Mundane Musings

Hillary Clinton advocates for nurses!

Yea, not sure what she plans on doing about the nursing shortage, but at least she got a glimpse of the problem and walked a day in our shoes!

Out of the mouth of Maddie...

Sunday morning:

Maddie, walking up to Mike, holding his Bible:

"Daddy, will you read to me again about Jesus and the fairyGODmother?"

Ahem, too much Disney...=)

In Memory of Baby Ollie

"For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mothers womb... Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:13, 16).

I was really looking forward 3 weeks ago tonight to posting a brand new 3D ultrasound picture announcing our coming arrival expected February 11th. Sadly we found out at our 12 week scan that our new little one had passed away. It's been nearly three weeks since we said goodbye and while we are still grieving, I am really thankful for the 12 weeks God entrusted this little life to me. I still really miss "Ollie" though. Ollie was his/her embryonic nickname, Olive, for a girl, Oliver, for a boy.

We planted a weeping cherry tree to remember Ollie. I like that it "weeps." It's beautiful yet sad at the same time. Our tree is young and awkward right now, but they are beautiful trees that flower pink flowers. Our goal right now is just to keep it alive in this heat!!!

These are the lyrics to a song by Watermark that is about miscarriage. It is a hopeful song and speaks well to my heart right now.

Glory Baby

Glory baby, you slipped away as fast as we could say baby, baby
You were growing, what happened, dear, you disappeared on us baby, baby

Heaven will hold you before we do
Heaven will keep you safe until we're home with you
Until we're home with you

Chorus

Miss you every day
Miss you in every way
But we know there's a day when we will hold you
We will hold you

And you'll kiss our tears away
When we're home to stay
Can't wait for the day
When we will see you, we will see you

But baby let sweet Jesus hold you
'Till Mom and Dad can hold you
You'll just have heaven before we do
You'll just have heaven before we do
Before we do

Sweet little babies
It's hard to understand it 'cause we're hurting
We are hurting
But there is healing
And we know we're stronger people through the growing
And in knowing
That all things will work together for our good
And God works His purposes, just like He said He would
Just like He said He would

Chorus

I can't imagine heaven's lullabies and what they must sound like
But I'll rest in knowing that heaven is your home
And it's all you'll ever know
All you'll ever know

Chorus

So, I was just feeling sad that I didn't get to share my joy with everyone, and it's not that I want to share my sadness, but I wanted to celebrate Ollie's life, however short is was. We will always love him/her deeply and we will never forget what God has taught us through Ollie about love and family.

Easter Picture

Heard during Maddie's nap...

BUG you better get outta here, or my daddie's gonna come KILL you! (apparently there was a bug on her floor).

I mean...

I can't even get the dog to take a good picture!

"Mommie, I want to wear this turtleneck."

Maddie's clothing request the other day...

We've moved!

Well, we moved end of September, but it's taken me this long to post a blog entry...we're busy! We built a house (sorta) in a new live, work, play community in Canton, GA. called River Green. We cancelled a contract on another home we were building because we saw this one and fell in love, plus it was substantially cheaper and on a basement. So, home sweet home. Windows on all 4 sides, nice! I'm still trudging along thru nursing school. Almost done...taking the summer off but I'll graduate after my preceptorship in November. Maddie is a wild girl. Still working on staying healthy but she's doing good. We've taken her up to Children's Hospital of Cincinnati 3 times since September. She had two scopes and an impedence probe done. Verdict is still not official yet, but we know she has some sort of issue with reflux and most likely dismotility of her esophagus from nerve damage during her heart surgery. We've been happy with her team in Cincinnati and feel they are doing a more through job of managing her. (CHOA is not the greatest for airway and GI issues, good, but not the best for complicated cases). Mike's still working with BOA. Happily from home a good bit, thank goodness, because he lives so far away from work now.

I dyed my hair...

I had a moment the day I finished finals last semester. I like it but it's expensive to keep up with the roots.

Here's Mads, age 3.5

She loves her new big girl bed...

From our trip to Garmish, Germany Christmas/New Years '06

Nurnburg, Mike, Maddie, and my brother, Colin

We had to buy Mads a stroller boot thing to keep her warm at the German Babies R Us!

At the top of the Zutspite (sp?). Mike, Colin, and I skied. Mads sledded.

Maddie sledded down this hill a billion times. I have video but have no idea how to post it, so...oh well!

Well I must go because nap time is coming to a close...maybe I'll update again sometime in the near future. =)

Tater-tot

Maddie got her Mrs. Potato(e) Head straped in nice and safe.

Recent pictures btw, I need advice on picture sizing

From our new camera last night...my curley haired toddler.

Maddie takes saying "cheese" to the extreme.

For the love of spongebob and cream cheese...

From the Atlanta Botanical Gardens last Fall, before our other camera died.

The photo from the Christmas cards I made but never mailed...

Sorry, last one, I've always wanted to post this one...

My little French pheasant baby. I got this little dress and hair scarf thingie in France last summer.

So that didn't work...

anyone know how to get quicktime videos in with movabletype?

Here's a picture of Mike really sick with some sort of snotty crud, I have a lesser version of the viral beast and somehow Maddie has remained unscathed...my how the tables have turned, normally she gets us sick. I most likely brought it home from the hospital, sorry man!!!!

Long time no blog...

Sorry everyone, but our camera broke and now we got a new one (for free!, thanks Bank of America). Here's a test of a video I took with the new camera (a kodak EasyShare z7590).

Download file

My poor brave girl

Maddie was hospitalized again last night (seventh hospitalization in her 2 yrs. 3 months). She went into repiratory distress Fri. night around 5 pm. We drove in the emergency lane down to the hospital while she coughed so hard she threw up. It was scary. She's home now and is doing OK. She hasn't improved too much but she hasen't gotten any worse either, so she's stable enough to be home. She's on steroids to reduce the inflammation in her lungs and we're just waiting for them to kick in. She is using extra effor to breathe in the midst of all the breathing treatments we are giving her. I'm glad she's home but she's still pretty sick so it's scary. This time her breathing difficulty has been more along the lines of an asthma attack, though she has never gotten this bad before unless she has had food in her lung. She has had "reactive airway disease" since she was 4 months old. This is basically asthma induced by colds. Her maintance meds have been changed so hopefully this will not happen again, though her pulmonologist said we may very well end up in the hospital again this winter. It is scary to watch you child is such a state so I'm not looking forward to this. Needless to say, I need to make some decisions reguarding my school. The pulmonologist says she is fine to go back to school for now, that he wouldn't hesitate to tell us to make other arrangements if he felt it was necessary at this time, but we have a long winter ahead of us and I'm not sure I can handle this. I don't have long until the end of this semester and there is a possibility based on two different scheduling situations that we can get her down to going 3 half days a week, or maybe even less. There are no super hardfast rules. If you have a good reason you can decrease your load and save your next clinical rotation until later. So this wouldn't be a problem. I just need to decide and also see what these new meds can do for her. They don't carry any more risk than her current ones and may well keep her out of the hospital. Thing is, you catch colds everywhere, I can't keep her in a bubble, so where do I draw the line. The good news is that the pulmonologist said this will most likely be her worst year. Reasonable worst case senario is a course of steroids every month and maybe another hospitalizaiton. Steroids are serious though and carry alot of side effects inc. a decreased resistance to infection so it seems like a downward spiraling situation. Plus I don't want that. The real scary thing for me is the reality that kids do die from this, the great majority are fine, but Maddie is toward the more severe side at this point of the condition. This requires a lot of emotional and physical enery on Mike and I's part. We have to freak at every cough because that's just how this thing is, you really never know when it is going to get bad fast, you have to be on your toes all the time to have the best chance possible and who in the world is capable of being on their toes all the time, we are human, we need to sleep every once in awhile, we make stupid decisions and mistakes sometimes. When it comes to your baby, this reality really sucks, even if I do everything I can humanly, there is no guarantee. It's something every mom shudders to think about.

My first day as a student nurse

Hi all, it's been a while, I'm only posting now to postpone the inevitable finishing of my care plan, this thing I have to do after I have a patient in the hospital. I had my first patient on Friday. It was crazy. I had a "morbidly obese" lady who had her knee replacement re-done because she fell and broke the first. Now, she was a very, very, very, very, kind lady and had been on bed rest in a nursing home since December. The bad things:
1. that I didn't feel like I knew what I was doing, yet, somehow I still had the responsibility of a real live nurse, I even gave her medications (under supervision).
2. they forgot to put a depends on the poor women and something really bad happened with the entire physical therapy team in the room (bless her heart, I really, really, felt for her), and yes I cleaned it up, having a 2 year old in diapers prepared me as well as it could...=)

The good things:
1. this woman had been on bed rest (because her knee was in shambles) for nine months yet less than 12 hours after surgery she was pumped up and wanting to walk (didn't quite succeed, but, heck, I would be enjoying the morphine and the 50 tv channels). This was very inspirational to me because it's nice to see people want to get better. She really was going above and beyond the call.
2. she tolerated me...=) She didn't say anything ugly even though it was painfully obvious that I was quite clueless.

I hope that wasn't tmi for HIPPA but I knew she wouldn't mind.

In other news, my camera is broke, so no recent pictures to post. The screen just went black (digital) and when you take a picture it's black. Little Maddie has turned into quite the orphan Annie so I really need to get a picture up of her curls! I'm so excited she has curls! I always wanted a little girl with pretty curls! There is even one long enough to "boing." I was doing it all night tonight and she was just like, leave me alone MOM! She is so grown up now! I swear, you blink and "poof." Still having some lung issues but nothing we can't handle at the moment. I was thinking the other day of adopting a little Chinese girl who had a minor health problem. It wouldn't bother me at all after Maddie. You can adopt babies with cleft palate or lip or a heart defect. So long as it wasnt' something super chronic, I'd feel really good about it, probably less anxious than going thru another pregnacy...I was so crazy when I was pregnant, I had serious anxiety disorder induced by hormone levels. I'd feel better knowing what I was getting into rather than the unknown...just a thought? What do ya'll think????

Ok...back to my care plan...

Important message from The Big Guy