This Time We Stopped at Three, So Far

The week after our Indiana cousins left, we immediately began getting ready for the next set of cousins…and promptly we got sick.

Reagan started running a high fever. When she complained that her ear hurt, I thought for sure that she had an ear infection. Not wanting to put that off another day, I called the dr immediately. It was late in the afternoon, and they could only work us in if we came RIGHT THEN, so I packed up ALL THE KIDS and headed for the dr’s office. As it turned out, Reagan didn’t have an ear infection, BUT she did have strep! So it turned out to be a good thing that I had to bring all the kids with me because then they could ALL be checked for strep.

Jim met us at the office and took this picture with his phone. Four throat checks=four popsicles!

So that was Thursday. Aunt Jojo and Co. were set to arrive on Sunday, so Saturday was a big cleaning day. At least, it was SUPPOSED to be!

Jim headed out that morning with a friend of his, hoping to FINALLY get into the woods. This trip had been postponed twice already. The kids were playing. I was cleaning. And then, there it was…the piercing cry of a child who is actually really hurt. I rushed from the kids’ room where I’d been putting away laundry and found Jonathan in tears, crying out something about his head. Apparently, he was spinning in circles in the living room and fell, hitting his head on the coffee table.

Do you have any idea how many times a day my kids hit their heads on stuff? ALL THE TIME. So I thought, okay, he’s hit his head. Hold him. Make soothing noises. Comfort him until he stops crying.

But wait…What is all over the back of Jonathan’s shirt?!?

And then I saw it drip…the blood…from the back of his head.

My kids have had a lot of bumps on their heads, but never any that bled, so I have to admit that now I was the one who needed comforting because I started to get a little panicky. But I sucked it up and forced my voice to stay calm as I explained to Jonathan that he had a booboo on his head and I wanted to take him into my bathroom to get a better look at it.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t a large cut, but it looked deep, and I didn’t know what to do. Did he need stitches? I don’t know anything about stitches! I never in my life had an injury that required stitches! But I was pretty sure he needed stitches.

So I called Jim. He was about two miles from his exit to the woods. I made him turn around. I didn’t really have a plan at that point, just a vague idea that I needed to take Jonathan to Children’s and I would have to do something with the other kids and I needed Jim. Luckily, since he wasn’t standing in our bathroom looking at our son and his bloody shirt, he could be a little more rational. He suggested I make some phone calls and see if someone could come over and watch the kids until he got home and I could go ahead and take Jonathan to Children’s. Brilliant! In the end our wonderful neighbor Scott drug himself out of bed (he had just gotten back in town about 4:00 that morning) and came over to watch the kids while I left with J.

All this time, Jonathan had been GREAT. Since he couldn’t see the blood himself, he didn’t freak out about the injury, and he was really good about holding the rag to his head to help with the bleeding.

I managed to get him to Children’s (bloody shirt and all), and THEY WERE WONERFUL! All of the doctors and nurses, and there were strangely a lot of them, were so nice and helpful and so sweet to Jonathan.

They put a numbing cream on his cut so he barely noticed at all when they did the stitches. And since they called them “string band-aids,” he didn’t even know he got stitches!

It’s kind of hard to see, but his stitched-up cut is right there in the middle of the picture.

Jojo and Co. arrived the next day (post coming next, I hope) and their visit continued without further medical needs for anyone, but then the day after they left, my ears were yet again assaulted by piercing cries of pain. This time it was Thomas.

The kids were playing in their bedroom. Thomas was in the closet. The door was open. The door was shut. Open. Shut. Open. Thomas stuck his fingers in the crack between the hinge side of the door and the door frame.

Shut.

He screamed and screamed. I was terrified his fingers were broken, but he would barely let me look at them. He just kept crying and screaming, “Put on a band-aid! Put on a band-aid!” Since that was the only way he would let me touch him, I did. His middle finger was already turning purple and there was a bad scrape along the cuticle on that finger and the next two. They didn’t seem to be swelling which I took as a good sign, but I was afraid they might, so I tried to make the band-aids loose since I anticipated having to remove them later when he was calmer. I gave him some pain medicine and an ice pack and put him down for a nap, since he practically begged me for naptime. I called Jim and the dr’s office. They said to keep an eye on it and let them know if it got worse instead of better.

Thankfully, it didn’t get worse. Here’s a picture I took of his fingers a couple of days later. It’s been a couple of weeks now, and his middle finger still has a dark purple area under the nail.

It’s been a couple of weeks now since Thomas hurt his fingers, and so far Zachary has not been injured or gotten sick enough to need to see a dr. Hopefully, in THIS instance, we can be content to stop at three.

On the Town

We did venture into Hilton Head a time or two while on vacation (I know, you thought I was done talking about the beach trip, but HA!! I fooled you!)

So we left the Palmetto Dunes area where our “beach house” was and went to see the marina and lighthouse in Sea Pines.

As we were walking along, we came across a statue (below) of a man eating a sandwich while reading a book. How cute! Let’s have all the kids sit around the statue like they’re being read to! It was a great idea, but in the process there was a tragic collision between Jim's tennis shoe and one of my toenails.

So we finished the picture, and then I hobbled my bleeding foot over to the nearest bench to assess the damages.

I managed to find ONE tissue in my purse, which I used to mop up the blood as best I could. The toenail on my right big toe had ripped up in an unfortunate way, but not off, luckily. I was able to stop the bleeding, but not really clean it off much. My bloody toe was not a pretty sight, so I went digging in my purse yet again and discovered ONE band-aid.

That’s right. Lightning McQueen.

Oh, well. I’m a trooper, and although my toe really hurt and I basically limped the rest of the evening, I tried not to complain (at least most of the time) or ruin any of our plans.

Kennedy

We had lots to look at and do in Sea Pines. We enjoyed just walking around and looking at the huge boats, and there was a great big stage for the kids to dance on!

Thomas learned all his best moved from his dad!

We even climbed to the top of the lighthouse! I was really impressed by how well the kids did walking up all those stairs. They were troopers too!

Zachary, Thomas, Reagan, Carter, Jonathan, and Kennedy

After the lighthouse, we needed AIR CONDITIONING, so we decided it was time to eat! We were hot and thirsty, so it was really nice to get inside and sit down and have something to drink.

Our little diva

Later we visited a second marina beside the Salty Dog Cafe. There the kids got to play on the playground, we bought them some shirts, and everybody had ice cream!

After this, I must admit that my patience was wearing thin. My toe was throbbing, we had walked and walked and walked, and I was SO HOT. I was ready for this day to be done.

Goodbye, Salty Dog!

Get Me Outta Here!!

Since the kids recently turned four, we also recently had our four-year checkups. Now, my kids have been LOOKING FORWARD to these checkups for ages, begging me to take them TODAY to get their shots. Can I get my shots NOW? PLEEEEASE? I'm not kidding. BEGGING FOR SHOTS.


Why in the world are my kids begging for shots? Two reasons: the treasure box and a convenient forgetting of how much shots hurt. Mostly the treasure box.


Finally the kids turned four. Time for checkups and shots! Yea! Jonathan and Zachary went first. (I may be a supermom, but I'm not super enough to take all four at the same time, especially if shots are involved. They may not remember that shots hurt, but I do!) Most of the checkup was great! The kids are healthy, etc, etc, I'll post more about the checkups later. This post is about SHOTS. Zachary got his first, and when the first needle went into his leg (there were three total BTW) he looked at me with total shock. He DID NOT expect the shots to HURT!!! And then he started wailing. Jonathan, in the meantime, scrunched himself as far into the corner as he could go and refused to come out. After consoling and calming Zachary, I literally had to pry Jonathan out of the corner with him begging me the whole time not to make him get the shots.


But as awful as it was, it was nothing compared to taking Reagan and Thomas. Reagan cheerfully volunteered to go first. (Yea, shots!) I really tried to prepare her for the fact that the shots WOULD hurt. She was undeterred. And then she got poked and started crying. I don't want the shots! I don't want the shots! Too late. But the worst part was that she wouldn't stop crying. Thomas was so scared that I had to hold both of them after her shots, and she starts begging me, "Don't do it to Thomas! Don't do it to Thomas, Mommy!" So sweet of her to be thinking about her brother, but NOT HELPING TO CALM THOMAS. She continues to beg for Thomas' life while I help the poor nurse prepare for T's shots. As soon as the first needle goes in, he starts screaming, "Get me outta here! Get me outta here!"


I had to turn my head away. Not because I couldn't bear to look at the fear and pain on his face, but because I was afraid I was going to start laughing. Isn't that awful? Now don't get me wrong. I do not enjoy seeing my kids scared and in pain. IT WAS AWFUL. The whole experience was excruciating for all of us. But Get me outta here! was just too much for me. I composed myself quickly and turned back to him with a face full of concern, and was overjoyed when the experience was over, but the memory remains, and I think I will enjoy telling him all about it when he's old enough to understand the humor of it.


Get me outta here!

A Smile for Your Weekend

I’ve been a little absent of late. The kids each took a turn with a cold: runny noses, hacking coughs, random low-grade fevers. They were never sick enough to lie around feeling puny all day, which was a blessing, but one of them was always JUST SICK ENOUGH to keep us away from places where we would come into contact with other kids, like church and preschool. Happily, the cold has now finished its journey through my family and gone on to plague some other home, and we are beginning to return to normal.

You’d think that with all that time at home, I would have been bored and taken lots of pictures, but somehow I wasn’t and didn’t. I think this unusually cold, yucky winter (How do you people up North do it every year?!?)dampened my picture-taking spirit. I honestly can’t think of a single fun or interesting thing we did while the kids were sick. All I remember was constant nose-wiping, medicine, and laundry. There is always laundry.

BUT I PROMISED YOU A SMILE FOR YOUR WEEKEND!! The title says so. No more pouting from me! The sunshine is glorious today, and this weekend promises to be full of sun and warmth, and I intend to take full advantage of it! I hope it’s warm enough to eat lunch outside. Maybe we’ll even go to the park! I hope it’s warm and beautiful where you are too!

Here are a few pictures that ought to bring a smile to your face, even if there are still piles of snow outside your window!

One day during the sickness, Zachary came across this Superman costume. We’ve had it forever, but none of the kids had ever cared to wear it. They may not have realized what it was. They talk about Superman, Batman, and Spiderman regularly, but I’m not so sure they would actually recognize the three of them were they to see a picture. After I identified this outfit as SUPERMAN, Z had to wear it and kept it on all day, much to Jonathan’s disappointment who suddenly desperately wanted to wear it too! Z was so cute in it that I had to take his picture!

Reagan wanted to be in the picture too, so I had to take one of the two of them. She was not happy about not being allowed in the first picture! She stood just off camera glaring at me and trying to sneak into the frame.

As I mentioned in a recent post, Jim found Jonathan asleep in the stuffed animal drawer one night. When he found him there again, he came for the camera before moving J back to his bed. Now we have photographic evidence to show future girlfriends and embarrass him completely. I love that he always takes his blanket with him.

Well, I hope that those pictures brought smiles to your faces! And I hope you have beautiful weather this weekend! Go out and enjoy it!

We Finally Get to the Smiley Face

To the kids it seemed like an eternity, but the day finally arrived for us to hit the road to Bud and KayKay’s house.

As you may remember, Jonathan had been taking special medicine for the last two weeks in preparation for this trip, due to his recently discovered cat allergy (See HERE and HERE). We had high hopes that this medicine would keep him from having any allergic reactions, but had an alternative plan for sleeping at Jodie and Jeff’s house if things didn’t go well. Thankfully, he had no problems at all! Hurrah!

Our visit to Memphis was a lot of fun—filled with family, friends, delicious food, and lots of presents!

We tried something new this year with the kids. Last year they ripped through all their presents all at the same time, and we had no idea who gave them what, so this year we made them take turns opening one present, so we could all see what each child got and know who it was from. It took longer, but it was worth it!

Zachary in the special present-opening chair!

Reagan sporting her new jewelry

It was so much fun to watch the cousins all playing together…

…and eating together! What a spread!

Me and Jojo, when she hosted the family at her house

We also tried several times to get a good group shot of all the cousins together, never an easy task! Here are a few of the best shots we got, different poses in different places.

This last shot was taken at Kirby Pines, when we went to visit Uncle George and Aunt Nancy. They reserved us a nice big table in the dining hall for lunch! This is the fanciest place our kids have ever eaten, but they behaved well enough to entertain the other diners without being too much of a bother!

We also managed to pull off this pretty decent family shot on Kirby’s grand staircase. Thanks Jodie, for taking it!

Check out that beard!

We got to see my friend Whitney and her family while we were there too. That was really nice because it had been a LONG time since I had seen Whitney!

As you can tell, we had a really full visit. We had so much fun! The kids are at a fun age and really enjoyed getting to spend so much time with Kinley and Kallen.

As a parting shot for this post, here are the kids right after breakfast, all lined up playing with their new computers. Theses Tote ‘n Go Laptops have been a real hit! The kids LOVE them! And they look so cute when they all play them at the same time!

Thanks Bud and KayKay, Jojo and Jeff, Kinley and kallen, George and Nancy. etc., etc. for a great visit! We loved it and WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Jonathan Update

Just to fill everyone in…as you know from the previous post, Jonathan had an unexpected allergic reaction on Thanksgiving that prompted a trip to the ER and banishment from Granny’s house until the mystery allergen could be discovered.

Well, we have since been to the allergist, and Jonathan is indeed allergic to CATS! There is infinite sadness in my heart over this, as I am a huge cat-lover and entertained great dreams of the cats that would one day grace our home. Alas. At least for now, it is not to be. Maybe Jonathan will grow out of this allergy one day. A mom can hope!

In the meantime, to prevent future ER trips, we will keep special meds for him handy at all times. We will never again travel without them. And in preparation for our upcoming trip to Bud and KayKay’s house (a house shared with a cat), Jonathan is on a daily inhaled steroid which we will continue until we leave Memphis.

We anticipate no further problems, hopefully! I’ll keep you posted!

So How Was Your Thanksgiving?

Well, ours was great…except for that whole trip to the emergency room thing! I know some of you have been waiting impatiently for this story. Well, it’s finally here!

The day started off fine. We got up, got dressed, had some pancakes, and hit the road for Granny Kat’s house to spend Thanksgiving with Jim's family in Jasper. Everything was fine.

We arrived around noon, and the kids headed for the box of toys they knew was waiting for them. Everything was fine!

Zachary and Jonathan with Gammy

But then Jonathan started sneezing. And then he started coughing…a lot. And then he started struggling to get enough breath to talk, which was rough for little Jonathan because he’s a TALKER! These symptoms progressed pretty quickly, and of course we didn't bring the nebulizer or any medicine at all, so it didn’t take long before we felt like a trip to the emergency room was pretty much a necessity.

So Jim took Jonathan to the ER. (Luckily there’s a hospital in Jasper!) and I stayed at Granny’s with the rest of the kids and Jim's family.

Before they even reached the hospital, Jonathan had stopped coughing and sneezing. When they got there, they checked Jonathan’s O2 sats and they were 94 and then 98 before he even got his first breathing treatment. They did give him a breathing treatment, then took some chest x-rays and did some blood work. All of this looked good. They gave him another breathing treatment before releasing him. The diagnosis was asthma-related allergy attack (or allergy-induced asthma attack, I’m not real sure) and Jim was advised not to take Jonathan back into Granny’s house.

We’re not really sure what caused this attack. We’ve been to Granny’s house several times before without any problems. Granny recently got a cat, so the cat is suspect #1, but Jonathan has been around cats before without any problems at all.

Since Jonathan was forbidden to re-enter Granny’s house, we had to cut our visit short and leave pretty soon after he and Jim got back from the hospital. It was a disappointment for everyone. Jim and Jonathan didn’t get to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner (which was delicious!) with the rest of us, Jonathan didn’t get to play with Gammy’s toys as long as he wanted to, and Jim hardly got to visit with his family at all.

On the upside, Jim and Jonathan did enjoy some really nice one-on-one time when Jonathan told his Daddy all the things he would do when HE was a daddy, like shave and make pancakes and give kisses to his babies “just like you do, Daddy!”

Heart-melting adorableness!

Anyway, he’s been fine ever since. Friday we contacted our pediatrician’s office and we should have an appointment with an allergist this week to hopefully find out for sure what triggered this strange allergic reaction. Personally, I hope it wasn’t the cat. I love cats and have high hopes of us having a cat one day.

Our Thanksgiving may not have been what we had hoped for, but it did make us realize one more thing that we’re thankful for. We are very thankful that God has provided us with hospitals, doctors, and nurses who can care for our children, especially in an emergency situation!

We sincerely hope that you all had wonderful Thanksgivings, but if they weren’t so wonderful, we hope that you were at least able to realize what your blessings are and be thankful for something you might have otherwise taken for granted!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fight for Preemies

Today is a special day dedicated to raising awareness about premature births.

My kiddos were born 6 weeks early. They were rushed almost immediately to the NICU, and although Jonathan, Zachary, and Reagan were all healthy enough to go home days before I was, Thomas was not. His tiny baby lungs were under-developed and he struggled for weeks to learn to breathe and eat on his own. He remained in the NICU a full month longer than his siblings, and when he finally came home for good, it was with daily breathing treatments and frequent visits to the pulmonologist to keep an eye on his lung development.

And as scary as his situation was at times. it was nothing compared to the experiences that many parents have to go through due to the premature births of their babies. Tiny, tiny babies born incredibly early, struggling not just to breathe on their own, but to live at all, and if they can make it through their first months, they may still face a lifetime of sickness and disabilities.

Every year 20 million babies are born prematurely. Some premature births, like my kids and other multiples, are expected and unavoidable. A woman’s belly, though it can get more humongous than you would ever think possible, does eventually reach its limit. There just isn’t room in there to carry multiple babies for a full 40 weeks. But there are also lots of seemingly healthy singleton pregnancies, that suddenly end with premature births, and doctors don’t always know why.

And so today, I and other bloggers write to share our stories and raise awareness.

For more information on premature births and ways you can help, please visit The March of Dimes.

Eye Injury, Take 2

As Queen of Blog Procrastination, I would like to share an eye injury story. Luckily, this has nothing to do with Thomas’ eye injury two and a half months ago, but rather with Jonathan who injured his eye only ONE month ago!

Also, luckily, this eye injury was not nearly as dramatic, and really only bears noting because Thomas’ WAS so dramatic. We’re not really sure what happened. Bedtime was drawing near, the kids were chasing each other around the living room, and suddenly the peals of laughter were interrupted by a thud and cries of pain.

We believe Jonathan either tripped and fell or (with some unintentional sibling help) was pushed into the entertainment center. Either way he somehow managed to hurt his eyelid while the rest of him remained surprisingly injury-free! It really looked like he pinched his eyelid somehow because the skin didn’t seem to be broken. There was no bloody mess like with Thomas, thank goodness! Here he is the next day:

So you can see that it wasn’t too bad, but it was VERY CLOSE to his eye which was really the scariest part. When his eyes were open, you couldn’t even see it! In fact, I can’t even tell you if there’s a mark left from it because I never think to make him face me with his eyes closed so I can check.

There IS still a scar from Thomas’ baseball bat run-in, but that’s to be expected. Maybe in a couple of years it will have faded to a less noticeable shade of pink! If people are still noticing it when he’s a teenager, I feel certain he’ll talk about it like this:

Cute girl: Ooo, Thomas, how did you get that scar on your eye?

T: Well, you won’t believe it, but when I was a little kid, this older kid came at me with a baseball bat! I didn’t even do anything to him! But he came at me and hit me one good time in the face and cut my eye, but I didn’t care! I turned around and grabbed ahold of the bat and wrenched it from his hands, and I was gonna hit him with it, but my brothers grabbed me and stopped me! And he ran off crying like a baby. My mom went crazy when she saw me cuz there was so much blood. It was everywhere! But I didn’t cry. It didn’t hurt at all. The dr gave me 22 stitches and said it was the worst cut he’d ever seen and I could have lost my eye!

Cute girl: Oh, Thomas, how awful! I can’t believe you were so brave as a little kid!

T: That’s nothing compared to how brave I am now!

Cute girl: (giggles) Oh, Thomas!

I’m not kidding. This will so be Thomas one day!

Thomas Update

For the inquiring minds who want to know (you know who you are!) here is an update on Thomas. As you may recall, he got hit with a plastic bat on July 3rd (read about it HERE) and it cut him just below the eyebrow.

Here he is on July 7 (writhing in continuous pain, as you can tell)

And here he is on July 13 when all of the tape finally came off

And here he is today, July 29

So he does have a scar and probably will for a good long time if not always, but it's not a terribly ugly one. If, like now, he is in desperate need of a haircut, you can't even see it! I'm sure it will fade with time, until it is hardly noticeable. If nothing else, he has a good story to tell!

Wishing You a Happy and SAFE 4th!

And certainly wishing you a safer 4th than our 3rd was! Yesterday was a rough day for JonZReaTom! Well, more accurately, it was a rough night for half of JonZReaTom and their parents!


It had the makings of a great evening! We went to Michelle and Judah's house for dinner and planned on shooting off some fireworks after it got dark. All the kids could run about and play and we could visit and enjoy Judah's return from China. All went well for awhile. We played. We ate dinner. The kids had all left the table to play, while the adults enjoyed some whine-free conversation, when suddenly Michelle screams as someone hits the floor HARD. From where we were sitting, neither Jim nor I could see who had just fallen from the stairs, but as soon as the crying started, we knew it was Jonathan. Jim rushed to pick him up and headed for the backyard because that's what Jim instinctively does with a hurt child.


Crying child=need for fresh air


I followed him out and we calmed Jonathan down a little and examined his head. He had a bruising scrape on his forehead right along his hairline. I went inside knowing Michelle kept child-friendly ice packs in the freezer for just such occasions as this and she reported seeing him fall from the stairs, apparently having tripped or missed a step about three steps from the bottom. He stuck his hands out to brace himself from the fall, so that should have helped it from being as serious as it could have been.


Naturally he didn't like the ice pack and soon was ready to return to playing with the other kids who had by now all spilled out into the backyard. After forcing him to answer lots of questions and follow fingers around to check his eyesight, we decided he was probably okay and let him go play, but WE KEPT AN EYE ON HIM in case he suddenly started acting strange. Just in case, we decided we would also wake him up a few times during the night. Better safe than sorry!


All returned to normal. Jim and Judah headed to the front of the house to retrieve the fireworks, and Michelle went inside to finish cleaning off the table. I was out back with all the kids. Although it's a little vague in my memory, I believe I was talking to Reagan, telling her for the millionth time what had happened to Jonathan, when I heard Thomas start crying. I looked toward him and he was headed in my direction with his hands up over his face. I assumed he had tripped and fallen and headed to comfort him.



Then he took his hands away from his face and revealed a bloody mess! I ran and scooped him up, then hurried back to the house, knowing all the while that I was leaving the rest of the kids unattended in the backyard. What else could I do? I headed for the kitchen (it's the best sink downstairs and you can see the backyard from the window) and called to Michelle. She set right to work applying pressure and trying to clean him up while I comforted and watched the window.


He hadn't just tripped and hit his head on the ground. He had been hit accidentally with a plastic ball bat! David was practicing and just didn't see him. Poor Thomas! It bled like crazy all over both of us, but the cut itself wasn't too bad, just badly placed. He had a nice straight cut just below his left eyebrow. We're certainly thankful it wasn't any lower! But the proximity to the eye combined with his wriggly age meant (according to Michelle's dr whom she immediately and thankfully called) that he wouldn't get stitches. The dr said an ER visit would result in steri-strips and liquid bandage, all of which Michelle had at her house. So, for better or worse, we decided to attend to the would at Michelle's house, rather than taking him to the ER.


He did pretty well during the doctoring, considering. Michelle is really good at explaining what she's about to do in a way that isn't scary to a child. The bandaging may not be as pretty as what he would have gotten at the ER, but the end result should be pretty much the same. We gave him a sucker for being such a good brave boy, and it wasn't long before he was out running around in the yard with the rest of the kids.


By then it was beginning to get dark, so I settled in on the deck with Abby and Reagan who claimed they were "scared" of the fireworks and spent the rest of the night telling Reagan why there was blood all over my shirt.

Both boys seemed fine the rest of the night. We came home and put them all to bed WAY past their bedtime! We woke Jonathan up when we went to bed and made him tell us his full name. He didn't appreciate that one bit. Around 3 AM we woke up Jonathan and Thomas and made them tell us their names. I woke J up again around 5.

They have both been fine all day. We'll continue to keep an eye on them and particularly on Thomas' wound.

My sincerest hopes that your holiday is happy and injury free! God bless America! Happy 4th!

Just in Time for Mother's Day

As you may have noticed, there's been quite a break between this post and the last one. Some of you already know why, but some of you don't, so here's the story...

I've been sick. Very sick.

It started two weeks ago, when I woke up in pain in the very early Monday morning hours. I had felt fine all day Sunday, but suddenly there was mild to moderate pain in my upper abdomen, just below my rib cage, like a cramp that just didn't stop. It continued the rest of the night, lessening as the hours past until I was finally able to fall asleep around 6 or so.

When I woke up, I felt better. The pain was gone, but I was left with a feeling of tightness, like the muscles in my stomach were constantly contracted. This feeling continued for most of the day, but didn't keep me from taking care of the kids. We did, however, watch a lot more TV that day than normal! During the couple of hours before bedtime, I felt better than I had all day, but within an hour of going to bed, the pain was back, but worse this time. Sometime in the middle of the night, it spread to my back. I got very little sleep, but did doze off towards morning as the pain began to lessen.

Tuesday the tightness continued, with occasional pain, so Jim stayed home and I went to see my dr. Naturally, my symptoms did not sound classically like anything, but he suspected either my gall bladder or my stomach, an ulcer perhaps. He ran some blood tests, started me on Nexium in case it was a stomach issue, ordered an ultrasound of my gall bladder to check for stones, and sent me home with instructions to go to the ER if the pain got worse.

I had an "attack" (abdominal and back pain) in the evening, but took some Advil PM before bed, and managed to sleep fairly well that night.

I was at a point where I was afraid to eat almost anything because I didn't want to aggravate my insides. I also found that the tightness in my abdomen became worse if there was any pressure on my stomach, so I couldn't hold my kids in my lap or even really bend over. I had to have someone at the house all the time to watch the kids because I was unable to do so myself.

Wednesday, a couple of ladies from church came over and watched the kids for me. I felt decent in the morning, but as the hours passed I started to go downhill. By naptime I was in pain, and my sweet helpers sent me to bed, refusing to leave until Jim got home from work. When he arrived home and found me in pain, he convinced me to go to the ER. We called in more help from church to watch the kids, and off we went.

At the ER they did more blood tests, a urine test, and a CT scan. They told me all my tests came back negative, I didn't have kidney stones, and my gall bladder looked fine. They sent me home, in pain, and told me I needed to see a GI dr.

My parents came on Thursday to stay and help with the kids. I wasn't able to get a GI appt until Friday. My GI dr ordered another blood test to check for an ulcer-related bacteria and suggested I keep taking the Nexium and wait to see what the ultrasound showed NEXT WEDNESDAY!

The days went by. I always felt my best in the morning. Then sometime in the afternoon I would have an "attack" which might get better after I ate dinner and might not. I didn't have another overnight attack until around 3 Mon morning.

Finally, Wednesday arrived and I had my ultrasound. It looked at my gall bladder, kidneys, and spleen. My primary care dr called me that afternoon to say that everything looked fine. I admit I was disappointed. I was hoping for gall stones. Then I would KNOW what was wrong, and we could get it taken care of quickly! But alas, I looked fine. He did say, however, that the ultrasound did not completely rule out my gall bladder. It could still be having problems even if there were no stones. He ordered a HIDA scan to check my gall bladder function and told me to keep taking the Nexium.

Surprisingly, although the tightness continued, I didn't have any painful attacks on Wednesday. It was my first painfree day since the whole thing started! My parents went back to Memphis that day, needing to take care of a few things back home, but prepared to come back if they needed to.

The next 2 days brought the return of wonderful church helpers to watch the kids. I had a mild attack late Thursday afternoon which lasted all evening, but with the help of some Advil PM, I slept okay that night. I had no pain on Friday, but was very, very tired all day.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. No pain. No tightness. I felt almost normal! And it was a good thing too because around 6 last night Zachary started throwing up. He threw up several times throughout the rest of the evening. It wasn't too bad as vomiting episodes go, but it was possibly the worst we've ever had with our kids. It definitely required 2 functioning parents! One to tend to Zachary and one to tend to the other three! We finally put him to bed at almost 9:30 and he never threw up again. So far, he hasn't today either. Yea!

So now it's Mother's Day, and I am very thankful to feel practically normal again today. I have done more around the house this weekend without any attacks. I'm thankful to be helpful again! I'm slowly branching out from unseasoned grilled chicken, unadorned baked potatoes, and plain turkey sandwiches, and very thankful for the return of a little flavor to my meals.

I'm thankful for all the wonderful people who stepped up to help take care of the kids while I couldn't, most importantly Jim and my parents, but also Pam, Margie, Melissa, Charlotte, Tim, Gwen, Jeanette, Carla, and Ozell. Thank you all SO MUCH for being such a blessing to me and my family!

And most of all I'm tankful for being able to hold my kids in my lap again! That is truly a Mother's Day treat!

As for the future of my as-yet-unidentified illness, who knows! Perhaps the Nexium has healed something within me or perhaps two weeks of an incredibly bland diet has soothed something within me. Tuesday's HIDA scan should at least tell me whether or not the problem lies in my gall bladder. Then we can either cross it off the list of possibilities or yank it out of me altogether. I have a follow-up appt with the GI dr that same day, so we'll see what the next step is.

Hopefully, there will be no more painful attacks, and we can get some real answers soon! Thank you for all your encouragement and prayers! I'll keep you posted!

PS--KayKay did a fantastic job keeping up with Reagan's potty training while she and Bud were here, maybe even a better job than I had been doing before I got sick! Reagan is well on her way now to being declared officially potty-trained! Thanks Mom! Happy Mother's Day! I love you!

Memphis Drama

I got so caught up in getting pics of the Memphis trip onto the blog, that I forgot to mention the dramatic moments of the first couple of days!

We arrived in Memphis on Friday. On Saturday, Jonathan started wheezing. He had a slight runny nose, but nothing impressive, certainly not as bad as other runny noses he has had. No fever, acted normal. He has never wheezed before that I can remember, so it was very strange for him to be wheezing! As the day wore on, his wheezing got worse. Late afternoon, my sister, a pediatric nurse, came over and listened to him breath and wheeze. She suggested breathing treatments to see if that helped. It made sense to me. I knew that if we had been at home, we would have done that already, since that has always been prescribed for breathing issues on the kids.

PROBLEM: I didn't bring the nebulizer or medicine with me! (A nebulizer is a machine that turns liquid medicine into a breathable mist) It never occurred to me that I might need them! So Jodie got us a spacer (which we also had at home and used on Thomas when he was little. It's a plastic tube with a little mask on one end. Medicine comes in an inhaler, like for asthma, and attaches to the other end. Puffs go into the tube to be breathed through the mask.) and the inhaler version of basically the same medicine that we use in the nebulizer.

We gave him a treatment and he did sound better afterwards, but he HATED the treatment! We gave him one more before he went to bed. He slept very poorly, constantly waking up and crying and still wheezing. I brought him in bed with me after awhile and listened to him breath. I tried to give him another treatment in the night, but he just screamed, so I quit. I laid in bed for hours listening to his breathing get worse, and debating whether I needed to get up and take him to the ER because his breathing sounded so awful he couldn't possibly be getting enough oxygen in his body and if I kept waiting he would surely suffocate RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!!!. I had just decided to get up when he suddenly sounded better. He fell asleep and his wheezing got better and better. He slept soundly, and then I fell asleep too. In the morning, he wasn't wheezing at all!

But it started up again after he had been awake a couple hours. Fearing a repeat of yesterday, I decided to take him to a LeBonheur urgent care office. Bud went with me (Thank you again!) and we saw a dr. Jonathan certainly did not ACT sick! His O2 was normal and the dr said the wheezing didn't seem to be in his lungs, although I feel certain it was the night before! He prescribed Orapred and breathing treatments with the spacer just like we had been doing. I was glad of that since I had felt some guilt about giving him medicine that hadn't technically been prescribed for him. (Feel free to chastise me next time we're at the office, Molly!)

He got a breathing treatment at the office and two more later in the day and never wheezed again! Thank goodness! I can guarantee you we will never go on another trip without the breathing medicine!

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Sorry for the delay, everyone. Things have been a little crazy here. The kids have been sick with runny noses and coughs since the first of the month, and we're just now getting past them. As it turns out, they probably have had RSV. Reagan saw the pedi who said she was so sure that this was our problem, that she wasn't going to bother testing for it. Hurrah for saving us some money!

RSV can be a Really Scary Virus if you have an infant, especially a preemie, or a child with chronic lung issues, but for older, generally healthy kids like mine it is just a Really Stupid Virus that produces a lot of snotty noses and coughing and lasts forever and keeps you from being able to go anywhere. The kids have FELT FINE the whole time, no fevers, no fussiness, no Ladies Bible Class, no playgroup, no church. So annoying! The worst it has done for us is cause some wheezing in Reagan (we have had wheezing issues with her before) that required some breathing treatments and one puny morning with Jonathan. That's it! The rest of the time has just been annoying that the kids felt fine but we couldn't go anywhere because we didn't want to spread our contagion to the world.

But that hasn't kept us from going outside when the weather has permitted! And one of those nice weather days just happened to be Valentine's Day!

The day started out with the cards I stayed up way too late the night before to make for them.

Not bad, if I do say so myself! I'm particularly proud of the puppy. Their names are on the cards, but they're kind of hard to see in the picture. They also got some candy, but not much because Bud and Kaykay had sent them some too. And Daddy made pancakes! A perfect V-day morning!

In the afternoon, we went outside to play. It had rained recently, so we went out front to run around in the driveway instead of the wet backyard.

Zachary, Reagan, Jonathan, and Thomas

Spreading the love!

We hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! Thank you Gammy, Granny Kat, Bud and Kaykay for all the cards and goodies! We love you all!

Coming Soon

Okay, I know I've been absent lately. I've been really busy and I'm not done yet, but I wanted to pop in real quick to at least let you all know that we are not deathly ill or anything. We've been fighting some colds which have kept us out of church nurseries but not out of the pumpkin patch, nor did they keep us from the Fall Festival or trick-or-treating. So we've had a lot going on and all the things that didn't get done because those things were going on have just piled up and piled up and now I have a lot of catching up to do and I don' just mean on the blog! I'm way behind in several areas right now! And there's so much to tell you about! But I just don't have time right now, so I'll leave you with a few pics to give you a glimpse of what we've been up to and will post as soon as I can!

 

Picking a good one

A pretty hefty Halloween clue!

 

The time has finally come...