"The Mass"

Our girl has been sick...so sick! As I spoke of last time...she threw up all day Sat and Sun. We went to the ER where she had an IV....she seemed to be better the next day. I took her to our family Dr., whom I love....(not like that....) and he agreed that she seemed better. The next morning the girl showed up next to my bed doubled over in pain. I took her to the bathroom...isn't that what any mom would do? She SCREAMED in pain! She has a UTI...thought I. I took her in again to our lovely Dr. Rector. He tested her urine....which was not fun to get from her I tell you....it took a LONG time! That girl is pretty stubborn! No UTI. "Perhaps Appendicitis" said Dr. Rector. It was off to Bryan East for a CT Scan. It was lots of time in a waiting room having her drink a "yucky drink", two cups of it! She spent the entire time curled in a ball on my lap....I asked for a fan...as I was so HOT....but they did not have one....bummer. It turns out that a CT Scan involves having an IV....and Hannah is not a fan of those so when the time came to have that...you can imagine...it took three of us to hold her down while she screamed at the top of her lungs "TAKE IT OUT OF ME!!".

Hannah just sitting around...that's all she wanted to do.

In the waiting room at Radiology....just wanting to be in my arms.

The "yucky drink".

In the CT Scan.

Well, after the CT Scan I sat with her for longer in the waiting room....waiting....isn't that why it's called "the waiting room"? Finally....I got a call from Dr. Rector....her appendix is fine....But...just so you know, I was not ready for this "but". They found a mass. A mass? Like a tumor!???". yes, a mass, they found it next to her colon...they are not sure what it's attached to, maybe her ovary? She's 4! How could this be? She'll need to have surgery, it needs to be removed and he promised to call me in the morning with an appointment with a pediatric surgeon at Childrens Hospital in Omaha. I went home in a daze...

The next morning Dr Rector called and said the soonest we could get in was next Thursday the 2nd of Sept. We waited til Thursday the 27th....I called and said she can't wait...she's in so much pain....so our Dr. said go to the ER at Childrens...they'll have to see you. So we went.....now I have to tell you that our girl began singing on the ride to Omaha...we hadn't heard any singing since before Saturday. I wondered if we should even be taking her...she seemed better....glad I didn't listen to myself. We took her...they took many many ultra sound pictures labeling many of them "the mass".....then came back to take some more....then took us back to our ER room....then came and got us again, now the radiologist wanted to do the ultra sound herself...I knew this could not be good....and it wasn't. The "mass" was not attached to her ovary...it WAS her ovary! Now a surgeon came to speak with us. He is so nice and so gentle with Hannah....I love him (not that way!!). His name is Dr. Cusick and if you ever need a pediatric surgeon in Omaha...he's your guy! He explained that for some reason they believed Hannah's fallopian tube had twisted around and cut off the blood supply to her ovary. They would need to do surgery right away and hope they could repair it...if not they would need to remove it. Our girl was prepped for surgery right then....she seemed to be feeling so much better....I asked why this was and Dr. Cusick explained that her ovary had probably already "died" and now she didn't have as much pain...but he wouldn't know til he got in there.....turns out he was right. The surgery took around an hour and a half....Aaron and I waited in the waiting room...where else???...this time it was the surgery waiting room. Dr. Cusick came out to tell us the surgery was done. Hannah did very well...they had to remove her right ovary along with her fallopian tube...she still has one ovary and fallopian tube that look good...so she can still have children. Why does this happen? Well, there's a possibility there's a tumor in her ovary and the blood supply was cut off to kill it....our bodies are smart. But, we are not going there yet....the pathology report comes back some time next week....not going worry about that unless we have to.

She was so happy before surgery...smiling and cute....not so much after. She was yelling and screaming and even shoved a nurse while yelling at her "GET AWAY FROM ME!". We were hoping to go home on Friday...but we went home Saturday instead. She had a hard time at first, she couldn't hold food down and they had trouble managing her pain but now she's recovering nicely and is having some pain but is able to play and have fun.

She's singing again! We're so happy to have her home and back!

In the ER at Chilrens Hospital...that's her new kitty, flowers, the ultra sound tech gave it to her and it it quickly became her favorite thing in the world.

Dr. Cusick "signed" her tummy and then let her have the pen...she was so glad to have it and after the surgery asked, well screamed, "WHERE'S MY PEN!".

the autograph

The last picture taken before surgery.

The first picture taken after surgery...she was swollen and itchy....I think it was from the morphine...that's what morphine does to me.

Watching Cinderella, this is what calmed her down...Cinderella is her favorite princess....she told me she really wanted to go to Disneyland but she didn't know how to get there and then she started to cry.....drugs will do that to you.......I told her maybe we can go when she's 5. She was worried that it would be a very long walk....I assured her we'd either drive or go on a plane.....she was excited to think about riding on a plane and told me she could watch a movie on the plane.

This is pretty much how she looked the first night....either that or crying that "my tummy hurts"

The first night...now I think she was watching The Little Mermaid....after that I turned off the TV and she slept til she had to go potty and then she cried all the way to the bathroom...in the bathroom and all the way back to her bed...poor baby girl.

This was the view out the window...it really was so cool...we were on the 4th floor. I didn't sleep much the first night....I was worried.

The next day she looked like this alot or she was crying....so it was decided another night would do her good.....I went home to get a shower and new clothes and Aaron stayed with her.

When I came back from Lincoln...I found this...a happy girl feeling better....yay! Joe and Matthew came back with me....we went down to the lobby to get our girl walking!

Joe Matthew and Hannah

They have a little "river" in the lobby.

They had fun throwing coins in and making wishes....Hannah told me she wished she was a "real princess". I told her she was my real princess.

Our happy girl!

The daytime view from our room.

Feeling good!

They had a lovely play room there...she was very excited to go in there!

A view finder!

She loved playing with all the "food". She made me many meals. She also loved playing Dr. with her dad....they even let her bring toys back to her room to play with.

Now here's the graphic photos.

Sickness

We have sickness in our house....and I don't like it one bit. Joe came down with a double ear infection two days before school started....luckily after two days of antibiotics he was feeling better and was able to attend the first day of first grade....he's doing so AWESOME by the way......YAY! Anyway...then on Saturday my sweet darling girl...you know, the baby, got so sick...so so so sick and we ended up in the ER on Sunday (before my shift) with my sick girl getting an IV. She was very dehydrated. It took three tries to get that IV in...and we had one unhappy girl. They finally had to use a neonatal (for babies) needle because her little veins kept blowing out. And I'm sick too....thought I had a toothache and it ends up being a sinus infection and uvulitis...look it up.....

The only funny part was this conversation....

Nurse: who painted your pretty nails?

Hannah: My mean sister Megan did.

ps....I forgot to take pictures of the kids on the first day of school.....oops.

VISIT

Zack left for California and then Utah (insert my jealous face here) and was gone for 3 weeks! I missed him and was so glad when he came back and he brought my nephew Zane with him....BONUS! Then joyful day....my sister and my aunt came a few days later. We had a wonderful time! They spent way too much money on us and brought and left many many blessings for us!! We went out to dinner more times than I've been out since we moved here! It was so fun to be with my sister and my aunt and have that girl time that I've been missing oh so much! My face hurt from all the laughing we did.....the last night they were here I slept over at the hotel with Jenny and Jo.....I even got permission from Aaron....and in the morning we called the kids and told them to meet us at IHOP (have I mentioned how nice it is to have kids who drive?). We all had the lovely just got out of bed look and the manager was so kind to take our picture. when they left they took our Jasper to his forever home with my inlaws.....I had to pry him out of Hannah's hands...she was not happy to see him go and begged me to let her go with him. It was way too short of a visit and I'm ready to move back to Utah now.

thanks for sharing

On Friday we went to the the North Star marching band's family night. The marching band practiced all week and on Friday they had an exhibition to show off all they learned. After the exhibition everyone was invited inside where we all sat to watch a slide show of the week in pictures and video. I was sitting there next to my friend Angie (another theater/marching band mom). Hannah was sitting on the other side of her....she asked "What's your name." and Angie said "Angie, what's your name?" and Hannah said "Hannah...I feed our dogs people food.".......just in case Angie was wondering....

Life in the ER

Okay...so I've been working in the ER for 2 months now. It's sometimes funny....sometimes sad.....sometimes heartwrenching.....sometimes irritating......sometimes stressful and always interesting. The most surprising things are

1. How many people come to the ER in the middle of the night.

2. How many people do not bathe.

3. How many people come to ER for bug bites.

4. How many people overdose.

5. How much I can see and not be sick...or even feel sick.

I've seen heart attacks, stabbings, car accident victims, stomach pains...tons and tons of stomach pains, dog bites, lacerations, mental illness, a person stepped on by a bull, a man who fell on his face into a fence post, people who've been assaulted, one a woman who had her face fractured in three places by her husband, strokes, burns, broken hands...amazing how many guys like to hit walls when they are mad, guess what?? The wall always wins!.....I've seen many many drunk people......some funny some not so much. Surprisingly...I've not seen a lot of death. It's been hard to change jobs and meet all new people...but I like it..... most of the time.

Love

Hannah has informed me that she plans to marry Logan. He is a boy from her daycare. I was having a chat with her a couple nights ago about him and she told me he is her best friend and thats why she's going to marry him. She also informed me that she likes to kiss him...on his cheeks and on his lips. When I suggested that kissing him on the lips is not such a good idea she responding with...."but I like to".

more cuteness and a another birthday

Is this not the cutest face you've ever seen? I wrote about our foster dog last time and we have more pictures of the little ball of adorableness....we are calling him Jasper. My in laws already have a dachshund named Diamond so we thought it fitting to pick a name for this dog that has to do with rocks and stones....at first we thought Rockford and call him Rocky...but Jasper was more fitting...at least we think so, we'll see if the in laws keep the name. Molly and Murphy have become very attached to him very quickly....they are going to miss him...we are too!

My little Joshy turned 16!!! Did you hear that??? 16!!!!~ I remember him being my little cuddle bug. He was so sweet and snuggly. He was also so full of mischief...I remember when he'd sneak off to the bathroom and create "potions" in there with whatever he found in the cupboards and medicine cabinet. I remember the time he rubbed gold bond cream all over his face and head and when I asked him why he did that he told me "I had to". I remember the time he turned on the faucet on the water heater and drained the entire thing all over the basement floor. And the time he unwound the entire box of film (remember film?) we'd just bought at Costco....six rolls!!! all ruined!!! and when asked "why did you do that?", his answer was "because I had to fix them.". Now he's 16 and he has his drivers license...got it the day after he turned 16....when did I....I mean he, get so old????

so stinkin cute!

Sometimes my little Hannah just tickles me....I just want to squeeze her! Today I was kissing her all over her face and she said "mom, you got kisses on my eye!"

This week

Matthew turned 12! I remember when he was born and was so cute with his head of lots of beautiful red hair! Well, he still has the red hair and LOTS of it! I asked him to please get his hair wet before we had cake....he got his shirt wet too....such a boy! Anyway...he's growing into a fine young man. He has discovered that reading is kinda fun this summer...he takes trips to the library on his bike to get movies, books and wii games...that has been a wonderful discovery for us...wii games at the library! He plays with the little kids and fights with them too....such a brother....and he also loves taking care of our dogs. I'm super proud of him and the young man he's becoming.


We also have become foster parents! My friend had a little sweet dachshund who needed a loving home. I immediately thought of my in laws....they already have a doxie and so Aaron called them and they said they would love to have cute little boy doxie.....so, we are fostering him until my sister comes in August and can take him to his forever home. He is so cute and sweet and is already puppy pad trained....I think it may be very hard to say goodbye....Murphy is overjoyed to have another playmate...Molly is just tolerant.

Resemblance?

*yep...that's my dad holding me...