Pam’s Blog

Yes…I cried, but I did it last night after Willoweve was in bed and wouldn’t be upset by it.

So today was the first day of school.

Xavier started third grade.

Here he is conspiring with a fried.

And here he is taking care of his sister.

Willoweve started Kindergarten today.

she is so cute.

at her locker

and with daddy

then finally at her desk.  She looks so tiny behind her desk.  (Note Quinn in the back corner of the first picture - he noticed himself right away in this picture. )

So they are off, and Quinn is enjoying time alone with me and being able to play with any toy he wants.

Overall I think it is a good first day of school.

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Irony defined:

So I woke up in the middle of the night from a bad dream about my sister having to take her foster child to the ER.  I called her in the morning to make sure everything was ok.  While on the phone with her Quinn woke up and immediately came to tell me his tummy hurt.  That night we were in the ER.

BEWARE:  Below lies what many may consider TO MUCH INFORMATION. Sorry to those with weak stomachs.

In the morning Quinn was acting all out of character and lethargic.  At one point I even tucked him back into bed. Within half an hour of waking up he started throwing up.  From 9:30 in the morning until 9:10 in the evening Quinn threw up 23 times.

I barley blinked at first.  Quinn is a puker - more so then either of the other two.  If there is a stomach bug to be had he will get it.  If it makes some people vomit and others get diarrhea he’ll vomit.  That’s just Quinn.

However as the day went on some things happened that made me concerned.  First he couldn’t keep anything - at all - down.  Not even the tiniest amount of fluid.  We tried the whole 1 tsp every fifteen minutes - he would throw up by the ten minute mark every time. 

He was becoming dehydrated obviously.  Beyond that though I got scared when I noticed a change in the color and texture of his vomit.  He hadn’t even tried to eat anything so why would his vomit be changing from bright yellow stomach acid to dark brown and kind of chuncky. 

I turned to my trusted friend the Internet for answers.  Turns out that’s what blood looks like when you throw it up.  Yeah…. so I got a little worried.

Called the doctor. 

They said it was probably a stomach flu but the vomiting got so violent something ripped in his throat or stomach or esophagus. Then it bled into his stomach and now he was throwing it up. Nothing to worry about as long as he stopped throwing up soon. 

Two hours later when he was still throwing up I made the decision to take him to the ER.  I was so upset on the way to the hospital figuring they were going to put him on an IV and tell me there was nothing they could do to make him stop throwing up.

EXCEPT, that’s not what happened at all.  Quinn was really weak and out of it by the time we got the ER at about 8:45.  He couldn’t stand up without support and he wouldn’t smile, he just lay limply without moving on the bed.

Until he puked.  I was kind of glad he threw up at least once at the hospital.  The doctor got to see it and confirmed that it was in fact blood he was throwing up. 

So they gave him this magic medicine - by mouth.  It is a drug they use with kids getting Chemo and it helps them not throw up from the chemo.  Recently it was proved to help kids like Quinn who just can’t stop throwing up when they get a stomach bug.  They mixed it with chocolate syrup… the whole “spoon full of sugar thing” also it helps give the blood sugar a much needed boost.

Quinn guzzled the stuff.  Within 20 minutes he was sitting up talking to me and and even smiling.  Then they let him start having fluids.  5cc’s every 5 minutes for 20 minutes, then 10cc every 5 minutes for 40 minutes, again by mouth.  And he kept it down.  He came home and slept.

No IV, and he stopped throwing up. 

Quinn has improved all day and ate soup for dinner tonight without any trouble at all. I am so thankful that he is better.  Hopefully the other kids will not end up with the same bug - even if they do it is doubtful they will fall into the same unmanageable vomiting. 

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I go away for five tiny little days - leaving less then 20 e-mails - all read - in my inbox.  I come home and there are 244 new messages waiting for me to sort through.

It was interesting being in a cabin in the woods without any - ANY Internet connection.  In fact I could only get a cell signal if I stood on my tip toes in the kitchen even then it was a faint roaming signal.

I can’t say I went through withdraw exactly but I did miss my link to the outside world. 

I also missed Jason terribly.  I was so glad to get home this afternoon and see him. 

So we are home safe and sound - I have about a hundred pictures of the kids to post in the next day or so but i haven’t even gotten to download them yet. 

Talk to you all soon - and sorry if you e-mailed me in the past week and have been waiting to hear from me.   I will get in touch with you soon.

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So I am a week late.  I should have weighed in and measured last week but I was distracted and just kind of missed it.

So I did this week instead

I am down 1 pound and my BMI is down .02.

I also lost 1.25 inches from my various measuring spots on my body.

MY biggest loss this month was on my hips and waist.  Good places to loose inches from.  :) 

I had a tiny gain (.25 inches) on my thighs and chest (.25 inches).

I also started measuring my neck this month.  I read somewhere that the neck is a good indicator or overall weight.  So we’ll see.

This coming month should be interesting. I am away for 8 days out of the coming month.  I plan to switch to swimming at the gym for the next month as well, to try to limit the pressure on my ankle, and at some point I might even have to stop doing that for a while too.

I have no idea how all of this is going to effect my weight loss.  I guess I will just have to wait and see.

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I talked to the Podiatrist today and I got wonderful news.

I DO NOT HAVE A TUMOR!  NO LIPOMA!!!

Praise God.

The podiatrist got the MRI results and told me that there is no Lipoma.  I was able to cancel my Orthopedist appointment. So I don’t have to come home from camping for that. HIP HIP HOORAY.

The podiatrist will be treating both my heal pain and my ankle pain - one doctor only Hooray.

Not only that but - NO TUMOR!!! HOORAY!!!

Can you tell I’m excited.

So what is wrong - I have a torn Paraneal (Sp?) Tendon.  The tendon is split length wise and the other ankle tendon (don’t know the name of it) has slipped inside the tear.  Hence the pain.

I see the podiatrist again on September 3rd, the first day of school.  We will talk then about the treatment plan for my ankle and what I am going to have to do.  There was some mention of a cast but I don’t have the details yet.

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts.  I appreciate everything.

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Yesterday was a strange, confusing, disappointing day. 

LOOONNNGGG Post - sorry lots of info.

First the disappointing:

Xavier was suppose to have a play date with one of his best friends from second grade.  He was so excited to see this little boy.  He’d been talking about it for two weeks.  I was sad for him.  Especially since this little boy is going to a different school next year.  It can be hard to maintain friendships with people in different schools and I wanted to make sure Xavier got to keep in touch with his friend.

He came home crying when he found out that this little boy was changing schools. I tried to reassure him that the school was just a short distance away and he would still see his friend but after yesterday he is more convinced then ever that he won’t.

I know this is left over from the move.  He still talks about Jake and Adam on an almost daily basis… some days I feel so guilty for taking him away from his friends.  Xavier talks about saving up his money so when he is ten he can fly back to Maryland - he wants to take three of his friends from here (this little boy included) with him to MD to visit his old Friends. He just knows they will all get along and have a wonderful time.

Anyway… it was disappointing and I feel like I let him down, even though there was nothing I could do about it.

The Strange and Confusing:

So I went to the Podiatrist.  The did x-rays of both my feet. 

I have bone spurs on each heal.  This indicates that the Plantar Fasciitis has been going on for YEARS.  Yes that’s right years.  I assured the doctor that I have not been in pain for years. 

Really - I am not the type to live with years of pain.

He said that was very possible - usually there is a “straw that breaks the camels back” moment.  For me it was when I began training for the Triathlon.  The motion of running on the treadmill brought out the pain - then it never went away.

So what do I have to do.

Well - last night I had to go buy new shoes.  We had to spend $200 on SHOES!!!  I have never spent that much on shoes in my life.  However he gave me the brands I should buy and a page full of instructions on what to look for.  I got two pairs of shoes.  One for everyday wear and one for exercising.

I also have to sleep in these boot like contraptions that are hot and uncomfortable, but should help my feet heal correctly.

Then the confusing part.

The Podiatrist looked at my ankle and asked me a bunch of questions.  Most of which I answered with “I don’t know.” 

For example:

“Why does your doctor suspect a Lipoma?”

“Where is the Lipoma?”

“Why is your vitamin D Low?”

“Why did your doctor refer you to an orthopedist?”

UHMMMM… I have no clue - I just do what my doctors tell me and try not to be a pain in the a$$ patient.  These are questions I expect my doctor to answer for me - not to ask me.  Then he spend a lot of time poking and bending my ankle in incredibly painful ways.

Anyway the podiatrist thinks that there is no Lipoma - GREAT NEWS.  He thinks that it is a tear in a ligament that has caused a lot of swelling in the joint.  Good because it doesn’t require surgery.  He told me he thinks I am going to go to the Orthopedist and they are going to “Pat me on the head and tell me I wasted both our time.”

I have no desire to waste anyone’s time.  Especially mine since I have to come home from a camping trip to do this whole Orthopedist appointment.  So I asked him if I should cancel the appointment.  He said he would request my MRI results, take a look at them and then tell me.

So he is going to look at my MRI results and then call me on Friday and let me know if he finds an injury (as he suspects) or a Lipoma (which he doubts).  If it is an injury he will treat me.  If it is a Lipoma then I still have to go to the Orthopedist - who he assured me in the best in the area at dealing with these type of Lipoma’s . 

The short version.  I have no more idea what is going on with my right ankle then I did a week ago - but hopefully I will by Friday.

Keep me in your prayers and I will keep you updated.

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Today I got the letters with Xavier and Willoweve’s classroom assignments for the next school year.

We have been told that both Kindergarten teachers are wonderful and from my own personal experience with them they both seem to be. :)  Since we have never had a child in Kind. at Alki I don’t really know either well enough to have had a real preference.  The only thing that swayed me was that Willoweve has only met one of the teachers, so I preferred that once since she and Willoweve had met.  Of course we got the other teacher Again - not a big deal.

My only concern now is that  I want Willoweve to have a chance to meet her new teacher before school starts.  I e-mailed her teacher earlier today requesting that we set up a time to meet this week.

I am also keeping my fingers crossed that Willoweve will be in the same class as a little girl she met this summer who is also attending Alki this coming year.  I am waiting to hear from her parents to find out if they are in the same class so keep your fingers crossed.

Xavier’s placement gives me a bit more concern, in a kind of complicated, crazy way.  I tried to put it all down on paper in an organized way to send to the principal because I want to understand the reason for his placement.  I am not exactly objectionable to his placement.  I just want to understand it. 

We still haven’t heard about Quinn and weather or not he will be in preschool this year.  Whatever happens with that it’s cool with me.

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Yesterday I had my MRI on my foot.  The nurse told me MRI’s are loud long and boring.  After having one I have to agree - it was indeed loud long and boring.  However it was over by 9:30am and I was home around 10.

If your wondering I found out nothing - except that they give you a shot when you get an MRI and I didn’t know that before.  I have to wait until my appointment with the orthopedist to find out what the MRI showed.

So afterwards we planned to go to Mt. Rainier.  I haven’t gotten to go this year and I have been missing the mountain.  I’m told that this is evidence that I am not from this area… oh well… I guess everyone will have to know because I love going to the mountain.

Yesterday though we never made it there.  The wait to get into the park was over 2 miles long at the Paradise entry so we decided to take a road trip instead.  We went to visit Portland. 

I’ve never been to Portland before but I wanted to see it and at some point Jason and I had talked about moving there.  From what we found of the city we like Seattle better - that may just be because we lived here first and have already fallen in love with this city.  However Portland was fun. Their bridges are impressive affairs.

Also I thought all the smog warnings was interesting.  The day looked perfectly clear to me but signs everywhere advised people to avoid driving because of smog.

It made me think about a TV special I recently saw on PBS about the Smog in Beijng where the Olympics are currently taking place right now.  They were saying that the smog there can be so bad you can’t even see the sun.  I was happy that we here in America where at least watching to try to make sure that doesn’t happen to our cities. 

I was also glad we took our Road Trip in the Prius.  Since it is a PZEV I could at least feel good that we weren’t contributing overly much to the problem.  :) 

Still I missed the mountain and I hope to go there one weekend in September. We’ll see how that works out.

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So I posted on Wednesday that I had a bad day and maybe some people are wondering why. 

Here’s part of it.  On Wednesday I went to the doctors.  Most of the visit was good I got my vitamin D rechecked (Waiting on the results of that).  Got congratulated on my diet and the seven pounds I have lost (Thank you doctor).  Then the bad news.

So I have been having a lot of pain in my left foot and my right ankle.  The left foot was exactly what I thought it was a thing called Plantar Fasciitis – I need to see a podiatrist and get specially made insets made for my shoes.  The podiatrist will also tell me what shoes to wear and will probably show me exercises to do to help the condition.   Pretty much exactly what I expected.

The right foot threw me for a loop though.  Turns out there appears to be a tumor in my right ankle. Specifically a Lipoma.  This type of tumor is ALWAYS benign my doctor says.  However since it is causing a lot of pain and pressure on the ankle joint it is going to have to be treated - and most likely removed.  This means I could be facing surgery. 

So now you know the rest of the story.  And you know what they say … knowing is half the battle

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Today has been terrible. 

I got bad news at the doctors this morning. 

I got bad news from the web site this afternoon.

I am tired, I have a headache and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry.

I hope and pray that you all have had better days then mine has been.

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