Happy 8th Birthday!

Happy 8th Birthday to an amazing young lady. You have been a gift from God since day one. You are always surprising us with your wittiness, imagination, creativity, and your love for Jesus! We are so proud of you and honored to be your parents. Have a great day sweetheart!

Newborn

4 years old

Almost 8!

Ugh Monday!

This weekend was a very hard weekend for Lorelai.  When you plan to go to a picnic with friends you expect your kids to come home exhausted.  Well Lor did but in a different way.  They whole time we were there she just laid on Uncle Mark's lap and tried to nap.  This weekend she took 2 plus hours nap plus begged to go to bed at night.  She has fevers, urgency, etc.  Last night was the worse as she was waking up in the night screaming of pain.  My heart broke and we both cried for many of the night.

This morning I called both our primary doctor and Mayo.  Our primary said that Mayo really needed to see her.  Mayo resident called back.  I was not impressed with his attitude or what he had to say (that conversation I would rather not discuss) but the jist of it all was that he didn't think Lor had an infection from a UTI but rather something else.  So he wanted us to be seen by our primary to rule everything out before being seen.  I called our primary in tears and told our nurse what was just said and how frustrated I was at the run around.  Our primary doctors nurse told me to bring Lor right up and we would run some tests to rule everything out.  I told her strongly I wanted everything ran from blood to x-rays so that they could tell I was serious this time.

We did a urinalysis the minute we got there and a blood draw.  Lorelai, my poor baby, freaked when the nurses came in to draw blood.  At this point I completely understand since she's been through so much.  We cried together but got the blood drawn.  When the dr came in she said that she had a screaming bladder infection and no wonder she was screaming in her sleep.  Unfortunately due to her having these symptoms for some time now she was afraid that the infection was already on its way to the kidneys and she suggested to ramp up the antibiotics.  To get it started quicker she wanted to do 2 shots of antibiotics along with a 2 week series of antibiotics as well.  So another freak out moment was had with the shots but with mom "hugging" her down to the bed we got the antibiotic shots done.  This is the part of being a mom that I don't like.  She starts her 2 week antibiotics tonight. After the two weeks we will do another urinalysis and if negative then we can schedule her VCUG.  At that time we will see what is causing her to have more infections.

thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.  much appreciated in this time of need.

Lorelai Update

Well since December we have had our ups and our downs with Lorelai after surgery. We think we are doing good and then we are not doing good.  We are doing good and then we are not doing good again.  We have done physical therapy and we have had more consults and many many more tests and antibiotics.  Unfortunately we are back to a not so very well time.  Friday I called Mayo in Rochester and spoke with the drs again to discuss more options.  Our next step is to do the ugly test of VCUG or VUC (Voiding cystourethrogram) again.  There is no other words for this test as a patient or a mother then ugly, invasive, horrible.  A mother's worse day ever to put her child through this test but it is the only way to find out if she's still voiding.  As I had mentioned prior to surgery, the surgery she had done was only at an 85% success rate so we new there was a chance of reoccurrence.  We will hopefully have some answers on Tuesday! For now we continue her medications, tylenol for fevers and pray for guidance. God is always at our side guiding us.  We just need to be quiet and listen, watch and wait for him to answer our prayers.

Happy 5th Birthday Lorelai

Love this little one to the moon and back.  God has blessed us so very much with her wonderful personality and love for others.  She's so caring of others and a little mother hen.  Have a wonderful day Baby Girl!

Lorelai's Day Out

Yesterday I got to privilege of spending the day with Lorelai in LaCrosse shopping & well check-up visit.  Thanks to Grama who watched Harry for me.

We did lots of shopping for her upcoming friend party on Saturday. We purchased many fun things for her Princess Tea Party!  It should be lots of fun for all!  We also tried to get her ears pierced.  Since Christmas she has been talking about when she turns 5 all she wants is her ears pierced.  So I scheduled an appointment so we had two people to them at once.  All the way into LaCrosse she talked about how brave she was going to be, we prayed and everything.  When we got into the store she froze and started crying.  So the lady wouldn't do it and Lor was not going to let her.  So we went on shopping and I told her that it was ok and maybe when she was 6 she would be much braver and ready.  We had our well check-ups and was headed out of town when she decided she wanted to try again.  So back to the store we went.  (I should have known better since it was 330 in the afternoon and by this time she's usually a goner) but I really wanted her to have her earrings for birthday.  I knew how much she wanted them!  We went in, got the coat off, got the dots on the ears and we freaked out again!  So for about 45 minutes the lady tried talking to her and I did and I finally had to pull the plug on the whole deal.  She was getting more worked up every minute and it was just not a good time for either of us at this point.  Maybe another day!

Today at school is her Leader Day/Valentine's Day/Birthday!  She's going to be excited and exhausted when she gets home!

Happy 4th Birthday Harry

Yes I am late with this post but not with his birthday!  We had a great day. Harry didn't want a friend party this year but just to hang out with mom and dad and his sisters.  Grama came and watched the girls while mom and Harry went to the tractor shop.  We found in less then 1 hour a tractor with duely wheels, a plow for snow and a plow for the field.  He didn't want to take the time to go out for a treat of ice cream as he was too anxious to get home to play with his new toy.

That night we went out to eat at Culver's and then he got his birthday gift from us.  His very own pedal tractor!

Sunday after church it was so very cold out but I had been waiting for a new snow fall to get this picture. We drove in the driveway from church, I got the tractor in place, took Harry's coat off, got him on the tractor and took 3 pictures.  Then scooted him into the house before he got chilled.  Love how this picture turned out!  

Lorelai's Tests & Surgery

Yesterday was a very long day of waiting but Lorelai is done and home and you would never know she had surgery yesterday.

We went up on Tuesday night and got a hotel as we were told we were first case and we would need to report at 545 AM. Well since pediatric cases go by age we got bumped to 3rd case.  So Tues night when we called for our automated recording of our time we got told to report at 745.  Ok so we figured we were 2nd case.  We reported at 745, went up to the pediatric floor, went back and got all our vitals read and then we waited and we waited and we waited.  It was 1130 before Lorelai was called back to start prepping for surgery.  I tried to take as many pictures as possible throughout the day for her baby book so here is how the day went.

7:45 AM Administration Check-In 

Waiting Waiting Waiting 

(what a little trooper of no complaining)

Finally prepping for surgery

(we were very scared and not happy about getting changed)

And then the "silly juice" started working

We had a great group to work with.  They were so good about doing whatever worked best for Lor but also for mom and dad.  Lovey also got a surgical hat. She loved it!  I didn't get a picture of me and Lor together but I got to suit up and take Lor back to surgery. I rode on the bed with Lor on my lap and then when in the OR I got to talk her through the process of breathing into the mask.  It was a great experience to know that she was comfortable and not scared at all.  

This is after surgery.  We were called back right away and was able to be there when she woke up.  

You can see in the above picture her IV in her arm.  As soon as she noticed it she wanted that out NOW!  The nurse told her she needed to go potty before she could have it out.  She immediately drank some juice so she could have it out.  

Below was her getting dressed right after having the IV taken out so she was not very happy.  She took Lovey's surgical hat and was wearing it.  

Then the nurse asked if she would like a ride in the wheelchair down to the parking ramp.  Oh yes she was happy about that ride!

We all were starving from not eating all day.  All she wanted was BACON!  So we went to Perkins were Dad ordered her an extra side of bacon.  She was feeling very good and needed to take a picture of mom and dad together. 

Here are pictures from our trips up to Rochester for her tests from a week ago....

We stayed in a hotel the night before her tests.  When we got to the hotel I asked her if she wanted to go shopping, out to eat, etc.  She stripped out of her clothes, got her jammies on and into bed and then said "the food can come to me!"  And that is where she stayed all night watching TV.

Morning of tests in our hotel room

Ready to go into the clinic

 Watching cartoons and waiting for ultrasound tech

Getting gown on for VUC tests

On bed of VUC table playing the IPad.

The top of the machine slid over top of her and took images of her.  She was able to play on the IPad the whole time to help distract her.

Thank you everyone who helped with the other two kids, the prayers, the encouraging words.  We have the best friends and family.  We are very blessed.