This week's health update theme is the "good and the bad"...

Well, here it is in all it's glory, and then I promise you I'll get to some fun posts in a bit.  Before I start, I just want to say again a HUGE thank you to all of the continued support, encouragement and ongoing outpouring of love that we continue to receive.  This has been so tough and Rob and I couldn't do this alone - it means so much to know we have a good "team" around us.  I appreciate all the texts, cards, calls and in-person support, I feel so incredibly blessed and it really makes a difference, THANK YOU.  I love knowing that so many of you are reading this blog stealth-like (although feel free to comment!) and sending us your prayers and thoughts, it means a lot.

So, since we last talked, I had my follow up with the Rheumatologist and good news/bad news.  Turns out I probably do have an autoimmune disease (they said it's "probable" pending a back MRI for confirmation) called Spondyloarthritis.  It's not curable, but it's treatable with medications and does explain why I've had chronic back pain since adolescence, so it's nice that I'll finally get some relief from that.  The bad news is it is absolutely unrelated to my vertigo, so there's that.  It's like we went digging for gold and found, well, ping pong balls.  Yay, ping pong balls!  Here's a link for more info if you want it, I'm just learning more about it myself.  http://www.spondylitis.org/main.aspx
They're thinking I probably have the Ankylosing spondylitis type (which explains my back pain, plantar fascitis and knee pain), though since it's not fully diagnosed, we're calling it the "Undifferentiated type" and we're just trying an NSAID (anti-inflammatory) until we get full confirmation.  Then we'll try a fancy-pants actual medication like a Sulfa med to see how that works.

Around the same time I had the inner-ear steroid injections and intensive 3 times a week spinny chair treatment for several weeks in a row.  The good news is that is seems to have finally helped (yay!) in that my eye movements are FINALLY quieting down to almost nill - they're really insignificant and tiny at this point.  The bad news is that I feel absolutely no difference in symptoms so that proves to the Otoneurologist that in fact, I do have permanent nerve damage (called Neuritis) from the original Viral Insult (as they call it) as they suspected.  Of course I was so super disappointed when they were all celebrating in the spinny chair room pointing out that my eye movements were better when in fact, I actually felt no difference that day, in fact I felt awful.  It is a crushing feeling to realize that I have permanent nerve damage, but I didn't wallow too long...because the GOOD news is (do you see a theme here?) is that we can work on that with Vestibular Rehab.

So...I've been referred to neurological physical therapy finally and I started yesterday.  I absolutely love my physical therapist, she's super positive and has great expertise - she reassures me that this is very common and over time (she says months to years, but we're going to ignore the last part) we can override the brain's nerve impulses being sent to the body saying "we're off balance, we're unsafe, we're spinning" when in fact my body is actually healing and walking in a fairly straight line and doing much better.  So, she's going to give me all sorts of exercises to try every day to retrain my brain that I can turn my head quickly without getting disoriented, I can take in all the information and integrate it quickly, etc.  Hopefully that can be extrapolated to real-life of driving and working fairly quickly, and I think the hardest part will be I will just have to be patient.  Of course I'm going to give 150% to my exercises because finally it's something I CAN do, but my PT explains each person is different and it just depends on the brain's ability to heal.  Similar to a stroke victim who has to relearn how to speak, etc, every person is different in their pacing.  But she was so encouraging that I've already made great progress (not knowing) by working out daily, cooking, walking and not being immobile because that was forcing my brain to work and relearn on its own.  Hurrah!  I knew that cooking would be a good thing, haha!

So, last but not least is the really hard part and I apologize for those of you I haven't told in person - this just happened last week.  As most of you know, if I'm not better enough to drive/work by 6/10, I will lose my job.  And that's really hard news to swallow and I'd rather not dwell on that here or talk about that much, but the good news is my bosses have been amazing and reassured me they will rehire me in a heartbeat whenever I'm better, so that is incredible.  But the hardest part is this: 6 months ago, Kaiser sent me an application for long term disability, which I didn't even know that I received.  I applied for it (which was an extremely lengthy process - took days on my own, then literally months for all the medical information to get accumulated) and eventually I was approved.  I was so relieved knowing I had a safety net until I was better, I could work on healing and then I would return to my job.  Well, then last week I received a call from Kaiser HR and she informed me that a mistake had been made and they should have never sent me the application - I'm not eligible for the disability because of the benefits plan I was on, so starting in June, I will receive no future payments.  So June 10th, I'll be out of a job and out of money.  Needless to say, we're both just absolutely panicked.  Now we're in the process of having to rethink everything.  I'm not able to work and yet, I have to.  So I'm going to try to think of things that I can do to bring in some income but don't require driving - and that's a daunting task - my brain is just spinning and it's so hard to stay focused, I'm just so sad and upset about the rug being pulled out from under us.  I'm trying not to feel sorry for myself but I'm not going to lie, I've had a lot of tears.  Anyway, I know we'll eventually be ok but in the meantime we're just trying to regroup.  We sure could use everyone's prayers and thoughts right now - specifically in the "peace" and maybe in the "winning the lottery" category.  :)

Again, onward and upward, and as promised, happier blog posts to come.  Not just for you, but for me.  We had a great trip to Colorado and such a great birthday party, so we'll post about both of those for fun, my sweet loyal readers - hang in there.

And, because I always have promised I end each health update "wah wah" on a funny note, here's a video that's made me laugh this week, and man have I needed it.
You worry about yourself!

ROW- the Baked kale and eggs edition

The "what's that" you say? Yup. Baked kale and eggs. I know that sounds hella-gross but you're going to have to trust me on this one. It's warm, gooey eggy cheesy tomatoey deliciousness!!! I've been trying to find more ways to incorporate kale into our diet because I'm not going to lie, I think it's super boring on its own. My friend Monique gave me this recipe and its soooooo good. Scooped over crusty toasted bread and holy cow, we were both making nom nom noises like crazy. And my non-vegetarian food critic was slurping away and gave it a "who knew kale could be hidden so well?" Two thumbs up. I'm even making it for the 2nd time tonight if that says anything. Super easy AND delicious AND healthy? Score one for the home team!!!!

Neighborhood Infidels

Last week our neighbors thought their son's bike had been stolen from their garage - which isn't that far of a leap considering they had a car seat stolen out of their garage before.  They were super bummed and posted a FYI message about it on our cul-d-sac's facebook page warning everyone that there was a potential thief around and several of us commented how bummed we were for them and their little guy, etc.

WELL, later that night, Rob went to take our trash out and found their son's bike propped up against our fence, and instead of just letting them know (like any sane couple would do), we decided to post a bike-hostage video on our neighborhood's facebook page.

Here's what we came up with, and I'm not going to lie - we've watched this so many times and it cracks us up.  Is that ok to admit that we crack ourselves up?  'Cause we do.  Our neighbors were beyond themselves with hilarity.  Please to enjoy:

Easter Happs, part Deux

After the 'sac Kegs 'n Eggs, we went to our friends' Eric and Sara's house for our 3rd annual Easter Brunch.  Not only was it delicious (Eric is an amazing chef!) but it was so fun - this year there were two babies (last year Sara and Mandy were preggers, this year - here they are!)

Here's little Cecilia:

 And Cecilia and little Jameson:

 Sara and Mandy with their kiddos:

 And, the girls:

Here's the rest of the pics, fun day!

The Easter Happs

Last Sunday our little 'hood (the 'sac as we call it) had a small little egg hunt for the kids, called Kegs 'N Eggs...I'm sure you can guess why.  The funniest part?  Rob was "nominated" to be the Easter Bunny.  HILARIOUS!!!!

First of all - I came into the kitchen to get some coffee and screamed my head off when I saw this situation - freaked me out.  DUDE.  Now I see why kids often freak out when they're forced to sit on the bunny's lap for pics.

Later, he scared me with the entire costume while I was in the shower.  Awesome.  Husband of the year award, right there.

The kids ABSOLUTELY loved him though - it was so precious!  He was so cute, and had come to the park a little bit late after all the kids arrived.  He came hopping in at the end of the park and it was adorable - the kids went running towards him and started hugging him right away.  It was the most precious sight, pure joy.

 The kids all lined up to take pics with him - organized chaos, it was like herding cats, but again, it was so cute watching them interact with Mr. Bunny and want to give him "nucks" and high fives.

And then they were off for the egg hunt!  (and of course with more bunny lovin')

Here's the slideshow and link to the rest of the pics, if interested:

Dizzy girl update

Not much to report, unfortunately.  So, 2 weeks ago I had the 3 steroid injections through the ear drum and it was unpleasant, to say the least.  I didn't notice any improvement in symptoms with the injections alone, but neither the Otoneurologist or ENT expected that, since the hope was the steroids would just loosen up the crystals so that the chair would be more effective.  Last week we had intensive chair treatments on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and it honestly was really awful.  I haven't felt that bad since last summer - I was constantly spinning, couldn't watch TV or get on the computer without feeling like I was falling, couldn't read, constantly felt like I was about to fall down, etc.  My symptoms increased exponentially which sometimes can actually be a good thing, meaning that my crystals are FINALLY on the move, so fingers crossed.

The whole time we treated the right ear only (since that's where we had the injections) even though they know we have damage and crystals out of place on the left ear too.  The thought process is, if this works, we'll do the same injections/chair treatment combo on the left ear too.

The chair treatments were different this time, instead of doing fast rolls, we did super super slow rolls which to be honest, are even worse.  For some reason they make me feel worse, so again, maybe that's a good thing?  All I know is, they're awful - and sometimes they even pause when I'm upside down and let me hang there for a while, which is just brutal with all the blood rushing to my head - I get a raging headache in addition to feeling horribly dizzy.  Let's just say it's a good time.  Rob took a video to show you just how slow they go, and it's so slow, my email wouldn't even show a full rotation - the file was too big so it had to cut it down, haha!  But, you get the drift.  We usually do about 12 of these, with some stopping sometimes, and me holding that stupid vibration/massager on my right ear.

So, next week we'll treat the right ear again one last time and then move on to the left.  I guess the good news is my eye movements are totally quieting on the right ear so hopefully that means it's helping.  Unfortunately I'm seeing no change with my symptoms, but I guess that could be because of my left ear is still untreated.  Who knows. 
Anyhoo, that's it for me. 

And here's the funny to end that wah wah.
I stole this from facebook, this kid waking up from surgery makes me laugh so hard.  Bad parenting posting your stoned kid on youtube aside, you have to wait until the end - hahahaha!  "what's up?"

Spring Circus

Our neighborhood had a Spring Circus last weekend and it was so much fun!  Too bad it wasn't an Afro Circus, that would have been the ultimate.

Anyhoo, they had circus performers, animal encounters, food truck tastings, an egg hunt, you name it.  We went with a bunch of our neighbors and mainly just touched animals (wait, that sounds wrong) and stuffed ourselves at the food truck.  It was great.

Here Jay tries to steal the tortoise - poor thing kept trying to "run" away from all of the kids.

 He was amazing!

 Mike nailed his Cirque de Soleil try-outs.

 We're only smiling because this is our 2nd food truck of 5 - by the 4th one, we'd thrown in the towel.  BLAH!!!

 Melissa is such a brave mama - look at her wrangling all of those kids AND touching that huge python.  She rules.

Fun day!!

It gets crafty all up in here!

Over the last month it's gotten all crafty at Chez Warrenski!  While we were biding our time waiting for my injections to start, apparently it was arts and craft day(s), and it was a blast unleashing our inner crafties.

For Christmas, Rob had bought me a night at the Paint N Vineyard (at my request, he's such a trooper), so we finally cashed that in for the Van Gogh's Starry Night.  We had SUCH a blast!  Unfortunately they had lost their liquor license so the "vineyard" part was a misnomer but the wine part lacking, we had such a great time.  It was such a fun idea for a date night, we were cracking up the whole time and chatting, and we absolutely love the end result.  Rob's painting is hanging is in his office, mine is in my piano room.

 

I like how here Rob really ponders his next move...while ponytail guy in the background plugs away.

 Lies!  All lies!

 Et, voila!

The other thing I did recently was make a spring wreath - it was bugging me that I only had a fall one (I know, I know, white people problems).  Here's the fall one I made a few years ago as a reminder, I'm proud of this sucker:

 And the new spring one!  I think it's better in person, but I'm happy with the outcome.  Let's be honest, it doesn't take great talent to go to Michael's, buy a bunch of crap and then wire it to a wreath, but it was a fun day regardless.

 This doesn't necessarily fall under the "arts and crafts" realm but it's my blog, so play along here.  I love looking at model homes, and I had seen a great idea for storing Epsom salts (I just keep mine in the store-bought bag under my sink), so I bought a 10$ vase from Marshalls, topped it with a shell, and voila!  Love it.

 My niece even got in on the month o' crafty and had made me a beautiful blanket - it's super cozy, isn't that so sweet?  It's super warm and Galileo promptly stole it for himself.  Thief.

And last but not least, I spent a GREAT day at one of those "paint your own pottery" places a few weeks ago while I was waiting for my injections to start, and I had such a fun day.  Honestly, it was kind of tough to paint such small details because it ended up making me MORE dizzy, but who cares, I have a gorgeous mug out of the deal.  It made me laugh that I was a grown lady sitting there all by myself until ANOTHER grown lady came in by herself to paint a platter - and then I had a chatting buddy, it was heaven.

I went with a frenchy theme, and spent a ton of time taping and measuring and drawing my design - here's the before shot:

 And the after!

I call this elephantitis of the mug - Rob likes to point out that now when I use my mug, I literally take half the pot.  Woot!!