Tabitha and Heath are home! They were told she'd be able to leave today, at 12:30, but it took more than four hours for them to actually get discharged! (These delays happen with every hospital stay--you'd think we'd have learned by now.) Despite the frustrating wait, they did finally get to leave, and they made it home, and she is doing well. She'll be on super-duper antibiotics for 10 days, and then back to taking a daily preventative antibiotic. Hopefully this will not happen again!
We are very thankful that she's OK, and very thankful for everyone who prayed for us and helped us out during this time. Thank you all so much!
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Tuesday
Yesterday Tabitha had quite the itinerary at the hospital. They took x-rays of her belly, ultrasound of her kidneys, and then injected a dye into her IV so they could see what the kidneys were doing. She had to lie in a big machine (like an MRI), and they took pictures of the dye in her kidneys for about 40 minutes. She did really well staying still for that. Watching Happy Feet helped. :)
She didn't have any more big fevers yesterday, just a couple of times where it went up a degree or so. She was feeling pretty well all day, and the creatinine levels have continued to drop. Heath switched places with me yesterday afternoon, so I'm at home now. Just before leaving for the hospital, he called to tell me that Jesse was sick and threw up twice! So Heath's dad stayed with the kids at our house. I came home expecting to have another sick kid to take care of, but Jesse was fine by then, not sick at all. He thinks he just got car sick. Who knows. I also came home to a delicious lasagna dinner that a friend from church brought over. Such a blessing!
This morning Heath called to say that things are going well. Tabitha still hasn't had any more fevers, and the test results from yesterday showed that the swelling in her kidney has gone down. So, PROBABLY (and this could always change), but probably they'll come home this afternoon. It'll be nice to have our family back together again. (But dealing with Rayanna's 3-year-old mischief this morning, I'm kinda missing the boredom of the hospital!) ;-)
She didn't have any more big fevers yesterday, just a couple of times where it went up a degree or so. She was feeling pretty well all day, and the creatinine levels have continued to drop. Heath switched places with me yesterday afternoon, so I'm at home now. Just before leaving for the hospital, he called to tell me that Jesse was sick and threw up twice! So Heath's dad stayed with the kids at our house. I came home expecting to have another sick kid to take care of, but Jesse was fine by then, not sick at all. He thinks he just got car sick. Who knows. I also came home to a delicious lasagna dinner that a friend from church brought over. Such a blessing!
This morning Heath called to say that things are going well. Tabitha still hasn't had any more fevers, and the test results from yesterday showed that the swelling in her kidney has gone down. So, PROBABLY (and this could always change), but probably they'll come home this afternoon. It'll be nice to have our family back together again. (But dealing with Rayanna's 3-year-old mischief this morning, I'm kinda missing the boredom of the hospital!) ;-)
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
At the Hospital
Well, I haven't been blogging much lately. And I've been posting this weekend's events on facebook instead of the blog, but I figured I should update the blog for all my faithful fans out there. (ha ha ha) :) We've had quite the adventurous Labor Day weekend, and certainly not the one we had planned.
Last Thursday night Tabitha woke up in the middle of the night with bladder pain. This can happen if her bladder is too full, but even after cathing she woke up again crying, so we knew something was wrong. Friday morning I took her to the pediatrician to check for a UTI. She did have an infection, so they prescribed Bactrim (the antibiotic she's been on for a few years but stopped in July once the kidney reflux was fixed.) She had thrown up twice Friday morning, and had a slight fever but was acting pretty normal the rest of the day. Friday night we went to our friends' house for a cook-out, campfire, etc. She was feverish and tired but slept fine that night. Saturday morning she threw up half an hour after taking her antibiotic, so I wasn't sure if that dose had enough time to be absorbed or not. She also had a higher fever. A little while later we decided to go to Urgent Care since it didn't seem like the medicine was working yet. So that was another day of 4 kids in the waiting room (since Heath was working). They handled it pretty well though. :) Urgent Care said if she couldn't keep down her medicine they recommended going to the emergency room. But by that time her fever had gone down to about 101, she wasn't throwing up, and she was totally happy and acting normal. So I took her home, put Rayanna down for a nap, and let Tab just rest. Heath came home, and she was still feverish, but just napping on the couch. Late afternoon we took her temperature again, and our thermometer read 107! We've since learned that the temporal thermometers can be off, so maybe it wasn't really that high. But it was definitely scary!
Heath took her to the ER at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, an excellent hospital which we're very thankful to live near! By the time he arrived the fever was down again, and he was feeling like it may have been silly to rush to the ER. But because of her history of bladder and kidney problems they wanted to keep her. It's a good thing they did! They did a renal ultrasound and put her on a different antibiotic and fluids via IV. At 4 am, they finally got taken to her room.
Heath stayed with her overnight and all day Sunday. Sunday night I switched with him, and he'll switch back with me tonight (Tuesday). Since checking in, she's continued to have fevers whenever the tylenol wears off, and the infection is definitely still there. But her creatinine levels (which shows how the kidneys are working) are going down, which is good. Whenever her fever spikes she's really miserable--shivering, having bad dreams, and just really uncomfortable. But when the tylenol kicks in she's fine. The last few times the fever spiked haven't been as bad though, so that's encouraging.
The culture showed that the bacteria is Ecoli, and she's on the right antibiotic for that; they're also going to look to see if there's something else there too, since she's still having fevers. Now we're getting ready to go do x-rays and ultrasounds to see how things look. They've been in contact with Dr. Alam (her urologist in Cincinnati) as well, so I feel like everything's being well covered, and she's in good hands. She's happy most of the time, except when the fever spikes or we have to cath her. Cathing started hurting her so much yesterday that we switched to a Foley (a catheter that stays in and is attached to a bag). But other than that, she's fine. She's starting to get grumpy because she's sick of being here, and I can definitely understand that!
Yesterday was our anniversary, and we had great plans for a trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. So we're pretty disappointed to miss that, especially since it was a non-refundable purchase. But a friend of mine called the hotel yesterday and got them to refund our money because of the circumstances! We are so thankful for that. Even though we missed our trip, at least now we can afford the co-pay for the hospital stay. My dear and wonderful husband managed to still make our day special. He asked his mom to stay with Tabitha, and he took me out to dinner last night. It was very nice to get away from here and spend some time with him. He's coming to switch places with me today. I'm looking forward to going home this afternoon, seeing the other kids, taking a shower in my own normal shower, and sleeping in my own comfy bed.
As annoying and scary as all of this is, we're very thankful to live so close to an excellent hospital, to have excellent doctors for Tabitha both here and in Cincinnati, and to have excellent insurance that prevents us from being in debt until eternity. Of course we're very thankful that things aren't any worse too. As tough a time as Tabitha's had, there are plenty of kids and families going through worse. We have much to be grateful for.
Tabitha has to be fever-free for at least 24 hours, and they have to make sure the infection is going away and that she'll be OK on oral antibiotics, and THEN we can go home. POSSIBLY tomorrow, but probably more like Thursday. Or Friday. Or who knows. One day at a time, right? Meanwhile, the boys have enjoyed their time off from school. When your parents are the teachers, substitutes, and principals, you get some unexpected days off. :) They won't be too thrilled to hear that I plan to have them do some work tomorrow!
Thanks again for all the emails, facebook comments, phone calls, and all-around support. We appreciate our friends and family so much!
Last Thursday night Tabitha woke up in the middle of the night with bladder pain. This can happen if her bladder is too full, but even after cathing she woke up again crying, so we knew something was wrong. Friday morning I took her to the pediatrician to check for a UTI. She did have an infection, so they prescribed Bactrim (the antibiotic she's been on for a few years but stopped in July once the kidney reflux was fixed.) She had thrown up twice Friday morning, and had a slight fever but was acting pretty normal the rest of the day. Friday night we went to our friends' house for a cook-out, campfire, etc. She was feverish and tired but slept fine that night. Saturday morning she threw up half an hour after taking her antibiotic, so I wasn't sure if that dose had enough time to be absorbed or not. She also had a higher fever. A little while later we decided to go to Urgent Care since it didn't seem like the medicine was working yet. So that was another day of 4 kids in the waiting room (since Heath was working). They handled it pretty well though. :) Urgent Care said if she couldn't keep down her medicine they recommended going to the emergency room. But by that time her fever had gone down to about 101, she wasn't throwing up, and she was totally happy and acting normal. So I took her home, put Rayanna down for a nap, and let Tab just rest. Heath came home, and she was still feverish, but just napping on the couch. Late afternoon we took her temperature again, and our thermometer read 107! We've since learned that the temporal thermometers can be off, so maybe it wasn't really that high. But it was definitely scary!
Heath took her to the ER at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, an excellent hospital which we're very thankful to live near! By the time he arrived the fever was down again, and he was feeling like it may have been silly to rush to the ER. But because of her history of bladder and kidney problems they wanted to keep her. It's a good thing they did! They did a renal ultrasound and put her on a different antibiotic and fluids via IV. At 4 am, they finally got taken to her room.
Heath stayed with her overnight and all day Sunday. Sunday night I switched with him, and he'll switch back with me tonight (Tuesday). Since checking in, she's continued to have fevers whenever the tylenol wears off, and the infection is definitely still there. But her creatinine levels (which shows how the kidneys are working) are going down, which is good. Whenever her fever spikes she's really miserable--shivering, having bad dreams, and just really uncomfortable. But when the tylenol kicks in she's fine. The last few times the fever spiked haven't been as bad though, so that's encouraging.
The culture showed that the bacteria is Ecoli, and she's on the right antibiotic for that; they're also going to look to see if there's something else there too, since she's still having fevers. Now we're getting ready to go do x-rays and ultrasounds to see how things look. They've been in contact with Dr. Alam (her urologist in Cincinnati) as well, so I feel like everything's being well covered, and she's in good hands. She's happy most of the time, except when the fever spikes or we have to cath her. Cathing started hurting her so much yesterday that we switched to a Foley (a catheter that stays in and is attached to a bag). But other than that, she's fine. She's starting to get grumpy because she's sick of being here, and I can definitely understand that!
Yesterday was our anniversary, and we had great plans for a trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. So we're pretty disappointed to miss that, especially since it was a non-refundable purchase. But a friend of mine called the hotel yesterday and got them to refund our money because of the circumstances! We are so thankful for that. Even though we missed our trip, at least now we can afford the co-pay for the hospital stay. My dear and wonderful husband managed to still make our day special. He asked his mom to stay with Tabitha, and he took me out to dinner last night. It was very nice to get away from here and spend some time with him. He's coming to switch places with me today. I'm looking forward to going home this afternoon, seeing the other kids, taking a shower in my own normal shower, and sleeping in my own comfy bed.
As annoying and scary as all of this is, we're very thankful to live so close to an excellent hospital, to have excellent doctors for Tabitha both here and in Cincinnati, and to have excellent insurance that prevents us from being in debt until eternity. Of course we're very thankful that things aren't any worse too. As tough a time as Tabitha's had, there are plenty of kids and families going through worse. We have much to be grateful for.
Tabitha has to be fever-free for at least 24 hours, and they have to make sure the infection is going away and that she'll be OK on oral antibiotics, and THEN we can go home. POSSIBLY tomorrow, but probably more like Thursday. Or Friday. Or who knows. One day at a time, right? Meanwhile, the boys have enjoyed their time off from school. When your parents are the teachers, substitutes, and principals, you get some unexpected days off. :) They won't be too thrilled to hear that I plan to have them do some work tomorrow!
Thanks again for all the emails, facebook comments, phone calls, and all-around support. We appreciate our friends and family so much!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Summer Ends
Well, my last post was entitled "Summer Begins," so as you can see I haven't kept up with blogging much lately. I should have had more time over the summer, but I guess I was in "summer mode," meaning "lazy mode." So I'll try to summarize the highlights of our summer.
For the last week and a half of June we hosted another chaperon from Latvia. Her name is Lana, and we had a fun time with her. A couple other families in our church hosted her after us, and two families in our church hosted Latvian orphans for 5 weeks. (One family is even hoping to adopt the kids they hosted!) It's been really neat to see God moving in people's hearts in many different ways regarding orphan care. Everyone has a different niche, but God can use all of us somewhere! Here are pictures of the host families and kids and of Lana with our family.
After we got home the older 3 had swimming lessons, which is always a fun time. Next year Rayanna will be able to do it too, which should be good since she's tired of being just a spectator!
For the last week and a half of June we hosted another chaperon from Latvia. Her name is Lana, and we had a fun time with her. A couple other families in our church hosted her after us, and two families in our church hosted Latvian orphans for 5 weeks. (One family is even hoping to adopt the kids they hosted!) It's been really neat to see God moving in people's hearts in many different ways regarding orphan care. Everyone has a different niche, but God can use all of us somewhere! Here are pictures of the host families and kids and of Lana with our family.
After Lana left we went to Gettysburg for a 150th Anniversary Civil War re-enactment. It was a miserable day! I guess if you're really into this stuff and you want to camp out and pretend you're really in the war it might be cool. But for a family with young kids, walking around in miserable sweltering heat while trying to find a place you could actually see the battle was NOT FUN! For hard-core civil war buffs maybe, but it was definitely not user friendly.
July brought about a trip to Cincinnati. Just Tabitha and I went. She had testing done on her kidneys and bladder, showing good results from her last surgery. We were thankful for that, and we also had a really good time visiting with our friends, the Fronduti's. The only trouble on that trip was when the van tire blew out on the highway in West Virginia. I was able to pull over without any major trouble, and a kindly West Virginian neighbor stopped and changed it for me.
After we got home the older 3 had swimming lessons, which is always a fun time. Next year Rayanna will be able to do it too, which should be good since she's tired of being just a spectator!
My sister Carrie came to visit for a few days since she had a conference out our way. Well, kind of "out our way." 7 hours and $50 in tolls made me vow to never go to New Jersey to pick anyone up again! It was great to see her though (and she did pay for the tolls). Don't worry...you're worth every bit of hassle, L'il Sis. =)
August was a month of sadness and joy. Sadly, one of our pastors and his family had to leave the church for personal reasons. We will miss them and their ministry very much, and our church family is definitely grieving the loss. In happier news, some other friends from church welcomed home their daughter Mihret from Ethiopia! The kids and I got to go to the airport with some other friends to welcome them. What a special time!
I held a music camp for the first time this summer. It was called Music Olympics. I had 11 kids (including mine) for 2 hours a day for 4 days. It was fun, but definitely exhausting! Maybe a year from now I'll have recuperated enough to do it again. :)
We started school on August 19th: fourth grade, second grade, kindergarten, and preschool. Rayanna is thrilled to be doing school with the big kids and gets quite upset if I don't have enough work planned for her. Tabitha is learning to read and doing really well with it! Jesse is excited about our study of space this year. And Ethan is showing a lot of maturity in planning his work and being responsible to get it done. Four days out of the first week were good; one was not so good, and I was ready to quit! But overall, the first two weeks have gone well, and I'm hopeful that we'll have a good year. The kids even spent time playing make-believe together one day (WITHOUT fighting!), which is something I haven't seen them do in ages!
Now it's Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer. I'd like to say that we're ending summer with an exciting anniversary trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. That was the plan, but, as you'll see in the next post, our plans don't always work out. All in all though, it's been a good summer. We even had several weeks of gorgeous weather, for which I was very thankful! Today it's back to 90-some-horrible degrees and nasty humidity, but oh well. I'm ready to start another school year and count down the days until fall weather!
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Summer Begins
Summer officially began a couple days ago, but our "summer" has been in full swing for four weeks already! One of the great things about homeschooling is we can pick our own start and stop dates. And it's been so nice to be done!! I think I'm more excited about summer break than the kids are!
The most exciting thing that's happened so far this summer is that I had a "mom work day." A few of us moms at church are swapping kids on various days so we can each have a day to ourselves. And let me tell you--it was glorious! I had about 9 hours all to myself. I worked on my list of projects, and actually got them all done, believe it or not! For that entire day I worked uninterrupted. . . no breaking up fights, no feeding or changing or disciplining children, no one interrupting me to whine or tattle or say they're bored or hungry, no one making messes, no one making me lose my train of thought or leave a trail of unfinished work behind me. It was truly wonderful! Now don't get me wrong, I love my kids! And I even enjoy being with them. But having uninterrupted time to myself is a very rare thing, and it was truly a blessing. I have two other days like this planned and can't wait to see what all I get done! :)
The other exciting thing we've been doing is Park Quest. I hesitate to blog about it because the more people know about it, the more competition to get in! So, Marylanders, cover your ears. :) They only allow 1,000 families to register. I registered three minutes after it opened, and I was number 600! I'm so thankful we made it though. This program gives you a "passport" for the state parks, and you try to go to at least 10 of them throughout the summer, completing a "quest" at each one. And the passport gets you into the parks free! I couldn't ask for a better use of our tax money! We've done four parks so far, and it's been a lot of fun. Here are some pictures:
Oh, one more exciting event is that Rayanna is potty training! While I despise the process, I'm thrilled that soon it will be over. I can't wait to not have to buy diapers ever again!! Tabitha's medical issues in that area have shown some improvement, so I'm hopeful that one day we might not need pull-ups either, and maybe I won't need to have any involvement in anyone else's bathroom procedures ever again. Let's hope so anyway.
The most exciting thing that's happened so far this summer is that I had a "mom work day." A few of us moms at church are swapping kids on various days so we can each have a day to ourselves. And let me tell you--it was glorious! I had about 9 hours all to myself. I worked on my list of projects, and actually got them all done, believe it or not! For that entire day I worked uninterrupted. . . no breaking up fights, no feeding or changing or disciplining children, no one interrupting me to whine or tattle or say they're bored or hungry, no one making messes, no one making me lose my train of thought or leave a trail of unfinished work behind me. It was truly wonderful! Now don't get me wrong, I love my kids! And I even enjoy being with them. But having uninterrupted time to myself is a very rare thing, and it was truly a blessing. I have two other days like this planned and can't wait to see what all I get done! :)
The other exciting thing we've been doing is Park Quest. I hesitate to blog about it because the more people know about it, the more competition to get in! So, Marylanders, cover your ears. :) They only allow 1,000 families to register. I registered three minutes after it opened, and I was number 600! I'm so thankful we made it though. This program gives you a "passport" for the state parks, and you try to go to at least 10 of them throughout the summer, completing a "quest" at each one. And the passport gets you into the parks free! I couldn't ask for a better use of our tax money! We've done four parks so far, and it's been a lot of fun. Here are some pictures:
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| at Sandy Point State Park overlooking the Chesapeake Bay and the Bay Bridge |
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| at Cunningham Falls State Park (with our friends the Slades) |
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| at Assateague State Park |
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| at Gunpowder Falls State Park (We got to play in the stream for this one! Very fun!) |
Assateague is right on the beach, about 3 hours away from us. So this was our beach day trip for the summer. After our "quest" we spent the rest of the day on the beach. One of the nice features about Assateague is the wild ponies that wander the area. At least I USED to think it was a nice feature. Now I'm not so sure. The ponies are not afraid of people. Not one iota. And they're smart too. You're not allowed to feed them. OK, that's fine. But just what do you do when they decide to help themselves?! These two hooligans pictured actually stole a bag of my sister-in-law Bekah's homemade chocolate chip cookies. Out of the cooler! The cooler was completely shut, but it had a broken hinge, and the ponies managed to push the lid open, grab the cookies and eat them right in front of us. There are warnings and pictures of the bites they can inflict, and you're not allowed to "harass" them, so what were we to do? We basically stood helplessly while they ate the delicious cookies right in front of us! It was pretty funny, but if I had baked those cookies I think I'd be a little mad at their demise! It was a very fun day though, and we all had a great time.
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| the Pony theives |
So that's the start to our summer. I love having more downtime, but somehow there's still plenty to do. It's no wonder I often feel like there aren't enough hours in the day when we have school to do as well! Some other things we're looking forward to this summer . . . Our church Day Camp is this week. We're hosting another Latvian chaperon for the orphan hosting program; she comes this Thursday for a week. Tabitha and I will take a trip to Cincinnati for tests to see if her last surgery was successful. My sister Carrie will come visit for a few days. The kids are taking some fun classes. And hopefully we'll have plenty of time to relax. It's already hot enough that I'm wishing for fall, but I'm also very happy to be enjoying some time off. Long live Summer Break!
Friday, May 24, 2013
Tabitha's Tough Decision
This evening Tabitha decided to become a Christian! It's kind of a funny story actually. She tends to mix up words a lot, and for several months she's been saying at random times, "When I grow up I want to be a Mommy, not a Christian." We hadn't been able to figure out what she meant or why she thought she couldn't be both. It turns out she was thinking "Christian" meant "missionary" (which of course it should), and that "missionary" meant going all over the world telling people about Jesus and probably being shipwrecked and beaten and imprisoned. I think the stories she's been learning about Paul's journeys had her a little hesitant.
She and I were driving home this evening, and she asked me something like, "When people die, do we put them in the ground?" I said we put their body in the ground, but their soul goes to be with Jesus if they're a Christian. She was quiet for a minute and then said, "Mommy, I changed my mind about something. When I grow up I want to be a Christian AND a mommy." I told her that was great, and I was glad she finally understood that she could be both.
A couple minutes later she asked more about what a Christian is, and I told her it's someone who loves Jesus, believes that He died and rose again so we could be forgiven, and wants to follow and obey Him. She said she wanted to be a Christian while she was still a kid. I asked her if she loved Jesus and wanted to obey Him, and she said yes. And then she prayed a cute, simple prayer, telling Jesus that she believed He died for her and that she wanted to obey Him. Then she said, "And one more thing . . . please help all the poor people to be happy."
When we got home, I told her to tell Daddy about what we talked about in the car. She said, "Oh yeah! 4+3=7, and 5+2= 7!" Well, yes Tab, we did talk about that too, but that's not what I meant. Finally, with a little hinting, she figured out which thing I wanted her to tell him about. He's had discussions with her about it in the past too, but we haven't wanted to push her at all because she tends to agree with any little fad that passes by and then change her mind the next day. We wanted her to come to a genuine decision. So we're both very excited that she has taken her time to think about this and has chosen to follow Jesus! We pray that her commitment to Him and relationship with Him grow stronger and closer throughout the rest of her life. And hopefully one day, she'll be a Christian AND a mommy AND a missionary, and many other things as well!
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Resting in the Arms of Jesus
Please pray for this sweet family, the Olssons. They go the our church, and we've met them a few times through the orphan ministry, since they've adopted from Ethiopia and are almost completed with their second Ethiopian adoption. On Saturday a terrible tragedy occurred: their precious 2-year-old daughter was killed when she was hit by an SUV in a parking lot.
This week has been exhausting and heart-wrenching for our whole church family. Heath and I don't know them very well, but it's just such a sad tragedy and has been a heavy weight for all of us. I can't even imagine the extent of their pain, and I'm so glad that our church and community are supporting them. I think there were over 300 people at her funeral today!
It's so hard to understand why God would let this happen. Only a week after getting home from meeting their new daughter in Ethiopia (whom they're hoping to bring home in July), they lost the daughter they adopted only a year and a half ago. It seems so senseless, but we trust that God is good, that he holds little Marra Freh in His arms now, and that He is close to the brokenhearted. Their family has been an amazing reflection of God's grace and strength already. They've reached out to and forgiven the woman who was driving, they focused the funeral on inviting people to know Christ and to consider adoption, and they've been so full of His grace and peace and have been a blessing to others, even as they grieve so deeply.
Please pray for them if you think of it. And hug your loved ones a little extra today.
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