I called the radiologist this morning and they got me in for this Friday morning, just two days from now... and said that I will have a mamagram  that morning too. I am feeling pretty cheerful that I got an appt so quickly, although I am not looking forwards to the testing and stuff. I really hope that from the tests that they will be able to tell that there is nothing wrong and it will just go away or just not be a big deal or something. 

me.

not just a plugged milk duct

I went to see my midwife, Lilly, this morning. When I called yesterday and told her about the lump in my breast she said I could come in today if I was worried about it. So I did and when she checked me out she said that I was right and this was not a plugged milk duct but a mass and that I needed to go to a specialist. She referred me to a radiologist who also does ultrasounds and such. After the exam she walked me up to the front desk. She is a big woman and her voice is rather booming. She said loudly to the receptionist and pretty much everyone in the waiting room, "Call to get her an appt. She has a mass in the left breast, she is breastfeeding, see that the Dr. gets her in as soon as she can." 

When I walked through the waiting room to leave, with Emmy in her car seat, I felt like everyone was looking at me and I felt like I was in a bad dream.

So now I wait for the phone call for the appt. But I'm not going to wait. I will call the radiologist office tomorrow and set up the appt since I don't have too much faith in front desk operations and procedures. I have a few very good reasons why I can't die of breast cancer and my biggest one is my child with autism. DH said something kind of weird. I know he is terrified and he said, you don't have anything to worry about, I'm the one who has something to worry about...implying that he doesn't want to be left a single father of three kids. It was kind of a joke but a little alarming anyway. 

I'm not going to mention anything to my  mom or younger sister until I get the all clear or otherwise, because they don't need to do the waiting game with me. I wish I could talk to my older sister about this. If I prayed... I would pray about this.

me.

I don't think this lump is a plugged duct. I have had many plugged ducts before and they were nothing like this. I am going to go and see my midwife tomorrow and she said she will have a look at it. She said if it isn't a plugged duct we will do an ultrasound and she will set me up with a consult with a surgeon. I just talked to another friend who just went through the same thing...I talked to her about it like, last week. Now it seems to be happening to me.  She was fine after her biopsy. I really hope this is nothing and I really hope I don't have to even get a biopsy. I am terrified of surgery. I am more terrified of dying of breast cancer. This sucks. I haven't told my mom or younger sister and I am going to keep it that way.

me.

a bit scary

So last night I found a lump in my left breast. I had DH check it out and he said,  yeah, you need to go to the dr about that. But this morning I mentioned it to my friend who came over, and who's mom has struggled with breast cancer said that she didn't think I needed to worry because it was probably just a plugged duct from nursing. I said that it doesn't feel like one because it isn't sore and it doesn't drain at all and it is at the top, not near the areola. She said that she got all sorts of weird lumps and bumps while she was nursing and that we have milk ducts everywhere. So I will still go to the dr about it tomorrow but I'm not going to worry about it in the meantime.

me.

So what kind of an autism mom am I? Recently I have been deleting articles in my in-box and avoiding the autism month thing. I have been just completely avoiding autism and kind of pretending like it isn't in our house anymore. I am playing house like I have 3 typical children but I don't and I am wondering if/when I need to change my tune. 

One email from the Generation Rescue site was asking for stories of recovered children. As I looked at it I realized that I do not have a recovered child. I have a little girl who is brilliant and who is hurdling the barriers that autism shoves in front of her daily, hourly...by the minute. But she does have autism and it wasn't that long ago that we were dealing with endless reverse pronouns and limited speech...no real conversations. In fact that was at the beginning of this school year. Now she will carry on a conversation and ask questions. She will play well with her brother, even make eye contact and she will approach children on the playground when we go to the park in our neighborhood, and she will end up playing with them. She is not typical. Her conversations are often quite odd, and often repetative, "Mommy how old are you?" I get that multiple times a day even though she knows how old I am but that transitions into endless questions about how old I will be when she is 27...and how old Owen will be when she is 45 and how old Emmy will be when she is 76. This goes on all day and I go through it all with her doing the math in my head like a rusty swing. When she talks to other children she seldom looks at them and her speech is very musical. But she has all sorts of phrases and expressions memorized and she uses them appropriately in a way that makes DH and me smile. She even says, "Oh OK!!" in a huff when we ask her to wash her hands for dinner. This is so great for me because it is so typical, but somehow it is a little more rehearsed sounding than a typical child. 

So even though she plays the part of a typical child, she is not recovered, she still has autism and so maybe I shouldn't be playing the part of a mom with a recovered child. I should still be reading the articles. But I think I avoid them because I don't want to delve into more biomed. I wonder if I do more that perhaps I could help her even more. But it is such a huge commitment to do this diet so strictly and it is such a huge expense that I don't want to take it further. I am afraid to drive to where the DAN! doctors are ( OK so not recovered from anxiety disorder completely either I guess) and I don't want to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars for the  appointments and the testing. I have so little time as it is, and researching and implementing biomed is a huge investment of time. So I play the part as if I am done with autism, but it is not done with us. Thank goodness many of my friends email me stuff because I do actually read those.

We still do the B12 shots and they still give us amazing results. I am very interested in the hyperbaric oxygen treatments but she will be terrified to sit in one of those tanks. I don't want to do that to her, but it might be amazing for her. I could take the articles with me to her pediatrician and ask her to prescribe it as a treatment perhaps. Or maybe I could ask her psychiatrist who diagnosed her (saw her once) to prescribe it as a treatment so our insurance would pay. Maybe it still wouldn't though. 

I should be sleeping since Emmy is sleeping. I have a bit of mastitas sp?? or thrush or something, another pain in my butt..or boobs I should say. So nursing hurts. I have some "all purpose nipple cream" to put on but I need to bug Emmy's dr for some stuff to put in her mouth because we are passing the yeast back and forth. But I hope she will just call it in for us because I hate taking Emmy into the germiest place ever, the pediatrician's office. Fun stuff eh?

Bye for now,

me.

I am so absurdly behind in my work that I am going to have angry brides beating down my door pretty soon. 

Today I baked cookies. I haven't made anything from scratch in years, but when I looked at this recipe that a dear friend emailed to me, I saw with surprise that it was super duper easy. I had all the ingredients and both me and AJ could eat it because all it was, was almond butter, sugar, an egg and baking soda. I threw it all in a bowl and stirred it up then made little balls and stuck them on a baking sheet. They were done in only 10 minutes and I suddenly had delicious GFCFSF cookies that were actually good for you because of the almond butter.

OK, I'm off to fee Emmy, she's fussing.

me.

update

My older sister's husband came today and brought belated birthday presents for DH, AJ and Owen. He sat on the couch and looked at Emmy and said that her fingers were so small. I knew he was thinking about his son and it made us both cry. His mom was with him but she stayed in the car and didn't come inside to see me. I was so relieved. I haven't seen her since the funeral and I know that I would remind her so much of my sister it would have been too much for her, especially with a newborn in my arms. It would have been too much for me too. I would have just cried the whole time I think. 

It was nice to see him anyway but so so hard. It doesn't seem to get any easier. He is just struggling  without her. He said he never knew what nervous breakdowns were before but now he is dealing with them, although they are starting to get better. We talked about how we try and stay in a  world where she is still there in a way. We can't think about the tragedy. We live kind of how we lived when she was in our lives, only well, she isn't, but we can't face  that or something. We don't let ourselves think about that too much. I think of  her all the time but I can't face that she isn't accessible. I can't imagine that so I just sort of block that part out. I picked up my cell phone a few days ago and spoke to her on it. I know that is weird and I didn't expect her to talk back and I didn't dial any numbers or anything. It is just how I used to talk to her every day, sometimes more than once a day so it seemed like the best way to somehow reach her with what I wanted to say. I don't even remember what I said...something about how hard it is without her but how she is still with me every day. I gave Emmy her middle name to honor her.

Well, Emmy wants to nurse again. I have her in a sling here. I can't believe she sat here without fussing at me for 15 minutes so I could write this post.

Bye for now (things are still going well)

me.