In a Nutshell

I've been kinda busy, going here and there and doing little things in between.

-Made an impromptu trip to San Antonio last week for Fiesta. It was very brief, but very fun. Loved being back in ol' San Antone.

-Made another impromptu trip, but this time to El Paso to visit X's side of the family. Had fun. Went to the outlet mall, spent too much money for a person who doesn't have a job, but whatcha gonna do? Besides, I found a dress to wear in my brother's wedding.

-Been hunting for a pediatrician for Lucero. Since X lost his job, we have no health insurance, so I did what I had to do and signed my baby up for Medicaid. Well, her current pediatrician doesn't accept Medicaid, which is why I had to go find another doc for her. Just for the record, this will be the third pediatrician she's seen in her first year of life.

-Speaking of first year, I've been planning my little one's first birthday bash, or shall I say fiesta? Afterall, Lucero is a Cinco de Mayo baby, so it's only fitting that her first birthday go with the theme.


And that's about it.

In Golightly news, I got this e-mail from a friend a couple of days ago.
"Hi Everyone,

Can you believe it, 7 weeks already? 44 days have passed since Golightly has talked to us.... it still doesn't seem to make sense.

Just wanted to send my post Dallas visit update. Things are looking more positive on the eye movement front. As of yesterday, she was keeping her eyes open for long durations. This weekend on Sat she kept them open for over an hour. Yesterday, she was able to move her head in the direction of her mom's voice.... These are all great signs. She hasn't shown any sign of waking up, but she was able to track her brother's finger with her eyes.... But the doctors aren't really sure what all this means. We just can't know anything about her prognosis until she wakes up.

In positive news, one of Golightly's good friend, in her tireless efforts, has arraigned for angel flight to take Golightly home at no cost to her mother, when the time comes. This is incredible news and such a weight lifted off her mother's shoulders. But when this will all happen depends on when Golightly gets medicaid to help her find a long term nursing home that can take her.

i want to thank everyone who has made a donation to Golightly. We have raised a fair amount money, all that will help her family take care of Golightly. Please continue to donate if you can, any dollar amount will help.

As the days pass it gets harder and harder to hold on to hope. Friends of friends forget to ask us how she is doing, our daily routines go back to a sort of normal, but please don't forget about Golightly and don't let your friends forget about her either. Her family is never going to be normal again, they will be dealing with the repercussions of this accident, no matter what the outcome, for the rest of their lives.

We, Golightly's friends and family, are planning a fundraiser in Dallas in June. We are thinking June 13th or so. So please mark your calenders now. Its going to be along the lines of food and fun, with everyone making a donation."



And also, if anyone is curious, the guy who was driving the vehicle in which Golightly was riding in when the accident occurred, he's Cowboy's old roommate, a cop...well, he was let go from his position. So that's the latest and greatest on that.

Golightly News

Sorry, I haven't been quick on the updates on Golightly, but that's partly because I haven't been updated much myself. This is the latest.

E-mail from a friend:

"Hi everyone,

Sorry it's been awhile since I have emailed about Golightly.

I did go see her this past weekend. We spent the Easter Holiday together. She is doing amazing things. She can open her eyes, we are pretty sure she can't see us, but we do believe she can hear us. She responds to small commands. She works really hard to move her hands, fingers and eyes for us. It really gives you hope that she is still in there trying to make her way back to us. We really need her to wake up soon. The longer she stays in this 'coma state' the less chances she has for some sort of recovery.

She looks great. If you didn't know her situation you would honestly think she was just asleep. She is in a private room at Baylor, there are no machines surrounding her, but she is constantly being monitored. They are talking about moving her from Baylor to some sort of long term care facility soon, but as of right now that isn't a definite.

Along with the good news, comes some bad. They did do a MRI on her brain last week, and sadly the damage that we feared in the beginning is there along with some new damage they discovered. On the scan it showed some frontal lobe damage as well as all the other damage from before. While this news is devastating on some level the doctors, her family, and I are not giving up hope. While her chances of a complete recovery are small, there is still a chance. I refuse to believe that my oldest and dearest friend is going to be like this forever.

For those of you unaware Golightly does not have health insurance. So should she recover she will be saddled with literally millions of dollars in hospital bills. Golightly's mom is going to start a trust fund for her this week at Wells Fargo. If you haven't already donated to the Walk like Madd walk next weekend, we ask that you hold on to you money and donate it to Golightly personally. She will need all the help that she can get.

Keep the prayers and good thoughts coming. God has a plan, hopefully he will let us in on it soon."


That's interesting that her friend mentioned the lack of insurance, because when I first heard of the accident that was one of my second or third thoughts. I don't know if yall knew this, but Golightly had been laid off from her job about a month or so before the accident, which of course means no health insurance. It's so unfortunate that this accident that didn't have to happen has completely changed the life of a healthy, young woman and those closest to her.


An update from her patient website:

"Dear friends and family,

As many of you know Golightly's condition at Baylor Hospital is stable , however her status with insurance and rehabilitation at this point is not. Golightly unfortunately lost her job in January due to economic cutbacks. She has had her cobra insurance which covers $500 a day of the medical expenses that are incurred by the hospital. Because of the small amount that her cobra covers it has been a painstaking process of trying to find a facility that will accept Golightly out of the hospital.

So far Golightly has been denied placement in 8 facilities in the Dallas area and several facilities in the Arizona area as well. Daily the hospital staff asks us what the plans are for placement for Golightly but with so many facilities turning her down it is a constant battle. We have applied for state medicaid insurance which is a tedious process and which does not cover much. Decision is pending.

We are asking family and friends if you can to assist with as much as possible . We would like to have her transported to Arizona where her mom lives, transport of which ranges between $12- $15,000.00 for air flight. She still cannot breathe on her own and needs in flight nurse for management of her tracheotomy ( breathing tube) and other vital equipment.

We have set up a benefit account with Wells Fargo so that any donations for Golightly's management can be handled accordingly. We ask that you hold off on any donations to the MADD walk, as we have already met the goal!! YAY!! Please donate to her medical care to the account info below. This is a benefit donation account on her behalf. Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers.

Love and Godbless,
Golightly's Family"



If anyone is interested in donating to Golightly's account, please e-mail me and I will provide you with the account information and whatnot. And please spread the word on your own blogs as well. Golightly's family needs all the help they can get.


P.S. If there are any multi-millionaires reading my blog, I think a donation to Golightly's cause would make a lovely charitable gift.

The Beverly Art of Breastfeeding

When I initially began breastfeeding I told myself I would do it as long as I could tolerate it or until Lucero turns one. Well, we're just a few weeks shy of her first birthday and I'm still nursing. I feel like a pioneer, not in the sense that I'm the first to begin this new venture, but in the sense of those early settlers we learned about in history, because I imagine a whole lot of those women pioneers were breastfeeding also.

The number one reason I wanted to breastfeed was because it was dirt cheap. I knew the cost of formula was outrageous. I'm not even sure why it's so expensive, but really it's ridiculous. I really saved us a ton of money. Money that was better put to use, say on diapers. Of course, the other reasons to breastfeed, like it being the best nourishment for the baby, being able to lose the weight quicker, and the sheer convenience of it, were additional benefits.

When I first began this long journey of nourishing my child by way of the breast, it was torture. Pure torture. It hurt like hell just to get the little one to latch on properly. It was one of the toughest things I've had to do: endure pain just to feed my baby. But I was constantly reminded of another mother I knew. She complains about everything, like everything is a big deal. I thought to myself, "if this lady can do it and she seems to have a hard time with everything, than I should be able to do it too." Yeah, so that was my motivation for pushing through the difficult times. Plus, I heard in order to truly give breastfeeding a chance, you should wait at least six weeks, 'cause it dramatically improves over time. And it did. It definitely got much easier after she began eating baby food. That meant less time on my breasts, which was so freeing.

Some things I had no idea about before breastfeeding: that while I was feeding her on one breast, the other would be leaking. Yeah, I discovered this early on when I looked down and saw one side of my shirt soaked. The other thing I didn't know was that it would be my hard boobs that would wake me in the middle of night and not my crying baby. More times than not I would wake from the sheer discomfort of full breasts, to which I would have to lay on my back instead of my side in order to get a bit more sleep before the baby woke. And no one ever told me that the milk comes out of more than one hole. Yeah, that was new.

And so here we are, almost a year later, and we made it! I think I deserve a medal. Or at least a tax break or something. But now my biggest question is: How do I begin the weaning process? Just to give you an idea of how it works for us lately...

I nurse Lucero first thing in the morning when she wakes.

I nurse her after her first nap.

I nurse her again either before her next nap or after, just depends.

I nurse her at her bedtime.

And then I nurse her pretty much throughout the night, as often as she wakes up, which you never know how often that'll be.


I would consult my handy Womanly Art of Breastfeeding book, but it's deep in storage, so I'm relying on my readers for guidance, that is if any of you have ever been through this before. Is it as painful as they say it is?

Truly, breastfeeding Lucero is one of the best things I could've done, even if it was a pain at times. I thought it was so cliche when mothers said they felt more bonded to their child through breastfeeding. In the beginning, this was not the case for me. But over time, I became attached to my little one more and more and mostly because we shared moments during feedings that no one else can ever have with her and that's the most special thing about it.

Life at Eleven Months

Seriously, are we already at eleven months old? A year ago I was looking like this and now I have this:

Um, can somebody tell me where the time went? As one of my favorite sayings goes, "The days are long, but the years are short." Boy, is that the truth. But maybe in my case it should be the "nights are long." Actually, we are getting a tad better with the sleeping. I'm trying to keep her on a regular nap schedule and this tends to help with the bedtime. She's only waking once or twice in the night, which I consider pretty decent considering before it was much worse. Ideally, I would like her to sleep all night, but we'll get there when we get there. Plus, in attempt to keep her asleep I'm turning off the computer and laying down with her at bedtime. I find that the nights when I don't do this, Lucero tends to keep popping her head up thru the early night while I sit reading blogs, which sometimes leads her to believe her sleep was only a nap and not bedtime. I hate to make the sacrifice of turning off the computer early, but at the same time I hate being up with her until 3am due to her nap mentality. No, thanks.

In the last month Lucero seems to really have turned into a busy body. She still crawls on her tush instead of the regular way. She's gotten very, very good at pulling herself up on things, like the furniture, walls, doors, just about anything she can get a grip on. She cruises the whole room just by holding on to furniture. This also means she's getting her little hands on a lot of things and we are constantly having to be on our feet to keep her from hurting herself or ruining our stuff. She does a lot of babbling and is starting to say "dad" though it's not very clear on the last D. It's more like "da" and that's it. She's picking up lots of little things off the floor and then hands it to us. We grab whatever it is, usually grass, say thank you and throw it in the trash. All in all, in some ways she's easier to work with, but in other ways it's also a bit difficult. I guess it's give and take with these babies as they grow.

Her latest stats
Height: about 28"
Weight: about 19.5 lbs

More pictures...

Headbands don't really work as well on her. I guess 'cause working with all that hair makes it difficult to situate the headband just right.


I love her sleepy face.


As you can see, she's surrounded by toys, but what does she play with? The vacuum cleaner hose.


Just another cute photo


Please note the mess of torn catalogs in the background.


Her first St. Patty's Day.


She still only has those two bottom teeth. Wouldn't it be funny (and kinda creepy) if those were the only teeth she had for life?


Another reason why girls are awesome: you get to tie bows in their hair.


Something new she's learned to do: Put the phone to her ear when we say "Hello?" I have no idea where she picked up this habit.


Her first attempt at hitting the John Deere pinata.


Lucero trying to steal her puppy back from Uncle John.


Lucero at the front door, one of her favorite past times.

She seems to have a guilty look in her eyes here.


Her mean look.


Busted taking all her dirty clothes out of the basket.


Her cute, messy-haired self.


Lucero and her lolly.

In other news, there was a beehive in our front yard. It seemed like it just developed out of nowhere. Thankfully, it got removed a couple of days ago.



Also, some good news on Golightly. I got a call from her friend the other day. Apparently she opened her eyes and kept them open for about ten seconds and then closed them again. That's all that happened, but that's a good sign. I also heard that they may close the trach, because they think she wants to speak.

Golightly's mother is organizing a team for the MADD walk in Dallas for April 25th. If anyone is interested in more details to support this, please let me know and I'll forward you the information.

This and That

First, I just wrote out a check to pay off my Trailblazer. Finally! Five years (and a couple of months) and it's all paid off. I've been longing for this day for a while now. I can't tell you what a relief it is, but it feels so good to be rid of that one big payment a month.

Second, here's some of the pictures from Lucero's photo session at Sears.

I liked her expression in this one best, but the dang photographer didn't even think about that one foot missing. She just looks silly without it, don't ya think?


A close up


I like this one, but I'm not sure why I didn't order any prints of it.


My mom thinks she looks too big girl-like in this photo.


I would've preferred if the chair was white or cream, but at least you can see the full length of the dress.


I didn't care too much for this one at all. I mean, Lucero looks cute, but the flowers are a bit too casual for the dress.


Another close up, but once again I didn't order prints of it. Not sure why. I guess I felt pressured to narrow down my options and this one was eliminated.


Um, not to crazy about this one either. She looks kinda like Mady from John & Kate + Eight.


Once again, great photo of my daughter, but the bear is overbearing (no pun intended) her.


The only full length shot without props and that actually shows both her feet. She looks cute, but I still prefer the expression from the first one. However, I went ahead and ordered this in a large print, 'cause I needed that one full length shot that captured her as a baby.

Truly, I wish I had taken professional pictures of her when she was a newborn, but yall know the old song and dance: no money in budget = no photos. And even these photos aren't exactly what I had in mind, but I needed something. I guess they turned out well overall though.

Third, Golightly is still fighting strong to heal herself. Her condition remains the same but she becomes more and more responsive everyday. She has been moved upstairs at Baylor to the 13th floor and into a private room, which I guess means she's doing well enough to be moved off the ICU floor.

I've thought about her so much in the last three weeks. I so miss our conversations, her e-mails with links to some blog featuring a cute idea, her texts filling me in on some little detail in her day, her blog posts and even her comments on my blog. I'm praying that when she wakes up, she's better than before. I understand they said there were lesions or tears in her brain that were unrepairable, but I believe God is bigger than that and can fix any tear man can't. I just want her to wake up, so we can pick up where we left off, but better.

To Kathy - I didn't realize there was an article related to the accident. I would like to read it if you have a link for it. Thanks.