Surviving 2015

As you may have noticed I have not posted in awhile, a very long while. I thought of doing it many times, but something always seemed to come up. I am not going to lie, 2015 was hard. Very hard. It was probably one of most difficult years I have ever experienced.  So much happened in the last year, and we are hoping for a much better year in 2016! 

2015 was a year of loss, sadness, health problems, financial problems, and change. 

I don't know if it is just me, but this year seemed hard for a lot of people. A lot of my friends seemed to have struggles as well. 

Here is a recap of our year..  

Right away, the year started out rough in January.  My oldest turned 18, and relapsed with her anxiety and depression. She had struggled with it for years, and seemed to be getting better until the start of the year.  She always seems to have a hard time during the winter months, it could be from the weather, her birthday, or some past memories that happened in January.  Whatever it was, she started to struggle again, and tried to quit school. Luckily the school would not let her quit with just one semester to go, and had her start the work program instead of just taking some electives. My youngest had a bad asthma attack at school, which really increased her anxiety levels while at school as well.  It is also around this time that her migraines started. (and are still occurring a year later)  My son was dealing with some of his own school issues, and basically quit doing and turning in his homework. His grades really showed it as well.  My daughter's mouse Oreo died, and she was so upset she wouldn't deal with it for three days. He was one of the original mice she got for Christmas seen in the post  the unexpected surprise.

In February, the migraines continued. and my youngest started missing a lot of school  We saw the pediatrician, who referred us to an ENT, who told us we needed to see the pediatric neurologist.  My daughter's hedgehog died of a tumor that was probably cancerous. 

Doctors, Doctors and More Doctors

This has been a month of Drs appointments, seven visits so far, with one more to go.  We also had two visits to the lab for blood draws.    As I mentioned in my post The World Keeps Spinning my youngest daughter has not been feeling well for a couple of months.    She spent most of the month on the couch, but we are finally figuring out why she has been sick.  

We saw the pediatrician at the very end of February with vertigo, headaches, and light headedness.  She referred us to the ENT.   The ENT did not find anything wrong with her inner ears, and thought the symptoms were being caused by her headaches. He said the next step would to be the neurologist.   A couple of days after the ENT, it was time for our monthly Orthodontist appointment.  She is very close to getting her braces off.  Just a few more months of wearing her bands.  Unfortunately with the headaches she has not been wearing them as much as she should,  so she might have to keep them on a month longer.   A few days after the ENT, it was time for the neurologist.    He diagnosed her as having migraines. He headaches had been becoming a lot worse, and very frequent.   He said he was not going to order a MRI because she was wearing braces. It seems if you have braces you can not have an MRI unless you go to the Orthodontist and have them removed.  Once the MRI is over, you can put them back on. Since we are so close to the end, he said it was definitely not worth going through all the trouble.  He put her on a preventative med that will take a few weeks to kick in.  We were relieved to have a diagnosis, but the headaches seemed to get much worse after starting her new med.  

One of the only things that seemed to help was drinking caffeine.  OTC Ibuprofen was not really helping much. Yesterday he prescribed a daily pain med to take twice a day until the preventatives kick in, which he said could be at least two more weeks.  Last week,  she was supposed to be in dance class, but was having another bad migraine.  She leaned her head back against the wall, and I saw her thyroid was very swollen.  

I took some photos to show the pediatrician, since I was taking her older sister there for her yearly check up this week.  She took one look at this photo and said we had to bring her in right away. We saw the Dr. yesterday. It was not quite swollen as it was the day I took the picture, but it was still a lot larger than it should be.  This is not the first time we have had dealt with thyroid issues in the family.   A couple of years ago I had my own issues which you can read about here.  Her older sister also has issues with her thyroid.  After her appointment, we went straight to the lab for a blood draw.  We got the results today.  Her numbers are good, BUT she tested positive for antibodies.   She too, has an autoimmune thyroid.  Having this could be the reason why she has been having so many headaches and other issues.  There is some positive news to finding out about this so young. With our family history, there was a very high chance she was going to develop it at some point in her life. Since we already knows she has it, we can regularly monitor her thyroid, and keep it in check before it gets really bad..  

A couple of the appointments this month were for my oldest.  She saw went to the Endocronologist early in the month  Remember this?  It took us an hour and a half to drive the 20  miles to the appointment. 

This week she had a well check up, and a routine blood draw.  She is going to have an ultrasound next week because she has been having a lot of stomach pains.  We are checking to make sure she does not have PCOS, or something else causing all the pain. She has been really worried that it is something more serious (thanks internet!) .   Next month we already have several more appointments on the schedule.   We have  follow up appointments at the Endocrinologist, Orthodontist and Neurologist.  I am also going to get into the mix and go to my annual physical (4 months late!)  Hopefully  things will slow down after that, at least go down to only one or two Dr appointments a month.  

Juggling Kids

I have been planning on writing this post for several days.  Parents of multiple kids in activities often find things scheduled for the same day, usually at different locations, AT THE SAME TIME.   With three kids, I can't remember how many times this has happened to us. Lately it has been happening a lot.  

The World Keeps on Spinning..

February has traditionally not been a good month health wise for my youngest daughter.  

Three years ago she was diagnosed with mono. We had taken her to the ER with severe stomach pains that we thought could have been appendicitis. We were all surprised we the test results came back that she had mono instead.  To this day, we still have no idea where she would have caught it.   She ended up having complications, and was pretty much out of commission most of the month.

The Day I Needed a Clone

I really did not mean to take a three month hiatus from this blog. Things just kind of got crazy the last few months, and I have been busy literally just trying to Survive the Crazy Life. 

During my last post, I shared about our kitty dilemna. I thought you might like a little update. Its been three months, and guess who is still here. We never heard another word from her previous owners.  She has grown quite a bit, and has thrived by eating well and staying warm inside. She spends half her time upstairs, and half downstairs. The other cats are still not sure what to think of her.  Tootsie does not mind her a bit. Reeses,who is usually our most easy going cat still hisses at her at times.  Milo, our male,  has a complicated relationship with her. At times he does not mind her being in the room, and other times he tries to hit her in the face.  When he does that, she goes to the basement door and asks to go downstairs for some alone time.  While she is not fully integrated with the other cats all the time, there has been significant progress. 

Our Kitty Dilemma

There is always something that keeps our lives busy and crazy. This week it is because of this sweet little girl.  Last Friday we found her in our yard.  She was cold, and  not wearing a collar. She was a bit shy, but loved the attention Kara was giving her.  We offered her some food, and she ate it like she was starving. The weather was pretty cold that night.  We brought her in the house. We knew that our  other cats would not be happy with a new kitty coming in their territory, so we brought her to our finished basement. While it is currently being used mostly as storage, and we don't spend a lot of time down there, it was still much warmer than outside. 

Halloween Fun

These last few weeks have been very busy.  This week with all of the excitement of Halloween, we also have the end of the quarter and finals.  If that was not enough,  Kara has a choir concert, and I have a birthday.   I am not sure even sure when we will have time to carve our pumpkins this year.  Hopefully we can before Friday night.