The Blood Suckers

You might have noticed that I'm not exactly what you'd call an in-the-outdoor-elements-nature-loving-gal.  If you hadn't, let me be clear- while I love to admire the beauty of the outdoors, I myself do not like to interact with it unless there's a camera in my hand.  But I have a little girl who loves to be outside and so I find myself interacting with nature on a daily basis.

photo © 2008 dr_relling | more info (via: Wylio)

In the last month, I've found four ticks on Spencer, three on me, and four and the dog! And now I can't shake the feeling that there's always a tick on me, which is kinda driving me crazy.  I do NOT like ticks and my initial gut reaction each time I've found one is to call my dad.  Then reality and sets in, I mean I am 29 years old, I pull up my big girl pants, and do what needs to be done. 

Luckily, the first time I found a tick on Spencer we were in the Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina and Spencer's Great-Gran taught me the best way to remove a tick that's currently engaged in sucking the lifeblood out of you.  I've since removed ten such ticks and her instructions have been so helpful. So if you'd are out in nature and find yourself with one of these little suckers attached to your body, here is what Spencer's Great-Gran says you should do.

The Best Way to Remove a Tick

1.  Don't just pull it out!
2.  Saturate a cotton ball with alcohol and hold it firmly over the tick for at least two minutes- longer if necessary.
3.  Remove the cotton ball and use tweezers (your fingers will work fine if you don't have tweezers) to gently pull the tick out.
4.  If it does not easily come off, saturate another cotton ball and hold it over the tick for another two minutes. Make sure you don't pull too hard- after the alcohol kills or knocks it out, the tick should be fairly easy to remove.
5.  Repeat steps three and four until the tick is off your skin. 
6.  Once the tick is in the tweezers, light a match and burn it.  There's good chance that if you flush it down the toilet and it's not 120% dead, it will work it's way back up the toilet and into your bathroom.  Once you've burned the tick, you can either flush it down the toilet or immerse it in a small sealable container of alcohol and then throw that away.  If you don't have matches readily available, sealing it in alcohol is just fine.
7.  Saturate another cotton ball with either alcohol or some other type of disinfectant and clean off the bite. Ticks carry a lot of diseases and you want to get the area as clean as possible as soon as possible.

I realize that some of you who find a tick on yourself or child will not have immediate access to alcohol, so if you don't, the best thing you can do is use tweezers and try and grab the tick as close to it's head and mouth as possible, and pull it off.  If you don't have tweezers, cover your hand with something like a baggie or paper towel, and then attempt removing it.  Ticks are nasty little creatures and you really don't want to touch them with your bare hands if you can at all help it.

Hopefully you'll never get a tick bite, but if you do, I hope these tips will help you! 

Nurse Katie

When I was young(er), I had all answers to all the questions. Job?  Lawyer.  Specialty?  Constitutional Law.  Firm?  No firm, the Solicitor General's Office.  Marriage?  Yes.  Who?  The boyfriend I've dated since age 13.  When?  Age 24, the summer after my second year of law school.  Children?  Yes.  How many?  Four- two boys and two girls.  Names?  Madison Grace, Jocelyn Anne, James Matthew, and Chase Prescott.**  Location?  Work in DC, live in Leesburg, VA.    Main goal in life?  To leave the world a better place than when I entered it.

**(please note, this was circa year 2000, many years before Madison became the trendiest name on the planet. I also will not be naming any potential future child any of these names.)

And then I went to college. As it would turn out, my feelings on things started to change and all of a sudden I wasn't quite sure I liked all the answers to my questions. All of a sudden, there were all of these questions swirling around in my head- ones I'd never thought about, or didn't want to think about, before, and I had no answer to them. I wanted to go to Africa and work for a legal non-profit dedicated to helping women and children. About ten million people named their kid Madison, my boyfriend did not like my new ideas on things, my parents did not like my new ideas on things, and I had no concrete answers for anything except that I wanted to leave the world a better place than when I entered it.  How I was going to accomplish that was a little bit murkier.

Well, you all know the rest of the story- law school, pregnant, quit law school, had baby, no idea what I was going to do with my life. My eyes were opened when I was pregnant with Spencer, but it was like a blind fold being removed in the brightest light- I could see, but it took awhile for my eyes to adjust before anything was clear. I won't go into the whole story now- you can read about it here, but I became passionate about health care, especially in regards to unethical health insurance companies. (Briefly, my health insurance denied payment of all prenatal expenses and because I had health insurance, I was ineligible for any state or federally funded health care. I had to pay $500 dollars at every doctor's appointment, plus extra for all tests, ultrasounds, etc., and that's not even getting into the five day hospital stay we had.)

After a lot of thought and wishy washy-ness, I decided that I wanted to go back to school and become a nurse. I was paving the road for the day when I could combine my government degree with the one in nursing and use them together to work on realistic and sustainable healthcare reform. One thing stood in the way- I was a GOVERNMENT major! Do you think I took any science in college? Nope- I exempted everything in high school. So, about two years ago I started on this journey of going back to school and taking all of the required prerequisites. It's a long story filled with obstacles- you can read about it here- but, I finally finished everything and the only thing left to do was apply and get it.

Two weeks after the acceptances letters were supposed to arrive, I started preparing myself that I didn't get in. Every trip to the mailbox was filled with anxiety and then the sinking feeling in my stomach took over on every empty handed walk back to the house. And then, last week, it came- a tiny, thin, impossibly flat envelope that looked nothing like the acceptance packages I'd received from colleges. I didn't want to open it to be honest with you. I thought about tucking it away and pretending like it never came, that way I could still hold out some hope. After a few minutes of staring at it, I shut my eyes and began opening it. When the letter was out, I squinted one eye, peeking to see if the first letter of the opening paragraph started with an I or a C. (Denials always start with I'm Sorry to inform, and the acceptances always start with Congratulations) I saw a C.

I opened both eyes and read the first word: it said Congratulations. I didn't read one more word, I couldn't have read another word even if I'd wanted to, because I started crying, like really crying. And then I cried for about ten minutes straight. I didn't even think to call or tell anyone, it was a moment that was just about me.

There will never again come a day when I'll have all the answers to questions. If this life has taught me anything, it's that anyone can answer a question, but that certainly doesn't mean they're correct. Right now, I'm just so grateful that I have the chance to pursue something I really love, something that will allow me to leave the world a better place than when I entered it. So how does Nurse Katie sound to you?

A Terrifed Parent

Last night, before I went to sleep, I went over to Spencer to give her a kiss, when I saw that her face was covered in chocolate.  I turned on light to look at my sleeping beauty- why was she covered in chocolate?  Only it wasn't chocolate; it was blood, and it was everywhere.

I'd like to tell you that I was completely calm and didn't overreact, but that's exactly what I did.  I started ripping off all her clothes to see where it was coming from and shaking her to wake wake up.  In my state of complete panic, I didn't think about how my reaction to this was going to scare her, and of course, she woke up scared. As she started to cry, her nose started to bleed (again), which was how I realized what I was actually dealing with was a bloody nose and not lethal wound of some sort.

Now that it's morning I'm able to be calm about all of this, but last night, the bloody nose scared the life out of me.  She has never had a nose bleed and then all of a sudden she has a major one while she's sleeping- what is that?  The next hour was not the most pleasant, as I had to stop the bleeding and Spencer didn't want her nose touched.  Then there was the clean up...

This entire experience has taught me a few lessons, well, more than a few.  I've never had a bloody nose in my life and this was Spencer's first, so I had no idea what was I doing.  Realizing that my reaction completely terrified Spencer, I felt so bad that I made an already scary situation worse.  It took awhile for her to calm down and go back to sleep and by that time I was wide awake, so I decided to look online for some answers.  I wanted to know why this happened and what I should do if/when she has a bloody nose the next time. 

1.  Bloody noses at nighttime are generally happen during allergy season and when the air is very dry.  You can fix this by having a humidifier in the room and putting some Vaseline inside of the nose.  (I can't imagine a world in which Spencer lets me put Vaseline in her nose, so I'm not sure what to do about that.) 

2.  Contrary to popular norms, you should not have them tilt their head backwards and pinch the bridge of their nose.  You need to have your child lean forwards and pinch the base of their nose-this will stop any gushing prevent, blood from going down their throat, and it will clot much more quickly. 

3.  Don't panic!  The good thing to remember is that bloody noses are almost never cause for concern.  The main reasons kids have them is because they pick their noses.  Their nasal passages don't have the thickest of skin yet and the blood vessels are closer to the surface.  So when they pick their noses, they sometimes scratch the surface without realizing it and then something as benign as a sneeze will start the nose bleed. 

4.  Sporadic nose bleeds are normal in small children, but if this is happening frequently, go to the doctor.  You should also go to the doctor if you can't stop the bleeding after ten minutes. 

5.  Don't panic!  I know I'm writing this again, but it's very important.  Something like this is really scary for kid and if they see that their parent is scared, it will make it all the more frightening for them.  Trust me, I know.  As difficult as it may be to not freak out when you see your baby with a bloody nose, remember it's a fairly normal thing.
aining calm will

Spencer is 100% perfectly fine today.  She did ask me if her nose was going to bleed again, but that's all she's said about it.  I'm trying not to be a hovering helicopter, but it's that's hard for me- I'm naturally a worry wart who can't let things go.  But I'm trying!  And if this ever happens again, I feel better knowing what I should and shouldn't do.

Shape Up or Ship Out

This week on Show Us How You Live we're writing about diet and exercise tips.  I am SO excited to read about everyone's ideas, I don't have too many myself.  But I did get these shoes for Christmas, the Sketcher Shape Ups, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how they work.

They were a size too small, so they had to be sent back, but they should be arriving any day.  I will most definitely report on how well they work.  Here's what the website says about them:

They are designed to help you tone your muscles – from your back and abdomen to your buttocks and calves. Shape-ups will help you lose weight and improve your circulation, creating a healthier you!

I've been reading some things about them, and it sounds as if it's better to start of wearing them around the house, before you try and exercise in them.  One of the things I'm really excited about is that they have really great arch support, which is something I need since I have ridiculously high arches. So we will see!   But until then, it's just me and Wii Fit, with the occasional Shred here and there.  Can't wait to read about some new things to try!

When I Grow Up

That's how I still think in my head, "when I grow up I want to be a ..." and then I realize I am grown up. But even that doesn't really deter me, I like to think about what I would want to do if I could do anything I wanted. If there was nothing holding me back, money was not an issue, and I already possessed the ability/education/talent requirements - what would I do?

When I was three years old I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up- a Fire Fighter, a McDonald's worker, and Strawberry Shortcake. In the bliss that is youth, these seemed like the best jobs in the world, I mean, what could be better than getting to slide down a pole everyday, playing with a hose that shoots out geysers of water AND having a cute spotted dog that would be my best friend? Nothing except working at McDonald's, where I could eat chicken nuggets dipped in honey whenever I wanted and then go to play in the huge ball pit. Of course I was going to do all of this while also being Strawberry Shortcake.

As I got older people would always say to me "I bet you want to grow up and be a famous doctor just like your Dad!" And oh how I did. I wanted to be a neonatologist until I got to high school. By then I realized that science wasn't exactly my strong suit and I loved history and government classes. I never stopped wanting to be a doctor, I just began thinking about doing something different. Even after I applied and had gotten into William and Mary, I was fully planning on majoring in both Government and Biology, that way I could postpone having to make the rest of my life decision for four more years.

Then came that first Bio class... lets just say it left me irrevocably scarred and I never looked back, I was going to be lawyer and that was it. Except it didn't work out like I had thought it would, but I'm fine with that. Even now, that's not what I would want to do if I could do it.
There are so many things I would love to do, it would take multiple lifetimes to accomplish half of them. And they're always changing, well they rotate in importance. So here's my number one, if I could be anything I wanted to be, job. Don't laugh at me!

Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Health care reform is something that's very important to me. I'm not saying I agree with or want a national federally run health care program. But so many people are up in arms about not wanting their health care to be regulated, but it already is, it's regulated by insurance companies.

When I got pregnant with Spencer I had the best health insurance available- there were no better policies/plans than the one I had. And I was denied coverage for anything related to my or Spencer's prenatal health. Every single doctor's appointment I went to, I had to pay $500. And here's the real kicker, I was also ineligible for Medicaid and FAMIS because I had health insurance! Even before the astronomical hospital bill covering our 5 nights plus emergency surgery, I had already payed close to $7,000 in medical bills, and those were just routine checkups. Can you even imagine how much it would have cost if there had been any kind of complication?

And once again, I'm not trying to make a partisan statement here, but something needs to be done. Of course I don't have all the answers now, although I'm pretty sure I do (haha). But as the Secretary of DHSS, I would know EVERYTHING and everyone would listen to me and all would be right with the world.

Fantasy Land, how I love thee.

So what would you do, who would you be if could do anything?

Baby Stellan Needs Your Prayers NOW

It's not looking very good for Baby Stellan, he's in critical condition and is currently being airlifted from Minneapolis to Children's Hospital Boston. MckMama twittered that it might already be too late for this, his heart has just given out. He needs a miracle.

The January Blahs

January is the most depressing time of year, at least I think it is. I wouldn't go so far as to say I suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder, but I definitely get "blah." I've been searching for some ways to help with this, and these are the best ideas that I've found, plus a few of my tried and true tips. Hope they can help with your January Blahs!


1. Decorate the rooms you are in the most, with orange, yellow and red. These are the colors that are in the sun and fire. In the long, dark, cold winter days, these colors will bring a sense of warmth and coziness. Don't think you have to do an extreme home makeover, place mats, curtains, throw pillows, afghans, and slip covers will do the trick.

2. Keep flowers and plants around the house. Not only will they remind you of spring, but doing a little indoor gardening is very calming.

3. I know this isn't want you want to read, but doing a little exercise can go a long way. Just 30 minutes a day raises serotonin levels and reduces stress levels.

4 Eat foods high in Vitamin D, it will boost your energy and decrease anxiety. The best sources are of VD are orange juice, salmon, shrimp, eggs, fortified yogurt, and milk.

5. Try some chamomile flower, it will help you get a good night sleep and decreases your morning moodiness.

6. Keep your insides warm and toasty! Drink tea and eat soup.

7. I like to set short term goals and incentives, last week the premiere of 24 kept me going, as sad as that is. It helps give me something to look forward to and the days seem to blend together less.

8. Go Outside- even if it's cold and you have a million layers on, 10 minutes of natural sunlight will work wonders.