Wyatt is 10 months!

I promised a picture of Wyatt man since I haven't posted a 10 month picture of him yet! Well here you go......we let him go for a truck ride this weekend with Owen. By the time I ran in the house to get my camera and came back outside, Owen was already done driving the truck.....but I was still able to capture this picture of Wyatt! He looks huge to me in this picture. He is getting quite big. He has four teeth on top and two bottom teeth. He is walking like a champ- practically running! And he remains a good, sweet, little boy. But he does have a little bit of a stubborn streak in him like his momma......I was thinking Wyatt was just like his daddy but his personality is shinning through a little more every day and boy of boy between him and Owen, Kris and I are going to be in trouble! But we continue to love them to pieces!!

My mom is a celebrity!!

So proud of my mom! In 2004 she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.....after many treatments we learned that it spread to her lung and then to her brain twice. She underwent cyberknife treatment a non-invasive surgery for the tumors in her brain. After a long hard battle with a lot of unknowns I am blessed to say that my mom is still here and in REMISSION. She was and remains to be so strong and such a fighter!

She was recommended by her doctor who also is in charge of cyberknife at St. Joe's Hospital to do a photo shoot for cyberknife media. She was told that her picture may be used in print ads, commercials and maybe even a billboard. Well, Julie was driving the other day and almost drove off of the road as she passed this billboard!

My parents took all the boys for a drive today to look at the billboard. How cool for them to see their Nana on the sign! What lucky boys they are to still have their Nana to share with them her victory!

Love you mom! Thanks for fighting, thanks for being strong, thanks for being you!

Update from feeling well, BLAH!

After about two weeks of just feeling pretty miserable with a constant care sickness feeling and a slight headache and continued swelling and discomfort in my fingers, hands, wrists and hips I finally decided to email my doctor. She responded right away and was quite concerned since I have been on high doses of steroids which usually makes all of my symptoms disappear and makes me feel like I'm on top of the world......but this go around I have no energy and just continue to feel really crummy! She set up an appointment for me on Thursday.

The appointment went okay- the doctors still appear to be a little flustered about me. The swelling is obvious so I'm thankful they are able to physically see it so they just don't think I am crazy.
I will start a new injection medication called Anakinra, it is a daily injection. I was supposed to have started it already however it is a specialized pharmacy medication so it has to be mail ordered. It should arrive on Tuesday as there were some initial problems with the script and getting a hold of my doctor's office.
I will still be on the methotrexate injection as well......so we shall see how that goes. I just did another injection on Thursday night and so far I still have most of the swelling in my fingers of my left hand and overall soreness in both hands/wrists/arms.
My inner hips have also been sore lately, so they are going to do a follow up CT scan next Friday to check my hip function and also to check on that spot that was suspicious for lymphoma that was previously found on the CT/PET scan from December. They just want to be sure that they aren't overlooking anything.
Also- at my appointment was the first time that I have heard this, but my doctors said that what I have most closely resembles Adult Stills Disease, I just don't have every symptom.....there was also talk of inflammatory bowel disease being the underlying condition since my biopsy results from my colonoscopy weren't completely definitive.
I gave more blood at this visit and I guess at this time it is just a waiting game to see if this new injection will work.....if it doesn't work then they will switch the second injection to Humira, but Anakinra is supposed to be a quicker acting injection so we wanted to see if I would experience relief from that one prior to starting another injection that I won't notice visible results soon.

All in all, I have been trying to stay positive despite the fact that I feel completely run down and it hurts to lift/hold my sweet baby or really do anything with my hands such as strap Wyatt into his car seat, buckle Owen in to the car, turn the car on, do laundry (those buttons on the washing machine and dryer are a pain). You don't realize how many things affect your hands/fingers. And unfortunately for me with two little kids I find out exactly how many things there are on an hourly basis several time throughout the day.

Positive NOTE- I find that when I take a very hot shower that I can move/bend my fingers on my left hand. I just kind of try to make a fist and really get the range of motion back, and it feels great that I can move my hands......so Kris filled up the hot tub last night and hopefully that will help with at least making me feel better for a half hour or so every night. I'm super excited!

Have a great day and a happy weekend......I will be posting a picture soon of Wyatt man....he is 10 months! And walking so well! Practically running!

Lastly-
****FUNNY STORY ALERT****
Kris took the boys to Canton yesterday to spend the day with his mom. Kris said that they were about 3 minutes away from his parents house when out of the blue Owen said:

"FACT- we are almost to grammy and grampy's house."

I don't know where this kid comes up with this stuff, but he surely is our little entertainer and we love both him and Wyatt to pieces!

K

Happy St. Patrick's Day...Early!

Really?

Well, back at it! Can't seem to sleep....so while I am sitting here in my comfortable chair in the corner of my bedroom I was thinking to myself, why can't I sleep?

And then I realized that I am on 8 prescription medications, 3 vitamins on a daily basis. And on top of that, I am on the methotrexate injection weekly. I just had the fullest dose last night so I am hoping that in a very short period of time I will start seeing visible results in the way I feel.

The funny/ironic part is that I am on a sleeping medication....it says online that the pill is supposed to be used to treat depression/anxiety disorders and also is used as a sleeping agent. Well, I have news for you Trazadone.....you don't seem to do anything for me!

On the plus side my hair this morning seems so full and shiny and thick! I was fearful that since the methotrexate is used as a chemo drug and one of the side effects is "hair thinning" that I would inevitably have to deal with some hair loss.....not sure if it is the folic acid that I am taking or what, but I am liking my hair! I have a meeting later this morning and am actually thinking about wearing my hair down today (which I NEVER do).

So this is my random post for the day......just a lil tidbit of information. I do wish that I could sleep, when I do sleep it seems to be a sound sleep, just not for more then a few hours.

I just have to keep telling myself, this too shall pass! And I am thankful and BLESSED beyond belief! I really have nothing to complain about so I just need to try to make the best of it!!

Fun in the sun! Well, fun in the water at least!

No sun in Michigan quite yet and the snow is still falling, but we are so happy that we were able to sneak away for a few nights and enjoy some much needed family time. Here are Owen and Wyatt playing (rather posing) on a turtle animal they had in the kiddie pool. Owen was awesome in the water park, was very independent and had a great time.....for the most part. He went down one of the big slides with Kris and when they came out at the bottom their tube flipped over and Owen went under water....he doesn't like going under water and was quite scared thus his sad face! He was a trooper though and continued to ride down the big adult slides with me and Kris later during our stay.

Here is right after they flipped. Oh how I hate seeing my boy so sad! Thankfully his daddy protected him!

Me and Wyatt hanging out in the lazy river. The water was warm and other then the fact that I had to constantly duck out of the way of falling water buckets of water and other waterfall type of obstacles, we enjoyed our lazy river down time. We must have cuddled for almost 45 minutes. It was great!! It helped that Wyatt was exhausted so he didn't move around much and just let me hold him and sing to him.

I love this picture of me and Wyatt....it was the best I could do since I took it myself. I know he isn't looking at the camera, but he is looking at his momma....so SWEET!

Another picture that I took, I love this one too....Wyatt's eyes are so blue and he has the cutest little look on his face!

Owen on one of the many water slides. This was actually the smallest of the water slides. I didn't dare take pictures of the other water slides because I didn't want my camera to get wet. Owen looks a bit frightened in this picture but he really wasn't...he loved this slide!

We can't wait to go back....Owen can't stop talking about the big 400 gallon water bucket that kept dumping water all over the park! It was a great trip and exactly what we needed!

Fun at the arcade!

The second half of our trip was spent at Zehnder's Splash Village. This place was great (the arcade, not so much. The arcade at Bavarian Inn is WAY better) But it was also kind of nice that it was a small arcade so we could get in and out of there without spending our life savings. Owen had a great time! Wyatt as always was as content as could be just hanging out with his family. Owen played lots of fun games! Most he knew how to play by himself but some he needed his dad's help.

Here are me and my boys- Owen was super thrilled to have YET another picture taken and only cooperated because threats were made! :o)

Here is Owen riding the roller coaster game....he was less then enthused about this ride!

Playing some guitar hero is always fun, but their guitars were about 30lbs each, so Owen had a hard time holding it up.

After our $10 at the arcade ran out we headed up to the room and both boys fell asleep within minutes. It was such a fun trip! We are going to make it an effort to go at least 2x per year....hopefully!