More Drama

OMG!  A lot has been going on since my last post.  Lynette had surgery on April 18th like I mentioned in my last post.  The surgery was around 10:30AM and we left the hospital around 3PM-ish.  She was stable and comfortable.  At 4:18 Thursday morning, the doctor called.  Apparently, Lynette had some serious trouble breathing and was placed on life support.  The culprit this time?  Her heart and lungs.  Her PDA valve has reopened and she has extra blood flowing in and out of her heart.  Her right lung collapsed AND she has pneumonia in her lungs.  Her heart and her lungs were not working well together at all.  By Friday, April 20th, the doctor said that Lynette came pretty close to "the end" but she showed a tiny sign of improvement.  

She has a cardio team watching her now.  The plan was to see how she did through last weekend.   They wanted to do surgery to remove the PDA valve but she isn't strong enough to have a surgery.  If she doesn't have the surgery she'll continue to deterioate.  We were/are in a terrible state of limbo and I HATE IT!!!

In the meantime Jeremiah came down with strep throat.  He went to the doctor and he put Jeremiah on amoxicillin.  Almost a week later, Jeremiah was COVERED in rashes!  Seriously, I was afraid to touch him it looked so bad.  His culprit?  Amoxicillin.  I sent him back to the doctor.  Apparently, Jeremiah has developed an allergic reaction to amoxicillin.  I think it's weird that he's taken it before and has never had a reaction to it.  He got a steroid shot and he's all good again.

Last Wednesday was a rough day.  The baby two doors down from Lynette didn't make it.  When I got to Lynette's unit, they told me I couldn't go back for a few minutes because there was a procedure going on and the area had to be sterile.  Fine.  After waiting 10 or 15 minutes, I decided to sneak in the back way.  Lynette wasn't doing well and I needed to see my baby!  I guess I am my mother's child.  Anyway, when I got to Lynette's hallway, medical staff were everywhere and the mood was not good at all.  I'm actually going to miss the little guy.  He cried loud and hard all the time.

Back at home, Savannah fell in the kitchen and chipped one of her front teeth.  I found an apartment and we are set to pick up our key on Tuesday.  It's a little under 1200 sq ft and the complex is nice.  Hopefully, we'll be comfortable for a while.  I really wanted a house but no one wanted to lease their property less than a year. Liz has a million things going on this month at school.  End of year activities, parties, and 6th grade graduation.  There's really nothing new with Scarlett.  For me?  My life IS my life!  I can't wait until I'm feeling like myself again.

I really don't like to post anything without pictures.  If you've made it this far, I hope you like these.

Scarlett woke up WAY too early this morning to go to church.  Naturally, Jeremiah told her to go back to bed.  When we woke up, we discovered that she never made it.

These two fell asleep on the way home from church today.

Lynette on life support.  Her settings are really low compared to last week.  Hopefully, she'll be taken off life support in a few days.  The goal is to get her back on the conventional ventilator.  It pains me to see her get so big.  She should be growing up at home and not in the hospital :o(

I think it's hilarious that the nurses have to pin her down.  She is always trying to pull her tubes out of her mouth.  They have to strap her in, too.  My baby girl is not going down without a fight.  

I LOVE IT!

Her hair is turning from blonde to light brown. She's scheduled to have a echo test tomorrow on her heart.  I sure hope that goes well.  She's also beginning to retain fluid again.  I hope tomorrow is a better day.  Night night sweet girl :o)

Surgery Was A Success

So today was the big day!  Our precious Lynette had her intestines reconnected and she received a gastrostomy tube, aka g-tube.  Basically, the tube is inserted through a small incision in the abdomen and will deliver nutrition directly to her stomach.  Until she can master sucking, swallowing, and breathing at the same time, this is how she will need to be fed IF she can't handle bottle feedings.  

The doctors said that she did well during surgery and didn't have any complications, yay!  She put up the biggest fit going to surgery.  I think prepping her made her really mad and she let all of us know it, too!  Eventually, she cried herself to sleep.

This is what she looked like before surgery.  I can't wait to see the poop bag gone.  The pink things are her stomas, aka intestines.  Her left one usually had a gauze over it.  I hate how the tape trashes her skin.

 Getting ready to go to surgery.  There were only three people that took her to surgery this time.  This was good because this meant that she wasn't nearly as sick when she went into her previous surgeries.  I guess more staff is required the sicker you are. 

 A nurse was kind enough to walk me back to Lynette's room to wait for her when she came out of surgery.  I look down the hallway to my left and this is what I saw.  Attending and resident doctors looking at a real surgical board in a real hospital just like on Grey's Anatomy!  The nurse that walked me back is a huge fan, too!  Go figure!!!  We talked Grey's all the way back to the room.  It was nice to clear my head for a few minutes.

 Back to business.  The surgery lasted 2.5 hours and it was a success!  This was a few minutes after our sweet baby girl arrived back from surgery.  Bless her little heart.  She is under so much anesthesia. 

Then I zoomed in to get a better look.  Is she doing what I think she's doing?  Is she giving me the stink eye and sticking her tongue out?!  I'm telling you.  She was MAD going to surgery.  This is probably her way of sticking it to us.  The nurses for torturing her and me for allowing it to happen.  She is one feisty baby!  Her face is so dirty from tape residue and dry skin.  The brown stuff is to help protect her skin from the residue.  

 All cleaned up and finally resting comfortably.  I lifted her arm and dropped it and she didn't flinch at all.  It dropped like a ton of bricks.  I love how she is spread out.  She was so tired and PASSED OUT!  

 The nurses had to start an IV in her scalp to draw blood this morning.  Her other veins are usually blown or too hard to find.

The poop bag is gone!  Her intestines are back inside of her where they belong.  This is her surgical scar and g-tube.  Now she has a scar just like mommy!  Well, mine is lower because of the c-section.  Jeremiah hopes that she will be insecure about this scar so that she'll stay away from midriff tops.  He is a nut!  Anyway, good job today, Sophia!

I'm glad today went extremely well.  I wish I could spend all day with Lynette tomorrow but I know that is very unrealistic.  Now, it's off to bed to face another long day tomorrow.  My tree stumps are being grinded in the morning...sniff sniff.  My other priority tomorrow is to find a rental house.  Wish me luck! 

Scarlett's 3rd Birthday

On April 14th Miss. Scarlett turned three years old!  I was knee deep in planning her 3rd birthday party when the tornado struck.  With EVERYTHING that's going on, I decided not to give her a 3rd birthday party.  Making that decision absolutely crushed me.  Then I realized that I am an equal opportunity parent.  That's when I decided that the rest of the kids shouldn't have a 3rd birthday party either.  Depriving everyone of a 3rd birthday party is brilliant!  See, when the girls look back, they can't say "well, she got a 3rd birthday party" or "why didn't I get a 3rd birthday party...so and so did?"  I eliminate all future drama by depriving everyone.  See?  BRILLIANT!!!  However, everyone will probably still get a cake.  Having said that, Jeremiah baked and iced Scarlett's cake.  Then, we sang happy birthday to her.  Tell you the truth, it was nice that it was just us.  Jeremiah's mom was there because she watched the girls while we went to visit Lynette.  

Anyway, happy 3rd birthday Miss. Scarlett!  We love you very much and are so glad that you are a part of our family!  Thank you for bringing us TONS of joy, laughter, and cuteness!!!

Easter Weekend

The day before Easter the girls went on an Easter egg hunt at a friends house.  It was fun to see them get so excited.  Once again, who knows where Liz took off to.    

Being silly.

After the egg hunt, Jeremiah and I took off to the hospital to see our little diva.  Here's the thing.  This is baby girl's first Easter and I be darned if she miss it just because she's in the hospital.  Having said that, I took her Easter dress and accessories to the hospital so that we could take her Easter pictures.  I'm glad that she was in a good mood.  She smiled quite a bit and handled all of the activity well.

I'm always all smiles when I get to hold her.

Look at her sticking her tongue out!

Then I'm always sad when we have to leave her.

On Easter morning we went to church like we always do.  The morning was quite emotional for me but it got better.  After church we went to the park to take our family Easter pictures.  I had to take Lynette's pictures the day before so that I could have one developed and framed.  We can't have a family picture without her!  Here we are...all six of us...including Sophia!  

Almost perfect.  I was covering up Lynette's smile.  URRRGGGHHH!!!  We were sooo close to having a perfect picture, too!

Realizing my mistake, we try again.  Scarlett is now distracted by the swings.

We never came close to perfection again.  Look at Scarlett forcing herself to smile.

All of our girls!  Savannah was starting to run out of gas.

Then she decided that she was done and was ready to go play.  She was not happy when we snatched her up.

I couldn't believe that we got a great smile out of Savannah.  Poor Liz was struggling to hold on to both girls.  Finally, everyone is smiling and that's a wrap.  This one might get framed :o)

Tornado Pictures

A few days prior to April 3rd Savannah wasn't feeling well.  On the morning of April 3rd, I finally called the doctor and the office said to bring her in.  We get there and Savannah has pink eye in both eyes and an ear infection.  The doctor wrote me a couple of prescriptions so I left and headed to CVS.  Toward the end of my major CVS drama, Jeremiah called me.  He said a tornado was headed my way and I need to go home.  When I got home, I took the girls and my things out of the van.  Jeremiah told me to crack the windows so that the pressure wouldn't build up and break the windows.  After I opened the windows, I took off to the closet with Scarlett and Savannah.  Within seconds the tornado hit our house.

   I was on the phone with Jeremiah the entire time.  I remember telling him that the tornado was here and I started screaming.  He was at work and I remember BEGGING him to stay with me and don't leave me and he said okay.  The tornado was so loud that I couldn't hear myself scream anymore.  It sounded like a freight train just the way people describe it.  It sounded like a locomotive far away coming closer.  I heard the woo woo woo sound.  The faster the woo's got, the louder the woo's got.  Suddenly, I heard this loud and violent ripple.  Jeremiah told me later that that was the sound of the roof being ripped off.  After a few moments, the tornado passed and the girls and I came out of the closet.  Savannah never made a sound and Scarlett remained pretty calm most of the time.  Elizabeth was still in school and fell to pieces when she got home.  Jeremiah picked her up from school and she was scared out of her mind when they entered the neighborhood.

After the tornado passed , I called the hospital to check on Lynette and she was fine.  In fact, they took her out of her incubator and she spent quite a bit of time in a bouncer!  I'm glad that she was having a great day because if she wasn't, I'm pretty sure that would have done me in.  Anyway, here are some pics of the tornado that hit our house on April 3, 2012.

My beautiful red oak tree.  It was HUGE.  It took up the entire yard when it fell.  I am still sick that it is gone :o(

The few branches that remained were hanging so low that vehicles couldn't get through.  Here's a big portion of it in the street.

Some people one street over came to assist the residents on our street.

Here's the city taking down the rest of our red oak to get it out of the street.

Here's what's left.  Sniff sniff.

First response team...Bro. Freeborn and Ryan.

The girls and I were hiding underneath the blue tarp.  The yards were a mess.  Trust me.  These pictures look like rainbows and butterflies compared to the damage seen in person.

 Jeremiah drove up to this when he got home.

This tree was completely uprooted out of the ground.  Oh, the mess.

My poor garage.  We just got a new roof and new gutters 2 years ago, too.  That branch on the garage penetrated about twelve inches into the roof.  The garage ceiling is a huge mess now because of water damage.

Bro. Jackson and his son working on the infamous red oak.

Finishing it off.  It made the loudest thud when it hit the ground.

The dirty porch.

Jeremiah putting the mailbox back.  Truth be told, I wanted a new one anyway.  The police has done a FANTASTIC job patrolling and keeping unwanted people out of our neighborhood.  Here's my big shout out to the city...until I get a speeding citation, ha!

R.I.P red oak tree.  Have I mentioned how much I loved this tree.

I'm still amazed how a tornado can last for a moment in time and cause so much destruction.

My dad and Jeremiah tarping the roof.

My poor backyard.  At least the maple trees survived.  I love the shade that they provide.

This house is two doors down from us.

All three sides of our fences were destroyed.

Here's another big shout out to the football teams at Martin H.S., Bowie H.S., and volunteers from a local church.  I spent all day Wednesday at my parents because I didn't want to be home in the craziness.  When we got home that night, our backyard was spotless!  My neighbor told me that all of these kids and volunteers had come in and cleaned up EVERYTHING!  Trees, fences, debris...everything!

The media circled for hours.  We saw our house on ABC and my neighbor told me that he saw our house on NBC.

Here's my daddy working hard as usual.

To put things into perspective, look how big this maple tree is compared to Jeremiah.  This is the tree that fell on the garage.

The porsche was Scarlett's babysitter for a while because she came up missing for a few moments.  She was outside and then she was gone.  I was frantically screaming for her and she came out of the house saying "yes, mom?" just as innocent as she can be.  Like it was no big deal at all.  She was in her room playing and I didn't know it.  I guess she took off to her room and I didn't see her go inside and she sure didn't tell me that she was going in.

My mother was walking down the street telling EVERYONE that Arlington had been declared a state of emergency!  She took it upon herself to notify MY neighbors of what was going on in OUR neighborhood.  I guess she thought that she was the first lady of Arlington, LOL!  My sister told me that she punked a few firemen to let her on the street because her "daughter and grandbabies live on this street and I GOT to get to them!"  My mama cracks me up!!!  In case you didn't know, my mama is the queen of all mama bears!  I love how my daddy isn't letting her stray too far.  In case I wasn't clear, the firemen eventually let her on the street, LOL!

Mr. Man still working on the tree that fell on the garage.  It blocked the entrance to the garage, too. I didn't get a picture of that.  I wish I had.

We loved our red oak so much that we planted another red oak this time last year.  As tiny as it is, can you believe that it is still standing?!

Liz was very upset to see her playhouse gone.

The back door is disgustingly dirty.

The insurance adjuster came out today and I felt like things went well.  He made me throw up a little when he told us that we have to move because we have structural damage.  Basically, the house is unstable and not safe enough to live in.  So, we have to find a rental property to reside in until the work is completed on our house.