My Health

The last few entries have probably seemed a little different.  That is because I'm on this medication that makes it really hard for me to express, even sometimes coherently, what I want to write.  I feel bad for people I try to speak with on a daily bases.  I really do.  Or people I haven't seen in a while.  They have to think I'm crazy.  Or that I've really changed.  Or on drugs.

Well, I am on drugs!  Its calls Topamax!

It's a long story and I'll try to explain it as best as I can on this stuff.  I don't tend to make a lot of sense on it.  The problem is, I didn't make a lot of sense before the medicine!  Ha!  But sadly, its true.

Before we moved to Oklahoma, I had high blood pressure and I didn't have it under control.  I also was highly stressed out.  My anxiety and depression was not under control and I should have been seeing a therapist.  To get someone reading this to understand the state I was in maybe I should back up.

Prior to this time I was in a real happy place.  I had gotten really healthy.  I had gotten off all my high blood pressure medications.  No anxiety medications.  Lost 50 pounds.  Therapy.  And most importantly, my active, loud toddler/child (I'm actually talking about Brigham here...that's how far back I'm taking you) wasn't a toddler anymore!  I could enjoy my children and life was just enjoyable.  It wasn't perfect.  Life never is.  But it was good.  It was really, really good.

But as time tends to do to things, it changes situations.  And just like after a mother forgets that awful pain of childbirth, I soon let the memory fade of the years of a stubborn toddler and the effects it can literally have on an adult female body.

Years passed and we decided to do Foster Care.  And it was a beautiful process.  It went really smoothly.  We were truly blessed with Ruger being our first and only placement.  He was such an easy and loving baby.  We fell in love with him.  He made it so easy.  It was nothing like the horror stories we were told.  We adopted him and then BOOM!  All hell broke loose.

He was walking at 10 months and nothing was the same after that.  I love him with all my heart but he is nothing like any other boy child I have ever seen.  I will argue with the person next to me to the day I die that he can out jump, out yell, out climb, out crazy your toddler in a heartbeat.  He's nuts!  But I promise that I still love him.

From there on, my oldest son had a cyst that we thought was a tumor on his neck area for a time.  That is a whole other story.  That was removed and got infected but kept having to go back in and have it get aspirated over and over.  Then we had a mold problem in one of our bathrooms that was so bad that we had to leave our house for 28 days and live in a hotel...with 4 children!

I remember coming back in our house and getting on Facebook and announcing something like "This is the Adams' New Year."  We were finally living in our home again and I wanted it to be a brand new start for us.  Just start clean.  Just say, we are starting off new.  Right then.   We are walking in our house new, dang it!  But literally the next morning, our water heater went out!  I'm not joking!  That is how our year went!  I didn't even put it on Facebook.  I was just so sick of it all!  So sick of how big of a joke it all was!  You know!  Like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

Something else happened in 2016/2017, well multiple things happened at THBell JR High that I'm not going to write about because they are personal, but just know that 2016 and going into 2017 was just a terrible time for our family.  I know every family has that year that they would like to never ever relive.  This was ours. 

And I know you are probably wondering why you have to know all that to know about Topamax but it is the reason that led to it.  It is the whole reason I am on this medication, I feel. 

I came here to Oklahoma with my blood pressure not under control because I went back to my same old trigger: active, loud toddler.  This is when it really hit me.  My trigger!  I don't do well with active, loud, defiant toddlers!  I love babies.  I do.  And I loved my Brigham and Ruger but I will never miss them as toddlers.  I know that will sound so harsh to some parents but it is truth.  I enjoy Brigham as a teenager sooooooo much.  He is hilarious!  He cracks me up!  But as a toddler.  No.  And it is safe to say that I can't wait to see what lies in store for Ruger as a teenager.

Unfortunately this time my high blood pressure with a crazy, active toddler almost did me in.  It landed me in the ER.  My doctor sent me there because my blood pressure was so high she couldn't see me in her office.  They were afraid I had had a stroke.  Long story short I had to go to a neurologist after the ER and had an MRI and Spinal Tap a few weeks later.  It's a really long story.  But we think we have figured out that I have these migraines that mimic strokes.

Anyways, I'm getting off subject.  I have to start telling people no.  I have to start saying yes to my health.  People are going to have to get used to talking to this girl who can't articulate things very well anymore when she talks to them.   I have to stop judging myself so harshly.  And I have to start giving myself more "outs."  I used to consider that as alone time but I'm starting to see more and more how harsh I am with myself.  And that giving myself "outs" may actually mean to give myself a break.  Stop judging yourself so harshly, Alisa.

Be Gentle With Yourself, Alisa.  David reminded me of that in a Priesthood blessing last night.