It's been a very medical few weeks around here. About two weeks ago I got a letter in the mail from the IL health department informing me of the results of Nic's newborn screening. You know, the one we did in April of 2011, fifteen months ago. It turns out Nic has sickle cell disease. Good thing they were quick about getting me those results. Two days later a nurse called to check in on us. It was her job to make sure we took Nic to a doctor. Once I told her that we had she basically hung up on me. I'm pretty grateful right now that our state government is not in charge of Nic's healthcare.
They also sent me a booklet on "creating your medical home." It's all about how our lives will revolve around Nic's medical care, which I found rather depressing. My personal goal is for our lives, and Nic's to be as normal as possible while ensuring he gets the medical care he needs. Perhaps it is tomato, tomaaaato, but it still made me sad. Then, this week we went to the hospital for Nic's transcranial Doppler, and on the way Tommy asked. "Are we going to the same hospital that we go to every single day?" And I had to respond, "yes." Although to be fair everyday is an exaggeration, though we have been three times in as many weeks, so perhaps I am not succeeding in keeping our lives "normal."
The good news is that the results of the test came back "perfect," so we don't have to put Nic on any more medications. We will be doing these tests once a year around his birthday, as it is important to keep an eye on the blood vessels in his brain to prevent strokes. Strokes are far too common in children with sickle cell disease. Now he just has one more special vaccination to get and then we should be done with his regularly schedule medical maintenance for the next few months.
On to Tommy, it turns out that he has obstructive sleep apnea caused by a rather large pair of tonsils. He will be having surgery this Friday to take care of that. Hopefully it will end his habit of snoring like an old man (did you know children aren't supposed to snore? I didn't, which is why Tommy has suffered from sleep apnea for years). I'm really nervous about Tommy going under for the surgery, and sad that he is going to be in pain afterwards, but I know it is necessary. The poor child is so tired all the time, no matter how much sleep he ostensibly gets. We are hoping this will make a big difference for him. Please pray for us on Friday, for Tommy's surgery to go smoothly and for his poor mama's nerves.
Kenny's doing great right now, thankfully. I don't think I can handle yet another trip to the doctor's!
In other news, I bought twenty pounds of stone fruit two weeks ago. I wish I would have gotten more because my children are like bottomless pits for peaches and nectarines. They ate nine of the ten pounds of peaches, so to my everlasting sadness I did not get to can anything peach this year save for one batch of mixed peach/nectarine jelly. I wish my kiddos were old enough to labor in the peach fields, because I would seriously drive them to MI for some picking. Tommy could do it, but trying to keep Nic from taking one bite of everything would probably drive me crazy. I did manage to make and can a few different nectarine jams. I went for small batches so I could try a wider variety. I made low-sugar nectarine, honey nectarine, spiced nectarine, and nectarine peach jams. The spiced jam is amazing. My favorite out of the bunch, although the honey is great too. The recipe is on my Pinterest under canning.
We are slowly but surely settling into our space. I did more rearranging this week and I think I have the boy's room almost under control. We've made a few tweaks to our family room as well. It's amazing the difference having a small shelf for your keys and sunglasses can make. I never wonder where they are anymore! The kitchen is almost functional too. My biggest goal has been to change living patterns that are inefficient. For example, I had the cloth napkins stored in the family room, because the basket looked cute on the shelf. But that meant every time we wanted napkins someone had to leave the kitchen. Insanity! Now the basket is in the kitchen, turned sideways to fit, and therefore, not as decorative, but way more functional. The cleaning rag bag has also been moved to the kitchen because we have more spills there than any other room in the house. Now my biggest problem is storage. I have so many clothes in the in-between sizes that it would be crazy to get rid of because I have three boys and they are all going to need clothes, but they are taking up all of my very limited storage space. Also, I need to find a place to shove the vacuum cleaner! My motto has been "slow and steady wins the race." I am going to figure this out...someday. Perhaps by the time I do we will have more than 850 square feet to live in, perhaps...
They also sent me a booklet on "creating your medical home." It's all about how our lives will revolve around Nic's medical care, which I found rather depressing. My personal goal is for our lives, and Nic's to be as normal as possible while ensuring he gets the medical care he needs. Perhaps it is tomato, tomaaaato, but it still made me sad. Then, this week we went to the hospital for Nic's transcranial Doppler, and on the way Tommy asked. "Are we going to the same hospital that we go to every single day?" And I had to respond, "yes." Although to be fair everyday is an exaggeration, though we have been three times in as many weeks, so perhaps I am not succeeding in keeping our lives "normal."
The good news is that the results of the test came back "perfect," so we don't have to put Nic on any more medications. We will be doing these tests once a year around his birthday, as it is important to keep an eye on the blood vessels in his brain to prevent strokes. Strokes are far too common in children with sickle cell disease. Now he just has one more special vaccination to get and then we should be done with his regularly schedule medical maintenance for the next few months.
On to Tommy, it turns out that he has obstructive sleep apnea caused by a rather large pair of tonsils. He will be having surgery this Friday to take care of that. Hopefully it will end his habit of snoring like an old man (did you know children aren't supposed to snore? I didn't, which is why Tommy has suffered from sleep apnea for years). I'm really nervous about Tommy going under for the surgery, and sad that he is going to be in pain afterwards, but I know it is necessary. The poor child is so tired all the time, no matter how much sleep he ostensibly gets. We are hoping this will make a big difference for him. Please pray for us on Friday, for Tommy's surgery to go smoothly and for his poor mama's nerves.
Kenny's doing great right now, thankfully. I don't think I can handle yet another trip to the doctor's!
In other news, I bought twenty pounds of stone fruit two weeks ago. I wish I would have gotten more because my children are like bottomless pits for peaches and nectarines. They ate nine of the ten pounds of peaches, so to my everlasting sadness I did not get to can anything peach this year save for one batch of mixed peach/nectarine jelly. I wish my kiddos were old enough to labor in the peach fields, because I would seriously drive them to MI for some picking. Tommy could do it, but trying to keep Nic from taking one bite of everything would probably drive me crazy. I did manage to make and can a few different nectarine jams. I went for small batches so I could try a wider variety. I made low-sugar nectarine, honey nectarine, spiced nectarine, and nectarine peach jams. The spiced jam is amazing. My favorite out of the bunch, although the honey is great too. The recipe is on my Pinterest under canning.
We are slowly but surely settling into our space. I did more rearranging this week and I think I have the boy's room almost under control. We've made a few tweaks to our family room as well. It's amazing the difference having a small shelf for your keys and sunglasses can make. I never wonder where they are anymore! The kitchen is almost functional too. My biggest goal has been to change living patterns that are inefficient. For example, I had the cloth napkins stored in the family room, because the basket looked cute on the shelf. But that meant every time we wanted napkins someone had to leave the kitchen. Insanity! Now the basket is in the kitchen, turned sideways to fit, and therefore, not as decorative, but way more functional. The cleaning rag bag has also been moved to the kitchen because we have more spills there than any other room in the house. Now my biggest problem is storage. I have so many clothes in the in-between sizes that it would be crazy to get rid of because I have three boys and they are all going to need clothes, but they are taking up all of my very limited storage space. Also, I need to find a place to shove the vacuum cleaner! My motto has been "slow and steady wins the race." I am going to figure this out...someday. Perhaps by the time I do we will have more than 850 square feet to live in, perhaps...
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2 comments:
Here's one idea that Philip & Abby did to live 3 years in 336 feet. They put their bed up on 4"-5" nicely stained blocks. This gave them room under their bed for LOTS of storage. They actually put all of their clothes into bins, because they didn't have room for dressers.Maybe you could do this with your bed & the boys' beds.
Just thinkin'
Gretchen
I love Gretchen's idea about elevating the bed and storing underneath. We have a similar storage issue, although I have a basement, but I was sick of so many clothes that I went through all of the kiddos stuff, especially the babies and ruthlessly cut things out. I am talking like 6 summer shirts, 3 shorts and a couple pairs of pants and that's it. I found it helps me do laundry more often because I need to, and not let everything pile up and then do 25 loads. Plus we only have one dresser of clothes for the 3 babies and this makes everything actually fit in there. It's hard to do because of all the cute things, but helps a lot.
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