I'm completely wiped out and Olivia is in her bed screaming at me so I shouldn't write long. It has been a crazy summer! Ups and downs for sure...

Emma is going in Friday to remove the packing in her ear. It will be a short 15 minute surgery but it will be in the operating room. Her biopsy came back and there is no cancer. They were very baffled by the tissue but they seem to think they know what it is and it was good they removed and might have less a chance of coming back. Her next surgery for the other ear is scheduled for August 19th.

We took Emma to the emergency room Sunday night. She was just struggling to breath - she had a cold - and needed a little help from her friend - oxygen. We were in the ER til 1:00 a.m. then admitted. We were discharged the next day. I came home to Loren bawling because she said her ear hurts. So off I took the kids to the doctor and she had really bad ear infections in both ears. So as of today I think we are on the upswing.

Loren's face is healing. I know the scars should look better over time.

Alyssa is going to have an MRI. The doctor thinks it might be time for her open heart surgery to replace her pulmonary valve. The x-ray showed her heart is enlarged more and they can't let it go too long being too big. It will stretch out her muscle wall so much that it won't bounce back and they need it too. So the MRI will tell us exactly how big it is and then we will decide. The one day I dread more than any other is telling Alyssa she needs open heart surgery. Not sure how I'm going to go about that one.

So that is where we are and I need to get off of here and take care of my littles.

Thanks for hanging in there with me through the lack of writing and posting pictures. Once school starts I might have some more down time to update. We'll see...: )

Emma had surgery in July on her right ear. The four hour surgery ended with the doctor coming out and saying that they removed tissue but they don't know what it is. They sent it to the lab and have gotten back the pathology reports. The nurse called today and said they can't tell us the news, the doctor has to and he is on vacation for another week and a half. So she was going to see if the other doctor in the practice could let us know on Monday. He is Alyssa's doctor and knows us well so hopefully we can get a report on Emma's surgery and hearing exam and get a report on Olivia's CTscan. Emma seems to be healing well. It's over a week and she is still draining blood from her ear. Today she was holding her ear and kind of pouting. After that it started draining again.

Loren got bit by a dog last weekend in the face and had stitches in two different places and they glued the 3rd spot. She is doing fairly well but needing extra attention. I think we'll be dealing with some scars but only time will tell.

Alyssa had her chest x-ray, echocardiogram and dr. visit with the cardiologist today. Her heart is enlarged more. They want to do a MRI as that is the most accurate way to measure how big her heart has gotten. The concern is as her heart takes on more blood and that chamber walls increases to hold the blood, they don't want that wall expanded too much for too long. Like a rubberband they want that wall to bounce back. But if it is expanded too much for too long, it might not have that elasticity. So a MRI will let us know if we need to start the pulmonary valve replacement process. We will be getting a call from the scheduler on the that date.

I think I covered all four kids this time. : )

Emma is walking everywhere and climbing everything. She walks a little more on her toes so she will be starting physical therapy. She is starting music therapy and is already in speech therapy.

Emma got an owie on her leg the other day...so she sat down and lifted her leg and she kissed it herself, got up and walked away.
Olivia and Loren were playing with a ball and Loren took it away from Olivia. Emma stood observing from a few steps behind. After she stood there, watched and thought...she walked over to Loren and hit her on the head, turned and walked away. It was hilarious!!!

Olivia likes to throw tantrums and can be a handful and yet is the funniest, snuggly person.

Alyssa is getting so tall and is so grown up. I can't believe she is starting 1st grade.

Loren is cute and she knows it. She talks like she has an accent, especially with the word "not". All her c's or k's are spoken as t's. So she says, "Tan you tiss me?" Then I kiss her and then she says, "Don't tiss my nose" and giggles and smiles. Such a cutie!

Wow! Has it been this long??? Since I have written last, Mike and I and my parents, my siblings and their spouses all went on a cruise to Bermuda. It was beautiful!!! The beach was fabulous!!!! Swimming in the ocean was wonderful and I'm not usually a fan of the ocean. Loved it!!!! Had some really good meal times with the fam and had some good laughs...made some memories...especially taking pictures in our red outfits. I would tell you but you would probably have to be there to think it was funny. : ) We took no children and that was very nice. I would have been too concerned of them jumping overboard and instead of 20 people telling me I had my hands full, I would have had 3,500 people telling me that. Mike's parents and my cousin, Jennifer and her daughters, Lauren and Renee, watched them the kids. I think they had a pretty good time too.

We started speech therapy last week with Emma. We still don't know if she has any hearing loss. We have a sedated hearing exam scheduled for the end of this month so that will tell us if she needs any amplification with her therapy. Olivia goes to the ENT tomorrow to get a CTscan scheduled to see if she has any cholesteatomas in her ears/head. Emma's 1st surgery is scheduled for July 8th. It will take 4 hours. She should be starting physical therapy soon but I'm still waiting to get that set up.

Alyssa has her heart appointment scheduled mid-July - x-ray and echocardiogram. I am always anxious to hear how her heart is doing. I think her energy runs out faster and she needs to catch her breath more often but she still has enough energy that other people don't see what I see. Her heart is enlarged which is crowding her lungs which would make it a little harder to breathe. Last year she would run around the block with me (1/2 mile) and run most of it. Now she runs about 20 feet, bends over, catches her breathe and then will either run or walk a little more and repeat it. Last year she would walk but never bend over. So we'll see...I always get anxious because I know I will dread the day that he says it is time to do open heart surgery to replace her pulmonary valve.

Emma has really come out of her shell and taken off now that she can hear (since her surgery in late February). She is babbling a lot! She is up to about 4 words. She is delayed about 54%. Most of that is because of the thick fluid that has kept her from hearing for almost 2 years of her life. I think she will continue to take off and improve just with time. What better therapy than having 3 sisters who don't ever stop talking. : )

Well, I'm going to post some pictures. Enjoy!

The picture of Olivia with the diaper is funny because I wasn't planning on her getting in the pool so she had on a regular diaper and it of course filled with so much water and she kept grabbing at it because it was so uncomfortable. It was very funny to watch her!

Quick update...

Emma will be having two surgeries. Her first ear surgery will be July 8th. We are not sure when the second will be. They are 4 hour surgeries per ear.

Emma weighed in today at 17 lb. 12.5 oz. Olivia was 25 lb. They are both doing fine. We will continue to have Emma seen every 3 months. We won't have Olivia seen for another year.

Things are going well and the kids are growing and loving playing together. Enjoy the pictures!!!

Hello!! Yes, I'm still here...just too busy to really show it. : )
Actually I'm too busy cleaning up poop and pee to really blog. That is not a joke! I wish it were. The twins lately especially think that getting in bed means stripping naked and then of course peeing everywhere or taking off their diaper and flinging, smearing poop everywhere!!! Aughhh!! And then Loren is wanting more attention. Even though she has been potty trained for a long time....she now needs me to drop everything and take her potty as she is doing the potty dance. So if she waits too long or I take too long stopping what I'm doing, pee everywhere ...even one foot from the toilet. Oh...this too shall pass....

Medically we are doing pretty good. I did take Emma in to a prompt care in IN for an ear infection. Then the next night took her into the ER in Peoria because she cut her lip pretty good on the inside. One doctor was going to do something with it and the next doctor said let's not. But they did listen to her lungs and heard some wheezing and stuff in her right lung so we did x-rays. Nothing bad so they just sent her home on breathing treatments. She seems to be doing well.

This morning is her ear appointment. We had a CTscan on April 23rd. They did call and the results showed something but they couldn't discuss it over the phone....not really what you want to hear....but we have to come in and discuss our options. So whatever that means, we'll find out this morning. If I had to guess, probably surgery but we won't know until we hear what he has to say.

I'll blog afterwards and let you know. Need to get going but I'll be back.

I know it has been FOREVER...

Here I am finally posting.... : )

Thanks for hanging in there. We spoke at church two weekends ago for the first time about our journey. It was a hard week preparing for it. It brought up a lot of emotions and hard times. But it was so good to go back and think about everything we learned through it. If you want to hear it, here is the link. http://greatoakscc.org/
click on message player and the message is titled Hope:Destinations. It is about 43 minutes long. It was very hard to put into words what we learned and to take 8 years and minimize it into about 20 minutes. I hope that it touches even one person. We want good to come out of the pain that we went through.

I can't believe Loren just turned 3 and the twins will be 2 in May!!! I'm still amazed! Emma is doing really well. She has started to say a few words since they did surgery on her ears. She is walking well and seems to think she is way bigger than she is. Olivia likes to sit on Emma's back and Emma just laughs and laughs. Today I told the girls they needed to come...so Emma turns around and goes behind Olivia and starts pushing her to come. She really is a stitch. : )

The only update right now is that Emma had a CTscan on Friday. Mike took her. It was really nice that I did not have to do another round on my own. They had to sedate her so Mike was great with her. He came home and made mention of how draining the hospital is. Even for an appointment, it is draining. We haven't heard the results yet. Either there is infections in her bone mast and ear drums and we will need to do surgery or she is clear from any internal infections and we are good to go. We'll see. I'll probably call tomorrow to see if they have heard yet.

We are starting therapy in June for Emma. Occupational, speech and physical therapy. We will go to Easter Seals every week for this. Me and all my kids. Should be fun. : )

Enjoy the pictures I've posted. They are of Easter.

I haven't updated very much lately and I do need to get my camera going again. Doctors appointments seem to be slowing down but I seem to be getting busier. I think a lot of it is this stage we are at with Emma and Olivia. They want to be held ALL the time and I'm not allowed to sit down....I must be standing up holding both. Boy, do my arms hurt? : ) I hope this stage will pass soon but we'll see. Emma is growing strong. She is up to 16 lb. 10 oz. so I am thrilled. We have her on plain whole milk right now. Olivia weighs 25 lb. 6 oz. Emma is walking around like crazy which I love to see. I hope she starts talking a lot more here soon. We will probably go ahead and start speech therapy soon.

I can't write long but I will hopefully get some more blogs and pictures up soon.