Not again!

What a morning we've had! I guess it's health issues that drives me out to blog, since I appear to have been negligent in posting since I had my surgery. So...first things first. I've recovered from my thyroid surgery and don't have cancer. We have finally moved to our house in Ammon, ID and the kids got settled right into school. Life has treated us well.

Well...until this past week any way. We had a bad 24 hour bug that just wiped us out. It was horrible having virtually everybody ill last Monday. Matthew and Heather came down with it first, which was a good thing because Joe and I both were ill Monday...along with Jeremiah, Jacob, Sam and Hope.

Sam had been feeling "off" for a few days, running mild fevers here and there. He got the crud, but seemed to bounce back quickly and even went back to school on Wednesday. Then yesterday he got another fever...about 101. He went to bed on his own last night before he even ate. This morning I felt his head and was pleased to see that the fever had gone down. Jeremiah took his temperature and told me it was 99.3. Not completely broke...but getting there. So Sam goes to sit and eat breakfast with his brothers and I head to my office. 'tis the season for hiding in my office doing taxes, you know.

Suddenly I hear this big thud on the kitchen floor. I'm thinking, "Great! Hope has finally tipped herself over backwards in the chair." But...no crying. NOT good. So I come out asking if it was Hope, and was told that it was Sam. I see Samuel laying on the floor twitching and convulsing in a seizure. I pick him up and holler for Joe to help...we need to get Samuel to the hospital. Both of us are trying to figure out what to do, panicking when I finally tell him to call 911. By this time I'm starting to have a melt-down because I'm having flash backs to Heather when she was three-years-old having the same thing and the ER doctors not believing us...until the next day when she had another right there in the emergency room. Joe's talking to the 911 operator and answering questions, and Heather had come racing out of her room and took Sam from me. She's studying to be an EMT right now in school, so she managed to be the cool head in everything. I guess it's a good thing she's the one going into a medical field and I stuck with numbers. We decide that we don't need an ambulance by this point because Samuel seemed to be coming out of his seizure. We hadn't ruled out the hospital though. That just seemed the place to go when somebody is ill enough to have a seizure. I just keep thinking "Not again!"

Well, my uncle Jim is an RN and only lives blocks from my house. I had Joe call him to help administer a priesthood blessing to Samuel. Luckily Jim was still home although he was preparing to drive to Utah to help my cousin whose house flooded in Bountiful. (At least I think that's where he lives...) Anyway, Jim came over and asked some questions, had Samuel follow his finger with his eyes, checked the dilation of the pupils and his skin to check for dehydration. He thought Sam would be okay and told me just to take him to the pediatrician rather than the ER. Although he did reassure me that at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center (EIRMC) they tended to believe the mom's when something like this happens...unlike Heather's situation 15 years ago when that ER didn't believe us. He and Joe then gave Sam a blessing and I called the pediatrician.

Samuel is feeling much better now, although he's resting today. I think he likes the idea of lazing around drinking PowerAide and sucking on popcicles. The pediatrician has ordered an EEG which will likely happen next week. He's also suggested that we speak with a pediatric neurologist to see if there may be something neurological that caused the seizure and may be the cause of his speech and learning disabilities. We may end up having an MRI done for that as well. This is the first doctor to vocalize that Samuel's head is a bit large for his body...something I'd known but thought he'd grow into it. You know...like a puppy grows into their feet.

Sam was poked for some blood work. There was no sign of bacterial infection, though, which relieved my worry about Sam needing to go through a spinal tap like Heather had to endure all those years ago. I just didn't want to go through all that again. It was bad enough when Heather endured that, but it was absolutely terrible when my son, Jacob, had to go through a spinal tap at one month old. (He had had a viral meningitis.)

So now we're in a hurry up and wait mode...again. Right now we're just praying for a calm weekend without a repeat of Heather's "5-6 seizures in 24 hours" with Sam. You know...come to think of it, Heather's seizures occurred in January, too. The month maybe? Hmmm....

Home Again

Well, the post I made Thursday didn't get posted until just now. Some how it got stuck and never posted to the blog.

The surgery seems to have gone okay. I'm home now. Dr. Siddoway says he'll be interested to hear what the pathologist says about the nodule in my thyroid since it looked like I had some sort of chronic thyroid disease - maybe Hashimoto thyroiditis - where much of the thyroid became inflamed thus creating the nodule in the right lobe of my thyroid. I gather that there was lots of blood, that everywhere he turned, bleeding started. So the two hour surgery turned into a three hour surgery. I feel bad for Joe since he never once received an update on my condition until after I was done. When I did my pre-op appointment, I was told they would update my family every hour, especially if the surgery was going to take longer than anticipated. Didn't happen.

I'd hoped to go to Idaho Falls to recover, but looks like that will have to wait until Monday afternoon. The drain that is in my neck couldn't come out today as planned. I still have too much fluid draining. Dr. Siddoway will remove it on Monday afternoon instead - if the drainage has decreased enough. Then I'll go to I.F. until Friday when I have to return to get stitches out. Maybe by then we'll have the pathologist's report too.

I'm glad this is finally over with. The waiting and uncertainty as to what to do is finally over. Granted, I still have to wait and see if this nodule (just a kind way of saying tumor) is malignant or not. Hopefully it's benign. But the anxiety over getting my "throat slit" is finally done. I'm sore, but not in massive amounts of pain. I do get dizzy spells, but they are reducing in frequency and duration.

Although I adore my children, I am glad that I am heading to I.F. for some peace. You just can't find that with a toddler in the house. I'm not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds right now, so if Hope wants me to hold her, she's going to have to climb up next to me. Good thing she can climb!

I'll also be glad to see the progress that's been made on the house. I know the siding is on, windows are in, so most of the work from now on will be on the interior of the house. I kind of need to go up anyway since the vinyl that I chose is no longer available and I have to pick a different flooring for the bathrooms, kitchen, and entry way. Bummer deal. I'd really liked the one I had.

The pain medication is kicking in now...so off to bed. I didn't sleep well in the hospital since a stupid blood pressure cuff kept going off even though I wasn't wearing it. Sleep would be good right now...

Thyroid Time

Tomorrow's the day...the day half of my thyroid gets removed. Or, as some people joke, I get my throat slit. Yeah, I know. REAL funny.





After two biopsies that were inconclusive, the ENT determined that with the nodule being over 1" in diameter, I really should have it removed. As luck would have it, his surgery days at Ogden Regional Medical Center corresponded with Joe's Fridays off. So, Joe doesn't even have to request time off for tomorrow.





Mom's back in town after spending a few weeks with her parents. She's going to be supervising Heather's running of the household. Heather's good at commanding her brothers and putting Hope to sleep, so everything should go okay. Well...one exception. Hope's not completely weaned. Mostly, but sometimes at night I have nursed her since I was too lazy to get out of bed and get her a drink. Oh well, I guess it will be trial by fire. She has gone 24 hours without nursing before, so hopefully it doesn't take her long to figure this out.





So, hopefully the surgery ends all this. If this lump turns out to be cancerous and they can see that while I'm in surgery, then the whole thyroid will be removed tomorrow. If it's not obvious then I could end up having to undergo this again if cancer comes back positive. The good thing about this type of cancer is it's 95% curable. Still, I'm sure it won't be fun. I would rather not have radio active iodine treatments so hope it won't come back malignant.





I've been so calm about this until the past few hours as I prepared my will and a living will, really wishing I'd done it YEARS ago. Then I wouldn't have been facing my mortality on paper and choosing whether in a DNR I wanted nurishment or not. The things that you have to consider any more.





Well, I'm off to my pre-op appointment. Let me just say...tomorrow promises to be a pain in the neck. :-)

Weaning...

OK...It's time to wean Hope. Tha trick is actually doing it. Too bad you can't just disappear for a few days and let her figure out that other things work as food besides Mom...

Actually, I probably have to wean her. I'm a bit concerned because I found a lump in my neck around spring break. Since I had a cold, I just figured it was related to the virus and ignored it. Six weeks later it is still there. SO, since kids are home and I have Heather and/or Jeremiah to babysit the younger kids, I've been scheduling doctor appointments. Friday I had an ultrasound done on my neck (so NOT where I'm used to having ultrasounds) and they found a nodul on the side of my thyroid, plus my thyroid is inflamed. So, tomorrow I'm off to an ENT to see about a biopsy. NOT looking forward to a needle in my neck, but my mom is convinced it won't hurt. Then it's a waiting game to see what I need to do about either removing the nodule or getting it to go away.

I was just reading blogs and found a scripture reference on my former young women's leader's blog. She is undergoing treatments for breast and ovarian cancer. She posted: John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you...Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." I needed that so I can just try and ignore the whole thing until I actually go to the appointment tomorrow.

At least I don't feel sick. Tired, but not ill. Of course, I've been tired for nearly 18 years. Oh, wait, I've been a mom that long. THAT must be it. Not the stupid thyroid.

Month of Birthdays

Wow! It's been quite the month! One birthday after another.

Matthew turned 11 on April 24th. He's such a doll. Since his birthday fell on Easter, we celebrated a day early at Fat Cats and the Pizza Factory. We had some wonderful pizza with HUGE bread twists (on a stick no less), along with a dessert of cookies and ice cream. Ugh! We were so full, it was hard to think about bowling afterwards at Fat Cats.

Matthew's party was fun, so Jacob wants to have HIS party there too. (It's scheduled for tomorrow.) They really enjoyed the bowling and bumper cars. We were going to do the glow-in-the-dark miniature golfing, but it was getting late. Thank goodness Fat Cats granted us a pass to golf on our next visit.

Hope's birthday was next on May 10th. She's ONE! Of course, since her birthday was on a Tuesday, we had to celebrate early since Joe was down for the weekend. So, Mother's Day and birthday festivities were combined. Hope's day was the main feature though.

She had an adorable ice cream cake with Tenderheart Bear on the top.

She enjoyed every bit of that ice cream cake!

The final birthday for this month long period will be Jacob's 8th birthday. Yea! He's so excited about this one since he gets to invite friends. (We only do that for birthdays 8, 12, and 16.) We scheduled at Fat Cats tomorrow, and I'm hoping that I don't get delayed going down there since the Ogden Marathon is running tomorrow.

So, off we go for more pizza fun and then I'll worry about finalizing plans for Jacob's baptism June 4th. I don't know which event Jacob is more excited about, his party tomorrow, taking cookies to school on Monday, or his baptism. I guess we'll have to see what he remembers most in the years ahead...probably his baptism. :-)

Things come in Threes

You know how they say everything comes in threes...Well, it's true. I just don't generally have it all happen in the course of about three hours. I should have known when I woke up to six inches of new snow on the day I was hosting a pampered chef party that the day would be interesting.

Yep, it's supposed to be spring, but Huntsville doesn't believe it. The mountains were dusted with new snow. Luckily it did warm up and melt about four of the six inches. I spent the morning cleaning up my kitchen and grocery shopping. The Pampered Chef consultant was going to make a mango salsa, so I had to go get mango (like THAT's in season), jicama (I didn't even know what that was), bell peppers and a jalapeno. I never buy any of that stuff. I had to ask a produce guy to point out the jicama (it wasn't labeled that way) and try to find a ripe mango - they were all green. The salsa turned out pretty well considering.

I had five ladies come to the party which was a pleasant surprise since only two indicated they might be coming. One brought all five of her daughters. Two joined us in the kitchen, two joined the boys downstairs to watch movies and eat pizza, and the baby played with Hope. Everything was going well...until it wasn't. Jeremiah broke the glass on the fireplace, then one of the girls got sick and threw up all over the living room carpet. We got most of the mess cleaned up, but after everyone went home, I couldn't get Mom's carpet cleaner to work. Sam was getting in the way so I sent him to bathe. He called to me later to show me he'd peed in the toilet (Yea!), but a few minutes later he came out stressed because he'd pooped in the tub (BOO!). What a mess.

So, today I'm relieved just to be doing taxes all day. Well...maybe. I was going to take the door off the fireplace and see if I can get it fixed, but I can't get it off. I still need to get out the Resolve and see if I can get the smell out of the carpet (it's not really that bad, fortunately). But, instead, I'm sitting here reading and writing blogs while putting Hope to sleep rather than cleaning up yet again.

I've always said there's never a dull moment in the Behling household. Yesterday just proved it.

Merry Christmas!

Well, I TRIED to send out Christmas cards. Letters really. Some didn't print properly. Hope destroyed more than a few. My mail merge didn't work properly to get all the labels printed. I guess I just wasn't meant to send them out this year. So, since I DID put the effort into the letter, I'm just going to post it instead. On Facebook since copying and pasting won't work here.

ARGH! I feel like Charlie Brown right now and everything I touch breaks! Hopefully not since I have to install my tax software and get letters out to my clients. :-) Oh - and BAKE. I haven't even started that yet. Lots to do and so little time. Christmas Eve is tomorrow!

Just know that I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and that the Behling family is doing alright in Huntsville, UT (and Idaho Falls, ID). Hopefully the card thing works out next year!

Merry Christmas!