Hospital visit

I have gone back and forth all week on whether or not to post about a situation that occurred last weekend. However, I felt that to help me get final closure, it would be beneficial to post about it and give people more of a glimpse in to life with Diabetes.

As most people know, I have had Diabetes for 27 years. Yes, I am 28, meaning I was diagnosed at 14 months old. My day to day life is very normal. I can eat everything your average person can eat. I am on an insulin pump, so the only added things are I need to check my blood sugar often, count how many carbohydrates I'm eating, and give insulin for all the carbs I eat. It can become a struggle sometimes when I get low blood sugars, such as when I add exercise to my schedule. It because very difficult to regulate the exercise and blood sugars. Otherwise, life with Diabetes is usually very easy and simple in my opinion. (Thank the Lord!)

Last Friday evening, December 21, we had some friends over for dinner. We had a great evening, enjoying some wine, clam chowder, popcorn and games. We had about 3-4 drinks over the course of the whole evening, so not a huge amount spread out. It ended up getting really late, and we somehow convinced our friends to just spend the night. (This is very surprisingly for them, but we now know the Holy Spirit was working.) We went to bed around 3am. At 3am, I gave insulin to cover the alcohol and snacks we'd been eating, letting my pump do the calculations and not paying attention to how much was actually being calculated. This is very normal for me. My pump is programmed to do the math.

About 5 am, my husband noticed me shaking. He tried to wake me up, thinking it was a bad dream. He quickly realized it was a seizure and grabbed a glucagon shot (Shot of sugar basically that works in about 2 minutes.) He ran down the hall to get some sugar to give me, and told our friend to call the local emergency number. Both our friends were awake, and helping. Jon rubbed honey on my gums because my teeth were clinched shut and I bit both his finger and my tongue. He told me that while he's seen me have seizures before, none were to this extent. My head was thrown back, I was foaming at the mouth, and my whole body was stiff. That's why he felt it was necessary to call emergency. When I did come too, I was very confused. I did not remember them being there or spending the night and was a bit freaked out and she was trying to keep me calm and reassure me.

The military police were here in about 2 minutes, followed by the American fire department in about 5. It took the German ambulance about 20 minutes to get here, and they were zero help. All they basically did was transport me to the American hospital and did not know what a seizure was when Jon told them. I guess we need to add the word "Anfall" to our vocabulary. At least "Diabetes" is the same in both languages. I was in my room for close to twenty minutes until we left to go to the hospital. I don't remember anything except walking out of the den and trying to smile at my friend, but not knowing what to say. Thankfully they'd spent the night and were able to stay with our kids while Jon followed the ambulance.

Upon arrival at the American hospital, I had a horrible headache and was throwing up like crazy. (I went through about 10 vomit bags!) Jon had told them we'd been drinking, so upon my discharge, the 3rd point was "Acute alcohol intoxication". However, a Blood Alcohol Content was never taken to prove this. Glucagon shot has side effects, which include nausea and headaches. My mom has told me in the past that hypoglycemic reactions (seizures) have made me very sick as well. So between the seizure and the glucagon it's no surprise I was throwing up so much. It bothers me a great deal that I got "Acute alcohol intoxication" as one of my 3 diagnoses. Around noon, they decided they were going to go ahead and admit me for the night. Overall, the whole hospital experience was excellent and I have nothing negative other than the 3rd diagnoses.

I remember very little from about 5am until noon. I did happen to look at my pump and discover why I had the seizure. I had given a large amount of insulin at that time. While in the hospital, I thought it was just me being stupid, tired, and having been drinking. When I got home from the hospital, I realized that my settings for that time of morning were incredibly low, much lower than I needed them. Therefore it wasn't *me* that gave that much, but the pump. Yes, I did confirm it, but I was trusting the pump to do the right calculations, just like I do a thousand times a year. I did meet with my doctor this past week and we changed those dosages to prevent it from happening again. Because I never eat or give insulin at that time of morning, we never realized how dangerously low those settings were.

I think the last time I had a seizure that required emergency, with no hospital stay, was in 1997. The only time I think I've required a hospital stay, aside from diagnoses, was in about 1990 or so, so it has been a very, very long time. I was surprised to find the impact it had on me. I've had a very difficult time going to sleep this week, fearful it'd happen again, until I went to the doctor on Thursday. I've also had some other fears that I've had to work through with my husband and God. It was interesting, we went to mass on Friday as a family, and the priest, in the homily, talked about how we shouldn't have fear when we have God. I can't explain it perfectly, but it was just the thing I needed to hear, that I needed to give my fears to God. In addition to that, I've had a lot of body soreness this week, as my body was stiff for a good 2 minutes, so my neck, stomach and back have been in a lot of pain. The pain has finally started to subside this weekend.

But God is good. I can see how He was there and protected me the whole time, from our friends happening to spend the night, to Jon remaining completely calm and handling the situation perfectly. He said he was basically just on autopilot, doing the things he knew he had to do. When all was said and done, he was shaking like crazy. And... our friends admitted that they'd seen a new side of him running around working like crazy... in his boxers hahaha! After about 20 minutes, he realized he was still only walking around in his underwear, and decided to get dressed.

This week, we took it pretty easy, especially with Christmas. And this Christmas, I found I was much more thankful for the many blessings in my life, especially my life itself, and my amazing husband who saved my life.

Homeschooling 101

Since beginning our homeschooling journey, I have had several women message me to ask me questions. When you're interested in homeschooling, I think you seek out anyone who may have some been there, done that experience, and ask them all of the questions you can think of. I felt like doing a blog post may be helpful to others as well.

One of the first questions I get asked is, What curriculum do you use?
Well, since we're Catholic, I wanted a Catholic curriculum. I did a lot of research, reading, browsing, talking to others, etc. I wanted a curriculum in a box for our first year, something that told me exactly what I needed to teach when, while I was still getting my feet wet. I went with Catholic Heritage Curriculum (CHC) for this school year, and have loved almost every minute of it. I love that it's very simple, and has a theme for each month. For example, the first month's theme was "I am happy when I obey." Many times when my kids were not obeying, I'd say "What was our theme for the month?" and drive that back in. I love the way it teaches our Catholic faith to my children at such an early age, where Hannah goes around and does things saying "Mom, that was a good image/reflection of God... Mommy, doing that was loving my sister, just like God loves me." These are all things I wanted to teach them, but wasn't sure the right way to go about it, and our curriculum helps greatly with it. I'm not a fan of their math program, MCP. I may be investigating to see what other math program to use instead for next year. My kindergartener has just finished reviewing all his letters and will begin learning to read after Christmas. I'm noticing a lot of problems with writing his letters wrong, so I'm looking in to Handwriting Without Tears, and may begin to use that as well. I still need to sit down and figure out what I'm going to be doing for the 2nd half of the year during Christmas break.

With that said, most people ask me when they're beginning to look at preschool. I have been using this program with Hannah for preschool, but she's basically the age of PreK 3, doing PreK 4, and I don't think she'll be ready for K next year, so I may be reevaluating what to teach her next year. Also, the curriculum for the PreK and the K religion is the same, and I think she's done a great job grasping what I've been teaching, so I MIGHT do 1st grade religion with her next year. One of the joys of homeschooling right there.

But, preschool... One of the most important things to realize when they're still 3-6 years old or so is that 'school' involves a lot more than books. We honestly spend about 1-3 hours for about 3-4 days of schoolwork is all right now. Why? Because imagination time and play time are VERY important still at this age. So, I let my kids have a lot of play time. Sometimes I'll lead the imagination play, other times I just let them go. I hand out play scarves or princess dress up and let them dress up.I give them their Little People manger scene and watch them act it out. Give them a puzzle, or craft supplies, or a game. This is all VERY important at their age still, and is schooling, even if you don't feel like it is. Also remember to not push too much. They have 13 years of schooling ahead, they don't have to be doing multiplication by the time they're 6. I have found websites that say "What your child should know before K" or "What your child should know at the end of K" and used those as a guide. Many children go to K not knowing their ABCs or not knowing how to write them. Don't push your children too hard.

Before I picked out a curriculum, I was going with the basic "Letter of the Week" idea. There is a website with it, but I did not like the flow of their program at all. So, instead, I took the idea of a letter a week, and just looked online for ideas. I would search around my house for items that started with an "A", put them in a bag, and let the kids pull it out, tell me what it was and what it started with. I looked for a Bible story that started with that letter, like "Adam and Eve" and then a Bible verse to work on memorizing that began with "A" as well. I began by searching for  "ABC Bible verse" or something of that nature. This website and this one were helpful for some Bible verse ideas. I also used these verses through our week, such as "Be kind one to another." When they weren't being kind, I'd say "What's our 'B' Bible verse?" We'd also do crafts for the letter of the week. I'd take a word that we'd learned, such as "Butterfly" and just search for "butterfly craft", and we'd do that together. As I was researching things in the beginning, I found several websites that had wonderful ideas, and I'd just use their ideas, and went for those sites almost every time, with just a bit more research if I didn't care for what they offered that week. I'd share these sites, but my computer crashed over the summer, and I don't recall what sites I used at all. But it's easy to research and find what fits what you want to teach.

What led you to homeschool?
Ha! THE question. I grew up in Catholic school (As a Southern Baptist) and then in public middle and high school. (Part of the reason I was open to dating my Catholic husband in the beginning). I always swore my kids would go to school and they would not be homeschooled. Besides, I did not have the patience to homeschool. And really, when I met Jon, I did not even want kids. He was homeschooled and swore our kids would be. I figured "We'll cross that bridge when we get there." That all changed, and by the time I had my second child before our 2nd anniversary, I was Catholic, wanting lots of kids, and planning on homeschooling. God has a way of slowly changing my heart and mind. What changed my mind? I really began to understand the fact that it was my JOB to teach and train my children, to make sure they knew the faith and understood it. I knew that there was no way a public school would do this. I also knew that Catholic schools were expensive, and my experience with Catholic schools is that even those schools aren't best with behavior, etc. I also knew that in a way, it was my job to protect my children, and if that meant sheltering them to a degree, I was fine with it.

Now hear me out when I say sheltering my children. I don't feel that I should keep them locked in my house with no outside experiences. I mean, I should shelter them from learning about sex at 7 years old from kids in their class who know what it is. I will teach my children what sex is when I feel it is age appropriate for each of my children (may be 12 for one, 15 for another! We'll cross that bridge down the road ;-)) I should shelter them from bullying in schools, from bad behavior of children who are not raised the way we raise our children, from hearing things that contradict our faith at such a young, formative age. I should shelter them from hearing things from others that I think they should be learning and hearing from me first. For example, many parents have currently been talking about the CT shootings and how they will tell their children, because they want to be able to talk to their children about it, as a parent, guiding them, teaching them, etc. through this situation. That's how I feel about all situations.

Aside from this, we move with the military usually after schools have begun. And it's a better time than it is during the summer when everyone else is moving. Homeschooling allows this. It also allows for my parents to visit for 3 weeks in Nov., or for us to go home in March, without worrying about school. Either I can take school with us, or we school through the summer. Either way, we're more flexible and don't feel so trapped by the school system.

Will you ever send your kids to a public or Catholic school?
This is not up to me. I pray that this is not the case. But, if situations arise that caused us to need to evaluate it, we'd pray about it long and hard, and pray God would guide us in the right direction. For example, a woman we know who did a fabulous job homeschooling her children, ended up having to put some in school because one of their children got very sick and needs lots of treatments. Those are the type of situations that surely we can't control, and we'd do what was best for our family.

With that said, I think it's important for me to point out that I think no less of anyone who does not homeschool. I strongly feel homeschooling is a calling, and just like He doesn't call everyone to be a doctor, He doesn't call everyone to homeschool. I also realize that like above, there are sometimes issues that require you to put a child in school. And, the trick is, I also think He calls some people, but they try to ignore or fight the call ;-) But anyway, I know each and every family is different and is making the best choices for their children they can.

What websites do you recommend? 
Well, I don't know haha! I knew of a Catholic homeschooling forum, so I began there. They told me about a few Catholic curriculum to look in to. There is CHC, Mother of Divine Grace (was my 2nd choice), Kolbe Academy, Seton, and many more. These four were the ones I researched the most. I love CHC but I'm unsure if I'll use it forever, as it's unaccredited. At this point in our lives, it's ok because our kids are still so young. We'll reevaluate it as they get older and closer to middle and high school. But my first point would be do research. There are books and websites you can find. Type in what you're looking for "Catholic Homeschooling, Baptist Homeschooling, Preschool homeschooling, Homeschooling 2 children at once." There is a wealth of information. Look on Amazon and type in "Homeschooling" and see what comes up. Because I've ordered so many Catholic books, it tends to give me Catholic homeschooling books first ;-) Unfortunately, I can't give much recommendations for curriculum that are not Catholic, but I know there are thousands of wonderful resources out there. If you are catholic, CathSwap is a great place to buy used books from.

One website I do love is education.com  They have tons of printable worksheets. My kids were really not coloring in the lines, so I started to print some color-by-number worksheets from there to have them work on. I do not like it though at the same time, because it's very politically correct. All their Christmas stuff is snowflakes and stockings, nothing Jesus related.

I've used starfall.com for Zach to play on, and heard good things about cookie.com but haven't used it much.

How does your day run?
HA! This one is funny. This year began with me not sure if I'd do K for Zach or PreK. Technically he would not start K if he was in our local school because he missed the cut off by less than a month. So, I got involved in things like I'm use to- MOPS, Bible Study, etc. This has been a huge struggle in getting our schooling done. I'm pretty sure I won't be involved in as much next year. But on a good day, we begin our day with prayer- VERY important. Then we do our music class song "Good day", the theme of the month, the Pledge of Allegiance, our Bible verse and prayer we're working on memorizing. Then we do a few more songs from our music lesson plan, then religion. I use to have religion at the end, but realized that if I have to cut the day short, religion is most important. Then we do another song or two, and do our reading/writing and math work. Then we end with the "God Bless" song we use in our program, and end with a prayer. If we have gotten through our work quickly, we'll read a bit before lunch. Usually we end just in time for lunch, and sometimes I am making lunch while they are doing their math and reading work. In fact, while they are actually working on a subject, if I am not having to hang over them to make sure it's done right, then I'll get the kitchen cleaned, dinner going, etc. The afternoon, both of my girls usually still need naps, so our afternoons are 'quiet time'. Sometimes I'll do some extra work with Zachary, or some specific reading with him, or i'll give him some kind of busy work he likes while I do other house cleaning. Then we try to read together in the evening, or I ask my husband to. This gives him a chance to work on homeschooling some with them and me a chance to clean up from dinner or get other things done around the house.

"I don't have the patience to homeschool. I don't know how you do it."
It's not about me. It's about my kids, and ensuring they get what God has called me to give them. I don't have great patience, but as my husband often points out, we can't grow in patience if we don't have things to put our patience to the test. I think my patience has grown a bit. I still struggle with it, but I'm learning many ways to help my children better listen and understand, and other days, I just have to walk away and pray a Hail Mary, or say "Lord have mercy" before I actually respond to them.

These are the things I usually get asked and can think to share at this moment. Do you have any other questions you may wonder about homeschooling? It's an overwhelming thing to consider, but there are tons of sources out there now. Just begin to research and see what there is! :) Good luck if you are considering it!!