I am such a bad blogger!!

I haven't had the urge to update my blog at all lately as some of you have noticed. So this update is for Tania. http://taniasjourneytogoal.blogspot.com/ Tania has been hassling me to update - lol.

I guess the last couple of weeks have been rather boring. Because it has been school holidays and because of lack of money, we have done very little. The kids have had a good break spending time between my mums, my wonderful next door neighbour who is a 24 year old kid who my kids adore and friends. There hasn't even been any good kids movies on these holidays. They are hanging out to see the Simpsons movie which comes out on Thursday. We've had the usual run of kids birthday parties. It seems we have one nearly every weekend.

I am hating this cold weather. I have been hibernating. Getting in my pj's every night around 7pm and sitting in front of the heater with my granny blanket. Only 10 weeks and 4 days until we go to Cairns. I am not looking forward to everything starting again this week after the holidays. Especially the night netball. It is so freezing standing there watching.

I am plodding along with my diet. I am still eating lots of iron rich foods so I really pray my blood test on the 17th August shows an improvement.

Steve went to Sydney last weekend. He has a mate who is moving to Darwin and wanted to bring some stuff back to Adelaide so Steve flew over and they drove back. Things is they drove back via Melbourne so it took a lot longer than they had planned.

Nikki and Ashleigh had heaps cut off their hair a couple of weeks ago. Nikki has been wanting to get hers cut short for ages and each haircut has got shorter and shorter. But this time she did it and it looks great. That is her in the photo. Ashleigh has had very long hair for years now and she had hers cut to just below her shoulders. Thank goodness. I got so sick of the dramas of brushing her hair every day. It is a breeze to brush now.

My front yard makeover has stalled a bit because every weekend I've had to do it has been raining. We have had an incredible amount of rain this winter. Like most of the country, it is much needed.

I'm enjoying this time of year. We have no family birthdays in July so it has been a bit quieter. I even went to the Kmart toy sale last week and put some things on layby for christmas. I just wish I had got a bit organized and did a bit more but I'm sure there will be many other sales between now and christmas.

I want to send a huge congratulations to Adam and Hayley on the safe arrival of their precious daughter Miette. Well done Hayley. I'm looking forward to hearing all the news after a very long labour.

So there it is. Life in the last couple of weeks has been very boring and I've loved every minute of it. Back to reality tomorrow when the kids go back to school.

Another Update

I went to see my doctor last night and she has agreed to give me 6 weeks to try and get my irons levels up with diet.

I'm not sure if I am putting off the inevitable but I'm going to give it a huge go. It can only be a good thing. But it has made me realise that it shouldn't take a health scare to start healthy eating again. I've had a good start because I am 1.5 kgs lighter than this time last week.

The kids finish school for the term tomorrow thank goodness. Everything stops for 2 weeks so I'm going to try and get out for a walk on the days I finish early because I won't have to be rushing around getting kids to sport. I love school holidays.

I was pretty impressed with Jarryd's latest creation - a robot he made at school. The kids have brought so much stuff home this week that they have done during the term that I am going to have to sort through it when they aren't around. I just can't keep everything.

We had some very scary weather here last night. We live near the coast and there was a king tide last night. There was a lot of flooding in our area but luckily we weren't affected though our local jetty is destroyed and will need to be rebuilt. I had to drop Ashleigh's friend off home from dancing and their street was flooded and the SES were sandbagging everyone's driveways. They were predicting 120 km per hour winds but it didn't get that bad thank goodness.

Only one more working day this week. Roll on weekend. It's going to be our first quiet one in months.

Good News????

Just a quick update to say I had my ultrasound yesterday and although I don't see my doctor until tomorrow night for the results, they did say all looked ok.

So I guess we'll see what my doctor says tomorrow. She did mention if this all came back ok, the next step would be an endoscopy to see if anything is going on in my gut. Obviously this isn't an option I really want to explore.

After having a really good think about things last night, I realize that my diet has been pretty poor over the last 3 months. I think going onto iron tablets made me subconsciously think I could relax with increasing my iron naturally. I really need to make a concerted effort to eat lots of food high in iron. I have been googling for some ideas. I eat very little of all the foods listed that are high in iron. So hopefully the doctor will agree to let me try this for a month and see what the next reading is. Then if it is still bad, we can go down the other path.

Am I crazy thinking I can do this by myself? I am trying to think very positive thoughts. I will let you know what happens after tomorrow night.

Thanks to everyone for the messages, emails and phone calls. It's much needed.

Worrying News

I'm not sure how many of you are aware that I have been having blood tests for a low iron count. Six months ago I had a routine complete blood screening which all came back normal except my iron levels were on the low side. The doctor asked me to try and increase my iron naturally by eating more red meat and green leafy vegetables. After 3 months I went back and my levels had only increased by point something. The doctor then asked me if I was bleeding anywhere. I wasn't apart from normal monthleys that have been getting heavier in the last few years so she put me on iron tablets.

I went back last week for another blood test after being on the iron tablets for 3 months and the levels have dropped from 12 to 9 which is of huge concern especially after being on iron tablets for the last 3 months.

So now we investigate the bleeding internally avenue. To say I am terrified of the worst is an understatement. I have to have a pelvic ultrasound tomorrow and go from there. The most likely cause is fibroids or something girly related. But the last couple of days I have had a continual pain in my left side under my rib cage. It's like very mild contractions that comes and goes, so I'm not sure what that might mean. My sister suggested to google my symptoms, but I am too scared to do that. And that is the only symptom I have and that has only started since Friday. I haven't even felt that tired as you would expect with such a low iron count. No more than a normal working, running a household of 5 people mum.

So I will keep you updated. I am not looking forward to the ultrasound tomorrow. I think it is just fear of the unknown. I am one of these people that always thinks the worst of everything so you can imagine what is going through my mind.