Next month it's been a year since I updated this blog. I left on a pretty negative note, so here is one final blog post to end things more positively. I've given up my blog for Instagram. A lot of my immediate family are on there, so they actually see what I post, unlike here. I think my mom was the only one who read my blog, which was fine when we all lived in the same city. But now that we live in a different city than my parents and siblings, it's nice to give and get updates without sending out an annoying mass text.
We have lived in Spanish Fork for almost a year, and we love it. My kids' school is so close that they walk there and home every day. Rebecca takes a dance class once a week, William plays basketball twice a week, and Braden starts soccer next month. Kevin really likes his job. Lia and Lucy are just little, and it's weird to think that they will never think of Las Vegas as home. If all goes as planned, they will grow up in Utah. Who knows what will happen in the future. A year ago, I did not expect to be living here, but if it is up to us, we plan to stay.
William is doing SO well. His hair is back, and for a while it wasn't red, but it has started turning red again. He loves playing basketball, and it's been really great for his self esteem. He does well in school and has had no problems getting caught up in 2nd grade even though I pulled him out of school in the middle of 1st grade. He goes to Primary Children's Hospital every three months for a CT scan to make sure he is still cancer free. So far so good.
We did not end up suing the hospitals in Las Vegas. We thought about suing and putting the money towards better cancer care because right now treatment there is a joke. Most of our friends being treated in Vegas eventually have to go to Utah or California for better care. Ultimately, we thought a lawsuit would be a big headache for money we may or may not win. We had a year to file, and that year just passed at the end of January, so even if we did want to sue now, we've missed our chance.
We are in a good place right now. Last year, I did not feel that way. We found out about William, and I found out I was pregnant with Lucy about two weeks later. I was so shocked by everything going on that I didn't tell most people I was even pregnant for a while. But Lucy is here and a lot of fun, and William acts as if he didn't go through hell last year. They told us kids are resilient, and we definitely see that with him. Things are good, and we are happy. And on that note I will say goodbye to this blog. I will always cherish the memories I've recorded on here.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Grateful
Two weeks after leaving Sunrise, William was in even more pain than he had ever been. He had to sit up to sleep, and even then he didn't sleep well, and he wouldn't let us touch his stomach at all. We had CPS calling us to set up their own medical exams for ALL of our kids, not just William. They were also dropping by for random visits in their government car letting all of our neighbors know we were under investigation.
William's urologist, the one doctor I actually trusted out of all the doctors I'd seen at the hospitals, happened to be out of town when William was in so much pain. His nurse advised us to take him back to the ER. We knew we never wanted to go back to either Summerlin or Sunrise because all they did was treat us like criminals. Their focus was not on what was wrong with William - it was on what we were doing wrong as parents. We also didn't want to risk getting our kids taken away by Nevada CPS because William seemed to be even worse than he was after his second visit to the hospital.
The only other place I knew that treated trauma patients was Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. I'm sure there were hospitals in between Las Vegas and Salt Lake that had trauma units, but I didn't want to go searching for which ones did, so I packed up a few things and drove William all the way to Salt Lake City to see why he was in so much pain. At that point, I believed William's urologist when he told us that William had a giant blood clot that needed to shrink, so I was hoping Primary Children's would check him out and give me a stronger medicine to take care of his pain.
At first I was terrified that Primary Children's would be suspicious of me too. I was scared to answer too many questions. I was quite distrusting of medical professionals after our previous hospital visit. When they asked why I came all the way to Salt Lake, I told them we were staying with my parents in Utah, and we were told by his nurse to take him to the ER. This is actually true. We were staying with my parents for the weekend, but I did not tell the hospital that my parents lived in southern Utah - four hours away. We were actually closer to Sunrise from my parents house.
But the way this hospital works is so amazing. All departments got involved and worked together to figure out a diagnosis. They kept asking me what his diagnosis was in Las Vegas, and they would give me funny looks every time I told them what it was. After about two or three hours of waiting, the ER doctor came in to tell me that they thought William might have cancer on his kidney. I was shocked. That was not was I was expecting to hear at all. He told me they were going to get oncology involved, and I had to ask him what oncology was. He said they were the cancer doctors.
It was one of the surgeons who recognized the kidney tumor. He had seen it before. See what great things can be done when all of the different departments at hospitals cooperate with each other to find solutions to problems? In Las Vegas, the different departments would all contradict each other, and no one would ever tell us which department was actually in charge. I don't think they even knew.
But I'm grateful that Summerlin and Sunrise are disorganized disasters. It lead us to where we needed to be. William's tumor got a little out of control by the time it was diagnosed. His visit to Sunrise in November was the start of the cancer, so it went undiagnosed for three months. Because his tumor had grown so rapidly, Primary's decided to shrink it for six weeks before taking it out surgically. He just had his sixth week of treatment, so next week they will decide if he's ready for surgery. And every week since his diagnosis I see him getting better and better. It's so amazing.
Primary's asked if we wanted to transfer his remaining treatments to Las Vegas, and we said no. We immediately started working on moving to Utah to be closer to the hospital. We moved the Spanish Fork last week, and we have really liked it so far.
Some people have asked us if we are going to sue Summerlin and Sunrise. I don't know yet. Kevin's dad works as a medical expert for a malpractice law firm, and they want our case. They told us to call them when we are ready. Kevin wants those two hospitals held accountable so they won't do this to another unsuspecting family - they can't just call CPS every time they make a mistake and a child ends up back in the hospital. Sadly a civil suit is the only way to have the hospitals investigated. I'm not sure how I feel, but I'm mostly leaning towards letting it go. We'll make a decision after William is completely finished with his treatments.
William's urologist, the one doctor I actually trusted out of all the doctors I'd seen at the hospitals, happened to be out of town when William was in so much pain. His nurse advised us to take him back to the ER. We knew we never wanted to go back to either Summerlin or Sunrise because all they did was treat us like criminals. Their focus was not on what was wrong with William - it was on what we were doing wrong as parents. We also didn't want to risk getting our kids taken away by Nevada CPS because William seemed to be even worse than he was after his second visit to the hospital.
The only other place I knew that treated trauma patients was Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. I'm sure there were hospitals in between Las Vegas and Salt Lake that had trauma units, but I didn't want to go searching for which ones did, so I packed up a few things and drove William all the way to Salt Lake City to see why he was in so much pain. At that point, I believed William's urologist when he told us that William had a giant blood clot that needed to shrink, so I was hoping Primary Children's would check him out and give me a stronger medicine to take care of his pain.
At first I was terrified that Primary Children's would be suspicious of me too. I was scared to answer too many questions. I was quite distrusting of medical professionals after our previous hospital visit. When they asked why I came all the way to Salt Lake, I told them we were staying with my parents in Utah, and we were told by his nurse to take him to the ER. This is actually true. We were staying with my parents for the weekend, but I did not tell the hospital that my parents lived in southern Utah - four hours away. We were actually closer to Sunrise from my parents house.
But the way this hospital works is so amazing. All departments got involved and worked together to figure out a diagnosis. They kept asking me what his diagnosis was in Las Vegas, and they would give me funny looks every time I told them what it was. After about two or three hours of waiting, the ER doctor came in to tell me that they thought William might have cancer on his kidney. I was shocked. That was not was I was expecting to hear at all. He told me they were going to get oncology involved, and I had to ask him what oncology was. He said they were the cancer doctors.
It was one of the surgeons who recognized the kidney tumor. He had seen it before. See what great things can be done when all of the different departments at hospitals cooperate with each other to find solutions to problems? In Las Vegas, the different departments would all contradict each other, and no one would ever tell us which department was actually in charge. I don't think they even knew.
But I'm grateful that Summerlin and Sunrise are disorganized disasters. It lead us to where we needed to be. William's tumor got a little out of control by the time it was diagnosed. His visit to Sunrise in November was the start of the cancer, so it went undiagnosed for three months. Because his tumor had grown so rapidly, Primary's decided to shrink it for six weeks before taking it out surgically. He just had his sixth week of treatment, so next week they will decide if he's ready for surgery. And every week since his diagnosis I see him getting better and better. It's so amazing.
Primary's asked if we wanted to transfer his remaining treatments to Las Vegas, and we said no. We immediately started working on moving to Utah to be closer to the hospital. We moved the Spanish Fork last week, and we have really liked it so far.
Some people have asked us if we are going to sue Summerlin and Sunrise. I don't know yet. Kevin's dad works as a medical expert for a malpractice law firm, and they want our case. They told us to call them when we are ready. Kevin wants those two hospitals held accountable so they won't do this to another unsuspecting family - they can't just call CPS every time they make a mistake and a child ends up back in the hospital. Sadly a civil suit is the only way to have the hospitals investigated. I'm not sure how I feel, but I'm mostly leaning towards letting it go. We'll make a decision after William is completely finished with his treatments.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Keeping Up With The Blog
*****Warning: This post is super long, and not very happy. It's more for me to remember, so don't feel obligated to read on.
I've come to realize that I don't blog when I'm truly unhappy. 2012 was one of those years for me. A lot of hard things happened that caused me to make some changes in my life, and my blog suffered because of those hard times. Having Lia at the end of the year motivated me to keep up with the times in my life that need to be documented. I think I did pretty well with the blog updates in 2013.
I'm afraid 2014 is starting out more like 2012, and it's causing me to shut down and not keep up with the blog again. William was in the hospital for another week last week, and the experience was not only worse the second time, I'd say it was probably the worst week of my entire life.
On a Friday William's PE teacher told me that William didn't feel well enough to participate in PE that day. Hearing that made me worry. A lot. I started watching him more closely, and after that day, I could see he was in pain. By Tuesday, he came home from school and lay on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, so instead of taking him to school on Wednesday, I took him to his pediatrician.
The PA who works with his doctor thought William looked fine after doing a physical exam (I let him know the history with his kidney). He wanted a urine sample just to make one last check on him. He found blood in the sample, and said that because of William's recent hospital stay and the abnormal sample, I should take him to the hospital to get some more thorough tests. I asked him if it mattered where I went because I was not happy with Sunrise last time we were there. He told me Summerlin was fine.
So we went to Summerlin with a note from the PA about the recent lacerated kidney and abnormal urine sample. The note is important here.
I checked in at Summerlin Hospital, and the guy checking me in, who spoke bad English, kept my note. I asked if I should keep it to give to the doctor, and he said no he would keep it.
We sat in an pediatric er room for a while until a Russian woman came to get William for an ultrasound. She asked about his liver, and I told her he lacerated his KIDNEY. I thought maybe her bad English caused her to misread her notes, until the ultrasound tech told me they were getting an ultrasound of his liver. WHY?! He had a lacerated kidney!! I told her that also. Then for his ct scan, they were also concentrating on his liver. I was starting to lose it! Are all hospitals really this bad with communication! Where's my freaking doctor's note that says the boy has a lacerated kidney! I also told the ct scan people it was his kidney, and they said the scan should show both. So when the er doctor came in to tell me they could see a laceration on his liver, I was angry, and told him there was never a lacerated liver - it was always a lacerated kidney! And he told me, "well there's a lacerated liver now also." What the heck was going on with my poor William!
The next day, we had a lot of people in and out of our room. All of them asked me how he lacerated his liver, and I had no idea. Finally his doctor came in with about six other people dressed in scrubs to ask me questions. All of them took notes. My senses were screaming at me that something was wrong, but I had done nothing wrong, so I could trust these medical workers, right? The doctor kept asking what happened between now and two months ago for William to lacerate his liver. And I kept telling her I had no idea. Then she did a small exam on him, and noticed a wart he has on his upper leg. She said, "Have you seen this before on him?" I told her yes. "This is genital warts." She said. "This needs to be looked into. I'm going to have you talk to a social worker because I can see this is very hard on you."
So I talked the social worker who asked me the same questions about the liver and now about his wart. When we were done she said, "We have to call CPS about this." I was a little more worried about William's wart at this point. But I don't use babysitters, and he doesn't play at other people's houses ever, so if he did have an std, it had to come from school or church, which I highly doubted. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted a test on the wart because I was sure it was not sexually transmitted.
I was given a lame excuse at Summerlin why they wouldn't test his wart - something like they didn't have the right test, but they said he would be tested after he got transferred to Sunrise. That's right. He got transferred back to Sunrise right after Summerlin called CPS on us, like they didn't want to deal with any backlash we might give them. I now hate Summerlin Hospital more than I hate Sunrise. Let's not test anything and make sure it's an std first - let's just call CPS and get rid of these people. There's more damage that Summerlin did, but that will come later.
I was not happy when I arrived at Sunrise behind William's ambulance. I did not want to be back at this hospital that I did not trust. As soon as he got into his room, a resident walked in, and I got angry. Here we go again with a bunch of random people walking in and out of his room all day long. Then they told me he was not allowed to eat until they could figure out what was wrong with him. All the same from before. All he needed this time was too much IV fluid until his lungs and stomach filled up with water. I asked the resident when he could get a test on his wart so that I could show proof to CPS that he does not have an std, and he told me a child advocacy doctor would come in to test him. We never did get that test. Apparently Sunrise doesn't want to check things out for sure either.
A little while later, two Metro detectives showed up to talk to me. I had to go to a special room, and they tape recorded our interview. And guess what? They didn't care about the wart at all. They were concerned about the lacerated liver. They wanted to know what happened to him this time to cause it, and I told them I still didn't know. I then told them about my distrust for Sunrise Hospital, and about William being starved and pumped full of IV fluid until he couldn't breath when we were here before. I told them that if there is a lacerated liver, it was probably there the first time we came, and they missed it because they are such a mess. The two lady detectives seemed to be on my side and were actually very helpful to me after that.
He was monitored for a day or so, and then he was allowed to eat and be monitored some more. We were now under the care of a urologist who was dumbfounded that William was going to school and was only told to take it easy for 6 weeks. He thinks the kidney started to heal but then was reinjured again. I asked the urologist why we didn't see him the first time we came to Sunrise. He has a much better plan for getting William better this time.
By Tuesday we were ready to leave the hospital, and the general doctor came in to tell me that all doctors had cleared William to leave, and he just needed to be cleared by CPS and Metro. So Kevin made phone calls to our CPS lady and one of the detectives to move things along. The detective let us know that she was informed that the lacerated liver that Summerlin diagnosed and that caused me to be interrogated by the police never existed. So a whole case was opened up to investigate possible child abuse and/or neglect because some idiot at Summerlin wrote lacerated liver instead of kidney on William's file, even though I brought a doctor's note in with me that said lacerated kidney on it.
Also, we saw William's pediatrician today. He looked right at William's wart and said, "That's not an std. That wart is very common in little boys." Not sure why the doctor at Summerlin couldn't see that also. I'm starting to think that most of the doctors we've dealt with at these hospitals have very little experience.
But the great news is we are still dealing with CPS! Because William being on bed rest for two months and having to get an ultrasound and see his urologist once a week is not hard enough right now! Even though it's been proven that I don't beat my child and that he never had a lacerated liver in the first place and he doesn't have an std, CPS still has to go through their check list of things to investigate about us before they are done with us.
To say I'm annoyed is a total understatement. We would not be dealing with CPS if someone didn't screw up at Summerlin and also if they would have tested his wart before calling to tattle on us. I thought Sunrise was a mess, but now I'm convinced that every hospital in Las Vegas is a big fat joke. I will never take my kids to a hospital here again. I'll drive to St. George or even all the way to Salt Lake before I let these circuses that call themselves hospitals treat my kids.
I've come to realize that I don't blog when I'm truly unhappy. 2012 was one of those years for me. A lot of hard things happened that caused me to make some changes in my life, and my blog suffered because of those hard times. Having Lia at the end of the year motivated me to keep up with the times in my life that need to be documented. I think I did pretty well with the blog updates in 2013.
I'm afraid 2014 is starting out more like 2012, and it's causing me to shut down and not keep up with the blog again. William was in the hospital for another week last week, and the experience was not only worse the second time, I'd say it was probably the worst week of my entire life.
On a Friday William's PE teacher told me that William didn't feel well enough to participate in PE that day. Hearing that made me worry. A lot. I started watching him more closely, and after that day, I could see he was in pain. By Tuesday, he came home from school and lay on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, so instead of taking him to school on Wednesday, I took him to his pediatrician.
The PA who works with his doctor thought William looked fine after doing a physical exam (I let him know the history with his kidney). He wanted a urine sample just to make one last check on him. He found blood in the sample, and said that because of William's recent hospital stay and the abnormal sample, I should take him to the hospital to get some more thorough tests. I asked him if it mattered where I went because I was not happy with Sunrise last time we were there. He told me Summerlin was fine.
So we went to Summerlin with a note from the PA about the recent lacerated kidney and abnormal urine sample. The note is important here.
I checked in at Summerlin Hospital, and the guy checking me in, who spoke bad English, kept my note. I asked if I should keep it to give to the doctor, and he said no he would keep it.
We sat in an pediatric er room for a while until a Russian woman came to get William for an ultrasound. She asked about his liver, and I told her he lacerated his KIDNEY. I thought maybe her bad English caused her to misread her notes, until the ultrasound tech told me they were getting an ultrasound of his liver. WHY?! He had a lacerated kidney!! I told her that also. Then for his ct scan, they were also concentrating on his liver. I was starting to lose it! Are all hospitals really this bad with communication! Where's my freaking doctor's note that says the boy has a lacerated kidney! I also told the ct scan people it was his kidney, and they said the scan should show both. So when the er doctor came in to tell me they could see a laceration on his liver, I was angry, and told him there was never a lacerated liver - it was always a lacerated kidney! And he told me, "well there's a lacerated liver now also." What the heck was going on with my poor William!
The next day, we had a lot of people in and out of our room. All of them asked me how he lacerated his liver, and I had no idea. Finally his doctor came in with about six other people dressed in scrubs to ask me questions. All of them took notes. My senses were screaming at me that something was wrong, but I had done nothing wrong, so I could trust these medical workers, right? The doctor kept asking what happened between now and two months ago for William to lacerate his liver. And I kept telling her I had no idea. Then she did a small exam on him, and noticed a wart he has on his upper leg. She said, "Have you seen this before on him?" I told her yes. "This is genital warts." She said. "This needs to be looked into. I'm going to have you talk to a social worker because I can see this is very hard on you."
So I talked the social worker who asked me the same questions about the liver and now about his wart. When we were done she said, "We have to call CPS about this." I was a little more worried about William's wart at this point. But I don't use babysitters, and he doesn't play at other people's houses ever, so if he did have an std, it had to come from school or church, which I highly doubted. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted a test on the wart because I was sure it was not sexually transmitted.
I was given a lame excuse at Summerlin why they wouldn't test his wart - something like they didn't have the right test, but they said he would be tested after he got transferred to Sunrise. That's right. He got transferred back to Sunrise right after Summerlin called CPS on us, like they didn't want to deal with any backlash we might give them. I now hate Summerlin Hospital more than I hate Sunrise. Let's not test anything and make sure it's an std first - let's just call CPS and get rid of these people. There's more damage that Summerlin did, but that will come later.
I was not happy when I arrived at Sunrise behind William's ambulance. I did not want to be back at this hospital that I did not trust. As soon as he got into his room, a resident walked in, and I got angry. Here we go again with a bunch of random people walking in and out of his room all day long. Then they told me he was not allowed to eat until they could figure out what was wrong with him. All the same from before. All he needed this time was too much IV fluid until his lungs and stomach filled up with water. I asked the resident when he could get a test on his wart so that I could show proof to CPS that he does not have an std, and he told me a child advocacy doctor would come in to test him. We never did get that test. Apparently Sunrise doesn't want to check things out for sure either.
A little while later, two Metro detectives showed up to talk to me. I had to go to a special room, and they tape recorded our interview. And guess what? They didn't care about the wart at all. They were concerned about the lacerated liver. They wanted to know what happened to him this time to cause it, and I told them I still didn't know. I then told them about my distrust for Sunrise Hospital, and about William being starved and pumped full of IV fluid until he couldn't breath when we were here before. I told them that if there is a lacerated liver, it was probably there the first time we came, and they missed it because they are such a mess. The two lady detectives seemed to be on my side and were actually very helpful to me after that.
He was monitored for a day or so, and then he was allowed to eat and be monitored some more. We were now under the care of a urologist who was dumbfounded that William was going to school and was only told to take it easy for 6 weeks. He thinks the kidney started to heal but then was reinjured again. I asked the urologist why we didn't see him the first time we came to Sunrise. He has a much better plan for getting William better this time.
By Tuesday we were ready to leave the hospital, and the general doctor came in to tell me that all doctors had cleared William to leave, and he just needed to be cleared by CPS and Metro. So Kevin made phone calls to our CPS lady and one of the detectives to move things along. The detective let us know that she was informed that the lacerated liver that Summerlin diagnosed and that caused me to be interrogated by the police never existed. So a whole case was opened up to investigate possible child abuse and/or neglect because some idiot at Summerlin wrote lacerated liver instead of kidney on William's file, even though I brought a doctor's note in with me that said lacerated kidney on it.
Also, we saw William's pediatrician today. He looked right at William's wart and said, "That's not an std. That wart is very common in little boys." Not sure why the doctor at Summerlin couldn't see that also. I'm starting to think that most of the doctors we've dealt with at these hospitals have very little experience.
But the great news is we are still dealing with CPS! Because William being on bed rest for two months and having to get an ultrasound and see his urologist once a week is not hard enough right now! Even though it's been proven that I don't beat my child and that he never had a lacerated liver in the first place and he doesn't have an std, CPS still has to go through their check list of things to investigate about us before they are done with us.
To say I'm annoyed is a total understatement. We would not be dealing with CPS if someone didn't screw up at Summerlin and also if they would have tested his wart before calling to tattle on us. I thought Sunrise was a mess, but now I'm convinced that every hospital in Las Vegas is a big fat joke. I will never take my kids to a hospital here again. I'll drive to St. George or even all the way to Salt Lake before I let these circuses that call themselves hospitals treat my kids.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Celebrity Sightings (Update)
I've seen a couple more famous-ish people since the post I did a few years ago about celebrities I've seen. And they've both been at the salon where I get my hair done.
The most recent happened today when I went to pick up my pricey shampoo from my sister-in-law/hairstylist who gets a nice discount for me. I told her I would be there at a certain time, and I ended up getting there a little late, so I was waiting in the front area for her to finish up with a client. As I was sitting there, I noticed a Mercedes SUV pull up to the front with three uniformed kids climbing out of it. Soon after, the mom got out, and I totally judged her! I immediately noticed her amazing body and thought, "Must be nice to have a lot of money for a personal trainer or liposuction or whatever her secret is." As she walked in with her kids, I actually looked at her face and noticed that she was this pretty lady:
The most recent happened today when I went to pick up my pricey shampoo from my sister-in-law/hairstylist who gets a nice discount for me. I told her I would be there at a certain time, and I ended up getting there a little late, so I was waiting in the front area for her to finish up with a client. As I was sitting there, I noticed a Mercedes SUV pull up to the front with three uniformed kids climbing out of it. Soon after, the mom got out, and I totally judged her! I immediately noticed her amazing body and thought, "Must be nice to have a lot of money for a personal trainer or liposuction or whatever her secret is." As she walked in with her kids, I actually looked at her face and noticed that she was this pretty lady:
I already knew that my sister-in-law Emily cuts Steffi Graf's kids' hair, so I wasn't totally shocked to see her there. Emily told me that when Steffi calls to make appointments, she says, "Hi, this is Stefanie Agassi..." She even started speaking German to her son at one point. She's just a regular mom picking her kids up from school and taking them to get haircuts. I felt bad for judging her since I'm pretty sure her amazing body doesn't come from liposuction.
Before Steffi, I was getting my hair done last summer, and after I got my hair washed, I saw this girl as I was walking back to my sister-in-law's chair:
That's Tierra from Sean's season of the Bachelor. She must live here, or really likes to spend time here, because my friend just posted a picture of her at Cafe Rio by my house. As I was getting my hair cut, I could see her in the mirror, and she kept catching me looking at her.
I should get pictures with the people I see, but I feel bad bothering them. I'm sure Tierra probably loves the attention, but I bet Steffi doesn't. And if I was taking my kids to get haircuts, I wouldn't want some random stranger bothering me for a picture. So instead I write about these sightings on my blog so I remember who've I've seen. It's fun living in Vegas and seeing some famous faces every once in a while, although one of my former students just ran into Brooks Forester in Utah. It would be fun seeing some famous Mormon faces up there. :)
Friday, December 13, 2013
Catch Up
With two trips to Utah, a week-long hospital stay, and a 9th birthday party, November was crazy. But I think I got mostly caught up with this blog today. I have a bunch of pictures from Lia's first birthday, but they will have to wait since six posts in one day is enough for me. :)
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Lia
Lia is 1! Her birthday was on December 10th. I missed writing her 11 month post - November totally got away from me. So here are some new things Lia has started doing in the past two months.
- She waves at you when you tell her hi. She'll also wave when we are leaving somewhere and telling people bye. Sometimes she'll even say "ba ba" (like bye bye) as she's waving and we're leaving.
- She's learned "no no." She'll keep saying "na na na na" over and over again if she's not happy about something that's happening.
- She likes to open drawers and pull everything out of them. Her brothers' bottom dresser drawer is her favorite. She goes in their room and pulls all of their pajamas out of their bottom drawer.
- She also likes to pull all of the toilet paper off the roll. One of my nicknames for her is Busy because she is constantly moving and looking for something to get into or a mess to make.
- My other nickname for her is Dolly because she has looked like a doll to me since the day she was born.
- She still loves to go up the stairs. She's gotten a little better at going down the stairs backwards, but she's still not quite mastered it.
- She has stood by herself a few times, but she has not tried to take a step on her own yet.
- She likes to use bar stools as her walkers:
Here she is having the time of her life after Rebecca's birthday party with the couch pushed out of her way.
- We got her a push toy from Sam's Club for her birthday, and she enjoys pushing it and being pushed on it:
- She's very snuggly and prefers to be held most of the time.
My baby is one, and time went by so fast! But I knew it would just like it did the other three, so I'm glad I took the time to enjoy her as a baby.
Braden
Braden is a hoot! This kid cracks me up every day. Here are some things he's done lately that I need to write down and remember.
Over the summer, I went with my mom and sister up to Salt Lake to pick up some overhead projectors for my sister's school. While we were there we took the kids to Temple Square. Braden DID NOT want to go to Temple Square and protested the entire time walking there from the parking lot saying, "I don't want to go to the Temple." We walked into the Tabernacle, and all of the young readers in our group read the sign outside out loud that says, "Visitors Welcome." And Braden said in his most grumpy tone, "No, it says the Temple is closed!"
He likes to do this with his shirt all the time:
Over the summer, I went with my mom and sister up to Salt Lake to pick up some overhead projectors for my sister's school. While we were there we took the kids to Temple Square. Braden DID NOT want to go to Temple Square and protested the entire time walking there from the parking lot saying, "I don't want to go to the Temple." We walked into the Tabernacle, and all of the young readers in our group read the sign outside out loud that says, "Visitors Welcome." And Braden said in his most grumpy tone, "No, it says the Temple is closed!"
He likes to do this with his shirt all the time:
He reminds me of Beavis and Butthead. "I am the great cornholio!"
He is the only kid who sits in the third row of our car, and he likes it that way. We tried making either of the older two kids sit back there, but they got lonely. I think he finally asked if he could sit in the very back by himself, and he's never complained. On the way to taking William and Rebecca to school on Monday, he asked for a blanket. I got him one, and when I looked back at him during our drive, he looked like this:
I had Rebecca snap a picture.
He adds an s to possessive pronouns. When talking about Lia, he'll say something like, "Lia needs hers bottle." I don't correct him because I think it's adorable.
I didn't put him in preschool this year, and I was offered to join a Joy School co-op, but I declined. I want to enjoy the little time I have left with him before he goes to kindergarten next year. He's stubborn and grumpy, but I totally get him because he's just like me. I've loved being home and being around him all the time.
William
William spent a week in the hospital during November. My visiting teachers came over, so I sent the kids out to play on the trampoline. He came back in crying, but I thought he was just trying to get out of finishing his homework. He kept crying so I sent him to bed. In his bed he started screaming in pain, and he got up and threw up, so I called Kevin. Kevin came home from work early and took William to the emergency room.
The CT scan showed that William had a lacerated kidney. The hospital transported him to Sunrise Hospital in an ambulance because with their new children's wing, they could better treat his injury.
When we told doctors that his injury happened on the trampoline, they didn't believe that a trampoline was enough to do the damage that was caused to his kidney. We had been in Utah the previous weekend, and William had a minor accident on my parents' ATV, so we're thinking that's what caused the injury and the trampoline just aggravated it.
I have to say, for being our valley's children's hospital, I was very disappointed with Sunrise. We were there to make sure he had no internal bleeding. I guess the kidney is encapsulated, so it should heal on it's own as long as he wasn't bleeding out of it. They found out right away that he had no internal bleeding, so I thought we should be able to go home and have him take it easy for a while. But we had some surgeon come in and tell us that he thought that they needed to take care of his constipation before we left. ??? If he's not bleeding internally, then constipation is something I can take care of at home. Constipation isn't something that needs to be treated at a hospital, in my opinion, and with all of the medicines they kept giving him there, I'm pretty sure they caused the constipation.
As we had him there taking more medications to clean him out, he started to get more sick. I could tell he was in a lot of pain and morphine wasn't working to ease it, and he started to get short of breath. With the residents who were there, I probably saw 15 different doctors in the span of a few days. We never had the same doctor twice. I started to feel like I was playing a giant game of telephone with these people. Each came in with a different version of what was going on with William according to what they had heard from a previous doctor. And instead of working together with a plan to help him get better, each new doctor came in with a new plan. It was so frustrating to watch my son get worse and to see this mess of doctors who weren't doing a thing to help him. Kevin called it a case of too many chiefs and not enough indians, and that's exactly what it was. Not to mention that he was being starved since they couldn't decide whether or not they wanted him to have surgery, but they had to keep his belly empty just in case they decided at the last second to take him to the OR. By Tuesday, after being there since Thursday night, I was angry and in tears. I even had the thought that my son was going to die under the care of this incompetent hospital. By then he was taking really short breaths, and his lungs and stomach were full of water.
They finally moved him back up to the pediatric ICU where he could get more intense treatment. As soon as he was moved up there, his doctor noticed the amount of IV fluid he was getting and halved the amount saying, "He doesn't need that much fluid." After about an hour, I could instantly see a difference in William. He was breathing better and he was not in as much pain. With the 15 doctors we saw downstairs, none of them noticed that they were giving him way too much IV fluid that was filling his lungs to the point where he couldn't breath. And the saddest part of this is that Kevin mentioned to one of his nurses that she should stop the IV (this was when they were letting him eat). Obviously she ignored him.
As soon as he was stable in the ICU, they asked if we wanted him moved back down to general pediatrics where we had been. We said no. He was discharged directly from the ICU a day later.
I will never go to Sunrise ever again. I could probably even sue them for malpractice if I wanted to, but I'm just going to stay away from there and tell my friends to do the same. I was prepared to drive to St. George next time I need hospital care for my kids, but two friends have told me that Summerlin has a wonderful children's hospital, so we will go the next time.
The CT scan showed that William had a lacerated kidney. The hospital transported him to Sunrise Hospital in an ambulance because with their new children's wing, they could better treat his injury.
When we told doctors that his injury happened on the trampoline, they didn't believe that a trampoline was enough to do the damage that was caused to his kidney. We had been in Utah the previous weekend, and William had a minor accident on my parents' ATV, so we're thinking that's what caused the injury and the trampoline just aggravated it.
I have to say, for being our valley's children's hospital, I was very disappointed with Sunrise. We were there to make sure he had no internal bleeding. I guess the kidney is encapsulated, so it should heal on it's own as long as he wasn't bleeding out of it. They found out right away that he had no internal bleeding, so I thought we should be able to go home and have him take it easy for a while. But we had some surgeon come in and tell us that he thought that they needed to take care of his constipation before we left. ??? If he's not bleeding internally, then constipation is something I can take care of at home. Constipation isn't something that needs to be treated at a hospital, in my opinion, and with all of the medicines they kept giving him there, I'm pretty sure they caused the constipation.
As we had him there taking more medications to clean him out, he started to get more sick. I could tell he was in a lot of pain and morphine wasn't working to ease it, and he started to get short of breath. With the residents who were there, I probably saw 15 different doctors in the span of a few days. We never had the same doctor twice. I started to feel like I was playing a giant game of telephone with these people. Each came in with a different version of what was going on with William according to what they had heard from a previous doctor. And instead of working together with a plan to help him get better, each new doctor came in with a new plan. It was so frustrating to watch my son get worse and to see this mess of doctors who weren't doing a thing to help him. Kevin called it a case of too many chiefs and not enough indians, and that's exactly what it was. Not to mention that he was being starved since they couldn't decide whether or not they wanted him to have surgery, but they had to keep his belly empty just in case they decided at the last second to take him to the OR. By Tuesday, after being there since Thursday night, I was angry and in tears. I even had the thought that my son was going to die under the care of this incompetent hospital. By then he was taking really short breaths, and his lungs and stomach were full of water.
They finally moved him back up to the pediatric ICU where he could get more intense treatment. As soon as he was moved up there, his doctor noticed the amount of IV fluid he was getting and halved the amount saying, "He doesn't need that much fluid." After about an hour, I could instantly see a difference in William. He was breathing better and he was not in as much pain. With the 15 doctors we saw downstairs, none of them noticed that they were giving him way too much IV fluid that was filling his lungs to the point where he couldn't breath. And the saddest part of this is that Kevin mentioned to one of his nurses that she should stop the IV (this was when they were letting him eat). Obviously she ignored him.
As soon as he was stable in the ICU, they asked if we wanted him moved back down to general pediatrics where we had been. We said no. He was discharged directly from the ICU a day later.
I will never go to Sunrise ever again. I could probably even sue them for malpractice if I wanted to, but I'm just going to stay away from there and tell my friends to do the same. I was prepared to drive to St. George next time I need hospital care for my kids, but two friends have told me that Summerlin has a wonderful children's hospital, so we will go the next time.
on his way home after being in the hospital for a week
I'm glad this is over, and my William is home. Hopefully we won't have to deal with hospitals again any time soon.
Rebecca
Rebecca turned 9 on November 22. She's been asking for a Monster High party all year long, so we had one for her this year. We actually sent out her invitations the day William went to the hospital. The thought crossed my mind that we should cancel the party, but I knew we couldn't do that to her. We had a plan just in case William was still in the hospital for her party, but he ended up coming home right before, so everything worked out okay.
We started the party with musical chairs and pizza. While the girls ate pizza, we let them decorate their cupcakes.
Here are two cupcakes that Kevin decorated to match the Monster High theme. If he wanted to, he could seriously decorate cakes for a living.
We had an indoor piñata since it was raining outside. And then Rebecca opened her presents.
My mom had been at our house since Wednesday helping with kids so that Kevin and I could stay at the hospital. She stayed for the party and then went home to southern Utah right after the party ended. It was so nice to have her here to help all week.
handsome boys
A few things about Rebecca.
- She is in third grade and loves her teacher Ms. McCullough.
- She started taking gymnastics at Mirabelli Community Center this year, and she loves it. Her cousin Jessie teaches the other class that is held during the same time as Rebecca's class, so she gets to see her every week.
- She is an AWESOME big sister. She always wants to help with Lia.
- She has been taking piano lessons (from me), and she finished her primer level books. She just started level one books. Practicing is not one of her favorite things to do right now, but I have a reminder in my phone to make her practice every night. I always tell her that she will be glad as an adult that I made her play the piano when she was young.
- She loves everything Monster High right now. Kevin and I think the dolls are really weird, but if we don't buy them for her, she buys them using her own money. I guess there are worse things she could be into.
- She finally got her ears pierced last month. We were at the mall and decided while we were there, she could get them pierced for her birthday.
- She loves her dog Guillermo (she claims he's hers). Here she is with him and his cousin Beans (my brother's chihuahua):
We're so happy to have this spunky girl around. Happy 9th Birthday, Rebecca!!
Halloween
We had a fun Halloween this year. It started out with a party at my sister-in-law Emily's house on Tuesday before Halloween. Kevin and I were shark attack victims to match Braden's shark costume. Since I had a wet suit on, I had no pockets to hold a camera, so we don't have any pictures from the party.
The day of Halloween, the kids had a costume parade at school.
That night we went to my brother's Halloween party.
Rebecca was Frankie Stein from Monster High, and Lia was Piglet.
William was Spiderman and Braden was a shark.
my nieces Kennedy, Avery, and Abbey with Lia
Hailey, Jessie, Brooke, and Whitney in their super hero onesies. I can't believe how old these girls are all of a sudden!
I love Halloween every year. I hope everyone else had a fun Halloween this year!
Friday, November 8, 2013
Jessica's Wedding
As stated previously, Kevin and I got to go to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last month without the kids to see my friend Jessica get married.
I have to admit - Mexcio made me nervous. Being in a place where I've heard rumors of kidnappings scared me, especially since neither Kevin nor I speak Spanish. This fear was compounded when Jessica sent me an email a few days before our trip letting me know that 30+ men in official looking uniforms would aggressively approach us at the airport telling us that they were our ride to the resort and trying to get us to go with them. Awesome. I'm so glad she warned us about this beforehand because it happened just as she described after we got through customs. One guy in the mob asked us what transportation company we were looking for, and Kevin told him. The guy then lied to us, told us that that was his company, and directed us to another guy at a counter. When I saw that the guy at the counter had a badge that didn't match the company we were looking for, I turned around and kept walking. We were out the door when another guy asked us who we were looking for, and we told him. He also said, "That's us!" His badge also didn't match the company name. I was seriously ready to book a flight back to the U.S. at that point, but this guy turned his badge over to show us the name of the company we were looking for. I was still a little skeptical until he went to his partner and came back to us with a piece of paper that had our names on it. After all of that, I was very edgy during the cab ride to our resort.
When we arrived at our resort and I realized our cab driver was not going to take us to a dark alley and hand us off to some kidnappers, I finally started to relax. I probably should have never watched the movie Taken. It's really messed me up.
The resort was beautiful. It had its own private beach blocked by rocky cliffs on both sides. The two buildings with the hotel rooms were built so that every room had an ocean view. We kept the slider to our room open the whole time we were there so we could always hear the ocean. Here are some awesome pictures from Kevin:
The reception:
I have to admit - Mexcio made me nervous. Being in a place where I've heard rumors of kidnappings scared me, especially since neither Kevin nor I speak Spanish. This fear was compounded when Jessica sent me an email a few days before our trip letting me know that 30+ men in official looking uniforms would aggressively approach us at the airport telling us that they were our ride to the resort and trying to get us to go with them. Awesome. I'm so glad she warned us about this beforehand because it happened just as she described after we got through customs. One guy in the mob asked us what transportation company we were looking for, and Kevin told him. The guy then lied to us, told us that that was his company, and directed us to another guy at a counter. When I saw that the guy at the counter had a badge that didn't match the company we were looking for, I turned around and kept walking. We were out the door when another guy asked us who we were looking for, and we told him. He also said, "That's us!" His badge also didn't match the company name. I was seriously ready to book a flight back to the U.S. at that point, but this guy turned his badge over to show us the name of the company we were looking for. I was still a little skeptical until he went to his partner and came back to us with a piece of paper that had our names on it. After all of that, I was very edgy during the cab ride to our resort.
When we arrived at our resort and I realized our cab driver was not going to take us to a dark alley and hand us off to some kidnappers, I finally started to relax. I probably should have never watched the movie Taken. It's really messed me up.
The resort was beautiful. It had its own private beach blocked by rocky cliffs on both sides. The two buildings with the hotel rooms were built so that every room had an ocean view. We kept the slider to our room open the whole time we were there so we could always hear the ocean. Here are some awesome pictures from Kevin:
view from our room
We spent most of our time at the beach.
the happy couple
The ceremony on the beach:
Jessica's sister Ingrid
The beautiful bride with her mom who doesn't seem to age
Jessica and Kyle
Jessica is still quite the dancer, and she requested that all of her female friends and family members join her in a dance performance to Beyonce's song Love on Top. It's been a long time since I've done a dance routine, but everyone else was doing it, so I joined in. Kevin got the whole thing on video. Jessica's cousin choreographed our dance to a condensed version of the song, but the DJ played the regular version. That's why we all seem a little confused about what to do next a few minutes into the performance. :)
We had such a fun week! I'm so glad we could be part of Jessica's special day.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
10 Months
Lia is ten months old today, and she's grown up a lot in the past month:
- I got her out of her crib a couple of weeks ago, and as I did she said her first word to me, which was "bum bum." You can imagine the laughs she gets from her three older siblings whenever she says "bum bum."
- Since that day she has also said "mama." She says "uh oh" when she crawls near the books on the bookshelf, probably because that's what I say to her when she gets close to the books. Kevin went to put her down for a nap, and she looked at her crib and said, "uh uh." And she beams with delight whenever she says any of these four things and we recognize that she said something we understand.
- She had one tooth for a while, and she looked like a little hillbilly. Her second tooth finally popped through recently.
- She pulls herself up wherever she can. She loves walking along the couch and the lower shelves on the bookshelf.
- She also loves to climb the stairs. This week I could hear her crawling around by me in the kitchen and then all of a sudden the downstairs got very quiet. When I went to find her, she was about four stairs up. So the next thing we'll be trying to teach her is how to go back down the stairs.
- She's completely bottle fed now, and she refuses to hold her own bottle. She totally can, but she won't. I don't mind too much because pretty soon she won't let me hold her anymore, so I'm going to enjoy holding her and feeding her while I can.
- She's back to taking a binky. As soon as I quit nursing her, she started sucking her thumb again, so I bought her some new binkies that she loves. She is a lot easier to soothe now that she takes a binky.
- And she naps now!! When I nursed her, she would sleep through the night but be up for most of the day. Now she takes a long nap in the morning, and a short nap in the afternoon. Hallelujah!!
I'm amazed at how much she has grown up over the past month. We love this silly girl.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
So......
Our seats for Dancing with the Stars were a little better this time than they were last time. Here's how the camera picked us up last time:
Here's how the camera picked us up this time:
Yep. You can't even tell that's us.
Here's how the camera picked us up this time:
Can you see me on the left? We were basically on camera every time they showed the judges on tv.
I had a lot of fun last time we went, and I felt so blessed just to be there, but this visit to Dancing with the Stars blew our last visit out of the water. What you can't see is that all of the stars and dancers are sitting on couches to the judges left. They were just ten feet away from us. Mark Ballas' mom and some friends of Val were sitting behind us, so Mark and Val would come and hang out in the row behind us during commercial breaks. No big deal! Carrie Ann's boyfriend was sitting in front of us with his daughter, and after she talked to him during one break, she came to our row and talked to us. She said, "You guys sure got some great seats!" No joke!
It was so amazing! I felt like I was in shock during the whole two hour show! Watching it on tv, I noticed that my mouth was open most of the time.
Some celebrities we saw in the audience that night were Jennifer Lopez and her young boyfriend, Kym Johnson, Shawn Robinson from Access Hollywood, the entire cast of Glee, and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. Since it was the season premier, we got to see all of the stars. This season there's: Jack Osbourne, Elizabeth Berkley, Christina Milian, Bill Nye, Bill Engvall, Snooki, Brant Daugherty (not sure who this guy is), Leah Remini, Corbin Bleu, Keyshawn Johnson (football player), Valerie Harper, and Amber Riley, who I think is going to win this season.
Kevin will start working Mondays so that he can have Sundays off soon, so this is probably the last time I'll be able to go down to Hollywood for DWTS. He was supposed to start his new schedule the day we went down for the show, but some mix up happened, and he won't start working Mondays until next month. Lucky for me! If that was the last show I get to see live, I ended on a great note!
Saturday, September 14, 2013
9 Months Old
This little chicky is nine months old.
A few new things about Lia this month:
- She started crawling about 2 weeks ago.
- She is currently being weened to a bottle because this cute lady is getting married in Mexico next month:
Kevin and I will be gone for five days for Jessica's wedding, so I want her to be used to having a bottle all the time for my Mom's and Mother-in-law's sakes.
- She has one tooth. I only see it when she cries, so I don't have a good picture of her with her one tooth yet.
And that's all that's new with baby Lia this month!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
The kids' first day of school...
...did not turn out as planned this year. I got a call Sunday before the first day of school letting me know that the kids' new school location did not have a certificate of occupancy and would not be able to open the next day. I had a million questions, like "well when will it be open?" But I politely said "okay" and let the office lady continue to make her calls to unsuspecting parents. I'm sure this poor messenger got some backlash from parents for what she was calling to tell them. It didn't help for me to contribute to that even though I was pretty upset about the news.
We waited all day Monday for a phone call or email update and didn't hear anything until 8:30 pm. I was a wreck that whole day! The phone call let us know the school still did not have what they needed to open Tuesday, and they were shooting for Wednesday. Then Tuesday they called to say they weren't ready for Wednesday, so now they would try to be open Thursday.
The hardest part for me at this point was that I had spent the entire summer deciding if I wanted to keep them at this charter school they had attended last year or if I wanted to enroll them at their public school. The new location for the charter school had moved farther away from our house, but I also hated the thought of having Rebecca in three different schools in three years. I ultimately decided to make the drive and keep them at the charter school, and all of this starting late business had me seriously doubting that I had made the right choice.
We got a call Wednesday afternoon letting us know that the school had what they needed and would be ready for the first day of school on Thursday.
Here they are all ready for their first day of 3rd grade and 1st grade. They love their teachers Ms. McCullough and Mrs. Howard. Looking back, it was nice to have them for a few unexpected days. I even took them on a tour of the California Pizza Kitchen on Wednesday I had signed Braden up for. They are happy to be back in school with their friends, and I'm happy to have a routine each weekday again. Hopefully there won't be any more surprises. :)
We waited all day Monday for a phone call or email update and didn't hear anything until 8:30 pm. I was a wreck that whole day! The phone call let us know the school still did not have what they needed to open Tuesday, and they were shooting for Wednesday. Then Tuesday they called to say they weren't ready for Wednesday, so now they would try to be open Thursday.
The hardest part for me at this point was that I had spent the entire summer deciding if I wanted to keep them at this charter school they had attended last year or if I wanted to enroll them at their public school. The new location for the charter school had moved farther away from our house, but I also hated the thought of having Rebecca in three different schools in three years. I ultimately decided to make the drive and keep them at the charter school, and all of this starting late business had me seriously doubting that I had made the right choice.
We got a call Wednesday afternoon letting us know that the school had what they needed and would be ready for the first day of school on Thursday.
Here they are all ready for their first day of 3rd grade and 1st grade. They love their teachers Ms. McCullough and Mrs. Howard. Looking back, it was nice to have them for a few unexpected days. I even took them on a tour of the California Pizza Kitchen on Wednesday I had signed Braden up for. They are happy to be back in school with their friends, and I'm happy to have a routine each weekday again. Hopefully there won't be any more surprises. :)
Sunday, August 11, 2013
8 Months Old
And such a happy girl still. William took this picture of me and her last Sunday.
Lia's had a fun month! A couple weeks ago we took a quick trip to Spanish Fork for my Mom's family reunion. We stopped in Salt Lake for a few hours to pick up some used school supplies for my sister's school. While we were there we toured Temple Square and City Creek Center mall.
Lia was a happy tag-along.
After our trip, she got to spend some time with her cousin/future bestie Avery.
A few new things about 8-month-old Lia:
- Just today she started pushing herself up to hands and knees position. From here she likes to push herself back to sitting up. She's not quite crawling, but she rocks on her hands and knees, so I think she's close.
- She finally rolls from her back to her belly and vice versa. I've caught her sleeping on her belly a couple times this month, which is new.
- She still has no teeth. With her drool and some uncharacteristic crankiness, I've thought for the past three months that she'd have a tooth poke through, but we still haven't seen one.
- She likes to pick up her puffs and put them in her mouth by herself.
- She loves to stand up.
The kids propped her up on the couch, and she loved standing there by herself (she's not leaning on William).
I love this age when she'll start to do a lot more things in a short amount of time.
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