The Beginning

The Beginning:
Technically, this is the beginning. However, in my head and in my reality, it's not really the beginning. Day one was probably 3 or 4 years ago when my feet and calves went numb for the first time.  So, to call this the beginning seems somewhat silly to me. This shadow, this grey cloud of a problem has been following me, haunting me, mercilessly taunting me for a long time.  It's always been there. Constant fatigue. Numbness and tingling in my feet, legs and hands. Sensations of heat and cold on my skin. Shooting pain, prickly pain, constant stiffness and aching pain. Imbalanced gait and weakness. Dropping things that I thought I had a good hold of. Forgetfulness. That foggy, inability to find that word that is just on the tip of my tongue, it's so frustrating! But, now it's different- as of Thursday, October 16, 2014. That's the beginning. What made that day the beginning? It was the first day that I heard a doctor say, "Well, your clinical diagnosis is.... Multiple Sclerosis." Finally! I feel...Well, I feel validated! Weird, right? But not really.
     Should I be surprised? Should I be confused or devastated? Should this be "life as we know it" altering news? No. Not really.  Not for me. I've known there was something wrong with me for a long, long time. My first episode of symptoms, about 3 years ago, took me to see a neurologist, only to have him confused by the results of my EMG and nerve conduction study. He didn't think it was necessary to order any other tests.  He told me that he would send the results of my test to my primary doctor and that she will contact me.  She never did. The symptoms went away a few months later, except for a hand that has constantly felt a little numb for years. I went on with my life of being a busy mom, with baby number four soon to follow. I knew that there was still something wrong. I just didn't have the time to think about it.    
    Fast forward a few years. This brings me to around September or October of 2013.  I wake up one morning and head straight to the shower.  When I step into the shower I feel like I have electrocuted my foot! What the what!!! My feet were ultra, super sensitive to the cold floor of the shower.  By the end of the week both feet, legs and parts of my back were numb and tingly. My back started to feel sensitive to heat or cold, or anything touching it at all.  I knew it was time to see my doctor again. She sent me to a new neurologist. I had 3 separate MRIs. The MRIs showed two areas of demyelenation on my brain, or "lesions". Hmmmm. That sounds a lot like MS. But the neurologist told me that they were "not in the area that we find MS". They were probably from my migraines. Ummm...What???  Then what is this? What is going on with me? He's telling me it's not MS, but I just knew it was MS. By this time, I had begun researching my symptoms. It's hard to explain how I knew, but I could feel it in my heart.  You know that small voice inside? I attribute it to the Holy Spirit. For me, it's that voice, or rather that assurance of just knowing something without a doubt, that harbours itself in the core of my soul. I knew the Lord was preparing me. 
    More tests ensued to rule out other things - the whole gamut. They all turned out negative. I knew they would- results all negative, but symptoms were worsening! Months went by and then, BOOM! It was like being hit by a train. My previous symptoms had already decreased in intensity, they were almost gone. Then, what felt like overnight, new, more intense ones appeared. I was experiencing the onset of another round of the worst symptoms, to date, that I had ever experienced. Extreme fatigue. Severe numbness and heaviness in my legs, hands, arms, chest, back, neck, and the right side of my head. Pain and tingling in my extremities. Complete and utter exhaustion and fatigue. Weakness and imbalance. I felt like my extremities were made of jello! Needless to say, I decided to get a second, or make that a third opinion.  By this time, It had been almost a year since my last set of tests and MRIs. Time for more MRIs, a spinal tap, and my third EMG and Nerve Conduction Study. Irritating, to say the least. Plus, our health spending account was depleted so now we have the joy of dipping into our rainy day fund to pay for 20 percent of all of these tests. Wonderful. (Can you hear my sarcasm? I'm good at it.) By this time, I had done a ton of research on MS. My sister had too. We kept in close contact about my symptoms- documenting and researching. She loves researching. And, since her career is in the medical field, it was like I had my own personal Wikipedia at my disposal. Thanks, Holly
     The tests came back. I now had more lesions and areas of hypersensitivity in in my brain and in my cervical and thoracic spinal cord. I googled all the big words and read up some more.  My sister too. It was what I had known all along.  That small voice within my heart was right. So to hear those words from my doctor was actually somewhat relieving.  Now there's a name for all of this!  I'm not crazy or exaggerating!  This is finally validation of everything I've been through.  This is real! 
      Wait. This is real.  I have to admit, this information is a little bit heavy.  It's the beginning of a new lifestyle. The beginning of a new way of thinking about my health. I'll have to start listening more closely to my body.  I'll have to begin to not ignore these symptoms anymore in order to take better care of myslef. There will be new medications and new doctors. But like any challenge, I can't look back in order to move forward.  I can't feel bad for myself, or cry over what could have been.  This is the path that the Lord has put in front of me.  I don't know why He chose me for this challenge. But, I'll walk this path with faith, dignity and perseverance.  I would be lying if I said I'm not scared.  I am terrified. Thank goodness I have my friends, my family, my husband, my children, and my Savior, Jesus Christ.  They will be my support and my anchors. The Lord will be my rock and my refuge, my ever present help in time of trouble. So, if you are wondering how I am doing, don't worry, I really do feel like I will be Ok.  Whatever it is that I have to cross along this path, I know I'll be OK. There's no giving up.  There's no looking back.  I have to move one numb step at a time.  I will continue homeschooling my kids, crafting and chalk painting furniture- my new obsession.  I enjoy a good book and a nonfat white mocha. I will continue to be me and do all the things I enjoy.  I may have to take more naps, and get more sleep at night. I'll have to slow down so that I don't fall when I'm listing to one side, and sit down more often to take breaks when I'm sore or fatigued.  But despite these modifications, I will continue to enjoy my life and have hope and excitement for my future. 

"They're selling popcorn outside, and it's free!!!!"

On Saturday, we celebrated both Emery and Lily's birthdays.  We celebrated Emery is turning 4 on the 15th and Lily turned 2 on the 9th.  It was so much fun.  My favorite quote of the day came out of the mouth of Karlie Protivinsky.  She said "Hey guys! They're selling popcorn outside, and its FREE!" 

It was definitely the best birthday party we have had, yet.  The weather was perfect, I think it nearly reached up to 70 degrees. I think everyone had a great time. My good friend Jen, Karlie's mom, came out with all 5 of her children.  You may be thinking, so...what? A lot of people have 5 children.  Well, she just had triplets about three months ago, Luke, Elijah and Abram. And, all three of them just recently came home, one at a time. I am so proud of her! I was so happy to see them all, healthy, cute and happy. 

The day even got better when my Kyla informed me that she wants a birthday party just like this for her next birthday! I guess mommy did good.  It was a circus theme with a clown, bounce house and popcorn. We had a lot of fun. Enjoy the pics of my growing girls! SNIFF,  SNIFF....

New Year's Resolutions....

New year's resolutions.... I have never been good at keeping them. In fact, I am not very good at following through with any new regimen. I have never gone more than a few months following a exercise routine, diet routine, chore routine... And after much contemplation over the reasons for my lack of follow through, I realized that it has a lot to do with my disorganization. I am always playing catch-up on the things with which I am behind. And, I am falling behind on a lot of things. I am not only behind on my household chores, but I am also behind on my hobbies, and unfinished projects. My lack of organization keeps me from having time to do the things that I really want to do - IE, photography, exercising, using my creativity to make hair clips for my girls and knitting (my new hobby, with the kniffty knitter), organizing my home & keeping up with my daily chores, reading through my Bible in a year, catching up on the blogs that I am following, loosing those last, irritating 20 lbs... the list can go on. Basically, it all boils down to having more time for the stuff that I love, and keeping up with the stuff that makes a happy home. However, having more time to do the things I love means that I need to get organized. Oh, that nasty word - ORGANIZATION - it has been haunting me my entire adult life!

I would love to do:

more Bible reading... more knitting and crafting... more baking...

more photagraphy...

So, how do I do this?!?!?! Well, to begin with, I think that I need to start back with flylady. If you have never heard of flylady, it is a really cool web sight started by two women who wanted to help other women get a handle on their lives, by helping them to become more organized with their daily tasks. There is a daily routine to follow that only takes a very small portion of your daily time, therefore, freeing up your time to be able to do the things that you love to do. Then, they have other activities each day to help focus on certain areas of your home to get to the deep stuff. It is a yahoo group that you need to sign up for, and then they send you daily emails to remind you what you have to do that day. I really recommend it. It helped me tremendously before, when I was active with doing it. Not sure why I quit? (Hmmm...perhaps it has a lot to do with my lack of follow through, that I mentioned before?)

However, before I start this new house routine/life organization, I need to first catch up on my laundry so that I can have a clean slate - I hate laundry. Its always the last thing that I do, when it should be the first thing. Thank the good Lord that I am blessed to have a lot of clothes! Otherwise it may not be too pretty. Disclaimer- I may have a lot of clothes, but I am a very thrifty shopper. And, I love hand me downs. Not only for my children, but for myself, as well. If you know me, I love to get things for a bargain. But they have to LOOK expensive, that is the thrill of the hunt. So, even though I have a lot of clothes, I have had them for a long time, or they have been passed down to me, or I have purchased them on sale, or at major discount stores, and not one, single item was expensive. Just so you know ;-) I did not want to sound like I was bragging, when I said I have a lot of clothes. Well, maybe I was bragging, just a little-BUT it was about my expensive looking, hand me down, discount, bargain, cheap clothing. Wow! That was a mouthful! OK, back to the resolution post. How did I get so side tracked?

New Year's resolutions! This is a lot- to organize my entire life- but I am determined to follow through this time. I need to have more time for my interests. And, I need to hear my husband nagging at me less, and complaining less, and I would love to hear him being more sasified with my choices with my time, and, again, I would love to have more time to do things like: blogging and sharing photos of my fast, growing girls, and to knit, and to learn how to take better photographs.... Did I mention theses yet?

Will you join me in organizing your life? I am going to start with one room at a time - one week at a time.

Ok...ready...set...go!

A Merry Christmas and Disneyland

I'm sitting here thinking about my family and reflecting on the images in my head of all of the memories that we made this Christmas.  This Christmas, as well as last Christmas, have been some of the best times that we have spent with our family.  Last year we were blessed with having Mauro's parents staying with us and experiencing all of the Christmas excitement with us.  But this year, even more special, Mauro's daughters were here to experience Christmas with us.  We have had an amazing Christmas.  Connie was able to wake up with us at the crack of dawn, to watch the little girls open their gifts from Santa, and then Kim arrived, later on in the day, to have Christmas day dinner with us. It was so much fun having them here to make some awesome memories.  They both gave gifts to their little sisters, but told them that the gifts were from Santa.  How sweet is that?

     This year, we hosted both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the Cortes house, and with that hosting, came some new traditions. On Christmas Eve, we took the kids out into the back yard to roast marshmallows around the new fire pit. It was so much fun to see them all sitting around the fire trying to blow out their flaming marshmallows.  We will definitely do that again. And, then, on Christmas day, we smoked a Turkey!  Mauro had been working every day after work, the whole week prior to Christmas, on building and welding a very special, one of a kind smoker.  I had asked him if we could maybe bar-b-q the turkey this year, or maybe barrow a smoker, so that we could have something different.  Instead, he decided that he would fabricate one for me as a christmas gift.  It was the best turkey that I have ever had.  We will definitely do that every year for Christmas Day dinner.  I'm not sure if anyone else liked the Turkey, because we had a lot of it left, and no one took a bit of it home.  So, I guess we will be eating this Turkey for the next couple of days, and I couldn't be happier. That smoker was the best Christmas gift ever! But I have to say that my Coach purse, that my husband surprised me with, does come in a close 2nd! Not because it's leather, or that it's a designer, couture bag,  and not because it is the most expensive purse that I have, or will ever have - but simply because he listened, and he bought me something that he new I really wanted.  He bought it regardless of the fact that he thought it was an extravagant want, and vain, on my part.  For me, it really has nothing to do with price, or labels, or status. If I had really wanted a new toaster, and he bought me a new toaster, I would have been just as excited.  It's all about him showing me how much he loves me by listening to me, and considering what he knew I would like. He proved to me that he was paying attention to the things that I like and disliked,  even though he thought it was ridiculous.  I felt a lot of love from him that day! Thanks, Baby Love! 

     I am including pictures from our trip to Disneyland.  That trip was a one of a kind adventure.  All of the girls enjoyed themselves and we all made lasting memories!  I feel so blessed.  I can't wait to take them in a few years when Lily is old enough to remember the trip.

...its really a blog post!

It has been a million years since I have blogged. But you know what they say, it's like riding a bike. Just get back on, and go for it. Anyway, so much has happened since my last post. Mauro's daughter Cony is living with us now. That has been a lot of fun! She is really great with the little girls and they love having a big sister around to do fun things with them. And, Cony was just baptized a few Sundays ago! God is moving in her life and doing amazing things.

Lets see...What else...Oh... Since our family has grown with the arrival of Cony, and the monthly visits from Kim, we needed a bigger vehicle. So Mauro buckled down and purchased a swagger wagon (2010 Toyota Sienna). Or, what I call my Mommy mobile. It took him awhile to make the decision to finally buy one. He just couldn't wrap his brain around a minivan. You know, the proverbial suburban family vehicle. He just wanted to be different, and not like every other person in our neighborhood, I guess. But, now, we love it! And, we can all fit in one vehicle, at one time (it can hold 8!)...and we are going on our very first, real family vacation. And that doesn't mean camping or a weekend in Santa Cruz at the beach. It's so exciting, I can almost pee my pants with all the enthusiasm that I get when thinking about it! We are going to Disneyland, in November, over the Thanksgiving Holiday!!! Even Mauro is excited. Which is unlike him, because he has always hated to spend money. But, we talk about the trip almost every day. The girls think it's the best news since the invention of corn dogs! Cony and Kim both get to go and experience the happiest place on earth with us. I just can't wait. Of course I will keep you all posted on that, and I will post photos after we are back.

We've been here in our new house for almost a year, now. We moved in the second week of November, so I guess we can no longer call it our new house. But, it still feels that way. I think we will be here 10 years and still be calling it our new house. Mauro's parents left in June, so our back yard is looking really overgrown, and quite shabby, and I don't mean shabby chic! But we plan to totally redo the grass and do some landscaping here this fall fall. There is really only 1 1/2 months left of fall, so hopefully we can get to it next month. There are so many exciting things that we want to do to the house - hard wood floors, granite counter tops....I'll keep you all posted on that as well. Mauro has been working a lot of overtime, so it has kind of slowed down our home improvement projects / to do list.

Well enjoy these recent pics and I will try my very best to get back on this blogging thing at least once a month if not sooner.

Kim's 21st birthday cake!

Cony's Baptism

GO GIANTS!!!!!!!

Big cupcake for a big, and bigger-haired baby, Lily!

"Punkin" Patch

Little Cutie, Emery

Wedding and Hiccups

We had a great time at Holly and Garett's wedding! They have now officially been married 1 whole week! WoooHoooo!!!! After the wedding, we took a trip down to Monterrey to go to the aquiarium. And then on the way back home we stopped at our favorite beach in Santa Cruz - SeaBright Beach. It was a lot of fun! But it was not without any hiccups.
1)Car broke down right before we were to pull out of driveway to drive up to the wedding in Las Gatos. So, we had to scramble to rent a car and still get there on time. Needless to say, both Mauro and I were like chickens with our heads cut off...
2)Forgot the girls entire suitcase of clothes for the the trip...yep...everything for them was in that suitcase...
3)The only change of clothes that they did have, other than their flower girl dresses, were in a backpack with my contact case, contact solution, and important medicine - this backpack was put in the wrong car after the wedding, and was with Nicky in Aptos (which is on the way to Monterrey, thank goodness - so that was a big , pheww!). And we had to put the girls back in their big, fluffy flower girl dresses when they woke up on Monday morning.
4)My only bra was in that backpack as well!!!! So, I had to go "free" all morning until we were able to get the backpack.
5)Woke up on Tuesday morning with a migrain! It only lasted about 3 hours, thank goodness, and then we were able to get on the road for Santa Cruz and to return home.
6)Forgot to take photos with my camera during the wedding and reception. Did not even think to give camera to Mauro or to a friend so that they could take pics for me???? So thank you to Sarah, and Leslie (I copied your pics from facebook :) ), and to my father in law for letting me use your photos. You all took so many great pictures!!!!

And then after all this drama, it turned out being a really nice, little vacation. The girls loved the beach, the aquarium, and of course they had a blast at the wedding. Great memories...

Little Bit of Everything

Lily, last month, during her 1st birthday party. She thought it would be fun to smear the frosting all over her face!!!!

This is before she decided to smear the frosting. She is actually posing for this picture that Michela took with my camera!

Emery and all her friends during the magical story time from fairy Melody.

Fairy Kyla after she got her face painted at Emery's Fairy Princess Birthday Party.

Fairy Holly and "Fairy" Garett (he he he) dressed for Emery's special birthday party. Garett looks really happy to be dressed as a fairy, doesn't he? (It makes me wonder how Holly got him to dress up?)

Emery at her Fairy Princess Birthday Party. We had live entertainment. A fairy from Happily Ever Laughter Parties came to do face painting, magic, and fun singing! Emery had so much fun. I have never seen her so excited and bouncy!

This is where my sister and Garett are getting married on March 21st. This is the back of a converted barn! The property is simply fairytail!