Life in the fast lane!

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Isn't he absolutely gorgeous? Yep thats my great nephew Tyson in the LO above and at only 14 months old he is just the cutest and most adorablest. Of course had to scrap and now it's ready to be printed and given to my niece as a gift.

As for life in the fast lane................well that's kinda where I feel I'm at these days. My days are full and my mind is even fuller...no room left in there to fit anything else.....lol!

The past couple of weeks has seen our son Lance in an extremely severe mental state that has a whole team helping him with his extreme depression and panic disorder. He needs to be in hospital but here where we live there are no adolescent units and so everyday they try to get him in the adult unit but everyday there is no bed.....you know the hospital system really stinks.

So with the help of psychiatric professionals, his case manager, carer's support and every other government department involved we continue to do the best we can with his medication and monitoring him at home....not an easy thing for any family to have to deal with but that's the only option we have. We have been up to hospital twice in the past week attending to both his psychiatric and medical needs and he is on clinical alert because he is so unstable.

It's almost a month (tomorrow Oct 6th) since dad died and I still can't believe it. Every time I go too mum's I simply expect dad to walk in from the backyard or in from the letterbox and for him to say g'day Chris and sit in his chair in the lounge......and every time I go I realise it isn't going to happen......he's gone and that's pretty hard to deal with alot of the time.

My parents were both full time carers for my grandmother who is 95 and has dementia, since dad's passing her dementia has taken a serious dive for the worse and although we knew this was happening, it's just another huge bump in the road we are traveling and I would like to take a new route personally but this is reality and that's not possible. Still dealing with the grief of losing dad mum is sole carer for nana now with our help and things are bad. As much as I can, I do what I can for both of them and on Sunday nana had a fairly serious fall at home and although no broken bones there is some damage to her spine but operating on it would put her at serious risk and I don't think we could handle that reality after just losing dad. She is in hospital but last night she had an even more serious fall and somehow managed to climb out over the bed rails that keep her in and with the bed up so high she fell over the rails onto the floor, 2 black eyes and a seriously huge cut across her forehead requiring alot of stitches is the result. It is so full on for us at the moment and my poor mother who is 72 is exhausted....yep just like the rest of us.

In the past month alone I have had 24 appointments and that does not include the time spent in hospital, dealing with dads passing, funeral arrangements, the recent time spent with Lance in the emergency department over this past week and now nana in hospital as a patient, or the phone calls that take just as long as appointments and of course helping mum in anyway I can.
Welcome to my world and I need a clone!!!!!!!!!

So please understand the lack of scrapping as it just isn't happening and please understand the lack of blogging....just don't get as much time to do both these days and things aren't looking like they will improve any time soon.

On a more positive note though I have a table full of paper scrapping goodies and I am very slowly putting an 8x8 album together for Steps for Christmas. It is something that is taking ages and I usually work on it when Lance is on my pc and he is settled both mentally and physically which only happens occasionally or very late at night/early morning when he is finally asleep and the house is quiet.

I had all these plans this Christmas with gift making and card making and all that goes with the festive season and not any of it is going to be possible....but I guess there's always next year.......I hope because I just love the Christmas Season!

To my dearest friend Tara....know that I'm thinking of you and the difficulties you are enduring at this time. To the rest of you hugs and God Bless all of you.

Till next blogging stay safe, take care and huge hugs!

P.S. I'd love you all to pop in and say hi on my blog....I miss you all! xoxo

Yay I finally scrapped!

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Yes can you believe it....I have scrapped and darn well proud of it too. This LO was created using the new I See the Sea Collab Kit over at La-Di-Da Studios with a few other little goodies from there thrown in as well. I personally love the touches of red...but then it's one of my fave colours anyway.

Life is flat out but then when isn't it and Tim and I are off to visit his parents so a quick post and till next blogging take care and stay safe. Hugs Chris xoxo

Back to some sort of normality!

We are trying to get back to some sort of normality here in the Turnbull household since my father (the kids grandad) passed away on the 6th of October. His funeral was held last Friday on the 10th and it was such a beautiful service but it is so hard to get my head around that dad is actually gone and I feel I haven't had a chance to catch my breath since it all happened as I have been so busy.

This week alone I have had 5 appointments and they are all just for Lance. I am looking forward to having some time out this coming weekend to spend some time in my garden and some time in reflection. As for scrapping well I'm sure when life's busyness slows down a little I might just find time for that.

But I can tell you about a new digi shop and site called La-Di-Da Studios home to a couple of pretty awesome designers and check out some of the gorgeous goodies they have.

First up if you spend $12 or more in the shop you can get this massive mega kit for free...now that is one awesome special.

Next we have one for all those mums that have gorgeous pregnant belly photos in need of some scrapping. This Belly Pop Pregnancy Collab kit by Faith True and Tara Dunstan is awesome.

I'm off to get myself ready and get organised. Lance has a paediatricians appointment today and that will be very interesting as there has been alot of background work done behind the scenes with the team helping Lance and his official diagnosis is now complete. With his recent diagnosis of Autism some 3 months ago we knew there was more to it then that and as of last week with the latest official medical report from his paediatrician, psychologist and psychiatrist he also has a panic/anxiety disorder and presumed coronary heart spasm. That part is all official and all complete.

We are now also having to look into Epilepsy because of the recent seizures which the results of the EEG coming back clear but his paediatrician said as good as that is it has not ruled out epilepsy so just another thing to deal with for Lance as 30% of autistic people also end up with epilepsy. All I can say is what an awful lot for one kid to have to deal with but we are there helping him in every aspect and there is finally a whole team working with us as well. It has taken a very very long time to get this far and the entire family need every bit of support and help we can get.

Maddison recently had his eyes checked and he is now having to wear bifocals because his close up sight had changed but not distance. We were looking at getting him graduating or progressive lenses but his eyes are so bad that the thought was if we did try them it would only distort his peripheral vision so badly which he needs. He is slowly adjusting to them as we only got them Monday but they look awesome anyway as he has new frames which are nice black trendy ones and look fab on him. I will however endeavour to try and take a photo of him so you can all see just how cool they really look.

Tim and the girls are doing fairly well and we just take each day at a time....that's pretty much all one can do anyhow. So on that note I'll love ya and leave ya and until next blogging take care, stay safe and ciao. Hugs Chris xoxo

It is with much sadness that........

This morning at 12:25 am (AEST) daylight savings time my father Ronald James Parsell passed away peacefully in Critical Care at the Bendigo Hospital. As family gathered around him to say our last goodbyes and as I held his hand, he lost his 12 day battle with an aggressive form of cancer. Goodbye Dad, goodbye Grandad we love you so much and miss you already. xoxoxoxoxoxo

Another Day at the Office!

Yes since last blogging I think there have been a few more days at the office, the only disadvantage is I'm not getting paid for any of it but boy do I do my fair share in life each and everyday and then some.

No I'm not talking about working in a real office but here at home as a full time carer for not only hubby Tim and our 2 youngers kids because they are visually impaired but for our 17 year old son Lance who is autistic and is 24/7 both in every way you can possibly imagine and then some.

Today we tried to go out, just a small trip to the Chinese Museum and gardens and lunch in the park. It took some time to get ready as it does in a family of 6 and Lance managed fairly well.....or so we thought. The very reality of living with autism and a severe anxiety disorder (just too name a few) hits home every minute of our lives when our son can barely manage to get ready to go out let alone walk out the front door into a world that just hasn't been created for him. He had a meltdown went to bed and stayed there and then Tim and I have to try and still focus on taking the other kids out but we do even with the mental anxiety both of us feel leaving Lance home in the state he was and on his own.......grrrrrr to be torn so many ways so many times is exhausting. So we just do lunch at subway and manage looking in the old post office and all it's history and then home, yep cut short once again. Welcome to the Turnbull world and our lives.

We are learning more and more not only about Autism itself but different anxieties and co morbid diagnoses in our son as well. We have been borrowing books from the library but recently we started purchasing books because we need those books here at home to book mark all the things that we need to have with us all the time.

Our little collection is growing and so far we have All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome - Kathy Hoopmann (although our son has autism NOT Asperger's Syndrome this is a beautiful picture book I fell in love with), Nobody Nowhere, Somebody Somewhere, Like Colour To The Blind, Exposure Anxiety - The Invisible Cage and The Jumbled Jigsaw all by autistic author Donna Williams who was born in Australia in 1963. She grew up hearing words such as 'deaf', 'disturbed', 'crazy' and 'spastic' and wasn't formally diagnosed with Autism until adulthood. Yep one amazing woman I reckon with trying and succeeding in making sense of our world within her own.

Monday Tim and Maddison had an appointment at our optometrists and Tim now needs to wear reading glasses, yes he wears glasses full time anyway but with this genetic eye disease Tim, Stephanie and Maddi has, it just doesn't make things nice and easy for any of them. Maddison now also needs to wear bifocals as he needs to have reading glasses and his left lens has to be stepped up twice. But that's not all as after lots of thought and making the right decision as to whether or not Maddi would cope with 2 pairs of glasses....the ones he wears all the time and then a pair of reading glasses for reading, computer etc etc and the fact that progressive or graduated lenses could possibly allow his peripheral sight to be distorted which is not good seeing as what they have is a rarer form of macular degeneration and they rely heavily on their peripheral sight to see what we would normally see looking through our central vision, that the best would be indeed bi focals and so long as they will work for him. Not a cheap exercise as we have to pay for all these pairs of glasses and Maddi's old ones are only a year old and his new pair are another $600 and if they don't work for him then we have to go with plan B and he goes back to wearing the old ones but then we still have to pay for another pair of reading glasses as well. Yikes these bifocals had better work. Clear as mud?! Yep thought so!

Now you can understand a little as to why I scrap....many reasons apart from memories and capturing all those moments in life. But for me it's about letting my creativity unfold and taking some much needed theraputic time just for me.....yep my time to zone out from everything going on around me.....well at least try to a little. While I'm on the topic of scrapping....look below, gorgeous isn't she. Yep that's Stephanie who is 15 next March.....oooh now that's hard to imagine but she will be. She actually took this photo herself and I just love it and as a dedicated scrapper I just had to scrap this one.

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So that's it for now and if you stop by please pop in and say hello. I know so many of you come this way and I would love you to say howdy in your own special way. So till next blogging stay safe and take care. Hugs Chris xoxo