3 Month Heart Update

It has officially been three months since my diagnosis. I had another cardiologist appointment today. I have officially lost 8 lbs in the last month :) A lot of it is fluid loss as they started me on diuretics. I lost 8 lbs overnight - fastest weight loss ever!  (Except giving birth. That's pretty instant.) Plus it is now much easier to breathe, which is always nice. My hands and feet weren't swollen, so the fluid was in my lungs and chest.

I had another echocardiogram done - my third in three months. It looks like my condition is starting to improve a little bit! My ejection fraction is up to 50% now (it was 45%). My doctor is pleased, but is putting me on ACE inhibitors starting this weekend. Yay.

Oddly, I am feeling worse. That apparently is pretty normal. Usually with medical conditions you feel better when the meds are working. That is not the case with this condition. My blood pressure at the doctor's office was 108/72 and my pulse rate was 60. And that was after having walked in from outside, not while resting. I get dizzy almost every time I stand up, come close to blacking out pretty often, and randomly break out into cold sweats. My heart feels like it's pounding in my throat and I am exhausted most of the time. My doctor is pleased. Perhaps he is a bit of a sadist ;)

In other news, I have developed something called PVC - premature ventricular contraction. Basically every couple of beats, my heart contracts before it fills back up with blood. It doesn't happen all the time, but it miraculously decided to cooperate (it's obviously NOT related to my children) and show up perfectly during my echo, so they got a good picture of what's going on. Fortunately this condition is usually benign. It was interesting to watch the heart monitor. It looked like the top line on this photo, which I stole from wikipedia -

My doctor is not overly concerned about it right now as there are normal beats between the odd ones. He's having my magnesium and potassium levels checked as deficiencies in those can contribute to this condition. The medications used to treat it are beta blockers, which I am already on. It feels really weird and usually I have to lie down when I feel it, but I don't know if it is caused by me being especially tired or if it causes exhaustion on it's own.

Anyway, we're glad everything is looking ok! We were a bit nervous about the whole irregular heartbeat thing because when you feel my pulse, it feels like it's skipping heartbeats (you don't feel it in your veins because not enough blood is pumped out).

The Last Day of School '13

I didn't get a photo of them, but this year we made each of the teachers candy grams, but instead of taping every piece of candy to a poster, we put the candy in a fancy bag and stapled the note to the front. The notes said -

The reisen for this card is to thank you for

Helping us be smarties instead of dumdums.

You are a lifesaver! Thanks for going the extra mile.

You have brought us mounds of (almond) joy.

Wish we could give you 100 grand.

Make sure to take 5 this summer, you deserve a break (kit kat)!

Hugs and kisses!

 Each of the kids signed each one and decorated them. The bags had reisens, smarties, dumdums, lifesavers, extra gum, mounds, almond joy, 100 grand, take 5, kitkat, and hershey's hugs and kisses.

Rob took picture of everyone except Megan with their teachers (we already had pictures of Megan with everyone from her graduation the day before).

Beth all dressed up for the last day of school - 

Kylie with Mrs. McCabe - 

Kylie with Mrs. Brooks (she had two teachers this year as they start splitting up classes in 3rd grade here). Mrs. Brooks was her teacher last year too and she's been a wonderful teacher for Kylie!

Mrs. Harris with Jack. I was bit concerned about Jack starting kindergarten as he's so young and has such a bubbly personality. Mrs. Harris was the perfect teacher for him and we love her! She loves Jack and did an incredible job helping him adjust to school!

Beth with Mrs. Brauer, who was also Kylie's first grade teacher. We were so excited that Beth got to have her too as she is wonderful! 

I asked the kids if they wanted to say anything about this year of school.

Megan - "There were many challenges, but it turned out ok in the end".

Kylie - "this year was gaaa-reat! Cause I got to spend a lot of time with my friends. I got good grades. Mrs. Brooks has been a great teacher. And the last day of school I got to play 'temple run' on a friend's iPad!"

Beth - "I really liked it. There were some bad times. The rest of it was all good, fun, and great." 

Jack - "It was good. Every Friday we got ice cream." 

Miss Megan's Graduation

I cannot believe Megan is old enough to go to middle school! It makes me think of the "Sunrise, Sunset" song from Fiddler on the Roof - "I don't remember growing older. When did they?" And yes, I know there are many more milestones ahead that will make me feel even older, shush :)

We wanted Megan's ceremony to be really special for her, so Betsy and I went out and found her a beautiful blue lace dress and a silver necklace that says "dream" for her to wear. She looked beautiful and so grown up, it made me get choked up.

The fifth grade graduating class of 2013 - 

Instead of having the kids come up to the front for their awards, they had them stand up where they were. Every time Megan's name was called, I snapped a picture, but I ended up with a whole of lot of photos of a group of kids standing, but none where Megan was obviously visible as she is one of the shortest ones in 5th grade and was seated in the middle of the group due to her last name. So I didn't bother posting them. Megan got an art award, an award for being part of the choir, a music award for excellence in music throughout the year, and the most improved student award for math!

Following the awards, they had each of the students walk across the stage and accept a diploma from the principal. You can sort of see Megan in her blue dress in the photo below as she is handed her diploma -  

Megan with her diploma - 

Megan and Paula with their diplomas. They met the first day of kindergarten and have been BFFs since then :)

Megan with Mrs Gilson (who taught Social Studies and Language Arts), and Mrs. Hill (who taught Math) -

Megan with the principal and the vice principal - 

Megan with Mrs. Peacock, who has been one of her PE teachers since kindergarten - 

Megan with Mr. Bowles, her science teacher - 

Meg with Mrs. Dornai, who has been Megan's art teacher since kindergarten - 

Megan and Paula - 

Megs and me - 

Megan with Mrs. Bullard, who has been Megan's music teacher since kindergarten -

Mrs. Dornai, Paula, Megan, and Mrs. Bullard - 

Megan and Paula with Mrs. Rogers, the other PE teacher (who just started this past year) - 

Congratulations Miss Megan!!! We are so proud of you and so glad we have been blessed to have you as part of our family!!!

Megan on her first day of kindergarten. She's grown so much! -

I'm Baaaack!

At least for today :)

Life has been a tad busy for the past few weeks. On May 28th, I got an email from the therapist I'm doing my internship with asking if I might be available to help with a "Phase 1" group they were starting . . . on May 30th. Besides doing individual and couples counseling, the office I'm interning at also offers a three phase treatment program for couples dealing with sexual addictions. Phase one is only six weeks long and they compile groups when they have enough people to start new ones. This one came together very quickly, hence the short notice. Of course I said yes, very enthusiastically :) So I have started my internship! The hours don't count until July 8th, but I wanted to get started before then to insure that I hit the ground with my feet running.

So I started working one night a week, the week before the last week of school. Because why make life difficult when with a little effort, you can make it impossible? ;) The last week of school we had 4 awards ceremonies to go to, including two graduations (one from kindergarten, one from 5th grade), plus I had work, plus PDI was that week, plus the quarterly John School was that week, plus we had to finish up Megan's final project (a scrapbook of her year), plus we had to work in things like making end of year teacher gifts. It was a fun week. But we made it through!

We started off the week with a visit from Travis and my father, who were driving around the US in a van they sort of converted into a camper.

The last time we saw Travis was the Christmas after Eva's birth, so it was great to see him again!

Megan was supposed to turn her scrapbook in Friday, May 29th, but as she was our first 5th grader, we didn't know about it and she didn't tell us. We found out Tuesday evening that it wasn't done. Sooo, she stayed up until 11:30pm finishing it that night. I informed Megan that she learned her lesson on major projects and this will not be a problem next year when she has many more of them due because she is in middle school.

Wednesday was the first awards ceremonies, with Beth's at 8am and Kylie's at 11am.

Beth earned several awards (although they read off all awards a child earned at once instead of doing them individually). She advanced to 2nd grade, and got a music award, an art award, an artist on display award, and "A" honor roll for the last six weeks!

Beth (front row, 2nd from the right) with her class after her awards ceremony - 

Kylie's ceremony was next, but it was two hours after Beth's had finished, so we walked home and then walked back 90 mins later. Eva and Laura enjoyed all the walking! They were less enthusiastic about the being quiet for an hour at a time during each of the ceremonies.

Kylie advanced to 4th grade, and got a music award and an artist on display award! The artist on display awards wer given to children whose artwork was chosen for the district's art show. Kylie didn't hang around when she was handed her awards so I could snap a photo of her (my camera has a delay between when you press the button and when the photo is taken), but at least she was still in the frame!

I took another picture so we actually captured her smiling as she waited with her classmates for the rest of her class to get their awards (she's at the end of the line). Beth wore a dress to her awards ceremony, but Kylie preferred to wear her favorite outfit, which is a sports shirt and soccer shorts. She did at least wear the shirt right side out and facing the correct direction, a significant concession for Kylie, who prefers to wear her shirts inside out and backwards. 

Kylie's whole class. Kylie is the 8th from the left. 

We were able to take a picture of Kylie with Laura and Eva after her ceremony (Beth's class stayed together after hers and then left for their classrooms). By then, Laura and Eva were not interested in sitting still and smiling nicely for the camera.

Betsy offered to let the dynamic duo hang out with her the next day during Megan's award ceremony so they didn't have to sit for another two hours. All three of us (Laura, Eva, and I) were much happier with that arrangement! (Thank you Betsy!)

I have about a gazillion photos of Meg's ceremony, so I'll put those in a separate post.

Jack's ceremony was Friday morning. Laura was up all night Thursday night, and from experience we know that I really don't do well on no sleep (it made me feel better to actually read on the website for the medication that I am on that if you don't get 8 hours of sleep a night, you tend to have your blood pressure behave as if it's on a roller coaster), so Rob stayed home from work and he and Eva went to watch Jack graduate from kindergarten while Laura and I slept.

Rob got two photos of Jack at his ceremony. Our camera is a fabulous basic, apparently indestructible (judging by the number of times the kids have kidnapped it and that it still works after those episodes), camera, but really stinks at distance shots. The kindergartners walk up one side of the stage, passing by the kindergarten teachers, then over a little wooden bridge that symbolizes moving from kindergarten to first grade, then down the other side, which is lined with the 1st grade teachers.

Jack heading for the bridge, having passed the kindergarten teachers -

Heading down past the first grade teachers as a first grader!

Jojo was able to make it to Jack's ceremony and she got a photo of him afterwards at the reception. Great fake-sort-of-smile there Jack :) Jack was very excited that Miss Jojo came to see him graduate and it made me not being there not nearly as bad :) -

He Blinded Me With Science

I have spent way too much time in the past few months adjusting to medications and doing school work. In fact, that's about all I've done. Rob's company sponsored a free night at the local science museum last Saturday. Since it was in the evening on a weekend, I was able to rest all day and was up for taking six kids to a museum by the afternoon :) We had a wonderful time! The kids loved being told they could touch everything :)

All ready to go!

 

Beth and Kylie playing with light

 Megan and Eva making shadow puppet

Jack found a giant lite brite!

Making pinball machines

Everything's an instrument!

Wicked cool bugs

Making music with bubbles

Jack's favorite thing was the toy train

Kylie loved the grocery store

Computers just for kids!

What Laura and I did most of the time

Eva's favorite part was the hospital section, complete with several "babies"

Yay for dinosaurs!

Watching a super cool 3D show that started off being about science and ended up as an advertisement for a natural gas company. It was still a lot of fun zooming through space and down into oceans!

Digging for dinosaur bones

As we walked out of the dino dig place, a couple with one little boy commented "Wow! Four kids!" (Two were over by Rob). I turned, smiled, and said "No. Six." Their jaws hit the floor. They don't seem like that many to me, but apparently a half dozen kids constitutes a lot.

We wrapped up the night with dinner at Braums :)