Gut-Wrenching

Dealing with IBS--a brief testimony.  

From when I was 24 until I was 28 most people would have told you I was a vegetarian.  While I did eat red meat whenever it was available I was mostly eating fruits, grains, veggies, and dairy.  My lunches consisted of Wasa crackers, hummus, a medium sized spinach salad with shredded cheese and a little ranch, an apple, a banana, a grapefruit, an orange, some carrot sticks, red peppers, and some broccoli.  And a diet coke.  I ate this every single day.  It took me a long time to chew all that!  I was 5'7", 117lb, and could run 5 miles in about 40 min. I made it a habit to walk at least 1 hr per day usually 2.  Definitely I was in the best shape of my life.

Then one day that all changed.  I was going through several things at the same time.  The finalization of my divorce (separated over 2 years), an almost 2 year relationship ending that had been tumultuous and heart breaking, my son was injured in a bike accident at 6 yrs old, and I lost a dear friend to lung cancer.  The therapist I had been seeing originally as a marriage counselor put me on an antidepressant immediately.  I chose Wellbutrin (bupropion) because of its lack of sexual side effects and because it is one of the few AD's that do not cause weight gain.  I had a horrible experience with Prozac when I was 19-21 years old, so I knew that I did not want to ever take anything like that again.

Shortly after all these things occurred I started getting symptoms of some kind of trouble in my insides.  I would have intense cramps in my intestines, I would get bloated, I would sometimes pass out from the pain.  I was scared.

Being a person who likes to find patterns in everything I started trying to correlate these episodes to something that I was doing to make them happen.  I used the internet to find out what it could be.  I even went to a doctor!  Everything pointed to IBS, a mostly incurable condition of the bowel that doesn't cause any harm exactly, but makes your life miserable until you can find out what exactly is causing it and cut it out of your diet.  Until then there are times you are afraid to leave your house because you need to be near a bathroom.

For me, I assumed the cause was all the fruits and veggies.  They contain insoluble fiber which is difficult for some people's intestines to deal with and can irritate them.   I only ate them raw because that's how I like them: fresh, crispy, and crunchy.  Not limp, floppy, and chewy.  I stopped eating them completely and it seemed to solve my problem for a while.  I tried taking extra probiotics also but found them too expensive.  Almost every time I would reintroduce a veggie into my diet I would have an episode within 12 hours.  Eventually I morphed into just eating junk food all the time.  My once lean body started getting squishy.  I had zero energy.  I was tired all the time, cranky, and felt like my depression was coming back.  I craved sugar constantly.   I had stopped taking my anti-depressants shortly after I remarried because I didn't like how they made me spacey.  I gained 10 lb and felt like crap.  I got remarried but then lost my job.  I got a new job after a month of unemployment, and things got worse.

My new job was a cubicle job.  I was not allowed to leave the cubicle except for work related reasons (you know, like getting that 5th cup of coffee?) and only had very short breaks.  I gained another 7 lb.  Granted at this point I was at a more "healthy" weight according to charts, but I did not feel healthy at all.  I started having back problems from sitting so much.  And then I got pregnant.  It was my third pregnancy.  I was almost 30 years old.  I gained another 10 lb within just a few weeks!  The OB said I must just be the kind of person that gains a lot of weight when pregnant.  I was up to 142lb.  All I wanted to eat was junk food.

11 weeks into the pregnancy I had a sonogram.  There was no heartbeat.  The baby had died at 10 weeks.  I was shocked.  I had two healthy pregnancies with no problem so the last thing I thought would happen was a miscarriage.  I went immediately to my work, explained what had happened through tears to my boss, and headed to the OR to have a D&C.  I was in shock I think.  They examined the "tissue" that they removed and found no reason for the miscarriage.  In my heart I know that my lifestyle and diet must have had something to do with it.

8 weeks after my D&C I was pregnant again.  I was so scared to go to the OB that I waited until I was 12 weeks pregnant before I even called them.  Thank God this one was still alive.  But I did not let myself get too attached until I could feel her kicking.  And then I lived in fear the entire rest of the pregnancy.  Every time that she didn't kick for periods of time I would freak out and start jiggling her around!  I proceeded to catch the H1N1 flu from my son and the last 2 weeks of that pregnancy were a living hell.  I was bedridden, miserable, and so done with being pregnant.  I had gained a total of 65 lb and things started to hurt on me that had never hurt before!  The IBS was still coming almost daily now.  I would go to use the bathroom and had to hold on to something to get through the pain.

After I had her I figured the weight would drop back off like it did with my second child through breastfeeding.  I was able to lose 15 lb very very slowly and then plateaued.  I tried eating veggies here and there and fruits to make my diet healthier for the baby but I just couldn't seem to deal with them myself.  I made my way slowly down to 150 lb and was stuck there again for about 8 months.

Finally when I had weaned her after 16 months of hell another 20 lb came off.  Slowly.  At 2 years post partum I weighed about 132 lb.  With my second child I had gained 40 lb and lost 50 within 6 months!  So you can see why I was a little disappointed! I still had 10 lb more to lose before I could fit into most of my pre-baby clothes.  Sweatpants were my friend for a very long time.  My baby is now 2 years old and I am now 129 lb.  But still squishy.  I would need to lose an inch around most parts of me to fit into my clothes.

Over the past couple of years I have noticed that my IBS episodes do not necessarily line up with what I eat.  I did notice that they seem to line up perfectly with events in my life that give me anxiety.  Things like doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, social events, even having to talk on the phone to people I don't know very well.  Any kind of happening that shakes up my little bubble that I live in causes my body to freak out.  This points to psychological IBS, not diet related IBS.  That's both good and bad.  Good that I can eat what I want, but bad that its mental because I'm one of the most stubborn people in the world and I don't trust most psychotherapists.

So in conclusion, I have decided to start eating veggies and fruits again.  I would rather be putting that stuff in my body and benefiting from the nutrients and taking a chance I will have an episode.  Over the last week and a half I have eaten almost 2 entire peppers, 1 carton of white button mushrooms, 3/4 of a bag of baby spinach, and half a bag of baby carrots with hummus on much of that stuff.  That is more veggies than I have eaten in 4 years.  I only had one IBS episode out of all of those days.  I'm drinking Vegetable Juice (low sodium) at least once a day also, eating Chobani yogurt, and I have cut down on diet soda to once a week instead of once most days.  I have noticed positive things like not being ravenous at 3:30pm every day and gorging on sugary carby things.  Also even though I still have insomnia from my anti-depressant, once I get to sleep I sleep like a log.  I have less aches and pains.  I have not lost any weight yet, and if I don't that is fine.  I just want my energy back, my glow, and maybe a few muscles!

Politically Annoying

Yesterday I received a large manila envelope addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Potvin" from the elementary "school" here.  I haven't been Mrs. Potvin since 2007.  I'm not going to say that the administration at the school is incompetent, but you would think that they would have looked at that GD paperwork that I just sent in for the FOURTH time due to their mishandling of paperwork outlining all of her family information!  You would think!!!

Today my panties are in a twist because when I opened this manila envelope, expecting yet another copy of that form that I just sent back, a stapled copy of the bullying and student conduct policy fell out accompanied by a confusing and vague form letter.  While happy for the change from redundancy I quickly felt a hot coal of irritation and anger growing in my squishy gut.

The gist of this letter is this (paraphrased of course):

"Your daughter may have been exposed to inappropriate student behavior on Feb 8.  We can't tell you anything about it due to our strict confidentiality policy, but here is a packet of common sense for you to go over with your daughter.  We put both prevention of harrassment and student discipline forms in there so you really just can't figure out which side of the tracks your daughter was on.  Due to that there confidentiality policy we have to try to confuse you to the extent that you might beat your kid just in case they were the bully.  Oh and please have your daughter narc out whoever and whatever happened if you get a chance.  Have a nice day (or not, depends on what you think happened),


PreK-2 Principal"

Wait, what?  This happened a week ago, my daughter never told me anything about it, and I received NO phone call about this incident that was important enough to send me a packet of crap about.  When I see the words "exposed" and "inappropriate behavior" I'm thinking someone showed her their thingy or they made her show them her thingy!!

I asked her this morning about it and she said "OH yeah Mom my friends and I were playing a chase game and Alex (a boy that is a known trouble maker in her class) punched my best friend Hailey in the face.  But it was an accident!  She didn't tell the teacher about it because she didn't want to have to go to the nurse's office."

Apparently the administration spoke to all the students involved as a GROUP.  This means that they treated both bully and victim exactly the same.  Oh, but its being investigated and they will contact me upon resolution.  YEAH RIGHT.  If I do nothing I bet I never hear of it again.

Just yesterday I was telling a friend that my neighbor thinks her 11 year old son does no wrong.  He's been suspended, sent home early, and issued warnings for behavioral matters.  But she says, "He is just with the wrong group of kids.  He didn't do anything wrong they just think he did." Yeah, ok lady.  Keep living in that fantasy world of yours and when you are bailing him out of jail you can tell that to the judge.

Here's what I think of my 7 year old daughter's personality from what I have seen over the years:

• Thinks a snapdragon is an insect and jumps 10 feet in the air when you tell her there is one near her.  Is afraid of most things that move.
• Gives her baby sister a bath and patiently washes her hair even though she's screaming and trying to kick her in the face.
• Cries when someone else is getting hurt.
• Cries when someone says "I hate you" at school even if they weren't directly talking to her.
• Cries for no reason except that she misses her _______________  (dad, aunt, grandparent, blankie, stuffed animal, etc.)
• Still has a blankie that she carries around the house.  I'm not going to take that away from her.
• Protective of her friends even when they tell her they want to kill her. (yes this happened just 2 weeks ago.  didn't get a note home about that one)
• Concerned that same friend who wants to kill her thinks she is half-vampire and doesn't believe in Heaven.  Prays for this friend.
• All the pictures that she draws include hearts, princesses, rainbows, and churches.  Doesn't look like typical serial killer artwork at least.

And here is what her latest parent teacher conference summed up as:
"Your daughter is one of my favorite students.  She is so well behaved, always quiet when she is supposed to be, considerate, cooperative, just an absolute JOY to have in my class" --2nd grade teacher

So you can see why I'm kind of confused here.  Does she have some kind of violent tendency? Am I pulling the wool over my eyes and seeing only innocence when there might be aggression?  I have absolutely NO idea.  That is how vague this letter was.

So, do I contact the school?  I have a WTF letter written in email and saved in draft that I'm not sure I should bother sending.  Would I be able to make any difference in the machine that is Political Correctness?  Why is the administration so afraid to call kids out for what they are?  Oh dear, the parent might remove their kid and homeschool them or send them to private school.  GOOD!  There are too many kids in that school anyway.  If I still had half my brain and more of an attention span than that of a flea I would try to homeschool.  But I know it would be a disaster.  And private school is upwards of $5000 a year PER kid on top of the insane school tax we already pay for this crappy school.

I just haven't had any good experiences with this school yet outside of my child's parent teacher conferences, which are always good news, but that is such a small part of the school experience.

Diapering A Couch

Today was a small victory for us!  Finally after more than a week of feeling like I live in one of those back alleys with all the upturned furniture and garbage everywhere, a hobo warming his hands over a barrel with a fire blazing inside...yes that is the picture I had in my mind everytime I lay eyes on my living room. Finally the couch is in the upright and locked position with cushions on it and everything!

There was still one spot that smelled like pee on the cushions that you lean on.  I sprayed the crap out of it with Renuzit spray and waaaalaaa it smells beautiful now.  Also steam cleaned the entire thing underneath with my new gadget :)

I screwed the legs back on and shoved the quilt batting stuff up between the springs and the cloth that the cushions sit on.  We had to get rid of some of that stuff so instead of buying more I used 4 of the cloth diapers that I had left over from when I was all hippie natural earth mommy and had bought a ton of them.  Of course I gave most of them to Goodwill about a month ago so I only had enough to do one area.  This is why I hate getting rid of stuff.  But I do it to make other people happy!!!

Now what to do with the cushions.  They are made of this thick yellowish foam that soaks up moisture and doesn't let it go.  Ever.  Even if I hold a hair dryer to it or let it sit out in the sun for days.  SO I first steamed the hell out of it with the Annihilator attachment on the Shark and then held the Renuzit spray can right up against it and let loose.  Now that the cushion foams smelled like what I can only assume its like to hang your laundry outside on a fresh spring morning it was time for a more prophylactic approach.

I grabbed the Dollar General drop cloths (remember, for $1.50 you get a sheet the size of the moon), spread them out, and laid one piece of foam on one.  Using my Christmas wrapping skills I badly judged how much I would need to wrap, or as I like to say diaper, these bad boys.



I cut the plastic and then grabbed the clear packing tape.  You know, for aesthetic reasons.  I secured the plastic so that none of the foam was showing and then shoved it into the slip cover.  WAY easier to put that foam into the slip cover when its lubed up with plastic!  Shot right in!  I then put the quilt batting stuff in the top of the slip cover, spread a piece of plastic on that also for good measure, and zipped her up.  Good as new!


After I had all the cushions wrapped I excitedly brought them into the living room and shoved them into the couch.  It looked like nothing had ever happened!  Sure, when you sit down you slide around a bit and it makes a crinkly sound, but that's better than buying a new one for $1800!!

 Update:  I wrote this a couple of weeks ago but didn't publish it.  It is now March 1 and still no cat pee!  What worked, you may be wondering?  I put the cat litter box back in the dining room next to our freaking table where it was when we first got Mr Kitty.  Apparently he is a total basket case and can't handle change.  We had had it in the laundry room which is the only other option in my house and he was fine with it until we acquired the 3rd cat which apparently triggered some kind of psychosis or something.  Now we are back to dealing with him taking a huge dump every time we sit down to eat (I swear he times it), but at least we have a place to sit when we are watching TV!

My New Steam Cleaner & Me!

In the midst of my panic about the couch last week I went online to good ol' Wally World and bought me a Shark Portable Steam Pocket cleaner!  I had a gift card we had received from my husband's relatives for Christmas that in my usual swiss cheese headedness had stashed away for just such an emergency...somewhere!!!  I frantically searched the counter and its vast possible hiding spots and within 15 min I did find it!  

The Steam Cleaner got here on Tuesday and when I opened the box I wondered, where do I put all this crap???  There are a TON of attachments of various awkward shapes and sizes.  And no case to put them in!  

This attachment scares me!

I steam cleaned this filter that goes in my vacuum that normally smells like a monkey's butt and now it smells fine!  I just saved myself whatever one of these things cost!  

My favorite attachment:  I like to call it "The Annihilator"

The white hair clip is there to hold the trigger down as they neglected to put a lock so you don't have to squeeze the handle the entire time you are cleaning!  I'm stho sthmart!

About to be used to clean the counters.  Ain't no bugs on me!

I have steamed part of the couch and also coated the couch again in vinegar and baking soda and Resolve...and am going to steam it again!  So far Mr Kitty hasn't peed on it in 48 hours...

Curse Of The Tax Return Part 2

Now you may be wondering why I titled both my posts "Curse of the Tax Return"  as I have not yet mentioned anything about said tax return.  See, these little events which all cost money happened just after I filed for our tax return and found we were getting enough money back to pay off some debts that we have been dealing with for a couple of years, and then hopefully SAVE some, you know, like in a savings account?

Well I guess I never should have said the "S" word out loud!!!

Doesn't he look so cute and innocent?

The subtitle of this post is "How to Clean Cat Pee Out Of Your Couch Again and Again and Again!"

I am determined not to have to spend $1000+ on a new couch.  And since all of this happened during a time of the month where we have less than $50 to our name I could not exactly go out and buy expensive cleaners or take Mr Kitty to the vet to see what is wrong with him.   I had already tried using what we had left of a bottle of Nature's Miracle which is $10 and not to be found in my town. We have not been able to sit in our living room for 8 days now.  And this is not a big house.  The kids are driving me to want to drink but I can't afford a bottle of wine.

Step One:  couch prep.  We flipped the couches upside down and discovered to our horror that the pee had soaked down through the hollow part and then through the canvas-y stuff that covers the underside and then onto the floor.

I grabbed a standard head screwdriver and a pair of pliers and started yanking the staples out to remove the fabric.  I just about fell over from the stench that came wafting at me.To my dismay I saw that there is a layer of a quilt batting type material between the springs and the fabric that sits under the cushions, most likely to keep the springs from ripping through into the cushion.

It was SEWN into the main part of the couch.  UGH.  So I had to cut it away with the scissors and try to clean it too.  And so both pieces of my couch lay, naked and gutted, in the middle of the living room floor.

Step Two: Figure out how the hell to clean oodles of cat pee,both male and female, from my couch on a budget of basically $5.

We used precious money (wasted, I should say) on one of those rental carpet cleaners with an upholstery attachment from Hannaford which I thought was a steam cleaner but through my feverish haze could not go with Kris to the store to make sure.

The Rug Doctor

We couldn't afford to buy the fancy carpet cleaning fluid either so we were just using water which did nothing but make it worse.  And the cat peed on it again that night.  So the next day I went online and googled "homemade carpet cleaner" and came up with this:

3 quarts HOT water (not boiling)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup hydrogen pyroxide (might bleach out something with color)
3 tbsp blue dawn mixed into the water thoroughly
drop or two of essential oils if ya got em

They call that an "enzyme" cleaner.   Cost to make: NOTHING since I already had all this crap!!

While I couldn't really use this solution effectively on the couch I did use it on cleaning the carpets in the kids' bedrooms so as not to have completely wasted the thing.  It took out a PUKE stain from about 5 years ago that the commercial cleaner couldn't!

That stain was way darker before...wish I had taken a pic of it first!

 The stain was kind of like a grayish black splotch on the floor.  I just held the machine over it, made it spew the mixture down, and then turned the vacuum part on and it was gone!!  So that helped me feel a little better about the $40 bill.

What I did for the couch was make a mixture similar to above except added baking soda, less peroxide, and more vinegar.  I like thinking about Al's French Frys when I'm sitting on my couch.  I then took a cleaning cloth and soaked the areas with this mixture.  The springs began to rust immediately.  AWESOME.  I just ignored that little chemical reaction and kept scrubbing.  Once I was sort of satisfied we left it to dry.  I put a layer of plastic over the couch that I got for $1.50 at the Dollar General and went to bed.

DG "Drop Cloth" for $1.50 found in the Hardware aisle.

The cat peed on the plastic TWICE.  Ok, well at least its not on the couch.  I threw it away and put the cat in the basement for the night.

The next morning no pee.  Well duh he was in the basement.  So I let him out thinking maybe he'd learned a lesson (yeah right.  He's a cat.) and then went away for three hours to visit a friend.  I thought I was being smart by laying down another piece of DG plastic on it.  When I got back there was a huge puddle of pee on the plastic in the one area no one had peed on, and a hole had been clawed through it so the pee soaked into the couch. AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!   When do I get to walk out and never look back?  I took a pee sample and double bagged it and put it in the fridge so when we do get money I can bring it to the vet.

I just about gave up until I had a new idea.  I found a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner that says it removes urine in the back of my kitchen cabinet.  Who knows how old it is, and who cares.   I shook it up and scrubbed the hell out of the couch.  Then I took a can of Febreze air freshener and sprayed it all over the cushions and inside the couch.  The smell was gone!  I smelled nothing but "Spring Laundry Scent".   I covered the couch in a third sheet of DG plastic and so far its been 48 hours since he has peed on it.  I'm thinking he was just stressed out from the other cat and the basement being flooded and had a mental breakdown.  I can relate but usually I just go in the closet and cry instead of peeing on things.  Maybe he's onto something...

Curse Of The Tax Return Part 1

Mr Kitty 

This past week has been one "crisis" after another.  While I am very grateful for the things we are blessed with, such as family, a house that is big enough (just barely lol) for us all, Kris' job, and our generally good health, when something comes in to burst the little bubble that I call my life I tend to forget these things.

Things had been going along pretty good, almost too good if you ask me.  Kris is starting to enjoy his job more, Autumn's behavior got better, and the other kids weren't hating school.  I had a bit of a handle on the housework and was getting out more.  Clinical depression tends to make me hermit-y and I've been trying to fight it.

When you build yourself up the devil will knock you down.  Yes, I believe in evil.  I believe in Satan.  How can I not if I profess my faith in Jesus and my belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God!  One thing I do not want to be is a hypocrite (so hard).  And I do feel that once and awhile a thorn is sent to my side to keep me and my ridiculous (and mostly secret) ego in check.

The things that have happened to me this week are not life threatening, they are not disastrous or devastating (well they are starting to make me feel that way but they really aren't) and in the grand scheme of things they really do not matter any more than a drop of water matters when it disappears into a lake.  But unfortunately things always seem worse when the little stuff piles up and makes a big mess. 

Where is the snow???  Its February in Vermont!!

My front "yard"

Last Friday after the third of a series of 40+ degree days here in Vermont (its supposed to be WINTER) the small bit of snow melted, and it rained heavily.  Our house is apparently a low spot for the immediate area and all the water running down the sidewalk and sitting on the ice that fills our front yard started to channel towards our house and directly into the large well window in our basement.  That window can only drain so fast, as it has gravel at the bottom, and it overwhelmed the seal of the cement and poured in.  Just as I was texting my friend about how we were lucky so far our basement hadn't--oh crap!!!

Seriously I was walking down the basement stairs writing that with my thumbnails when I stepped in and splash!

We had gotten cocky, comfortable even, after the flooding of 2011 Spring had given us 6 weeks of a living hell (again, not nearly as bad as the real Hell).

Last Spring's fiasco

We had to go out this time and buy a utility pump.  $100 later I was standing out in the driveway pumping water from the large pad of ice to the backyard as far as it would go.  Wearing blue rubber boots with red tomatoes on them.  Sexy.  My toes kept going numb as I stood out there with my garden shovel, hacking channels in the ice to try to divert the water away from the house.  You may be asking, "Where was Kris?"  Well I will tell you. He was furiously trying to get everything off the basement floor and back into the garage just like last year.  I was quite enjoying myself hacking the crap out of that ice. Sure, I couldn't extend my forearm completely for about 4 days but you should have seen my biceps.  No flap underneath!! 

The basement was only the first little issue.  That resolved within 2 days.  The water actually drained out through the cracks in the floor and we shop vac'd the rest.  During the watery part of the incident we had to purge out my sister's cat that we had decided to take on as she moved to Virginia suddenly and couldn't bring her along.  She had been hiding in the basement for 3 weeks from the circus that is my life.  I'm a bit jealous.  She came upstairs to the chagrin of Shadow and Mr. Kitty and at first things seemed like they would be tolerable.

Kitkit, the former basement cat

Then on Wednesday morning Alicia said, "Mom, the couch smells funny right there" and pointed to the cushions on the right arm of our beautiful 2 year old sectional.  There was a large wet splotch that covered half each of 2 cushions and also had soaked into the upper cushion flap that you lean against.  It smelled like girl cat pee (yes there is a difference) and it was a very large amount so I knew it was not our 6 month old kitten.  Kitkit (basement cat) apparently had decided to mark her territory.  I always thought only males did that.  Now I know better. 

Shadow, the mostly innocent cat.  Pretty sure she peed on the first pee though...can't prove it!

I decided to deal with it later as I had to get Alex to his morning band practice.  I ran upstairs and immediately could smell something foul.  I kept saying to myself "please not on my bed anywhere but my bed".  And there it was.  A steaming pile of cat shit right on the soft blanket on my as-of-yet unmade bed.  I screamed obscenities, flushed the pile of crap down the toilet, and dealt with the blanket later.  A few hours later I walked into the living room.  There was a smaller fresh pile of cat pee on the same spot (but where the cushion had been, as I was washing it) and another pile of cat shit on the throw rug.  You can see where I'm going with this. 

Kitkit had had an appointment with the shelter all set up when we decided to try taking her into our home, and I'm glad we did not cancel it.  We really wanted to keep her as her personality is great and she's super sweet...but three cats is too many.  On top of all this I came down with a nasty head cold that required me to keep a tissue shoved up my nostrils at all times or disgusting things would flow out of my nose.  You could say I'd reached my breaking point.

Even with Kitkit gone Mr Kitty continued to pee on the couch.  The couch has been torn apart for 1 week now and our bedroom has become the new living room, with Autumn saying to me "Mommy sit on couch with me" and pointing to my pillow.  Last night I had to brush pretzel crumbs out of my sheets.  Not cool!!!

Too be continued...