Hereditary Angioedema

I have Hereditary Angioedema. It is a rare genetic disorder that cause swelling of the hands, feet, stomach...pretty much anywhere. I've swelled up almost every where in my body at least once. Most common for me are feet, hands, and stomach. But other more dangerous areas like my face and throat swell up on a pretty regular basis too.

This disease can be life threatening if my throat swells up and I can not get medical treatment in time. Luckily, I am able to treat this by giving myself the protein I am missing on an as needed basis. It usually starts working in about a half hour or so. I like to think that I'm pretty aware of whats going on with my body so at the earliest sign of swelling I treat myself as soon as possible. My husband also knows how to start an IV if he for whatever reason needs to do it.

Hereditary Angioedema doesn't really affect my life a whole lot, or at least I try not to let it and I must say I do a pretty good job at that. But once in awhile somewhere inconvenient will swell up and I usually have no motivation to do anything until the protein kicks in. Like today, both my feet and my stomach swelled up. So not only is it painful to walk, my stomach hurts too. Hopefully my children don't have it either.

Since hereditary angioedema is hereditary my girls have a 50% chance of getting it. In the first two trimesters I would swell up no more than usual and would not swell up whatsoever in the last trimester. So I'm hoping that maybe the babies were producing the protein and my body was borrowing theirs so to speak? I haven't had them tested, and I probably wont unless they start showing symptoms. If you have hereditary angioedema and get a stomach ache, it can be hard to determine the cause. A blood test is needed to be diagnosed.

I've been diagnosed since I was about ten. My mom had it, and so did her dad, my grandpa. It seems to just be the first born. I'm not sure if anyone before him had it, or if he was the first.

So, before today I told two of my friends that I would watch their kids, both under the age two. Serious lack of motivation over here seeing as how I can walk and my stomach is killing me, I took my product though and its starting to work which is nice, and with my luck it won't start to fade till all the kids that aren't mine go home.

I have a support group on facebook called Support for Hereditary Angioedema Canada. If you have questions please feel free to ask!

Soccer Season!

Today was Veronika's first soccer practice/game. It is for kids under the age of six but a great way for her to make some new friends, learn something new and get some exercise!

Today we had a high of plus 20. So Veronika, Isabella and I took advantage of the nice weather and went to the park. Isabella, not quite walking yet, insisted on crawling instead of attempting to walk. I ended up taking her to different spots of the playground I thought she might find interesting. Veronika made plans with a fellow four year old, to meet at the park everyday so they could be best friends. As cute as that was, our schedule isn't quite that flexible.

By the time we got back from the park, it was almost time for soccer. So after preparing her soccer bag we were on our way. I parked on the furthest end of the parking lot hoping to add more steps to my pedometer, the same pedometer that fell under the jeep when we got home. It will probably stay there for a couple weeks until I remember to stop the vehicle before I drive over it and pick it up.

So anyways, we get to the soccer field, 14 teams of kids under six, approximately 20 kids a team. Each team has two coaches and and each team has a different coloured jersey. Veronika's team was yellow. I was hoping for a darker colour so it wouldn't show stains as well but on the plus side when I have no idea which field her team is on on a particular day I can just pick out the kids in the yellow jerseys!

The coached started showing simple things like dribbling the ball and good sportsmanship. Veronika also liked to chase bugs in the air, and would get side tracked doing this when she was suppose to be helping her team score. Or the other team, whatever.

It was a good day for her and she was ready for bed when we came home, but since I have to adjust to this new schedule, I had to make dinner.

Reading this entry over makes me hope that I still have a bit of a ways to go to improve my writing and hopefully be more entertaining, I hope to figure out how to upload a picture from my macbook too. I think I'm going to need one with more hard-drive.

Thanks for reading!

Easter Weekend

I have 2 girls, Veronika and Isabella. Veronika will be five in June and Isabella just turned 1. It's been an entertaining year, and having a baby has made me grateful for Veronika's independence. She's also great entertainment for Isabella. The laugh, they play, they cry. Everyday I thank God for giving them to me.

I'm not sure if God exists but I like to believe there is something or someone there. I wasn't born into a religious family and I don't follow a religion and I haven't read the bible, but I think that if there is a God, then he doesn't mind too much. As long as I simply believe and do good that is all that matters.

I'm not sure where to start this blog so I will start with my eventful weekend, if anything this blog will be a good way to remember happy moments in my life.

The weekend started off for me late wednesday night. My now husband decided to surprise me by coming home early. Just in time for Isabella's 1st birthday. He had hinted at it but I knew better than to get my hopes up. It was a nice surprise.

I discovered early on in my second pregnancy that cloth diapering isn't what it use to be and decided that Isabella would be cloth diapered. I like to do what I can to be green. So on Saturday my friend Melissa and her family, and Isabella and I attended the Great Cloth Diaper Change! This event was world wide and was to set a record for the most cloth diapers changed at once, and was to raise awareness for cloth diapers. Isabella had her picture in the paper, which will make a nice addition to her baby book. Last time I checked there was close to 5000 participants. Cloth diapering is super easy nowadays and can be just as easy as using disposables.

On Saturday we had Isabella's birthday party. It was a nice little party considering it was Easter weekend and a few people couldn't attend. Sticking with the easter theme we had an Easter egg hunt, and with it being the first nice weekend we had a BBQ. I decorated with helium filled balloons and streamers. It was a bit of a windy day so and instead of having two bunches of balloons they ended up being one, and I had streamers flying into the neighbours yards, no complaints though!

Not the most exciting blog entry but hopefully with a little practice I can be more entertaining in the future. Thanks for reading!