When Your Child Bleeds Too Much

Before Rachel reads the title of this post and says "Mommy! Take it away!" I want to let you fine folks know that I'll not be grossing you out and going into really personal details.

Our family, the womenfolk anyway, don't seem to like to be held to the constraints of time and science. When we began to blossom into women, the shut off switch seemed to be out of order. Most girls are lucky... they begin to menstruate close to the same date every month, and they are free from that inconvenience within a few days to a week. Life goes on. Not for the Groves girls. When the bleeding starts.... it hates to stop. So much so that Rachel has had 2 blood transfusions to replace what her body had shed over months of nonstop menstrual cycle.

In an adult female a hemoglobin count should be 12-16 gm/dl (grams per deciliter, a deciliter being 100 mililiters.) This last week we discovered that Rachel's was at 7 gm/dl. Hence, another transfusion.

There are a lot of things that go through a young woman's head when she is getting a blood transfusion.... "Who did the blood belong to?" "Will I feel differently with someone else's blood in me?" "Will my body accept the blood?"

Rachel was a bit distraught that she had to go through the procedure again after having had a transfusion a few years ago. But, she hung in there, dealt with the needles and the 5 hours of dripping, swap of bags, flushing, temperature taking, blood pressure cuff squeezing and oxygen levels being checked. She did a fabulous job. Hopefully that will be the last time she ever has to go through something like that ever again.

My purpose in writing this is twofold.... first, just to let friends and family know that she made it through just fine, and they are doing what they can to keep her from having to go through it again. Secondly.... if you have a young lady in your life that has started to look pale... seems to be out of breath or feels dizzy when she stands up.... don't be afraid to ask her how her period is going. Our doctor told us that if a normal person lost that much blood in one day, they would be unconscious. The fact that the blood loss is gradual doesn't take away from the danger.... however, the young woman may not even realize that her body is in danger. She may feel "just fine." That is because her body has slowly gotten used to living without the full amount of blood pumping through her heart and veins. Take the time to communicate with your kids/cousins/nieces/sisters.... we girls need to watch out for each other.

Thanks for reading! ~ Dawn

When We Can't Sleep

I've settled back into my habits of insomnia of old... that time of night when the grankids, husband and daughter are all tucked into their beds and I lie awake at night relishing the quiet. My first husband hated that I loved to stay up late to read, write, craft or play a game in the calm silence of the night. Now my husband tells me to "try to get some sleep" but never nags at me for my nighttime forays. I love the gentle snores coming from the kids room... I love that I can move throughout the house without stumbling in to anyone and I love that when I finally DO fall asleep... I wake up to laughter and activity. It's a real home here now with Laura and the kids living with us. During my sleep failure, I have found that I love to draw... learn to draw and paint... maybe watch an old show on netflix. And... I think about my kids. I don't just think about them, I lift them up in prayer.

Tonite I picked up on old friend and favorite - Stephen King's INSOMNIA. It's been a few years since I have read that amazing book and I'm ready to go through Ralph's wretched loss of his wife who will be taken from him in the form of a brain tumor as he sits awake, listening to her lifewatch tick tick ticking away. Ralph will be slipping off the deep end soon even before his beloved Carolyn succumbs to her cancer. Neighbors will begin to act differently. People he has trusted will mumble the words "The Crimson King" and he will begin to feel as if reality is a slippery slope that he may not be able to manage. As for me.... I shall use my insomnia to read through Ralph's adventures. Even though this book starts with death it is really about the wacko crazy stuff that goes on in our world that we don't even glimpse..... and Ralph's ability to move forward and take part in life even after the love of his is gone and in the midst of all this craziness.

Because I AM sleepy, I can feel my mind wandering down that slippery slope, if you see me sliding by and notice a very short doctor with some very big scissors.... keep him away from me. I'm not ready for my lifeline to be cut yet. ~ Thanks for reading! ~ Dawn

Meet Miss Precious

I don't have time to blog right now, but I had to share this picture! Our granddaughter Ramona decided to suck all the beauty of the world into herself. It's really not fair to the rest of the kids out there.

Broken Chair

Our two and a half year old grandson Conner, decided to climb over the back over our desk chair so he could stand behind my husband to watch him play on the computer. I sternly told him NOT to climb over the back of the chair, letting him know that people have fallen over backward on it in the past. "It's a dangerous chair," I told him. After he finished arguing with me about how safe it would be to climb the thing, he noticed that one of the arms is missing from the chair. He got down and decided that I was right about how dangerous the chair was. Looking at me with a very serious face he said, "That chair is broken! We need gotta fix it to get the danger out!"

Capture the Moments

One of the forums I belong to on cafemom.com is Fancy Photos and Edits for mom's like me who love photography. Each day there are new challenges/topics available for us to post pictures we've taken. I love it because there are so many of them that I don't feel pressured. Other groups set up a challenge a week and can be so specific with the requirements that I eventually lose interest. The topics available today alone in Fancy were "holding hands," "still life yet man made," "fingers," "mailboxes in black and white," "designs from nature edited," and more... All I have to do is read through the list and pick something I'm interested in, shoot it, and upload it. It's been great to see the work the other ladies upload and how differently we all see the world.

The topic I picked today was "fingers" because Baileigh was sitting in her high chair eating waffles with peaches and whipped cream using her hands as always. She was completely delighted with the whipped cream and had clumps clinging to her fingers and dripping off of her chin. I got an amazing shot of her just getting ready to put her fingers in her mouth covered with goo while a big glob of the stuff clung to her chin. I snapped about 10 photos of her and the family while I was still cooking waffles... and then, my camera went on the blink.

One of my cameras is a Sony Mavica that records pictures onto a small disk. To get the disk to work, it has to be formatted with the camera. Once the disk has been formatted, the camera will allow you to take pictures otherwise you can't move beyond that screen. Tonight, although the formatting had been completed and the pictures had been snapped, a horrible message popped up on the screen that said "Please format your disk." UGH! Once that happened, the captured moment had been lost, Baileigh had finished with her food and the reformatted disk had lost the previously recorded information. Oh well. I'll try that one again later.

In lieu of the lost picture, I am submitting the one at the top of this post. Laura falls asleep with the kids and then oftentimes wakes up briefly, wanders into our bedroom, lays on top of the bed after mumbling something to us and falls back asleep. Tonight she grabbed the crossword puzzle book and pencil just as she laid down, and I snapped some pictures of her hand as she slept.

The picture itself isn't an amazing work of art, I know. However... what happened afterward was great!

YO and I had finished watching one of our shows when he turned in his chair and said "I'm going to need to go to bed because I work tomorrow."

"You get to carry your daughter to bed," I said, "because I already got up and took care of the baby, it's your turn."

We laughed at our goofiness as Laura kept snoring gently. YO sternly told her as she slept "Go to your room, young lady!" Snore. "I mean it!" Snore. Then I, using a one of Laura's own tactics with her kids, started to count.... "One... TWO....!" At that moment, Laura popped awake and said "You guys are MEAN!" Maybe that is only funny to the three of us, but... we take the kids to task all the time because they tell us that we are mean. The irony made the three of us laugh. And now, a moment has been captured. :)

Thanks for reading! ~ Dawn

Where Did the Sun Go?

This summer I got to spend a lot of time with my year and a half old grandson, Alakai. Our favorite thing to do together was hang out on the back patio and play in the water as the day passed by. One afternoon, the sky was dotted with some fluffy clouds and one floated in front of the sun slightly darkening the day. Kai looked up from what he was doing and said "Oh NO!" with both hands held out to the side. He kept repeating the two words while raising his hands higher into the air... "Oh NO! Oh NO! Oh NO!" He looked at me and pointed his hands to the cloud covered sun as if beseeching them to move along. When the cloud finally floated away from the sun, he started clapping his hands while saying "Yay!!!!"

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Our daughter and 3 small children moved from Illinois and in with us a few weeks ago. Those of you who know me can understand how crowded this small 2 bedroom home is already. Adding 4 more people is like shoving an extra bag of trash in the garbage can and having to stand on the back jumping up and down to make room for the lid! Aside from the coziness of the situation, we are thrilled to have them here with us. Laura, our daughter, is a nurse waiting for her Oregon licensing to go through so she can take her pick from all the job offers she's received. In the meantime, the poor girl is getting a bit stir crazy I'm sure. She and the kids use the living room as their bedroom which is probably driving her insane at this point, especially tonite. Her nine month old daughter Baileigh has decided that she doesn't need to sleep tonite. It is 5 AM and Laura has been cuddled on the couch watching movies to keep herself occupied as Baileigh works off some of her energy playing on the floor. YO and I had been asleep for a few hours when I awoke to a loud BANG! coming from the living room followed by the wails of Baileigh. She seems to think she is much older than she is, and has been trying walk a bit while holding on to furniture. Not a great thing on a hardwood floor in the middle of the night! I'm not quite sure how a toothless child can bleed so much from her mouth ... but boy did she ever! After the shock of the fall she took, she was perfectly fine and content to suck on a cold washcloth and be cooed over. In my sleepy mind, it seemed like a good idea to get on here and share. And now, may sleep find each of us in this home, and may the short amount we receive find us fully rested in the morning. Thanks for reading!

Master of None

My daughter Rachel and I were talking last night about our love of anything creative and how we "dabble" in so many creative areas and then move on to something new. Why is it that I don't have the drive to focus on one thing whether it is writing, photography, scrapbooking, or drawing and just master that one thing to the exclusion of all others? I'm jealous of those who are driven to be the best they can be at just one thing. They are the people who sell art, publish novels, have their photography published...

Honestly, I just want to do it all! I want to draw amazing pictures and sign my name to the bottom and see them hanging in an art gallery. I want to create amazing photographs that not only get published, but get blown up and framed to hang on mansion walls. I want to finish my novel and have thousands and thousands of people cherish it enough to read it over and over.

There aren't enough hours in the day to care for my home and family and complete a project a day to share with the world. Oh well! I shall continue to work on my many projects, master of none... and I just might get lucky one day!