The Day Tayler Rode In A Wheelchair.

This post was originally written and posted on March 2, 2010.

I'm becoming more acquainted with hospitals than I'd like to be.

Most especially Primary Children's.

Tayler gets a lot of UTIs (urinary track infection).  In fact, the only time she doesn't have one, is when she is currently on antibiotics for on. This has, unfortunately, been going on for over a year, and possibly even a few years. That's far too long to have an infection.

Our pediatrician sent us to Primary Children's to do an ultra sound on her kidneys and a VCUG to see what her urine flow is doing.

I'll define the VCUG here in a sec.

Tayler was pretty proud of her fancy hospital bracelet and come to find out she likes to crack a lot of jokes (like her mom) when she finds herself in the hospital.

The ultrasound turned out fine. Tay was a little weirded out by the fact that she could "watch her guts on TV", and focused on the rotating pictures they had playing on the wall instead. After that was her VCUG. They put a catheter in and fill her bladder with a contrast liquid. They take MRI pictures, and then put a bucket/bowl type thing under her and tell her to pee the liquid out so they can take pictures of what her urine does. Because she's only six, and because catheters are very invasive and a bit (okay, a lot) on the uncomfortable side, they sedated her. Not causing her to sleep (until later) because they needed her cooperation, but causing her to have a temporary amnesia of the incident.

She knows we went and did it, but she can't really remember the details of it.

While we were waiting for all of this to happen they let her play with Polly pockets,

(we just thought the ceiling was cool, it's like this all over the hospital)

and gave her a token to get a toy out of the toy machines they have in the waiting rooms. She picked a sticky eyeball.

 It was kind of creepy, I'm not going to lie.

They had her change into hospital PJ's,

 gave her pictures to color and crayons to keep, and gave her a hospital buddy to decorate.

This right here is an awesome service project if anyone needs an idea.

They have these plain dolls in hospital robes or PJ's and they let the kids draw on them with markers.

Tayler named hers Sara.

Tayler is fine.

We learned she's not emptying her bladder when she pees so we need to re-train her on that, and have put her on a three month program of antibiotics for now. Then we go back to the pediatrician to find out what should happen next.

We're hoping she'll just grow out of this.

Tayler was still pretty drugged from the anesthesia when it was time to go home.  She had been sleeping it off on a recovery bed while we waited to make sure the pictures were good.  She was pretty glazed over and slept for a good four hours afterwards. When it came time to leave, Tayler was so unfocused she could barely stand up.  There was no way she was going to walk to the car so the nurse brought me a wheelchair to take her to the parking lot. There was no way I was going to be able to carry her limp weight all the way out.

I'm thankful for a hospital that caters to kids.

That makes "big" things a little less scary and stressful.

And that understands that popsicles makes everything better.

Burnt Pork Chops For Dinner. Nightly Recap.

The fact that my house smells like burnt pork chops is a clear indication that I've lost all motivation.

Well, burnt dinner might not actually be an indication for that, it's more of an indication that I was sucked into the Duck Dynasty episode that the girls were watching (that show is so stupid and yet I couldn't walk away...) and forgot about dinner until I smelt it...

But for real.

Today burnt me out.

Tayler has had a tooth ache for three days.  She woke up this morning with swollen cheek.  She has also developed the signs of another UTI.

Today I made it to work long enough to help my boss's wife pull of a surprise party for my boss's 50th birthday.  And by help her pull off I mean telling her when she could come and making sure everyone in the office knew about it.  My boss showed up a half hour before he was supposed to after a meeting and from there I was giving him one lame excuse over another until finally he tells me, "I don't believe anything you're saying."

From there my co-workers started making up urgent issues that needed his attention while his wife finished setting up in the back of our office and then in a grand finale a lawyer tells him one of our investigators is in a huge fight with one of the federal lawyers and they're both quitting the case and he needs to come intervene.  We rush down the hall to where everyone else is and "surprise!"  there's no fight after all.  Have some cake.

From there I left and took Tay to the dentist who was baffled at her mysterious toothache.  As far as he could tell everything looked perfectly fine and perhaps it was just the fact that her permanent molars were pressing on the baby molars and things were getting ready to fall out and grow in and something may be hitting a bit of a nerve somewhere, but that theory wouldn't lead to swelling...?  He didn't know.

So we left with some confusion and headed to the doctor where it was confirmed that she did indeed have another UTI (I had no doubt, at this point in the game we know what's going on when it comes to that) but then looked at her cheek as well.  Turns out it had nothing to do with her teeth, so the dentist was right in his theory of why they might be aching, but in addition to that Tayler has a blocked gland in her cheek.

He prescribed sucking on sour candy to get the glands working and hopefully getting rid of the blockage.

I've never even thought half the things these kids come up with were even possible.

But there it stands.

Several trips to the store later, a few hours of boutique emails, and a few rounds with the pharmacy, and you have one tired momma.  And burnt pork chops for dinner.

A Family With Two Last Names. And The Dentist That Can't Figure It Out.

Being a "combined" family has it's unique challenges.  One of the big ones for us, and probably all combined families, is that our children don't all have the same last name.  And what further makes that interesting is that my last name doesn't match my biological children.  Which is really neither here nor there, we're a family and that's all that matters.

But in certain instances it gets... interesting.

The lunch lady at the elementary school finally has it down.  Or rather, I should say, the new lunch lady has it down.  The old one?  I'm pretty sure she was just stealing the lunch money, but in the name of the benefit of the doubt, we'll just say she obviously didn't know which kids belonged in our family.  Even when I listed them all out individually with the amounts that should be applied to their names.  Even when I sent each child with a separate check...

*Ahem*

So the new lunch lady at school gets it.  She knows that our two last names are connected into one family and that they all belong to me with one phone call.  "Hey lady, your kids need money."

Cool, I'll take care of that.  And with one phone call I know that one check can be sent in, with a note breaking it down, and all the kids will be taken care of on her end the way they need to be.

Our pediatrician struggled for a minute with it, but it was his own fault.  When we moved in with West we moved far enough away from our old home to warrant finding closer doctors and dentists.  We adopted the pediatrician that West was already using for his kids and all found a new dentist.

One day I took one of my girls into the pediatrician (I'm pretty sure it was Tayler, *sigh*, UTI's) and he looked at my last name and asked if I was linked to Jayme and Sean?

"Yes, I'm their step-mom."

"So their dad is..." and he points at Tayler and generally indicates my girls as a whole.

"Her step-dad."

The puzzled look clearly explained that he hadn't followed, "You're their step-mom?"

"Yes."

"And he's the step-dad?"

"Yes."

"Well who's the biological parent then?"

I burst out laughing.  "I'm Jayme and Sean's step-mom but I'm Tayler's biological mom."

The light bulb went on in his head, realizing that while he'd been trying to figure out the biological and step connections, the way he'd phrased his questions always led for the answer to imply a step-parent.  Had he stuck to one set of kids for his questioning he would have had an easier time finding his clarity.

At our dentist they have the kids set up under two different accounts, one for each last name.  Every six months, without fail, we get two reminder postcards.  And then two phone calls to my cell phone.

"Hi, may I speak with West?"

Already knowing it's the dentist for the kids, and already knowing that it's going to be about setting up appointments I say, "This is his wife."

And she proceeds, "I'm calling to set up an appointment for Jayme and Sean."

This situation has happened twice before so I already know how this is going to play out.  They're going to want to make appointments for Jayme and Sean, I'm going to bring up the other four girls, who having a different last name are on a different account, they'll set the appointment up for all six and then... call me back minutes later for the girls again.

"Okay, but we also have the four other girls so I need to make appointment times for all six of them to come in together."

"Okay, what's their name?"

I tell her and even spell it.  She hesitates.

"Well they're not on my list right now but we can make those appointments."

"They should be on your list.  We've always brought them in on the same day and we received both postcard reminders for them."

"Well it doesn't matter we can set up the appointment for all six kids."

And we proceed to find a day and time that will accommodate for all six kids.  I spell names, she finds them and plugs them in.   We hang up.

Three minutes later she calls back.

"May I speak with Stephanie?"

I don't even wait for her to say why she's calling, "I seriously just talked to you and made these appointments."

This has happened three times now.

Do they not realize when they see those names on their list that they just spent all that time, mere seconds earlier, setting up appointments for them?

Did I not say they were going to be on the list?

Do you need more caffeine?

I understand that we have two last names in our family.  I understand that my last name does not match my children's.  I understand that even if our family has been coming to you for a couple of years now, that your support staff changes and they don't know us.  I completely understand and even expect to have to explain that we have two accounts.

But if I tell them our two names are on the list, and if we spend five minutes setting up appointments, and if our second account shows up next on that list, don't you think you would notice that?

Spit. Chocolate Caramel Bundt Cake. Fire in the Oven.

This weekend I had to admit to the employee at the Fed Ex store that I was shipping spit.

Our oven caught fire.  Except not fire, fire.  More... welding wand fire like a sparkler.

And I made a pretty good chocolate caramel bundt cake and I'm going to share the recipe because it's too good to keep to myself.

Oh, and I studied for my midterm which is today.

Biology is going to be the death of me.

Speaking of biology. I have history of breast cancer in my family.  There's a post on it here, but even better a very recent post here that I just did for my English class.  They explain the history of this but it's a concern for my doctor that I might have the breast cancer gene (brca gene) based on the fact that my mom had breast cancer at the young age of 38.  I guess that's a red flag for it.

We've been trying to convince my insurance to cover the test for the gene since without insurance it's a lovely $3,000.  But my insurance denied the request claiming they needed two generations of evidence of the gene where we only had one.  

The catch is that my mom is adopted so we really have no way of knowing about that second generation.  

Our concern isn't breast cancer so much as it is ovarian cancer.  I guess, according to my doctor, that once ovarian cancer is far along enough to detect, it's too late to do much of anything about it.

So I would like to know one way or the other.  Because if it turns out that I do have this gene, we can just do some preventative surgery to remove my ovaries and not worry about  it.  I'm done having kids anyway.

With my new job I have new insurance so we're trying it again.  

Normally my doctor, who is amazing, would have just sent the test off for me, but it's a matter of spitting into a tube and I, not anticipating that before I went to my appointment, had gum in my mouth.  So he sent everything home with me to do myself.

Saturday morning, a whole week later, I finally brought myself to pull that test kit out.  It came with a small bottle of mouthwash.  Fill the little cup full of mouthwash, swish for 30 seconds, and spit the whole lot of it into the specimen tube.  Twice.

Seal it up in all sorts of different levels of plastic, slap the mailing label on it, and drop it off at your nearest Fed Ex store.  

Except Fed Ex, seeing that it was a medical specimen package, wanted to know, in front of everyone else who was milling around the counter, what was in it?

"We can't always handle these.  You might have to drop it in the box.  What's in it?"  He asks, as he's holding it in the air.  Obviously worried about "not handling it" as he has it in his hand at eye level, peering at it.

All eyes are on me.

"Spit," I announced loudly.  I guess if you can't crawl under a rug you may as well just own it.  Yes, thank you for asking, I am indeed mailing spit.

At least I didn't pee all over it I suppose.

And just for the record, they're allowed to handle spit so it's all good.  

We had a pretty fun get together on Saturday with a few friends and my sister McKell and her man, Scott, who just so happened to be having a birthday so at their request, I made this cake:

I was going to post the recipe but I think I might wait and do that tomorrow since I just had a lovely introduction that included talk about spit.

Tomorrow I'll post the recipe for this cake, caramel and all.

And pictures of what it looks like with 43 candles on it.  Happy birthday Scott. :)

To finish the weekend off our oven caught on fire.

Sort of.  It wasn't the up in flames everyone out of the house type of fire.  It was more of a welding rod, looks like a sparkler type of fire.

Excuse the mess on the bottom of my oven.  Of all the things I take on in my life, cleaning the oven is obviously not one of them.

I might lose good mother/wife points for this, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make right now.  

Brynn wanted to make brownies.  Mom (that's me) was buried in studying for her midterm and dinner was leftover lasagna.  Heat it up when you're ready for it. A far cry from our usual level of Sunday dinner expectations so Brynn decided, if nothing else, they were having hot brownies for dessert.

(Not that anyone was actually complaining about it.  My family has been crazy supportive of my having to do homework and studying.)

She mixed it up and poured the batter into a 9x13 and put it into the pre-heated oven.  A minute later the girls start calling out in panicked shouts, "Mom! The oven is... lighting up!"

So I check it out.  Sure enough.

"Hey babe?  There's something going on with the element."

It was cracked and sparking and even though the oven had been turned off, the sparking wouldn't stop.  This wasn't something either of us had ever encountered before and we didn't know what to do.  West tried to douse it out with a wet paper towel.  

That didn't work.

After several more failed attempts to douse out the sparks, West thought if he cut it we could just pull the burning piece out.  But cutting it made it burn at the new broken end, even worse than it had been.  

I'm not going to lie, we were panicking.  He starts telling me to call 9-1-1 because he can't get it to stop and in that instant he yanks the stove away from the wall and unplugs it to throw the whole appliance out into the yard to avoid starting our house on fire.

And with that it went out.

So.

If the element ever breaks and starts sparking on you, just hit the breaker.  I kind of feel silly about how frantic we felt about the whole situation but I guess if it's not something you've ever seen before and you can't get it to stop after five minutes of effort and suddenly it gets worse...  I suppose we were validated. But now I'm sharing the information.

It's normal.  And it still feeds off the electricity even if it's not on.

Luckily we don't have to buy a whole new oven, just a new element.  I can handle that.

X-Rays and Wedding Dresses

Yesterday was kind of... crazy. 

In a matter of three hours I:

made and frosted a three tier cake for our church wedding dress fashion show

took Tayler to the doctor to check for a uti (more history on that here)

ended up going to the hospital for x-rays on her guts

where her gown was too big

and so was the table, in my opinion

I tried to plan dinner over the phone with Cas while at the hospital, but it wasn't working out and I had to resort to telling the kids to just grab frozen burritos or ramen

I stopped at the pharmacy for a very long wait to just drop the prescription off for Tay

West sent me a text saying Cas wasn't going to the fashion show because she was now grounded

I got home and talked to West about Cas's grounding.  I wanted to support him but Cas was the only girl small enough to fit into three of the dresses and if she weren't there those ladies weren't going to have their dresses shown.  She really needed to go out of commitment to others.
So Cas got grounded for the next day (today)

Cas and I ran pell nell, as much as we could with a three tier cake, to the church to get there on time to get ready for said fashion show

Maybe it really wasn't a lot, but by that time, I was tired.  And feeling stressed with a bit of anxiety.  I didn't expect to end up at the hospital, even for x-rays, and I certainly never enjoy conflict, especially with my man.  I hope that I showed him I support him while still explaining the situation was more than he realized.  And I explained to Cas that the only reason she was going to the fashion show, was because other people where relying on it, but I stood firmly behind The Man.

At the church we found out that half our girls were no longer coming which put a small strain on the situation and made me so grateful that Cas was there.  We worked with the girls that did show up to have them wear more dresses than they were planning on.  We didn't want to let anyone down and so much work had gone into the night.

Talented women were there doing hair and somehow (?) I ended up doing make-up.  We primped those girls up and sent them into the wedding dress room with other leaders who were in charge of that chaos.

I went out and found a seat to watch "the catwalk."

And I watched as the young women that I've come to love paraded out in wedding dresses to stories of the brides who'd worn them before and the funny things that had happened on those wedding days.

Can I just say it's a little surreal to see your daughter in a wedding dress?

Come on, I'm just getting used to the idea of her first boyfriend...

So today Cas gets to be grounded.

And hopefully today we get to hear about Tayler's x-ray results.  The doctor is hoping she's "backed up" because that would explain her wetting the bed and her constant uti's.  Plus, it's an easy fix.

So here's to hoping?

Also, today is my one year mark at being at my job.  This means good things as far as progressing and training. We've just been waiting for my year probation to be up.  So if I'm not fired by 5:00 today... I'll be moving on to slightly bigger and better things here.  Which I couldn't be more excited about it.  My boss has already sent out the email to HR and to his boss about getting things rolling for me so I'd say my chances of keeping my job past today are pretty good.

Plus, the new season of Vampire Diaries starts today and if you saw the season finale for season 3 then you know the cliff hanger we were left with... ah! I can't wait!

Here's to a less chaotic and anxiety filled afternoon than yesterday.  Besides, it's Thursday, and Thursday is the best day of the week.  It's Friday eve :).

she can see you now...

More on the findings of her visit and her funny dilation pic here

Her favorite color is green.  She should definitely go with green, don't you think?

She's more than just a little pleased to have her glasses.

After the eye check up, she ran, and I mean literally, to the eye glasses store next door while I paid the doctor co-pay.  She tried on 50 pairs of glasses.  Some for the kicks of it, but most because she just really wanted to find the pair of glasses for her.

I'm smiling because she found them on the clearance rack at a fraction of the price of any of the others.

I don't miss the baby stage of life.  Scratch that, that's not entirely true.  I miss how they smelled.  I miss pressing my nose to the top of their head and breathing in that soft, sweet smell of babies.  I miss the chubby cheek smiles.  I miss the little voices.  But I never wanted to press the pause button on life.  The time of babies and toddlerhood was pure chaos for me (having 4 under the age of 5) and the day Cali started 1st grade was a joyous day indeed.  Considering the circumstances of now being a working mom, daycare was a worry I was glad to not have to balance anymore. 

But I look at that picture of Casidee and my chest swells.  And I wonder...

Does anyone know where that pause button is?

just a few odd things

Day 4 of no Coke.  The Man even took me to McD's last night.  He wanted a hot fudge sundae, did I want a.... oh wait a second, you don't drink those anymore...
I was strong, I joined him and got a sundae.  Whew.  Made it through day three.  I think day 5 has the possibilities of being hard since my boss always buys us Cokes on Friday. 

When I took Cas to the doctor for her middle school booster shot (here) they noted that she needed glasses and told me to make an appointment with an eye doctor.  We went to the appointment yesterday afternoon and found that her vision is 20/70.  Which I'm told is pretty bad.  She won't be allowed to drive without glasses.  But we don't have to worry about that for four years yet.
I'm not entirely sure how her eye sight got to be so bad without anything being said about it, or us noticing it.  It must have just been a gradual thing that she didn't realize herself.

Dilation really takes hold and lasts longer the lighter of color that your eyes are.  Casidee has some pretty pale blue eyes.  She had some pretty freaky looking pupils for the entire rest of the evening.  This was even take after they'd come down a little bit right before she went to bed.

When West and I stopped at McD's it was on our way home from picking up yet another washing machine.

This will be our third washing machine in four months. 

When the washing machine starts going out I get sick to my stomach.  We just really can't afford to buy a brand new one right now.  We want to avoid charging it as we're trying to get out of debt, not add to it, and when the machine does finally go out, every day of laundry that's missed is a week's worth of clothes for whoever can't do their laundry on their day.  We missed two days this week.  That's two weeks of laundry that didn't get done (a week for Tayler and a week for Cali), so we get to frantically try to catch up now.  Not to mention that we had a wet bed this morning...

Though I can't say enough thank yous for our family and friends who have helped us out with free machines that past few months.  It's been a huge relief that we've been offered help so quickly each time.  This time we broke down and actually paid for one off of ksl.  Hopefully it will last awhile.

On a totally random note does anyone else get sick of the school's sending home cabbage plants with third graders to plant? 

I can't deal with this.  We tried to plant Casidee's while we lived in the Centerville house, but the deer ate it (along with my strawberry and tomato plants, grrr, those deer where not my friends).
I think with Brynn's we left it on the window sill, waiting for warmer weather to plant it outside, and it died of thirst.
Now both Tayler and Sean have brought them home.  Tayler has planted hers in a play bucket, you know, the kind you take to the beach.  So we have to drag it in and out as the weather is still too cold for it to be outside at night.  And Sean has placed his on the windowsill, but I found out this morning that he's pulled the bottom off of its container to "make room for the roots."  This means if he waters it, the dirt will leak all over our windowsill and down the wall.  I guess the boy better plant it in a bucket because I won't be allowing him to water it now.

I kill plants.  I am a serial plant murderer.  Listen up cabbage plants, you'd best find a new home, your chances are slim to null in this household.  This assignment is not one that I want to deal with.

I've learned this week that if you want to set your 401k up with a financial advisor it's as easy as 1, 2, 3,

4, 5, 6, 7...

I love Thursdays! The sweet anticipation of half day Friday and the weekend ahead is sweet indeed.

cas was moody

Cas was moody. 

This seems to be the case a lot lately, you know, the drama of being a pre-teen.  Everything is just so "uh!"

But she felt this attitude was justified this time.  She had to get her shot to be able to register for middle school.  Which she is very much looking forward to. 

She was sullen for days before going, giving me dirty looks and pouting with her arms folded across her chest.  Because this is all my fault, right?  I had to grit my teeth together a few times to not lash out at her about the treatment I was receiving. 
Though I wasn't lashing out at her I was reminding her that her attitude was uncalled for and I certainly didn't deserve it. 

It was making me mad.

She even went as far as to turn her attitude on the doctor.  Keeping the sullen pout on her face and mumbling bare minimum answers to his questions.  Being a pediatrician he's seen this before, and he handled her beautifully.

Brynn tagged along for the ride.  She had some warts on her toes that she wanted gone.  She was excited at the prospect of having them taken care of. 

We sat in the tiny room waiting for the doctor and I looked at the two of them and couldn't help but laugh.

I told them
you know, when we leave here you two are going to be flip flopped.  Cas will realize that it really wasn't that big of a deal and Brynn isn't going to be a happy camper at all.
The irony intrigued me and I laughed at them.  Of course, neither believed me.

When it came right down to it, both were brave and strong.  Cas took her shot like a trooper, despite the days of brooding over it, she stood still for it, and even giggled when it was done.  What do you know, the worst part of it was anticipating it.  Mom may know a thing or two after all.

Brynn held still as wart after wart were frozen.  She clenched her teeth, gasped, pressed her hands over her eyes and held perfectly still.
Freezing warts hurts, doesn't it Brynn. 
She walked crooked for a couple of days, and complained about blisters, but is still happy with her decision to have it done.  I am too actually, I'm a forgetful mom and it's hard to stay on top of self treating them at home.
And when you don't stay on top of self treating them at home, they get bigger.  And spread.

We walked in with a sullen Casidee and a bouncy Brynn.  We walked out with a bouncy Casidee and a limping Brynn.

One thing's true for all of us.  Shopping for Easter dresses makes it all better.