Nature pictures Jonathan took in (and on our way to) CT

Catch all

There are a lot of pictures that I've not gotten on here yet from the last few weeks, so I'm going to attempt to do that now. Also the original intent of this blog was to record our school work, so I'll include an update of that as well. Jonathan and Madi are up to the war of 1812 in history. I'm still loving it. I don't know how I could've gotten through so much formal education, done pretty well, and never learn so much of this stuff! Did you know for example that the War of 1812 basically started because France (under Napoleon) and England were fighting and England began taking Americans off of merchant ships and forced them to fight in the British Royal Navy? It is so easy to learn, when you're reading from good books on a comfortable couch! In Science we are still doing Botany. Did you know that tree's "annual rings" form because trees add cells to their "stem" (trunk) around the outside and in the spring and summer they add a lot (the light colored larger part of the ring) and in the fall they add less and it is different (the dark line). In the winter they add nothing. I always thought the rings really didn't show how old the tree was...and if I did believe it a little, I certainly didn't know why!! Last week while I was with Mike getting his CAT scan, Jonathan and Madi were with friends dissecting owl pellets....for some reason, I've yet to figure out how to add pictures to the middle of the text. Jonathan, Madi and I also went to see The Miracle Worker last week.

Blueberry Cottage

Before and after Jake's show today we worked at our rental "Blueberry Cottage" listed it for sale with an agent. It was an 11 hour day for the five of us and Meme and Grampa Carlie. There was also a little silliness thrown in...notice the "fruit face" pictures!

Little Theatre Recital

Jake's Theatre class had their recital today. Madi is a "helper" for the class, so she was in it to (as well as in the "performance troupe" numbers between scenes). Jonathan did the sound for it.

A couple of hard days

Last week Mike had a Dr appt where they discussed blood work that he had done about a month ago. The tests showed that his blood sugar was high at the time of the test and also that it had been running high for at least the last 3 months. After his pancreatitis, he had "temporarily" been diabetic (the pancreas is what produces insulin), he came home from the hospital in October needing to count carbs and on oral medication and insulin shots. He was weaned from the medications in December. Since December, Mike has done great at cutting out most sugar, but not so well with counting carbs or checking his blood sugar...we were trying to get back to normal afterall. Well at this point it looks like the diabetes may not be so temporary and last Thursday Mike was put back on the oral diabetes medication. He's been a little more tired than usual which seemed fairly easily explained by a stressful job, busy family, not so successful rental properties, and a trip to CT for a funeral. Since the weekend though the tiredness got significantly worse and he also felt very weak (this instantly made me weak!). He came home early from work on Tuesday and yesterday morning he had another Dr appt. He was sent for a CATscan and blood work. Yesterday I was a wreck! Immediately my body went back into panic mode and I felt similar to how I felt the whole month of October. It was torture. Unfortunately I tend to think the worst in medical situations because everyone who knows us knows we've come very close to the worst too many times in our family (and on the same token we almost never have plain old illnesses like other people get). The anxiety was heightened last night when we happened to run into Mike's primary care Dr at the grocery store last night, where she told us point blank..."your pancreas looks ugly". She did not have the other 10 or so CATscans Mike had between Oct-Dec for comparison however. Well, today, after a little runaround and many phone calls we finally found out his bloodwork was normal except for his high sugar (which we know and can handle)...most importantly his pancreatic enzymes are normal...this is GREAT news!!! A little while later we also heard form the gastroenterologist who had the old scans, that his pancreas is SIGNIFICANTLY better than December!! Now I can attempt to feel normal again. It is hard to explain how panicked I got, but I immediately went into the mode of "he's getting pancreatitis again"--which almost killed him. I sincerely don't want to be a panicker, but crazy scarey illnesses seem to be our cross to bear. Mike's current situation is far from a crazy scarey illness, it is only tiredness because of elevated bloodsugar and a need to figure out how best to control it, but like I said we've had too many life threatening situations in our family. In the first two and a half years of his life I rushed Jonathan to the ER close to death3 times...as a three day old infant his blood sugar was undetectable and he had a stroke, at 2 years old it was 19, and at 2 1/2 on the day Madi was supposed to be baptized he had a grand mal seizure and his blood sugar was 21. It turns out he was born with Glycogen Storage Disease type 9...his body couldn't store glycogen(sugar)...he outgrew it. Madi had almost never been sick in her life, and just before she turned 5 a random virus caused her body to start attacking her blood platelets and she had to spend 2 days in pediatric ICU with Idiopathic Immune Thrombocytopedic Purpura. She is no more likely to ever get this than anyone else...it is a fluke thing. Mike also had periocarditis about 7 years ago (inflamation of the lining around the heart). I say all this to explain why I tend jump to worst case senarios...because we've been there, done that. We do seem to bounce back though, so while I was freaked out yesterday, by tomorrow I should most likely be my normal self again. This might be very confusing to read because I'm currently in the period between totally stressed and normal. Sorry for the confusion! I do just want to thank all my wonderful friends who immediately stepped up to help us once again in our time of need. (You all know who you are and I love you!!) (You too Meme and Grampa Carlie who drove the 1 1/2 each way to sit in the waiting room with us.)