no news is good news

over the last couple of days I have thought about my blog. I even sat down to write something but couldn't think of anything to say. apart from our gradual recoveries from an ulcer (Tim's ailment) and bronchitis (my illness) things here have been pretty uneventful.

last week was spring break for the big kids. lots of noise that week. it was very muddy for most of the week so the kids only really got to play outside Thursday and Friday.

Friday my brother and his wife had their third baby. a third boy for them. He's so pretty. I haven't gone up to see them. I really love babies and my brother and sister in law and that's why we have stayed put and have been contented with pictures. We have way too many germs right now and I don't want any of those germs to make their way over to baby.
did I mention he's so pretty? :)

I still haven't taken any decent pictures. I'm getting really anxious for leaves to bud and open. I keep telling myself "only a couple more weeks". we had some great weather for it last week but now it's cold again and that was a bit disheartening.
so another post without pictures.

but I do have a short distraction. I had a few skeins of yarn left over from Connor's and Tim's blankets so I taught myself another crochet stitch and I'm making a baby blanket with the left overs. I don't know if I will be able to sell it, but I'm going to try. Erica and the girls at church are having a fund raising "flea market" type of sale next month so they can earn the some of the money needed to send them to camp. they are going to have a bake sale, craft sale, garden sale and garage sale mixed together. we'll probably make some yummy treats too and see how those go over.

Tim just got home from his weekly blood check. he get's to go back to full time at work. his hemoglobin is still over 11 ~ only 3 to 5 points to go until he is back to normal. Yay!

bronchitis

I have it. :(

so after waiting for over an hour for the clinic to call in my prescription and then another half hour for the pharmacy to fill it I finally have antibiotics to take for the next 5 days. I really hope this works. I don't know how much more illness I can handle.

Happy St Patrick's Day

a beautiful morning this morning. I still have this terrible cold but it's St Patrick's Day ~ a great excuse for most people to drink and brawl and say it was their holiday right to do it, but for us it's a great reason to have cabbage and corned beef and listen to The Chieftains. but really that could be us on any given day.

the latest

Tim had his latest appointment with the doctor this morning. His hemoglobin level is 10.9 (I think is what he said) so that's good. Tim will be staying home this week to take it easy so that his levels stay that way. he will also be taking an iron supplement for a bit until his heme level is closer to the 14 to 16 that it should be.
So for now things are alright.

on a brighter note, my brother and sister in law are preparing as much as they can for friday when she will be induced and their third baby (a boy) will be born! it is very exciting. I wish I didn't have this horrible cold so I could go and love and kiss their tiny person.
babies are my favorite.

Tim spent about 8 hours in the hospital yesterday. he had three units back to back.
Monday he will be seeing the doctor again and we will know then how much time the doctor wants Tim to take off from work.
it's getting scary because Tim has already had to use almost all of his "paid time off" hours and only has a little over a day left. after that he will be off work with absolutely no income.
I'm worried.

I hope to have better news on Monday.

what the hey

today Tim went to his first follow up visit but second blood test since he was let out of the hospital. his hemoglobin levels went down this week and the doctor is sending him in tomorrow for more blood. he also is being restricted from working at all until his levels are at a point that the doctor is comfortable lifting those restrictions.

can't we ever catch a break?

another rave review

in Erica's science class they usually have just the one teacher but for the last few months they have had another teacher in the room with them. He's a college professor but for some unknown reason he is teaching at the high school with her regular teacher. I suspect it is possibly a student teaching kind of thing.
I just got a post card in the mail from Erica's science teacher. it read

"we have just completed a unit on learning Earth history. Erica's test was OUTSTANDING. She has a very good grasp of the material we have presented. She is quite subdued in class and her test was like discovering a new diamond. I will try to elicit more of her great intelligence in classroom discussions."

WOW!

I always knew she has the ability for amazing grades.

report cards and other learning

last night we got to make up the conferences with Timothy and Emma's teachers.

both kids had great reports from their teachers.
Emma's went pretty much exactly as predicted. Tim and I were talking about how she is so eager to learn everything and is so good at reading already that we figured that her teacher was going to focus on those points and she did. she said that although she did poorly on her reading aptitude test she is infact reading at a higher level than the computer calculated. this is because Emma is very determined to get every word right and when she would get stuck on a word it would take her longer than the timed test allowed for and so her score was low. apparently at the end of the test Emma was mad at the computer. :)
But that aside she pretty much excells at everything she tries and actually likes if something is challenging. Just what I love to hear.


Timothy's conference was great as well. it was shorter but it was really good. he is getting his work done. his behavior is excellent. the only things he really needs to work hard on is practicing for band class and practicing his spelling which may help his reading a bit.
Tim's report card was all As and Bs. I think that he was very happy, if not a little surprised that his grades were that good. He's a very smart, clever kid who day dreams a little too much, but then when I was his age I did the same - drifted off during class so I can understand some of his challanges.
he's been really good about doing his homework without me nagging at him and as long as he is getting that done he's bound to have a good grade.

I was and am so proud of them.


between conferences we went past the library where they hold a book fair during the conferences. I'm not really sure if it's run as a fund raiser for the school or just to get kids interested in reading.
Tim got a new book. we are still trying to find a genre that he really likes to read. he's just not a huge reader like Erica is or like I would like to be. but he found a book that he thought sounded like it would interest him. we'll see.
Emma got a book that you can write and decorate. so instead of practicing reading she gets to be the author. she has a couple of pages done and has had so much fun with it.
Tim (dad) and I have fun reading it with all the spelling errors. I love when kids are little and try spelling phonetically. They're the best

what he looked like sunday night

I took these using a cell phone supplied by gramma and grampa. I should have taken a picture of him that morning around 11:30 because he had another pump on another pole next to the other two so he had five IV drips going at the same time.


He looks like he's in a good mood in these pictures. He might have been since he'd been down for the endoscopy a few hours earlier and he was still a little dopey from that. but then he had to stay for two more days and he wasn't smiling much until Wednesday morning when he got to come home.

WOO HOO

He is home! this morning I was cleaning the living room and trying to figure out what to do about having a sitter for the little boys and what if Tim was going to be at the hospital later than 3 etc etc when the phone rang and it was Tim telling me that they said he could leave now. YAY!

now we are going to get settled in and I am going to plan supper for the kids and supper for Tim and get back to normal life.

it never rains but it pours

this might be long so be fore warned.

over the last few weeks Tim's arm has hurt so badly that he has been taking a lot of motrin to ease the pain. We're not sure if it is a pinched nerve or because of repetitive stress from work but we suspect that the motrin is why he ended up in the hospital with an ulcer this weekend.

last week he mentioned that he had coughed up some blood. we didn't think too much about it because he had only had it happen that one day.
friday and saturday he had briefly mentioned that his stomach hurt and that he was a touch light headed. through out those two days my suspicions were telling me he had an ulcer and I asked him if he would go to a doctor and he didn't want to. Saturday he had been drinking some water and sat on the couch and asked me for a drink of water. I went into the kitchen and then back into the living room and in that small amount of time he was pale; there was no color in his skin or under his fingernails. He looked dead.
He eventually decided to go to a doctor about 7 that night and so we headed in. the urgent care department of the clinic was closed. we went to the ER instead where they quickly began two IVs and got his fluid levels stable.
They admitted him to the hospital that night.

Sunday the hemoglobin tests came back to show that his hemoglobin levels dropped enough to need a blood transfusion. He had two units of blood and an antibiotic. I wish I had taken a picture because it was just unbelievable. He had three IV lines in his arms and five pumps running at the same time. about 1:00 pm Tim went for an upper endoscopy. the Dr. found that about 50% of his stomach was filled with blood clots so he was not able to view his entire stomach. He did, however, find an ulcer. he injected the ulcer with a medicine to stop the bleeding there and he closed the ulcer.
During that night he needed another unit of blood.
Since then they have monitored Tim's hemoglobin levels and blood pressure and all of the kind of stuff. today was a misery because this morning we had gotten our hopes up by the admitting doctor. he said that if the GI doctor said it was okay then Tim could come home. So we waited and waited for about 10 hours for Dr GI to show up and tell Tim that he had to stay another day. :( he hasn't had any pain, apart from his arm that hurt in the first place. so other than that, physically he is feeling really good. he wants to come home and I want him home so much. But we are still having to wait. because the doctor was unable to view the entire stomach he wants to have Tim stay another night. His heme levels are stable. they were up then it dipped but it is on it's way back up now. the only thing that the doctor wants to monitor is Tim's ability to tolerate a normal diet. He is on a liquid diet right now, but Dr says that tomorrow will be a liquid breakfast but lunch will be regular diet and then we will see how his stomach handles it and then we will know if he can come home tomorrow.

I'm sad that I had to leave him there again. I wish I could be there to help him and keep him company, but the kids need me here, too.
everyone misses daddy.
we just need life to get back to normal.

I hope I have happier news to report tomorrow.