C'mon everybody...Here we GOOOOOOO...

Alright...it's just about time to go...

I'll talk to you all later today from the "hot spot" in the hospital...wherever that may be.

See ya around...

Scottish Rite Information...

Look what I found when I came down from grabbing a load of laundry.



Apparently the oatmeal NEEDED stirring within the 120 seconds that I was gone. I swear, I need to tie that girl to the chair.

Now, to be sure, she was scolded, and she is not allowed to unbuckle her seat belt without me in the room. But...I thought it'd make you all happy to see that she is FEELING better. Remember the whole 72 hours??? HAZAAR!!

Now onward toward mobility, eh?

I've found out that we are to be admitted at 9 am Thursday.
I've found out that she can receive packages and such, just no latex balloons, mylar is fine...please send cards, notes or whatever. She could use your words.

I've found out that the address information is...

Texas Scottish Rite for Children
2222 Welborn Street
Dallas, TX 75219

make a notation...for Sarah Elizabeth Hamlin

I've found out that I will have at least limited internet connectivity...
I've found out that I will have a sleeping place in her room...

I still have NOT found out how long we will be there...we are hoping for a weekend release, but I'll keep you posted.

Back from Scottish Rite...

Well here I am...back from Scottish Rite.

I've got some good news and some bad news. Guess I'll go with the good news first. Monkey Face has BEAUTIFUL round hip bones. The little stink didn't limp even ONCE today. Whatever, I'll take it...Thank you, LORD...for a little bug with perfect femoral heads. (There's a thank you I'll bet you never thought you'd hear, huh?)

On to other news.

It has been confirmed. Beanie has Legg Perthes in BOTH legs now. The incident on Saturday was "symptomatic" and evidentally something that is pretty common in LCP patients (sorry LCP=Legg Calve Perthes, the other name).

Weird enough, we were diagnosed exactly 2 years ago Saturday with the first hip. Seems March 7 is a red-letter day in this journey for us.

Anyhoo...once again our lives will change. At this moment we are preparing to admit Beanie into Scottish Rite later this week for a few days of R&R. Well, they call it physical therapy and bedrest...but tomato, tomahto. I'll be joining her, so we are lining up our childcare, preparing lessons to take on the road, preparing meals for the ones who are staying home so that they don't get stuck with PB&J EVERY night. There is much to be done...

I still really don't know much at this point. I don't know how compromised the right hip is right now and as always we don't know how bad it is going to get. I don't know if the nerve pain that she experienced has caused any lasting damage...there are some weird personal things going on. I don't know EXACTLY how long we'll be at the hospital. I don't know when she'll walk again. Scottish Rite wants her OFF her feet other than going to the bathroom (which is allowed with a walker) for the moment. We'll see how she responds to her R&R. I don't know if I'll have a bed there...or if I'll have internet access...

But we do know that it is definately Legg Perthes...and we do know that she got a new wheelchair on loan. It's hardly a consolation...but at least it's a really cool pink...

Below...our wheelchair and the new one that actually fits and is all zoomy from SR...



See ya around...

Didja ever wanna sing the blues???

Okay, ya'll...the bird died last night...trying once again to lay an egg. Apparently domestic parakeets have "ISSUES" with egg laying...not enough light...too much light...not enough various minerals, etc. We thought we were going to lose her once before...so it's not terribly surprising...but it couldn't happen at a worse time for Beanie. It's getting to the point that I either need to laugh or I'm going to cry...and crying is not an option today...

On that note, I've decided to sing the blues...

Feel free to sing along...

Got one kid a'limping...one in a wheel chair too...
So much fuss and trouble...now the bird just died too...
I got the blues
(insert guitar riff)
I got the Legg Perthes, nerve pain, bird died egg layin BA LOOO HOOOS

I got the blues...

Goodbye Chicken-the-bird...we loved you very much...



See ya around...

Musical Monday

This one right here...this is how I feel today...

And no, I don't know how to imbed it...just click it.



See ya around...

Of Agony and Rejoicing...

Yesterday, something happened.

Actually to be fair, something started happening Friday night, 11:00 pm.

Friday morning, Beanie woke up RARING to go. It was BEAUTIFUL outside...SHE got to wear shorts...SHE wanted OUT of the house. So off we went. She wanted to go for a walk, a big walk at a local nature museum.



I said, "OKAY...let's do it". We went...we renewed our year membership (as we do every spring).



But along the way, I noticed she was stopping a lot. She was slowing down and showing the other girls things that were interesting so they would slow down...





She went from walking with them, to seriously lagging behind...



But she made it...still pretty much smiling...but quiet.

When we got home, everyone layed down for a bit...then Bubba came home early from the training he'd had all week. The girls wanted to play with him. For some reason, Bean didn't want to play soccer, which was odd, as soccer is THE game right now. She wanted to throw the ball...so he threw the ball with her.

At some point during all this, I suggested that MAYBE she was a little sore...MAYBE a bath would be in order. At first she poo poo'd this notion...but by about 6pm, she said she thought that was probably a good idea. Hmmmm...

The rest of the evening was uneventful...we ate, talked, watched some TV, had story time and went to bed.

11:00 pm...Bean woke up in HORRIBLE pain. She couldn't move her right leg and any movement of either leg caused pain to "squirt" down her right thigh.

I could give you a blow by blow...but I won't. Suffice to say that NOTHING we tried helped for very long. By 8:30 am she'd had 4 epsom salt baths, 2 doses of motrin, Quercitin, various massages, a heating pad, rice pillow, 3,457,239 ish position changes and virtually ZERO sleep.

Around 9:00 am I started calling all the health care professionals I knew...Scottish Rite...my pediatrician...my family doctor...my chiropractor. None were available. All said, "in case of emergency call 911". While that was definately a consideration...the Lord had another plan. See, I have a neighbor who is a chiropractor. His family are our good friends and fellow homeschoolers that I've spoken of before on this blog. I called on the outside chance that Dr. Bo was still home.

He was, and when he heard how bad Beanie was he raced over. For the rest of the day he was here about every 2 hours. He helped us move her safely. He helped adjust her gently. He counselled us on helpful pain management for nerve pain...and he is the one that figured out that it WAS nerve pain.

See, we'd been operating under the assumption that it was muscle pain...for muscle pain WARM is good...for nerve pain COLD is good. Now warm FELT good at the time, but it was bringing more and more inflamation to that nerve and, let's just say it's a very good thing he got there and corrected us when he did.

It's hard to explain how much pain she was in. My words fall phenomenally short. I guess I'll just say this, I now know EXACTLY what the words "screaming in agony" mean...and I'll tell you what...you don't WANT to know.

It's hard to explain how helpless we felt, watching her shake and scream in pain...not being able to touch her for fear of making it worse. Praying that she would sleep, only to watch her fall asleep and as soon as her body relaxed have her jerk awake with a scream because the weight of her body relaxing triggered that nerve once again.

It's hard to explain how in love with Bubba I fell once again when I watched him help his baby girl...as I watched him gently lift her and hold her dangling...the only position that didn't make her scream. As I watched him sit beside her helplessly while she clutched him, crying.

But it is NOT hard to tell you how OVER THE MOON I was this morning when she woke up and that nerve was no longer sore to the touch. When she was able to use the bathroom in private and was able to take the two steps into my arms from the toilet.

God did a miracle over here and you all need to know it. Go ahead and tell me she made it through the inflamation cycle...I don't care how it happened. I just know that she smiled today...she didn't cry even ONCE. I knew this morning when I woke up that I needed to be with her...and that if she was better SHE needed to come to church, however I could get her there.

When she finally woke up at 7am...I RAN to her. She didn't move...she said, "mom, I don't think anything hurts." I said, "Really?"...and then she started poking all the parts that we couldn't touch yesterday. Then I started moving her feet and her legs. Then I "walked" her to the bathroom...and she was right...she still couldn't walk unassisted but the majority of the touchable nerve pain was gone.

Technically, Dr. Bo said that something was wrong with her sacrum . He also said that the pain was firing along her lateral femoral cutaneous nerve. Why? I don't know. Sometime this week we should know...but for today all I know is that I spent from 11 pm until about 3 pm the next day afraid to touch my baby because I didn't want to hurt her anymore...so what's that?? 16 hours?...and from 3 until 9 watching her get better and better...so 6 ish hours...so 22 hours total terrified she'd taken her last step...and today she was given back to us...not perfect but wonderful nonetheless.

We have an appointment with Scottish Rite this week for BOTH Bean and Monkey Face. Beanie will be attending in a wheel chair for the first time. And she will be in a wheel chair NOT because of her Legg Perthes hip directly. They are going to have to tell me why.

Until then, I'm praising the Lord. I'm praising Him that Dr. Bo was there...that he loves her and that he was so kind. I'm praising Him that she feels so much better (the inflammation cycle can last up to 72 hours, so I'm expecting her to feel better still). I'm praising Him that we OWN a wheel chair. (that's a story for another time, but we do NOT own a wheel chair because our daughter has Legg-Perthes...the wheel chair pre-dates Legg-Perthes by AT LEAST a year.) I'm praising Him that we already HAVE an appointment on the books with Scottish Rite...I don't have to call and wait, we're in and right soon. I'm praising Him that she DID go to church this morning and she DID get to feel human for a couple of hours. I'm praising Him for how many people told me they loved me today...told me they WERE praying, had prayed, would be praying...people that didn't know the whole story, but felt like today was the day to say it.

Thank you, Jesus...Thank you.

See ya around...

Birthday fun!!!

Well, hmmm...Bear's birthday came and went in mid-February. I even took pictures...but the problem you see...well the problem was that we were sick...and by we, I mean each of us in turn. I kept meaning to plan the party...but everytime I said to myself, "Okay, Stack, today is the day. Invite the folk. Call the place. Let's get 'er done"...someone would have a fever. Bear did it to me TWICE, four days apart.

Now lest you feel sorry for me for all my woe...let me just say, NOBODY was THAT sick. Seriously, we had a day of fever and fatigue and then nothing...and really the fatigue wasn't even that big a deal, Beanie didn't even slow down on school...but she DID take a nap (shhhh...don't tell anyone, it is apparently the utmost disgrace for a 9 year old to 'rest her eyes').

All that to say, I have a least a dozen really good excuses why Bear's birthday spanned 8 days. See, we have a rule...on anyone's birthday, we don't do school...so we got her birthday off. Then, of course, because it was the weekend and we wanted to give her the choice, she chose Sunday dinner out...we went to Friday's and they sang and it made her little eyes sparkle. But wait, there is more.

I, finally, the day OF her birthday said, "Okay, nobody is sick, whadaya wanna do...quick??" Well there was some thought of a tea party (the tea party place closed, bummer), a sprinkler party (ummm...hello, February, time of completely erratic temps in Texas) and Chuck E. Cheese. I've gotta tell you when she said, "I want a Chuck E. Cheese party", I actually felt my legs go cold. But then I thought, hmmm...maybe during the week it'll be okay.

So I emailed a couple of our closest homeschool friends, got on to the Chuck E. Cheese website and scheduled the party for 11 am on a Thursday. It was actually dreamy. I had one of our favorite almost teenagers come to help wrangle kids...we had 15 kids that ranged in age from 3 months old all the way to the 12 year old...most in the 2-9 range and 5 adults. The kids ran and played and got tickets and ate the sad little cake I brought and met Chuck E. Cheese.

And I didn't have to do the dishes, except the cake pan...which I felt was the best part.

The following picture is of the FIRST cake I made. We decided that artificial colors were banned for Bear's birthday, so I tried a homemade cake from Nigella Lawson...I must say, it was pretty, but we were underimpressed with the density. It wasn't THAT bad, I mean, we ate it...




And here she is with Mr. Cheese himself. It was all very exciting. He did NOT eat any cake (standard white box cake...much lighter and more moist...



Here is some of the fun...

Air Hockey, AGAIN...this time with Beanie and her friend JB (see her momma's blog). Looks like JB snuck a good shot in on our own reigning Air Hockey Champ...



And here is Beanie, irritated with the length of the freebie Chuck E. Cheese ride...



I have many other pictures, but no permission from other parents...suffice to say, we had a blast.

So after 8 days, 6 balloons, 2 cakes, a lunch and a party...Happy Birthday, Bear of mine!

See ya around...