Updatey-ness

I love this picture. Dad often refers to the kittens (they're not kittens anymore, but we still call them that) as "book ends" when they sit on the organ like this. The thing I found funny was the obvious, mass size difference in the two of them. I mean, I knew Elsie was bigger, but sheesh, she's nearly twice the size of Chi-Chi. Both are from the same litter.

Reese looking out the open back window of our truck.

Smiley.

Watching Mommy trying to light the fire.

Watching it burn. We call Reese "Pyro Jr." because she loves going to the burn pile and watching it burn. I wonder if she saw fires very often in China. I took this picture because Mom, Reese, and Dad are all standing in virtually the same pose.

"Mommy Sandwich!"

Well, life resumed it's normal path...for at least 24 hours. Sunday, we went outside and picked up sticks- which Reese enjoyed, primarily from inside our truck- to get out in the nice weather for a bit. It's February, and it was 70* or so. It was nice like that today, too, but we're getting pay-back from Mother Nature tomorrow. The warm doesn't stay for long this time of year, and the cold always comes back with a vengeance- read: storms, bad weather, tornadoes, hail, etc.- and then it gets cold. That's Arkansas for you. Dad went to get his staples and catheter out today. The staples came out cleanly. He has a few infected spots, which the doctor said wasn't good, but it wasn't out of the realm of normal. About 6 pm, Dad realized he was unable to urinate. Which was massively painful. Mom called his Dr's office and they said to take him to the E.R. So she did, while Grandma Debbie, Reese, and I went to take a Welcome Home Meal to one of the families that came home Friday (the one with the 2 year old). Welcome Home Meals is a voluntary courtesy our local FCC extends to families that want it to bring dinner to them for the day they come home and 3 more days- generally enough to settle in and get over the worst of jet lag. Anyway, they had to re-catheterize Dad, and when they did, some 1000 cc's of urine came out, about 1 liter. No wonder he hurt so bad!

Reese was most upset when we got home from delivering the meal and her Mama and Daddy weren't home. She was a bit upset for a while, but tolerable, and then it just got awful. She started throwing a fit, and finally, I put her on Mom and Dad's bed because nothing I was doing was helping. I couldn't get a hold of Mom or Dad on their cells- no reception- so eventually, while Reese is screaming in our parents' room, I find the hospital's phone number and call it and get to the ER nurse, who tries to call them. But they don't pick up because they didn't know anyone could call in. So she says she will deliver the message for them to call me to them personally. You wouldn't believe the sigh of relief that came out after that. I thanked her and we hung up. 2 seconds later, Mom called on the room phone, it having occurred to her that maybe I some how got the number and was the one calling. The nurse came in while she was on the phone with me to deliver the message. Anyway, Reese talked to Mom and that calmed her down, after being assured Mommy and Daddy were coming home tonight (that 2 nights of both of them gone in the hospital really did a number on her), and she decided she wanted some of the dinner I made (spaghetti), which she had fervently (fitfully) refused earlier. Things calmed down and Mom and Dad came home, and, at current, life is as normal as it seems it's going to get for a while.

Reese was supposed to have a dual laser treatment and EUA (exam under anasthesia- for her glaucoma) on Friday. But she came down with strep one day too late. If she has been on antibiotics for 7 days come Friday, they would have done it. But Friday is only SIX! She didn't start antibiotics until Saturday. But we have rescheduled the EUA for March 5th. One of the scheduling people was like, "well, the soonest we could collaborate is April 25th."...yeah, well, she needs her pressure checked before then..."wouldn't you rather she be put under less?"...well, yeah, but this is our life, anasthesia is a part of that. If her doctors can collaborate, awesome, but if they can't, we can't put what is medically necessary to the back burner because we don't want her put out twice. Now, this kid doesn't get sick real frequently, I wouldn't say, particularly compared to me when I was little, but if she does, it's near one of these procedures. We've had her 8 months, and the plan was to do laser treatments every 3 months. We've had one since she got home, back in August. One was canceled because she was sick or something, I don't remember. But it's not her optometrist that's difficult to get into or have a collaboration with, albeit we can't get in 'til March 5th, it's the ENT that does her laser, the only SWS specialist in Arkansas. I love Dr. Buckmiller, and she really is a gem among doctors, but, with Dr. Ray having left, she's now having to do A-Z in the alphabet instead of just A-L or whatever it was. She's having to do more cleft procedures because he's gone, which makes getting in to see her much more difficult. And then her own daughter, Anna, is having to have procedures done to reconstruct her nose (Anna is Gong Lu whom Dr. Buckmiller treated 2 years ago for a hemangioma), and because, understandably, Dr. Buckmiller doesn't want to do these procedures herself, the ones she could, they fly out every so often to Chicago for the surgeries. Anyway, it's just kind of complicated.