Friday, June 26, 2009

Update on Cooper

Cooper's MRI was moved to Thursday July 2nd at the same time. This gives us an extra day for his asthma to get better and an extra day of prayers :)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Prayers for Cooper


Many of you are aware that Cooper has been having some issues over the past several months with vomiting for no apparent reason. He will wake up and not act himself, just laying around and not talking much. This will be followed by vomiting a couple of times and then all of the sudden he will sit up and be completely fine. It doesn't seem to correlate with eating or with any particular dietary changes. The episodes are occuring every 2 to 3 weeks almost like clockwork. There is a condition known as cyclic vomiting which could explain these episodes. However, it is a diagnosis of "exclusion" meaning they must exclude all other possible causes. We have ruled out diabetes and have done basic metabolic screening that has all checked out ok thankfully. We went in for a follow up exam today since the vomiting has continued and were informed by the pediatrician that the next step is to rule out anything neurological. Unexplained vomiting can occur from tumors in specific areas of the brain. The Dr. feels the chances of this are EXTREMELY slim as Coop has had no additional neurological signs or symptoms. But, it must be ruled out nonetheless. So, the plan is for Cooper to have an MRI on Wed. July 1st at 7:30 in the morning (we have to be there at 5:30 am YIKES!) to rule this out. The scariest part of this for us is that he needs to be put under general anesthesia because the risks of conscious sedation with his asthma are too great. Having a child with a reactive airway undergo anesthesia is freaking us out a bit. I am confident that they will find nothing on the scan but unsure of how he will react to anesthesia. On top of that Coop has been battling a nasty exacerbation of his asthma this week and has been doing frequent breathing treatments. The Dr. listened to him today (day 6 of this exacerbation) and he is still wheezing a lot so he put him on an oral steroid. We need him to be 100% healthy for his test. Please say a few extra prayers over the next week that his scans will be clear and that he responds well to the anesthesia. We are hoping to have him home by noon on Wed. happy and healthy. The next step after ruling this out is some further metabolic screening and a referral to a Pediatric Gastroenterologist in Omaha as they are the only one that can make the diagnosis of cyclic vomiting. If this is what he has he will likely grow out of it. He has some medicine at home that we can give him to stop the vomiting when it does occur and it has worked great the last two times we have given it. Cyclic vomiting has been identified as a precursor to migraines and often kids will out grow the vomiting and then start battling migraines. :( We hope this will not be the case but will gladly take migraines over the alternative. Please also pray that the steroids kick in quickly and that he is healthy by Wed. for the test. We would like our answers as soon as possible.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Happy Daddy's Day



We celebrated Fathers Day at my sisters where we had a surprise birthday party for my niece Alyssa. We BBQ'd lunch and watched the kids play on the trampoline. Ryan's favorite treat of the day was ice cream cake from DQ! His favorite by far. We spent the evening at Ryan's parents and had pizza with them. Ryan chose to order a new flat screen 22 inch computer monitor for his fathers day gift and he LOVES it! I cannot express how grateful we are to have him in our family. He is the glue that holds us together. Lord knows I fall apart on a daily basis and he is usually the one left to pick up the pieces at the end of the day. I have never met someone so patient! I am not an easy person to live with and I am well aware of that. I thank God everyday for putting him in my life :) We Love you!!

Boston May 2009



I was lucky to go back to Boston a few weeks ago to help my sister Tiffany celebrate earning her Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Mass. in Dartmouth. I was sooo proud of her. Since we had just vacationed there last year we decided that I would fly out without my hubby and kids. I missed them dearly but had a fantastic time. My Mom and stepdad went along as well. I left on Fri. May 22nd and returned the following Tuesday. While we were there we crammed in as much sight seeing as possible. I was able to see some of the things we missed while there with our munchkins. After arriving on Friday we went down to Fanueil Hall for dinner at Cheers and over to a haunted trolley tour of Boston. It was super fun as our tour guide was hilarious with a capital "H"! Saturday was the graduation so we drove down to the University for that and followed it with a FANTASTIC dinner. Sunday we took off to Newport, Rhode Island to see the beautiful mansions and walk the cliff walks. It was amazing. We scheduled a cocktail cruise that evening and unfortunately got rained on. Thank goodness it was all the rum punch you could drink and that helped keep us warm on the boat. We shopped around and ate some Ben and Jerry's and were headed back to Boston. On Monday my parents left and Tiff and her boyfriend Jeff picked me up and Jeff was a fantastic tour guide. He works for Coach in Boston and know the roads inside and out. He was able to show us so many beautiful areas of Boston! We of course had to head over to Harvard square and check that out. We drove through different areas such as Charleston, Beacon Hill (my personal favorite), and to Newbury Street where we walked around and had some fabulous frozen yogurt! After a day of walking and driving we were off to Taunton, MA where Tiff lives and Jeff and Tiff made an awesome dinner for me :) You guys ROCK! Tuesday I was scheduled to fly out in the evening so we got up and were off to my new favorite store IKEA! Holy Cow that place is the BOMB DIG!! We spent several hours there and had lunch. Then we drove up north of Boston to Marblehead and some of the surrounding areas before it was off to the airport and an evening full of many delayed flights in Chicago :( I made it back to Omaha about 11pm where my wonderful family was waiting for me. The kids were of course passed out in their pjs and barely work up to welcome me back but I was so happy to see them and Ryan. Thanks to my fabulous husband for allowing me to take this trip. It meant a lot to me and to my sister.

Kindergarten end of the Year Celebration




Thank you to the Woerth family for once again hosting a rockin end of the school year party. We had fabulous food and the weather was PERFECT! Katelyn was so excited to ride Jelly bean again this year. At the top is a picture of Katelyn and Jellybean from last years end of the year party. My how much she has grown in one year! Its astounding!

In Home Theatre



This is our new home theatre system designed by our children with all of their furry friends in mind.

Sleeping like a kitten



Chalk fun!





Holy Moly has it been forever since I posted. Naughty me! It has just been insanely busy around here this summer but that it no excuse. Considering I may have early onset Alzheimers it is crucial that I update this blog in order to have something to look back on and remember details about our life. So I am on a mission to update this blog tonight! This first update is what happens when you leave about 10 kids outside with a bucket of chalk unsupervised. Quite the little Picaso's aren't they?