catch up

I guess we better be playing a little catch up here!  Get ready, because this is going to be a L-O-N-G post.

Let's go back to mid-December...

*December 13th. We started our Christmas festivities with the Finke Christmas in Slayton.

*When you forget winter clothes, you gotta get creative if you want to play outside.

*December 16. The day of Kenley's scheduled tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy. Because Ken was having her tonsils removed due to sleep apnea, they required her to stay one night in the hospital to  monitor while she slept.

she did very well that first day following surgery

she was actually quite thrilled that she could eat whatever-she-wanted! She loved herself some popsicles and chocolate smoothies :)



a friend from preschool sent her balloons for a speedy recovery

 

Kenley had a rough first night in the hospital, but that was to be expected. They rotated pain meds every three hours. The next morning however, she was not drinking as much as they wanted her to be. The dr. said this was common, but wouldn't discharge her until she started getting some fluids in. We started a sticker chart for her. She sure put the liquids down when she knew she was going to get to pick a piece of junk prize from the prize box! We were discharged mid-afternoon. The dr. said to keep her home for the first full week. He said she would have ups and downs, but having your tonsils removed is not an easy surgery and she is going to be in a lot of pain.  I think they try to prepare you, but in my opinion we could have never been prepared for what the next two weeks brought.

lots of cold drinks!

 

Kenley absolutely refused to take the prescription pain medication because of the taste. But when she decided she was going to refuse Tylenol and Motrin as well, then we were in trouble. When her pain was not in control, she also was not taking anything orally. On day 6 post-op, all we had was horrendous screaming, uncontrolled pain, vomiting/nausea, and dehydration. After calling the nurse, she ended up in the emergency room.

I'm sure the ER nurses thought we were crazy when I told them "she's refusing meds." I'm sure some of you are thinking that too....Um, hello, she's only four, right?  But if you know our Kenley-girl, you have an understanding of what refusals look like.  I think the nurses agreed with me, when it took 3 of us to hold her down (and let me tell you, it still wasn't pretty) just to get her to take some medication. After a couple of hours, she started perking up, had a popsicle, went to the bathroom, and we were out of there.

 

Thankfully we were on Christmas break by this time, but it took a full two weeks before we could finally say we were "done" with recovery. I don't wish that on anyone :(

 

 

*December 17th. Preschool Christmas Program.  I was heartbroken that Kenley couldn't participate in her program, but even more heartbroken that I wasn't able to be there to see Kaden either. Daddy and the grandmas were able to attend, so he probably didn't even know I wasn't there :)



 

 

*December 19th.  My birthday.  After spending the week with Kenley, my parents offered to watch the kids so we could go out and I could have a break. So thankful for that!!  Me and Cody, my sister and my brother in law went out for dinner, followed by TheDistrict to watch the band Goodroad. I very much enjoyed my night :)

 

 

 

*The Larsons came home for Christmas.  For me, time seems to stand still in between our visits. However, even on the east coast, this little guy just continues to grow and changes so much.

 

 

*Cody's mom has always had Christmas on Christmas Eve morning. The past couple of years, we have spent the night there the night before. This seriously, is one of my favorite nights of the year. I love spending this time with Cody's siblings and then the kids get to crawl out of bed in the morning, still in their pajamas for the excitement of it all.



 

 

*Christmas Eve

 

 

 

*Christmas Day.  We had Christmas with my immediate family.



 

 

*December 26th. Christmas with Cody's dad.



I had a vision of new "pretend play" area for the kids. Cody and his dad were able to take my thoughts and build this fantastic farmers market. I couldn't have been more thrilled with how it turned out and the kids absolutely love it!

 

 

*December 26-28th.  As part of our family's Christmas present, my parents booked the weekend at the Ramkota in Sioux Falls. It was all about the kids, and they had a BLAST!   



 

 

*December 28th. Christmas at my Grandma's in Windom. It was a small gathering with pizza for lunch, but it was perfect nonetheless. 



 

 

After all of our Christmas excitement, we were able to be home for 3 days and try to get ourselves back together. But not for long :)

 

*January 1st.  Cody and I along with our friends, Marc and Jo, took a trip out to the Hills for a little snowmobile trip.  I'll be honest, I wasn't necessarily looking forward to this trip. Ok, I was DREADING it.  I hadn't been on a snowmobile since the winter before I was pregnant with the twins. My body has changed a good bit and my anxiety is also not where it was pre-mama. But the boys were great. They took it slow and it was a relaxing trip. I actually enjoyed it (shhh...don't tell Marcus).

 

*January 5th.  School resumed and it was back to getting that schedule into place...or so we thought. That week, due to weather, we had one early dismissal, two late starts, and a snow day.  In my opinion, it was an easy way to transition back into the routine :)

 

So here we are, mid January.  How did that happen?

 

 

***i told you it was going to be long.  hopefully you are all still awake ;)

 



we're scheduled

We finally were able to get Kenley's surgery scheduled.  Due to insurance purposes, we really needed it to get done before the end of the year.  Plus with Christmas thrown in there, the timing just isn't ideal.  She is scheduled for Tuesday the 16th to have her tonsils and adenoids removed. They will also keep her overnight for observation.


And a post just doesn't seem complete without a picture or two....

a day of thanks

This last week was Thanksgiving--a day for giving thanks and counting our blessings. And although it's nice to have a day, a holiday, that celebrates being thankful, it doesn't mean it's easy. Especially for people like me. I  know I have a million things to be thankful for each and every day, but sometimes I have to force myself to be thankful. With depression and anxiety, the "good" and "happy" thoughts don't just fire up as quickly as they may for others. Therefore, being grateful sometimes takes a lot of work.

Don't get me wrong, even though it's a lot of work, it's definitely worth the effort :)


*my faith -- some days I forget to let my faith be bigger than my fear.

*my husband -- the one who keeps it all together. our marriage has our set of struggles but he is the one who takes me as I am. he knows all my flaws, mistakes, and weaknesses, and he still gives me love, friendship, and support.



*my children -- my mother has always said best, your children can cause you great pain but will also bring you the most joy. she is definitely right. my kids can be challenging but I couldn't be more proud to be their mom. they fill my heart to the point it wants to burst.

 

*my family -- i am part of something pretty special here.



I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to take the time to reflect on the blessings in your own life.

just another day

A couple of weeks ago I went to the dermatologist with some concerns for a couple of moles. My dr. removed the two that were bothering me in addition to one she did not like the looks of. Go figure, that was the one that came back looking abnormal (Dysplastic). So today I had another appointment to go back and have more of the surrounding skin removed. I ended up with 14 stitches and directions to take it easy. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do :)

TBT

A little throw-back-Thursday on the ol' blog :)


Untitled from Holli Finke on Vimeo.

sleep study results

The results are in...

Kenley has mild-moderate obstructive sleep apnea.  We are thankful that she is not having complete blockage where she stops breathing, but she has enough blockage that is causing a significant amount of brain arousal. This seems to be happening all night long, so we know she is not getting a good quality of sleep.  Common treatment for children is a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. 

So, plan of action, back to ENT to get surgery scheduled (insert exaggerated sigh).

We know for sure this will help her quality of sleep. We can only hope (and pray) it helps with some of the behaviors.

{{I know, this sweet face can be deceiving}}

he's awesome

We could not have been more proud of our little man than we were on Tuesday. Paxton owned that surgery!  We had to check in at the Sanford Surgical Tower at 7:15am. And then we waited. Paxton couldn't have anything to eat or drink so we expected the morning to be rough, especially for our boy who loves his breakfast. But it wasn't.  Not one time did he say anything about eating or drinking.

The nursing staff had him wrapped around their fingers. He's such a little man. When it came time for him to go, he hopped in the wagon and waved us off.  Didn't even want his mama one teeeeny tiny bit.

From the time he left us until he was back in my arms was right around 1 hour. Some whimpering when he saw me. You could tell he was very uncomfortable, but for the most part slept the anesthesia off.

The nurses let him sleep in my arms for about an hour and then we had to try to get him to wake up and make sure he would take fluids. He would have much rather slept. 5 hours from when we checked in we were checking back out and on our way back to Brandon.

He then slept the afternoon away.

He's doing great. He had a lot of blood draining out of his nose the first couple of days, but that has since decreased drastically. He's done a lot of sleeping and isn't back to his "normal" self, but he's getting there. He is such a tough little guy and we love him soo much!

needing this boy healthy

Paxton is our child who is constantly sick. I'm not kidding you...we hold out for an antibiotic as long as we can, but that's what it takes. And not just a mild amoxicillin, he needs something strong. We get a 10 day dose and maybe by day 8 or 9 we start to see a difference and we have a healthy boy for about a week after that. Then the nose starts to run again and within a few days it's thick and green and he's got himself a terrible cough. This is his life...poor little guy. I honestly don't think he knows what it's like to "feel good" and that makes me sad.

At the end of October, he had a CT scan done of his sinuses.

[he was a rock star by the way]

His scan showed that Paxton has significant swelling and inflammation of the sinuses as well as very large turbinates. Not only does he have chronic sinusitis, but his nasal passages are very small.

The Plan:
We've tried all the medical intervention we can -- nasal steroids, saline rinses, and allergy medication.  Our next step is a surgical intervention. So here is what's planned....
1. PE tubes -- he had tubes placed in his ears at about 10 months of age. He still has the tubes but they are starting to fall out. These will be reinserted.
2. Adenoidectomy
3. Nasal Lavage -- (just a fancy term for cleaning out the sinuses ;)
4. Turbinate Reduction

We are really hoping this clears up a lot of his sinus problems and upper respiratory infections. We do believe he has allergies as well. This surgery will not take away the allergies, but will definitely alleviate his symptoms related to allergies. Then, we should be able to treat the allergies effectively with over the counter allergy medications.

And...when is all this happening?  Tomorrow (11/11).  Please pray it all goes smoothly and we can get our boy feeling better.

sleep study

So this is what we're lucky enough to be doing tonight. We've been down many paths with Kenley and here's where we're at now. The purpose of this sleep study is to see whether her sleeping patterns are contributing to some of her behaviors/aggression during the day. Just like her behaviors, her sleep is just as inconsistent. We have good nights and we have bad nights. And when they're bad, it's rough! Kenley wakes up screaming! And thrashing herself around in her bed. She kicks her feet to the point that if she were next to a wall, we'd worry she would put a hole in it. And on these nights, if she wakes up once, we're in for the long haul because we know it's going to happen multiple times throughout that night.

So to be honest, I don't really know what I'm hoping for...a restful night or one that might give us some answers.

She was a rock star though. A little scared only a couple of times but no tears and no refusals!! (It must have been all the prepping we've done :)  After reading a book, she fell right to sleep.

{dinner with nene before heading to the hospital}

 



{even Belle got set up for her very own sleep study}

{I don't know how anyone would be able to sleep like this}

 

 

But she did. She slept better than mama. It was a bit of a rough night but not terrible. This morning though, she was a tangled mess. It took the nurse a long time to get her undone!  We put her in the shower to get all the goop out of her hair, were provided breakfast, and we were out of there by 7:00am.

 

We have no results yet. All I know is that I'm one tired mama!!

last week

Last week was busy with the excitement of Halloween. The kids didn't quite understand why they couldn't wear their costumes 24/7.  We spent Thursday in Sioux Falls for dr. appointments for Paxton. I put him down for a nap at grandma and grandpa's and he didn't wake until close to 4:30! So we got back home much later than I had wanted, as I knew we had a busy night ahead of us.

We started the night with pizza and the carving of pumpkins.  They weren't sure what to think when daddy took the top off. Kaden was intrigued. Kenley looked like she was going to throw up. And Paxton wanted NOTHING to do with any of it.  It took her a little time, but we did coax Ken into digging out the guts.

After that, we had a project to do for preschool the following day. The kids were able to bring a treat to pass out to their friends. So we quickly "mummified" some juice boxes and called it good.

And the last thing was to fix some costumes so they fit just right and pack them in their school bags. Then it was off to baths and bed time for the little munchkins.

Friday the twins got to have a party at school.

After daycare, we ran home to finish packing and grab daddy, then we were off to Brandon.  It was a mad rush to get the kids fed and bundled in their costumes.

After everyone was ready, Kenley decided that she no longer wanted to be a scarecrow. Thank goodness it was short lived and she didn't lose her cool....because that would have blown our whole night. We started out around the block. About half way around Paxton started coughing and coughing and struggling to breath.  Nene and grandpa took him back for a nebulizer treatment and the rest of us continued on to the next block.  I was so proud of these kids.  They knew just what to do and used their best manners in the process.  What a fun night!

Until next week...