AARRRGGGG!!!

So all weekend I start having contractions - regularly. I try to get up and do something, and boom - they go nuts. I am still too early for this - only 27 weeks. I have never had to do this before - I just go along on my merry way, until my water breaks and the baby comes.

This morning, I get up, and after 45 min. they start up again - but don't go away. We go to church, and after an hour and a half, I have to come home and go to bed. I don't know what I will do if I have to stay in bed for months - I can't do that! Too much to do with a large family, and school starting in a week. I called the on-call doctor, and that was no help! She said I had to be the judge of whether to stay in bed or come to the hospital, neither option did I like.

I think I will wait until tomorrow, and call my doctor during office hours.

I despise waiting!

Ok, so yesterday Lucy and I got up at 0'dark hundred, and drove downtown for her PET scan. She was so nervous, and so we talked about it again in SpongeBob terms. (Yes, I am ashamed to admit that my kids are SpongeBob nuts! But I'll blame it on Ryan, since he is too!)

So, in short, we talk about her bad tumor being Plankton in the Chum Bucket, and how he is trying to take over Bikini Bottom (her brain), so we have to keep an eye on him, and see what he is doing. That always seems to help her feel better about it.

We get there, check in, and wait. When they call us back and put her in a chair to draw blood and inject the fluoride/sugar concoction - she starts crying and looking up at the poor tech, saying "Please, please don't do this to me.....please stop". He had only put the rubber around her arm at that point. It was so sad! That part only took about 5 minutes, then she had to sit quietly for 45 minutes. She feel asleep. They woke her up, and the scan only took 10 minutes.

We drove home, and then back downtown to meet with the neurosurgeon, Dr. Boggan. Last time he took almost 2 hours, to come in and see us for 90 seconds (literally). This time, we got right in, and he came right in. He was looking at the PET scan, and it hadn't fully uploaded from the hospital yet - so he couldn't see it all. He said we would do another MRI in October, and that he would have to call me with the results from this PET scan after he got the full report and file.

On a preliminary note - he said that he tumor he was looking at wasn't looking bad so far - so it was good news. However, the other side of her brain was lighting way up - so he didn't know what to think of that until he had the full report.

So bottom line, what was supposed to clear everything up - just made everything more confusing, and we are still playing the waiting game! Yuck! If I don't hear from him by next Wednesday, I am supposed to call him to get the update.

So sorry...but you are all stuck playing the waiting game with us!

Lucy update (kinda) !

Well, it isn't a load of information - but they have set a tentative date for her PET scan for August 6th. The problem is they are saying they won't sedate her. They do for the MRI's, and she doesn't know why they don't for this.

So, the procedure is 2 hours, and Lucy hasn't been awake for anything like this before. She might freak out when they inject her with the dye. And then she has to not move at all for 30 minutes - which I don't know if she can do. I sure hope so, because if she can't, and they don't get a clear picture, they will have to reschedule and do it again.

I'll let you know how it all goes!

Love and hate, addictive relationship!

Yes, I know - hate is a four letter word in our household, so don't tell my kids! So what am I talking about? Blogs!

I love that I feel so connected with my friends and family. I love to log on a read what is happening in "their neck of the woods", and feel like I am there. Melissa's blog especially feels like we are just sitting in her living room, and she is telling me what happened (as if she never moved so far away). I love reading all of your honesty and totally relating to what you are saying or feeling. I love that if I get busy for a while, I can log on and catch up - any time day or night. I love the connection - and re-connection to those I had lost contact with. I love it, I love it!

I hate, (or dislike immensely, as I tell my children to say), that when I am done reading current posts, or when I log on and there isn't any postings, that I feel sad and lonely and left wanting more. I dislike immensely that it makes me miss you all so much and wish we were sitting together, enjoying each other's company in person! I miss you! Darn those blogs!

OK - so really, I love them more than not! Keep blogging everyone - 'cuz I need my fix! :-)

We are still alive!

Sorry it has been a while since my last post! Ryan and I were out of town for a week, shooting the JIB Conference. Usually it is in Hawaii (with other locations being Canada and the Bahamas), but this year they decided to cut back and go to South Lake Tahoe. It was beautiful, and we had a great time as always. Mom watched the kids here, and I didn't think she was going to live past the first few days (either that, or the kids wouldn't live). But by the end, she had a tight ship running (although she did admit that I was right, Nathan can be a beast - never-ending trouble that boy is. Good thing he's cute!).

Emmie is doing well in her swim meets. She has improved her times with every swim. This Saturday is the last meet, and then we have Championships next weekend. As usual, she is getting quite the tan.

Insurance approved the PET scan for Lucy, so now we are just waiting scheduling. I will keep you updated.

Tornados in California??

Yes, I'm afraid it is true! Our internet was down, and I was on the phone with the technician trying to troubleshoot (checking connections, etc), when unbeknownst to me, there was a tornado brewing. I was only preoccupied for a few moments, but in that short time, the tornado made it over the child gate, into my bedroom. It proceeded to change the sleep number on our bed, pull out my floss, open and dump an entire bottle of aftershave into Ryan's bathroom drawer, change my alarm settings (so I woke up late the next morning), downed Ryan's drink and moved his mug to the floor on the other side of the room and proceeded to answer an important phone call, and hang up on them, causing me another several hours on the phone to fix that. Alhtough normally tornados are not named...this one was so severe, and was named Nathan! Where is FEMA when you need them?

PS - and to be extra helpful, later that day when his sisters were asked to put all their dirty clothes in the laundry hamper so I could wash them, Nathan proceeded to empty all his drawers of clean folded clothes into the hamper - to assure I would have enough laundry to do!

The Fly Whisperer

So, Lucy has this amazing talent with living creatures! She is the catcher of lizards, snakes, bugs, etc. She always lets them go after she is done. The weird thing, is that Lucy catches flies with her bare hands - and rather quickly. Then when she lets it go, it just is sort of in a daze, and sits there, or flies to the nearest spot, and just sits there. So we have deemed her "The Fly Whisperer".