Family Update

Things have been very difficult this past week. Unfortunately, I miscarried our precious baby. Not only did that happen, but the miscarriage did not go well and after a week of trying to do it naturally with the help of my midwife, trying medications from my OB and getting very, very ill...I ended up rushing off the the ER for surgery late last night. I needed a lot of help with the severe nausea that the medications caused me and I was very dehydrated from blood loss, but they fixed me up pretty good! I am grateful for hospitals when you need them!
I am home now and trying to rest as much as one can with 7 children who need me.
I am on the mend, and Praise God...he carried me through the whole thing. I anticipate some time for the whole family to recover and heal.

God is good, all the time and I know that this precious life is not lost, but in the arms of Jesus.

Family nights

My friend Michelle's posts on family night at her house encouraged me to dig out my Heritage Builders series books and do the same. We LOVE the devotional activities. Since we are "in between" churches right now we needed this set time to focus on teaching and worship together in a way that is not just mom and dad reading the bible while little ones wiggle and wonder when they can get up! We still read the Word...but this gives the kids a way to be excited about learning!

I have turned a corner in my parenting where I seek less to force them to be still and silent when learning about God, to where I want them to interact and ENJOY learning about God. I do not want their memories to be of bad times when we are reading the Word or doing "church". With our family nights, there is an abundance of fun loving times and they are actually remembering the lessons much better this way!

Here are some shots of our last few times! I have not taken photos every time and I am not going to post this weekly. I am usually too wrapped up in what we are going to get many shots! I just thought I would post a few pics of the last 2 to encourage you to get out there and have fun while learning about the amazing things God has done!

After we read about Creation, we made play dough together and everyone got time to try making the things of Creation! It could be animals, plants or whatever else they remembered from the bible reading. Yes, we did end up with some dinosaurs!





Making homemade pizza together





















Animals!










Daddy LOVES these times! He is eagerly in the middle of every activity! Here he is making play dough animals!







Daddy hanging up the "stars" for the days of Creation.












Everyone got into the homemade tent and imagined being "In the beginning". We had the sound of water, lights going on and off, dirt going around for land...it was really fun.
Each time begins with prayer and reading the selected part of scripture that goes with the lesson and also ends in a time for each person to pray about whatever is on their heart.

Pizza time!

The last one we did...I did not get very many pictures. We went to a huge field and measured out the Ark. Wow, it was HUGE. Then, the kids had races up and down to "feed the animals". Only the Philosopher was able to run the whole distance more than once...everyone else was bushed!

Then, they made an ark at home and put animals in it, decorated it etc.

Here is a shot of the filed before we started measuring things out. Sorry there are not more pictures of the "animal feeding" that was hilarious!

Great Blog article

This is such a good article! Written by a young lady named Jasmine Bauchan. She encourages us to not depart from fellowship based on non-salvation issues. Always a timely lesson. I have been encouraged to read her thoughts.
Dawn

One of my favorite websites!

I love this site for Copywork, Notebooks, Lapbooks, Activity Books, Notebooking Pages, and MORE that are themed for Thanksgiving, Christmas, new years etc!
Check it out today!

www.knowledgeboxcentral.com

How we spent our morning

I found this wonderful book at the library yesterday.
How Mama Brought the Spring - Fran Manushkin - Penguin Group (USA): "One wintry morning, Mama tells Rosy a wondrous story about her own mama, Grandma Beatrice, who could bring spring to cold, cold Minsk by making magic in the kitchen. Together, mother and daughter mix batter and sing a song. Then the batter goes into the pan—pour, swirl, swizzle, FLIP! Soon Papa comes in from the cold and the family shares a special treat. (Hint: A recipe for blintzes is included!)
In this delightfully cozy tale, Holly Berry’s stunning illustrations evoke charming folk traditions and the warm magic made in Mama’s kitchen."










Snuggling up to read together...not all the kids are on my lap, but 2 were listening on the floor.









My princesses helping me with the recipe


















Everyone loved the blintzes, especially my husband. I will have to double the recipe next time!

Hereditary spherocytosis

My dear sweet 4 year old princess has Hereditary spherocytosis. Many have asked me what it is...so I will post it here for those interested.

(From Medicine.net)

HS is a genetic disorder of the red blood cell membrane clinically characterized by anemia, jaundice (yellowing) and splenomegaly (enlargement of the spleen).

In HS the red cells are smaller, rounder, and more fragile than normal. The red cells have a spherical rather than the biconcave-disk shape of the normal red cell. These rotund red cells (spherocytes) are osmotically fragile and less flexible than normal red cells and tend to get trapped in narrow blood passages, particularly in the spleen, and there they break up (hemolyze) leading to hemolytic anemia.

The clogging of the spleen with red cells almost invariably causes splenomegaly. The breakup of the red cells releases hemoglobin and the heme part gives rise to bilirubin, the pigment of jaundice.

The excess bilirubin leads to the formation of gallstones, (this is what happened to her last week) even in childhood, There is also often iron overload due to the excess destruction of iron-rich red cells.

The bone marrow has to work extra hard to make more red cells. So, if in the course of an ordinary viral illness, the bone marrow stops making red cells, the anemia can quickly become profound. This is termed an aplastic crisis.

The treatment of hereditary spherocytosis is to remove the spleen (splenectomy). Although the red cell defect persists, the breakup of the red cells (hemolysis) ceases. Splenectomy, however, is a hazard in young children. Young children without a spleen are at increased risk for overwhelming sepsis (bloodstream infection), particularly with the pneumococcus bacteria. Splenectomy is therefore usually postponed if possible until the age of 3 years.

The prognosis (outlook) after splenectomy is for a normal life and a normal life expectancy

For now, this means that she gets very ill with certian viruses. She has already had 4 emergency transplants in her first 2 years of life. She was stable for 2 years, and now she is having some troubles again.

I am very careful to not expose her to sicknesses, but I have to be even more so now. I am praying for wisdom on where I take her and who I go around...especially with all the flu going around. If she gets sick again, they will want to yank out her spleen and gall bladder sooner than later.

Wave of illnesses!

This is not a typical post for me, more of a "how we are doing" thing.

I am just reeling from this last week! Tonight is the first time since Friday that I am really able to get out of bed...so I am starting slow...computer time. Looking for a rental to move to (know of one?) and catching up on e-mails etc.

A week ago Thursday, my little princess has some severe abdominal pain that nearly landed us in the ER. It went on for over an hour, in 2 different episodes. We were on the way to the ER at 11:30 at night. Suddenly, her pains stopped...like when you take your car to the mechanic, it will stop making the noise it had been making for weeks!
The Dr. at the ER said to go home and come back if it started again. The next day, I got her into the Dr. for some labs and they said that her levels were OK and we should go home. The level they were talking about was her hematocrit.

She has a special condition that makes things like stomach pain a crisis for her, I am posting on her condition in a separate post for those who are interested in Spherocytosis.

My mom feelings were going off like crazy. I watched her all day Saturday and noticed that she was more yellow and lethargic. So, I called the real experts. Her hematologist at Children's hospital and they advised me to come in right away.

Most doctors have no idea what to even look for with her. Her crit level was ok (that is normally the one that will be way off) but several other levels were not good at all. It takes the experts to notice the warning signs with her.

Sure enough, she had had gall stones that sent her body into crisis. That was what the pains were about.Her liver function was way off and she was not doing good. Thankfully, they did pass and she recovered. By Monday she was ready to go home with warnings that they were going to want to see her in 3 days to talk about removal of her spleen and gall bladder.

Thursday came and we took the kids to Carrie's house so that my husband could go with me to the appointment. He normally does not come with me, but with talk of surgery I did not want to go alone.

We did labs and waited nervously. At the appointment, her doctor told me that her labs had continued to improve since Monday and they were not going to take out her organs right away! Thank God. He told me that he was prepared to do so if her labs had not improved.

We go back in one month to make sure that her levels continue to improve and that she does not have another crisis, so I guess we pray, wait and watch some more.
That same day, we picked up the kids and went to my Dr. in Everett. I was having trouble breathing. It was a terrible appointment. They kept me there for 3 and a half hours doing cardiac tests, chest x-rays and a ton of lab work.

I kept telling them that it was something with my lungs, not a heart thing. After 3 hours, the brilliant Dr. decided that I had anxiety and tried to send me home with anti-anxiety meds. I was very upset with his diagnosis. I knew that I was not having anxiety and that there was something wrong with my lungs.

After trying to convince him that I was not upset, and only making him not believe me more...I just wanted to leave. My 2 year old meanwhile, fell and cut open her forehead, needing 6 stitches. While they were waiting for me! I could hear her crying in the next room and knew that my other children were stressed out as well. Dad was a trooper the whole time.

I told him to do a pregnancy test before I would take anything he ordered. I was not going to take an anti-anxiety med, but he ordered some other things to help my breathing and lung inflammation.

While I was waiting on my meds, they ran down to the pharmacy to stop me from filling the prescription. Yes, I am pregnant with blessing #8. Thank God I did not let them bully me and I demanded a test first.

All I could do was laugh and praise God. I am sure the Dr. thinks that I am crazy. I was lauging with tears rolling down my face for joy.

I refused all his meds and went home with my tired, cranky family. The kids were so good during all of this, but I knew they had had enough.

Sure enough, some of my lab tests came back later that night that I have viral pneumonia. I was not happy with that Dr. who said I had anxiety. I have no history of anxiety but I do have a long history of asthma and bronchitis. Not to mention I had to go in again on Friday, sick as a dog and get some meds.

I am grateful for modern medicine..but why won't they listen to their patients? Or at least pay attention to symptoms? I had a very high heart rate (over 100 while resting and 140 after walking) and a very low blood pressure. I normally have perfect levels on both. I was wheezing and gasping for breath. Obviously, my body is fighting some infection. The fact that I did not have a fever made them dismiss any "real" illness possibility and claim anxiety. Hmmm. This is why I rarely go to the doctor. It takes something like pneumonia to get me even to go.

This has defiantly been a challenging week. A few friends brought meals (thank you!!) and my poor husband has had to take over some cooking. There was no homeschooling this week other than hit and miss math and reading. Such is life.

I am grateful for all of the prayers and support on our behalf.

I am grateful that my mom came to the hospital when my princess was admitted even though it was a LONG drive for her and she was at the Dr/hospital every other day this week with her MIL having surgery.
Now, I am praying to recover soon!