You got a shot in the what???

Called my ENT Monday and went to see him yesterday. To make a long story short, we went with the steroid injection into my ear. He went through the tube that is already there. It was not a fun experience but I've been through a lot worse. You have to lay back with your head tilted even further back for about 30 minutes. The medicine stings your inner ear and runs down your throat. They gave me peppermints to suck on during the procedure and that helped. The trick was not to choke on the mint while remaining still in a kind of upside down position. I don't know if it will work or not. I'm at home from work today just to give me time to regroup myself. If I had to base my decision on right now, I would say it didn't work which truly bums me out. The next step is surgery. However, he did say to give it a few days to know for sure. Now it's a waiting game. I'll go back to work tomorrow and Friday. That'll be the true test. If there's no improvement there, then I can pretty much say the injections did not work. My hopes right now lie solely within this shot and this other medicine I started over two weeks ago. It takes about six weeks to work, if it's going to, which means by Thanksgiving I should know if I have to have surgery or not. The surgery is an outpatient procedure during which he will go in and "revise" the previous inner ear shunt I had placed back in 1998. It is for sure covered in scar tissue by now. The possibility is that by clearing it out, I can get back to near "normal." I'm trying to stay positive and make myself believe that this is not coming from my good ear. As I mentioned in my last post, if this is in my good ear, I really don't think I can handle it. Keeping my fingers crossed that this shot will work and thinking now is a good time for a nap. I've been awake for a whole hour and a half. Whew...better rest. I'll keep my progress posted on here for my own sake so that I won't forget and maybe I can help someone else with this cursed disease.

Meniere's is kicking my butt today...

Was a little dizzy when I got up today which is normal. Went with Tim and the kids to get haircuts, have a yummy brunch at the Bagelry and hit the Pumpkin Patch. Sometime on the way home, I got hit with that old carsick feeling. It has progressed throughout the day to too dizzy to stand up for more than a minute or so. I start to feel like I'm falling down even though I know I'm not. It's very disconcerting. I've taken all my medicines and treatments including a long nap and I may be worse now. I'm lying down in bed now and my head feels like it has doubled in weight. Noise is bothering me too. It is so incredibly frustrating but this is the reality of having a vestibular disorder. It can come out of nowhere and kick your butt all over the place. There's no working through it or ignoring it when it gets to this point. I'm just grateful that it hasn't progressed to the hell that is full on vertigo attack.
As always, I'm wondering what did it this time? food? atmospheric pressure changes? I have no idea but that's the only two things I can come up with. Not all days are good days which is why I'm trying not to take the good days for granted. However if I find out I'm getting this crap in my other ear, I will completely come apart at the seams. I need to try to be positive about this and call my doctor Monday and see if I can get in sooner to see him.
Hoping for a steady night and a good day tomorrow!

A Lesson for Me-10 years into Teaching

In my tenth year of teaching and I find myself in the middle of a brand new experience. Sometimes, if you allow yourself to step back and let students figure things out for themselves, if you let them explore a topic or concept on their own, they really dig in and get involved. Furthermore, if you let them be involved in the discussion of the concept and let them be part of the decision making process, you really and truly reach more kids. So simple an idea but it took me ten years to get here and to be honest, it kind of happened by accident. I'll explain further but for the first time in years, I'm excited to be at work and excited to be a part of this project no matter where it may lead.
A couple weeks ago, I began a unit with my classes on air pollution. The usual stuff-causes, effects, solutions. It was a stereotypical lesson in which they read through the text and took notes. Then I got up and talked to them about some of the more important points made in the text. You see I was building up to my big lesson on global warming. Our text mentions it briefly along with the greenhouse effect but I wanted to go bigger and better. Using inspiration I found this summer, in music, in people, I wanted to do something a little more unique than just writing a paper. Keep in mind, my school district is severely limited this year by funding and access to technology. Brainstorming through all the directions I could go with this and the materials I have at hand, I finally decided on a multi-part project. The project had to reflect the curriculum and also had to show that my students had learned something from it. This doesn't leave a whole lot of room for creativity so I wanted to add that element to it too.
The crux of their assignment is to create an informative handout on some aspect of global warming. They can focus on global warming itself or air pollution or alternative energy. It has to be something proactive. They have been given a list of questions that must be answered in this handout. Things such as the basics: causes, effects, solutions. They also have to explore how it affects our community and what our community can do to help. While this will provide some interesting insight into what they are thinking, the poster is what excites me more. The poster is supposed to be only symbolic in nature. Not the usual listing of facts slapped on a poster board and read to the class. Instead it should be a simple picture, image, or some other creation that gets the message across without a bunch of words. They are also to include a catchy slogan.

I must stop at this point and credit Blend Apparel for this inspiration. This picture is in image of one of their posters. You can go to www.blendapparel.com and see more posters and t-shirts with similar ideas. Wonderful company with a beautiful message. As a matter of fact, when I told them I was ordering one of their posters for my classroom, they donated the whole set! When we are ready to start the posters, I will use these amazing Blend creations, along with some others, as examples for my students to come up with their own.

Ahhh, so dreams of happy children who love our Earth and are ready to be warriors for our planet danced through my head. Then as the best laid plans often do, they went astray. With some prodding from a concerned parent, I realized I owed it to my children to fully explore the other side of the global warming argument. It was in my plans to mention some of the scientific reasons why the Earth goes through climatic change but not to this extent. Now with the original project in mind, I had them go back to the computer lab and research what evidence they could find that does not support man-made global warming. We had already done research into the supporting evidence so now they had both sides of the "story." On Monday of this week, I had them write a journal entry describing what their feelings and thoughts were on the subject. Then for the past two days, we've been listing reasons to support both sides of the issue on the board. I started them off with a fact for each side and then handed it over to them. They were really into it! Hands raised all across the room eager to share! We discussed the facts they presented, what the source was for that information which allowed me to discuss bias in the media. I had kids who were genuinely upset that we ran out of time today for me to get to their information. I have four classes; three of the four are all or partly made of Academically Gifted students. The fourth is a regular class of students. The expectation would be for the AG students to excel in this but I've found that so far it has been equal across the board. Remember that after the initial instructions by me that we were to stick to the facts, remain objective, and to give a few examples, I turned the class over to them. I went in whatever direction they wanted to go with it. At the end of today, three of four classes are leaning towards man-made global warming based on what they wanted me to include on our lists. One class was really into the possible natural reasons it was happening so we went with it. We'll finish the discussion tomorrow and I'm determined to let it go where they take it as long as it stays in the parameters of being factual and objective. Teaching these kids to think for themselves may be the most important lesson I can give! Eye-opening for me for sure. You would be surprised at how few of middle school students can do this. They expect you to spoon-feed them the information and tell them how they are supposed to feel about it. However, I do remain dedicated to getting them to understand that we must be stewards of this planet and its wonderful gifts and resources. In the end, they may not agree with me and I may not have my happy band of new little "hippies" out there fighting to save our planet but I may have done something more important-given them respect, trust, freedom to think for themselves, and the beauty of the feeling you get when you come to your own educated decision.
I will keep you updated on our progress and maybe post some pictures of their creations when we finish.

Rambling with no real point...

I'm spending Saturday night in a truly great place. Hanging out with my kids, watching a movie all piled up in my bed. It's a miracle they put up with me considering all the usual "motherly" things I don't do...like running around playing, cleaning, going to countless after school activities, etc. I make up for this lack of motherliness by giving lots of love, countless hugs, and telling them how lucky I am to be their mother. I can only hope it'll be enough.
This damned disease is partly to blame for me winning no "mother of the year" awards. I get so tired by the end of the day that all I can do is lay down. Basically what happens is my "good" ear has had enough of keeping me upright and it pretty much quits on me shortly after 4:00 or so when I'm working. So I crawl in bed when I get home. Most nights I don't even go to the table to eat; sometimes because I'm too dizzy, sometimes because my ears just can't take any more noise. However, the kids always come to see me. Crawl in bed with me. Read stories together. I drive them to and from school so we talk about our days as we ride along. Yet I do feel guilty for not being more active. During the summers, when I'm off, I manage a bit more. We go swimming, go to the library, park, greenway, or whatever. I try to make up for my absence by doing a little more with them during the summer. It just really sucks sometimes. I need so much sleep to function. Thankfully they are getting to ages where they can get up in the morning and entertain themselves for a little bit while I'm getting myself together. They are very patient with me. I guess on some level at the tender ages of 4 and 6, they know Mommy is sick. One day I'll explain it all but I think they are too young yet for that story. Heck, most adults don't get it, how are they?
I got the tube in my good ear and it has definitely helped with pressure issues. It hasn't helped as much as I'd hoped with the daily dizziness and off-balance issues. So now I'm on another medication, a very low dose of an anti-depressant. Too low to treat depression but just enough to maybe help me from feeling like I'm staggering around everywhere. The doctor says he has had some good success in other patients. It'll take a month or so to see if it helps me. Another medication I'm using off-label. Well, really it's only 2 now but I wish it were none.
Tim is on a well-earned camping trip. He does most of the physical labor around here. All I manage is some laundry now and then. Okay...I'm gonna quit my rambling for now.
Also have a head full of thoughts on my latest Science lesson that I need to get out sometime soon. I'm just too tired for it tonight and I've got another movie to watch!

2009 Mission Accomplished!

So I did it! I sat and listened to the waves crash in at Holden Beach. I heard the perfect pitch of Jason Mraz in concert, not once, but twice! Thanks to the alignments of the spirits and fate for that amazing stroke of luck. Also got to shake it to some G. Love and he told ME- I had "sauce." So there! An added bonus to those shows was being introduced to the awesomely entertaining and talented Bushwalla. If you haven't checked him out, you definitely need to. Refreshing and funky fun is how I would describe him and his music. (That's me in the upper left picture in the yellow with Bushwalla. The other girl is my good friend, Angel.)





And finally, I made it to see and hear the sensory experience that is U2! I don't even know where to begin to show my gratitude that my hearing and balance allowed me to make it this far. It almost didn't. On the drive to the show, my good ear was acting up as well. Lots of pain, dizziness, and nausea. I did not feel well at all and just kept saying to myself, "don't worry, your adrenaline will kick in and you'll be fine." During the opening act for U2, vertigo (no pun intended, U2 fans) reared its head momentarily. I imagined myself being carried out of the stadium covered in puke, and crying out, "no, damn it! not now!!!!!" However, thanks to the wonders of medication, I was able to beat the vertigo into submission. At several points during the show, the tears flowed from sheer happiness and gratitude. No one saw them but they rolled freely during "MLK" and "With or Without You" because I got to hear them live and god, "MLK" is such a beautiful little lullaby. (By the way, go ahead and play that one at my Memorial, would ya?) I could hear the crowd of 50,000 singing along to all the songs. I've never heard so many people singing together at the same time. To most people, it sounds so trivial that this is such a big deal to me but if you ever meet someone with my condition, they will tell you how huge this is.

The next day I had a routine appointment with my Ear-Nose-Throat Doctor. I now have a tube in my good ear as well and hope that it will help me to equalize the pressure problems I've been having due to colds, weather, altitude changes, etc. As he explained it...'all your balance information is coming from that one ear. If anything alters that, you're going to be unsteady, dizzy, and in general miserable.' This tube will do nothing to halt the progression of the Meniere's in my bad ear, but hopefully we can remove anything that may aggravate the symptoms. My ENT doc is so passionate about what he does. He's got my back no matter what comes, he's ready to fight for me no matter what my employers or my health insurance company may throw at me. For that, I am thankful beyond words.
I claimed 2009 as my year and I achieved all the goals on my "bucket list" of things to do before my hearing goes kaput in my left ear. Here's to hoping for a cure.
I've also come away from all this feeling rejuvenated. We all have so much to give-our time, our money, our knowledge, our sympathy, our laughter. Pick one, any one of them, and share it. It will make your life all the better.
So mission accomplished! Now to look towards 2010...

Wishing everyone love, peace, and laughter!!!