Don't Litter

Throw your trash in a garbage can, PEOPLE.  It's not that hard!
MIDWAY a Message from the Gyre : a short film by Chris Jordan from Midway on Vimeo.

Vaccinations really aren't that bad

I have been in a pregnancy and parenting group on Facebook since I got pregnant with Mila.  In lots of ways, it has been super handy.  Any time something came up with baby Mila I could post the question in one place and get numerous comments of advice.  I also like being able to pass on my experience for other new moms.  

Lately, that page has been a source of angst.  For some reason, the hot topic of vaccinating your children has come up a lot recently.  The majority of those women are anti-vaccines and it stresses me out to no end.  I think it is sad that so many children have been infected with measles when it is a completely avoidable situation.

I have worked in vaccine research and development for years now, so I have seen many examples as to why this work is done. Thankfully, one mom recently posted this amazing blog post with link after link after link to various sites promoting vaccinations.  It is a GREAT read and I recommend it if you have children or know anyone with children.  Keeping up with your boosters as an adult are key in preventing unvaccinated infants from becoming infected.

There is no way for me to convince someone to take in the CDC with even a modicum of trust when they have already decided they are corrupt.  But I am heartbroken for their children.  The best I can say is luckily for them they live in a country with great medical abilities, so if their children get avoidable diseases their chance of survival is much higher than those who live in countries without these vaccines.  People in third world countries would give anything to receive the vaccines that are so readily available to us.  It's saddening to think so many people throw this concept in the trash.

I Heart Pinterest

The Three Frogs

I heard a great metaphor this morning and wanted to share it.  I also wanted to save it for myself so I don't forget.

Three frogs were climbing a pole.  Every day, a man who passed by the pole would say, "You're never going to make it.  It's too high."  Finally, one day, the man was making his regular pass-by and noticed one frog had made it to the top, while the other two were sitting at the bottom.  Amazed, the man wanted to know how he did it, so he asked.  When the frog didn't respond one of the frogs at the bottom replied, "He can't hear you.  He's deaf."

The moral of this story?  Don't listen to the people who are trying to bring you down.  If you try hard enough, you'll make it in whatever you task to do.

Our first loss as a family

It's been FOREVER since I posted, but I wanted this to go up.  I kind of think of this blog as my life diary.  Helps me remember things.  

This weekend, Bella (pronounced "Baya") died.  It was unexpected.  She was our first pet together as a couple.  We got her only a few short months after moving into our first apartment together.  She was our baby kitty and our family. 

Saturday afternoon I noticed Bella was breathing with her mouth open. I had a bad feeling so I called the vet.  They were closing in 10 minutes, so I decided to wait until Sunday to see how she was.  If she was bad we'd go to the emergency vet, if she was okay I'd take her to our regular vet Monday.  Sunday morning she was bad.  She was in respiratory distress. Travis rushed her to the emergency vet and they confirmed she was in critical condition and put her on oxygen.  The doctor had a few hypotheses.  Tumor?  Pneumonia?  We found out it would cost us a small fortune to find out what was wrong with her and even then it might be untreatable.  We opted to euthanize, but she was gone before we could follow through.  She was 11 years old in September.

Poor Travis.  He had to do it all on his own and I feel horrible about that.  I wish I could have been there for him.  I wish I could have been there for Bella.  But I didn't want to bring the kids to that.  I thought it would only stress out Bella more.  Travis was pretty distraught Sunday afternoon.  He tries to act tough, but he has a soft side.  Seeing a guy in distress makes it so much worse, doesn't it?

Even though Bella had her bi-polar moments, she was a good cat to us.  I walked passed her usual roosts last night and felt a pang of sadness.  She will be missed.

Say No to Bullying

http://youtu.be/ltun92DfnPY

Time Scales

My dad went in for his bloodwork last week.  The creatinine was still too high for the CT scan so he has an appointment to go back this week and check again.  This waiting is driving me crazy!  But the doctor seems comfortable with the time scale we're working on right now.  He said its not a particularly fast moving form, so we don't need to worry about anything drastic happening between now and when they can get a good picture of the whole thing.  Plus, if he gets it now, the iodine might kill him.  So, you know.  Worth the wait.

Came across this video about a girl who wanted to learn to dance in a year.  It's impressive. 

Dad's Home!

They unplugged everything except for the kidney tubes, made him stay for 24 hours to make sure nothing failed then sent him home Thursday evening!  Ariel has been staying with him to make sure he's okay and to help him around the house.  His swelling was entirely gone, so he looks much better.  He was most excited about being able to roll over in bed because he's not plugged in everywhere.

He's expecting to go back to the hospital this week to get blood drawn.  If the renal values are low enough they'll schedule his CT scan.  I'm hoping everything goes smoothly!

Hospital Stay Overview

The first couple days in the hospital were the worst.  The doctors said because my dad's kidneys are not working properly, the waste that normally leaves in the urine was staying in his blood.  Those toxins in the blood were causing some confusion for him.  He was really out of it, so he didn't really understand what we told him.  When he thinks back on those first few days he's says it's really fuzzy.  Those toxins also cause muscle tremors and itchy skin (when the urea escapes the blood through the skin, it causes dry skin).  He also had trouble accepting the fact that he was seriously ill and needed to be in the hospital.  I think it was day 3 or 4 when he said, "I feel like I should be here."

The first week he had a catheter and was on IV fluids.  They gave him lots of pills to help with his high heart rate and malnutrition, occasionally for his high blood pressure.  They were hoping after his bladder was relieved, his kidneys would improve on their own.  Sadly, that was not the case and he started going in for dialysis every other day.  The doctors said there was still hope that his kidneys could recover, but the dialysis would speed up that process for him.  

On Tuesday, a week after he was admitted, he went in for the bladder scope.  The urologist was hoping to cauterize the bleeds and take a look around.  Unfortunately, when he was in there he found it wasn't a bunch of little bleeds in the bladder wall, so much as a large bleeding tumor.  He removed as much as he could, but after giving him 4 bags of blood decided to cauterize everything and back out. 

The plan is to do the CT scan and see how extensive the cancer is.  Hopefully it's only in his bladder and they can just take the dang thing out.  If they do that, they will most likely perform a bladder reconstruction out of his intestine.  

The doctor also found that the tumor was blocking his kidneys from emptying properly which explains why his kidney values weren't improving like they hoped.  A day or two after the cystoscopy he had a bilateral ureterostomy (tubes from his kidney through his skin).  So many tubes.  Getting out of the bed takes five minutes because of all the things that need to be unplugged or rearranged.

At the moment his is mostly unplugged.  The ureteral bypass tubes have to stay until the tumor is addressed.  Crossing my fingers that he can remain unplugged.

My Dad has Cancer

Somewhere back in January of this year (when we were visiting for Christmas), my dad started having some urinary tract symptoms.  I don't want to go into too much detail for his privacy, but I want to point out that this didn't exactly happen over night.  My dad was planning to come visit in Texas immediately after we left and bring back Callaway.  His symptoms prevented him from coming.  He said he was going to get better, then come down later.  

Weeks go by and I start urging him to go to the doctor.  He's always been healthy (as far as we can tell), so he has managed to avoid seeing a doctor for decades.  I'd bet he hasn't seen one since he and my mom were married (prior to 1996).  My dad's a "don't worry about it" kind of guy so I don't know the details on his health.  He lives alone, so I've kind of always worried something would happen to him at home and no one would know about it.  I always figured it would be a heart problem since those seem to run in his family.

About a month ago, his texting dwindled down to nothing.  He used to message me at least five times a day so when he stopped, I got suspicious.  The week of my wedding anniversary I called him to see how he was doing and he sounded horrible.  His voice was weak and he complained about being so tired that he had to sleep every afternoon.  There were several new symptoms, all of them worth a visit to the doctor.  He'd told me he'd been to the doctor a month prior.  Obviously, the medication wasn't working so I urged him to go again.  He seemed really out of it.  The next day, my sister called after having a similar phone conversation with him.  

In fear, I decided to go behind his back and call his good friends to see if they would go check on him.  When I talked with the wife, she admitted that he hadn't been out for Whiskey Wednesday with her husband in over a month.  They used to meet every Wednesday to try out fancy whiskeys at one of the bars in town.  My dad is the poster child for 'social butterfly', so this news scared me even more.  That night (Friday), she called me back to give me the update.

I was on the road to Austin to visit friends for the weekend.  She recounted her husband's visit and it was horrible.  She said my dad was pale and had no energy to stand.  He had told me he hasn't been eating much lately so I asked if he looked like he'd lost weight.  She said he was so swollen, she couldn't tell if he'd lost weight.  I called Ariel and that's when we decided to drive to Illinois (I looked into plane tickets, but the last-minute cost was outrageous.)  Unfortunately, I was almost to Austin by this point.  We opted to use the weekend to make arrangements for our jobs and my family, then leave first thing Monday morning.

We got a late start on Monday, so we didn't get in until 4 am Tuesday.  We didn't tell our dad we were coming and went straight to our mom's.  In the morning, we went to the store and bought some easy to prepare foods and drinks, then headed over to his job site.  We didn't know where he was, so we were discussing which way to go in when we heard a weak, "You're not supposed to be here..."  It took me a moment to find where my dad was sitting.  He was slumped on a bench between two trees not moving at all.  He looked horrible.  Exactly as his friend has described.

He asked what we were doing there and we told him it was a Father's Day surprise.  We know how much he has fought going to the doctor so we didn't want to scare him away immediately.  But then he said he felt bad because he didn't have the energy to do the fun stuff we probably wanted to do.  I told him we just wanted to go to his house and make him lunch.  He immediately refused and said he'd rather go out for pizza.  At this point, I knew he was avoiding us going to his house.  Our college-aged brother had gone by to bring him food a couple weeks prior and said our dad had apologized constantly about the smell and mess.  He hadn't had the energy to clean the house and Callaway was having accidents inside.  

It took some coaxing, but we convinced him to let us come over.  Ariel drove his car and I played chauffeur.  The house was dusty, but I didn't notice any odor.  Alex had come over the weekend before to take Callaway for him.  He must have cleaned up that mess.  The one thing I did notice is how hot it was.  He complained about being so cold all the time.  

Dad obviously did not want us in the house, so he announced we were going to the pool.  He was in no state to walk anywhere.  To appease him I said, "Sure, go get changed."  It took him HALF AN HOUR to change clothes.  He was wiped out so I told him to go take a nap.  While he was sleeping we cleaned his house and did some laundry.  When he woke up I listed off all his symptoms together and explained he was going to the doctor and we weren't leaving until he did.  Hoping he would take the bait, I gave him three options: his previous doctor, urgent care or the ER.  He said he didn't like his doctor, "so I guess take me to urgent care."  It was weak annoyance on his part.  He honestly didn't have the energy to fight us.

The urgent care doctor took a blood and urine sample and said he had a mass in his abdomen.  Go to the ER immediately.

We hobbled back to the car and headed to the ER (where I wanted to go from the start).  They brought him in back immediately.  I am seriously impressed with the efficiency, cleanliness and friendliness of that hospital and all it's employees when compared to ours in Texas.  No wonder it's a Magnet hospital.

The doctors announced the mass was his entirely-too-full bladder.  Something was blocking the proper flow of things and it caused renal failure.  His kidney values were through the roof.  They worked their magic to relieve his immediate discomfort and admitted him that night.  We were back at my mom's by midnight.  

A week after he was admitted, the doctor was finally able to do a cystoscopy and found a large tumor in his bladder.  He removed two thirds of what he could see.  The pathology report stated it was malignant bladder cancer.  The next step is to do a CT scan to determine the extent of the tumor.  They use iodine (a dye) in that procedure, but it is renal toxic.  After his kidneys recover, they will do the scan.

Ariel and I spent as much of our time as possible in the hospital with him for two weeks.  I needed to come home to attend to my family and get back to work, but Ariel chose to put her job on hold and stay with our dad.  I'm going to try to get back on here and give some more details about what happened during those two weeks soon.

About My Mom

A few years ago, my mom moved into a not-so-awesome area, but the price was right for her retiree income so she took the opportunity.  She recently made friends with some of her neighbors.  On one hand, I'm ecstatic she has people nearby to visit with regularly.  The thought of her sitting at home all by herself, day after day, eats at me.  On the other hand, her options out there are limited.

She was telling me about how she gets her grandma fix by playing with one of her neighbor's babies.  I then asked if it's the baby with the schizo mom.  The funny part is I'm not exaggerating.  The woman has actually been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is supposed to be medicated.  She doesn't take her medication though, because she doesn't think she needs it.  Even though she thinks aliens are trying to get her...

Anyhoo, my mom's response to my question about the schizo mom was priceless:

That's legit, folks.

Mila Carol: 1 Year Old

In the hospital.

One year ago today, our little girl was born.  It was a totally different birthing experience from when I had Aiden - in a good way.  

Time flies.  I can't believe it's been a year already.  She is such a sweet baby, despite the constant pressure in her ears at the moment.  As long as she gets her sleep, she's super happy.  

Aiden and her get along great.  Of course Aiden gets annoyed with her when she climbs on the toys he's playing with.  Mila gets annoyed when he won't give her what he's playing with.  Typical siblings. 

(He was singing Jingle Bells.)

I love our little family.

First Family Camping Trip

This Mother's Day was a little different than the past few years.  We usually go to the beach with some of my other mother friends.  This time we decided to give camping a try.  We haven't gone since before Aiden was born.  This trip was a little different from past experiences since it focused more on the kids than ourselves.  We didn't want to go far in case there was an emergency with the kids, so we went to Huntsville State Park just north of Houston.  We reserved two campsites and shared with two of my co-workers' families.  One family has a boy the same age as Aiden, the other a 5-year-old girl.

Saturday morning we packed up the truck and headed to the park.  We set up camp and then all went canoeing on the lake.

Canoeing is difficult with a baby.

 

Mila fell down in the canoe, so I immediately scooped her to make sure all was well.  When I set her down and looked around I could no longer locate my paddle.  The good news?  I got to enjoy the rest of the trip and let Travis do all the work.  He didn't seem to mind though.

We stopped for slushies on our way back to the site.  By the time we made it back, Mila was ready for a bottle and a nap.  She proceeded to sleep for the reminder of the night (though I woke her up momentarily for dinner).

 I forgot how amazing camping is.  It's so nice to be out in nature, away from the sounds of cars and stereos. 

The eventful hill:

Aiden wanted to try out one of the kid's bikes, that's a bit bigger than his.  I showed him how he could use the pedals to brake just like on his bike and also the hand brake.  The two kids walked next to him while he rode.  He started to speed up and made it around the corner before I could get him to stop.  He made it around the bend and picked up even more speed going down a hill.  Instead of using any of the brakes, he tried to drag his feet on the ground.  Since it was a bigger bike, he was unable to reach the ground.  He turned around and looked at me with a face full of fear.  It was horrible.  I was looking at his t-shirt and shorts and imagining the road rash we'd be dealing with.  He dove off the bike (or fell?  not sure...) and the bike continued down the hill and t-boned the red car you can see in the photo above.

I ran up to Aiden and scooped him up.  He was crying so hard.  I checked him over and he didn't have a scratch on him.  He was wearing a helmet (THANK GOODNESS) so his head was fine.  It wouldn't have been fine with as hard as it hit the pavement.  Ugh.  Horrible.  The couple who owned the car ran up with the bike to make sure he was okay.  They said they weren't even worried about their car as long as Aiden was okay.  The guy told Aiden he couldn't believe there wasn't a dent in the road with as hard as he hit it.  Seriously.  Me too.  I thought for sure Aiden would be covered in bruises in a few hours, but he only had one fingertip-sized bruise on his shoulder blade where he probably landed on a rock.  MAKE YOUR KID WEAR A HELMET!!!

For dinner we cooked hot dogs over the fire.  After dinner we roasted marshmallows and made S'mores.  I bought bug houses for the kids, so we ran around catching bugs.  When it got dark, we broke out the glow stick necklaces and poured a special powder on the fire to make it change colors.  The kids stayed up until 10 pm.  I wish that meant they slept in, but no.

The next day we sat by the fire and drank camp coffee while one of the other dads cooked breakfast.  Afterward we all split up.  One family went home, one went paddle boating and we opted for a hike in the woods.  I wanted to see if we could find anymore wildlife.  We'd  already seen tons of blue jays, cardinals and woodpeckers.  A squirrel practically climbed up Travis' leg.  We found a ton of white, fuzzy caterpillars around the campsite - perfect for the bug houses.

On the hike, we saw a black widow spider.  No joke.  I'm so glad we saw this at the END of the camping trip.  I would have been an anxious mess otherwise.  Ignorance is bliss.  The spider was hiding in the middle of it's messy web just inside a hole in a log.  When I saw the shiny black with the red spot, I knew instantly.  EESH.  On a lighter note, we also saw dragon flies, butterflies and two rabbits. 

We already had the truck packed up, but decided to eat lunch at the camp site.  Eating at a picnic bench in the middle of a beautiful park is way more fun that strapped to a chair in a moving vehicle. 

Camping with a baby was a little hard.  Mila can't walk quite yet and I didn't want her crawling around in the dirt eating pine needles.  I brought enough bottles that I only had to wash them once so we had enough to get us home on Sunday.  This trip was probably easier than it would have been if it were just us because one of the other families bought and prepared all the food.  One less thing for me to worry about!  I would love to go camping again soon, but preferably after Mila can walk and is off formula.  Though that might not be very far away...

 Happy Mother's Day!

My Mother's Day gift.

Baby Graduation

Mila turns one on Saturday.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!  Where has the time gone??  I know all parents say that, but boy does it hit home.

Despite her inner ear issues, Mila is learning to toddle.  She cruises along furniture everywhere and has taken an unassisted step here or there, but yesterday she decided to take things a little farther.  When I picked her up from daycare, the teacher had her standing up.  She took a step back and coaxed Mila to her.  She took 6 steps all by herself!! 

Then, when we were in the bathroom at the ENT yesterday afternoon, she did it again with just me.  I tried to get a video of it, but only got a few steps on my phone.  Here she is, sporting her Hello Kitty sticker from the hearing specialist:

Mila Can Walk! from Nicolette Ward on Vimeo.

Aiden took his first steps a week before he turned one.  I spent a little time remembering that...  :)

Another Trip to the Doctor

Mila's ear infection/fluid on the ears will not go away.  I made an appointment with her pediatrician last Monday so we could discuss everything: Three months, four antibiotics for her ears, two topical ointments and an oral anti-fungal for diaper rash (as a result of oral antibiotics and subsequent diarrhea) and she STILL has fluid on her ears.  Thankfully it wasn't a full on infection, so the doctor sent home a prescription for a fifth antibiotic in case she developed a fever before I could get her in with the pediatric Ears Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist.  

The appointment with the ENT was yesterday.  We never had to fill the fifth antibiotic.  SHOO.  Before we saw the doctor, Mila had a hearing test.  It was hilarious.  I was trying so hard not to laugh and distract Mila the whole time.  We sat in a chair in the middle of a tiny sound proof room.  There were three speakers: one in front of us and one on either side.  Next to each speaker was a TV screen and a box with a remote control toy inside.  The hearing specialist went back and forth between sound frequencies/voice recognition on the speakers, pictures on the TV's, and movement with the remote control toys.  Mila turned her head to look at things when they made noises.  I wonder what she was thinking.  It was so strange.

Afterwards, the hearing doctor explained that Mila was just a little outside the normal hearing chart.  They did something where they put headphones on that touched the bone behind her ear.  She said that way they could bypass her eardrums to test her hearing.  She passed that part fine, which means it's just the fluid impeding her hearing, not any permanent damage.  Yay!

A little while later we were sitting with the ENT. She said only 6% of children still have fluid on their ears, three months after their initial ear infection.  Mila is part of the 6%, so she recommends getting tubes put in her ears.  So, surgery it is!  Her surgery is scheduled for May 28th, the day after Memorial Day.  I know it's not a serious surgery, but it's still going to be so hard to hand her off to the nurse while she's wearing tiny baby scrubs.  =(

Eating Metal

This is actually a little gross.


Magnetic Putty Magic (Extended Cut) | Shanks FX | PBS Digital Studios from Joey Shanks on Vimeo.

Roadside Equipment

This morning Travis went to check on Mila while she was playing in the kids' room.  

"Oh.  You're playing with the cone and barrel.  Again."

Pause.

"You've got allllll these toys and you always play with those."

The cone and barrel he's referring to go to Aiden's matchbox cars.  It's a miniature road cone and barrel.  Mila loves them.  She chews on them, then puts the cone in the barrel.  Rinse, repeat.  What a simple life babies have.

Regressing

I don't know why, but Aiden has been wetting the bed every other night for the past week or two.  He has been potty-trained since September.  I am exhausted.  Whenever this happens, he freaks out, wakes me up, then we have to change his clothes and sheets.  To help cut back on my exhaustion, I broke down and bought disposable underwear for kids that wet the bed.  

I was nervous about trying this because I didn't want to hurt his morale by putting him in a "diaper" and I also didn't want him to get excited about wearing them and stop using the toilet in the middle of the night.  Last night was our first night to try this and he's leaning towards liking the disposable underwear.  I'm walking a fine line between telling him it's okay to wear these because he has accidents and calming his excitement by saying it's not okay because only babies wear diapers. 

The new rule is, no fluids after 7 pm.  Some nights that's difficult because we get home late and I would not expect him to eat dinner without a drink. We always make him go to the bathroom right before bed.  I know he wakes up sometimes to go in the middle of the night.  Maybe he's been sleeping heavier lately, so he doesn't wake up when he needs to go?

I was ecstatic he woke up with a dry underwear this morning.  If he can stay dry for several nights in a row, we will stop using them.  I'm hoping that happens quickly - no need for him to get used to this situation.  Crossing my fingers...

Sad Week in the News

It's been a rough week to watch the news.  I'm sure most of you have heard of these items, but sometimes I like to use this blog as a journal so I can go back and see what was going on in my life.

1. Boston Marathon Explosion - Two deadly explosions at the finish line killing three people and injuring 170 (including trauma severe enough that limbs have been amputated).
2. Ricin letters - A conspiracy theorist sent two letters filled with the toxin ricin to President Obama and the U.S. Senator of Mississippi.
3. Explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas - 15 people dead, almost 200 injured, town evacuated. And here is one reason why it scares me when people flock towards devastation (fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc).

Keeping Up

About that lock box I mentioned yesterday...

Travis and I gave in and hired a housekeeper.  For the time being we have her set to come every other week.  If we need to push it out to every three or four weeks we might do that later.  She came yesterday for the first time.  I spent Monday evening in Urgent Care, then last night was T-ball.  I was driving home from practice trying to remember what state our house was in when I remembered she had come earlier.  I had to be very careful with my gas foot because it suddenly got really heavy at the prospect of what was waiting for us.

That woman cleaned things I haven't thought about cleaning since before I had kids.  She dusted the top of our door trim!  She took everything off my nightstand and dusted that! (I usually dust around those items.)  She moved a side table away from the wall in the kitchen to sweep and mop!  She cleaned our microwave.  

Seriously.  This is a big deal.  I don't have time to do many things.  Other items get done once a month or sometimes even longer apart.  The only items I take care of every day or week are my kids, dishes and laundry.  Everything else happens when I have time.  I barely even have time to sit down for dinner.  The longest stretch of time I get to sit with my plate is five minutes.  The rest of the meal is spent feeding Mila, getting Aiden seconds, cleaning up the food or drink someone spilled, etc.  But those five minutes are usually filled with guilt.  That's when I sit still long enough to notice the dust building up on my curtains, or the cobwebs that have formed in the corners.  I always wonder, when will I have time to clean that?  

I used to keep an immaculate home.  All my free time, when Travis was at work, was spent cleaning.  That free time is now filled with other more important items, so I feel comfortable saying I am happy to have a housekeeper.  She was super nice, though I will never see her.  She comes during the day while we are at work.  Hence the lock box.  We have a key lock box (like realtors use) to let her in while we're away.  This way she doesn't have our key all the time.

It's magical.  Absolutely magical.