Time drags on

JoJo (9) had his surgery last week.  We had to wait from 9 am to 4:30 pm in the preop area, which was very frustrating.  The surgery took about 20 minutes and we were finally on our way home after 6 pm.  He did well.  Much better than I.  From about 1:30 pm on I was boohooing.  The stress of waiting and not hearing anything from anyone about when we were to start and feeling uncared for was too much for me.  I'm so sick of medical crap, and that just sent me over the edge.  Today someone called my husband with the pathology report and said that it was due to inflammation secondary to an insect bite.  The thing is, that bite happened in July.  I just don't buy it.  I feel like they are feeding me lines.  His head is healing well and there is very little inflammation left.  The lymph node may be getting smaller too.  He caught a cold.

Elli (11) saw the pediatrician this week because she has missed so much school since we moved here.  She has missed like 28 days now in 15 months.  The doctor thinks it might be due to her allergies.  She recommended that we restart her Claritin and Flonase and is sending us to ENT, to an immunologist and to the same geneticist that Pumpkin (16) is seeing to see if she has hypermobility syndrome too.  The latter two referrals I requested.  She missed a half day on Monday for this appointment.  On Wednesday she was woken in the night 3 times with diarrhea.  Yesterday she was so dizzy she could barely walk and her stomach was upset.  She had to stay home from school.  Today she was nauseated in the morning but went to school anyway.

Pumpkin (16) had a sore throat on Monday and Tuesday with foul sinus drainage.  Since yesterday her sinuses have been flowing like crazy.  Poor girl.  She is so stuffed up.  She has been doing well GI wise, though and holding her weight until now.

CiCi is hanging in there.  She wrote a short children's story yesterday.  It was really cute about a baby penguin who became a bowling ball.  The picture was cute too.

Things are looking up

Tim is doing PT and is allowed to bear weight as tolerated.  He is doing sit down jobs at work.  He can't put much weight on it, but we feel things are moving forward.

JoJo is having surgery today.  I think it will be a biopsy.  We're waiting for them to take him back now.

Elli got sick again this week.  She made it back to school yesterday, but wasn't completely on top of her game.

JJ is doing great.  I rarely hear a complaint out of her except that she doesn't want to do her homework.

CiCi has started stepping up to help more at home.  It's a real blessing.  In spite of her anxiety issues, she pulled off all As except one B in history.

My back is much better.

Rough winter

Our family still isn't catching a break.

JoJo is having surgery next week to debride the area of the tick bite.  He had three weeks of antibiotics (doxycycline) without improvement on either the bite site or the lymph node.  Well the rash did go away, but he has itchiness on his elbows and back now too.  The blessing in this is that he's not gotten really sick or other symptoms of Luke's disease.

Jae was in the hospital for 3-4 days in December for a 9cm clot in her arm.  It seems to be much better but not completely resolved.  She came home December 24.  The blessing in this is that she was home for Christmas, finally off steroids now, and keeping her weight on!

Tim, my dh, was in a 4-wheeler accident December 26.  He has not been able to use his right knee or ankle since then.  The blessing in this is seeing how his boss and co-workers are helping us out.  Also he's always home to help supervise the kids.

CiCi wrecked my van 4 days ago.  Now my ugly van is even uglier.  I tried to talk my Dhaka into getting rid of it, but it is still driveable so no can do.  The blessing:  CiCi and Jae came out with minimal scratches.

4 days ago I strained my back.  I didn't hurt much the first day, but having lots of discomfort now.  We're blessed with a freezer full of meat that I was picking up when this happened.  Tim got 3 deer this year!  Also, I'm thankful that my schedule had two days off work for me to rest.

Elli keeps getting sick.  Strep throat, abdominal pains, headaches, dizziness...  She's missed 10 days of school already.  We've got an appointment to try and figure this out.  The blessing is that I have a lovely daughter and we've had some good conversations lately, and she's currently back in school.

Hopefully we'll be out of this valley soon, but we're thankful to have our heavenly Father taking care of us along the way.

The van after the accident.

Tim's ankle a week after the accident.