Monday Already

And for once, I'm okay with that. Today was Keari's follow up appt with her pediatrician which I was anxious for. We talked about how 60% of lyme cases never see a tick or have a rash. He was pleased with her range of motion in her knees...she has full range so should not have any after affects from the Lyme Arthritis. He emphasized us keeping an eye out for the pain returning, complaints from her regarding other joints or change in fatigue level. If that starts to occur...her meds might need changing. She running a low grade fever which he says is normal. Her knees are still slightly swollen and I'll be interested in what the orthopedic dr has to say when she sees him on Wednesday.

Tomorrow I'll be back in the office for the first time in a week. Of course, I still don't have my computer fixed so not quite sure what I'll be working on there. Guess I'll find out when I get there.

Tonight was a busy night...Ty had karate, Bekah and Tay had dance.

Changes

It amazes me how fast circumstances in your life can change. It's been crazy busy here since school started a couple of weeks ago. I was looking forward to the long weekend for Labor Day. I was heading to my aunt's house to spend the day with some of the kids while Andy stayed home with Alex & Connor who both had to work. It was a beautiful day for a get together...hung out with Sherri and her family, my parents and Von and family. Kids all played together great...had wonderful food. We came home with van full of Littlest Pet Shop toys that Sherri was trying to clear out of her house. Little did I know then how those toys would come in handy a few days later. On Monday Keari woke up complaining about her right leg bothering her. We couldn't see anything and by later that day she was running around on it. By the time she went to bed she had a slight limp and her knee was very slightly swollen. She woke up Tuesday morning still complaining about it and by mid day her knee was very swollen and she was having pain in her left hip. Andy made trip with her to urgent care for x-rays and blood work. They saw lots of fluid on the x-ray and her WBC was elevated. They suspected late stage lyme disease, although we'd never seen a tick or a rash on her. They sent her blood work off to get tested which has a 3-5 day turnaround. By this point Keari can no longer walk because the pain is so bad. Wednesday we get a call from the urgent care doc saying that she'd been thinking about Keari all night and that we should take her to see an orthopedic doc for the swelling in case it needs to be drained. She walked a referral over to the drs office and within 15 minutes they were calling us with an appt time. Andy, Kenzie and Keari head over the ortho's office an hour later where he proceeds to do a fluid draw from her knee. After taking one look at the fluid color, he says she needs to get the hospital right away. At his point he was very worried that she had a bacterial infection that could be eating away her bones. So Andy and I switch places and I head to the hospital with Keari and Kenzie. They were expecting her but it still took time to get everything in place to get all the tests done. Keari is such a little thing that she totally surprised the nurses with how strong she was when they were trying to put her IV in. They had to do it twice before they got it to stay. So heartbreaking to hear your little saying stop stop stop and know that they have to continue to hurt her because it's the only way to get her better. The tests results were back but the hospital dr wanted to start her on two iv meds...one that was a broad spectrum bacterial med and one that covered lyme. At this point, she was thinking it was not lyme because of how high Keari's WBC was but she wanted to cover all bases. They also put her on around the clock motrin to help with the inflammation. At 10pm they finally got all the meds hooked up although Keari did like one of those because it burned a little going in. After a restless night due to pain and the nurses coming in to take stats, she finally fell into a deep sleep around 4am. She woke around 8 having to go potty which is an adventure for somebody that can't walk or stand. After she'd gone, she looked at me and said that she thought she could stand. She was sooo excited when she actually could. Then she told me she could walk back to her bed...and she did that too albeit with very noticeable limps. Her knees were still swollen but she was able to bear weight on them again. Around midmorning a dr came in and said that test results came back and she was diagnosed with Lyme Arthritis. This is late stage lyme which is well after she would have gotten the tick bite or the rash...neither of which we ever saw on her. She's actually very lucky, one in that it was not a more serious bacterial infection because lyme is easily treatable (she'll be on meds for the next month), and two that her only symptom is the arthritis...she could have had heart problems and/or nervous system problems when a diagnosis is made this late. She scared us to death but to look at her now you would never know that anything is wrong with her...she's running around like a crazy person and has been ever since getting from the hospital Thursday afternoon. What bothers me is that she never showed any of the classic signs of lyme...no tick, no rash, she wasn't tired...she was climbing trees the day before all this started. The rapid progression of this disease is just mind boggling...climbing trees one day, unable to walk the next. And I'm left wondering how we could have prevented things from getting this far for her.

Deja vu

I'm thinking as I looked at the clock at 3am this morning that I've been here before...and pretty recently. Only this time it was a little girl that was having trouble sleeping instead of the boy. Keari made her way downstairs to our room in the wee hours of the morning saying she was scared. Usually she climbs into her big sisters bed when she gets scared but Kenzie had a friend over last night and they were sleeping in a different room. Keari climbed into bed with us, snuggled into my shoulder and feel fast asleep. Now normally I'd carry her back to her own bed at this point but I was so tired from being up the night before and I only had a couple of hours left before I had to get up for work that I decided to just let her sleep with us. Hubby of course barely knew she was there. After talking with her this afternoon, it turns out that she was scared because she saw lightening. I'm not sure she really did or if it was just a car driving down our street but either way she didn't like it. Let's hope for an uneventful night tonight as I'm really tired. Of course, I should have been in bed a while ago but I've been playing with different templates for the blog. I've had the same template since I started back in 2006..not that I've done a very good job of keeping my posts updated during that time...but I thought it was time to change things up a little. Hopefully it's in fairly decent shape because I'm too tired to do anymore with it right now...any changes will have to wait til tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow...Connor has soccer tryouts for school. He's really excited about trying out for the team. Let's hope that the rain they are calling for holds off so they can get the tryouts in.

A Day at the Park

Alex had to be in Easton early this morning to help work a yard sale for his missions club. I decided to the little ones to Tuckahoe State Park for the couple of hours that he was working instead of going home. Here's some pics of our time there...

Naptime

I guess when you are tired you will sleep anywhere. LOL This is a picture of Kearsyn sleeping on the floor in front of the sink in the kitchen.

New Glasses

Keari has decided to follow in her siblings footsteps by being the latest one identified as needing glasses. So far, 5 of the 8 need them. Here's a picture that was taken of her in the drs office. Soon after the picture was taken, she broke the sample glasses by snapping off one of the arms. I don't think this is a good beginning to her glasses experience.

Long Night

Sheeze, we went from one extreme to the other. Last night Adam was up every 1 1/2 hrs. I'm glad I didn't go to bed last night with the expectation of him sleeping the entire night because I would have been sorely disappointed. The one bright spot was that I wasn't in pain last night. LOL

Adam had his one month check up today and he weighed in at 11 lbs 14 oz and 21 7/8 inches. He's just growing up a storm. Still have his hemotoma which the dr is still claiming will go away...we'll see...and he still has his acne but that's starting to improve. Won't be gone by this weekend though but nothing can be done about that.

Keari also had a drs appt for here two year check up. She weighs 25 lbs 6 oz and is 31 1/2 inches tall. I made this appt for her today because she was supposed to get a second shot but the drs office counted wrong and she wasn't able to get it...the two shots need to be done 6 months apart and it's only been 5 months. If I'd known that, I would have waited another month to take her in. And combined with having to argue with the office about the filing of one of Adam's claims totally put me in the wrong mood for the visit today. I totally love the pediatrician but the lady that handles the claims submissions leaves a lot to be desired. I get so sick of hear "you need to get me someone to talk to" or "you need to call and get it straightened out". Just because I work at the company where I have my insurance doesn't mean that I have anything to do with the way claims are paid and it shouldn't be my responsibility to have to straighten things out. I'd already made a call to company to find out why the claim paid incorrectly but there drs office didn't think that was good enough. Grr!

Happy Birthday, Keari!

Today is Keari's 2nd birthday. What a big girl she is. Well, actually she's a little girl...a petite little girl which I never realized until my dad said something about how little she was last weekend. When I added her height to our growth chart today I realized she's a good 1 1/2 inches shorter than all her other siblings at this same age. My nephew had his 1 yr checkup today and he is the exact same height as Keari except he's a year ypunger. They are both 31 1/2inches.


Here's picture of her with her birthday cake. I think she's pretty excited about it.

Proud Big Sister

I think Keari loves her little brother...what do you think?

Our Second Sickie

Now Kearie has it. She started getting sick in the wee hours of the morning. She's so little, she doesn't have a clue what is going...just looks at me with big questioning eyes. Poor thing.

Pea in a Pod

or in this case, Baby in a Basket. Keari loves to climb in/on/under things. We can constantly find her sitting on the bottom shelf of our bookcase. We also have a small end table that she likes to climb inside. Tonight this is where I found her...she's such a cutie. =)

Keari's 1st Birthday

Hard to believe it's been a year ago that I brought home a new little baby. How things have changed during that year. She's gone from being a helpless newborn to an independant toddler. There's is no keeping her still...she's constantly on the move which I'm sure is one of the reasons that she is so small. She burns everything off. She also has a bit of a temper. Hmm, wonder where she gets that from...can't be from me. LOL She loves her brothers and sister...and they simply adore her. She's sprouted 3 teeth in the last month so needless to say she's been a bit cranky but now that they are through she's doing much better. And she loves real food...will eat just about anything you put in front of her.

A Tooth

Keari has her first tooth...bottom right one. Yay! Of course, she decided to get it while I was away but I'll just pretend that it broke through on that day I got back. ; ) She hasn't figured out yet that she can chomp with it so lets hope that takes her a while to figure that out. LOL

9 Months

Wow how time flies. Hard to believe she's 9 months already. Here's a pic of her from today.


And here she is the other day on the move LOL What a big girl she is. =)

An Ear Full

Well not really but Keari does have her first ear infection...albeit a very, very, very slight one...so slight that the dr almost didn't feel the need to say anything about it. For the past 5 nights she hasn't been sleeping well at all...has a terrible cough that keeps waking her up. Andy took her in today to get her checked out. We have a prescription for her but because the infection is so slight, I think we are going to hold off getting it filled. She's more bothered by the coughing...which I think is caused by post-nasal drip (allergies maybe) than her ear hurting her. Hopefully she'll be able to get some sleep tonight so we'll all be able to get some sleep. ;)

A Milestone

and I missed it. :( Kearysn rolled over for the first time today. She's been so laid back and has shown no interest in rolling over. Guess she decided that it was time. Way to go, Keari!! Hopefully she'll do it again when I get home from work tonight.

A Bug in the House

A stomach bug, that is. Yuk! So far it's hit 5 of the kids and me twice...started with me and came back to me last night. How'd I get so lucky??

Whew it's been raining cats and dogs here all day. So far we've gotten over 2.5 inches and our back yard looks like a wonderful place for ducks to hang out. Amazing how much water is laying out there. And I don't think the chickens are enjoying all this wet weather, either.

The kids all went to the eggstravaganza at our church this afternoon. It got postponed last weekend due to snow...still can't believe we actually had snow Easter weekend. It would have gotten postponed again this weekend due to the rain but they decided to hold it in the hall. The kids came home with bags of candy and all kinds of goodies that they'd won some of which included a really nice backpack that Connor won, a big chocolate cake that Tyler won and a plate full of cookies that Taylor won.

I stayed home with Kearsyn...was hoping to get a little nap in since I was up most of last night not feeling well but Keari had other plans. I ended up going through all the clothes in the twins rooms and cleaning out their drawers. Also went through a bunch of boxes of baby clothes that had been given to us. Got tons of boxes of too small clothes ready to go back in the attic. Now if I could only find our 3T girl clothes up there we'd be all set. That size seems to have completely vanished while the <12 month girl clothes seems to have multiplied while they were in the attic.

Ice Skating

First it was a dance, now it's ice skating...how sad is it that my kids go to more activities than I do? LOL Andy and all the kids except Kearsyn and Bekah are off to to an ice skating party with their 4-H group.

Kenzie and Andy had a great time at the father/daughter dance the other night. Andy didn't even embarress Kenzie with his dancing...he'd threatened to do the PeeWee Herman dance. LOL Here's a pic they took while at the dance.

No matter how many projects we do around the house, there are always more to do. This weekend Andy removed some old sliding glass doors from the doorway between our old family room and old screened in porch. We converted the porched into the classroom a few years ago and kept the doors in so that room couls be shut off from the rest of the house. We have since converted that room into our family room, classroom has moved to a room we built in the garage and old family room has been turned into te game room complete with pool table, air hockey table and foosball table. Here's a pic of the doorway...really makes things feel much more open. We have a small gas stove next to the bookcase that you see in the pic. We're going to move the bookcase and put the gas stove where the bookcase was, that way it will be able to heat both rooms better.

Lastly, I worked on sorting Kearsyn's drawers earlier today. She's grown so much that it was time to get bigger clothes out for her. And here's a pic of the little sweetie. =)

Father/Daughter Dance

Kenzie and Andy are off to a father/daughter dance at church tonight. Kenzie is so excited about this and has been talking about it for weeks. It will be fun to hear what she has to say about her very first dance.

Kearsyn had her 4 month check up the other day and is doing well. She now weighs 14lbs 1oz and is 23 inches long. She's gaining weight again now that she's no longer on her eating strike during the day from last month. Stubborn child! I think we're going to be in trouble when she gets older. LOL

I finally got all the data run from my programs...only took me 15 days when it normally takes me 2. Yikes! Of course, there are a still a few small issues that we are finding but we're cleaning them up one at a time so that hopefully we'll get them all and we'll have a smooth month next month. Hard to believe I'll be starting the process all over again in 8 days. Ugh!

Snow Coming?

While it's still a little early, they are calling for some kind of snow/icy mix to hit our area tomorrow night thru Tuesday and wouldn't you know that we are due to have baby chicks arriving tomorrow. Those are going to be some cold little chickies. We also have Kearsyn's drs appt on Wednesday morning and then I've got one in the afternoon so lets home hope if it does snow that the roads are clear by then.

Alex had a great time skiing. Apparantly he and another kid were the first ones on the slopes and the last ones off. He's ready to go skiing again already. LOL He's off to play indoor soccer tonight.

Kearsyn is getting another cold so she was up pretty much all night last night. Poor thing...although I didn't really have much sympathy for her around 5am. ;-)