down.

Parenting

Tonight I totally pissed a mother off...so much so that she felt the need to tell me exactly how upset she was. I'm okay with that because I tend to have pretty thick skin...I also tend to say EXACTLY what I think...which is probably what pissed her off more than anything.

Tonight was the first night of an event where we had two booths to raise money for Brandi's transplant fund. The first was selling crafts we'd made (which by the way are -in my humble opinion - REALLY good) and the second was making balloon sculptures.  My niece Courtney makes some pretty amazing things out of balloons, not just animals and swords, but monkeys in banana trees, wreaths with candles and bows, candy canes, trains, helicopters...really cool stuff.

ALL of the kids who came up for balloons where exceptionally well behaved and waited in a very long line patiently for their turn...except one little boy who I shall call Red.  Red came to the balloon table 5 times and each time he was loud and obnoxious, yelling over other children we were talking to, butting in line..just not very well behaved at all. He had no parent with him and kept yelling that he wanted a gray sword. Finally, I broke down, made him a sword but warned him that if I gave him the sword he absolutely could not hit another child with it and made him promise to follow my rule. He swore he'd not hit anyone with it and went on his way.

About 20 minutes later I was walking outside when I saw two kids by a wall.  One little boy (about 8 years old) had his body turned toward the wall and his hands over his head trying to block the blows of another little boy - Red - who had let the air out of his gray sword and was repeatedly striking the other kid in the face with it.

A little sidebar here...balloons are made of rubber, and when they're being used as a whip they hurt..a lot!

So I watched Red hit the other kid about 20 times in the head..whack, whack, whack...and the other kid trying to block the blows, so I did what I would do if it where my kid...I walked up, snatched the gray rubber weapon from his hand and told him firmly that when I'd given it to him he'd promised not to hurt anyone with it and he broke his promise, therefore he no longer got to keep the balloon. Then I took it from his hand and walked away.

When I came back in Red and his mother where waiting for me, and mom was mad.  After she told me how I'd made her boy cry she started in on how he was such a sweet kid and so well behaved and how dare I speak to her baby like that.  She said that she was standing near her son and had seen him "playing" and saw nothing wrong with his behavior.

I apologized for making Red cry, but told the mother that he'd broken a promise to not hit anyone with the balloon, therefore he lost the balloon. She became more upset telling me I had no right to interfere and that's when I interrupted her explaining that is was NOT alright for her son to be hitting another child, especially when it was obvious that the other child was not enjoying being hit and was trying to block the blows to his head. Furthermore, I explained, allowing a kid to behave like that is what leads to children becoming bullies at school...and our school has a strict no violence policy.
If she was going to be a parent then she needed to actually BE the parent and make sure her kid didn't act violently towards another child. 

Yeah...she didn't like that response either and started saying again that I'd made Red cried and what kind of person would do that to a child, to which I replied that I was the type of person who wasn't going to let an uncontrolled, unmonitored child hit another child and get away from it...and if she thought that her son's behavior was okay then in my opinion she was a piss poor excuse for a mother.  She huffed up and walked away vowing to never let her son come to our booth again.

Really (I thought), THANK YOU...your kid is a brat!

So here's the thing folks, I'm not a monster, I just believe that kids need boundaries...and in my line of work I deal with a LOT of parents who don't want to be the "bad guy" and correct their kids when they act up. Their kids don't grow up having consequences for their actions and then the parents wonder why the kids won't mind. You wouldn't believe how many times a week we get calls from parents wanting us to send the police to their house to make their children...sometimes as young as 5 years old...get out of bed and go to school.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  You jerk the covers off the bed, tell them they have 5 minutes to get dressed or you're carrying them into school in their pajamas....and then you follow through with the threat. I guarantee you'd only have to do it once and the next time your child WILL get out of bed and ready for school when you tell them.

I don't think it's necessary to hit a child, but it IS necessary to let them know that YOU'RE the parent and THEY'RE the child and they DO have to obey your rules.  Ask Bella what happens when she acts up...her butt gets sent directly to the corner where she has to stand with her hands to her side for 4 minutes...and the timer doesn't start until her crying stops.  Ask her what she gets if she throws a tantrum and starts crying because she wants something after we've said no and she'll tell you...NOTHING.  Kids shouldn't be rewarded for bad behavior...EVER. 

In our house no means no...it doesn't mean ask me 15 more times until we give in. We don't give in...EVER.  We are, however, quick to praise good behavior, quick to give special treats for REALLY good behavior, quick to give out kisses and hugs, and tell her a hundred times a day how proud we are of her and how much we love her.  Kids wants attention, so make them crave positive attention and the benefits it brings.

I wasn't the perfect mother and I certainly wish I could get a do-over on some of the choices I made when raising my children, but I've learned a lot in 24 years of parenting and let me tell you, things are seriously out of control when your 8 year old runs the house.

So parents, don't be afraid to actually be PARENTS.  Your job is to raise a well rounded person who can make good life choices and be a benefit to society...your job is NOT to be their best friend.

Stepping down from my soapbox now.