steph's stuff

Generations

Just taking a second to post this picture for Tom. A picture of his grandfather and his son. This was what this trip was all about - having pictures and memories like this of family.

And I think the Texas side of the family was completely right when they said that Andrew looks exactly like his great-grandfather. :)

Back later. Still going through 600 Texas pictures, burning some layouts to disc to send out to some editors (it's been a very good week on the scrappy front), having fun visiting wendy and her girls a couple of days ago, and now visiting with my sister-in-law while we get ready to go to Maine this weekend.

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*eta: and now a picture for me. my youngest brother flew down to texas for the weekend to visit - as a total surprise to us! my girls love their uncle chris and so do i. :)

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**eta again: okay, and one last one - isn't this grape arbor at the family ranch stunning???

Not so chatty Cathy

So, the Texas trip. I can't seem to find enough time to blog about it because I've been too busy scrapping about it. :)

 

Please forgive my lack of chattiness - just way too busy this past week. Gearing up for Maine and having a ball scrapping and anticipating lots of fun with friends and family this week!

Check

Alive?  check

Kicking?  um nope.

Behind?  check

On everything?  double check

Back soon?  check

Making sense?  nope again

Tired?  check

(i'm alive, we're all okay, libby is fine, i'm behind on emails, deadlines, and everything else. going to visit a friend this week, plus having houseguests for 2 days, plus leaving for Maine on Friday, plus have 2 playdates scheduled, 2 lab tests to get done on the girls, and 6 layouts to get done. overwhelmed? check  lazy summer?  um nope)

Father's Day

We're back and it was about as good a trip as it could possibly be. Minus all of the driving. We left Austin at midnight last night, got to DFW airport around 4 am and got a 6 am flight to Chicago. By the time we got our luggage and then drove home, it was after noon, so all five of us basically pulled an all-nighter. Let me just say that it is a mild understatement to say that I am too old for that. Ugh. But, the kids did a fantastic job and actually stayed awake for the vast majority of the night. Best little travelers in the world!!!

Back tomorrow with some pictures and a recap of the trip, but now the focus is on Libby's MRA tomorrow morning. She and I leave for the hospital around 6:30 am and, if all goes well, should be home after lunch.

A quick layout for Tom and Father's Day. I think this was about the best trip to Texas he's ever had. Love you, honey!

Okay.

Okay. I'm catching my breath a bit.

I have to say that I'm feeling a million times better after playing with some paper and glue. Scrapping is such therapy for me. :)

Update on Libby: She's walking around totally fine. We found out that she was even more underdosed than we had suspected. I pushed the neurologist strongly on this one and had her look up some extra stuff after she said Libby only needed to add 1/2 dose to her daily meds. That just didn't seem right and sure enough, I was right. :) So, Libby is now up 1 whole dose on her anti-seizure meds and should be at appropriate levels in 7 - 10 days. It takes a while for the meds to build up in her system, so we'll have to keep a close watch on her until then, but she should be fine after that. I still need to buy a good scale so we can keep track of her weight weekly. I'm learning so much more about seizures and migraines than I ever thought I would and there's still so much left to learn, but I'm doing the best I can. As far as further tests go - she is scheduled for the MRA on Tuesday morning. She will have to be have general anesthesia and be in the hospital for about 5 hours. Keeping her calm and allowing them to put the IV in is going to be my greatest challenge. I'm trying very hard not to worry about what the doctor might be looking for with this test. And, believe me, googling this issue does NOT help. Ugh. But, I have to be thankful that the doctor is being thorough because if there's something wrong with the blood vessels in her brain, we have to know about it. We just have to.

And we leave for Texas tomorrow around 5 am. I think we're ready. I've washed and folded 10 loads of laundry with the last 2 going right now. I've got the camera batteries charged, an adapter for the laptop, the boarding passes already printed out, and the kids have small backpacks packed with stuff to do on the plane and in the car. We'll be in Dallas at 10 am tomorrow, followed by a long drive to Austin and will spend the afternoon with my dad and step-mother at The University of Texas at Austin to give Andrew his first tour. Last time we were there, I was pregnant with him. He adores UT football (Tom's alma mater), so it should be fun to show him around campus. Saturday is the drive to Hondo, Texas for the family reunion. Sunday will be spent at my Dad's house (oh crap! Sunday is Father's Day, isn't it???? Oops!) and Monday will be spent coming home. Should be very, very busy and keeping my mind (and Libby's) off of Libby's test on Tuesday morning.

Have a great weekend! The parakeets, the cat, and the neighbors will be holding down the fort here while we're gone. :) 

Look out for lightning.

I think lightning may strike.

Dh and I are actually going out to the movies tonight BY OURSELVES!!!!!!!!!!!! Going to see Ocean's 13 and I can't wait.

And,

I scrapped WITH PAPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Back tomorrow with more details about Libby, I promise!  I decided to play hooky all day today so if you're waiting for an email from me, I'll catch ya in the morning. :) The kids and I drove up to Michigan to visit with my sister-in-law and her kids all day. A great distraction from the worries. Tomorrow is laundry and pack because we leave for Texas at dawn on Friday.

CRAP!!!

We just got back from Elizabeth's neurologist appointment and the doctor is not 100% convinced that Elizabeth had a seizure last Wednesday. She said that the eyelid issue concerns her and is more likely related to migraine issues than to a seizure. She's also a bit worried that it took until the next day for her eyelid to stop drooping. She wants to check Elizabeth's brain vessels to make sure they're okay. Which means another MRI and general sedation and most of a day spent in the hospital and recovery room. (Actually, it's called an MRA since it looks at only the blood vessels, but I have yet to completely research it, but it's the same setup as an MRI.) Poor Libby burst into tears when the neurologist said it was just like an MRI because Libby's MRI last August was so traumatic :(

And, if that wasn't enough, our hospital won't take our insurance for an outpatient MRA, so we have to go  to a hospital that she's never been to before. CRAP!!!!!!!

Obviously, part of me is thrilled that the doctor is testing for this because it did freak us all out so much and, if there is anything wrong besides the seizure disorder, we need to know ASAP. I like proactive doctors, especially when we're dealing with neurological issues. But, I just hate that she has to go through all of this again. So, CRAP!!!

Whew

We nailed it! Elizabeth's med levels ARE down and so it should be an easy fix! We increased her dosage last night and we go back to the neurologist on Monday. And, ya know, Elizabeth's only fear was that I was going to worry too much or be scared. The only time she got upset during the whole thing was when she told me that her legs were too shaky to walk. She said she had something to tell me but was worried that it would scare me. :(  And I wonder why it's hard to do layouts about her without getting sappy. She's just all heart.

Off to play with Sharyn this afternoon!!!!! And this author extraordinaire is coming along for the ride! (hee - get it wen?!) And then tomorrow morning, we're taking a fun class with this very talented online friend of mine!

Have a great day!!!!!

Jinx

Every single time I do this, I jinx myself. Every.single.time.

I posted this layout about Elizabeth online today.

And, I previewed it with this: "Every layout I make about Elizabeth turns out sappy. Sigh. It's just so hard to feel anything but gratitude that she's healthy again." 

Jinx!

Libby woke up from her nap yesterday and went right to the couch. And I noticed something funny about one of her eyes. I asked her to sit up and look at me and whoa. One eyelid wasn't open very much. It wasn't swollen, it wasn't red, just drooping severely. All kinds of things went through my mind and I immediately had her smile and raise both hands and wiggle both feet - everything was normal - no lopsidedness anywhere else. I called her neurologist and was told that she would call me right back. Um.............right. An hour later and nothing. And Lib still wasn't off the couch. When I asked her how she felt, she said her legs were very shaky and she didn't feel like walking. When I made her get up to walk around, she was grabbing onto the sides of furniture. Ugh. I called the peds office and, after talking to the doctor, the nurse said that her symptoms were indicative of a stroke. :O

I (wisely) opted not to call 911 because she seemed perfectly fine except for those 2 symptoms. My gut just really told me that it wasn't a stroke, anyway, but we did race to the ped's office. After a very thorough neruo exam, they found no evidence of a stroke or anything else wrong except her eyelid and some fatigue. We had some bloodwork done and came home and waited for the ped's office to call back.
 

And all this time and on the way home, Elizabeth was becoming more and more animated and her eyelid was getting a bit better and her legs didn't hurt anymore and then it hit me. With the exception of the eyelid issue, it was exactly how she is AFTER a seizure. So, I called the doctor back and she and I went through all of her previous bloodwork and we also mentioned that Elizabeth has gained 4 pounds since she was put on meds. And, I didn't put all of this together right away, but Libby has had a lot more headaches lately and just not felt as well as she had been feeling. So, what we're hoping is that Libby has now outgrown her current anti-convulsant dose and is not getting enough meds daily for her weight. The ped and I both really think that Libby must have had a seizure during her nap because her meds are now too low. That would also explain why she's getting headaches again.

So, jinx on me. And a big huge sigh of relief. Her eyelid was still drooping when she went to bed, so I'm still concerned about that, though. I'll wait and see how it looks this morning when she wakes up. Her bloodwork results come by noon today and we're off to see the neruo on Monday.

 

Man, kids are never boring, are they? :p

Well, that was a surprise!

Dh is a trial attorney. Which means that at certain times, he works around the clock for days on end and I'm a single parent. He doesn't go to trial as much as you'd think a trial attorney would, but when he does, it's a big deal for him. Obviously. Anyway, he had 2 trials scheduled for this month. One to start today and one to start on the 18th. Stressful schedule for him and the kids and I had planned not to see him much until the end of the month when we all leave for Maine. (Have I mentioned how giddy I am about going to Maine?!!!!!!!) Well, as will happen, both trials got continued. One only until the 25th of this month, so not by much, but the other one got continued until October.

Where am I going with this? Remember the dilemma about whether to go to Texas or Maine this year? (And if you remember this post, we had the reunion dates off by a week, so it's not the same weekend we leave for Maine.) Maine is home to me - where my mother and brothers and their families always gather in July and hang out on the beach. Absolute heaven. Well, Texas is home to Tom's family. And his grandfather is turning 93 and the family is having a huge family reunion on his birthday weekend (70+ people) at his ranch. Tom was in agony over making this decision. At 93, how many more birthdays are there going to be, ya know? And his grandfather is one of our favorite people on this earth! We lost Tom's grandmother 9 years ago and I know how difficult that was for him and he cherishes his grandfather even more now. But, then a trial popped up on Tom's schedule and that was the end of the discussion. There's not much you can do about a trial without causing a whole lot of problems for a whole lot of people and Tom just won't do that. So, no reunion in Texas and he was learning to live with it.

Until yesterday when the continuance came through. Did I mention that the reunion was NEXT weekend?! Well, in a flurry of phone calls back and forth to Tom, to my dad in Texas (yep - total fluke that my Dad lives there, too), emails to Tom's family in Texas, frantic checking of airline discount prices, car rental discount places, more calls to my Dad in Texas and the 5 of us are going to Texas next weekend. The kids and Tom are through the roof thrilled!!! My dad is over the moon and I'm sure Tom's grandfather is gonna be thrilled when Tom talks to him!

Me? Well, I'm in shock. Those of you who know me will know that the words "Steph" and "spontaneous" aren't usually used in the same sentence. :p  I think the credit card and I need a day or two to adjust.