Monday, November 30, 2009

Loving this blog

As we are about to become home owners (closing any second now), I have loved thinking about projects for our home. I especially love cheap/thrifty/free ideas. I have spent an hour reading and loving this blog:

http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/

During that hour Kyle put about 9 CDs in our VCR. And Taylor wonders why it doesn't work. Sorry Sweetheart.

I have so many pages bookmarked and can't wait to get started.

Friday, November 20, 2009

It's been a fun few days

On Wednesday I woke up with pain in my seeing eye. This was new, as everything has always been the other eye. I tried to ignore it for the day, but by that evening I knew I had to go to the doctor.

So I tried to make an appointment. The doctor that I love who has been my doctor since I was 3 is in Iran doing some sort of goodwill stuff or whatever (doesn't he know when I need him?). So they told me to go to Triage, a sort of ER for eye problems at the Moran Center. My mom came to sit with the kids, and I headed up around 2 (missing a really important Days of Our Lives, so you know I was pretty worried). I was behind a few people, so I got my glasses adjusted. That was the high point of the day.

The tech took me back for the paperwork. He started flipping through my file. I noticed that they put the 6-page-long letter of complaint I wrote about my bad experience with one of their doctors. Suddenly I was panicked wondering who knew that I had sent that and what they thought and what was said (I know they have millions of patients, but I'm somewhat of a celebrity there. I've been there since I was 2 weeks old in a clinic that is more than 90% geriatric, so I stand out. Then I was Miss Utah and had lots of problems that year. Everyone loved it. They had my poster in their break room. Really.) At one point one doctor started reading it and I just said, "That has nothing to do with this eye. Nothing in that chart has anything to do with this eye."

Anyway, that was a tangent. To make a long story longer I saw three doctors. All of which agreed that my eye looked completely normal. My only symptom was pain when it moved. And it seemed swollen in a way I couldn't describe. For FOUR hours I sat there with lights and people in my eyes with no results. They flipped my eyelid inside out a hundred times, each time managing to rip out eyelashes and somehow getting them to land in my eye. I left with a recommendation to take a steroid drop and use a warm compress and come back Monday to see another trio of doctors. They said it was likely swelling behind the optic nerve. I looked that up on the internet. I shouldn't have. It's a sign of MS. Lovely.

I didn't like their diagnosis. And it seemed like they had no idea what they were doing. So I called around and found another doctor to see me. While my mom and I waited in the room for the doctor I looked at an eye chart, pointed to a blob on it, and told my mom that was the problem. The new doctor flipped my eyelid, numbed my eye, pushed my eyeball down with a long q-tip and poked around behind my brow bone. (ouch!) He found the spot that hurt. I jumped and hollered a bit. The diagnosis: infection of the lacrimal gland (it makes tears then sends them to your tear ducts). It's very rare. He's only seen it two other times. It's not dangerous. I just have to take a ton of ibuprofen and see him Monday.

That's what I do. Anytime I see a doctor it seems I hear "This is unusual." "This happens like 3% of the time." or "I just don't know what's going on."

Anyway, the point in all of this was that for two days I had convinced myself that something terrible was happening. This pain is very similar to glaucoma. I was almost certain that I had glaucoma in my good eye. I thought of all the things I wouldn't be able to do without vision (everything), and I'm so grateful that it turned out well. And I'm so grateful for the vision I do have and what it allows me to do. I have been blessed in simple but amazing things.

And our house is done! We had our walk-through today. There were about 300 places that the paint needed to be touched up, but other than that we're just waiting to close---and thanksgiving is making that hard, but we'll close on the 30th most likely. Exactly they day we've always planned on. I can't wait to move in. The house is so beautiful, and we are so ready to have our own place.

And if you read that whole long post you must really care about me.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

We have it easy

Today we were at my mom's house and needed a diaper for kyle. I went to the car to realize that I had none. We usually keep a good amount in there, looks like it's time to restock. Fortunately for all of us, Mom had an extra one lying around.

The experience gave me something to think about though. We're at a good stage in life. We can leave home as long as everyone has a jacket and shoes. That's it. No toting a diaper bag. No blankets to bundle. No toys to entertain. No extra food to pack. No potty trainer to worry about. Claire can buckle herself into her car seat, Kyle's learning to dress himself. Our hands-on parenting is slowly reducing as our kids become more self-sufficient.

Then I realized this is why my paternal grandmother firmly believed in reproducing every 18 months. That way you wouldn't know how easy it could be. If you're always in infant mode you don't realize how much your life will change with a new infant.

I'm certainly going through a need-a-new-baby stage (mostly thanks to my many friends who are now cooking/raising baby #3). But are we ready to go back to diaper bag toting and all of the accessories that come with a baby? Am I ready to go through 22 weeks of extreme morning sickness? No. No, I'm not. Is that selfish?

One thing we really enjoyed in Logan and would like to continue was family bike rides. We borrowed bikes and trailer from friends, and it was SO much fun to haul the kids around. If I were pregnant I'd have a hard time with that this summer (maybe?). What a funny reason.

Anyway, we have enough on our plate right now, so I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the goodness of having two independent children. Selfish as it feels.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Update

Here are a few updates on things in our life:
Swine Flu: We are still recovering. I'm 15 days into this thing. I still cough uncontrollably at night. I have never taken medicine with such abandon. I usually carefully consider each chemical I put into my body. Now I practically chug the robitussin at night with little regard for amount or last dose. I try to be somewhat accurate, but that's about it. Kyle got Tamiflu and seems to the best of all of us. He coughs occassionally, but that's about it. He sleeps all night and is back to dancing whenever he hears TV theme songs. A sure sign of recovery. Claire is the worst off of all of us, but she's 6 days behind me and 3 days behind Kyle. She still coughs a lot, is ghost-pale, and is currently at InstaCare complaining of an earache and strange noises in her ear. She says a bug is in there breathing. Taylor thankfully took her. I've been twice since this started, and that should be my quota. I don't love having swine flu at a doctor's office. And FYI we are at InstaCare because we don't have a doctor down here on our insurance plan.

The House: Mom and I ran up yesterday to see things. It looks like all that needs to be done is stove installation and paint touch ups. Oh, and they put the wrong counter top in two bathrooms, so they have to switch those out. We should close sometime this coming week and move in the next. We noticed that they have some pretty severe scratches in our brand new wood floor thanks to the workers and moving appliances. I'm not too happy. They'll hear about it from me. The baby potty is in and SO cute! It's so tiny. I'll post pictures sometime.

So things are moving along. Whitney and Rob should return to their now germ-free home tonight. We're excited to have them back in their own house. We've felt terrible that our sickness forced them out for a week.

Claire just got back from the doctor and does have an ear infection. Hopefully it explains her orneryness and sensitivity. Now we just need to get the prescription. My goal is to be all well by Thanksgiving. Pray for us!

Monday, November 9, 2009

Swine Flu Fun

Last Sunday I started to feel a weird cough. I wasn't thrilled about it. By Monday I had an awful sore throat and headache to add to the vicious cough. Taylor came home from work, I took nyquil and slept about 14 hours. When I woke up it was worse. The same thing happened on Tuesday expect for Taylor stayed the night in Ogden and I practically passed out trying to get the kids to sleep. I had lost my stern voice and my patience.

Wednesday Kyle woke up with a raging fever. I immediately took him to the doctor (InstaCare as we don't have a pediatrician in Sandy) following the HHS directions for children under 5. The lovely doctor told me I had a cold and Kyle had a slight virus. He did a strep test (negative) and said it wasn't swine. I was to sick to have the consciousness to ask why. I told him that it was the worst cold I had ever had. He didn't seem to care.

Kyle got worse on Thursday and so did I. At one point I texted Taylor and told him that since that was apparently not swine flu I had already determined that if swine did come along I would sit in the cold until I had to be hospitalized rather than have to be sicker than I was and still take care of the children.

Claire woke with a 99.9 fever Friday. After Kyle's nap, and 40 minutes after his ibuprofen his fever was 103.5. I decided to forget what the first doctor said and take him to another InstaCare clinic. After waiting 90 minutes to see a doctor---NO ONE else was even there---this one did a strep on Kyle (negative) then did a swine swab (up the nose, not pleasant) on Kyle. She prescribed Tamiflu even though it was most likely more than 36 hours since he got sick. I called Claire's Logan pediatrician would not prescribe Tamiflu for an unconfirmed case and as he foresees an upcoming shortage. He cited the fact that she was older than Kyle and would fight it better. I begged. I was denied. I was too sick myself to try another doctor. Taylor was still gone at this point---working on the house.

Whitney and Rob moved out (of their own house that we share with them) that night to avoid possible contamination. Good thing too, because on Saturday we found out that it was in face H1N1. I will be writing a very strong letter to the first doctor. Both of my kids could have had Tamilflu in plenty of time had he just listened to me and swabbed Kyle or me.

Today I'm finally not miserable. Kyle hasn't had a fever for two days. Claire is still burning. Taylor is still praying to not be infected. We decided that as long as we had to remain isolated we might as well isolate ourselves in our own house, so we drove up to Ogden and spent the day working on the shower. I was still in recovery, but it was nice to have the work to keep my mind off of my symptoms. And now today I have my sore, sore muscles to help me forget my lingering cough and sore throat.
Here is Taylor installing backerboard. He is an expert. Kind of. He rigs it together at least.


Kyle is becoming a wonderful helper. Miserable as he was, and scared of the drill as he was, he stood guard over the screws and handed one to Taylor whenever he needed them. You screw it in every 8 inches, so that was often.

Here I am swine flu and all. Taylor does the backerboard and cuts the tile. I do the mud and set the tile. It's a dirty job, but I love it. I'm not motivated enough to turn the picture. Sorry.

Our poor kids (who NEVER nap) napped most of the time we were there. Claire relaxed in "her" room for hours. Kyle took THREE naps that day tile saw, drill, hammer and all. He slept through it. Just so you don't worry, the heater was on, and the were bundled up good. They had all the comforts of home. Well, an empty one, but they were fine.

We returned to Whitney and Rob's (minus Whitney and Rob) to find a delicious dinner in the fridge and presents on the counter. My mom and Suzy brought dinner and bags of presents, three for each kid to open, one each for the next three days. She also packed in craft projects and other comfort food. (THANKS GUYS!). What a relief!

So this has been hard. I hope we never get anything like this again. It was so hard to be a mother and sick at the same time. Whitney helped out, and so did Taylor when he wasn't at work or working on the house, but it was so hard. I was sick 4 days before the kids were, that was the hardest because they were rambunctious as ever, and I was dead. My mom did come take them to dinner Tuesday night and I got a little rest (and thankfully she didn't get the flu from their evening out).

I'm looking forward to next week and when we can all be better. However my cousin Shayna tells me that she had it 3 weeks ago and is still coughing with a sore throat.

But I FINALLY found my camera charger. So that's happy. Wish us luck. Don't come over.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween







So here are a bunch of pictures from Halloween. Claire was Snow White and Kyle was Dopey (Claire wanted him to be a dwarf, and all the rest have a beard, so Dopey wonThey'll make up for our lack of posting pictures for months. Thanks to Rob for the use of his camera. Can't wait to move and actually know where my stuff is again!

First we went to the ward party. As previously mentioned we're crashing with Whitney and Rob until the house is done. So we're crashing into their ward too.
With Rob & Whitney