Busy, Busy, Busy!!

My goodness it's a busy time of year!! After finally getting my new living room all in order I did get to spend a few nights relaxing watching movies and snuggling under my blanky...Yes I said *blanky*...Yes I have a blanky :) It's soft, I love it!

I have been having some computer problems here and finally decided to buy me a new desktop before my laptop officially crashed! So I invested in my first ever *nice* desktop computer, my last one was a hand me down from my momma that she got right when the internet became mainstream! So yes it was a dinosaur! Haven't used it in a few years but it did get me by for a while. Ever since then I have always owned laptops and have loved my last one that the Hubby bought me almost 2 years ago! It would usually work great *unless* I were to travel with it, or even simply move it from my desk! Real good for a LAPTOP huh! So anyhoo I got me a spiffy HP Slimline with a whole wazoodle of GB!! And wouldn't you know it as soon as I got my new computer all installed and ready to go I set up the other one and it went kaput! Won't load to save my life...Which has been just a bit frustrating beings I wasn't brainy enough to back everything up before I shut it off and was planning on doing that after...

So I had a great photo shoot Thanksgiving weekend and would love to share a few of those pics with you but they are trapped inside my dead laptop :( But on a positive note I had another AWESOME shoot yesterday!

These kids decided that for Christmas for their Momma they would do pictures to give her as a gift! Sweet kids, right?! They were such a blast and kept me laughing the WHOLE time!!

I just absolutely adore McKenna, (she's the dark haired girl) she had a hard time with this *serious* face because it's against her nature LOL!! She just needed to SMILE!!

One of my favorite's!

I loved how the 2 brother's were in step together and their arms were in the same position and then the 2 sister's were in sync as well LOL!!

Update 5,386,209 on Krissy of Course!

Sooo yeah...Another relapse...SIGHS...Seriously I am just tired! So tired of this not working! Monday evening we pulled her out for her evening treatment and I got her eye-drops in then the Hubby says "uhh she's got granules in her eye"...Yep sure enough there they were 3 very large granules that I could see in her left eye and a couple in her right eye.

So I immediately called my Vet who I now have on speed dial directly to his cell phone! Such great service I tell ya! His words "DAG GONE IT!! You gotta be kidding me"?! Nope Doc I'm not, wish I was but I'm not! So he said shoot her with 5ccs of Dex, flush heavily with saline, put in ointment, and worm her again with the ivermectin. Then he said give her 5ccs of Dex again Tuesday and do the other treatment 2 x day.

So we have been strictly following orders (again) and have managed to be pretty much swelling free so that is good. He thinks this is just residual Habronema and hopefully it will subside. If anything changes she will be going back, but I really don't want to have to do that! I just got my $805.00 bill from the last 12 days she spent there! OH PLEASE OH PLEASE no more!!!

Thanks all for the many prayers!

Just a quick word!!

I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know that my Hubby is doing really good!! Thanks for all of your prayers and thoughts!! The "rash" on his leg is almost completely gone!! We will have our follow up appt with the Infectious Disease Specialist on Tuesday where they will recheck his blood and then we should be good!! Now we just need to pray that it doesn't come back!!! Apparently it is very common for it to attack a second time!

I hope everyone has had a great weekend!!!

Storm Clouds and an Update on Hubby

Hubby had a Dr's appointment yesterday morning so we went and had high hopes that this Dr could figure out Hubby's mystery...So we get all checked in and then they take us back to a room, surprisingly we didn't have to wait but a few short minutes!! So we are sitting in the room waiting to see Dr O who we met at the hospital 2 days prior, and in walks this lady who happens to be wearing a lab jacket that says OB-GYN....NO seriously I am NOT kidding!!! Last time I checked my Hubby was a male and didn't need to see an OB Dr?!?! So she talks to him for a minute and then he shows her his leg and she literally went "eww, uh...well I'm not sure what that is let me go get another Dr"...OMGosh!!! So in she comes with Dr O this time and I thought "Oh good, now we have a good Dr", well he talks with Hubby and looks at his leg and says well it's worse that's for sure but I'm not really sure what is going on here...So we'll be back....So in they come with ANOTHER Dr and she looks at it and of course we get the question "did you get bit by anything? Any spiders, ticks, anything"? We have only answered this question 5,000 times in the last 4 days!!! So she says "HUM, well let me think and we'll be back", by this point Hubby and I are like this is crazy!!! So I start researching on my phone while we are waiting for Bone Infection, because Hubby has some family members who are afraid that's what this is. I actually found that the symptoms really all match Hubby's...From the "rash" on his leg to the crazy lab results to the pain and sickness, just everything really....So a few minutes go by and they all come back in with....YES ANOTHER Dr!!! He asks the same repetitive questions and of course we answered the same as every other time!! So he looks at it and says "well let me make some phone calls and we'll be back" OMGOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So finally the OB-GYN Dr comes back in and says "well we are going to change his antibiotic and try this other one Dr M (the last one in) has talked to Dr P who is an Infectious Disease Dr and they have decided that it's some type of reaction to a bite and its inflamed the tissue"...So I said to her "how can we be sure this is not a bone infection"? And I asked her why we couldn't just do the simple MRI that would give us that answer and she basically told me no. So I told her we would not be taking their prescription because I do not believe in just throwing more meds at him and not actually know what your trying to treat! She didn't like that very well so she quickly left the room and comes back with Dr M and he sits in the chair and says "well what is the issue"?? I said "well the issue is that we have now been consulted by 4 Dr's and 1 more over the phone plus then 5 we've seen before you and not a single one of you has had the same answer here"!! Then I continued to tell him that I think it's ridiculous that they think its ok to give someone medicine and not know exactly what they are dealing with and I didn't understand why we couldn't just rule out the bone infection...Then I said it's not your life your messing with it's his, my Husband, Father to my children and he lives and he works and his life is valuable to me so I am not just going to go by the way side on this issue!!! He went on to tell me that he redness on his leg is not an indicator of bone infection and I responded with UM actually it is, along with his blood counts being off the chart!! They tried to tell me about certain blood test being that way for a reason so I promptly informed them that I worked in Hematology for some time and I know what the tests mean!! Well they didn't care for that much so they left the room and sent Dr O back in. He proceeds to tell us that "their job is to treat Hubby as cost efficient as they could" UMM well cost isn't an issue when we have 2 insurance companies LOL!! Then he rambles on about how they act as a filter and catch the hospital patients and then send them to the appropriate Dr that they need to see..So because of the nature of whats going on we feel that it would be best to send you on the the Infectious Disease Dr and let them see everything, they are used to dealing with these kinds of medical issues so that will be the best option so we can rule out bone infection...WHAT?!?! Hello that's what WE told you what to do and now you want to act like "Oh your so smart and all" HA LOL!! And they made it a point to tell us it IS NOT Celluitis aka Staph Infection...

Recent storm moving in...



So later in the afternoon we went to see the specialist, actually his PA but she was very nice and very thorough. She looked over all of the labs, and listened to the whole saga and only briefly asked about any type of bite, she did not carry on expecting him to suddenly remember a bite LOL!! So her diagnosis was that it MOST DEFINITELY IS Celluitis aka Staph Infection LOL!! We told them that the earlier Drs said it was DEFINITELY NOT!! She got a good chuckle out of that! She basically told us that since Hubby does have occasions at work where his boots get all wet and then he walks around like that until they dry that the dry skin between his toes has cracked and she had us look and see how it was. Then she said what happens is somewhere he picked up a bacteria and then it got into that crack and it could have happened a long time ago! Then what happened next was he must have hit or bumped his leg and he may never have known that he did it but what happens is that bruises the soft tissue and then the bacteria attacks because the system is weak...Very interesting and made so much sense!! So his blood work being all over the map is due to that infection and she expects when they redo blood next Tuesday it will be balanced back out. So he is on a high powered antibiotic that is actually dangerous to take and they only give it if they have too...So we are watching for many things right now!

Just beautiful views!!



And to top it all off we spent some time with my wonderful family on Sunday before Hubby went back to the hospital and unfortunately one of my cousins was feeling tired that day, and into the night he started feeling worse so they decided on Monday evening to take him to the ER because originally they thought he had a concussion from a hard hit in football but the ER Dr's confirmed that he has Influenza...And quite possibly the H1N1 aka swine flu, we should know tomorrow...As much as I was glad he was OK, I was of course worried about the H1N1 for everybody!! I mean our whole family was there!! But the next issue came that our Dr is very worried about Hubby getting this, she basically said it could be dangerous for him to acquire that right now...So we were all put on Tamiflu, Me, Hubby, J, & DD...Taking it as a preventative, which I didn't know you could do, but sure enough it says you can!! Oh and did I mention that this drug isn't cheap....$240.00 for the 4 of us!!! I think it's a bit ridiculous, but the other price we could pay would be much higher...SO we are all on day 2 of it, everyone but me is doing well. The drug actually makes me ill :( I'm hoping my body will be adjusted for tomorrow's dose!

My Absolute Favorite!!! This SOOC :)



Love it!!

Another Update...

OK so finally home from the hospital AGAIN!!! Took Hubby back as the rash was spreading and the pain was moving up his leg and the Lymph Nodes were hurting again...So once at the hospital the Dr came into see him and reviewed his results from last night (ok Saturday night LOL) then he came in and reported that his Platelets were low Saturday so he ordered another round of blood..After the lab being down for a good few HOURS and the Dr finally figuring out they were having a malfunction, he proceeded to get on their case a little (oh yeah I guess I should mention that this Dr is an old friend) so they had to redraw Hubby's blood and put him at the top of the stack so we then waited for at least another hour and a half!!! But he was checking the platelets and PT INR (blood clotting factor) finally the results were done and the platelets were at 149 and their normal scale runs 150-450 so that was OK, the night before it was 117...So then we had also discussed the fact that his WBC were so high Friday and then Saturday was OK. Dr was a bit worried if they would get low so today's reading was 4.8 and their scale runs 5.0-10.00 so not considered technically "low"...But Dr helped us find a Dr for Andy to follow up with, so he is supposed to see him Tuesday. Of course if anything changes he is to report back ASAP!! We currently have a pen outline where the rash is so that we can see if it spreads out more..

As he layed down to sleep tonight (this morning) he said his leg is throbbing!! Hoping for a better day tomorrow...

Thanking God for Good Doctor's!!

So last night I sent out a Prayer Request for my Hubby, and I must say we are so blessed to be in touch with so many wonderful people!! Thank you all for the prayers, and what we found out today was much different then what the local Dr was saying...

This morning Hubby had to make his repeat visit with the local hospital and have his blood redrawn, so that we did. Well a girl came in with the results and said they were at 6,700 which is great compared to yesterday and right inline with where they want them. Now the funny thing was she just said that and then said "OK drink lots of water and you should be good"?!?! WHAT?!?! That's it!! I mean NOBODY came in to see him at all, nope no Doctor!! So I took Hubby home, stopped and got him a sandwich on the way home but by the time we got home he was exhausted and getting a fever again so he just went back to sleep...So I started facebooking with some friends and family about what was going on and we were all in agreement that this needed to be looked into further! So I went in and woke the Hubby and said "I'm taking you to the hospital" he argued with me a bit...I think he did want to go but he did not want someone to think he was just being over reactive or something...So he reluctantly said yes he would go. So my mom met us at the hospital and took the kids while we were in there.

Finally in a room he was evaluated by a resident DR and she was asking questions of what had been going on, how long, etc...Then he showed her the area that the pain in his leg was (he had originally said groin area but when he thought about it he figured out it was just the top inside of his leg) so then she asked if he had any rashes anywhere and we were like no nothing...So she gave him a "gown" to put on so they could examine his leg area. So when I went to take off his socks I seen like the brightest red on his leg and I was like "what the heck"?!?! So we got his jeans off and upon looking at his right leg we found the lower half below the knee was a huge rash?!?! I was shocked!! I put his socks on before we left the house and I didn't notice it but I guess it wasn't real bright in my bedroom...So the Doc's come back in and we show them and they both go "OH WOW, Umm OK"...They looked at the rash really good and they both said it looks as though you (Hubby of course LOL) have an infection in your leg!! So they ordered complete blood work up with markers to tell them if this was any Lymphoma or Hodgkins or something...They also took a urine sample then when they were doing the physical examination of that area they found that he had enlarged lymph nodes and that's where the pain was coming from. So he was taken for an Ultrasound of the area and it was found that he has several inflamed lymph nodes in that region. So they were definite in saying that it is an infection in his leg and the lymph nodes were swelled and hurting from trying to keep the infection from spreading.

So they ordered additional testing on his blood. Testing for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease, but we won't have the results for that until maybe tomorrow or Monday...So he is currently home and on antibiotics and if we see any more rash, increased fever, or increased pain then he is to go back to the hospital ASAP. Otherwise we shall follow up with his regular Dr on Monday..Which doesn't sound like such a great idea since they didn't put much thought into his issues in the first place...

He took his antibiotics tonight and I think he was already feeling a bit better when he went to bed..So I'll keep praying!!!

His leg while still at the hospital



Right before he went to bed..