Traditionally, on New Year's Eve most of us make our resolutions...whether it be to drop that extra 20 pounds, quit smoking, start exercising (I know these all so well because I have made each and every one of them annually) with no real intentions of carrying through on them. Okay, perhaps it's unfair to generalize, but even my best attempt at carrying through on a resolution usually fails by mid January. Perhaps I should set my goals to something more attainable, like "I solemnly swear not to curse audibly every time I put the wrong year on any paperwork!" At least if I fail at this, I am guaranteed that quarter in the "Bad Word Jar"!
So I have realistically done away with the entire idea of abiding by some resolution at the start of each new year. Instead, I have extended my time frame for self betterment to the start of the school year...after all, how are you supposed to achieve success at anything with 5 children underfoot, muddying up the waters?? I mean, I am successful at keeping them alive, fed, sorta clean and mostly safe, but anything beyond that, nu-uh! Now that the school year is in full swing, I find myself desperately trying to adhere to some sort of normal schedule. For my one ultimate "school year resolution" is organization...pure, sweet and simple, right? Hmph...this is me we are talking about...nothing simple here in the house of chaos.
I have aspirations of getting 4 out of 5 of those little buggers on the bus each morning and "gettin to it". After my morning exercise regime and run, I'd shower (that would be EVERY day folks, greedy? Perhaps.) and take care of the laundry and house duties. I would mop my floors to ensure that any residual urine, feces, drool or vomit from the night before were all cleaned up and sanitary. I would then take advantage of the quiet time by tending to the mountains of necessary paperwork, such as bill paying, signing & filling out the many forms that come with children - especially special needs children. I would dedicate a solid hour each day to my own schoolwork, and even throw a little time into my blah blah blog. I would get all the errands run; store, post office, accountant or bank. Then I'll be ready for the return of the children, with snacks prepared (yeah, maybe I'll be wearing an ironed linen dress and string of pearls too...). Bring on the therapists!! Occupational, speech...I am waiting with a fresh pot of coffee and the children dressed and ready (understand, the "dressed" part, not so easy...my therapists expect coffee and nudity when they come to my house - I am of course referring to the auties!!) After a successful session, where both boys pay total attention, and the 3 typs don't interrupt 97 times, or give the answers for the auties...I prepare a delicious homemade dinner, which we all sit down at the table and eat together. Then bath time, story time...perhaps a bit of tv with a light bedtime snack, and everyone is asleep by 10pm, MYSELF included. Ahhh, that would be perfection!
Instead, 3 weeks into this new school year, it's gone something like this...We wake up the 4 little screaming and crying beasties, and run around like lunatics, racing the bus's arrival that comes anywhere in a 20 minute window. Morning prep is an extra lengthy process when dealing with the auties, since they have virtually no self help skills. This means we clean, dress, and brush them from head to toe, while they fight us the entire time. The typs, well, they are generally whining or crying because they are too tired from not going to bed at a decent hour the night before. The 3 adults, we are snapping at each other and the kiddies for that very same reason. As we stand on the sidewalk waving goodbye to the tear stained faces of our children pressed against the bus window, we all head back into the house, breathing a sigh of relief... knowing we don't have to see them again for 7 hours, and they will surely be smarter and smiling when they return home. Without so much as another word, we all return to the beds from whence we came...and often times, I sleep right up until the children come home. So, I guess my entire "school year resolution" idea is about as effective for me as the real new year's resolution idea. Not at all. The silver lining here my friends is the only thing that is simple...I am cashing in big time on my sleep debt, and the bags under my eyes are no longer carrying bags of their own!!
As you have probably already surmised, at any given moment you can look in my window and see some degree of mayhem. To legitimize this claim, let me give you a brief glimpse into 2 minutes of time at my house...and be thankful that you are not the Department of Child/Welfare Services. Ready? C'mon then, let's take a look and watch as Georgie the 3 year old typ approaches me whilst I am sitting on my couch perch announcing, "I like little fings" and happily pops something of unknown and tiny origins into his mouth. As I jump up to do the mandatory finger sweep, I see Harry the 4 year old autie out of the corner of my eye, running quickly towards the hall...not unusual, no worries, right? None up until Kim discovers his Olympic run down the hallway includes him waving a giant kitchen knife instead of merely a gentle flaming torch in front of him...this jaunt makes running with scissors look damn near attractive! Great, okay, Harry screams unhappily as the knife is wrestled away from him and returned to the butcher block in the kitchen (and the butcher block is then moved out of his reach, which is now on top of the refrigerator). Meanwhile, back in the living room, Georgie's mouth has been swept, retrieving the watch battery he thought would be so magically delicious (perhaps that little energizer bunny was thinking it would give him more energy than he already has...as if...he's 3 years old for crying out loud!)
Whew, that was quite a moment, huh? Glad it's over...right?? Not so much, as in an effort to continue his 3 year old reign of terror, Georgie decides to spend some time getting "in-touch" with nature. This would consist of a bit of recreational rock throwing over the child safety fence and into the swimming pool. This might have turned out to be a viable past time for him, had the rock he selected not been quite so big...and if his throw had any arc or pitch to it at all...but alas, the big rock came thundering back down, smashing wee Georgie in the face. Hey, I told him not to throw stuff in the pool...that gentle reminder, however, did not make his blood any less red or his tears any less wet and flowing. This, however, is one of those countless moments where I question my maternal instincts and abilities...because I clearly prefer the logic to the sympathy in these sheer moments of brilliance. This logic somehow fails to make the wee kiddies feel any better though...perhaps hugs, kisses and boo boo kitties are best! So in closing the door on my house of chaos, I suppose today's silver lining would be that no one died...or heck, even went to the emergency room for that matter!
Okay students, pull up your chairs, and you will get yet another lecture on Jackie's medical maladies...this one is all about me...me, me, me!! That's right, I actually took the time out of my hectic life to have my own medical crisis...the nerve!! Well, in all fairness, I allowed myself this medical "LOA" about 9 years ago when life was so much simpler; Cameron was a newborn and I had one of those awesome corporate cushy jobs...as Archie and Edith sang, those were the days!! Those days came to a screeching halt after a routine trip to the dentist the day before I was to return to work from my maternity leave. I had my regular teeth cleaning and a full set of xrays done, since I naturally avoided xrays (and the dentist altogether) during the pregnancy. When Doc Randy brought in my xrays and said he saw a "suspicious mass" in my right mandible/jawbone, I really thought nothing much of it. I was only 30, and bad stuff just doesn't happen to brand new mommies, and they certainly don't happen to me!! My ignorance was briefly bliss! So Doc Randy made me an appointment to have it biopsied...okay, when the word biopsy got thrown out there, I got nervous...they arranged for the new doctor, an oral surgeon, to see me the very next morning, first thing...this only added to my growing nervousness.
Okay friends, at this point, I'm still believing it would be nothing more than a simple "scooping out" of the area in question, maybe a dissolvable stitch or 2, and I'd be on my merry way! Well the little biopsy was simple enough, and it didn't hurt that the dentist was a hottie, even by my husband's standards. The "results call" came a few days later, and they asked me to come in for a consultation...gulp. So off we went to get what we realized wasn't going to be good news...new mommy, new daddy with new baby in tow, all piled into the doctor's office, the twilight zone. I sat outside of my body listening in as the hot doctor explained that I had an Ameloblastoma, a rare and aggressive tumor that is most usually benign. This type of tumor is often associated with bony-impacted wisdom teeth, which mine were—one of the many reasons dentists recommend having them extracted. The rest of what he said sorta sounded like blah blah blather blah...but this is what I ended up absorbing through osmosis...Jackie has a big ass tooth tumor, eating its way through her jawbone on the right side of her face. Because it is such an aggressive type of tumor, with a 99% recurrence rate, they must "re-sect my jaw"...and with that, hot doctor was gone to call yet another doctor, who does "this type" of work. On to the next doctor, who after closely examining my xrays and test results wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole...he was the kindly gent who explained to me that they would be cutting nerves during the procedure...which meant permanent loss of feeling in the lower right side of my face. This took some getting used to, the idea of not feeling kisses, lip biting, or food hanging there embarrassingly (all my peeps now have the "clear their throat" code, alerting me of food danglers). Then he was off, to consult with the team at Shands Hospital (Go Gators!). Lucky me, my condition was so rare, they wanted me right away...allowing me to cut ahead of many others on their waiting list. The annual incidence rate per million for ameloblastomas for white females is .44... hey, that makes me special - I truly am one in a million!! So our 2 year journey to Shands Hospital began. This is a mere 2 hours from my house, so it was never a problem to just go up there every couple of days...never being able to go alone, because I was either unconscious or in agony after most visits. Fortunately my doctor/surgeon was an experienced fatherly type who appreciated my sarcastic wit, as I did his...and since Shands is a learning hospital, we were surrounded by beautiful young interns (fond memories and a shout out to Travis, and his never ending prescription pad). This made an unbearable situation bearable. As did the unwavering support of my husband Scott, coupled with Kim's willingness to drop everything and babysit and care for Cameron, made this a doable nightmare. So the fatherly doctor outlined the procedure(s) in simple English for me. First up, get that tumor outta there! Dr Dad and his team of cutiepies planned on cutting my jawbone from the mandible (think the jaw hinge beside your ear) to the middle of my chin. They would be replacing my jawbone temporarily with a piece of bent steel, shaped sorta like someone's jaw..although I am thinking it was intended for Jay Leno...anyways, I got to wear that beauty for about 8 weeks. Next up, the "real" surgery (wtf...what was that first surgery, Dr Dad?!) which was promised to be a bit more "extensive". Again, WTF...more extensive then severing my jaw bone and the accompanying nerves and removing it from the outside of my face...rendering me with a scar reminiscent of "Frankenjaw"??...Okay doc, whatcha got?? Next Jackie, we will replace that ugly, crude Jay Leno jaw of steel with...a cadaver jawbone. Oh, okay, that is better...part of a dead guy's face...but wait, there's more!! We will inject this cadaver bone with real live marrow out of...your own hip!! That's right, 2 - 2 - 2 surgeries for the price of 1 (small home)...and as a bonus, we'll throw in mandatory wiring of your mouth shut for 6 weeks (3 days, 7 hours and 22 minutes...). Wow, all this at once, just for me...and an additional souvenir scar on my hip too...gee, I hardly know what to say. Which turns out is a good thing, since I didn't get to say anything the entire time my mouth was wired shut...by now I think you understand how utterly taxing that task was for me...it was indeed the most painful part of the entire ordeal. I say this in jest, but it was truly horrible, not being able to make mommy noises at my 3 month old...Christ, to even get out of bed to see him at all was difficult. I couldn't hold him, kiss him and even worried that I scared the poor thing. My husband would bring Cameron in and lay him on the bed beside me, until he moved and inadvertently hit my jaw or hip, and had to be removed. My diet consisted of Ensure, smoothies and milkshakes, all 3 of which I still hate to this day. And you know it's bad when commercials for Snackwell cookies, and the smell of microwaved hot dogs are appealing!! After the wires were removed, there were endless trips back to the hospital to get my jaw opening properly and returned to it's regular rapid fire range of motion. Of course, this was all to prep me for the NEXT surgery...the one where I got some fancy new teeth to replace the ones they removed in the first surgery. While most women dream of breast implants, Jackie got dental implants...yeah, people are always asking if they're real too...huh!
So after 3 surgeries, 2 implants, 2 ugly scars, the loss of feeling in the lower right side of my face, and a hefty medical bill, I am left looking for my silver lining. There's actually a few...first of all, I had an awesome unlimited prescription for Vicodin; secondly, I EASILY dropped all of my baby weight and even an extra 10 on top of that (although it was a painful and expensive diet plan) Third, it cured me of my TMJ - temporomandibular joint disorder (removing the mandible tends to do that...) and lastly but most importantly - I gained a perspective on how fragile life is and what is truly important at the end of each day. I end this lengthy lecture with a begging reminder to see your dentist annually for xrays...it saved my life! That's all, class dismissed!!
