Before:
During:
After:
Nikki put a little braid in the side
Monday, August 20, 2012
First Haircut!
Today, Lily had her very first haircut! I was a little nervous because her moods are so unpredictable (I dread the teenage years!), but she did so good. My good friend, Nikki, did it. She acted a little nervous to start off with, but it was nothing a sucker didn't take care of. She sat there patiently while Nikki trimmed up the ends all over, straightening up the back especially. Before we knew it, she was all done.
Before:
Not really much of a difference, but her ends look a lot better and it'll hopefully grow a little better now. Also, the back is finally all one length and it doesn't look so scraggly. I'm so glad that one of my good friends could share in one of Lily's first with me!
Before:
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Catching Up
Wow..time flies. It's hard to believe it's been nearly two months since I posted on here. This is what's been going on in our little world
After some thought and prayer and the very gracious acceptance of the grandparents, we decided to take the kids out of daycare for the summer. The main reason we decided to pursue this was because Chris was going without some checks this summer because of how the school system does his drivers ed pay. Along with that, we both hated the fact that the kids are always so on the go and never really get a summer break. After talking to my boss, I was able to work four 10 hour days so that I can stay home with the kids on Mondays. Chris re-worked his drivers ed schedule so that he can have Fridays off with the kids. Our parents agreed to keep the kids Tuesday - Thursday, taking turns every other week. It has been a true blessing to us to have a little break from paying daycare and also a blessing to the kids that they've been able to get spoiled by their grandparents!
That leads me onto my next interesting story for the summer. Luckily, we had this schedule worked out with the grandparents because all summer we've been at doctor's appointments for Chris. Starting in October 2010, Chris woke up with what he thought was a kink in his neck. It never went away and he started going to the Chiropractor. By December 2010, right after Lily was born, he had started feeling better, so he quit going. Then, in April 2012, he woke up with those same symptoms. At the time, we had been reading, "The Hunger Games", so he really thought it was from looking down and reading too much. He started feeling a little better after taking some Ibuprofen for a few days and started a new workout routine. The pain flared up again after that first workout, so he quit. Then, the pain starting getting worse, so he told me to make an appointment with a specialist after school was out. I went ahead and scheduled it for the end of June. When we went in June, the doctor told him he thought it was a herniated disc. He put him on prednisone and scheduled an MRI. When we went back to find out about the MRI, the doctor confirmed what he thought was wrong. He told Chris that there were certain doctors who would go ahead and suggest surgery. He gave us the option of doing an epidural injection, but suggested that we go ahead and schedule a consult with a surgeon in the same practice. We went ahead with that suggestion. The epidural injection did nothing for Chris. The next week, we had the consult with the surgeon. The surgeon told Chris that surgery was really the only option at this point. He had 25-30% nerve damage already and he was losing muscle in his left arm by this point. You know things are bad when he couldn't even hold a glass of tea in his left hand without shaking.
So, here we stand, almost one week after surgery. They did a bone graph from Chris' hip, took out the ruptured disc and fused the hip bone to his C6/C7. They covered the fusion with a titanium plate and unbelievably, his pre-surgery pain was gone as soon as surgery was over. The surgery took about 3 hours and the surgeon said that Chris' rupture was pretty bad and had a lot of fragments. The nerves were not reacting at the beginning of the surgery (hence his numbness in his left hand), but by the end of the surgery they were already responding. The surgeon is hopeful that Chris will have full recovery and not have any permanent nerve damage. The biggest hassle from the surgery has probably been wearing the hard neck brace. He'll have to wear that for the next 3 months.
So, I believe that brings us up to speed. I'll try not to make the next post so far out!!
After some thought and prayer and the very gracious acceptance of the grandparents, we decided to take the kids out of daycare for the summer. The main reason we decided to pursue this was because Chris was going without some checks this summer because of how the school system does his drivers ed pay. Along with that, we both hated the fact that the kids are always so on the go and never really get a summer break. After talking to my boss, I was able to work four 10 hour days so that I can stay home with the kids on Mondays. Chris re-worked his drivers ed schedule so that he can have Fridays off with the kids. Our parents agreed to keep the kids Tuesday - Thursday, taking turns every other week. It has been a true blessing to us to have a little break from paying daycare and also a blessing to the kids that they've been able to get spoiled by their grandparents!
That leads me onto my next interesting story for the summer. Luckily, we had this schedule worked out with the grandparents because all summer we've been at doctor's appointments for Chris. Starting in October 2010, Chris woke up with what he thought was a kink in his neck. It never went away and he started going to the Chiropractor. By December 2010, right after Lily was born, he had started feeling better, so he quit going. Then, in April 2012, he woke up with those same symptoms. At the time, we had been reading, "The Hunger Games", so he really thought it was from looking down and reading too much. He started feeling a little better after taking some Ibuprofen for a few days and started a new workout routine. The pain flared up again after that first workout, so he quit. Then, the pain starting getting worse, so he told me to make an appointment with a specialist after school was out. I went ahead and scheduled it for the end of June. When we went in June, the doctor told him he thought it was a herniated disc. He put him on prednisone and scheduled an MRI. When we went back to find out about the MRI, the doctor confirmed what he thought was wrong. He told Chris that there were certain doctors who would go ahead and suggest surgery. He gave us the option of doing an epidural injection, but suggested that we go ahead and schedule a consult with a surgeon in the same practice. We went ahead with that suggestion. The epidural injection did nothing for Chris. The next week, we had the consult with the surgeon. The surgeon told Chris that surgery was really the only option at this point. He had 25-30% nerve damage already and he was losing muscle in his left arm by this point. You know things are bad when he couldn't even hold a glass of tea in his left hand without shaking.
So, here we stand, almost one week after surgery. They did a bone graph from Chris' hip, took out the ruptured disc and fused the hip bone to his C6/C7. They covered the fusion with a titanium plate and unbelievably, his pre-surgery pain was gone as soon as surgery was over. The surgery took about 3 hours and the surgeon said that Chris' rupture was pretty bad and had a lot of fragments. The nerves were not reacting at the beginning of the surgery (hence his numbness in his left hand), but by the end of the surgery they were already responding. The surgeon is hopeful that Chris will have full recovery and not have any permanent nerve damage. The biggest hassle from the surgery has probably been wearing the hard neck brace. He'll have to wear that for the next 3 months.
So, I believe that brings us up to speed. I'll try not to make the next post so far out!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)