House of Lloyd

Happy Birthday David-

David turned 40 today. For his birthday I had a meltdown. I have been trying so hard to be strong and not be emotional during the past several days.

I had been symptom free since my surgery. Well about 4 days ago most of my pre-surgery symptoms returned. I once again experiencing nausea most of the day, I have horrible pelvic pain and I just want to scratch all of the skin off of my body. I have been miserable for days and I have had enough. Actually I have been miserable for months, and I am just fed up with it. I am really having a hard time with all of this. Why can I just not get better and stay better. Why do I have to continue to suffer? What good can come out of all of this?

I feel like a horrible wife, because I had a meltdown on David’s birthday. It was to be his day, and all I could do was cry and be upset about what is going on with me. Of course, I think that anyone else who has had these symptoms for 6 months would be just as likely to melt down once in a while. I am to the point of wanting to just crawl in bed and never get up again. When can I be normal again? Why in the world did this surgery NOT work for me? Why did I have to be the 1 in 4 that it does not work on? This really sucks. But what sucks more is that I could not wait a few days to have a meltdown.

Thursday night I completed my 1st semester in the Educational Leadership Ed.S Program at KSU. It has been a very hard semester so I am glad that it is over. I did receive A’s in both classes and my first 6 credits toward the degree. At times it was a struggle just to make it to class much less finish assignments and research for papers.

This week at work has been hard. I don’t know if it a combination of several problems occurring or if it just me getting back into the full swing of things after several weeks and months of not being able to do my job to its fullest. This week has been eventful.

• The guidance office staff at SHS were informed officially that I would not be returning next year. Many of them are upset that I did not “choose” to stay at SHS. They feel like that I picked CVHS over them. The fact is that I was not given a choice and both locations have pros and cons. Of course this news is now leaking to other SHS staff and students and I am hearing what they think about it and they are not happy. It feels nice to be liked and wanted, but I have no control over the decisions that have been made.
• A big issue came up at one of the schools concerning a special education student and participation in the WBL program and working with the county office. I do not understand how people who do not understand, know or research the law get into positions of administration. This issue was a lawsuit waiting to happen, and since I am “just a teacher” the administration did not think I knew what I was talking about. I ended up having to contact the county office, which is never good. So now I get to spend the rest of the school year walking on egg shells because the administration is ticked because I went to the county instead of trying to work it out at the local level. I feel like I can’t win. I tried for 2 weeks to work it out at the local leve.
• I am so tired in the mornings I can barely make it out of bed. I just feel exhausted this week. I have got to get myself back on track.

Hoping for a better week next week.

Normally we spend Spring Break traveling, but this year we stayed home for several reasons. One of which is that as you all know my health has not been great for the past several months. I have been in pain and fighting constant infections. Well on Monday, I had a procedure done that will hopefully correct the problems I have been having and I am actually feeling better already. However it will be about a month before we know if the procedure actually worked. I for one am hoping and praying that it worked so that I can get back to my normal life. I have too much to do in life and with my family to be sick all of the time.

Madilyn had her Echo-Cardiogram yesterday, and for the first time in almost 5 months we got good news. Madilyn does have a heart murmur however, it is considered to be an “innocent murmur.” Her heart seems to be formed perfectly, and is working great. We still don’t know why her lips, fingers and toes turn blue every once in a while but the doctor did not seem too concerned with it, since it happens infrequently, and does not last for very long.

I have had enough! We seem to be on a never ending winding road of pain, loss and suffering. I am so tired of taking hit after hit after hit. I am tired of everyone telling me it will be alright. Just when we start to see an end in sight something else happens.

Today David took Madilyn to the doctor for a recheck on an illness she had last week. She had contracted one of the many forms of a Rhino Virus and had become lactose intolerant. Today at the appointment they decided that she needed to see a cardiologist for a heart murmur. They had detected the murmur in January but said we should not worry about it, because most kids grow out of them within a few months. Well Madilyn’s is still detectable after 3 months. Her lips, hands and feet have also turned blue several times recently and shivers like she is cold for no apparent reason.

Madilyn has an appointment on Monday at 11…. I hope an pray that nothing is wrong, but with the way my life has been going I just feel like the results are not going to be good.

So a few days ago I bought a bracelet that really spoke to me about picking up the broken pieces of life and moving on. It spoke to me about keeping dreams alive and not giving up.

Well– Tuesday my bracelet broke. I can not believe how much like my life this is. I can not even have a symbol that is positive that stays intact. To put it simply my life has pretty much sucked for the past few months.

So many people told me the bracelet was a “God Thing.” To tell you the truth I am having a real hard time seeing God in anything that has been going on in my life lately. Everyone keeps saying that God will not give me more than I can handle. Let me tell you I can NOT handle anymore. Everyone keeps telling me to move on, all I have to say is when you have been in my shoes you can tell me to move on. I have been sick almost everyday since November. I have zero energy, constant infections, and bleeding all the time. How am I suppose to move on when my body will not heal.

While the bracelet can be repaired, I am not sure that I will ever be the same again.

Two weeks ago I was given some good news, and last Thursday the news was officially announced so now I am free to talk about the situation.

In Jan of 2009 I was asked to work a few days at a second school while the person who holds the job was on a short leave. That short leave turned into long term leave, which has now turned ugly.

So for the past year I have been doing the job of two people for the pay of 1 person. I have had to split my time between 2 buildings, 2 sets of students, 2 sets of guidance counselors and 2 sets of administration. It has been hard but I have somehow managed to keep my head above water.

I was told that I needed to increase my numbers at both schools in order to only be assigned to one school for the next year. I also needed to increase my numbers in order to ensure that the program would be continued. With the way the budget is right now anything and everything is on the chopping block. Well at one school I took my number from 50 to 89. The other school stayed the same, this year I have 25 and I currently only have 25 registered for next year. I have many theories as to why there is such a big difference in the numbers, but I will not go into them here in a public space. All I can say is that I actively recruited students at both schools. At the school with the lower number I did MORE than I did at the school with the higher number. I don’t know why the recruitment did not work, but I do have theories, but once again will not go into those in writing in public.

I was happy with the number of 89 since state law limits me to 100 students. I was disappointed in 25. However, the county was happy and they let me know that they were impressed with the growth at the one school.

I was officially told last Thursday that I would be at only 1 school and that I would be assigned to Creekview. Creekview is the school I was originally hired to work at, and it is also the school my son will be attending next school year. While I will miss the people and students at Sequoyah, I can not continue to serve two schools and remain sane.

However, I don’t think that Caleb was as excited about the news as I was.