Our {Wild & Crazy} Days

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Hot Summer Days

We've spent a couple mornings this week at some parks. It was wonderful to get out and spend time with our friends!

Nyah was wonderful and played with Olivia - they spent most of their time racing around the field together.

Jolie was the only one who was interested in playing in the water - She's the little girl crouching on the left.

Austin and his friends spent most of their time pouring over his Pokemon cards (Curses to whichever neighborhood kid pulled these out again this summer - if I have to listen to so-and-so's power levels or whatever one more time I am going to scream!! ).

Lunch time!

Passing out after a fun day of playing hard!!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

MORE SUPER DUPER FABULOUS GREAT WONDERFUL TERRIFIC NEWS

Yesterday was the BIG day for Olivia's eye exam! We were following up from the May visits when her team of doctor's felt like there was *possibly* enough vision loss to start chemotherapy.

Here are some links to past posts and a little bit of history if you are catching up on the details:

December 9th Update - CT scans done following Olivia's fall from a shopping cart show an optic glioma on the left optic nerve (and a skull fracture!), so we do more tests once she is recovered from the skull fracture.

February 5th Update - At this appointment the eye exam results were 20/30 in the left eye and 20/25 in the right eye

May 13th Update - At this visit Olivia's vision was 20/80 in the left eye and 20/40 in the right eye. This is where the doctor's became seriously concerned and pretty much wanted to throw her into chemotherapy right away. Kurt and I were concerned about making sure chemotherapy was really needed, so we stalled them by insisting on meeting with her genetic specialist and doing another eye exam.

May 26th Update - At this visit Olivia's vision was 20/40 in the left eye and 20/30 in the right eye. The doctor's involved decided to have her come back in "exactly one month" (doctor's words) to do all the testing again, and see what the results showed.

And then the week before we were supposed to go back, the doctor's office called to reschedule everything because the doctor was going on vacation (to Italy, where his wife is from, doesn't it sound lovely?). But this wasn't really a big deal for us (other than the whole "I'm having a baby that week so can we please do it all the next week instead?").

So, you are wondering what the results of yesterday's eye exams are? Well, remember I have MORE SUPER DUPER FABULOUS GREAT WONDERFUL TERRIFIC NEWS.

Yesterday, a totally uncooperative 3 year old who didn't want to be at the doctor's AGAIN, didn't want to sit still, didn't want to look at the screen, wasn't amused by the robotic doggy barking and doing flips, wasn't tantalized by promises of getting to pick a Dora sticker or a prize or "you are almost done", who didn't want to name the same pictures over and over again, still managed to have 20/30 in her left eye and 20/25 in her right eye. WHOO HOO!!! Right back where we started from a long long long time ago in February. The MRI she did last week also showd that there was no new growth or change of appearance of the optic pathway tumors. HURRAY!! Her doctor spent at least 15 minutes apologizing for the "false alarm," but I was gracious and said nice things like "Well, we needed to be sure."

It is a little exasperating that many hours and hundreds of dollars later, the biggest result from all these tests is that now we know we have a sometimes uncooperative child who doesn't always perform well on eye exams, which isn't really surprising since we know her better than any team of doctors, but we'll take it. We celebrated with ice cream cones. YUM :)

And I want to thank everyone again for all your prayers on Olivia's behalf. We certainly wanted these wonderful results very badly, but we also know that this could have ended a completely different way. We have felt the Lord supporting, comforting, and guiding us through all of this, and we know whatever the future will bring for Olivia is in His hands. Love you all!!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Rest for Me, Zoo for Kids

Kurt and my mom took the kids to the zoo this morning and I was able to lounge in bed, watch cartoons, nap, and snuggle with Sophie. It was wonderful.

Here are some pictures from the hospital that I grabbed off my mom's camera-

Monday, July 5, 2010

Introducing . . .

Sophie Mae

born July 1st at 5:28 pm - 7 lbs. 4 ozs. - 19.5 inches long

Everyone adores her and they always want to hold her. So far she is very sweet tempered and willing to be held.

This morning I woke up with Sophie sleeping curled next to my chest, Jolie sleeping against my back, and Olivia sleeping in the circle of my legs - thank goodness we have a king-size bed!! Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to take a picture without waking everyone up, so I went back to sleep!

I am doing great - I don't remember feeling as good after the other pregnancies so that is a wonderful blessing. Don't worry - I'm not trying to do too much. Mostly just hanging out in my bed watching Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoons and reading Harry Potter again. Sophie is also doing really good - dealing with all those new baby challenges of suddenly being born.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This week Olivia will have an MRI on Thursday and eye tests this upcoming Monday, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. These are all follow-ups to the events in May to decide whether she will need further treatment for the optic gliomas on her optic nerves or if we will just continue to watch them over time.

4th of July Weekend

We have had a fabulous 4th of July weekend. On the 3rd our neighborhood got to gether to do fireworks. It was so much fun and all the kids had a blast. For some reason my camera settings were being weird so I didn't get any clear shots of the night.