"Heaven is Here"

"We look for Christ's scars because they are evidence of what he did for us. They'll be the first things he shows us when we see Him again. Your scars tell a story , too. Although they may not make you feel attractive, they are a witness of a miracle. That God blessed you to live, and that you have accomplished very difficult things."--Jeffery R. Holland

Tonight I just completed reading the book ...

"Heaven is Here" by Stephanie Nielson. This book tugged at my heart strings and maybe it is because of my personal trial with my brain bleed. Stephanie was a young mother who was in a plane crash that burned over 80% of her body. Her recovery was long but she faced her adversity with courage, hope, and faith.

While I read the book, there were parts that I could strongly relate too. For example, I could really relate to the guilt she felt as a mother.  Like Stephanie, I also feared what would happen to my children and how are they going to respond to all of this? The unknown was scary and truthfully I had never been more scared in my life. However, as time went on blessings came to our family and the brain bleed did change our lives, but never in my life did I ever feel so close to my Father in Heaven. I was truly carried!

In this book, I was also touched by Elder Holland's quotes. One of the quote's that caught my attention was the one about scars. I thought about how Stephanie had to endure very visible physical scars while I endured internal scars that were not apparent to the outside world, but apparent to me and my close loved ones.  I also thought how in life we all have different types of wounds and scars that we carry with us, but how often do we think of our scars as a miracle and a symbol that we have accomplished difficult things? This was a very profound concept to me.

Similar to Stephanie, we were also blessed with great support. Even though some days I felt lonely and depressed I would think of the many people who were willing to serve our family and I'm sure that it was not always easy and it was a sacrifice but truly I felt loved and supported they were my earthly angels. Elder Holland also said in the book, "But when we speak of those who are instruments in the hand of God, we are reminded that not all angles are from the other side of the veil. Some of them we walk with and talk with-here, now, every day... Indeed heaven never seems closer than when we see the love of God manifested in the kindness and devotion of people so good and so pure that angelic is the only word that comes to mind."

 

I really loved this book!!!!!


 

More of Mr. Z's photos of Seattle

Good social skills tool

Zachary's Pictures that he edited!!!!

Isabella's Journey

As some of you may know Isabella was hospitalized again this past week.  On Monday she started throwing up and was unable to keep anything down.  By Tuesday morning she was lethargic, dry, and consistently vomiting so we took her to Dr. German who then admitted her.  Today we had a follow-up with Dr. German and he said that from the radiology report it looks like her left colon is inflamed.  What does this mean?  This means a trip to Swedish to see a GI doctor who specializes in inflammation and possibly more tests.  On the wide scale of things this could be something that can be quickly treated or it could mean inflammatory bowel disease. 

Since they found the cow's milk allergy she has been doing better up to this past week.  Kirk and I are first hoping for the best but also preparing ourselves for a potential chronic GI issue that we will need to help Isabella get through.  The positive thing is all of this can be treated.  The negative is watching a young five year old going through procedures, and not to mention living with daily abdominal pain.  These are procedures that a five year old should not even have to endure, but life is not always fair and we will all learn something from this hardship.  We see the GI on Tuesday.  Prayers for finding answers, solutions, and healing would be appreciated.  I hope on Tuesday night I can report an easy solution  to all of this!


By the way Zach has been doing well with all of this.  I'm very proud of him he has been a great big brother! 

Super quotes from a dear friend

The 800 Mark

This past week I was at gym.  The beginning of the week was my typical workout, which I burn 500 calories and then I'm wiped!  It has been this way since the brain bleed.  However, this past week on the 26th month anniversary since being in ICU I achieved my goal of completing six miles, burning 808 calories, keeping my heart rate between 128-130bpm, and doing this in 64 minutes.  This was a huge achievement for me!!!  Yes it had been since August 30, 2011, since I last did this, but I finally nailed it this week!!!!

I did not preplan this, but merely when I was working out everything was great and when I hit the 500 calorie mark I thought today is the day to try this or at least get to 700 calories.  Once I reached 700, I thought lets go to 800, which I was able to do eight minutes later.  Since that day, I have done it two other times; however, Saturday was a 600 calorie burn and Sunday was the day to rest my body.

Since the brain bleed I was very blessed with the ability to come out of it walking, talking, swallowing, and all other things that could have went wrong. However, it also caused some set backs and one major one was it took a lot of my physical strength from me, which has been really hard for someone who actually would daily go to the gym and easily burn at least 900 calories without a blink of an eye.  I can't tell you how wonderful it felt to burn 800 calories without a lot of difficulty.  It felt like a big part of my life started flowing back into me and I was gaining that physical strength back that was suddenly taken from me.  Yep it took 26 months but it happened!  I have not felt this excited about something since we bought our home!!!  It was so much fun to share with  Kirk and several of my friends who have been with me since the beginning and also my new friends, who have heard about what happened to me.

 Ironically the night before this happened we were at Kirk's coworker's house down here in Puyallup and her home has several stairs.  She invited me to go down stairs and as we were going down she had observed me walking slowly down stairs and gripping the hand rail tightly so I would not get dizzy and lose balance.  Kirk then shared with her that since the bleed stairs are very challenging for me, and in fact this was why we chose to buy a rambler.   She then looked at me and empathically told me she was sorry and that the brain bleed happened and could not believe everything that I now coped with in life.

After the 800 calorie burn, I thought back to that previous night, and thought that yes going down stairs is a dangerous activity for me to do, and some other things happened that I may or may not ever fully recover from, I do know that I'm not allowing the brain bleed to dictate my life rather I have and still am regaining control over my own life. This does not mean that I'm going to make stupid choices such as running down a flight of stairs, sky diving, riding rollercoasters, over working my body and not listening to it.  Like most everyone there are some activities that are just done for me and I'm ok with that.  However, I will listen to my body and when it feels strong and ready I'm going for the 800 on the elliptical. Who knows maybe 26 months later I will run 5 miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill again, but not now my balance is not their and I do not want to fall flat on my face. Right now I'm happy with this moment in my life.

School Photos of the two rascals that keep it all Alive!

More Pumpkin Patch fun in Orting

Playing in the corn maze



Isabella loved the pony!



Isabella pulling Zach



Our friends!



Zach with his coat off!



I love this photo!



Isabella and Haily.  I teach Hailey at Church

Gaining her Confidence!

This is Isabella on her first day of Kindergarten.  She was so excited!  Then two weeks later she became sick again and that is when we dived into having all of the blood tests done and the barium enema.  Since her last bout of this and also since she got sick in Kindergarten Isabella has cried a lot in Kindergarten and has not wanted to me to leave.  This past week I finally did "the tough love" and dropped her off and left the classroom until she was done with school.  This past Friday I picked her up from school and she was very happy!  I asked her how her day went and she said, "Mom I cried for one minute and then I remembered Heavenly Father is always with me and I was ok." I thought she really does know and understand at the young age of 5 that she is never alone and above all that she is loved more than she can ever comprehend.  This also triggered a flashback two weeks prior to my brain bleed Zachary and I sitting in the car up in Renton on our way to Lake Washington.  I remember we were discussing the upcoming school year and I shared with him that I always wanted him to remember that he was never alone and that his Father in Heaven was always with him.  Who would have ever thought two weeks later I would be in ICU wondering if I was going live or die, but yet having the comfort in knowing that my son was not alone on his first day of first grade, and I had shared with him that day in the car that I knew he was never alone.

"Nice to Meet You, I'm Heidi Walker Zach's Mom"

That is right I'm Mrs. Walker Zach's mother who has taught special ed, who wrote an email earlier in the week to your new Principal outlining characteristics that I believe a teacher should have in order to teach a child with ADHD, who also last Saturday when I found out Zach's teacher was leaving at a dinner frantically emailed her and the special ed teacher inquiring about what is going on,?, who has also been dealing with a child who has had a couple of outbursts this week because change is very hard for him and he loved Mrs. Bone, who has emailed Mr. Dunn about a transition plan for Zach, who has also requested from you that you use the same homework policy classroom management plan, and the same type of communication with parents, and oh by the way I really apologize that my child threw up all over you, in your new classroom, down the hall, and into the boy's restroom, and by the way I learned today that I can trust that the Principal truly takes hiring seriously because you demonstrated to me today that you truly care because you made sure that my son was safe, cleaned up by the time arrived to the school, had all of his things organized and ready to go home, and after having a really terrible puke day you still want to return on Monday and conference with Kirk and I next week about Zach's transition and his IEP, which you probably have guessed will be lengthy and who knows what these parents will  ask for next??????  Thank You Mrs. Rothman for caring for our son today!

Sometimes it's wonderful to have family members in certain professions! My cousin who is a Psyochologist shared this article it's a good read on Learning Disabilities

“We want to see what your child can really do,” the teachers tell us in the eighth-grade parent orientation meeting.
“Middle school is a safe time to let your child fail.”
And yes, of course, I agree. Aidan is no longer in elementary school after all, and he is not far from high school. Better to fail and learn from it now rather than later.
And yet, on many a night, I still sit with my sensitive, hard-working son who deeply wants to succeed, and help him with his homework when he asks. He’s dyslexic, meaning that his brain must work as much as five times harder to decipher symbols, translate them into sounds and then string those sounds into meaningful words. While the rest of us see a word like “comprehend,” and can sound it out and automatically pull the meaning from our auditory memory banks, it’s not so straightforward for Aidan. Dr. Sally Shaywitz of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity estimates that one in five children in the United States share Aidan’s diagnosis. Sometimes all the stars align and he decodes the unfamiliar words correctly and sometimes he does not. When several key words are misread, so, too, is the sentence, paragraph or story entirely. And this all relates to reading. Writing provides additional challenges, especially when it must be done — as most standardized tests require — without the aid of a keyboard, screen reader or spell-checker. (These tools can help level the playing field for dyslexics today.)
All that said, we are very fortunate to live in the time we do with technological aids like these and scientifically validated teaching methods for dyslexics. Furthermore, newer technologies, like functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI, enable us to see the dyslexic brain in action as it attempts to read, which in turn gives more credence to “invisible” diagnoses like this one.
Aidan’s grandfather and great-grandmother also had dyslexia, but didn’t have the benefit of a diagnosis or services. We count our blessings, indeed.
And yet there are some critical parts of our education system, like standardized tests, which are beyond our control. Often the accommodations of extra time and a quiet environment are simply not enough for dyslexics. If middle school is a safe time to see Aidan’s true performance on these, do we let him fail? Yes and no.
As working parents of three children, we must choose how best to spend our limited hours each day. When Aidan began to fail in the early grades — specifically, when there was a striking gap between his verbal intelligence and his ability to learn to read — we stepped in. We took him for testing. He received a diagnosis. For four of the last six years, we have spent a significant portion of our time and resources enabling Aidan to get private instruction, some of it partially supported through health insurance and state tax breaks. Unfortunately, unlike Britain, most states — including North Carolina, where we live — do not provide this time-intensive instruction in public schools.
We also identified those technologies and accommodations that would help him to not only not fail, but also work to his potential. But in the case of standardized tests, while he practices as best as he can, he sometimes comes close to failing. When this happens, I emphasize that standardized tests will never reflect a dyslexic’s true abilities.
Most importantly, with the remaining slivers of time, we’ve focused our sights on Aidan’s interests and strengths. Aidan is an extremely warm, creative, social, disciplined and motivated young man. Last spring in The New York Times, the physician-writer Blake Charlton, who is dyslexic, cited new research that claims that dyslexia may impart exceptional strengths in three-dimensional and spatial reasoning, as well as in creativity and big-picture thinking. Had we let Aidan fail in the early grades, we find it hard to imagine that he would be in a position now to recognize and exercise the strengths and abilities that his dyslexia may also impart.
If you see your child struggling to read and write during those early elementary years, get in there and investigate. We know so much more today about how the brain works. And soon we may also better understand how dyslexics like Thomas Edison, Charles Schwab, Albert Einstein and many others, exercised the strengths conferred by their seeming disability.
Recognize when it’s O.K. to let your child fail, and when it’s not.

---

Liisa Ogburn teaches documentaries at Duke University. She and Aidan share the lessons they’ve learned over the last eight years on their Web site: Dyslexic Kids.

What's new in Seattle????

We have had a busy couple of months.  We are enjoying Puyallup and our new home.  We have meant several friends and really like it here it is a good family centered place.  The kids started school a month ago.  Isabella is in Kindergarten.  She likes it for the most part and she goes half day.  Zach is in the third grade and he really enjoyed his teacher, however, the other day we discovered that his teacher took another position within the school so Zach will have a new teacher.  This has been a hard change.  He meant the new teacher yesterday, but I think he still wishes he had his old one.  However, we have an excellent special ed teacher who is very supportive so I think everything will work out.  We also discovered that Isabella is allergic to cow's milk so since dairy has been removed she has been doing a lot better.   Kirk and I have been really busy with the kids.  My recovery is still going well but I'm ready to slow down a bit. 

Nascars in Yelm, WA

Since we moved to Puyallup we live by lots small towns such as Graham, Orting, Roy, and Yelm.  The other day we decided to go to Olympia and we took the back roads from our house so we could avoid I-5 traffic.  When we were going through Yelm in the Safeway parking lot they were having a car show so of course we had to stop.

I made Grandma's Bread

Since Bella has her cow's milk allergy I now make homemade bread.  The other day I used my Grandmother's recipe and it actually turned out!  I loved smelling the aroma it reminded of my Grandma's house when I was child.

Sea Glass

Zachary had a surprised visitor at his new school and it was Mrs. Burnett who used to read and help him at Covington.  They had exchanged some emails and Mrs. Burnett collects sea glass so she brought some for Z!  We had to find a special jar to display it in. Zach and I both like it!  It is pretty awesome and you can even figure how old the glass is by its color.

Spooner Farm in Puyallup

This farm is pretty close to our house.  They have large spiders!!!

Isabella sitting on top

Zach picking out his pumpkin

The whole family behind the large pumpkin

I like this photo too!

This was taken in our yard!

Zach's Photos

Zach has been into editing photos.  I know I maybe partial, but I think they look very professional.  It is fun watching your kids develop their talents!!!!

These two are not only siblings but are the best of friends!!!!!



This photo will be going in my living room

Look at that smile!

Kirk is taking this photo to work

They love the wagon!



Bella's new food and she loves it! Thanks to my good friend!