Abby
Already this year, Abby has dealt with some sort of throat infection or Tonsillitis three or four times. (We've been to the Dr. so many times now, I've lost track of the exact count!) Apparently, our daughter has some pretty enormous tonsils, and we have been referred to an Ear, Nose, Throat specialist to check them out. Even when she is NOT sick, you can look in her throat and see that her tonsils are nearly touching her uvula. NOT GOOD. She will see the Dr. this coming Thursday, and I suspect that he will recommend removing them. Yea.....can't wait. I'm sure the resulting "procedure" will end up as a future post for our blog!
Also, it turns out that Abby is severely allergic to something in fertilizer. Of course, we realize you're supposed to keep your kids out of freshly fertilized lawn!!! We just didn't know that our neighbor had fertilized until it was too late (she likes to go play with his "puppies"). The reaction started Wednesday night, but she seemed ok Thursday. She went to bed that night and when she woke up Friday morning, this is what she looked like:
The Dr. (yup, we ended up at Urgent Care again) said to give her some Benedryl and use Benedryl cream on the hives. We had her looking pretty normal by Saturday night. However, I was awakened Sunday morning (Happy Mother's Day to me), by her little voice saying, "Mommy, I have a bump on my eye." Through the shadowy light in my room, I could see that something was definitely not right. I dragged myself out of bed (much earlier than I had intended on Mother's Day), and took her into the bathroom, only to find that her hives had indeed returned -- this time with a vengeance!!
NO....that is not Quasimodo from Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame!" That is, in fact, my normally beautiful daughter! The picture really doesn't even do justice to how bad the hives really were that morning, and as I was inspecting her body (the bumps were all over this time) and trying to remain calm, I hear her little voice again say with a quiver, "Mommy.....I'm broken." I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. I think I did a little of both, but then with as much sincerity as I could muster (I really DID mean it), I took her in my arms and told her I would always think she looked perfect and beautiful -- even covered in "bumps!" This seemed to cheer her up somewhat, and by the time she awoke from her nap that afternoon, we had the hives under control again. Apparently, she had spread some residue from the fertilizer in her clothing and/or bed, because we ended up washing every article of clothing and bedding she owns in the hottest water possible and haven't had any trouble since! The Mommy
I have also had a few "woes" recently with physical ailments. Back in January, I woke up the morning after one of our weekly co-ed volleyball games (Nate and I play in a league at a local gym), to discover that my knee was a little swollen and extremely achy. It was bothering me enough, that I decided to see our family Dr. about it. He pushed and pulled and twisted it. No serious pain resulted from his tests. So, he determined that I probably had some tendinitis and should do a "ibuprofen and icing" therapy on it. He said that if it was feeling better by the next week, I should go ahead and play volleyball if I wanted. Well, it was feeling better by the next Monday, and I definitely wanted to play, so I went for it. The next morning brought even more pain and discomfort than the previous week, so as the Dr. had advised, I returned to see him. This time, he sent me to a specialist. After several x-rays and the same kind of pushing, pulling, twisting testing by the orthopedic surgeon, he determined that I MIGHT have a torn meniscus. The problem was that I didn't have a couple of the normal symptoms people experience when they've torn their meniscus. Dr. Joe said sometimes it is possible to severely bruise the inside of your knee and this injury mimics a torn meniscus. The only way to tell the difference is to have an MRI or wait for a couple of weeks to see if it starts to heal on its own. Obviously, I didn't really want to have to pay for an MRI if I didn't need to. He sent me on my way with instructions to take it easy for a couple of weeks (no volleyball) and see what happened. Well, things seemed as though they were getting back to normal after several days, so I/we determined it must just be a bone bruise. I went back to volleyball. Bad choice. About half way through the game, I came down from hitting the ball and felt something "pop" in the middle of my knee. I wasn't able to bear much weight on it after that, and certainly wasn't feeling up to finishing the game. Half way through that night, I awoke to severe pain and when I attempted to get out of bed to get some Ibuprofen, I nearly fell over. Long story short, I ended up having the MRI after all, and I did, in fact, have a torn Meniscus. Dr. Joe said the best course of action was to scope it and remove the torn part, but he also said that it wouldn't be too big of a deal. At most, he thought I'd be on crutches for a day or two, and back to normal within a few weeks.
If only life could really be that easy. On April 14, when he went in to do the scope, he also discovered some pretty intense cartilage damage due to my knee cap sitting in the wrong position. Best we could tell, my knee cap probably never returned to the correct position after I dislocated it (yes....playing volleyball) about eight years ago. He ended up having to fix the meniscus, release my knee cap by cutting through all the tissues on the outside of my knee that were holding it in the wrong place, and smooth down several surfaces on the underside of my knee cap and femur where the cartilage was torn to shreds. In fact, one of the procedures he performed, involved creating tiny fractures in my femur surrounding a "divet" in the cartilage. This allows marrow (and hence, stem cells) to seep up to the surface and form a fibrous cartilage. It's not the same as real cartilage, but he seems to think it will do the job! Needless to say, my recovery has been much more painful and lengthy than I had anticipated. I'm finally starting to feel like I'm making some progress and that I might actually have normal use of my leg again some day! I have one more week of physical therapy and a couple more follow-up visits......
This is what my knee looked like three days after surgery:
Yes....those are Finding Nemo band-aids. I do have a two-year old, you know! The black "Y" was so the Dr. made sure to operate on the correct leg. It took a couple of weeks to wear off the permanent marker.
By the way, I'm also seeing the Ear, Nose, Throat Dr. with Abby next Thursday. I had sinus surgery several years ago to remove some polyps from my sinuses and correct a deviated septum , and since that time, have been taking daily allergy medications to try and control my sinus "issues." Not so long ago, I discovered (you don't want to know how) that I may have a hole in my septum. I'm not sure how I'll feel if he says surgery......we'll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess!
The Daddy
Nathan has probably had the least troubles of the three of us, though he has had a couple bad spells with cold/flu type illness. His biggest problem came to light back in March when he decided to visit the Dr. after a couple days of sharp pains in the area right under his sternum. It didn't matter what he did or ate, etc., the pain just wouldn't go away. The Dr. did some blood work and discovered he had a really elevated white blood cell count. He was concerned enough about the location of the pain and the indications of an infection, that he sent Nate to the ER (it was later in the evening on a Friday night) for an Ultrasound. He was afraid to wait, because there was the possibility of infection in his spleen that could lead to rupturing. The Ultrasound tech said that he couldn't find anything, and after a "GI Cocktail" for severe heartburn, the pain seemed to subside within a few days. The real troubling aspect of the experience came about 10 days later when the Dr. from Urgent Care called and asked if Nate could come back in to talk to him about something he saw on the Ultrasound. Turns out, Nate has a fatty liver. The Dr. explained that a fatty liver could be caused by Hepatitis C or simply being overweight, but the end results could be pretty severe. If left unchecked, Nathan could basically develop Cirrhosis of the liver (just the same as an alcoholic) and eventually his liver would fail. Obviously, I would prefer not to have to see my husband go through liver transplant surgery, or worse, die before a donor is available! They took more blood and tested to make sure he didn't have Hepatitis C, and when that came back negative, determined that it must be due to his being slightly overweight. Apparently, some people are just prone to having fat deposited in their liver; Nate being one of them. He has been instructed to try and lose some weight and eat a healthier diet. I'm not sure he thinks it is as serious as I do.....he sort of has that "I'm invincible" Law family trait!! The truth is, we both need to lose some weight and do better at exercising, so maybe together, we can do it!!
Well.....let's hope this post doesn't have a continuation. If nothing else, we are learning to be humble and try to have faith in Heavenly Father's plan for our family!!
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