Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Pumpkin Pictures

We had Crystal Garcia take pictures of the kids a couple of weeks ago.  I was really sure if she was going to be able to get anything because my children didn’t exactly cooperate.  Shocker, I know!  So, since they were dressed, I took a few of Campbell and Larkin when we got home…here are the best…and they still aren’t great but oh well!IMG_7360IMG_7361IMG_7364IMG_7395IMG_7409IMG_7414IMG_7420IMG_7424IMG_7437IMG_7439

Let me give a little update on Larkin’s health:  We had tubes put in on October 18th.  We found out that she has the IGA deficiency while doing the routine preop blood work.  We were told that she doesn’t have the first line of defense antibodies to protect her from respiratory viruses.  So…guess what?  A week after getting Larkin’s tubes, we were back at Dr. Slusher’s office with a horrible cough and WHEEZING…again!  I feel like a broken record.  When I got in there, Larkin was, of course, smiling and acting like she was perfectly fine…why do our children always have to make us look like liars at the dr. office.  Anyway, I gave my spill.  She didn’t have a runny nose.  I heard her cough a few times wednesday evening, put her to bed, and she woke with a HORRIBLE cough and wheezing.  Dr. Slusher listened to her and said her lungs sounded great and she didn’t hear any wheezing.  SIGH…double SIGH!  Larkin never wheezes when we are in the dr. office.  It is so frustrating…to the point that I thought that I must surely be confused and maybe I really hadn’t been hearing wheezing.  Well, I was talking to Dr. slusher about the iga thing and she stopped mid sentence and said “did you hear that…keep talking…I am going to listen with my stethoscope.”  She listened for a few minutes and she said “yes…she is wheezing off and on all the time”.  And the angels started singing!!!!!!  FINALLY!  It wasn’t just me hearing it at home!  FINALLY!!!!!!!!  This wheezing has been happening with every illness but they haven’t heard it since the spring.  I, on the other hand, hear it ALL THE TIME!  So, she said that I needed to be tested to see if I have the IGA issue because it is hereditary…I don’t have it!  YAY!    So, maybe that means she will outgrown it.  Dr. Slusher is referring Larkin to Dr. Zambie for more testing and find out a course of treatment…if any at all.  In the meantime, she is on preventive breathing treatment twice a day to help prevent the wheezing…not the actual respiratory illness so she will still get sick, she just wont wheeze.  The reason wheezing is so bad is that your bronchial tubes are being squeezed so much that when oxygen is going through, you hear a whistling.  It’s bad because obviously, you don’t want your oxygen to be clamped off at all….and you don’t know at what point, the clamping will go past this point. Does that even make any sense?!  Anyway, she will be on the preventive steroid breathing treatment twice a day for AT LEAST all of winter…yay, because breathing treatments are my absolute favorite to administer to a baby! Ha!  AND, she is on albuterol (the normal steroid) breathing treatments three times a day for at least a week.   So, at this point, I feel like this is what I do:

Wake up and shower and get dressed, get breakfast for boys, nurse larkin, give her a breathing treatment (sometimes while I am nursing…I am sure that is a no, no), dress Larkin, dress the boys, fix boys lunch (on school days), load kids (and junk) in the car, take boys to school, come back home, give larkin another breathing treatment, put her down for a nap listen to her scream until I give in and go get her, clean up boys breakfast, try to eat some breakfast myself (whats the point at 10), start some laundry, nurse larkin, give larkin breathing treatment, feed larkin lunch (when I actually have time and she isn’t falling asleep from exhaustion of refusing morning nap), put larkin down for a nap, clean up around the house, wake larkin up (before she is ready to be woken up…so sad), load up car, go pick up boys, come home, give the boys a snack, cook supper, nurse larkin, give breathing treatment, feed everyone supper, clean up supper, bathe everyone, give larkin ANOTHER breathing treatment, nurse Larkin/put her to bed, go kiss the boys (while matt puts them to bed), finish cleaning up the kitchen, laundry, fold clothes, etc., Take bath, and CRASH!

I could probable sum it by saying that I feed children, administer medicine, clean and dress children, chauffeur children around, and clean house.  That’s it in a nut shell!  OR, as some people think, I twiddle my thumbs all day!

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