The Linq monitor is a small loop recorder, about the size of a small person’s pinky finger.

Recently I received an email from a reader (in the Netherlands, believe it or not) asking me for more details about the Linq heart monitor process.

I had the Linq heart monitor inside my chest, near my heart, for three years. The Linq gave my electrophysiologist more information about the arrythmias I was experiencing.

This diagnosis of a serious heart arrhythmia can scare the living daylights out of a person. I want anyone who reads this to know that I will answer any questions you have about the experience.  Happy to! I remember when I was first diagnosed with non-sustained ventricular tachycardia, I had a billion questions. Yet, doctors often do not share with you half as much as you would like for them to.

The Linq monitor reads the rhythm of your heart. It is not equipped to correct or jump start your heart like a pacemaker or defibrillator.

Instead, the Linq collects data and sends that data to a physician. For more information about the Linq, here is their website.

I cannot talk as much to the medical side of it. Though rest assured, after my diagnosis, I read two different books and countless internet articles on the topic. Sometimes, just for the fun of freaking myself out, I will go online and Google research papers for the latest information on NSVT.  Why am I this way? Ha! Such misery I bring to myself on purpose! But isn’t it best to know how to take care of yourself with any condition?

Each doctor I saw had a different opinion of how serious my problem is.

I had to see many different cardiologists and electrophysiologists because we moved from California to Georgia, then to Virginia, and finally to Maryland. We moved three times in the three years I had this monitor embedded in my chest.

First, and most importantly, please know that I would not be afraid to get a Linq monitor for a second.

I just had mine removed after three years this past October because my battery died. In 2019, I went a whole year with only 30 off-beats. That was great news. So they decided I did not need to be monitored anymore.

The Linq implantation and removal procedures were so easy.

Where do they put the monitor?

My Linq monitor was on the chest but above the breasts. It was to the left, since the heart is to the left slightly. It’s pretty close to the breastbone. The incision is only 1 centimeter or so. It was almost invisible after two years, but now that it has been reopened it is a little ugly again. It is tiny and low enough that it only shows if I’m wearing a swimsuit. 

For the procedure, I was wide awake, and it was not scary at all. They sedate you for the procedure, but I asked not to be. I hate that drugged feeling, so I preferred to rely on local anesthesia since the procedure is quick.

On the day of the first procedure, I was extremely nervous because I didn’t know what was coming. Looking back, I have had foot procedures that were much more painful. The chest seems less sensitive somehow. This was not bad at all.

Afterwards, yes, I could feel the Linq in there, and it was barely visible for the entire three years.

The surgical site was not painful past the first two weeks of soreness. I had what I thought were way more heart arrhythmias after they put it in. However, I think it may have been the sensation of the Linq embedding itself into me rather than an actual heart problem. Over time, I could feel the Linq less and less, but still I could feel it. It didn’t hurt. It was like how you feel glasses on your face or shoes on your feet, sort of. Now it is out, but sometimes I think I still feel it, and I have to remind myself that it’s gone. It bothered me more in the beginning, so don’t despair. You will get used to it.

All you could see was a little bump, where the top of it was near my incision. It looked like a tiny tumor. (I know, ugh). For a while, the doctors I saw planned to replace the old Linq when the battery ran out with a new one because I had a long arrhythmia run that they didn’t like back in 2018. That was a thirteen beat run of ventricular tachycardia. But I did so well the next year they decided against it.

Someone asked me if my bra or shirt rubbed up against the incision and bothered me. I can assure you it was completely unaffected by my bra because the Linq sits above the breasts.

The Linq Monitor is Wi-fi equipped. It comes with a little box you keep by your bed.

The box sends the information back to your doctor at midnight each night. It was not a hassle. I had three different doctors during the three years because we are a military family who moved three times. My Linq monitor was set to not even record my arrhythmias unless they went over 16 beats. The only reason my thirteen beat run showed up was because I used the clicky-stick they give you with the monitor. You hold it on your chest and click it when you feel symptoms. Through the entire three years, I only used the symptom stick a handful of times.

The reason my monitor was set to only record long runs was that my doctor decided that was the point at which they would have to do something to fix the problem.

Otherwise, I do not have NSVT often. I was on medication and not considered to be a sudden death risk. We knew I do not have it too often because during a week long monitor, I did not record any NSVT at all. On the twenty-four hour Holter monitor, I had a six-beat run of NSVT.

With two of my doctors, they rarely looked at the reports and never reported back to me what any of the reports said unless I had an appointment. However, I had a more involved cardiology office in Georgia. They would actually call me each month and read me my report. That was so nice!

When they discovered a long run of v-tach, they immediately set up an appointment with the electrophysiologist for me, getting ready to look into an ablation.

However, I moved to D.C. before I had time to follow through with that appointment. It is very hard to have good continuity of care as a military family. The D.C. doctors decided to do more testing instead. In fact, they said I would need a new cardiac MRI every few years.

Once all the testing was done, and my heart was behaving quite nicely, the D.C. doctors decided to just leave me on my medicine and not do an ablation or anything.

Processing all the feelings…

When the doctor removed my Linq, I was a little annoyed at his lack of knowledge of my history. To be fair, I routinely saw his nurse practitioner, who I like and trust. I met the actual electrophysiologist once and explained my story to him, but he did not seem to remember. After my removal procedure, he said, “I’m sure this will never happen again, and you will be fine.”

Say what? Oh man, this guy. Obviously details were lost with the second hand information. Even when I read my chart I could see he did not know much about my history. He seemed to think I came straight from California to the D.C. area. Did he have any knowledge of my problems in 2018? I am not sure. Heart arrhythmias are not a thing that you have several times and then never have again. I had several documented cases of NSVT, in the span of three years, so I am under no delusions that it will “never happen again.”

I have met several women who have been through this before me.

They had the exact same problem I had. Their symptoms also would disappear a year at a time and then reappear. With two of the three women I have talked to, they eventually had a long run, which was a near death experience. They passed out in their home, and then had the ablation to kill off the errant cells causing the arrhythmia. When my doctor told me I would not have any more arrhythmias, I told him about the stories I had heard. I calmly but firmly told him that I knew it would happen again, but that I am okay. He did not argue with me.

That left me feeling sort of alone. It can seem lonely as a patient when you feel like you cannot find a doctor who listens and helps. I have learned not to put too much hope in a doctor. They are just practicing medicine. I let them see what they can do to help, but I also do my own research and plenty of prayer. The Lord knows. With me moving every one to three years, I do not have any doctors who actually know me. How many times can I re-explain all my health issues? Bleh. I grew tired of it. These days I do not bother with a physician unless I really have to.

Having the Linq monitor removed felt like this major milestone.

I knew I should be ecstatic to be free of it, to know that the doctors deemed me “okay.” Yet, I felt a little sad. Without that monitor, I had to truly trust that I was fine. Now there are no alerts sent out if I have an unusually long run of NSVT.

I think I was also feeling down because of other life circumstances, though. Everything I do has to be planned around my husband’s work schedule and my children’s school schedules. It was so impossible to find a day that the doctors and Alan could agree on. When I finally scheduled it, the boys were out of school.

We had to bring our two youngest sons to the hospital with us. Alan managed them and took them out to eat, so it all went really well, thankfully. When it was all over, the doctor gave me my final talk. Then he said, “I am going to go out and get your family and let them come back to see you.”

“Great!” I smiled. I looked forward to being encouraged by my family.

Then I was disappointed when the doctor came back in and said, “I talked to them and told them you’re doing great and about ready to go.”

Doc looked at me funny. I think he was not sure how to tell me that my husband not only told him he was not going to come back and see me.

I could tell from just his look that they were not coming. It might sound ridiculous that this was a let down. But after you have opted to stay awake through a surgery where they open up your chest, dig around in there, pull something out, sew you back up, and then get details of your history wrong while they talk to you, you feel discouraged and you just want your loved ones to come and stand beside you. At least, that is how I felt.

So here is my last surgery tip:

Talk about who is going to come back to your recovery room in advance. Let them know if you want them to come see you or not. Alan thought keeping the kids in the waiting room was what I would want to give me some space. I have been on stay-at-home Mom duty for fourteen years, and doctor appointments are like a big day out for me. However, I felt sad that they didn’t come. Talking about expectations beforehand is a good idea. The doctor probably thought we were separated or something.

The good news

The good news is that so long as I keep taking my beta blockers everyday, I truly am just fine. My heart is also sometimes borderline low functioning, not bad, just sometimes my heart doesn’t pump quite as efficiently as it should. Other times it is normal. It depends on how well I have been taking care of myself. I do still get more tired than the other members of my household.

I am so grateful that the Linq monitor findings helped the doctors to come to the conclusion that I do not need any kind of surgery and am not at risk for sudden death. This is wonderful news.

I hope this answers all your questions about what it’s like as a Linq patient.

If it would be of help to me, I would gladly have another Linq monitor. It was not a problem at all. Feel free to ask any questions you have. It is frustrating how little info they put out. If you would like to hear the whole story of my Linq monitor insertion procedure, you can read that here.

The post What it was Like to Wear a Linq Heart Monitor for Three Years appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The day before yesterday I made a trip to D.C. to see my cardiology team. For more back story on my heart issues, you can read this page. It’s a diagnosis I’ve had for 3 years now.

At the beginning, my heart was having all sorts of symptoms, beating hard, beating fast, feeling exhausted, etc. They ran tests, they found a run of NSVT. NSVT stands for non-sustained ventricular tachycardia.

I tried a couple of different arrhythmic drugs, and I couldn’t tolerate them. What worked best was sticking with Propanolol, a common beta blocker that keeps my heart beating slow and steady, slow as in normal. And as we all know from the tortoise, slow and steady is exactly what we want.

A linq monitor was inserted into my chest to keep an eye on my condition. If an episode of NSVT went to long or happened too often, we would look at doing an ablation.

Most of the time I was fine. I took my medicine everyday, and I was fine. This beta blocker changed my life. I absolutely love it. I used to get these body-shaking adrenaline rushes when I would get stressed, and it has never happened again since I began Propanolol.

Last year, as I was working on our move from Georgia, I had a longer episode, and as a result of that I had to go through all the testing again. Ablation was back on the table.

First, I had an MRI (my 2nd cardiac MRI). It showed slightly low heart functioning on one side, so then I had to get an echocardiogram to get another look at it.

For the echo, I knew I needed to pass that with flying colors to stay out of surgery. I drank lots of water, abstained from caffeine, and took my heart medicine before I went in there for the echo. Even better, the echocardiogram technician turned out to be a very talkative middle-aged lady who put me completely at ease, which always makes my heart behave itself. Stress is surprisingly powerful.

My echo came back looking beautiful. I passed with flying colors. Everyone was satisfied.

The winter and spring passed with no incidents. Then lately I noticed that my monitor, which I keep beside my bed, has stopped communicating with my implant. Normally, the implant downloads its info to the monitor base each evening, and the base sends the info to the computer at my cardiology office.

Well, it hasn’t been working since July 4th. Hmmm. So I emailed my nurse practitioner, and she said they were tracking that my battery was depleted. Linq monitors only last 3 years. I got mine in May of 2016, so this is right on time.

They set me up an appointment, and I went down there.

First, I go to the pacemaker clinic and have my heart monitor read by their machines. All looked good. I’ve only had 30 errant beats this year.

They left the whole decision of whether or not to put in a new Linq monitor up to me. I just volleyed the decision back to them. I am at peace if they are. I’ve gone a year before having trouble again before, so I’m not kidding myself. It will come back, but so long as it only comes back in short waves, and doesn’t affect my quality of life, I’m okay.

I said, “Well, what do y’all think? If you think I should put a new one in, I’m fine. If you think it’s unnecessary, I’m okay with not doing it too.”

The NP and the electrophysiologist talked it over, and they decided to simply remove the device and not put in a new one.

As for my medicine, I will probably ALWAYS take Propanolol. It has helped me a ton, so it stays.

I’m way too busy taking care of 4 boys all day to do this over the summer, and we still have a month of summer vacation left. Alan is too busy for me to do it in September, so we will take it out in October.

It’s good news, and from now on I only have to go to the cardiologist when I’m having symptoms. All good news, and yet it still feels weird to me.

Am I happy to lose the wifi-equipped device that has been with me 3 years now? Yes, but at the same time I pretty much feel sad about all of life right now. Sad that I’m out of my comfort zone, AGAIN. Sad that Alan isn’t home much. Sad that most of my children don’t have any friends here yet. Sad that my family is so far away, with no end in sight for that. Sad.

I’m not the depressed, can’t get out of bed, level of sad. It’s just sort of a quietly underlying subconscious sad, a wistful feeling. Maybe that’s a better way to put it. It’s not that I’m sad. It’s more like I’m wistful and contemplative. Change has happened, and I’m not done adjusting to it.

I think once the procedure is over and done, I’ll feel pretty excited and more like a healthy person again though.

You gotta take the hills with the valleys in life. This move is just another hill to climb. Will do. We’ll climb that hill one step at a time.

⁵ A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
⁶ To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
⁸ My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
⁹ For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

Proverbs 1:5-9

The post NSVT Update: A Turn for the Better appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Day 10 of Jumping into Fall & Recovering from Summer

Fear

Last night I woke up out of a dream to the sound of a man shouting, “April!” Only it wasn’t multiple shouts. It was just one shout, and it must have been in my dream, not in real life because Alan is the only grown man in our house, and he was sound asleep beside me.

It was 3am, I had to pee so bad I couldn’t stand it, but I didn’t dare walk down the dark hallway because of all the alarmed thoughts in my brain. These are the kind of thoughts you get when you think you hear a man shout your name in the middle of the night.

Maybe it’s completely irrational, but is anyone truly expected to think rationally at 3am, when woken from a deep sleep? What was the dream even about? I cannot remember, but it was a highly detailed dream, and at 3 am the dream and the shout were both fresh on my mind. The shout wasn’t related to the dream, I distinctly remember reasoning to myself, because that wasn’t what the dream was about.

So there I was, needing to pee so badly, but terrified to go down the hallway.

Gradually, I drifted back off to sleep, only to wake up an hour later with the same problem. Not the shout, just the need to pee. And yet, I was still a bit afraid.

4 am feels so much safer than 3am though, so I did the thing any mature adult would do, the thing you used to do when you were like 10.

I made a dash for it! No, just kidding, but this was just as silly. I eased out of bed, crept ever so quickly and quietly to the bathroom, silently shut the door, and locked it.

Normally, I’d just march in there and barely even close the door since everyone is asleep, but last night I still had some irrational thoughts going on.

“If he called my name to get me out of bed, and then get the jump on me to kidnap or murder me or whatever, then I must be quiet so he doesn’t know I’m out of bed. A locked door will make a racket. Alan will hear him trying to open the door.”

When I finished in the bathroom, I slowly opened the door, and peeked down the hallway. Then I flipped the light off and ran back to my bed and jumped in as quickly as possible. Can’t you just see it?

It’s all sort of crazy, right, but that’s how distinctly I heard the “April!!!” that woke me from my dreaming.

But I suppose it must have actually been only the dream itself.

There’s more fear and dread going on in my brain this week than is normally there. I think that sort of sets me up for craziness like this.

Tomorrow is my cardiac MRI, and the truth is I don’t want to do it. I tried to not even do it at all. Repeatedly, I told them, “I had one only 2 years ago. It was normal.”

But they didn’t care. They said it was time for another, and the last one wasn’t even done with the dye that they put in your veins. Here’s where I wrote about that.

“Oh well, I better wait until school starts to do it.”

Why do I dread it so much?

Ah, it’s a medical procedure. MRIs don’t bother me at all, but IVs most certainly do, and that’s what I don’t want to do. I’m a medical chicken, okay? I’d rather not be poked, prodded, bled, exposed, etc. etc.

Plus, it’s the bigger problem that I try to pretend doesn’t exist, the whole v-tach thing. The whole heart problem that makes no one ever quite sure what to do with me. You see, v-tach is a big deal. Mine isn’t too bad. It could be much worse, but it’s just bad enough that I have to be closely monitored, maybe for the rest of my life.

V-tach serves as a reminder of my own mortality, of the frailty of life. We are all dying. Okay I know, I’m a regular barrel of monkeys over here. But it’s there, and it can’t always be ignored.

What power do I have over death, though?

There was a question in this Bible study I’m reading. This question makes me doubt that the author of the book has never faced a life threatening health condition. She asked what you would be sad about if you were told that you would die tomorrow. The author postulated that we would think, “I want to see my children grow up or see my grandchildren or travel.”

I shook my head because that’s not it at all. That’s not actually what I thought about. Not even close.

You don’t worry about what you will personally miss out on. It’s your people who you worry about. These children, this family, they are not at all ready to go on without their mother. They literally need me. I strongly feel that they do. Yes, they have their dad, but we fulfill very different roles in their lives. I’m the softer one more accessible one, and they need me.

I thought about my mom, my mother who has spent her entire life taking care of everybody else and does not deserve to have to outlive her children. She still needs me. I can’t leave her.

Worst of all, I even came across articles like this that make it all too real. Y’all! She was my age, she had 4 boys, and she had one of the heart conditions I’m being tested for.

Yes! I was thinking about this stuff.

Maybe it seems ridiculous, but with the v-tach and the things I’m being tested for it was a natural place for my brain to go. It could not be helped.

There’s Alan, and I think he would be devastated, but I also think he would be okay. He’s a mature, adult man with all these children depending on him.

Suddenly, I was giving Alan instructions on what to do if I pass out. Call 911. Do CPR. Put me on an ambulance. If the v-tach ever gets out of control, and doesn’t stop itself, it turns into v-fibrillation, and that’s cardiac arrest.

But we’ve talked about it now. Alan knows what to do in case of emergency, and now it’s time to stop dwelling on it. I fully believe that this MRI will come back “normal.” And then, so long as my v-tach runs stay under 16 beats, I don’t have to have surgery. Of course, they are already at 13 beats, but they happen so seldomly, I guess that’s why it’s okay.

For a couple of years, I wasn’t having v-tach runs, but they’ve made a comeback for 2018.

There are so many battles in life that we have only to trust in the Lord because we simply can’t fix them. I have no more power over my heart than I do over the weather.

I’ll keep on praying, keep on hoping, keep on trusting God. God’s got this.

If you’ve been following the news, there’s been some talk lately about high school yearbooks. Ha! Well, I think my senior quote in my high school year book suits this situation perfectly:

I need to order this wall sign.

I don’t have the grace in myself to go through all this uncertainty, but I do have God’s grace. He sees me through this, and I do believe that everything will be okay. Even if the MRI did show problems, we will treat those issues and get on with life.

We are strong, courageous, fearless, and undaunted. For the Lord Our God IS with Us wherever we go.

I not-so-secretly enjoy playing with Snapchat. Alan says the ears look silly. I say, “Look! I’ve always wondered what I’d look like with brown eyes!”

Don’t worry. I haven’t fallen off the dramatic cliff here. This was where I was at this week, but there are plenty of other, happier things going on.

The post V Tach, the MRI, and the Dread appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Day 7: Stop Worrying About Imaginary Problems

This story is long, so I decided to spice it up with a Snapchat enhanced video instead.

To fully understand this post, you really have to watch the video.

I failed to mention in the video that I’m an abundant sweater. Yep. Those weren’t just armpits. Those were sweaty armpits.

So yeah…here’s what’s been going on with me lately:

https://youtu.be/BqoDTrFz8do

It’s so important not to dwell on problems that may not even exist. You know? And even if they did find something on the MRI, we will deal with that. I will do whatever it takes to be here for the people who need me.

But the fact is, when the results come back and they are normal, what a shame it will be to have wasted all this time stressing over a problem I don’t even have.

Now you know you’ve done it before too. These are imaginary problems. Do I have actual things I SHOULD be dealing with?

Yes, I do.

I SHOULD be cleaning house, finding Daniel’s blue jeans, looking for my fall decor stuff before fall ends. Where did I put those???? (Moving problems..)

But that’s not any fun. I want to sit here and scour the internet for information on this rare disease that I have a few symptoms of…

Wait. Why??? Is that actually any more fun than making a wreck of the storage room trying to find my cute fake pumpkins???

Well, it does take less energy..

Don’t do it, y’all. Give imaginary problems not 2 seconds of your day. We all have real things to address. And if that means tearing into the storage room or house cleaning for you, check out the happy cleaning music playlist I made. I’ve been adding songs to it. You can find that here.

It’s funny how we know worrying is a bad idea. And God tells us in the Bible over and over again not to be anxious, to trust Him, to cast our worries on him. Yet we worry anyway. I have to admit, I almost felt like I was indulging myself in worrying about this stupid MRI. Isn’t that crazy??

Let’s not do crazy today. Let’s do peace! Thanks for reading, y’all.

The post Day 7: Stop Worrying About Imaginary Problems appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I was all excited to buy “Georgia peaches” now that I live down here, but look. These aren’t actually from Georgia. 🙁 Apparently, peach season is over already. I missed it!

This week I have two cardiology appointments. The one yesterday was fairly easy, and all went smoothly. John David, my faithful sidekick, tagged along for that one. I think he fully entertained the cardiac floor of the hospital. My favorite part was the bit he did with the crayons. See, I brought a brand new box of 24 crayons along. New crayons interest people more than old ones.

My sidekick…..He’s not distracting at all…But he can entertain a cardiology office like no other.

JD enjoyed the crayons very much, but I’m not sure that he actually did any coloring. The door to my appointment room had a large gap between it and the floor. John David found it delightfully fun to roll each of his crayons, one-by-one, under the door and out into the hallway. I stopped him at first, but then I was trying to give the doctor my full attention, so when he eventually resumed his game, I didn’t even notice really.

When I finally opened the door and fetched all the crayons, there were nurses giggling in the hallway. When I got onto the elevator, the elderly gentleman behind us said, “Well, we all know you had a good time at the doctor’s office,” to little John David. John David was wearing his Lightning McQueen back-pack, and he looked ridiculously adorable. He just looked up at all the people who kept talking to him with his little straight, serious face. This is definitely not the toddler you have to worry about running off with strangers.

I asked the man, “Oh, did you see the crayons rolling out into the hallway?”
“Oh, yeah,” the gentleman replied with a smile. “Is this your first?”
“Oh, no, my fourth.”
“What! Gracious! You don’t look old enough to have four! But then you don’t act like he’s your first. First time parents are, you know, different, more anxious and restrictive.”
Haaaa!!! Yep, true, and we’ve all been there.

So the heart problem lives on. I see my electrophysiologist today. It’s all sort of embarrassing when all of my health problems start coming out. Maybe I’ll just keep my mouth shut today about all the other non-heart symptoms that I have. I’m glad I didn’t yesterday though because that doc actually understood my hip problem and referred me to a local orthopedic surgeon, but don’t worry, I’m not hoping to have surgery.

What I actually want to tell you all is what a difference eating better has made for me. You know that whole, “You are what you eat?” slogan?? Well, it’s true. I hate it, but it’s true. The last few days, I’ve just re-embraced the fact that I need LOTS of sleep, and I can’t handle wheat, and I feel like a living human again, instead of a dying one, like I felt the last week.

Out for a walk with my work-out partner, JD

See, moving to the South from California was exciting and also bad, or really just I was the one that was bad. I wanted to eat buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken, and pie, pie pie!!!! I decided to pretend like I don’t have a problem with gluten for a while.

Until it caught up with me, and I was back in the hurt locker. So now I’m back to behaving, and I feel better. Eat better. Feel better.

I’ve been getting in more exercise too. I felt too poorly to do much of it last week. Who knew? Food, sleep, and exercise: three things I never realized would be so important for the rest of my life.

That’s why I’m such a fan of Justin Cox’s Kettle Bell Burn program. (You can check it out here.) He teaches the importance of a balanced diet, 8 hours of sleep per night, staying hydrated, 20 mins. of exercise per day, and taking vitamins.

I recently noticed that his current promotion is a free 5-day course on nutrition, so I just wanted to call your attention to that and urge you to sign up.

His regular exercise program is only $30/month, and it’s awesome, but if you’re still on the fence, the free 5-day course is a good starting place.

What, your gym doesn’t have a china cabinet?

When it comes to exercise, arm day is my favorite. I always actually do the whole work-out on arm day. You have to understand. I was never an athlete. I don’t even feel ashamed when I quit. I’m like, “Eh, this is heavy, or I’m out of breath. Time for a nice little rest.” No shame.

Case in point: Yesterday Caleb came into the kitchen asking Joshua to play ball with him. Joshua refused. Joshua was in the kitchen snacking. (Peas. Joshua eats whole cans of peas for a snack. We are baffled and pleased).

So I volunteered. Caleb kind of looked unsure, “Sigh. Okay, but I mean Mom can’t really catch or throw, but….Just so you know, Mom, there ARE bugs out here, and it is hot. I’ll get you a glove.”

(I complain about sweat, gnats, and bugs on the regular.)

9. Wow. It took my children only 9 years to surpass me in athletic skills. Nice. 

Now don’t be mad at Caleb. He was very sweet to me out there. He has played with me before, so he knows that half of my pitches will go over his head or five feet away from him, and I can’t throw very far. And I don’t really care. Sports are not my thing.

My sons say that P.E. is their favorite class. Can you imagine??? Well, I certainly can’t. I even found a way in high school to not have to take any P.E. at all. 🙂

Nutrition and exercise suddenly became so important to me after it actually turned my illness around. I was the queen of having two granola bars and a Coke for lunch, so this epiphany that if you want to feel good, you have to eat good was a truly rude awakening. (Yes, I know that’s bad grammar, but it’s catchy, you see. Eat good, feel good……Eat well, feel well doesn’t have the same ring to me, but we could also use that.)

I want you all to feel better too.

info graph/ affiliate link property of kbburn.com.

Let me know if you decide to give kbburn.com a try, so we can cheer each other on.

Eat better. Feel better.

The post Eat Better, Feel Better appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Tomorrow is Daniel’s very first day of kindergarten. To me he still looks like this:

How can I send this sweet Bama boy to kindergarten??

But, believe it or not, the Dan Man is 5, and he is extremely excited about going to school with his brothers. They will all be at the same school together. I had planned it differently, but at the last minute Daniel was awarded a scholarship, so that worked out beautifully.

It’s hard to even focus on how much is happening.

Our heads are still spinning. In June, we trekked across the U.S. of A. In July, we hurriedly unpacked. (So now I need to go back and re-organize everything.) Then we headed off to one vacation after another. We did Disney. We saw friends. We went to Destin. We visited family.

I feel as though all along, our life keeps improving more and more. Happy things keep happening to us, and I’ve been so much in recovery from the dismal beginning of 2016 that it’s taken me awhile for this new thing to set in to my head.

I’m not stressed anymore!

Wait. I don’t have to make lesson plans? Nope.

I don’t have to do any teacher training? Nope.

I don’t have to even feed everyone lunch? Nope.

I can be at my parents’ house in two hours? Yep!

The big boys are already in school, and they LIKE it??  Yes!!!

They actually like their new school a LOT!!!

I keep thinking about those Christian song lyrics, “He set my feet upon a rock.”

Of course, that is also in the Bible, but it’s so much easier to pop in my head when it’s set to music. In my head that’s me. I was sinking in my misery, and I have been lifted and set upon a rock. Amen. Amen. Amen.

I think we’re on the verge of loving it here. I made my schedule for tomorrow, and it doesn’t sound hard! I didn’t even have to color-code it!! 

Praise the Lord, y’all! I have found relief!!! Now we just need to make a friend or two, and we’ll be all set.

We aren’t off to a great start on the makin’ friends bit.

First off, we’ve lived here over a month and we’ve been out of town for most of that.

Secondly, we have a son whose Southern accent impersonation is down right hilarious. I only hope the locals will think so, instead of feeling like they’re being made fun of. I haven’t heard him do it in public though, so we should be good. (Ask Joshua to talk Southern next time you see it. You will laugh!!)

Then there was the doctor’s office incident.

Alan took all four boys to the doc on a Saturday by himself. (I was out of town again.) We just needed to get school and sports forms filled out. Moving is such a pain when it comes to health care!!! (That’s another reason our company should let us live places a little longer.)

Well, they were all there for HOURS, but everyone was well behaved, thankfully. But right at the end, the doctors refused to sign the sports forms for ALL the boys! Can you believe that!!??  And it was because of my heart problem! Ugh.  Way to go, Me!

Alan tried to convince them that the boys do not have it, and even I am fine. I could play sports even. (Not well, but I could do it.) He failed to convince Doc #1, so he asked to get a second opinion from one of the other docs there that day.

Doc #2 also denied us. We all have to go to a cardiologist before they will be cleared to play sports. Doctors totally freak out about the v-tach thing, but I’m telling you mine is benign. It’s monomorphic, non-sustained. I’m good.

So today we’re sitting in Sunday School, and Alan whispers, “That doctor that wouldn’t sign the boys’ sports physicals is right over there.” Yep. Doc #1 is in our Sunday School class.

No way.

Yes way.

We chatted with him after class. He didn’t budge any on the issue, but hopefully we are all on good terms. I’m sure he’s a very good doctor. It was just a little embarrassing.

Oh, yeah, that’s us. We’re just making friends all over the place.

Won’t you be our friend??

I am seriously, for real, truly going to take a “1st day of Kindergarten” picture for Dan tomorrow. And a “3rd day” pic for J and C! I don’t know why I’ve had so much trouble remembering.

Have your kids/grandkids started back to school yet? Share with me in the comments!

The post Life After Home School and the Move appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan and Mom. Mom was such a huge help the week of my procedure. Thanks, Mom!!

The Move

Yesterday I started cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and drawers. No, I’m not packing myself. Alan’s job hires people to do that, so why would I?

What I’m doing is trying to eliminate all things that I do not want or use so that I don’t have to unpack them in a few weeks. We have way too much junk.

Junk. Just junk.

How do we all accumulate so much of it?

Is it the result of retail therapy gone overboard?

The inability to let go? I don’t know. But somehow every two years, we haul off truck loads and truckloads of our old stuff to Goodwill and the dump.

Occasionally, we sell a thing or two. I got $25 for an Ergo baby carrier…

Bye-bye, Ergo, we had a love/hate relationship anyway.

I sold a Mickey Mouse Cake Pan for $5. Because let’s face it. I bought it 2 years ago and never used it. I’m obviously too intimidated by the directions and the hand cramping to actually decorate a Mickey Mouse cake.

My hand hurts now, just thinking about squeezing out all those icing stars.

So yeah, we’re moving. We still don’t actually have a house to move INTO yet, but we hand over the keys to this one on June 25th.

Do you know what the funny part is? The funny part is that my California Health Crisis earned me a plane ticket with JD, so I don’t even have to participate in pack and load week or the cross-country road trip. I leave on the 20th.

……Oh. my. goodness. Daniel is watching Teletubbies. I thought we killed those obnoxious things off years ago. How? How are they suddenly back here, back into our lives????

“Daniel, please, please, don’t watch this show. I can’t take it. It’s too dumb.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. Now we’re watching an alphabet video. It’s not too bad.

What was I saying? OH YEAH! Our moving plan. I ended up getting the super-sweet side of the stick, thanks to my psoriatic arthritis issues.

Mom and Me at Point Lobos. We’ve established that Pt. Lobos is what I will miss most about California, right?

The Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis is basically pronounced sorry-attic arthritis. In my head, I also call it sorry ass arthritis because that’s what it makes me feel like.

It’s back, and it’s ugly, and I’ve just stopped playing around about it. My big toe swelled, but I’ve figured out a way to walk without using it, and then I bumped it just a tiny bit on JD’s potty stool, and now it’s swollen, bruised, and bloody.

The ligament that connects my knees to my hips is inflamed all the way up, on both sides, and my left thumb is permanently bending slower than all of my other fingers. The shoulder tendonitis is back too. But at least the plantar fasciitis finally went away. So, there’s that.

The Heart

I asked my cardiologist about what anti-inflammatory meds I could take. I need them right now, for this flare-up and the up-coming travel.

He was obviously not too concerned. He said, “As long as you don’t take cocaine or meth, I’m good.”

As you can see, my cardiologists are super worried. Not.

I had my last appointment the other day. Dr. G is my super-soft-spoken but very personable electrophysiologist, a.k.a. a highly educated heart doc that specializes in electrical problems of the heart, arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia.

He was actually kind and sympathetic about my Linq monitor. Wait. A kind and sympathetic doctor? What is this new thing?? I’ve just had bad doctor luck these past two years, so this was a nice change.

He’s funny too. I asked if anything had shown up on my Linq monitor. He explained that he has the parameters on the thing set so that the v-tach won’t register unless it’s over 195 bpm or at least 16 beats in a row.

“Ha! I don’t think it’s ever that bad,” I said.

“Well, I set it that way because that’s the point at which we would need to do something about it.” he explained.

Sure.

“Can I put off going to a cardiologist for a while because I’ve got so much to do with this move… I feel like I’ve been to the cardiologist enough for one year anyway…”

“Yes, of course, you have a lot going on. Take care of that, and then you can get a new cardiologist. UNLESS you have symptoms.”

“I have a lot of symptoms lately, but none long enough to set off the monitor (16 beats), so what do I know?”

“Well, that’s because you got a plate full of s***.”

Haaa!!!  Ain’t that the truth.

I’m always surrounded by children or other stay-at-home moms or home school moms, so I don’t hear a lot of conversational swear words. So now when I do hear them, it’s really hard not to giggle. Yeah, I probably did snicker.

Oh, well. Dr. G says he’s not worried about my v-tach. My heart is structurally fine.  His actual words were, “You’re not going to die suddenly in your sleep or anything.”

Ha! So there’s my good news of the day, folks. I’m not going to die suddenly in my sleep, at least not this year. It sounds like a joke, but that DOES happen to v-tach sufferers when there is heart disease present or with an inherited condition, like Brugada. However, when those things aren’t present, and the v-tach is short, like mine, it is considered benign.

JD was seriously THIS small when we moved in!! 2 years ago!!

I have a good sense of closure from this California Health Crisis chapter: the pain, the fevers, and the heart thing…Most of it was all from psoriatic arthritis, which mostly goes away if I don’t eat wheat or get too stressed. So there you go. I’m learning how to better take care of myself.

And the funny part…

So did you catch the part about Alan? Did you read that right? They wrote me out of the cross-country move and the pack week. SOOOO..  Alan will be overseeing the pack out and the cross-country move by himself, along with our three oldest children. That’s right. Alan is  doing a week-long road trip with Joshua, Caleb, and Daniel.

I know. Poor Alan. What kind of a wife am I? Well, I’ve done all the other pack and moves, thank you, most of them by myself. But yes, I usually shipped off the kids.

I’ve asked him repeatedly to send another kid on the plane with me, to lighten his load. But Alan says it will be fun.

I’ll give you a minute to laugh…

It won’t be dull, anyway. You gotta give him that. A friend of ours suggested that we should strap a Go-pro on Alan for this trip. It would surely make for a funny video.

Nah, what am I saying? Our kids are perfect angels, and so are we.

In fact, today I gave Cherielle a ride home from church, and Alan had all four boys with him because we’re trying to keep the van CLEAN, in order to sell it.

Alan decided to take all the boys with him to the grocery store.

While he was there, there was quite a spectacle. A certain five-year-old boy took a gold “good behavior” reward coin from his big, eight-year-old brother.

“Hey, give that back!” the eight-year-old demanded.

But the little guy only clutched the good-behavior coin even tighter. Oh, the irony..

So the two ended up WRESTLING IN THE FLOOR of the check-out line over this coin. The oldest boy, a ten-year-old, was dismayed and embarrassed at his younger brothers’ behavior, so he started punching the middle one in the back saying, “Cut it out! Get up! Cut it out!”

my little wrestlers with Aunt Janet and Nonna

Don’t worry. They were quickly apprehended, and upon their return home, appropriate consequences were measured out. I’m sure those weren’t our little angels, scrapping it out over a Sunday School coin in the floor of the grocery store….Nah….

I’m just thankful I was not at the grocery store. I was at home putting the frozen pizzas in the stove.

Just another day in paradise, y’all. Have a great week!

The post The Move, My California Health Crisis, and The Grocery Store Scuffle appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.