Our 2009 Letter to all of you

Hello Family and Friends,

What a year 2009 has been, its been good, bad and everything in between. This year has brought some great experiences and some not so fun.

Michaela is now 11yrs old and growing fast, when does it slow down again? She Graduated 5th grade in May, and she was able to get straight A's once again. She played her last season of soccer in the spring, she may play again. The summer brought a new experience, I was willing to leave the girls home while the boys had therapy. Most days it went well other times I was ready to pull my hair out. I always came back to a clean house still standing 2 girls still alive and a dog who had been well taken care of, what more can a mom ask for?! Michaela entered the world of Middle school in the fall. She has teachers that she loves and teachers she could live without. Michaela is once again maintaining straight A's and doing well in all her classes. She tried out for Volleyball but didn't make the team. She has many new friends and still sees many of her old friends. She now has a cell phone and I don't think there is a day that goes by that she doesn't get at least 10 text messages.

Kiley is now 10yrs old and doing well. She will graduate 5th grade in the spring and then I will have 2 middle schooler.....CRAZY!!! Kiley is still Ice Skating, she passed her Pre-Juvenile moves in the field in Nov. She also had new experiences on the ice, she has skated a couples number with one of her BFF's and did a jump and spin with another BFF. This summer just as she almost landed her Axel she broke her left forearm. What an experience that was! She got her cast off the end of Aug and started skating right away. in Nov she officially landed her Axel, mostly 2 footing it but its where they all start! Sadly this is where her enjoyment stopped, she re-broke her left forearm early Dec. This time she really did a good job, after trying for over 30minutes to set it in the ER they said she may need pins/rods. A few days latter we saw ortho only to confirmed what we thought. Kiley was in the OR the next day getting 2 rods placed, these will remain in place for 3-5months.

Brycen is now 8yrs old and a busy little man! He is in 2nd grade, most days he does ok but he is struggling. He played soccer in the spring. He did enjoy it but didn't want to play again. I guess organized sports are just not his thing. Brycen was discharged from our private speech therapy this summer, but still goes for OT. As he gets older many of his differences show. He likes swimming but not water slides, he does not like new or the unknown things. He did find out after a lot of talking that he did like the tea cups, but refused to drive a car. Brycen is currently being followed by an Endocrinologist and he seems to be growing well with his bone age well off his real age. That just means he will grow latter then most boys his age. Tyler is now 4yrs old and what a joy he has been. He currently is getting ST and OT his PT left the clinic and we have yet to find a new one. Tyler continues to grow slowly and throw many many curve balls!!! We have a new GI dr whom seems to want to find an answer to all that is going on with Tyler. The first part of the year was pretty uneventful, other then the lack of growth and that is nothing new in Tyler's world. We had our first bad Gtube experience. At some point his Gtube came partly out, we have no idea how long it was like this. I pulled the water out and replaced the tube, thinking I had it in I tried to give Tyler a little water, nothing. I tried to see if I could get anything out of his gtube again nothing. This landed us for a long night in the ER to check for placement. We placed a new Gtube and waited for Xray to make sure the tube was in the right spot. Once we got that done we were able to restart feeds and go home. The second part of the year has brought many new questions, and many downs for us. Tyler was admitted to APH in Sept for unstable blood sugars, he was in the 30's and even with a bolus of sugar he dropped again into the 30's. He now has a new specialist added to his list, Endocrinologist. We are still looking into why he drops when he is sick. Blood work has been run and yes a test did come back really off, like 4x's normal. Tyler then got sick again in Nov over Thanksgiving, he was dx with H1N1 one day and then a few days latter also had croup with wheezing. We can only hope that 2010, will be a much better year for Tyler. We hope and pray that his group of wonderful Dr's can come up with a plan and an answer to Tyler.

Mom is still working for kindercare, going on 15yrs. She enjoys taking Kiley to the ice rink and scrapbook when she gets a chance!

Chris is still working for Wells Fargo. This year has been a hard year with the economy but somehow Chris still does well and most months gets it done. This year Chris and a buddy, Bradd, took a trip to the windy city to watch the Bears VS Vikings game. Although our team lost (yes vikings fan all the way) Chris said it was an amazing game to watch and experience! He came back ready to tackle 2010!!!

As for me I am still a full time stay at home mom. Taking the kids to and from school, appts and playing with friends. The kids keep me on my toes and some days I don't know how it all works out but it always does! I was able to take a week in Nov and fly to see family and friends in Iowa. Even with a full week there just wasn't enough time to see everyone I wanted to. Thank you to all whom I was able to spend time with and to those of you who I wasn't I will be back for a weekend in Feb and would love to see some of you. It was so nice to be able to see and catch up with each and everyone of you!!!
I still can't believe today is it for 2009, glad to see it go and ready to see what 2010 has to hold! I hope this finds you all happy and healthy! We love you all and miss each and everyone of you! Thank you for being there for us. I hope you all have a wonderful New Year's.


Hugs,

Chris, Amy, Linda,
Michaela, Kiley,

A year to remember........

Looking back over 2009 and all the things that happened. I am thankful for many things;

Split milk without this Tyler would be very sick. And yes I cried over split milk!!!

We are all thankful for friends, without them I may just go crazy!! Our friends (or extended family as we call many of them) have been there to help us when we needed the help the most! For that I am thankful for each and everyone of you!

Of course family where would we be without family?! Yes 2009 brought a roller coster of issues; some solved many that are not. But in the end we are all still truking forward. Looking forward to what 2010 has to bring us and yes that includes this roller coster ride we can't seem to get off of! My wish for each one of you health and happyness and most of all the joy in living each day to the fullest! Happy New Years to all!

What a crazy month......time to update!

The past month has been crazy!!! It all started Thanksgiving day. Tyler woke with a fever and all over just could tell he didn't feel go. With the fact that Michaela had just had a 24hour bug I was sure this is what we were dealing with. We switched Tyler to pedialite via Gtube and let him eat some. He of course didn't want much to eat, spending most of the day on the sofa. Friday morning I called our Ped since Tyler was still running a fever and his blood sugar that morning was 38. We did get his surgars to stablize and since our ped wasn't in the office we chose to wait it out. On Sat monring now going on 3 days of high fevers with little to no help from Motrin or Tylenol we thought it was best he be seen. Yes his blood sugar was low again but not "that" low. He was DX with H1N1 and we started Tamiflu, and a 2lb loss in just under a week. The rest of the weekend was spent snuggled on the sofa with him. On Monday he still wasn't right and now had that croupy cough and we could hear some wheezing. So back to the Dr's we went. We were able to see Dr T despite her not having any appts. Of course she was more then willing to see him knowing he needed to be seen. We added Albuterol via Nebulizer and Oral steriods to his med's. She also wanted to speak to Endo about his low sugars and if we could run the needed tests. Yes we have ended up waiting on the tests and the low sugars to just keep watching and doing what we are doing. I will say its times like these that I am more thankful for having a Gtube. We spent the rest of the week laying low and getting Tyler better.

On Thur, 1 wk after Thanksgiving, I was needing to get out. I took Brycen to get a hair cut. Those of you who understand SID (senssory intergration disorder) will understand when I say he was a willing particatpent, so when that happens we run with it!! After the hair cut we were on our way home with Michaela calls me saying that Kiley broke her arm AGAIN!! Yep same arm as she broke 4.5months earlier....sigh. I got home only to turn back around with Kiley to take her to AHP. This time she did a good job. The oncall resident Ortho tryed to set the bones in her left forarm. He wasn't that happy with the set but it would due till we could get into Ortho early next week. Kiley was sent home with codine and a white, red and green cast, Tis' the Season right!? We saw ortho on Monday and Kiley was set for surgery the next day. We knew that she would have at least 1 rod if not 2 placed. Both of the bones in her left forarm were completly broken. After surgery Kiley spent Wed and part of Thur in the hospital. Kiley was then able to return to school for the last 5 days before winter break. She has been doing well much better pain wise then this summer. She will remain in a cast for about 5wks and then will just have a brace. The rods will come out sometime in the next 3-5months. Sadly she will miss all of the compations for this year. We hope that she can make it back to the ice sometime before summer.

And then of course Christmas was upon us.............but thats another post!