When Your World is Shaken

I couldn't resist the title.  Today I found this globe broken in 2 on our playroom table, and it seemed appropriate somehow.   Our world broke a little bit, today.  Or, at least, it was shaken.  More on that in a minute.  

I realized that we have not blogged in a very long time and sooo much has happened these past few months.  God provided us a new van! The new van is, in so many ways, much  better much the one that was stolen.  What man intended for evil, God used for good. 

We also adopted a new-to-us dog.  No dog could ever replace our Emma, but Bubbles has been a great addition to our family.

Bubbles is great with the kids.  She's very playful and has lots of energy ... which means she fits right in! 

Unfortunately, 2013 has also been full of lots of sickness, especially for Leo.  But today a part of Leo's puzzle was revealed to us.  Over the weekend, Leo developed strange jittery movements.  We wound up at the ER yesterday and I was left feeling like I was crazy for going.   They had no answers for us!  We followed up with neurology today and apparently I am not so crazy after all (at least concerning this situation). In the past all of Leo's seizures have been febrile (fever related). Apparently, he is now having seizures more often and "just because".  These seizures are presenting differently.  I know I am not explaining this correctly, but we are still processing a lot of information.  The bottom line is, for the foreseeable future, Leo will be on seizure meds.  We are hoping his seizures can be controlled with just one low-dose med.  In a way it does feel like our world broke a bit today.  We weren't expecting this diagnosis.  We are thankful that the doctor we saw today believed we caught these early and that she was hopeful they could be controlled.  We would appreciate prayers for complete healing of Leo and that these seizures would just go away!

So, 2013 has had a few rough spots.  We said goodbye to Emma, had a van stolen, and now Leo's health has taken a strange turn for the worse.  But God has remained faithful and life marches on.  We continue to pray over our future and God's will for our lives and the lives of our children. We should be finding out in the next 2 weeks Jeremy's exact travel dates for his mission trip to Africa.  We are so excited that he will have this opportunity to go "love on" some little and big ones in Uganda.    

As of now, it is looking like Amanda will be attending our local high school in the fall.  She auditioned for and was accepted into the advanced orchestra.  This is a huge move for us as Amanda has been home schooled from birth.  Lots of prayer has been going into this decision and God has been opened doors confirming for us this is the path we should be on at this time.  

The end of this month Leo "ages out" of early intervention and we will find out what the school district has in mind for him.  Basically, we are waiting to hear if they will recommend that therapy continue in our home or if they will recommend a special preschool for him for a few hours a day.  I am not sure what I am hoping for at this point, but I am curious to see what they recommend.  We can turn down their plan and then they would need to come up with a plan B and C if necessary.

Sometimes it does feel like our world is spinning out of control, or falling apart, but it is in moments like those that we have to rely less on our feelings, and more on what we know is true: God is in control!

Where Is the G-Tube When You Need IT?

Today was a hard day.  We found out yesterday that Emma, our dog, was in severe kidney failure.  We brought her home from the vet for the night so everyone could say good-bye to her.  It was a long day as we said our good-byes and tried to make Emma has comfortable as possible.  This morning we needed to give Emma extra fluid right beneath her skin.  The vet showed me how to do it and assured me it wasn't that hard.  So this morning, Emma and Leo shared the IV pole.  Leo with his feed going and Emma receiving her extra fluids.

We made an appointment for 5:00 PM to return to the vet.  My sister agreed to watch the boys while we were at the vet.  She even volunteered to feed us dinner.

We carefully loaded Emma into the trunk of the van and headed to Aunt Suzy's house.  When we arrived, she was on the phone trying to figure out why Mr. Papa John's wouldn't let her use her 50% code.  She has a little dog, named Lucy, who is a puppy and very hyper.  Because Aunt Suzy can't/won't deal with Leo's feeding tube, I had been feeding him on the drive over.  He had 15 ml's left as I carried him into the house. I sat him on the sofa where Lucy basically tried to lick his face and jump all over him.  Leo was looking a little scared so I quickly picked him up and in the process pulled his g-tube completely out.  (At this point we are supposed to be at the vet in 10 minutes.)

I quickly dumped out the diaper bag looking for the extra tube- it was no where to be found.  I left Aunt Suzy on the phone negotiating pizza, the boys in front of her TV and I threw Leo back in the car and with Emma still in the trunk, we raced the 10 minutes back to our house where I found a spare g-tube and inserted it back into Leo's tummy.  We ran out of our house and back the 10 minutes to Aunt Suzy's.  On the drive back, I remembered the last time we were at CHOP they had replaced Leo's tube and used the one I kept in the diaper bag and I had forgotten to replace it.  (extra tube is currently in diaper bag)

We finally arrived at the vet at 5:15.  They ushered us right into a room they had prepared for Emma with a pink blanket laying on the table.  Amanda and I said our good-bye's, cried, and talked quietly to Emma as they put her to sleep.  They took a paw print for us as a remembrance and then we left.

We returned back to Aunt Suzy's where Jeremy joined us and we enjoyed some good food therapy of pizza and wings.

The house is strangely quiet tonight without Emma here.  Neither Jeremy or I are huge dog people, but Emma grew on us.  She was part of our family and will be missed. 

In other news, we are heading out van shopping this weekend and hope to find something we can purchase in our price range.  You can be sure we will be making sure the diaper bag is packed with an extra g-tube just in case.

Stolen Van, Sickies, and a Birthday!

For the last 14 years, Valentine's Day has been overshadowed by our sweet girl's birthday.  Amanda turned 14 yesterday.  I still remember, 14 years ago when I stopped working on a Friday and all my co-workers gave me grief saying the baby wasn't coming anytime soon.  I still had 2 weeks till my due date.  I had big plans for those 2 weeks.  I was going to clean and get organized!  Little did I know, Amanda had different plans and made her grand entrance only 2 days later on a Sunday, which was also Valentine's Day.  Needless to say, 14 years later I am still trying to find the time to clean and get organized. 
Amanda has grown into such a wonderful young lady.  She is a very talented violinist and a wonderful baker.  She is also an awesome big sister to her 5 younger brothers.  We are excited to continue to watch God work in her life and know He has great plans for her. 

To say life is full would be an understatement. 

~The month of January and into February has been full of lots of sickness in our house.  I think everyone has been sick at some point.  Leo has been most affected by all the sickness as it led him to have at least 3 febrile seizures.  We had one ambulance ride to the ER for a seizure last Thursday.  I am praying spring arrives soon and we can finally get rid of all these germs. 

~Our 12 passenger van was stolen from the train parking lot while Jeremy was at work.  We have a small rental car till the end of February.  We just got word yesterday, that our insurance is ready to settle the claim and we will be getting more then we expected from them.   We also have received a generous gift to help with a new to us van.  I don't know about how you react when faced with a situation like this, but Jeremy and I have gotten excited praying to God to provide and then watching how He chooses to meet this need.  We have once again found ourselves thanking Him for His provision in unexpected ways.  We know He has our backs. Please pray with us as we begin searching for a van within our price range, which isn't all that high :)

~Jeremy began teaching a class one night a week at Temple.(This is in addition to his regular full time job)  This is a new experience to him.  He has taught before but never a full semester class complete with homework to grade, tests to give, and lectures to prepare.  He is putting in mega hours in the evening and weekends to be prepared each week. 

~If life wasn't full enough, Jeremy, Tyler and Amanda will all be participating in our church's Jr. High winter retreat.  This September Jeremy began volunteering in our church's jr. high ministry as a small group leader.  It will be me and the 4 younger boys flying solo while they are away. 
 
In the midst of all the busyness, life is good, crazy but good.  We find strength in watching God work everything out.  We are tired at times, ok a lot of the time, but we wouldn't trade this life we have for anything.  The exciting part, we know God isn't done with our family yet.  Jeremy has his mission's trip to Africa coming up in June and we both anticipate this being an eye opening adventure for him, one that we are praying God uses to give us some direction for what is next. 

May we never settle for a life of comfort, but always strive to be in the center of God's will.