Confirmed..........

We went up to the daycare center to have our trusty teacher (now daycare director)/friend Megan check out Aidan's back and indeed, he does have chicken pox. I called the pediatrician to make sure we were/weren't doing everything that needed to be done. I struggled when I made the decision to vaccinate my kiddos against the chicken pox. But, apparently, we made the right decision. (Not to mention, now you HAVE to have it to go to school.) This could be so much worse if he hadn't been vaccinated because as we all know, chicken pox (the full-fledged version) can, and usually will, spread to the mouth. So, the timing on this could have ended up being a really big deal. I'm so thankful that it isn't. We'll just keep truckin' on!

Look What Came to Our House!

I know the picture isn't very clear (dumb camera) but if you look real close, you can see about 10 little red guys who look suspiciously like chicken pox. Figures. This kiddo can't catch a break! His sugery recovery has gone really well (aside from the nights full of choking and gagging on what I assume is drainage - yuck & Friday's vomiting marathon). He's doing great with the pain and after lots of cajoling he'll rest for us. But, today he started running a fever and a few hours later the little red spots started showing up. Hopefully, he'll have the same experience Darby had - about 10-15 spots that go away quickly. That would be thanks to the vaccine they give kids these days. By the way, whatever you do, DON'T google chicken pox images. At least wait until your stomach can handle what pops up! :)

Surgery

Hi all, we're home! Aidan's tonsils and adenoids came out at 8 o'clock this morning. Everything went super. The surgeon said his adenoids were huge and he was really glad to get them out of there! We had to be at the hospital at 6:30 this morning. I really feel very tested with this getting up early thing. I'm not sure how I did it when I had a REAL job.
They gave him some tylenol with versed this morning before they took him. I think he told me about 8 times "They gived me that medicine. It makes me goofy." And, then
he'd shoot us the goofiest little grin! Too bad they can't give us some of that to bring home, too!
He did great waking up and when they got him up to pediatrics he was all ready for popsicles and the play room. We stayed for about 3 hours and then came home. I think all of the medication they gave him in the operating room started to wear off because as soon as we pulled up in front of the house he started crying and jumped out of the van to puke. Purple popsicle isn't so pretty coming back up!
We took a good nap and now he's enjoying round two of popsicles. Hopefully, by tomorrow we'll graduate to ice cream and pudding. He's really hungry and liquid diets don't cut it!
This really sweet lady came in while we were in the room and gave Aidan a blanket she had made. She told him that she's just a grandma who loves making blankets for little kids who have to stay in the hospital. I thought it was so kind and Aidan really loved the blanket she gave him - plus, he got to bring it home. Nikki, I think I found your next hobby!! :)

Does This Make My Arm Look Fat?.....and Random Pics

So, I baked last week. We took dinner to our friends who's baby just got home from the hospital and I baked their older children some chocolate chip cookies. I was talking on the phone and pulled the pan out and got the inside of my arm. Well, I have some ointment here that has an antibiotic and numbing stuff in it and so I immediately put it on. As the last few days went on, the red around the actual wound kept getting bigger and my arm swelled up to the point where I couldn't even bend my elbow. So, I assumed I was having some sort of allergic reaction to the ointment and started taking Benadryl and coating it with hydrocortisone cream. After church this morning, and several urges to "have a doctor look at that", I finally had my mom take me to an urgent care place and sent Scott and the kids off to hunt Easter eggs. Apparently, when you put ointment on a burn, it seals the heat in and creates a burn under the skin, which can then get infected. And, since my luck happens to be the way that it is......all of the above happened to me. I have a 9 inch by 9 inch "wound" all on the inside of my arm and am now taking oral and external antibiotics. Moral of this story? Don't bake and talk on the phone at the same time. (And, according to the doctor, when you get a burn - the only thing you should ever put on it is human urine. Yep, I said it, pee on yourself. Um, no thank you, I'll stick with cold water.) So, I have to wear the above pictured "dressing" until I go back and see the doctor on Wednesday. And, of course I didn't get pics of the kids in their cute Easter outfits, so you'll have to settle for the ones below!




This is where I found Miss Darby "napping" a few weeks ago when she was not feeling well. And, in the middle of the living room, none the less!





First soccer game of the season. It was 40 degrees with 40 mile an hour winds. Good thing we love him enough to sit out there. And, good thing they don't keep score, it wouldn't have been worth it! :)

Results!

No sooner did I post that last entry and the doctor's office called. They did see seizure activity, which we weren't super surprised, as she's had symptoms. It's in the same place that it was 3 years ago, so that's actually positive - the same type of epilepsy. It's much better than it was 3 years ago, even though it's still there, so that means that it's being semi-controlled with the medication. Her doctor is switching her to a different type of medication and we have an appointment in 3 months to see how it's working. Unfortunately, the regular nurse was out sick and so it was a "float" nurse that called with the results, which means every question I had - she couldn't answer. I'm not sure why you'd have a float nurse call with important test results, but, whatever. They will call me next week to answer questions and give us directions on switching medications, which apparently, is a process in itself. Darby's doctor apparently said that we may be able to use the medication for 6 months and then talk about taking her off. Again, the nurse couldn't answer why he would think that, so I'll save that question for when a real nurse calls me. Obviously, we're disappointed that the seizure activity was even there, but the positives really outweigh the negatives, so we'll focus on those. So, we'll just pray that the transition between medications goes smoothly and that they don't make us do any more sleep deprived EEGs any time soon! Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support! Dealing with all of this is so much easier with all of the love that we have from our family and friends!

Spring Break

So, if you've seen "Enchanted", read on. If you haven't, why havent't you?! Go see "Enchanted" and come back. This is the first movie I've actually gone out and purchased, we love it so much. So, we watched it last night for, I think, the fourth time. I just asked the kids, this morning, to please pick up their rooms and gave them their time frame for doing so. Went to the kitchen to retrieve my coffee and a book and hear both children singing "Ahhhhh, Ahhhhhh, Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Which, if you'll remember is what Giselle does when she's calling for all of the "forest" animals to come help her clean the apartment. My kids'll try anything to get help cleaning their rooms! :)

We've had a good week, although busy. It's been good practice for this summer. If you didn't know, I let the church know that once Darby is done with school in May, I'm done working. I'm going to stay home with the kids this summer and then when Aidan starts kindergarten in the fall, I'll go back and finish school. It should work out that if I go Tues - Thurs during the day while they are in school, I should be done in about 5 months. So, hopefully by the end of the year! After that, I have no clue what I'll do. I hope to stay home and be PTA President, well, maybe just a classroom helper. Someday, we'd like to build a house and put a shop in it. But, I'm not quite ready to work full-time again, yet. These last two years have really shown me how much I enjoy being home with my kids and available whenever they need me. Which, lately, is a lot of the time!

Just so you know, in the middle of all of these other things, we found out last week that Aidan has to have his adenoids out. While they are in there, they're going to go ahead and take his tonsils, too. His adenoids are massive and so he's very "obstructed" and sounds like he's snoring even when he's awake. They're going to do the surgery next Thursday. He's been having obvious trouble sleeping at night and so we're hoping this will (pardon the pun) "clear" things up. Darby had to have it done when she was three and it made a huge difference in the quality of sleep she was getting - which in turn helped the quality of mood during the day! If you'll keep him in your prayers, I would really appreciate it. He's older than she was and understands more about it - which makes him way more apprehensive about it. We're going this afternoon for his pre-anesthesia appointment and they'll give him a little tour and explain everything to him, which I hope will help!

We still haven't heard the results of the EEG, yet. I will post as soon as we do!

4 A.M. Is For The Birds!

We had Darby's EEG today. You know, the sleep-deprived one? The deliriously, over-exhasted and brain fried one? I can now tell you that Best Buy is open until 9 p.m., the bowling alleys close somewhere around 9 (I love when you walk in and it's 8:30 and they tell you can bowl for 45 more minutes - uh, no thanks), Sonic although open all hours of the night closes it's carhop service at some point before 10, and Barnes & Noble, oh glorious Barnes & Noble, is open until 11. It's hard to find things to do until midnight, with a minor, on St. Patricks day, but, we survived. I thought getting up at 4 this morning would go over as well as 5-year-old shots, but with some coaxing and a warm bath waiting, it went very smoothly. Thankfully, Scott's dad's restaurant opens at 6 a.m., so we were able to go there this morning and hang out and have breakfast. We also bribed her with a trip to Wal-mart and one free toy. So, after 2 HOURS of walking around looking at everything at 7 a.m., she settled on a Hannah Montana play set (on sale, even!)

The whole test thing went really, really well. Darby laid very still and was cooperative with the tech. I wondered how she'd do being so tired, but she did great! She fell asleep very quickly and at one point we were supposed to wake her but keep her eyes closed. Yeah, right. We will hopefully know by the end of this week what, if anything, it showed.

So, needless to say we are all on our way to bed in a few minutes. Thankfully, it's Spring Break and I'm home with the kids all week. Maybe we'll recover over the next few days!

By the way, thank you Aunt Nikki for the phone call this morning! The look on her face was priceless! :)

What Do You Think?

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology - Black and white photographs

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Yad Vashem research - Family history

How About These?

This is TOO Funny!

I Just Wanted to Share This...........

(I can't figure out how to link it, so copy and paste it in the top and click on the video to watch!)

http://www.ozville.org/epilepsy/

We Are Diseased

If you happen to be in the neighborhood, don't stop by! Or, at least, don't take a shower here. Don't wear my shoes, or Scott's, and now you'll have to keep your tootsies out of Aidan's. He asked Scott last night "Daddy what's this on my foot?" Yep, my baby has a baby Plantar's Wart. Yeesh! You'd think Comet, Bleach, Clorox Bathroom Cleaner WITH Bleach, and I have to admit even Easy-Off Oven Cleaner (it was suggested - I figured what the heck?) would have killed this nasty junk off of our shower floor. But, hey, we're nice, we share. The doctor told us that since he's completely FREAKED OUT after accompanying me to all of my appointments, we can treat it at home. Whew! I thought I was going to have to hog-tie him to get him near a podiatrist's office! So, if you visit, we really would like it.....and, we won't be offended if you don't take your shoes off, or your coat, or a surgical mask. I promise!

You Get What You Ask For......

If you look at the "Title" of my last post and then read this, it will make a lot of sense!
We went to the brain doctor (as Darby likes to call him) today. Now, I've told you all before how weird (in a goofy kind of way) he is. Well, I've actually forgotten how compassionate and sensitive to Scott's and my beliefs/feelings he is. You all know that Darby started an anticonvulsant in December last year. We've had really good luck in the fact that she's been seizure free, but also migraine free. She had been having some migraines that really knocked her on her hiney and they were starting to happen more frequently. So, that's really exciting but she's picked up two of the side effects that we're not crazy about - weight gain and irritability. We are really watching her with food (trying really hard not to be obvious about it and turn it into a complex - remember I'm already setting my children up for much-needed therapy when they are adults) but the irritability is almost more than we can handle. She's a girl and she's moody, but this is almost like everybody/thing gets on her nerves ALL of the time. We are looking into another medication that could possibly get rid of some of these side effects. (Am I the only one who didn't know that they treat epilepsy and bipolar with all of the same medications?) The yucky news is that Darby may be having a different type of seizures now. When she wakes up in the morning or after a nap the right side of her face is fallen (almost like a stroke). It usually takes less than a half an hour for it to get back to normal. It's not happening all of the time but she was sick this weekend and it was a lot more noticable. She's also having some twitching on the right side of her mouth - another type of seizure. This totally sucks. So, we're going on the 18th to have an EEG done (a study on how the brain of a 7 year old works- ha!). It's a sleep deprived EEG which means that the night before she will go to bed at midnight and we have to wake her up at 4 a.m. and keep her awake until her appointment at 1 that afternoon. She can't even fall asleep in the car on the way there or they may have to reschedule it. And she's not allowed any caffeine so we can't even cheat! I'm collecting ideas on what to do with a 7 year old at 4 o'clock in the morning that will keep her moving. I've started the list with hanging out at anything that starts with "Wal" and is open 24 hours. Who isn't in the mood for shopping at that time of the morning!?!? :)
*Warning: I'm about to get emotional* I was sitting in his office reading some of the literature about epilepsy and I don't think I've ever really sat down and absorbed that Darby is an epileptic. It sucks. To think about the things she may not ever get to do - riding certain rides at amusement parks, attend concerts with strobe lights without having to cover her eyes, all the way to the fact that because of the law - she may not be allowed to drive. I pray so hard that she'll be one of the lucky ones who really does outgrow this. I pray that this next test will go well and that they won't find any new abnormalities. I pray that she remembers her childhood as fun and laughter and not medications and MRI's. I know it could be much worse and I know that compared to the things other people are going through, this may seem like nothing. But, if I could change it for her, I would. Please pray for strength and wisdom for Scott and I as we walk this path. We really, really want to do the right thing for her and some days it feels like we're just not qualified enough.