Prayers

I am a firm believer that all our prayers are answered. Sometimes we tend to think if God doesn't give us a 'yes' answer then it was an unanswered prayed. What we fail to realize is that God is allowed to give us a 'no' answer, and when is does it is the best thing for us.

My blood pressures are going hair wire. I was taken off one medication because it was making me exhausted. (I mean sleep for three days straight exhausted) I then started a new medication that almost put me in cardiac arrest. I am now trying something different. Oh, how I pray this one works. Having hair wire blood pressures is extremely hard on the kidneys, and I have decided that I want mine to last as long as possible:)

My husband has his sleep study tomorrow night. Still no results from the MRI. Please continue to pray all goes well.

Tuesday Updates

After a rough week I went for my Endoscopy yesterday. Everything turned out well just as I suspected it would. I do not have stomach pain!! I have constant right upper quadrant pain. Per insurance requirements I had to do the Endoscopy in order to advance to the next test. I am scheduled for a HIDA scan on Thursday as well as more extensive blood work (CBC,PT,PTT,INR comprehensive Profile,lipase,amylase, and Liver Profile). Then I am also scheduled for a lovely test on the 26th.

I was very sick on Sunday (dizzy, double vision, and weak). My blood work from last Friday shows that my Iron levels have basically bottomed out again. Thus all the symptoms on Sunday
:-( We must find out why my body is not absorbing the iron. My kidney function dropped 4% in less than 30 days. The doctor said IF it continues to drop at the same rate in 6 short months I will need a new kidney or dialysis. We are praying that if we can get my body to absorb the iron it will slow kidney decline.


Today has been a good day. I was able to get up and I made breakfast (apple pancakes) lunch (hot dogs) and dinner is cooking (beef stew). For me that is a tremendous feat.

Thanks to everyone who have kept me in your prayers through all of this.

Enoughs enough

OK... I am tired. Victoria has been running a fever (off and on) for 9 days now. I have missed the last two Sundays at church. She started feeling really bad again on Saturday morning...moderate fever, aches, chills, nausea. (Same thing as last week) I am going to call the doctor in the morning and see if they can get her in. While I am out I will stop by the lab and have my blood work done for my upcoming appointment. (I always do the blood work first, that way the results are in when I actually see the doctor) I will take Jesse to work in the morning and use the truck (UGH) The inspection is out on the van (remember) and we did not realize it so it was not bugeted for last payday. Therefore it has to wait until next payday. Good thing for two vehicles;) It is supossed to turn bitterly cold on Thursday. I guess we will have to wait and see. I am sure it will be warm compared to Alaska no matter how much our temperture bottoms out.

Answers

We received a few answered prayers today. My father-in-law is home and looks well. He has gotten a bit weaker and is still quite raspy but good over all. Just as we were leaving to go to Bay City the phone rang. Finally an appointment for Christian. He will see the doctor on Thursday October 23rd. We must go to Clear Lake for the appointment but will be happy to have him seen. My niece came through the operation just fine. My husband will be doing a Bible study with the husband of one of our church members tomorrow night. And...........I found a nice plump turkey!!! THAT'S FIVE ANSWERED PRAYERS IN ONE DAY!!!! My two goofy teenage sons are currently putting up the Christmas tree. Yes, I am aware that Thanksgiving is not even here yet. However given the present situation (no details please) we agreed to let them go ahead with it. But.......NO OUTSIDE LIGHTS YET!!!!

LQTS

LQTS (Long QT Syndrome). That is Christian's official diagnosis per the pediatrician. The ped's office set him an appointment with the cardiologist here locally (Dr. Harris) for Thursday at 1 p.m. Please pray for us during this time. I am not comfortable with the type of questions I am being asked. There are a lot of 'ifs' involved.

Dr. Visit

Christian went for his Renal Ultrasound today. It has been three years since his first one and today we once again received the 'All Clear'. I also picked up the results of the EKG done on the 9th of September as well as the lab reports. All of his labs were good. His EKG shows Prolonged QT . http://heartdisease.about.com/cs/arrhythmias/a/LQTS.htmThe EKG also showed Sinus rhythm with Premature atrial complexes http://heartdisease.about.com/od/palpitationsarrhythmias/a/PACs.htm Not exactly sure what all this means but we are waiting for an appointment with a cardiologist at Texas Children's.

PKD Update

Today was Nick's echo cardiogram. Other than seeing an unborn baby in the womb via ultrasound this was one of the neatest things I have ever seen. The human heart!!! We should have the results the early part of next week. Christian had his 12 year old check up today as well. We did blood work and an EKG. Those results are all in but..we were in Houston when they called so I have to call them back in the morning. Christian is also scheduled for an ultrasound on September 18th. That was our day in a nutshell.

Friday

I have had a looooong day. First stop of the day was to see Dad's endocrinologist. Not to much to mention about that visit other than they checked thyroid, hormone function, and B-12. We will have those results within a week or so. Next stop was to the neurologist. He then told us that the 'metal' the tech mentioned last week is actually a clamp holding two titanium plates together on Dad's skull. Then came the whopper...Dad's pituitary brain tumor has returned. At this point it is very small. We have already been advised against another brain surgery. Dad will be 73 in a few months and is weak in health overall. We have been advised to just sit back and wait. Sit back and wait!!!! The GREAT news in all of this is that Dad is saved and will spend eternity with our Lord and Savior. On another note we finally recieved an appointment for Nick's echo. September 9. Please continue to pray for our family.

Wednesday

The day turned out good for the most part. We left our house @ 9:15 in the morning. It never did rain on us and I had some nice 'alone' time with my in-laws. The children were fine with the exception of Isaiah falling off the piano bench and onto the hard wood floor. My husband came home for lunch to see about them. The MRI tech kept questioning us as to whether or not dad had any metal in his head. (which he does not or at least he should not). Well, according to the latest imaging there is definately a metal object in dad's head. I don't know exactly what all this means. The tech said that apparently something was left in during the 2003 operation and is just now showing up. I personally find that very hard to believe. Dad has had probably 8 or more scans since the operation and nothing has ever been found. Please pray that is just a fluke or someting and there is NO metal present. Dad is weak and probably would not survive an operation to have to remove the object. I arrived home yesterday afternoon aound 4:45. Loaded up my kids (who had been home INSIDE all day) and we went to the park. On our way we stopped and picked up Lil Homer and he joined us. After we finished at the park we stopped at Mc Donald's for an ice cream cone and the kids played for awhile. According to Mapquest we traveled 177.83 miles.

Tuesday

Today it's off to Houston. As most of you know my father-in-law had a massive brain tumor several years back. As a result of that he must go yearly for an MRI of the brain just to check and make sure everything is there. Well, today is that day. My in-laws arrived around 6 pm last evening and we will be leaving this morning. The weather is supposed to be VERY rainy today. I hate driving in the rain. Oh Well!! That's my new answer for everything..Oh Well!!! Our oldest son will be working all day today for an event and that leaves the other four with ... yeah you guessed it...no sitter. Oh Well!!! My husband will be coming home for lunch and will be in town today so he is very close should the children need him. It will be back to Houston next Monday for Nicholas and then again on Thursday to get the MRI results from today. We take 288 to 6 into Sugarland then get on 59 to go into that part of Houston. Then we take 59 S to Wharton and head to Bay City from there. From Bay City it is about 45 minutes home. All in all we will travel a good couple hundred miles today. Hope everyone has GREAT day.

Tonail update

Ok, so I took Victoria in for an injured tonail. The tonail was barely attached toward the bottom. The doctor cut it down as far as possible and said to let the rest grow and it would eventually fall off completely in around two weeks or so. Thankfully there was no infection. I have delt with a large number of injuries and procedures through the last 17+ years but today took the cake. I felt VERY faint and sick with the tonail issue.

Thursday's Gross Appointments

Today is set to be a day of 'gross' doctors appointments. First our daughter will be seeing the doctor to remove an injured tonail. Then later this afternoon my husband will be having eight warts surgically removed from his hands. Five on one hand and three on the other. He has had this problem for many years (10+) and has actually had them frozen and lasered previously to no avail. Hopefully todays procedures will be effective. I pray everyone has a great Thursday doing whatever your schedule holds.

Tuesday Update

Well, we are home and the day went fine. We arrived at 2 p.m. as scheduled and the called us back around 2:30 p.m. They started the IV on the third try. Then during the preprocedure exam determined that there was 'possibly' something wrong with his heart. (Remember we are still waiting for an appointment for an angiogram.) Therefore it was to risky to go ahead with the sedation. After talking to Nicholas for a while it was decided to try and do the MRI without the sedation at all. They gave him some goggles to wear and watch a movie while they performed the MRI. That helped and he made it through the entire exam just fine. We arrived home around 6:30 p.m. Thanks for all your prayers on Nick's behalf.

Thursday

WOW!! Talk about a busy week. We have been busy all week in preparation for the upcoming surprise 45th anniversary party we are having for my in laws. The video presentation was just finished. To y'all who know me that drives me crazy because it is very last minute. The nurse called today on Nicholas. No results just more waiting. We have been waiting for a month now for a 24 hour blood pressure monitor. Today the nurse said they would like to schedule a MRA of the brain. There are two problems with this. One is if this is not performed next week it will have to wait until the second week of June. We will be gone on vacation from May 23 through June 1st. Second, unfortunately this will require sedation which is very hard for me to endure as it is quite unpleasant for Nicholas to go through. Please pray for our family during this time. I must go now as I still have plenty I could be doing. Thanks to all who take the time to read what I have to say.

Busy Week

WOW!!! What a week. No terrible news just busy. Monday my 14 year old son, Nicholas, had an appointment with his nephrologist at Texas Children's. Blood pressures are running quite high. We are waiting for a 24 hour blood pressure monitor as well as an echo cardiogram. My 8 year old daughter had her appointment on Wednesday did basic blood work and urine. No results as of yet. Today was my turn. Due to no health insurance I go to Galveston UTMB for any kind of specialty care. Today I saw my nephrologist. BP's slightly high (already take meds for that) gained 2 pounds since last visit and had a rather elevated white blood cell count. Several possible reasons for that, but for now we have scheduled an upper quadrant ultrasound that will look at the kidneys, liver, gallbladder, spleen, etc. Then return to Dr. in June. So no one got bad news just things to wait on. Next week on Tuesday our baby, Isaiah, goes for his 18 month check up. He will probably get a round of vaccinations but hopefully the crankiness will be over by Friday which is our semi-annual church camping trip. I have slacked this week so tomorrow I will catch up on all my school grading for the week. I hate it when I fall behind. It is so much easier to do daily but sometimes things get in the way.