The Whirlwind Adventure

Nina and I arrived home last Thursday evening after a whirlwind week. Our schedule while in Denver consisted of:

Sunday: Drive 7 hours through the worst storm of the season, check into the hotel, praise the chain restaurant gods that a Red Lobster was across the parking lot, eat, swim, go to bed.

Monday: Go to the doctor's appointment at 9, have an impromptu ultrasound while we're there. Go to the Museum of Nature & Science (AWESOME), eat at the mall food court, walk around the mall, swim, go to bed.

Tuesday: Go to the American Girl store (an entire post in itself). Meet my college roommate for lunch. Begin the "cleanse" for the procedure the next day. Don't venture further than 5 feet away from a toilet. Clean up both puke and poop from the cleanse. Go to bed.

Wednesday: Let the very-cleansed kiddo sleep in a bit. Work out and eat breakfast on the sly so as not to tempt the kid. Brave rush-hour downtown traffic to report to the hospital by 10AM. Kiss the kid as she goes under. Knit to keep your hands busy while you wait. Meet with the doctor, watch your kid come out of anesthesia. Get a CT scheduled for the next morning since the endoscopy and colonoscopy were both clear. Learn how to flush an IV so we can keep it in overnight. Find sushi for the brave kid. Snuggle in bed. Watch her sleep.

Thursday: Get up bright and early to pack up, eat breakfast, and get back downtown to the hospital by 8:30. Find out that the kid does, in fact, have to drink contrast. Watch her swallow a piece of gum in a desperate attempt to camouflage the taste of the contrast. Hold her hand while they do the CT. Wait around for the doc to get results. Find out that he suspects what you've suspected all along. Get the IV removed. Eat lunch at the hospital cafeteria. Drive 6 hours to be able to eat dinner at home. Go to bed.


Nina's doc suspects that she has chronic appendicitis. It presents very similarly to acute appendicitis, but over a much longer time frame. He felt like, because she was not in the midst of an episode, we did not have the strongest case to present to the surgeons for immediate surgery. He sent us home with a medicine for IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) that she is to take 3 times per day for the foreseeable future. If she has no more episodes, we know it's IBS and treat it as such. However, he feels very strongly that she will have another episode, and that we will have a very strong case at that point to remove her appendix.


It was a relief for her to have a doctor take her seriously and believe her. It was a relief for me to have answers and a plan.

A road trip in pictures

So this is what day one looked like:

We literally drove right into the storm.  Started out with sun in Durango, ended with 8 inches of snow and ice covering our wheel wells in Denver.  Thankfully there was a Red Lobster across the parking lot from the hotel - I wasn't driving any more last night!  The hotel had a special bed for Nina's American Girl doll waiting for us, along with a certificate for dessert and milk.  So while she enjoyed her drink and the chocolate peanut butter cupcake, Mommy had her own dessert...

Today we met with the GI specialist.  Nina has had 3 episodes of very intense, lower right side abdominal pain since May.  These episodes come on very suddenly, are very debilitating for her, and are usually accompanied by a low fever and general unwillingness to do anything that involves movement.  We had exhausted our resources in Durango, so her docs felt it was time to call in the big guns.  

Words cannot express how impressed I am by our doctor here.  He is patient, thorough, caring, sweet, gentle, loving... everything you hope for in a doc.  

And funny.  And slightly ADD.  Which meant he got along fabulously with us.

After our appointment we cruised up to the Museum of Nature and Science.  Seriously, if you're ever in Denver, you HAVE to visit this museum.  It's incredible.  They have a temporary mastodon and mammoth exhibit that we really wanted to see, and it did not dissapoint.  

After the mandatory mall break, we headed back to the hotel for some swim time and Face Time with the crew back home. Oh how I miss those precious faces! I know they are having fun, but it just feels weird to be apart. But I do love how technology can join this family of five together even when we are hundreds of miles apart.

Tomorrow afternoon we begin the "clean out" for her colonoscopy on Wednesday. Yes, my afternoon and evening will be poo. Lots and lots of poo. I'm really looking forward to that...

Here We Go Again

I'm sure someone will be mad I haven't talked about this trip before now.   But maybe I just didn't want to admit it was happening again.  Nina and I are in a hotel off I-70 in Denver, watching the Oscars and slowly relaxing.

Tomorrow we meet with a GI specialist.  Nina has had three episodes since May of very intense abdominal pain.  It's not her migraines.  She will tell you that this pain is very different.  And I (and her favorite ER doc) can tell that this pain is different.  We couldn't figure it out at home, so they have sent us to Denver in search of answers.

A part of me has an incredible sense of deja-vu.  Weren't we just here, trying to figure out why she was in pain?  Oh yeah, we were.  Three years ago, this month.

I wish I could take this pain away from her.  I wish I could look into her eyes and understand the cause.

I wish I had her strength.

But I do know this week will create some precious memories for my sweet girl, even if it's interspersed with yuck.

Science

This is what science looks like when you homeschool.


Madison was studying volcanoes, Katrina was learning about pH levels, acids, and bases.


A $10 kit from Wal-Mart allowed Madi to build her own volcano, complete with glow-in-the-dark lava.


A boiled and strained head of purple cabbage allowed Kat to play mad scientist for a bit, discovering which household items would turn the cabbage juice red (acid), and which would turn it blue (base).


Both of them were happy to discuss their "experiments" over dinner with Daddy, who finally figured out why I had so closely guarded the cabbage in the fridge for so long.


And Mama got to show them that science can be fun.  That learning can be fun.  And that we could do it together.

Mom's helper

I've been doing a lot of knitting with my looms lately.  It's something I can do while the hubs and I are watching TV at night, and usually the projects don't take too long.  That is a requirement for me.  I do not have the patience for the month-long, work 2 hours every day, kind of craft.


The girls all requested blankies, and picked out their own yarn for me to make them with.  I think someone is a bit jealous that he didn't get to pick a color, though.

The minions are schooling me...

Ok peoples.  I had the whole heartwarming, back to blogging post all done, then $#@&! Blogger decided to not save it.  All my sentimental verbage mysteriously removed from cyberspace.


So now you get snarky.


Congratulations.


I realized that teaching 3 girls who are using 3 different grade levels was going to be interesting this year.  I did not realize how much one-on-one time Madi would require.  Nina is fairly self-sufficient with her math, english, writing, and spelling - all the subjects she tackles while I work with the littles.  Violet is officially doing kindergarden this year, which requires lots of singing and silliness on my part.  Little did I know there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth over learning to read from Madi.  Thus, the requirement for one-on-one teaching.


Well, if Violet is left to her own devices for longer than, say, a minute, she finds something to occupy her mind.  Which usually annoys one or both big sisters.  In order to keep the sanity, I settled upon the electronic schooling method.  I downloaded a bunch of grade-level educational games for the ipad, and while I'm working with Madi, Violet gets to play school games.  When Madi is done, she gets the ipad and I work with Violet.  Brilliant, right?


Until I go to download pics from the ipad a few days later.  And I find these:

I may have a problem...

... I think I'm addicted to the humor section on Pinterest.  Because I find things like this:

And this:

And this:

...extremely hilarious. As in snorting and whacking the hubby so he'll look hilarious. As in saving the pic and texting it to a friend:

... and now you know where I've been the last few months...