Christmas & A Bad Parrot

Well what a year! It's only two sleeps until Santa visits and my Cheeky Girl has been counting down the days for the last month! Looking forward to the countdown to end :-)

 

Yesterday we were privileged to go and see some extremely talented performers for a Christmas concert hosted by Guy and Jules Sebastian. We could not take the Cheeky Boy as he does not yet have the desire to stay in one place for any length of time and he does not yet have the understanding of what Christmas is all about. So we took the Cheeky Girl and she absolutely had a grand time (so did I!). Guy and Jules Sebastian have started a charity called the Sebastian Foundation and as our Cheeky Boy is a frequent visitor the Sydney Children's Hospital we were blessed to be given tickets by the Sebastian Foundation to go to the concert. The Cheeky Girl was so excited to see her favourite singer Samantha Jade (so beautiful and so talented!) and was absolutely tickled pink when Guy Sebastian waved and smiled to us at the end of the concert :-)

 

We send a huge thanks to Guy and Jules as we would not be able to see such talent and have such a wonderful time as we did without their generous donation of tickets for the event :-)

I would like to now send out a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have supported me throughout the year by reading this blog, by supporting my RozArt business and helping me raise money for the Friends of Brain Injured Children ACT Inc. It has been an extremely hectic and tiring year for me but

• I will continue to bring people jewellery that they love, for themselves, loved one and their pets. 

• I shall continue to bring forward the message of the incredible strength and journeys of my little boy with all his trials and triumphs :-) and how getting this message out helps to empower all people who have so much to give, yet can not express it all themselves :-)

Here's hoping to have a less traumatic 2014 for the Cheeky Boy. Over the past month his seizures have increased once again and we have had to make some adjustments in his medication over the last week. He is still staying on the Ketogenic diet as it has decrease his large seizures down to five minutes, hence I have not had to call an ambulance in the past five months! which is the longest time ever for him :-) we have also been blessed to stay out of hospital so far this Christmas period as last year he had a four and a half hour seizure five days before Christmas day and had to be transported to Sydney. We were lucky enough to make it out for Christmas day. Fingers crossed for this year as we are going to travel to visit family we haven't been able to visit with him in four years as his seizures limit our travel plans.

 

On a more positive note:

 

Here's a picture to make you smile :-) perhaps cat lovers may smile a little more?!?

 

 

and to finish this last entry for me this year here's a story that will make you smile:

BAD PARROT

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary.

Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to 'clean up' the bird's vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot.
The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even more rude. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed.

Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions.
I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."

John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude.

As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird spoke-up, very softly, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

Happy Christmas

Keep Smiling and we hope 2014 brings much joy and laughs to all in your lives :-)

A Busy Few Months and Horses

Hi All, it's been a while!!! I have been extremely busy with having my Cheeky Boy on his new Ketogenic diet, having RozArt's new look and connections in social media turn 1, having two Cheeky Children have their birthdays and of course coping with all the everyday runnings of a house, business, school activities and the numerous therapy sessions for the Cheeky Boy each week! So do you feel exhausted reading this??? I have been exhausted coping with cooking twice as many meals a week and having the Cheeky Boy adjust to eating the food has me kept extra busy and needing to funnel my left over energy into his needs and of course my family is ultimately my priority so the Blog has had to wait.

Let me tell you a little of how things have been with starting his new diet... we arrive at the hospital with him acquiring a viral cold from screaming his lungs out the night before when he had a hair cut. He unfortunately he doesn't like having his hair touched for any extended periods of time so he doesn't have haircuts often. So before going to hospital I have help to cut his hair as it was too long and lucky we did do it as he had an EEG at hospital which is easier to do and easier to get all the goo out of the hair (from were they attach the electrodes) after the procedure is complete. As you may also guess, EEG's can be a trauma, as they evolve touching his scalp... this time he didn't struggle too much :-) 

 

Anyhow, after a couple of days in hospital a gastro bug breaks out in the ward and the Cheeky Boy is effected :-( no food staying down and thank goodness the vomiting only went for three hours. Unfortunately for him however is the fact that the start of the new diet causes their glucose levels to drop and for him, it was at its lowest when the gastro hit. So his glucose levels were tested every hour and he ended up on a drip to keep him hydrated and on a gastro nasal tube to feed him liquid meals to keep his ketone levels up.

 

For most of you who do not know what a Ketogenic diet does, here's a simple explanation: by eating certain foods that are high in fat (good fats like olive oil) and protein, with reduction of carbohydrate foods (breads, pasta etc) to very low levels the body produces ketones instead of insulin to give the body fuel. This change in processing energy by the brain can enable people with epileptic seizures to have a reduction in seizure activity and in some cases no seizures at all. So the Cheeky Boy is on a three month trial of the diet and could be on it for a couple of years. The diet needs to be monitored carefully by Doctors and Dieticians as it is not a diet that can be just started at home and a person on the diet can only do it for a couple of years at the most.

 

To help contain the gastro with in the ward, the ward was put into lockdown so we were kept in our room and no physical contact with the outside world until discharge. I was only able to go and use a designated toilet and shower and touch nothing else. We were lucky, we had a bed near the window so at least we could see what was going on outside. So what we thought would be about a five day stay in the hospital became a ten day stay.

 

As he diet had changed, it had become less yummy to him, especially when you are in lockdown in a room and you can not even heat his food without waiting a very long time for a nurse to be able to do it for you. So you do what you can and as time progresses, you have to fight to get every mouthful in him, if he would eat it at all! So the decision was made easily to release us from hospital and have me cook him appropriate meals to get him to eat.

 

Over the first few weeks out of hospital were quite difficult in terms of convincing him the food wasn't hospital food and now I am limited to cooking him each meal as he won't eat any of the meals that are easy to prepare!! so hopefully as time passes he may be a little more agreeable to different varieties of meals. Fingers crossed!!

 

On the good news front we have seen a reduction in the severity of his drop seizures for the most part. So that is definitely a step in the right direction. The past week has not been a good week for seizures but we have had a slight adjustment in the amount of calories (increase) in his meals so that may help. We shall just have to wait and see.

 

One great thing that the Cheeky Boy has been able to do is go and have a visit to Pegasus, where they have riding for the disabled. He has never been near a horse before and I told the instructors that he will not be afraid as he trusts that I will not put him anywhere that is not safe. He of course was not at all scared of the pony that was much bigger than him and he even sat of her back :-) As usual he charmed all that met him :-) He was however more interested in wanting to play with the sawdust on the arenas floor than staying of the pony!

 

Pegasus does such wonderful work with people with disabilities and the influence that an animal can have on a person with disabilities is incredible. So if you would like to see what great work they do or even perhaps sponsor a horse please click on the following link:  http://www.pegasusact.com.au/

As for RozArt, I have been busy making pieces for happy clients and here's a photo of Harry, a gorgeous westie who is wearing one of my Four leaf clover ID Tags :-)

Well I hope you have an enjoyable week :-) I will look at making a new entry every couple of weeks now as you can understand I am even more time poor than ever :-/

Goodbye Garlic Bread & Celebrations to Come

So two weeks has passed since my last entry... busy times trying to get things done before the Cheeky Boy heads into hospital on Monday. Here's hoping for a nice week ahead and I hope that we all adjust to his Ketogenic diet without too much upset. It's going to be a challenge in the sense that he loves his pasta, garlic bread and carbohydrates in general so we will have to cut down on these things ourselves to help keep him from wanting them. If he sees garlic bread coming out of the oven, he will literally drop anything he is eating to have the garlic bread. See the problem we have is that he will not understand why he can not have these foods anymore, as I said he really does LOVE them.

 

Who could really blame him for loving such foods as we all love fresh made garlic bread :-)

 

so the best thing for us to do for now is to eat it after he is asleep!

 



Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for this diet helping him reduce his seizures and making his life just that little more easier everyday.

As for the business end of things for me, with October just around the corner, my RozArt website is going to have a front page facelift and with RozArt on Facebook, I am going to be running a few competitions to celebrate the 1 Year Birthday of their launch!! Oh there's fun to be had!!!! So please keep a look out and join us all there for the fun :-)

And to finish off:

A Moment of Quiet

I don't know about you but I feel that sometimes you feel like you have accomplished nothing in a day, but when you stop and have a look at all the small things that you have done, it actually adds up to a lot. I have also realised once I have stopped for a moment that my mind is so busy that I forget what I was actually trying to do at that moment in time...sound familiar??

 

I have had an afternoon where the hubby had taken the two cheeky children out to a birthday party, as I was working out of home for the morning I could not go. Anyhow, a house with no one else in it is a true delight and is calming when you have a moment to be still in it. I had friend post this following statement on Facebook and if you have children, you will know exactly how to relate to this :-)

I am of course writing this Blog entry now that the children are asleep!

Yet asleep, I have been thinking of what shall I write? not feeling too inspired... then I decided to take a moment to open an email from a good friend who is much older and wiser than me and inspires me from a distance. The email I opened is of Zen music with beautiful pictures of nature that inspire a restful mind and a clearness of thought, hence I have now been able to write and feel inspired :-) always a nice thing :-)

We all have so much chaos in our lives it's nice to have a moment like this just to be. 

I have been feeling an increase of stress when thinking of dealing with the Cheeky Boy going into hospital for a week to start his Ketogenic diet, only two weeks to go until this stay. Any parent who has had a child in hospital understands that when sharing a room with up to three other families is hard at anytime, especially when your child is unwell or in my case,  I have a little monkey who likes to start his mornings at 5.30am or earlier. At home I can sometimes convince him to have more sleep but I am not looking forward to him having to settle in a shared room and turning a TV or entertaining him with toys at that hour in a hospital is not really easy to do...so not looking forward to the early mornings there. Walking around the ward isn't a good idea either as all the other kids tend to be sleeping... I will have to get creative with things... two weeks to figure it out!

 

If you are interested in reading more on the Ketogenic diet for helping people with epilepsy here is a link for you:

http://www.charliefoundation.org/

The lovely Meryl Streep does an introduction to what the diet is about :-)

If you would like to feel a little more relaxed and calm of mind... this link is for you:

Zen Garden Music

I hope you all have a lovely and relaxed week ahead :-)

A Year On... & Ketogenic Diets

So for my regular readers... yes I missed a week for an entry...

A year has passed since I started putting my online business together and having it launched in October 2012! So much has happened - not much sleep has been had between the Cheeky Boys seizures, numerous hospital visits and making pieces for my RozArt website (well over two hundred items put on my site so far and counting!!), doing courses, starting up stalls in various local markets, shows and community events. Opening RozArt on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and of course this Blog, I felt a week off from a blog entry was justified... a wee bit tired and needing a rest :-) I have to add raising a Cheeky Girl in the mix and running a household and of course we can't forget the hubby in there too :-)
 

 

I have spent the last week at my parents place but that hasn't stopped me from attending a few events including the Furry Fun Day for the Animal Welfare League of NSW yesterday which was a lot of fun of course and a nice warm day (even for the locals!). I have of course had the privilege of falling asleep next to my son around 8PM and not have to get out of bed until the morning :-) A rare treat indeed!!! 

 

Over the past year I have of course have many moments of fun, laughter and the meeting of many great people (between the exhaustion ;-) 

 

 

I believe that despite the many challenges put forward in life, one needs to always find something to smile about and laugh about, these things are the gifts we can give ourselves :-)

It has been wonderful to watch the Cheeky Boy laughing, getting up to mischief and discovering things in his world that he hasn't noticed before. He is of course still going through random drop seizures throughout the day and continuous bouts of them when he wakes up from a nap but to watch him get into fits of laughter of the Bananas In Pyjamas falling over is a joy indeed :-) (never mind his fits of laughter when he burps from either end of his body!!! )

We have been informed that he will be starting his Ketogenic diet at the end of the month so we will be spending a week in hospital in Sydney so that he can be monitored closely. The aim of the diet is to reduce or perhaps eventually eliminate his seizures. We will have to see how he goes, it will require measuring every amount of food going into his mouth and making high protein, high (good)fat foods and eliminating carbohydrates from his diet (goodbye garlic bread...)

If you would like to have a look at how the Ketogenic diet can assist people with epilepsy please click on the following link: www.matthewsfriends.org

Well it's time to go and indulge in a little chocolate ice cream  :-) I hope you all have a lovely week :-)

The Generosity of Strangers & Boys Toys

Amazingly another week has flown by at the blink of an eye! I should somehow be getting use to it! not enough hours in a day...not enough days in a week... this has been a big week here really in the sense that the generosity of strangers has enabled me to have my car air conditioning fixed finally!!! and to top it of there has been the tinting of the car windows with a little bit of a discount to also help us out as the Cheeky Boy is sensitive to light and the pull-over window covers that provide some protection consistently wear out and rip and ultimately are expensive to keep on replacing. I was driving my car today and couldn't really believe the sense of relief I had within me knowing that the Cheeky Boy would now be safe to travel in the car without having an increase risk of seizures...this is making me tear up even now...

So to those very special people, my words can not express the gratitude I have for your help, it's amazing.

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART

 

 

Now that I have wiped the tears from my eyes... I have also come to the realisation the Fathers Day is on it's way!!! So to help sort out things for the Daddy of the House here... I have bought him a gift that will be of assistance for making life easier in the garden... what you may be thinking??? I believe most boys like to play with motorise toys so as our yard isn't big enough to have a ride on mower (a dream of his!!) but we do have a hedge that is a good 3 meters or more tall... I got him a rechargeable hedge trimmer :-) sooo many times I wish I could get up to trim the top as it grows like a wild childs hair but alas I can't reach it easily even with a ladder and I figure that the only way to motivate the man of the house to get up there (having asked for it to be trimmed on more than one occasion) is to buy him a toy he can't resist to try out!! the only problem being is that I will be heading to Sydney for a week for the Furry Fun Day on the 7th of September so this means he has a week to 'play' with this toy unsupervised... previous experience leads me to believe that parts of the garden may be trimmed that don't even need it!!! just for him to give the hedger a good 'test' run :-/

 

Also on Fathers Day I will once again have my RozArt stall open for business at the monthly Hartley Hall Markets. This will be my third time there and I am looking forward to providing a few of the dads out for the day a present of two :-)

 

Here's one example of a piece I have made dedicated to dads:

 

My Dad Rocks 

(available in a range of colours and materials)

 

Well I best be off, so much yet to do :-) I hope you all have a happy week with much laughter :-)

 

 

Twelve Rules and Dentists

A friend sent me these following twelve rules and I thought they would be good to share. Whether you believe in a God or Gods or no God at all, there are some very wise words worth having a think about, there are rules we could all learn a little more from and not all the rules have any spiritual slant, they just make sense!!

 

So please have a read and see what I mean....

 
Twelve Rules of Spiritual Wisdom

1. God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.


2. There is no key to happiness. The door is always open.


3. Silence is often misinterpreted, but never misquoted.


4. Dear God, I have a problem, it's me.


5. Laugh every day, it's like inner jogging.


6. Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.


7. The most important things in your home are the people.


8. As a child of God, prayer is kind of like calling home.


9. He who dies with the most toys is still dead.


10. It's all right to sit on your pity pot every now and again. Just be sure to flush when you are done.


11. Surviving and living your life successfully requires courage. The goals and dreams you're seeking require courage and risk taking. Learn from the turtle, it only makes progress when it sticks out it's neck.


12. Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

This is how one should feel about Dentists!

As for things around here, I have landed myself a new cold as things have been a little more stressful this week. Early in the week, the Cheeky Girl, had very bad ear aches all stemming from a large hole in one of her baby molars. So this is how the week pans out...

 

MONDAY: Cheeky Girl stays home from school due to the pain. So I get an appointment organised for lunch time. The dentist we saw looked at it and said yes she has a hole (smart indeed you could see it from the moon!) so within 5 minutes the Dentist sent us on our way with NO WORK DONE!!!

 

So least to say one child still with a bad ear ache and a mum who wasn't exactly happy and a call to another dentist for the next day...

 

TUESDAY: (After another night of pain) Dentist number two cost a fortune to fill the hole with a temporary filling and discovers that there are seven other holes forming between her teeth due to over crowding. He suggests a course of treatment that ultimately would cost over $1500!! on a 5 year old!!and when I tell him about our circumstances with me being a full time carer and if there was any room to give some discount he proclaims..."DENTISTS DON'T GIVE DISCOUNTS" (in a nice way!)

 

As you can understand I was taken back by this statement! Not even $10 a visit could he spare!!

 

So now a visit to another dentist is made...

 

FRIDAY: This dentist checked the new temporary filling, placed fluoride between her teeth and organised another appointment to fill a small hole on another molar. This dentist did not charge because my Cheeky Girl was only five and said "PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN FILLINGS".

 

So can you guess which dentist we are happy to see again...

 

As for my Cheeky Girl... I am very proud of how brave she has been :-) especially to see three dentists in a week!! and each time she said "I will be brave Mummy" and she was :-)

Now to another cause that I will be helping with in a couple of weeks :-) My RozArt stall shall be going to a Furry Fun Day going to be held by the Animal Welfare League of NSW so I am getting excited about that and all the fun to be had :-) but before we get that far Fathers day is just around the corner...

I hope you all have a great week :-)