Health Update

It's been a while since I've made updates on my pregnancy's progress. I wanted to let y'all know what's been up with me lately. I had a huge fallback with my health starting back in December when I began throwing up a few times which is normal because of morning sickness. Then it escalated to a point where I had such severe morning sickness, I mean, I was throwing up every 15-45 minutes and bad smells had been part of why it got so bad. One night I had enough and literally had no fluids in my body that I decided I needed to go to the hospital. I went and got hooked up to 3 bags of iv fluids. After that, I was given anti-nausea meds and released to go home. I was doing ok for about 3 days til I got sick again and threw up almost 3 days in a row without a break. It was horrible and I thought I was dying. I texted my mom one morning to tell her that I wasn't feeling real good and sent her a picture of my face to show her how sick I was. I had sunken eyes, a blister on my lip from dehydration, and skin was very white. She was horrified and left work, drove a hour to help me. When she got to my house, she tried to feed me food and get me to drink fluids but none of them would stay down so it was time for another visit to the hospital. I was there most of the day on iv fluids and went home afterwards. I was fine for a week and the next week didn't go well. Bad smells, lack of meds, and not much eating were big contributions of why I was getting sicker and sicker. I had struggled to get a doctor for a while but decided to just go ahead and get one anyways because I felt it was enough for me being sick almost everyday. My first appointment was last Wednesday and I was shocked with the horrifying results of what being sick had done to my body. Back in December, I was 125 pounds and when I stepped on the weight scale, it revealed I weighted 103 pounds. My heart stopped when I saw those numbers and that's when I realized how serious it was. I'm almost 4 months along and should be gaining weight at this stage instead of going backwards and losing 20 pounds. I look thin now but hope to get my weight back to normal and work on feeding the baby. Now I'm beginning my path to recovery by drinking fluids and eating every 2-3 hours. I also have left my house for a while to avoid bad smells and go stay with family. I care more about my health and the baby's that I need to do what needs to be done. All I want is my life and appetite back! Once I feel totally better, the first thing I would eat is a huge frosty! :)

Baby Names

I've been coming up with names for my little monster and it seems complicated. I mean, it is becoming real that I will actually name someone who isn't here yet. The name I pick has to be the perfect one for him or her and I want it to mean something. I have thought about if I have a boy, I want to put the name Troy as a middle name to name him after my friend, Troy Cooper, who died 5 years ago in Iraq and I want to honor his memory. I still haven't decided on the first name yet but I do have several ones that I like: Ben, Ian, Aiden, or Finn. If it is a girl, I know for sure that I want to keep my Italian heritage alive in my kid so I looked up Italian names for girls and found: Alessandra, Gisella, Graziella, and Domenica. You know, Domenica is the same name as my great-great grandmother who came through Ellis Island in New York City as an immigrant from Italy. I do like Leighton which is American and my middle name is Leigh-Ann so it would be cool if she did share a similar middle name to mine. We will see what I have in February or March. I know I will come up with a great name for my little monster. :)

Another Year Ending

Today is the last year of 2011. What can I say? This year had been like a roller coaster ride, full of ups and downs. I could say that I had tests at life and I feel like I had passed some and failed others. I had two difficult anniversaries of terrible events of my life that both happened exactly 5 years ago. I had overcome those days with strength and faith that I had survived and moved on. March 5, 2006 was when I was sexually assaulted and December 3, 2006 was when I learned the bad news that a friend of mine was killed in Iraq after having just talked to him 2 days before. Those events changed my life forever but they made me stronger, even 5 years later. Good things that came out on those anniversaries is that on March 5 of this year, I just lived my life without being afraid or sad. And on December 3 recently, it was the same day I found out I was pregnant and it made me think of my friend and how happy he would've been for me. Then I got injured at work in October resulting in my knee to get dislocated. I had to have surgery to fix my knee and it was a real difficult time, still is but I know that I'll be ok and that there will eventually be a light at the end of the tunnel. It might take me a few more months to recover in the new year. So those were my downs of this year and I'll move on to the ups that I had. I got to see my childhood boy band, New Kids on the Block and favorite baseball team, Texas Rangers play in one weekend. It was awesome! I got very close to Jordan, my NKTOB crush, when he walked by us while singing and I nearly melted! I sat behind the foul line in the outfield at the Rangers game and got a close up look of David Murphy and Josh Hamilton!!! I also wanted to see Ian Kinsler, one of my fave players but it was too far to see. Oh well, I can make plans to go to another Rangers game in 2012! Maybe I'll have a better chance of seeing Kinsler. I graduated with my associate degree this month and I'm proud of my accomplishments. Then I had the biggest surprise of this year: being pregnant. I had never thought about having kids but hey, it's a big up for me to end 2011 and start 2012 with. I decided not to do new years resolutions this year because I'm mainly focused on two things: get my knee better and get through my pregnancy without any complications. The most important thing I hope to have in 2012 is a healthy baby, that's all. For all of you guys, have a happy new year and may you be blessed with a good year ahead of you. :)

A Surprise

Life is full of surprises that you don't expect. I sure got the biggest surprise of my life: I'm pregnant. I had no suspicions that I was til the week after my knee surgery. Sure, the signs were there but I just didn't have a clue. I started throwing up every day I was taking pain medications. I thought my stomach was just reacting to the pills. Then I continued to take the pills and still throw up. I was so sick for two weeks straight and my fiancée, John, had a feeling that I might be pregnant and asked if he could go buy me a pregnancy test. At first, I was in doubt of being pregnant and shrugged it off as just the pills making me sick until I took my last pain pill and within a minute, I threw up and told John that he could go get the test. So he went and got one. I waited for a while and then decided to try. The first test I took, I'll never forget how I freaked out when I saw the second line appear quickly and asked John to come in. He came in and saw that it was positive. He looked scared too and I told him that I'll try another one in the morning to make sure it wasn't a false positive. So I went to bed and woke up the next morning, got up to take another test. Surely, I saw the two lines pop up again. Yelled for John to come in and he came in to see the results. When he saw it was another positive, he smiled and hugged me. He was very excited and I just sat there in disbelief and couldn't talk. Then I said, I'm going to test again. He laughed and said, "why? You're pregnant! I knew it." I told him that I was in denial and wanted to see if I could get a negative. Then the third time, it was positive and John wanted to tell everyone but I told him not to til I got the confirmation from my doctor. He was itching to say something but did what I asked him. I went to the doctor and it was confirmed. Fear filled up in my mind that I wasn't going to be a good mom or be able to walk good on my knee that I had just had surgery on. One thing that still puzzles me to this day is that my baby survived the knee surgery and stress from it. John says that God must have protected it. Now I'm currently 9 weeks along and starting to warm up to the idea of having a baby but reality still hasn't set in yet. I guess it's because I haven't seen my baby on a sonogram yet and once I see it, I know I will change. Pregnancy life has changed me mentally, emotionally, and physically. I suffer from morning sickness and mood swings. I mean, I'm sick almost every day and it's no fun. But I'm starting to learn how to handle it by eating small meals to keep myself from getting sick on an empty stomach. As for mood swings, I cry at commercials or anything that involves babies which is strange because I never did that before I was pregnant. I get upset or depressed sometimes depending on what I experience. I used to be a night owl but lately, I have been falling asleep at 8-9 pm every night. Sometimes I'll be awake at night thinking too much or I have to pee a lot, lol. I sleep up to 12 hours a night and nap for a couple of hours during the day. It's crazy how I'm going through those physical changes that it makes me sick and exhausted but I know that it will be worth it in the end when I have my baby. You know, I gave my baby a nickname, little monster, because it makes me sick every day and my stomach growls all the time! Well, I plan to continue posting updates as I go through my pregnancy and hopefully, I will be able to post pictures of my sonograms and etc when I can. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens and I pray that God will help me through this big change of my life. By the way, Little Monster says hi! :)

The 1960s Era

Here I am again, on a boring Sunday still stuck at home due to an injury so I decided to watch some tv shows on Hulu.com and I came up on this new tv show on ABC called Pan Am. It just came out last month and I caught up on the episodes that have already aired. So far, I like it a lot because of its setting in 1960s during the era of jets when they first were introduced to the world. I've always been fascinated with that time period and its styles such as clothing and graphic design.

Women looked very pretty and took good care of their looks back then and men managed to look handsome and had more respect for women then they do today. My mom was born in 1964 and I've always wondered what it would be like to live in that time period without technology that we have today and how I would have dressed differently. I don't like much of the fashion we have today like mini skirts and shirts that reveal too much skin. I do realize that mini skirts were introduced in the 60s but today, they are way too short where you can see women's underwear, ugh. What happened to respecting your own body and covering up the parts that aren't meant to be shown? As for hairstyles, I find it impossible to make my hair into a beehive or big hairdo with flips because my hair is so fine and requires a lot of hairspray to get volume, lol. I have no idea how those women back then could do it and still look good all day long! My grandma told me that my great-grandmother used to put cans in her hair to make curls and wrapped her hair in toilet paper to keep it from messing up while she was asleep in bed. She also would put so much hairspray in it and it would stay up for a long time. That sounds like a lot of work but that's how women had to do it to keep themselves looking nice. Here's a picture of my great-nanny and her bouffant hairstyle.

Pop art is one of my favorite art to study and most of my artwork are inspired by it. It was big in the 1960s and my two favorite pop artists from that era are Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. You probably recognize their famous pieces such as Lichtenstein's comic book style art and Warhol's Marilyn Monroe portrait in full bright colors. They were so original and creative. They did it without computers and I often scratch my head, wondering how the heck they could do it.

Lichtenstein's Girl with Hair Ribbon c.1965

Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe Prints c.1962

Now you can see why I like that time period and its styles. It was very unique in its way and people expressed themselves through fashion and art. Too bad it's not like that now because people take art and fashion for granted. They don't pay attention to the beauty of fashion and art which I do. I stop, look, and keep notes on what I see and use it to inspire my work. It's just how I am and I thank history for teaching and inspiring me.

My New Life as a Paranormal Investigator

I'm bored at home while spending the day sick so I thought I could grab a laptop and write a new blog. I thought about sharing with y'all about my experiences joining a new group called Texas Intuitive Paranormal Research. It's a paranormal group based here in Amarillo and it specializes in investigating the unknown such as ghosts, cryptozoology, and UFOs. Right now, there is 8 people in this group including me and my dear friend, Ricky Harris, who are the only deaf investigators. We decided to join a paranormal group because we had always desired to investigate the paranormal and see what is out there. I had paranormal experiences growing up and still to this day, people still think I am crazy when I talk about it. Joining TIPR has been the best thing ever to happen to me so far because I feel like I belong and there are other members who don't think I am crazy, lol.

I remember seeing a man in my room at an early age and thought it was a dream or something. I would wake up and see something moving in the dark or feel someone touching me. I never really understood what it was until one night when I was about 14-15 years old, I woke up to see this black solid man standing next to me and he leaned over to me. I stared at him for like 10 seconds and started to scream but nothing came out of my mouth. I was so terrified that it paralyzed me for a moment before I ducked my head under my "security" covers. I was so scared and it took me about 15 minutes before I took a peek and he was gone. I was shocked and couldn't believe what I had just saw. Then I started to see the same black shaped man in my room standing next to my sister ,who shared the same bedroom with me at that time, or he would stand in the doorway next to my bed. I believed that the house was haunted because I would see him and get touched by him. I also think he wanted to hurt me because one afternoon when I was doing my homework, I felt this stabbing/poking in my side that was painful that I thought my sister was poking me with her finger but I turned around to see no one behind me. After moving to a new house, I continued to have experiences that I didn't know why they were happening to me. I wonder if I was sensitive to seeing spirits when others couldn't? I don't know. Four years ago when I worked at Texas Lions Camp in Kerrville, TX for the summer, I had experiences in my cabin that was supposedly haunted and I didn't know it at that time. My alarm clock would go off by itself at 3 or 4 in the morning and I always felt like someone was watching me at night. One night, my co-worker and I were chatting and hanging out in our cabin while the whole camp was empty on a Saturday night, when I saw something move in the corner of my eyes, it looked like a shadow person walking towards to a room in the hall across from us and I turned to look at it then my co-worker said she saw it too. We thought someone had just got here so I went into the hall expecting to see somebody there but when I went into the room, there was nobody there. So if you asked me or my co-worker, we would say it was a ghost that we both saw at the same time. I was told a few months later by a friend ,who worked at the camp before I did, that my cabin and a couple others were haunted. I'm still amazed about this.

I still have experiences every now and then. I really enjoy investigating and can't wait to see what I find out there. I do believe that spirits try to communicate with me visually and emotionally because they know I can't hear them. I often joke that it would be neat if they knew how to sign so they could communicate with me. For those who think my life as a paranormal investigator is scary, it's not. Sure I get creepy feelings but not enough to scare the living crap out of me. It's funny because I'm terrified of spiders, heights, and close spaces and yet, ghosts don't scare me. I know they can't hurt me but yes, I am concerned about running into demons and poltergeists on investigations. That's why I trust God to protect me from those things. On investigations, we pray before and after. Also if you are wondering how I can communicate with ghosts when I can't hear, well I've found that if I use a flashlight and a notepad, it's helpful. I use one of those flashlights that have no buttons but it's turned on and off by unscrewing the top a little if you know what I'm talking about. If I want to ask questions, I tell the ghost to turn it on for yes and off for no. I write down questions on a notepad and see which questions are answered with yes or no. I don't know if a ghost can read my writing, mind, or signs. All I know that they can communicate with us through anything electrical things like flashlights because they use those energies to manifest themselves or able to talk to us. It's pretty neat and makes me want to know more about them and why they are still stuck here on Earth.


If you ever have something going on in your home that you feel unsure whether it is safe or not, please contact TIPR and we will come and check it out for you to make sure you feel safe in your own home. TIPR's website is currently being worked on so you can go to their Facebook page and check it out.

Happy Halloween and be safe!!! :)

Here is a homage to one of my fave movies when I was little.

10 Years Later

It's a couple of hours after midnight and I can't sleep. It's because I realize that it's September 11th, 10 years after what was the worst attack on America in history and I witnessed it on a tv screen like everyone else did. It's funny how one day out of your entire life can be etched into your memory for the rest of your life and I can't even remember many other days in my life except for a few and that day was one of them. It still seems as if it was yesterday....every detail of what I saw and how I felt. I know that I wasn't there physically in New York City or DC to see the attacks but to see it on tv was horrific and I didn't understand why it happened.

I was 16 years old and had just started my junior year about 3 weeks before. I remember getting to school early on that Tuesday morning and it seemed like a normal day like any other day. Did my normal things, hanging out with my friends in the hallway before class started and walking to the building where my first period class was in. It was Physics and my teacher was Mrs. Steinkirchner who I called Mrs. S for short. I remember walking into the class room and sitting down as Mrs. S turned on the tv. I wondered why she was doing that and I saw the gritty image of two buildings on fire. The tv was old and didn't have good picture but it still was obvious what was being shown. My interpreter, Ann, was confused as well and asked what was going on. That's when Mrs. S told us that the World Trade Center in NYC had been hit by a plane. I was like Huh? What? and thinking Why are we watching this? I had never heard of WTC in my entire life til I saw those burning towers on the tv screen. At first, I thought it was just one plane that sort of flew through both buildings and that it might have been a pure accident. I didn't realize that a second plane had hit too. So we watched for a little while til they announced that another plane had just hit the Pentagon and I remember the shock and fear when I realized that it wasn't an accident and that we were under attack. Fear started building up inside me and I was afraid that there were more planes headed for other buildings or something. Ann and I got very afraid that there would be a plane heading for Pantex, a nuclear facility about 20 miles away from Amarillo, to bomb it and we would be doomed. We decided that we wanted to go to another room to watch tv because it had better audio and picture. We were sitting and staring at the screen when I saw the south tower collapse as if it was going down in slow motion on live tv. My jaw dropped and it took me a moment before I turned to Ann and said, "There had to be a lot of people in that building!" I hoped that they were ok but I knew that they didn't make it. I almost cried but didn't know what to think or say. All I could think of was my family and hoped that they were ok and I wanted to go home badly. Parents were coming to school to pick their kids up. My mom was at another school where she worked as an interpreter and couldn't get off to come get me and my sister. I ended up being stuck at school all day long and it seemed endless for me.  I remember when I was in my history class which was before lunchtime, they reported that another plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. I felt sick to my stomach and hoped that there were no more planes in the air and that not any more people were dying. By the time I was in my English class, they said that all planes were grounded down and I was relieved knowing that none of those planes were in the air. Then the principal announced on the PA that there would be no practices or any after school activities and for us to just go home. By the end of the day, I walked outside to the parking lot where my mom was parked while waiting for me. I got in the car and she grabbed my hand and said, "I am glad that you are with me. I was worried about you and your sister all day long. Wanted to just leave work and get you girls home but I couldn't get off." Looked like she was about to cry. I was actually happy to be with her after a long and scary day. We drove to Canyon where I lived at that time and I recall that when we came into town, we saw long lines at every gas station and I asked my mom why there were long lines. She said that people were probably scared that something would happen and that they needed more gas in case gas would be shut off. She dropped me off at home and told me that she was going to get gas. It took her about 45 minutes to a hour to just get gas. That's how scared everyone was. I watched the news and was horrified to see what really happened. I was shocked and didn't understand why people would do such things as using innocent passengers as human bombs to kill many others. I watched the news for hours and when I needed a break, I changed the channels and I swear that almost every channel was off the air with messages saying that they had to shut down and let their staff go home to their families. I remember that the only channels still on were the cartoon/kids ones which made sense to me. It was to keep kids occupied and unaware of what was going on. My stepdad, who was dating my mom at that time, called to check on us and told my mom that he listened to the radio while truck driving all day long without seeing what had really happened. Didn't see anything til he got home and turned the tv on. He was shocked too. I couldn't sleep well that night and the next day, it was like a blur to me. I was confused and in denial that such tragedy had occurred. I didn't really cry til a few days later when it came across my mind that so many people had died and that I would never understand why they had to die horrible deaths.

Over the past 10 years, I had moved on but never forgot what I witnessed on that tv screen. Even though I live over 1,000 miles away from NYC, it still affects me because it was not only an attack on New Yorkers and DC residents, it was also an attack on my own country which I love very much and am very proud to having been born and grew up in. This 10th anniversary is different for me from any other anniversaries where I would pause for one day to remember and move on with my life like everyone else. I'll be going to NYC in two months to spend a week there and I plan on going to Ground Zero to pay my respects. Honestly, I don't know how I'll feel or what I'll think but I know it would be a different emotion/feeling from what I've been feeling all those years. At the same time, I'm looking forwards to seeing the new WTC tower that is currently being built. I've been following up on the progress while it's being built and so far, over 80 floors have been built making it the now tallest building in Manhattan. That'd be a great sight to see and to me, it's like showing those terrorists that we are still strong and standing up against them by not letting them defeat us. If you want to see the progress on the tower, there are two links that you can go to: http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/project_updates/freedom_tower_26204.aspx#summary and
http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/index.html

As you can see, this is my story of what I experienced that day. We all have different stories from our perspectives but we will never forget. My heart still goes out to the innocent victims and survivors along with their families and also the true heroes who risked or lost their lives to just save others. I ask you to pause and remember 9/11 and continue to pray for those who are still affected by the attacks a decade later. May God bless America.