No One Seems to Have Open Positions

After the budget cuts EVERY school district seemed to go through it is "good luck" to finding any district that is hiring. There are a few that are, but the closing date is in October or December, no where near September... sigh... Suppose I should look into something else...

He Didn't Need the Laxative...

His two BM's yesterday confirmed that he REALLY doesn't need a laxative. We bought some disposable diapers to keep him in until he shows us his intestines are normal again. So that gets me to wondering what else could they be seeing on that x-ray that looked like constipation? Was Dallas just holding it (he doesn't seem to like to have messy diapers when we are out and about)? Is there some other explanation?

I didn't stay home yesterday, but that may have been a mistake I had a headache all day and felt very drained. So I took a sick day today. The headache is doing better and I have been able to relax, and got to go to playgroup with Dallas which is something I never got to do before.

Dallas still doesn't enjoy taking the antibiotics but they are doing him a WORLD of good. He is sleeping through the entire night and his mood has improved dramatically. The pharmacy didn't have enough amoxicillin so we got to go back Friday and pick up the next dose!

I Am Tired

Dallas has had this on-again, off-again relationship with a fever most of this weekend (starting on Thursday actually) so we decided to take him to the doctor today. I called in sick and we scheduled an appointment with his regular doctor (well the doctor he has seen once since we moved up here, but he is to be Dallas' primary care physician) for 10am. We left the house right around 9:30 only to find of DSHS switched insurance on us and Valley Medical won't take it. So we drive to Covington Multicare Urgent Care and discover some more "fun" things about the new insurance we were assigned to. After some phone calls and me getting close to shedding tears of frustration, finally Dallas gets into see a doctor around 11:30.

Dallas screamed when they tried to take his temperature, he screamed when they tried to look in his ears, he screamed when they tried to listen to his heart (I trust you are beginning to see the pattern). They wanted to take x-rays so I held him down during those. Of course there is a long wait in our room after the x-ray because it has to be developed, I think we all fell asleep (did I mention Dallas didn't give us much more that 3 hours of interrupted sleep last night?). They came back wanting to do a stomach x-ray to verify something they thought they saw in the chest x-ray, they also want to take a urine sample, and probably do some blood tests... It is getting close to 1pm so I tell Cam to take Chelane home and I'll call him to come pick me up (I am thinking around 5pm at the rate this is all going, the x-ray place is WAY on the other side of the clinic).

Of course Dallas won't pee in a cup, so they tape a "wee bag" to him (poor kid) and I need to get him to drink to try and encourage the urinating part... but Cam took the diaper bag with him, doh! After waiting a half hour or something to try to get Dallas to do his thing in the "wee bag" the doctor comes back to talk about all the things we have learned about Dallas today:

1) the fever isn't due to an ear infection... at least I don't think so, I can't be sure because he has some waxy build-up in his ear... but the parts I can see don't look inflamed at all

2) the fever isn't due to strep of another throat inflammation-thingy because his throat looks fine (she got a pretty good view of it with the aid of a tongue depressor while he was screaming his head off when we first got there)

3) he doesn't have any pneumonia that I can see, although his body was slightly twisted in the x-ray so his heart is covering a portion of one of his lungs so it could be in that area

4)he doesn't seem to have appendicitis or another abdominal problem because he laughs when his belly is pushed on

5) he has lots of gas in his intestines and quite a bit of blockage; in short he is constipated (which I wouldn't have guessed, the kid has a BM everyday, more than one sometimes, and he never seems to strain and the BM's aren't overly firm or anything...)

The doctor decides to fore go doing bloodwork but still wants us to get a urine sample (to check for a UTI or any weird bacteria in his system), but we can just bring it back in when he does decide to go. We need to keep the fevers down if they happen and she gave us a prescription for amoxicilin and a laxative, but don't start the medicine until after the urine sample is taken. By now is it close to 2:30, so I call Cam to come get me, we need to get Jadon off the bus at 3:45...
I wasn't able to get to the store until around 7pm to get the prescriptions filled and when I get home Dallas is asleep, when he wakes up he is running a fever so he has turned into Mr. Noncooperative. With Cam's help we manage to Oreo-bribe some fever-reducing medicine and the antibiotics into him but he won't take the laxative mixed up in root beer. We did finally get that into him about a hour later (by making him cuddle with us and telling him we wouldn't put him down until he drank all the pop...).

Luckily Chelane has been her usual way laid-back, I-will-just-sit-here-and-look-cute,-get-to-me-whenever-you-have-the-time self. She had the same sort of cold Dallas did, but hopefully she won't develop a fever at all, she isn't getting amazing food with built in antibodies (provided by me) that Dallas isn't, that may be part of the difference.

Chelane has been in bed for an hour or so now and I just looked over at Dallas and he is finally asleep on the couch... I wonder how long that will last. It is very possible I may take a sick day tomorrow to recover from my sick day today.

Teeth

I am being very creative with my blog post titles lately. I am also trying this new thing with colors a bit, instead of using paraenthesis everywhere, to seperate my thoughts. Let me know if it works for you or is more confusing.

Well we were wondering what was up with Chelane's mouth. Not really. Dallas teethed at three months, getting his bottom two teeth. I know that is pretty rediculously early. He had eight teeth before he was one. He never seemed to complain about teething; apparently growing teeth and jamming them through his gums came very naturally to him.

So when Chelane was going on six, then seven, now eight months without a bite nor pinch of a tooth I was starting to wonder if she even developed teeth again not really... much. She has decided to make up for it this weekend. Chelane finally seems to have teeth breaking through and it is confirmed today that is it not only one tooth but BOTH bottom teeth. I thought there may have been a top tooth coming through as well, which would have really impressed me, but it is just the two bottom teeth. We are hoping we are reaching the end of the runny nose since the teeth are breaking through.

Speech

After all the worries about Dallas not talking he is finally seeing a speech therapist once a week. It seems to be helping, the kid is babbling now (which is not something we ever heard him do), and we can get him to copy most sounds we make (he wouldn't use to do that either). However he is still having problems blending sounds (I can get him to say "pah-ee-sah" but not "'pees" (trying to be "please")) and there are some sounds that still seem to be beyond him ('n' and 'l' are difficult); so we take any milestone when we can get it. And here is another one! Dallas is now saying two word sentances!

Ok it is really only two, two-word sentances... but he says them over and over...

They are "No Mom" which was closly followed by (can you guess) "No Dad."

Aren't we lucky?

Waiver Day

Also known as "teacher workshop days" when I was growing up. The kids all get the day off while the teachers (and para educators) have to come into work. Last waiver day I spent getting Red Cross CPR and First Aid certified, this time there weren't any optional classes to go to. I spent the weekend thinking what we could do to keep us busy ALL day long. This morning I was dreading that today would be a long day.

I am still getting over a cold and am in the "smoker's cough" phase today. I was thinking if it was slow and very tedious day I would just leave early using my sickness as an excuse and spend the day recuperating. But today was the FASTEST day I have had at work yet and that is saying alot. I did alot of copies, corrects lots of work, found a few AWESOME websites for time and money worksheets.

I got to work a little late and was able to leave a little early but the hours all worked out because I took a working lunch (I usually pump at lunch but since Dallas destroyed one of the membranes on the pump this weekend, single pumping would just take too long). All-in-all it was a good day.

Kid #1

Dallas

Favorite Food: Cereal. Special K with red berries, multigrain or fruity cheerios, honey bunches of oats. He use to be all about Chex but has moved on to bigger and better things (plus Grandma and Grandpa get better cereals than that).

Favorite Drink: He is all about the "brown juice" (root beer). Daddy let him have some a few months ago and he recognizes the stuff whenever it is around and isn't very happy if you don't let him have it. He also loves milk and juice. The kid asks for water pretty often too (whenever he isn't at the table).

Favorite Book: Right now Mommy thinks it is a tie between Go, Dog Go! and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Dallas loved The Monster At The End Of The Book before he was a year old. Mommy would recite it to him in the car when he got fussy. He enjoys that once and a while, but asks for "brown" or "go" at night now.

Favorite Activity: Anything that gets Dallas into trouble, like ransacking Uncle Jadon's room... Actually Dallas is really into play-doh, coloring (with markers or pens - Mommy and Daddy have had to ban crayons), potato heads, train sets, books, puzzles, and toy cars. Unfortunatly the cake is taken by movies. If given the choice Dallas will pick movies over anything except playing outsid; Dallas loves to slide and swing.

Favorite Color: Orange. Dallas picks it more often than others at least.

Dallas loves being a big brother and is very gentle with Chelane. Dallas shares with her and helps make her happy (he is great at giving her a pacifier and blankets). He has started "babbling" which is the first time he has really done that. He likes to mimic his talkative sister so hopefully the talking is on its way! He really does love to learn and you can get him to take a bite of almost anything by singing "Old McDonald Had A Farm."

Enlightenment

Or "the post in which Kassie talks about herself." Don't worry, I won't do this often.

Meniere's Disease is a disorder of the inner ear. It is characterized by four symptoms. It has no clear cause and it seems to worsen or disappear at its leisure. I have always thought it would be better off called a 'syndrome' since it has no known cause and is defined by symptoms; but maybe the real reason I want it called a 'syndrome' is I don't like thinking myself as having some 'disease.' If you haven't guessed or didn't know, I have Meniere's Disease.

Like I said it is characterized by four symptoms:
1. fullness or pressure in the ears
2. periods of vertigo
3. some hearing loss in one or both ears
4. tinnitus (ringing or other noise) in one or both ears

The real kicker is you don't have to have all of these symptoms to have Meniere's Disease. I seem to have all but the fullness or pressure (although I do have that on occasion, usually before/during the vertigo episodes).

This disease occurs slightly more frequently in men and is most common in the 40-60 age group. My start of Meniere's Disease was vertigo episodes when I was sixteen. I had them pretty often and would go weeks with my head being sensitive to movement, noise, and light (but it wasn't a migraine). Other times I was vomiting. There wasn't much the doctor could do, only suggest that I come in when I was actually having an attack, but the last thing I wanna do when the room is spinning so hard I am vomiting is to get in a car. The hard attacks aside, I could function pretty normally with the vertigo. I still went to work and school and drove myself around if necessary (being extra careful and super alert to my surroundings). It has tapered itself down. I am at one or two bad episodes a year now. I can't go on carnival or amusement park rides anymore (although roller coasters seem to be ok for the most part which is good, those are my favorite). I also get car sick easily. But lots of people have those problems.

I first noticed the hearing loss my first semester of college. I came home and told mom I was having hearing trouble; she took me to the doctor who administered a typical hearing test (raise your hand when you hear the 'beep') and I passed with flying colors. The next semester I took a math course from an old retiree who resembled yoda and talked softly with a low voice. He really was a great teacher and a very cute old man, but I went from sitting in the back of the classroom to the front-right in order to hear. I can home that summer and mom sent me to specialists. They determined I had a moderate hearing loss in my left ear, took MRIs to rule out tumors and other scary things, gave me balancing tests (really hard ones like standing on one foot with your eye closed... ok so not that hard, but apparently I only did about as good as a five year-old), and did other tests to determine I had problems.

I have the tinnitus and hearing loss in my left ear. The tinnitus for me is more of a 'rushing' rather than a ringing (like a TV is on but not plugged into the cable) and the hearing loss is on the moderate/severe side. Because of the white noise I constantly have in my ear, low tones (men's voices) and places with lots of background noise make hearing harder for me. I have figured out how to compensate. Tricks like turning my head or watching someones lips and trying to fit things they may be saying into the current context of the conversation. I also ask people to repeat themselves A LOT (just ask Cam).

The inner ear is pretty much a black box to scientists and doctors. They don't know how to fix inner ear problems. So now I know what I have but there isn't a way to fix it unless it goes away or stabilizes on its own - which I think it has (stabilized I mean).

I don't tell these stories to get sympathy. I know how to deal with the vertigo when it happens (which isn't too often), I hardly notice the noise in my ear unless I focus on it, and I honestly don't remember what it was like before I couldn't hear very well. I tell you this to ask you to cut my some slack once and a while. I don't hear everything. Sometimes I can be looking right at you and not realize you are talking to me because I can't hear what is going on (especially if there is lots of noise). Once in a while I won't look at you when you are talking to me so I can point my good ear at you. Other times I will be staring at your mouth (I don't think I am too obvious with that though). I may ask you to repeat yourself... a lot... Please just humor me, I am trying.