Monday, December 3, 2012

Last Kidney Post of 2012

I'll start with The little one! We met with Calleigh's URO here in AR and he gave her a clean bill of health! She is off daily abx and doing wonderfully! Now if only she'd potty train! Her kidneys look great and her reflux is all but gone! This is a good sign. Moving on to Caitlyn! we got the call last week that her UA was finally Clear of Protein! First time in 4 years! She's off abx completely. Still on the Ditripan 3x daily and Cath 3x weekly. But everything looks great! We'll go back to Boston in June for a checkup with her Uro. If all is well he'll stop cath totally!!!!!!! Photobucket

I'm getting a Sister (in law)

Guess who got engaged! My baby brother!
Congrats Jordan and Ginny! Love you guys! Photobucket

Friday, November 30, 2012

It's my Birthday!

I had a great day! Flowers from my bestie, pie from my mom, gifts from friends, and all the fun times a girl could want. Plus my girlies sang to me LOL! Now to decide what I want with my gift money.. I also did some christmas shopping today, just about finished up. Photobucket

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a full week. Aunt Beth, Uncle Victor and the boys were in town all week, so we got lots of visiting in. Hard to believe that the little boys who were in my wedding are so big and grown up now! We are off to my mom's for the holiday for a big meal and fun times. Then Jay and I have some shopping planned. Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family. Photobucket

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Lunch

I'm trying to get myself re-organized and start posting again. Thanks Rachel for reminding me to get back to posting bento pics. Caitlyn didn't stay with me so she didn't get a lunch today. Here's Bella's lunch.


Turkey, Cheese cutouts, Carrots, hard boiled egg, a fruit salad of sorts and a fruit strip. She also took water to drink and a yogurt.


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Monday, August 20, 2012

First Day of School 2012!

Today marked a very special occasion for many reasons.




  • It's my Dad's Birthday! Happy Bday Daddio! 
  • It's the first day of school for my girlies. 
  • Bella started Kindergarten!
  • I got to make bento's again!


And of course First Day of School Pics





Isabella, big Kindy Girl!
Our Water Bottles for lunch!
Bella's Lunch. Ham& Cheese Sandwich, Carrots, Bell pepper sticks, 2 Oreos and some fruit snacks.  She also had a cheese stick and yogurt.
Caitlyn, Big 3rd Grader!


Turkey & Cheese, carrots/bell peppers, 2 oreos and fruit snacks. Plus a cheese stick.

Calleigh says "No Sisters, All Day, SCORE!"

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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy 4th of July

We just hung out at the house. We grilled out too. The girlies visited papaw for a few hours while I saw a movie with G. All in all a good day.
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Happy Happy Anniversary

9 years ago I married one of my best friends and the love of my life. It's funny to me know to admit that he knew we were meant to be 4 years before I did. But I clued in and here we are. I couldn't imagine my life any different. Love you Jay! Here's to Tons more! Besides, I'm so very happy to have found the one person I want to annoy daily for the rest of my life!

Engagement pictures!


Our trip to Nashville for the Dish Convention! 
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Monday, June 18, 2012

AWESOME

Our trip to Boston proved to be fruitful and full of Win! Caity's VUR is gone! GONE COMPLETELY! The pressures in her bladder have improved much. Our URO's plan is to have her off the daily antibiotics by the end of summer. We increased her ditripan to three times a day rather than two. But the biggest win of all -- We dropped from Catheterizing 3x a day to 3x a week! AWESOME SAUCE. If this keeps up, we will be done with catheters in another year or so (at least that is my hope) Her kidney is still holding steady in size, so no further damage and we assume still 13% function! In other Awesome sauce news, we got to meet up with B in Boston and hang out with her. Shopping, girl talk, a drink or two, and gossip. And she won over Caitlyn by supplying her with a movie and a dragon. We'll be back in Boston in a Year! And after that, who knows! Now, we'll just keep praying Calleigh's kidneys do not go the way of Caity's. Photobucket

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Life Goes By So FAST!

It's been a busy year. Lots going on. I can hardly believe its May already. The girls are excited for school to be out and summer to start. Got lots of crafts and other fun planned for the summer. We travel to Boston again in June for leg 2 of our Kidney journey. Full day of testing, Urodynamics, RNC, Renal ultrasound. Meeting with her URO. Hopefully we can come up with a plan to help Caity out. Still have Ethan often, though not as often as I did last year. He's getting to be a big boy. Photobucket

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Monday, February 27, 2012

Not enough Drama in our lives so we had to fix that

by making a trip to the emergency room.

With this in hand...


Yep, you guessed it -- That's Caity's urine not the red wine in which it resembles.

So after a long run without any problems, WHAM, a new UTI this time with a new pretty visual.

SIGH.

But she's not feeling any pain and we're on meds now, so hopefully we can wipe it out.




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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Keeping it Real

Some friends of mine were discussing other people and their annoying habit of pretending life is always sunshine rainbows, and good stuff.  But as my friend said, we're real moms and we know its not always perfect. This is keeping it real.   I went downstairs to work on laundry, leaving the three girls in the playroom playing with blocks.  DH was in our bedroom working from home on his laptop.  I come upstairs (after about 30 mins) and this is what I found. Chocolate ice cream (melted) and used as finger paint all over my fridge. All 3 of them were in on it too. 



Yes they also got into condiment packages and pasta noodles.   And amazingly enough Daddy didn't hear a peep.



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Friday, January 6, 2012

Crazy Ramblings...

One of my friends and I were talking the other night and she says to me. "What doesn't kill me will make me stronger, right?"

To which I responded "That's what they tell me." But then I had to add the following "But sometimes I feel like I am the walking dead and I'm just too stubborn to give it up and lie down."


It's true. Some days its hard to face the uncertainty of things. But in the end you have to pull up your big girl panties, slap a smile on your face and get on with the day, because you can't just STOP.

When we discovered last year, just how bad things had gotten with Caitlyn's kidney I felt my world crashing. Being told that your child has almost lost their kidney, and will be catheterized multiple times daily for the rest of her life is not sunshine and lollipops and its not something you expect to hear about your 6 year old child.

To later discover that things have gotten so bad because of a doctors neglect? Well it broke this mama's heart. But it also spurned me in the direction of OTHER options. Second opinions. I contacted I don't know how many hospitals, doctors, clinics, foundations, looking for help. Looking for answers. But I couldn't tell you about much of it because I did it all in a blur. I met roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. But you know what? I found a different route. And that brought us to Boston. Which led us to Dr. Retik.

In May, On Mother's Day, I left my baby girls behind and boarded a plane with my husband and oldest daughter. I was gone almost a week. I headed to Boston full of uncertainty, worry, fear and a sadness at leaving my babies on Mother's day. I came home with peace, hope, and the knowledge that even if things did not get better, I was doing everything in my power.

In July, I headed back to Boston with new worries, fears, and sadness at leaving my babies this time for two weeks. When they took Caity back for surgery and I went with and held her hand and watched her fight the gas mask because of her fears, I wanted to break down then and there, but I didn't. I stroked her hand, I kissed her cheek, I spoke soothing words to her and I watched her eventually lose the fight and fall asleep. Then I went out into the hallway, pulled myself together and walked to the surgical waiting room. Where othere parents awaited news of their childs surgery. None of us spoke, but we still all knew. We had something in common, the fear of the unknown. The fear of something going wrong. The fear of losing our babies. But I couldn't let that fear take me down.

After her surgery while in the ICU, we waited. Waited. Waited. Watched all the familys around us, also waiting. Then we got admitted to a private room on the transplant floor. OOH Yippy Skippy! Then DH went back to the home we stayed in (mandatory that someone stay there every night or we lost our room) and I got the pleasure of staying with grouchypants. Grouchypants who wouldn't sleep. EVEN DRUGGED. It was a miserable experience for us both, I think. If you are a facebook friend you'll remember these posts


Rough night , she needs to sleep and try to eat, but right now she won't attempt either.

Having a rough go of it, pray for sleep for her (and me)



But we go through it and she healed and we came home.  We have noticed definite changes in her, but do not yet know how well the surgery was. 



Am I stronger, I don't know about that. But I do know one thing. I'm not dead yet. I'm too stubborn to give up fighting for better. Better for my girls.











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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2012 --

I am hopeful that 2012 will be full of GREAT things!

3 things I've requested of 2012

  • 2 Kidney Miracles (One for each of my kidney girls) 
  • Another seizure free  year (For Bella)
  • Weight gain for Calleigh -- I'd LOVE to hit 20lbs soon!
See, I'm not asking for much.


This year I look forward to bringing more organization into my life. I'm planning to accomplish this through many means.

First and foremost somethign I've been meaning to make for a long while is a household binder. This will be important in case anything medical comes up, its handy for other people to know all involved if I am unable to be home long term.

The girls are going to get fancy schmancy new chore charts and a new chore system in place. With rewards and consequences. Mostly for the bigger girls, but Calleigh will be included.

I'm instituting Mommy's Ransom box. From now on when I find toys/books/other items in my kitchen/living room/dining room/anywhere else they do not belong, i will be taking them ransom until a task is completed to earn them back. I'm hoping this will help with the reminding every 2 seconds that toys do not belong all over my house.

Decluttering BIG TIME in every area of home.

Jay will be finishing the shed OR he will find a second job to pay for paying someone to finish the shed.

We will get the downstairs finished and move caity down there. At that point. Each child's toys will be in their own room and they will each be responsible for their own rooms therefore, they better not let their sisters make huge messes in their rooms, since currently they like to blame their sisters for every mess and don't own up to any themselves.


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