Name my outift.

My dad brewed his own wine all his life. He wasn't the 'go to the store and get a wine kit' kind of guy, he was more a 'go out at dawn and come back with bags full of dandelions, elderberries, elderflowers, blackberries and, if he could find them, sloe berries. He grew his own vegetables for food, but some of those went into wine too - carrot and parsnip were his favorites.

He died in 2006, and mum gave most of his wine making equipment away. My big brother is too busy with his business and travels a lot so he doesn't really have the time, and my little bro....well, the less said about him, the better. So, I've decided that I'm going to carry on his wine-making legacy and start brewing my own.

I've been checking out wine supply stores in my area, and I think that the best thing to do to start with is buy a basic wine making kit - not the juice or the grapes, but the demijohn (I believe they're called carboys over here) the tubing, the air locks, the pectic acid, yeast, corker, corks, seals, labels.....all the stuff that you can use and re-use over and over. I've made a wish list (everyone in our family has a wish list. It makes gift buying so much easier and people get what they actually want) and have made sure that each member of my immediate family knows what's on it . It might actually work out well; aside from the main kit there are little add ons for $7 and $8 each that the kids can easily afford. I'm not going to buy a bunch of bottles; I'm going to start drinking wine and saving the bottles until I get my operation underway. It's never going to be a full-blown winery, just a little cottage outfit for my own personal use and to give to family and friends as gifts.

However, I don't have a name for my operation yet, and that's where you come in, gentle readers. I want your help in coming up with an appropriate name. Whoever submits the name that's eventually chosen will recieve a bottle of wine from the first batch I make (and possibly subsequent batches) and the satisfaction of seeing the name they came up with in print on the bottle label.

So, get your thinking caps on, and don't be afraid to give me some ideas!


Love,

NM.

happy 5th rebirthday to me.....

today is 5 years to the day.

i didn't blog about this, but i thought i was dying in that truck. no, i KNEW i was dying. i called Urbaner not only to tell him what had happened, but to say goodbye.

today has been tearful, but i'm ok. i got the staples removed this morning, and i'm in the immobilizer for another 2 weeks. i felt a bit sorry for myself at first, but i had a good cry and i'm ok now. i'm done feeling sorry for myself; that time has passed. it's time to heal now, to get on with life and to try and make a difference, no matter how small. i don't need a divine meaning or purpose, i can create my own.

and i intend to do just that.

be afraid.....

that's me being miserable. the big blue thing is a polar ice cooling pad that keeps ice water circulating over my shoulder. the thing that looks like a mole on my neck is where the inter-scalene block went in at.




this is what happens when you dont put enough pressure on an iv site right after the catheter's removed. purdy, aint it?

i didn't know..

...it was going to be this painful.

...i am such a whiny bitch.

...I'd get more relief from ibuprofen than i would narcotics.

...i could smell this funky in such a short space of time.

...people who said they'd be there would be so unreliable.

...people who barely know me would be so comforting and sweet. you know who you are, and you should also know that i very much appreciate you.

...that i could type this fast one-handed.

..that I'd be afraid of my ability to cope on my own. that's never happened before, and it's disconcerting.

weird

typing one handed...

surgery went well. had a 'big loose socket', surgeon said. he fixed it.

had a scalene block - i'm in love with the anesthesiologist, cause it didnt wear off until 3-ish. shoulder is achy now and i cant get comfy. percocet and ice help, so does a pillow on my lap. sorry to all, but i cant text or email much right now...but if y'all want, i'll send you my cell number. you know my addy....help keep NM's mind off her pain and call her!!!

And you say you made an 'informed' decision

....yet you tied off your child's umbilical cord with a SHOESTRING, cut it with a pair of unsterilized kitchen scissors (no, honey, washing them with dish soap and really hot water is NOT the same as sterilization) and then, as your husband was getting ready to cut through the cord, you said "this doesn't hurt the baby, does it?"

Don't even get me started on the fact that you consider sticking your arm into the BP machine at Wal-Mart and listening to your child's heart tones with an ancient fetoscope (that you probably bought used on eBay) 'prenatal care'.

This girl had NO prenatal care. NONE. She had a 'maternal specialist' out to her house to teach her how to revive a non-breathing infant:

Irresponsible Eejit: "So how long can the baby go without oxygen before it......."

MS: "..dies?"

IE: "Yeah. Like, 20 minutes?"

MS: "No, you don't HAVE 20 minutes"

IE: "10?"

MS: "....."

IE: "'cause it takes EMS like 5 minutes to get here..."


As it turned out, she delivered at home, then ended up having to go to the hospital because the placenta didn't separate in what she thought was a reasonable amount of time (hours, btw. HOURS). When there, she refused an IV, asking the nurse "will I need one for a D&C?", and then called the doctor "dismissive" when he came and sat at the end of her bed and asked her what she wanted him to do for her; what she'd LET him do. She said "what do you think is best?". Hehe. I'm not even going to go there.

I've had kids. I'm all in favor of women rejecting interventions, of having what's commonly referred to as 'natural' childbirth. However, I'm also in favor of LIVE babies and LIVE mamas. Please, all you ladies who are thinking about 'freebirthing': you are NOT the only person in this equation, you have another life to think about. Please take that into consideration when you're deciding where and how to deliver your child - please, consider having a trained medical professional on standby. They don't even have to be in the room if you don't want, just in the vicinity, able and ready to help you or your child should things go awry. Please bear in mind that you can bleed, as one British OB/GYN specialist said "torrentially" in the moments after birth and may not be able to call for help or care for your child.

Make an informed decision, ladies, and if you still insist on being incredibly selfish and thinking only about what YOU want, at least know your stuff and be as prepared as you can with the appropriate knowledge and adequate equipment.

Not a shoestring and a pair of feckin' kitchen scissors.

Part II

Now that you know the woman in Part I was me (is me), I'm going to give you the rest of the story. I said that I wasn't going to do it today, but I'm on a roll and mentally this is therapy; it hurts but it helps me rid myself of it.

So, here we go:

I could feel myself fading. I could sort of hear the dispatcher and was somewhat aware of some banging on my driver's side window, but it felt like the Dakota grey sky had fallen and was enveloping me.

"...NinjaMedic! NINJAMEDIC!!! Stay on the line with me!! I have rescue on the way, stay on the line with me. Talk to me, NM. Talk to me. What hurts? What's hurting you, NM? Don't quit on me, you stay with me, now......"

"...ma'am? ma'am? you ok, hon? *thudthudthud* miss? MISS?!! We're getting help, miss."

*thudthudthud*

I didn't want to close my eyes; I was scared that if I closed them I'd never open them again, but they were so heavy..... I remember putting my fingers up to my face and physically propping my lids open like I did when I was a kid and swore that this year I'd see the New Year in, that I wouldn't fall asleep. The action of moving and making a physical effort helped clear a little of the fog I'd found myself in, and I hung up with the dispatcher and speed-dialed Urbaner in Greenland. I could hear sirens in the background...

"Thule AB, Sgt Urbaner, can I help you?"
"I wrecked the truck. I'm hurt".
"WHAT????? WTF????? Are you ok? How bad is it? Are you hurt?"
"It's bad. Totalled. I hit a semi. Call the school...the kids...I'm hurt......"*CREEAAAKKKKK* as my door was yanked open.

"Ma'am, I'm John with xxx rescue squad, can you tell me what happened?"
"I'm hurt. Semi hit me.....hurt. My husband....here. You tell him..."

An ambulance with 4 medics in it was passing by less than 5 mins after the impact, and they stopped to help. The bystanders had told them what had happened and they'd forced my door open. All I recall is the noise the door made when it came open and the guy's hands and voice telling Urbaner who he was, what had happened and that he was there to help.

Breathe in.....hurrrts....breathe out.....hurrrrrtssss....breathe.........just breathe.

The noise and activity made me even more determined to fight the fog, and I tried as hard as I could to tell the medic what happened as he put a c-collar on me and tried to keep me warm. I think I must've had a brief LOC because the next thing I recall was looking into the faces of firemen in bunkers and a State Trooper I'd worked with in the past. They had their hands on me, pulling me onto a backboard and suddenly I could see nothing but grey again and started panicking, thinking the fog had beat me.

My cell phone rang and I realized I wasn't in the fog, just horizontal and looking at the sky. John the medic said "it says Urbaner on the ID, hon. That your man?"

"yeah, my husband.....please, it hurts me. Please....tell him what happened and to call RCRH. Tell him I'm ok..."

"MZ NinjaMedics phone, is this Mr NinjaMedic? She's temporarily inconvienienced, sir. Can't really talk well right now. Had a little wreck wit......oh, you're an officer too, sir? Ok, well then I'll tell you: your wife has been involved in a head on collision with a semi at a decent rate of speed and we're taking her to RCRH. If I were you I'd head to the hospital, we'll meet you there. Oh, and she wants me to tell you she's ok. What?! Greenland?! Call the hospital, Sir. That's the best advice I can give you".

In the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital they cut my clothes off. When we reached the trauma bay, I felt like I was descending into hell; being pawed at clawed and cut and snipped and shouted at by creatures in masks and gowns and goggles. I knew what was going down, I knew the routine, but when you're disoriented and hurt and scared it's a totally different ball of wax.

I hadn't torn my aorta. I had, however (and this is top to bottom, not in order of severity):a concussion, torn tendons in my neck, knocked my front teeth loose and fractured the roots, bloodied my nose, hairline fractures my scapula, broken too many ribs to count, broken my left clavicle, dislocated both shoulders, cracked my sternum, torn tissue in my left breast, broken my right knuckle, cardiac and pulmonary contusions (which were worse on the left than the right), herniated the disc between L4 and L5, damn near ruptured my bladder (that's why I pissed my pants) and lacerated my knees on the dash - and that's just what they found in the first hour of being there.

Apparently the cardiac and pulmonary contusions were bad enough to warrant the first 12 hours of my 4 day hospital stay in the ICU.

Coming home was an experience. I had 2 black eyes, my left arm was in a sling strapped to my ribs with an ACE wrap, my back hurt me to walk, lay, sit and stand, I was on narcs for pain, and I had 3 kids to chase after. There was one flight out of Thule a week, and it left at noon on Thursdays. I got hit at 1233. By the time the next Thursday rolled around, I was out of the hospital and home, so......no Urbaner. I learned that trying to wash dishes by hand with one arm in a sling was difficult, that cereal really IS good for supper too, that if you try really hard you can hold puke in your mouth until you get to a receptacle so's you don't have to clean it out of the carpet or frighten your kids by yakking in front of them, that there is no good or comfortable way to sneeze when you have busted ribs, and that 8 year olds are good 'go to'-ers in a pinch.

I also learned that getting back on the horse is good therapy. I HAD to drive, see. Nobody else was going to drive me everywhere and I had babies to look after. So, I had to pull my big girl panties on and I had to do it.

I wish I could tell you how many times I got out of the car after a trip, told the kids that I was going to tidy something in the garage, and cried when they were out of sight. Just sobbed. Sat on the stoop and sobbed because I had been frightened, WAS frightened......scared, and lonely. I started smoking again, quit eating, and dropped another 30lbs that I couldn't afford and didn't need to lose. When Urbaner came home on mid-tour leave 2 months later, one of the first things he said to me when he saw me in the airport was "you need to eat". I was right at 100lbs. For me, that's tiny.

Oh, and my lovely neighbors at the time? Yeah, she called Urbaner in Greenland the 2nd day I was home from the hospital and told him I was fucking some guy in our bed and that she could hear it. Uh huh. I'm broken, physically, but I'm having orgies every night. Right.

I'm not writing about this because I want people to feel sorry for me. I'm writing because....well, because next week will be 5 years and because it's on my mind. I'm better now, I'm mentally better and physically I'm almost where I need and want to be. I follow through on things now and I'm appreciative of....well, of lots of things.

I'm ok. I survived, and I'm ok.

Part I

In retrospect, she knew she was in big trouble as soon as she felt the first inkling of the slide. Call in whatever you want: deja vue, premonition, a dream....whatever you call it, she'd already seen it. Seen herself, the truck, the color of the light....she'd seen it already. She just thought she'd be the passenger, not the driver, and she thought she'd die.

She'd been in a good mood that morning; she'd cleaned the kitchen and had decided to go get a manicure for a treat. She'd lost some weight recently and was feeling, in general, better about herself. More positive. Attractive, even. Her husband was in the Arctic Circle, working, and she'd gone through a period of ' I can't cope with 3 kids by myself' blues in the months after his departure, but they were 1/4 of the way through and she was getting into her groove.

It was chilly when she left, but nowhere near as cold as it was when she started out home. The temperature had dropped what felt like 20 degrees in the hour she'd been in the store, and the sky was what she called 'South Dakota grey' - a color that usually indicated a sky full of snow and an incoming storm. She decided to head home, thinking that the schools might let out early, not wanting to miss her kids getting off the bus.

As it turned out, she WOULD miss them, but not because school let out early.

She'd driven South Dakota roads for 8 years by then and knew what to expect. She put her Cherokee into 4 wheel drive, kept the speed under 45 and made sure she had plenty of space between her and the car in front of her. She had the radio on and was singing along with Nirvana when she felt the unmistakable twitch of the rear end.

"It's ok....it's ok....hands on the wheel, foot off the gas, don't yank, don't brake.....let it go, breathebreathebreathe...."

Only when she saw the concrete barrier of the overpass on her right did she realize that she couldn't just let the skid go. It was low, lower than the center of gravity on her Jeep, and she knew that if she let things go along she'd run a very good risk of toppling off the overpass onto the concrete 30' below. So, she did what she'd been taught to do. She tried to control the skid, turning into it, not away from it., not yanking hard, not gripping the wheel tight....being as gentle with the wheel as she would with a child.

It worked. She slid away from the barrier.....right into the median, all the way around, and ended up in the fast lane of the opposite side of the road, facing oncoming traffic.

As she was spinning on the median, she caught a glimpse of the semi barreling down the interstate out of the corner of her eye. As she slid into it's lane, her stomach dropped to her toes and every hair on her body stood on end in anticipation.

"Just hold on, just hold on, just hold on ohfuckohfuckohfuckthisisgonnabebadohmybabiesmybabies........"

The sound of metal crunching and glass breaking and rubber and concrete creating heat together was the only thing she remembered of the impact. When the world stopped spinning, she remembered looking for the hood of the Jeep and not seeing it, not seeing anything out of the windshield and not being able to understand where the front end of her truck was. She looked down and saw her airbag in her lap, smeared with blood and instinctively put her hands to her face. When they came away bloodied, she was shocked enough to realize that she was hurt and needed to call for help. As she reached into her pocket for her cell phone, she started taking stock of her body and what it was telling her: neck hurts, both shoulders hurt but the left is really fucking sore, chest is fucking killing me, back hurts, pissed my pants and my belly hurts, face hurts, legs hur...chest....chest hurts...........oh fuck, don't let me be pinned. Please. I've got to get out of here. Please. Someone help me. Please.

"911, what is your emergency?" said the mundane flat voice.

"This is Officer NinjaMedic with xxxxxx xxxxxx, I've been involved in a front end collision with a semi on Interstate 90 at approximately mile marker xxxxx and I'm hurt. Can you send a patrol officer by and start a rescue unit for me?......my chest hurts and I'm ha......having a hard time......I don't feel so good. Really, I don't feel.....don't feel....feel like I'm gonna faint...tell the rescue.....tell them th........aortic dissec.....aorta.....help me. My babies. My babies..."




*I can't write any more today, it's giving me too much grief to think about it. It's almost 5 years now, but it seems like it's just yesterday, and having this surgery on thursday to fix my shoulder -the one that I hurt in the wreck - is fucking with me too. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise. However, you all know I didn't die, 'cause I'm here to tell you about it*.

Freebirthing: reckless endangerment?

Once again, I'm watching Discovery Health. This time I'm seeing trailers for a show about 'freebirthing': the practice of delivering babies at home with no pain medication or medical intervention.

When I say 'no medical intervention' I mean it. NONE. No prenatal care, no medical personnel on standby, not a goddamn motherfucking thing. One chick on there said 'The safest person to deliver our baby is my husband and I' and 'if something goes wrong I'll only have myself to blame'.

Umm.

Err.

You're kidding me, right? Please tell me you're kidding me. You're not kidding me? You're actually SERIOUS about this?

Are you fucking INSANE??!!???!!

I am all for women laboring and giving birth with minimal medical interventions. I'll even go so far as to say that I'm for women or their husband's 'catching' the baby as it comes out (although I will say that you'd have to be a contortionist with a VERY high tolerance for pain in order to catch your own kid) as long as there's someone who has some medical or obstetrical training close by to help if things go wrong. But what I cannot agree with is a woman willfully rejecting ALL forms of medical care during her pregnancy and during labor and delivery. I cannot agree with that, and I WILL not. There are too many things that can go wrong. Breech presentations. Prolapsed cords. Meconium. Beta Strep positive mothers. Fetal cardiac decelerations. Premature births. Immature lungs. Fetal demise. Things that make me break out in a cold sweat just thinking about dealing with them, and I've got the benefit of some training behind me - and a big engine with lights and sirens that can get to a hospital quicker than your average bear.

IF something goes wrong, will that woman be prosecuted for reckless endangerment? How about infanticide? After all, she made a conscious decision to NOT see a doctor, midwife or nurse. Isn't that forethought? Planning, even? How is it that a physician can be sued for malpractice if his actions lead to a child being born with cerebral palsy due to hypoxia, brain damage from improperly applied forceps, Bells Palsy or, in the worst case scenario, dead? How is it that people who cause the death of a pregnant woman can be charged with TWO homicides, yet these women who freebirth don't think themselves legally liable and feel they shouldn't go to jail?

Isn't freebirthing the ultimate act of selfishness? Isn't the MOST important thing at the end of a pregnancy a healthy baby?

'If something goes wrong, I'll only have myself to blame'. Yeah. You can blame yourself whilst you're sitting in jail because you risked your child's life so you could have what YOU wanted.

How fucking selfish.

Happy Birthday, FTS

Future Trauma Surgeon is 16 today.

She was born via C-Section because she was a footling breech. My water broke, I went to the hospital, her heart tones were good but the OB doc had a hunch she'd flipped so he did an U/S and he was right - she'd flipped and had her head up against my ribs.

Having a C-Section with an epidural was a very strange sensation. I could feel them rummaging around in there, and felt her weight lifted out of me when she was born.

She was a tiny wee thing, just 6lbs 12oz. She had big eyes and a scruffy little mop of fair hair. She was well for the first 6 weeks, and then got sick. We went home to England, and thanks to the sllooooooooow moving NHS, she spent a lot of her first year in a hospital with nephritis - she had a duplicated collecting system on her right kidney that had a different drain rate than the main kidney and it got infected. All the time. Porfessor Moriquand at Addenbrooke's performed a partial right nephrectomy 6 days before her first birthday and she hasn't had any issues since then - except for a big scar on her side, which doesn't bother her.

She's smart; smarter than I could ever hope to be. She's an Honor and High Honor roll student, and she knows what she wants to be. One of my proudest moments was when she came to college with me and we went down to the cadaver lab. She didn't flinch, and before I knew it she was in the abdominal cavity, identifying organs. 15 years old, poking around in a dead guys guts like it wasn't anything gross or gory or macarbe. Spectacular.

Happy birthday, Future Trauma Surgeon. There is no doubt in my mind that one day soon (for me, anyway. I know it seems like a long way off for you right now) you WILL be known as 'Doctor' and you WILL achieve your goal.

I love you, and I am incredibly proud to not only know you, but to call you my daughter. Happy Birthday, chickie.

A son's love...

My Littlest Guy is a sweetheart. He's a naturally gifted and talented musician, and he is one of the sweetest, most thoughtful kids I know (yes, I know, 'momma-goggles' and all that....but he IS a sweetheart).

Here's how thoughtful he is: Monday is trash day on our street. People usually set their items out on the curb Sunday afternoon. LG, FTS and Will-I-Am (FTS's bf) were driving down the street Sunday afternoon when I saw a little wooden valet (desk/dressing table) sitting next to someone's trash can. I don't know a whole lot about antiques and furniture, but I know solid wood when I see it...and this was solid wood. I remarked that if the valet wasn't rickety I'd use it as a dressing table for my makeup and girly things and that it was a shame that someone was trashing it.

4 hours later, right after dark, here come LG and Numbah Two ....with the valet. "I got it for you, mom, so's you've got somewhere to do your makeup" LG says. "Numbah Two helped me carry it, and they also had a leather couch out there that we're gonna go get for Numbah Two's room".

And they did. Structurally the couch is in good shape, but my gawd was the leather dirty. It took me 3 hours and almost 1/4 can of saddle soap to get it clean, but it cleaned up WONDERFULLY. Why the hell people buy cream leather couches and then don't bother to care for them or clean them properly is beyond me, but....it's clean now and will be taken care of for the rest of it's lifespan.

As for LG's gift to me...bless his little cotton socks. He knew his momma wanted it, so he went trash picking (something his father frowns upon, just so you know. I could care less; one man's trash is another man's treasure) and got it for me.

It hasn't been loved at all. It had spray paint marks on it and the wood (it WAS solid, like I'd thought - and sturdy, too) was SO thirsty.....but I scrubbed it and oiled it and waxed it and it went from a dirty brown to a wonderful dark brown with red highlights in the wood. It's great, and I'm going to use it in my room.

Now I'm on the lookout for an older mirror to hang on the wall in front of it, and an old piano or other stool for me to sit on in front of it. I know how to do needlepoint, and I have plans for a family tree piece to upholster/reupholster the seat of the stool. I want to make it really special......because the piece of furniture was given to me by someone who is incredibly special.

What he did for me is, IMO, a true testament of a 12 year old's love for his mother. I couldn't ask for a better son.

Sucky suckers and the suckiness they cause.

This sucks. Ass. Big, fat, ugly, stinky ass.

I'm allergic to something as yet unknown. I have an epi pen - yeah, it's THAT bad - and I'm getting skin tested tomorrow. However, BECAUSE I'm getting skin tested, I can't take any allergy meds this week. At all. No allegra, no zyrtec, no singular, not even a wee little benadryl.

Since Saturday I have been itching incessantly. I've been sneezing constantly, my nose seems intent on purging every ounce of fluid I've got in my body out through my nostrils - and what's left has been leaking out of my eyes. I've spent more time WITH urticaria than without and I look like I dove in and took care of business for C over at Space To Rant on his recent night out because I've got 'allergic shiners'. The whites of my eyes have a lovely red bloodshot look to them and my whole face is swollen.

I am, in other words, a miserable bitch right now. I'm not ill enough to want to take to my bed, nor am I ill enough to warrant a shot of epi and a trip to the ER (although I briefly considered it yesterday when my face broke out in hives and it felt like I had a chunk of food stuck in my throat. However, it resolved itself in a pretty short amount of time, so no emergency for me). I'm just fucking miserable enough to want to whine about it.

So, I'm whining. Wah.

Wah. This sucks. This is the suckiest suck that ever sucked in the history of sucks.

Wah.

Here endeth today's whine.

NinjaMedic and the wonderful very good awesome most excellent day.

Right now I am as happy as the proverbial pig in poo.

The sun is shining and it's been a beautiful day weather-wise - not too hot, not too cold; just a gorgeous day.

Urbaner came home for lunch and he and I got to eat together and hang out for a half an hour sans interruptions from teenagers and co-workers.

I found some knitting patterns for baby hats on teh intarwebs (WoollyWormhead's 'Wee Woolly Toppers', 5 English pounds for 16 designs, available either as a brochure or as a PDF download from www.woollywormhead.blogspot.com) and some knitting books that I had ordered arrived via the USPS this afternoon. A quick perusal of said books and I have some wonderful ideas for Christmas gifts for family and friends -and even better, I HAVE THE NECESSARY YARN AND NEEDLES ALREADY IN MY STASH!!!! That makes me happy - and it'll make Urbaner even happier!

I felt well enough to get some laundry and light housework done and even managed to stave off the sleepies this afternoon with a nice cup of PG Tips tea. Hopefully not taking a nap this afternoon will mean I get to sleep before 0130 tomorrow morning.....

The sutures on my incisions are falling out left right and center and my Franken-boobage is looking MUCH better. The bruising is going away and I'm getting used to having smaller breasts now. A couple of people who I haven't seen in a while and who didn't know what procedure I had done have asked me if I've lost weight, which I think is great.

The only slightly dark cloud on the horizon of my very good wonderful most EXCELLENT day was a 1/2" stretch of incision that's started to open up. It's not horrifically deep - just skin - and it's not huge, but it's open nonetheless. There isn't, however, anything anyone can do about it....I just have to keep it clean and wait for it to close itself.

Sunshine, books, knitting and healing all make NinjaMedic a VERY happy camper. What about you? What makes YOUR day wonderful?

Dear Kirtons

Dear Mr and Mrs Kirton,

I watched the documentary about you on Discovery Health last night, and I am even more dismayed and disgusted with your behaviour and attitude.

I don't care what you say to the contrary, there is NO way on earth that you could NOT have know that there was something very, very wrong with your children before the birth of your 6th and final baby. NO WAY.

I understand that having 6 children is rough, period, and I cannot imagine how it must be to have six children with varying degrees of autism. However, there is no excuse for living conditions in your home. None. It wasn't just untidy, it was filthy and unhygenic and I am gobsmacked that you'd be willing to go on national television and let the nation see that you live like pigs (actually, that's an insult to pigs. I've seen sties that were positively sanitary and pristine compared to your home.

I wasn't going to watch the show, but I felt that I needed to give you the benefit of the doubt and really was hoping to be able to write an article here saying that I was wrong and that I owed you an apology. However, this morning....I don't feel that I should apologize for anything, because my suspicions were right.

I didn't think it was possible to feel any more disgusted than I did last week. I was wrong. Boy, was I ever wrong.


Love,

NM