Monday, May 23, 2011

things I learned today

I wake up really cranky when I don't get enough sleep. (I guess I've been learning this for a while, but it really hit me today. Allie Grace was awake until after 1 no matter what we did to help her go to sleep. Then, she was super restless the rest of the night, so we got very little sleep.)

I have a little road rage...EVERYTHING and EVERYONE on HWY 49 was getting on my nerves this afternoon on our way to Mattie's GI appointment. People were going to slow in the left lane, people were passing me and then going really slow when they got in front of me, road workers placed cones way too far in the lane (my car was almost in the median a few times), people braked suddenly (and for no reason), and people cut in front of me with little warning.

I really should have gotten a degree in the medical field. The nurse practitioner that we saw today was asking me how I thought we should go about treatment. She asked how aggressive I wanted to be. I told her that I wanted to first do blood work and see what that showed before we gave her anesthesia and did a scope to look for what was going on. I also had to go through ML's whole history with stomach problems (from acid reflux as an infant to the tests/scope she had done at 1 1/2 to what I thought might be going on now). She ordered blood work to check for the markers that indicate celiac disease, anemia, h. pylori infection, and anything else that would show up in blood work. We'll get results to all but one test in the next 2 days...the other one will take a week to come back. If all the blood work comes back normal, we're going to treat ML for gastritis.

I could have a potential career in wrestling. I had to wrap my legs around ML's legs and bear hug her body and left arm so one nurse could hold her right arm and the other could draw blood.

Monday, May 9, 2011

playing catch up

First, I realize that I've been MIA on the blog scene for a while. I just haven't felt like writing lately. Life has been busy with lots of  everyday stuff and even more not-so-everyday that I'd like to be gone from our lives for a while. I'm going to try to catch everyone up as best as I can.

For three months or so, we were at the doctor's office almost every week (every week and twice a week sometimes) with Allie Grace's ears. She constantly had ear infections. We finally were referred to an ENT and she got PE tubes to help with the infections a little over a month ago. She made it a month before she had another ear infection. Our pediatrician prescribed ear drops that would have cost $165.99 without insurance...I'm so thankful that we have good insurance for the girls!

Just as we were finally getting Allie Grace's ears back to normal, Mattie started having trouble with her stomach. We had a couple appointments with our pediatrician about it and they referred us to her GI doctor. For the last couple weeks, I've been having to readjust her Miralax dose so that we can hopefully get her stomach back to normal. (I'll spare the details on what exactly was going on so that no one gets grossed out.)

Oh...if you didn't notice, Mattie Leigh is now just Mattie. She told us that she wanted to be Mattie because her doctors and nurses call her that and she'll get called that when she goes to school. I'm still waiting to see if this is a permanent change or if she'll go back to Mattie after a while.

Kevin and I are still looking for a new job (one of us HAS to find something soon). I'm finding that no one is wanting to hire someone that has a counseling degree but isn't already licensed (which is where I am), so I've been feeling that I wasted a lot of time and money getting my masters. Kevin has applied at every place that he can but has only gotten one call back...and that was for a job that was wanting lots of hard work for very little money. I'm really hoping that something opens up soon, because right now, money is so tight it's hard to take care of everything that we have to each month.

Needless to say, the last few months have been super stressful for me. I've been on edge and my temper has shown up more than it should. I'm working on that...I hate being so stressed and am really trying to not let all these stresses get to me. I could really use some prayers...that the girls would get back to their healthy selves, that either Kevin or I would find a new job soon, that our financial needs would be met until a new job happens, and that I would start managing this stress better.

I think I've caught up on the important things that were missed over the last few months...I'll try to get better about blogging again.