Prophetic Words

My father is a truly wise man. So nearly seventeen years ago, when I brought Matt home to meet him and my mother, it was no small thing to hear his endorsement, "Nancy, that is a very fine young man."

As usual, he was right.

The following summer I married that fine young man and we celebrated our 16th anniversary yesterday.

I'm afraid Dad's endorsement to Matt wasn't nearly as glowing. The evening that Matt proposed to me we hurried to my parents house to share our excitement. My loving father took one look at my ring and shook his head. "Oh Matt, she's going to frustrate you."

As usual, he was right.

Our wedding day was no exception. Just moments before the ceremony my pre-wedding jitters got the best of me and I panicked. Matt sat by my side, holding my hand, and listened to my nearly incoherent babbling.

"mattareyousurethisisrightcausei'mnotsurethisisreallyright.i'mtrustingyou.ifyousayit'srighttomarryyoui'llgothroughwithitcausei'mnotsure."

I heard him let out an exasperated sigh--the first of many that I would hear over the years--and then he calmly said, "Yes, Nancy. This is right."

As usual, he was right.

Status Update

We are home and doing fine. Once they got radiology involved the PICC line just slid right out. Thanks for humoring my blog tantrum last night. Have a great day!

What is it about July?

If you look back over my summer posts the last couple of years you'll see a theme. There seems to be a blogging wall of sorts that I hit every July. So here I am again, watching the calendar turn to August and I wonder where this month and all of my good blogging intentions have gone.

No, I don't wonder. This has been the busiest, most demanding month of my life. It's laughable to think that I have all five kids home from school for twelve weeks and yet for some reason refer to it as "summer vacation".

Where to start?  The two separate hospital stays with Spencer, trying to figure out the right medication to knock his infection? Or maybe the "little" family gathering of fifty for dinner in my backyard. Perhaps the days were swallowed up by the fun we had with out-of-town grandparents for a week. Or the cousins who came for a visit. I vaguely remember squeezing in two family reunions and airing out the guest room for company as well as a quick overnight camping trip to make up for the cancelled plans when we were ordered back to the hospital. But that just brings me to the middle of the month.

The dust was finally beginning to settle enough to see into the next week when, masochists that we are, we packed our trailer for six days in Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. A perfectly lovely break from all of the craziness that has become my life. But fate, laughing at my audacity to dare to relax, has paid me back with a vengeance. We arrived home Sunday and I hit the ground running to ready our home for the biggest event of our summer--a four day family reunion for no less than forty-two loved ones--hosted by yours truly. Every list was made and every minute accounted for so that the precious nine days I have to prepare would not be wasted. And where do I find myself tonight? Sitting in room 26 of the Primary Children's Emergency Department, that's where! After five weeks of IV medication, Spencer was declared free of infection and the PICC line was discontinued. The home health nurse arrived a few hours later for the routine, ten-minute procedure to remove the line. Well, we should head to Vegas now because we have made it a hobby this year to beat  all of the odds. What are the odds that the PICC line would get stuck 3 cm. from the exit and require an overnight stay (knock on wood that we're outa here by noon tomorrow) to remove it? Probably about the same that  my healthy five-year old would develop cardiomyopathy and need a heart transplant in the first place.

No one could accuse me of having a boring life...

Fourteen

Happy Birthday to our Nicole! She turned fourteen last week and it's so fun to watch her as she walks that fine line between childhood and adulthood. It's not uncommon to see her outside digging in the dirt with her siblings, only to witness, a short time later, her quick-change artistry with make-up and curls and accessories galore as she readies herself for an evening with friends.

She has a babysitting job this summer that she doesn't exactly love, but it's helping to pay for hay in the fall so she fulfills her responsibility with only a little bit of complaint.

She's a lot of fun and loves to remind me often that she's only got a couple of inches to go before I'm the shorty of the two of us. I've started buying higher heels.

I'm so proud of her and so very happy to be her mom. 

We love, love, LOVE her!!!

And, home again.

I didn't mean to leave you all hanging at the hospital. :) We finally made it home on Monday night, just before midnight. At 11:00am on Monday the doctor said we could go home that day, but that Spencer's hematocrit was low (23) so they wanted to give him a unit of blood before we left. It took nearly the whole day for the lab to get the blood ready for him so by the time it was finished running we had to stay another hour for his antibiotic to run, and so on and so forth until it was 10:30pm. They asked if we were sure we wanted to leave that late and we both gave a resounding "YES!"

Last week when Spencer was admitted the Child Life specialist asked him what kind of things he likes to do at the hospital. She was thinking along the lines of legos, painting, games, etc. But Spencer answered, "I like to visit my friends on the ICU". Awww.....I melted! So to pass the time while we waited on Monday, we visited some of our favorite people in the world. 

Here is Spencer with Michael, Chris, and Grace.

Here he is with Angie--whom he just loves! She knew he was in the hospital so when we went to find her she surprised him with this bow and arrow set.

Here he is back in his room with his new weapon. I drew a target on his closet door and he got busy.

He's doing well. It's always good to be home. He eats better, sleeps better and is able to play with his sisters and friends. All very good things for him. He has a PICC line in his left arm through which he receives his antibiotic twice a day, and he seems to be responding well to the medication.

It's been a little bit hard on me emotionally this time round. I did great in the hospital. I was a pillar of strength! But since we've been home I've had moments of tears and discouragement and I may or may not have put a dent in our wall during a fit of anger and frustration. It's just a painful reminder that no matter how well he does, this just isn't going away. But then I take a deep breath and count my blessings and keep going.

Back for more

I thought about giving this post the title "Home, Sweet Home", but even though this hospital is nearly as familiar as home, I just couldn't bring myself to joke like that. 

Spencer had a low-grade fever on Tuesday night. I called the transplant team and they had me take him to the Logan hospital to get labs drawn. A CBC revealed low white and red blood cells so Dr. E. called me late Wednesday night and said to bring him down to Primary's first thing in the morning. Several more labs later and she decided that he most likely has a viral infection and we would need to stay for a few days for some IV immunoglobulin. 

Today they got results back from the blood cultures and were able to pinpoint the virus and start him on some IV antibiotics that should take care of it. Right now it looks like we'll be here 'til Monday and we'll come home with a PICC line in for a couple more weeks. 

This picture looks like a sad Spencer, but really it's more like a bored Spencer. We're pretty much just hanging out, letting the IV meds do their thing. 

It's been just over six months since his transplant and he's done SO well. We knew that we would hit our first "bump in the road" eventually. We're just so grateful that we caught it early and hopefully can move on quickly.

Claire's Birthday

Our sweet little Clairey-beary turned four this week. Oh, how we love this girl! She is FULL, to the top, of happy energy. We had a fun day celebrating with her!

Here she is with her Koo-koo bird that she received from Spencer. She named it "Princess Celestia".  

They had fun playing with her new bird and Spencer's bird that had been needing a friend, I guess.

Claire loves piggies! So here is her pig cake. It took her a minute to figure out what it was but then she squealed with delight. (No pun intended.)

Opening presents became a long-drawn out affair as she started with the first one in the morning (clothes) and opened several more throughout the day whenever she could wear me down enough to say, "okay, just one more and then we'll wait until daddy gets home".

Her flower cake from Aunt Barbara

With Aunt Barbara and cousin Julie. Claire was so excited about her birthday girl tattoo, her cake and her new kitty, which coincidentally also ended up with the name "Princess Celestia".

Opening more presents, with some "help" this time.

Big hug from Paige after successfully blowing out all four candles!

I had to put in one video of Claire opening presents so you could hear the happy, giggly sound she made with each one. She's so much fun!

Here she is showing off her bike with all of it's new accessories.

I took the training wheels off of this bike just days before her birthday but didn't really work with her very much. So she just taught herself!

Happy Birthday, sweet Claire! We love you!