Welcome

Welcome to the blog I’ve been threatening to publish for years now. I am a wife and mother to an official teenage son (he’s now 13); I work full-time; have a mom who is 78 and step-dad who is 85 (and has prostate cancer) and working to balance my life the best I can.

Since I’ve had my son, Joshua, my life has changed DRAMATICALLY and I’ve learned so much from so many people about raising children,. I wanted to have a place to share some of the things I’ve been learning and doing to benefit you. Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions. I want us to help guide our children to be the best they can be and make positive contributions to the world.

On April 6th, 2016, after years of suffering from back problems, my mother finally took the plunge and had back surgery. For many years she was going through pain management docs who prescribed pain pills and would give her cortisone shots every 3 months. Then the shots became every 2 months, then monthly until they got to the point where the cortisone shots simply weren’t working any longer, and her pain doctor recommended she use a walker. My feisty Mom said “you can use a walker” and that was pretty much the last time she went to him. Her feeling was once you give into a walker or wheelchair, your quality of life is never the same. She lives in senior housing and many of the conversations I heard with the other seniors were them cautioning and trying to deter her from having surgery because “people come out worst off than before they went in with those kinds of surgeries”.

Meanwhile, my Dad had lost about 30 pounds bringing him to the whopping weight of 150 pounds soaking wet. His PSA was going up and he was forcing himself to eat. I discovered he would eat Portillo’s Italian Beef sandwiches, so I would take 2-3 over every other day or so. He even began eating ice cream with every meal. The treatment he’d been on wasn’t working and he was now given the option of chemotherapy which I was extremely worried about and he began the treatment a couple of days after Mom’s surgery.

3 months after Mommy’s surgery and Dad’s chemo treatments, we attended a wedding and she was up dancing. My Dad has gained the 30 pounds he lost before the chemo and all is at our new normal. I visit more often than I had been in the past…I make sure I take flowers over as often as possible because my mother has always said “give people their flowers while they can smell them”.

I also have my son visiting with me because the way we treat her, is the way he will treat my husband and I when we age, PLUS we always end up having a good time with them. There is nothing like parents and grandparents! They cared for us, so it’s now time we slow down and care for them.