- Cora started walking independently!!! This is a whole blog post in itself but it needs to be noted. Walking still isn't her main form of transportation but it's a HUGE accomplishment!!
- Both of the kids have had diarrhea for 1.5 weeks. No throwing up, they don't act sick, they still eat well, they just have the runs and I'm really tired of cleaning up poop.
- Lance sold the Smart car
- There are still 2.25 hours in the day and so far the business has hit a new record for the most calls in one day - twelve!
- One of the big funeral homes has asked Lance to consider becoming their answering service. I told him no and he told them no but the longer he thinks about it, the more he's actually considering it. He's waiting for them to give him actual numbers so he can put to paper the outline of how it'd work. He's not offering this to any other funeral home and has no interest in doing it for anyone else. I guess we'll see how it pans out in a few weeks.
- I found a sign language show on Netflix that's actually for kids and I watch it for my homework. I need to learn a lot more signs so I can be teaching Cora and together the both of us need to figure out our own form of communication. She's a smart little whip, she just can't talk.
- I've finally bit the bullet and finished a few projects for the mud room. I'm tired of our little bar area collecting mail and junk so I've been working on a bulletin board, chalk board, and some baskets to hold "crap" in for the mud room. I'm tired of the bar area being so cluttered, hopefully this will help. I can't wait to get it all hung up!
- I can't remember if I posted this a while back or not but I got a new calling and it's one I've had before that I absolutely love. I teach the 15-18 year olds in sunday school. I love it!
- Cora's school has suggested she join a group therapy which I absolutely agreed to. Right now she has four, 45 minute, one-on-one therapy sessions with PT, ST, OT, and CI that are each once a week. They'll put her in a group of about 10 other kids that meets twice a week for two hours each. They do different activities from singing time, story time, playing, art, etc. just like nursery does in church. Within the class a therapist will pull her from group for a 15 minute session. Cora is a social butterfly and I think she'll greatly benefit from group and once she gets the walking down pat, her speech will pick up (hopefully). In order for me to keep her dream team of Ginette and Jan (who've been her therapists since birth) I've got to put her in the 8am class. That's so early! Unfortunately, parents and siblings are not allowed to stay for group but can observe from outside the classroom if we'd like. I did had Kimball signed up for preschool this year but I don't think I'll do that anymore. With Cora's group twice a week, plus Kimball's preschool three times a week, plus all the doctor appointments mixed in there?! That's way too much running around and too much going on in general. So Kimball and I will have our own time together while Cora's in group.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Lots of Little Changes
Thursday, August 6, 2015
New Family Addition
Much to my surprise, when the kids and I drove home from vacation Daddy had this little surprise waiting for the kids. It's a guinea pig and Kimball named him Pokey. Kimball loves him and I've never heard Cora "talk"so much or so loudly than when she's around Pokey.
Be In Your Chair
Last week we had a relief society lesson about Families Can Be Together Forever. Now, that's a very broad topic and definitely a very common one. This was the best lesson I've ever heard on the topic, because being honest, that topic is pretty sore and sensitive to a lot of people, especially women and especially within the church when there is so much emphasis placed on the family.
There was an old, antique child's chair made of metal on the table for display. The teacher started out by sharing this quote from President Ezra Taft Benson, "From the beginning of their marriage, Ezra and Flora Benson made their home and family their top priority. When their children were young, they began emphasizing that they wanted their family to have no “empty chairs” in the eternities."
The teacher stated how we all have a chair reserved for us in our eternal families. She asked us to think of the particular chairs in our families, all of the chairs, are there any empty chairs? She then went on to discuss divorce, death, falling away from the church, broken family relationships for various reasons, etc. and other examples of what can break families apart. She spoke of her own family and shared why and what each of her sibling's families look like and how she's the "black sheep" because she's the only that's been married for 30 some years. She has a lot of empty chairs in her family.
She explained what the best thing is that we can do for our families, to ensure that we have an eternal family - BE IN YOUR CHAIR! Whatever the reasons the other chairs are empty - bitterness, guilt, grudges, offense, divorce, death, falling away from the church - the best thing we can do to help fill those chairs is to be in our own chairs.
There was an old, antique child's chair made of metal on the table for display. The teacher started out by sharing this quote from President Ezra Taft Benson, "From the beginning of their marriage, Ezra and Flora Benson made their home and family their top priority. When their children were young, they began emphasizing that they wanted their family to have no “empty chairs” in the eternities."
The teacher stated how we all have a chair reserved for us in our eternal families. She asked us to think of the particular chairs in our families, all of the chairs, are there any empty chairs? She then went on to discuss divorce, death, falling away from the church, broken family relationships for various reasons, etc. and other examples of what can break families apart. She spoke of her own family and shared why and what each of her sibling's families look like and how she's the "black sheep" because she's the only that's been married for 30 some years. She has a lot of empty chairs in her family.
She explained what the best thing is that we can do for our families, to ensure that we have an eternal family - BE IN YOUR CHAIR! Whatever the reasons the other chairs are empty - bitterness, guilt, grudges, offense, divorce, death, falling away from the church - the best thing we can do to help fill those chairs is to be in our own chairs.
Cora's Seizures and EEG
While we were on vacation in Twin, Cora had two seizures (that I know of) that occurred on two nights back to back.
The second seizure: A few hours after I'd put her to bed she'd woken up and cried so I brought her into the living room and rocked her for a while. She had deep, slow, even breathing so I looked down to see if her eyes her closed. Her eyes were open and completely glazed over, she was totally gone from this world. I picked up her head and turned it toward me so I could get a better look and to see if she'd snap out of it but no response. This lasted about 5 minutes. The instant I saw her eyes like that I knew something wasn't right.
The first seizure: The previous night the same thing happened with her deep, slow, even breathing so I assumed she was asleep until mom said, "Cora, your eyes are wide open." I didn't think anything of this until the next night when the second absent seizure occurred. So I started grilling mom for some answers, she didn't respond, didn't wink, twitch, or move in anyway. It lasted probably about 4-7 minutes.
I've heard of absent seizures before with other children who have the same corpus callosum disorder as Cora. In fact, at her neurology appointment a few months ago in May I specifically asked the doctor if she would have seizures. He said she has a 2-4% chance of them occurring and if she hasn't had any yet then she probably won't.
Technically, I don't know for sure if that's what Cora was experiencing because I was on vacation and no neurologist was there to witness and confirm it for me. Since being home, Cora had an EEG and I'm still waiting for results. The whole EEG procedure was awful, the worst preparation for a test I've ever done because Cora had to be sleep deprived for it. I had to keep her up until midnight, and then wake her up at 4am and keep her up until the appointment at 7:30. There are 29 electrodes and they use this gel and wax stuff to stick to her head and cover each one with tape. Then they wrap her entire head with gauze so the electrodes don't move and they hope she sleeps during the next 30-40 minutes while the computer tracks her brain activity. I'm not sure what they're specifically looking for or if she's supposed to have a seizure during that time to confirm that she did indeed have one. If they are, she didn't have a seizure that I know of but there are lots of different types of seizures.
Also a note for myself, about 2-3 hours after each seizure in Twin Falls she'd wake up again crying and screaming. I wasn't able to console her or calm her down at all so I just had to let her cry it out. I don't know if this was another type of seizure or not but it only happened after those two seizure incidents.
The EEG was awful and I will never put Cora or myself through that again unless her life depends on it. She had some crazy bed hair from all of the wax on the electrodes and you can still see all the little indents on her forehead. Poor girl!
The second seizure: A few hours after I'd put her to bed she'd woken up and cried so I brought her into the living room and rocked her for a while. She had deep, slow, even breathing so I looked down to see if her eyes her closed. Her eyes were open and completely glazed over, she was totally gone from this world. I picked up her head and turned it toward me so I could get a better look and to see if she'd snap out of it but no response. This lasted about 5 minutes. The instant I saw her eyes like that I knew something wasn't right.
The first seizure: The previous night the same thing happened with her deep, slow, even breathing so I assumed she was asleep until mom said, "Cora, your eyes are wide open." I didn't think anything of this until the next night when the second absent seizure occurred. So I started grilling mom for some answers, she didn't respond, didn't wink, twitch, or move in anyway. It lasted probably about 4-7 minutes.
I've heard of absent seizures before with other children who have the same corpus callosum disorder as Cora. In fact, at her neurology appointment a few months ago in May I specifically asked the doctor if she would have seizures. He said she has a 2-4% chance of them occurring and if she hasn't had any yet then she probably won't.
Technically, I don't know for sure if that's what Cora was experiencing because I was on vacation and no neurologist was there to witness and confirm it for me. Since being home, Cora had an EEG and I'm still waiting for results. The whole EEG procedure was awful, the worst preparation for a test I've ever done because Cora had to be sleep deprived for it. I had to keep her up until midnight, and then wake her up at 4am and keep her up until the appointment at 7:30. There are 29 electrodes and they use this gel and wax stuff to stick to her head and cover each one with tape. Then they wrap her entire head with gauze so the electrodes don't move and they hope she sleeps during the next 30-40 minutes while the computer tracks her brain activity. I'm not sure what they're specifically looking for or if she's supposed to have a seizure during that time to confirm that she did indeed have one. If they are, she didn't have a seizure that I know of but there are lots of different types of seizures.
Also a note for myself, about 2-3 hours after each seizure in Twin Falls she'd wake up again crying and screaming. I wasn't able to console her or calm her down at all so I just had to let her cry it out. I don't know if this was another type of seizure or not but it only happened after those two seizure incidents.
The EEG was awful and I will never put Cora or myself through that again unless her life depends on it. She had some crazy bed hair from all of the wax on the electrodes and you can still see all the little indents on her forehead. Poor girl!
July Festivities
July marked our summer vacation! Lance drove down with us and stayed for 4-5 days before he flew back home to work, it was nice that he could be with us and it had been two years since he'd been to Twin Falls.
- Boating with Mays - this was by far our favorite part of the Cox reunion, I wish more of them came with us because it was a blast! We ate lots of yummy food, celebrated the fourth of July and watched the parade, swam, played games, slept outside, enjoyed Grandma's games for the kids, etc.
- Kimball and Lance took their own four wheeling trip with dad and Grandpa. After the Cox reunion Christine came up to visit for about 10 days. Did I mention her newborn, Lucas??? Sweet little guy who won't let his poor mama sleep! I tried to help Christine out with Zander as much as I could so the adjustment to two kids would be easier. We had our own four wheeling trip with Dad and Grandpa and saw the gorgeous scenery. We also visited some parks, fed the ducks and fish at the cemetery, saw the sturgeon in Buhl and enjoyed ice cream at the Clover Leaf Creamery, etc. It was so fun to see her!
- Family festivities - we celebrated Dad's birthday, took Charity and Devin and Savannah school clothes shopping, had dinner with Christine and Adam, had an adult only dinner out at Tomatoe's, visited with each of the sisters, played in the mud, mowed the lawn etc.
- Cox festivities - lots of dinners together, ate out at Burnt Lemon Grill (my favorite) and Cora loved their lemonade even though I'm not supposed to give it to her, ate ice cream, played with lots of balloons and toys, shopping with Sage, etc.
- Cora got her first haircut! I was too chicken to do it so mom did it for me. It looks so much better without the little rat tail and I've since noticed how blond she's become.
- Had dessert with Stephanie Cook and met her new fiance, they're getting married in three weeks. I haven't seen her this happy in years!
Happy 33rd Birthday!
We had a very low key celebration for Lance's birthday, mainly because it was the day before we left for our summer vacation. He received some casual clothes and a big ladder for the house from the kids and I, and some sweet cash from our parents. Happy birthday, Sweetie!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)