2010 UGGGHHH!!!

So while Michele has been updating you with the wonderful goings on around our family holiday time (snow, presents, nana + bubba, family time) I get to tell you how 2010 is ending.

So last Monday evening (12/20) my back went in to a spasm like I have never felt before. I didn't really sleep all night and on Tuesday morning I was in the worst pain I have ever felt. Needless to say I called a chiropractor and he got me in at 9am - come to find out I had a herniated disk (L5) and pinched nerves. So he worked on it and did some test and x-rays. Then I went to him every morning from Wednesday - Friday to try and straighten out my back. Come to find out from the x-rays and tests, my lower back  (specifically L5, L4, and L3 vertebrae) has had lots of years of stress on it and is compensating by growing calcium deposits toward each other. Essentially my spine is trying to fuse itself together to make sure that it can keep my walking. Obviously this would not be very good for my flexibility and it would keep me in a decent amount of pain. So the chiropractor and I are going to meet about 20 more times in the new year to hopefully work out why my lower back is receiving such punishment.

This put me in a not very good place all of last week and in to Christmas on Saturday - couldn't really sleep for longer then a couple of hours each night and any time I was in one position for longer then about an hour, moving was very difficult. While this was going on Riley got another cold - stuffy nose, unable to breathe, coughing up mucus, etc, etc - on Tuesday night. So that really stinks for her and Michele, because I really couldn't help as much as I would have liked to due to me not being able to pick up a kleenex never mind a 9lb baby girl.

But then Christmas morning with my family came and it was awesome - Zoey is very very deliberate present opener. She wants to admire each gift and make sure that each one gets its own due - while frustrating, it is one of the qualities of my oldest little girl that I love the most - when she is intent on something, there is no getting her off of it. So we were enjoying our day when during the Celtics-Magic game the TV started to fritz and then all of a sudden my father and I noticed that there was water pouring out of the light fixture right above the TV. Come to find out the guest toilet upstairs had overflowed and flooded the bathroom, which in turn flooded part of our living room ceiling. Everyone jumped up and did a great job - Nana took the baby, Zoey woke Mom from her winter's nap, Dad went to the upstairs bathroom and shut off the water/shopvac-ed the standing water up, duke licked himself, and I moved the TV and tried to catch the water.

So we took the light fixture out and poked holes in the ceiling so the water wouldn't collapse the whole ceiling. We called our insurance company yesterday - Allstate - and I dealt with someone yesterday and a claims specialist today and thankfully they are going to cover some expenses. (WAY TO GO ALLSTATE). Needless to say we had to laugh, because we couldn't cry about it. We worked some fans throughout the night in multiple areas, pulled up some carpet to dry it and the padding out, and have caulked some areas in the upstairs bathroom so hopefully if it does happen again, it just puddles on the tile upstairs.

So while it was a ridiculous Christmas story, it was our Christmas. Thankfully my parents were here or I don't know what Michele and I would have done with just ourselves and the kids. This incident does put a pretty neat little bow on 2010 for the Jacobs family thought and fits right in with what we have had going on. I'm sure you all realize by now that we are all greatly anticipating 12:01am on Saturday morning. A new start can't be the worst thing for us.

Thank you all again for the love and support that you have given us this year - hopefully you have some more left over as Riley will be having her surgery early in the new year and Michele and I are going to have to try and figure out how to deal with all of this while both working full time (mom, went back to work today - she was/is heartbroken about it, but better heartbroken, then bankrupt).

Christmas

Today is the big day, and can you believe we are having a white Christmas?  I honestly cannot remember the last time we had a white Christmas even when we lived up north.  I am just glad that my girls were able to experience this.  We'd been checking the weather reports yesterday and Zoey was asking everyone if they believed.  I guess since we answered that yes, we do believe, that's why we got the snow.

I have to say that Zoey make take the record for the slowest present opener ... ever!  Not only is she a slow present opener, she's also quite selective.  Instead of taking the present right in front of her, she has to go 4 presents deep.  Then when that present has been opened, she will go to the far right hand side of the tree.  If anyone else is opening a present, then she has to wait or assist with that opening too!  I think Josh was about to lose his mind with all the waiting around.  Despite the fact that we got her a new mattress set in order to convert her bed from a toddler size to a full size bed, the thing that she loved the best was the Barbie band-aids - crazy kid!  After opening the gifts though she has been loving her Mobigo from Aunt Nellie (thanks Aunt Nellie!).  Got to love a teaching tool disguised as a toy

Christmas Eve

We've had a very nice day today ... I'm sure Zoey knows this is her last chance to make a positive impression on Santa, so she is making the most of it.  Man, what are we going to do on December 26th when we don't have the to hold over her head any more?

We took Zoey & Tigger to see Tangled at the movie theater today and Zoey.  Zoey was living the good life with her popcorn tub that was bigger than she is!

We had our 10th annual Christmas Eve dinner at Benihana.  I thought Riley was going to sleep through the whole event, but she finally woke up for the end so that I was able to juggle her and finishing my fried rice with my chop sticks ... go me!

Tigger

Zoey is the lucky pre-K kids who got to take Tigger home for the winter break.  Zoey's classroom at school is called the Tigger class, so naturally, Tigger is the class mascot.  The teachers have asked everyone that is taking Tigger home to provide a page in the Tigger scrapbook.  Now, we've only had him home for a couple of days, but Tigger is sure living the good life!

12/22/10

We had our bi-monthly cardiologist appointment today.  Riley is up to a chunky 9 lbs 15 oz.  Things are progressing nicely with her and Dr. Border is recommending that her next appointment will be like a pre-op assessment.  They will do an echocardiogram and who knows that else to complete that assessment, but we'll take it as this means we are one step closer to setting a surgery date.

Zoey had her Holiday Show & Party at Appletree ABC for her Pre-K class today.  The kids performed several songs, like Rudolph and Feliz Navidad.  They were absolutely adorable belting out their songs together.  After the performances, they kids got to celebrate with a small party will yummy stuff like decorating their own sugar cookies.  The kids did a book exchange and the teachers gave them all goody bags so they were all way excited.

Josh & I had a meeting with Riley's daycare teachers today too.  Luckily the manager has had experience with a g-tube (they said the kid wouldn't live past 6 months and he's 11 years old today!)  but the actual teacher, Ms. Nadia is definitely a bit nervous.  I typed out a 3-page instruction manual, complete with photo instructions with arrows for the feeding pump, so hopefully that will help.  I told her that after a couple of weeks she'll be an old pro at handling Riley.  The upside is that they have a small enrollment of infants right now, so Riley will be the 5th baby in the room, so that makes me feel a lot better.

Getting Caught Up ...

Okay, so I have fallen behind on the posting (again), so let me get caught up on the happens in the Jacobs' Household.

12/5/10


We went Christmas Tree shopping on a Sunday, so we had to work around the football games.  We did find a beautiful tree, unlike last years tree where a huge hunk fell out when we got around to decorating it!  It was a beautiful sunny day.  We debating about getting a different style tree (I have no idea what the different types are called), but opted to stick with our normal type for Riley's first Christmas tree.

12/12/10

Yet another football Sunday, we got around to decorating our tree.  Zoey had a good time helping Riley to "put up" ornaments; basically Riley sat in her bouncy seat and slept through the whole thing.

12/12/10

RILEY'S 1ST SNOW

It wasn't a big one, but it was her first glimpse of the cold white stuff.  It was a pretty steady flurry for this time of year

12/17/10

Riley had her every other week doctor's appointment today where she weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 10 oz!!  While she is getting over her cold for the most part, she does have a mild ear infection in her right ear.  Which would explain her fussiness yesterday.  So we've added an antibiotic to her medication list, and hopefully this will do the trick

12/10/10

So I think Riley might actually be kicking this cold (finally!).  Although we had a rough night last night; she & I were basically up from 1:30 am to 4:45 am (give or take).  Sadly TV programming ends at 3:00 am, but I was lucky to find a wacky movie on so I had something to watch then!  During the day, Riley's symptoms are pretty mild ... not much of a runny nose right now, or at least the times between runny noses are fewer and further between.  We're just about at that 2 week mark, so I guess the doc was right about that time frae.  According to the Pediatrician and the Cardiologist, they are seeing greater numbers of RSV right now so we are so lucky that our insurance approved Riley getting the Synagis shots, as she is actually getting the antibodies for RSV and now that she's had 2 shots, it's a bit stronger protection.

We still haven't heard anything about the Katie Beckett Medicaid yet, so please keep fingers crossed that we'll get some good news soon.  I'm not sure how much longer we can keep the bill collectors at bay by telling them that we are waiting to hear about the Medicaid program.  Right now it's a total waiting game, and that totally stinks!

12-8-10 7pm

So it was to good to last - 3 weeks to our last family hospital visit Riley Rose is back at CHOA Egleston. So she has had a lot of mucus since 11/27 and Michele took Riley for her 'well' Pediatrician visit last Friday (12/3) and the doctor diagnosed her with 'just a cold - something we just have to ride out'. Then a cardiologist visit led to some blood tests and chest xray to make sure it was just a cold and they got an elevated white blood cell count. So they asked us to just take her back to the pediatrician today to make sure - so a visit to the pediatrician today all of a sudden (with no change in her symptoms mind you) led to us having to rush her to the emergency room to make sure she doesn't have RSV. The same pediatrician that checked her out last week all of a sudden today heard a wheeze in her lungs - I'm all for being cautious with my children, especially this one, but no one else heard a wheeze, her chest xray was clear and everyone here at Egleston stated that even if it was RSV, there is nothing that they can do besides treat it like a normal cold anyway. So my question is what is so different today from last Friday - if today led to tests, then why couldn't we get them last Friday and catch something early if we could have. I am glad that the doctor wanted to take the protective route, but do it when it is protective not after the fact and not just to protect your ass.

Just as I have been typing the RSV test came back negative, so eventually we will get to go home. Again, I am glad people want to be cautious with one of my most treasured people, but let's do it early and catch it prior to it being a problem.

On a good note - while we were sitting here waiting for stuff, my little flower smiled and 'talked' to me, so I talked back and she smiled some more. So I gave her a quick chin tickle and she smiled and 'talked' some more - this brought a couple of tears to my eyes as this was the first time that she had truly smiled at something I did instead of just an involuntary reaction. So we have broken our streak of 3 weeks with no hospital visits and if you are counting (because we are) this is 7 of her 9 weeks of life that she has spent some time in a hospital. But her little smile makes it all worth it - for those 3 seconds that she smiled at me my world was a glow with awesomeness and my happiness could have lit up New York City. My daughter is a wonder to me and even in dark moments can light up my life.

12-8-06

So I am sitting in front of my fireplace holding my newest daughter while watching my oldest daughter sing and dance and behind zoey is our 6 stockings (4 for our ga family and 2 for my parents who come down to celebrate Xmas with us - huge thank you to mrs croteau for producing all of ours and getting riley's done so quick) and all I could think was that our mantle is complete now. I have 2 beautiful daughters a wonderful wife supportive parents and we will all be under my roof in a couple of weeks. I'm sure that I could be happier, but at this moment I don't know how.

Riley Rose

12/4/10

It's been a busy week ... we started the week with a visit from the coordinator for the Babies Can't Wait program to fill out some paperwork.  Yvette, the coordinator, asked a lot of questions about milestones that Riley has reached (she's doing pretty good with them) and medical concerns.  Wednesday Zoey had her dentist appointment and was given a tee shirt for being in the No Cavity Club -- Go Zoey!  She was such a big girl, she went back for her exam all by herself!  Thursday I took Riley for her RSV shot and then for her assessment with the Babies Can't Wait Program.  Being that she is so young, it was more about me answering questions and all of us figuring out where Riley is.  At this point it was determined that Riley automatically qualifies for the program, but we need to wait and see how her development progresses before we start introducing therapists.  I will be visited once a month and contacted via phone by my new coordinator Dena so that we can track where Riley is.  It seems that most of the work will come after Riley's heart surgery and when they do the next swallow study.  Friday was Riley's appointment with her pediatrician.  Other than having a cold, she is doing great and is up to a whopping 8 lbs 12 oz; that's a total of 3 lbs 2 oz gained since birth.  We opted to hold of 'til her next visit for her 2 month vaccines since we'll be back so often.  This is due to her having a cold.

Today was breakfast with Santa day.  Unlike a couple of years ago, Zoey is so NOT afraid of Santa.  She was just loving on him and telling him all the stuff she wants for Christmas.

Next week will be filled with more doctors appointments, but there are far worse things that we could be doing!