Halloween In Brief

jillian went as a minimalist kitty: drawn-on whiskers, cat ears, white shirt, khakis. i am all for simplicity, but not when i've spent $30 on another costume.
tess went as a zombie goth girl.
i went as a jedi soccer mom.

JC Penney Loves Me

Remember my tale of the smokin' hot brown sandals that I ended up getting for $14 from JCP just by going down to the dang store and using my $10 off coupon, plus they were on sale? (Still my favorite shoes, btw)
Anyway, I get another $10 off coupon in the mail from them, and I need a pair of boots. So I go on the website, find a pair I like that look comfortable. They're listed as being originally $100, marked down to $50. OK, $40 for a pair of boots, that's not bad. I get to checkout, and they're marked down further to $26, minus my $10 off -- I got them for $16 plus $8 shipping! (The shipping is a bit high, because I ordered two pairs, one in 9.5 and one in 10, as I don't know which size will fit my gargantuan feet better...I'll return the other pair...)

All Clear For Another Three Months

Went to see my BC surgeon the other day, and got the all clear in regard to my ultrasound. He and I were discussing the frequency of my Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging test. It is very new, and many insurance companies have not decided how often they will pay for it. He said, "I think if you have it every two years, that should be fine."
I said, "But given that I have extremely dense breast tissue, and that my triple-negative BC would come back within five years if it does recur, and that originally it grew from non-discernable in February to fully differentiated 2 cm tumor ten months later...."
"You're right," he ssiad. "In your case, I think you should have it every year. You're already at the highest risk you can be."

Yay for convncing him, but wow! for the casual way he doffed that last bit. I mean, I know it COULD come back, and that given that I am young in regard to BC survivors, but wow! I am praying against recurrance, and eating more veggies and doing more exercise than ever b4 in my whole life. Sample: today, walked 15 minutes with Jillian in the morning. Did 30 minutes of zumba tape at home. Biked 15 minutes two and from Tess' school.

This and That

We tried to go to our church's pumpkin patch tonight, but we were too late. We'd intended to go Tuesday, but I got sick. So, off we went to the grocery store, where the pumpkins were $4, and they had a special mini-fall festival where the kids got to decorate their own cookie, get their face painted, and get candy from the meat department. So, though we didn't get any cool pictures, the kids still had fun.
We bought 3 jack-o-lantern pumpkins for Mike and the kids, and i bought 2 pie pumpkins, as i am going to try to make pumpkin pie from scratch this year.

I went by Sonic the other day to get a drink.
Me: (at the drive-thru menu) I'd like a large mostly Diet Dr. Pepper, with a little bit of regular Dr....
Kid Who Works There: (interrupting) What?
Me: I'd like a large mostly Diet Dr. Pepper, with a little...
KWWT: What?
Me: I'll drive around and explain it to you. (drive around. to KWWT) I like a large 75% Diet Dr. Pepper and 25% regular Dr. Pepper.
KWWT: So, half and half?

Fall Festivals

Friday night, we went to our church's Fall Festival. The girls wore their official Halloween costumes of Goth Girl and Asoka, the Paduan (it's a Star Wars character). Getting them ready was a bit of a hassle with makeup and finding costume pieces and trying to get stuff to fit, blablabla.
The girls had fun, but were disappointed they didn't win the costume contest.

Saturday was the neighborhood's Fall Festival. And I was tired. And I'd volunteered to make cupcakes for the cake walk, so halway thru making them, I said, "Go get ready for the festival! Costumes or not, I don't care!" So we ended up with a volleyball player, and Lily from Hannah Montana. Much easier.

And we got home to discover Mike had made turkey chili! Bonus!

The Trip(s) to the ER

If I had a laptop with Wifi, these posts would have been made earlier and would have been longer, as there's nothing like sitting in a hospital room for hours on end to make you think of funny posts to write on your blog.
Anyway.
October 1. We get home from volleyball practice. We eat supper. We tell DD1 after supper to go take a shower. She disappears into the master suite. About ten minutes later, we hear a scream. We tend toward the dramatic in our house, so neither DH nor I go running. We just look at each other, and decide it's DH's turn to see what the dealio is. I hear him yelling. OK.
Turns out DD1 instead of taking a shower, had been spinning around, and had fallen on our tile floow.
Then she starts repeating herself.
DD: I don't remember what happened.
Me: You fell and hit your head.
DD: What day is it?
Me: Wednesday.
DD: Oh. (pause) I don't remember what happened.
Me: You fell.
DD: Oh. What day is it today?
Me: Laura's birhthday.
DD: We forgot to call her!
ME: No, we didn't. We just talked to her 30 minutes ago.
DD: We did?
Me: Yep.
DD: I don't remember what happened.

trust me, it went on much longer than this. i was FREAKING OUT, because i'd just seen a Grey's Anatomy ep where this lady gets in a car wreck and can't remember anything for more than 5 minutes.
DH still thought she was faking, so after I decided to take her in to the ER, he goes in and says, "Mommy's going to take you to the ER, and it's going to cost us a lot of money, so if you're faking, you'd better own up to it right now."

So, driving to the ER:
DD: I'm sorry this is going to cost us a lot of money.
me: It's ok, we'll figure it out.
dd: I don't remember what happened.
me" You hit your head on the floor.
me: oh. I'm sorry this is going to cost us a lot of money.

Went to Cy Fair ER. No parking spots. Not a good sign. So, go to north Cypress ER, which had 1. Blablabla, CT scan showed she had a fractured skull and a small subdural hematoma. Dr said it was so small he missed it the first time. He said she was fine, she was passing all the tests, but procedure called for her to be transferred to Texas Children's for 24 hours observation.
So, on a night where I had planned to go to bed early, I found myself driving behind the ambulance at 1 in the morning. I scooted home and threw some stuff in a bag, and we got to Texas Children's ER, where we waited until SIX O CLOCK IN THE BLESSED MORNING for the neurologist to show up. DD got one hour of sleep. I don't know if I got any, because there was no comfortable place for me to sleep.
We got admitted, and slept until about ten.
Her repeating herself had gone away by about 2 that morning, so basically thereafter was a little 24 hour vacation for her. she got to watch tv, do crafts, be on radio lollipop (an in-hospital radio station), check out books from the hosptial library...
When we checked out Friday, she was upset that we didn't get to go to the hospital hair salon....

so we get home, change clothes, and i take her to school, so she would be counted absent, since I knew we were going to Iowa a few days later, and she'd miss 4 days of school then...
DD1 won a prize at Radio Lollipop, a stuffed animal, so when DD2 saw it, she said, "I want to get sick and go to Texas Children's!"

Miss Me?

Sorry it's been so dang long since I posted. I promise I 'll catch up with the ER ordeal, the trip to the Midwest, and everything.

Today, however, I would like to talk about little girls who declare that the only thing they want to be for Halloween is Atsoka from the Star Wars movie, and then when you spend $30 on a costume, decide they want to be something else. Too bad.

This is the same child, who after telling me she wanted a unicorn bedspread, and I bought a pretty used one on ebay, decided she really wanted a DRAGON bedspread. I told her to squint and pretend the unicorns were dragons.