A Medical Update

...for my family that is.

Did I mention that while at O's 6 year checkup, his asthma was upgraded to moderate to severe? Yes, I believe I did. At his followup on Tuesday, his O2 stats were 100%! Praise the Lord! Can I say in his whole life, we have never seen 100%! The best I've seen was 98%, and I thought that was fine, what was I to know. I do know times we've brought him to Urgent Care, and it was 94%, they took him in before the others who were already waiting to be seen (ever want to get the evil eye? Yikes!). Anyway, next Friday we have a follow-up with his allergist and we'll figure out our course of action. Fall to Christmas is his toughest time of year. So if we can get through this year preventing as many attacks as we can, we'll be thankful to God! The past 4 years have been very tough for our son in this respect. This afternoon we may start his allergy shots, as I know that is one huge thing that in the long run will greatly improve both his asthma and allergies, and both his allergist and pediatrician want to do that for certain. But because he was on oral steroids up until this past Sunday, they may not want him to start yet. O is actually pretty "excited" about starting the shots (he'll receive 2/week - one for cats and one for dust mites), because the first day he starts he'll get a small Lego set. Then we have a chart, and every 4 times (1/month), he'll also get a small Lego set. Each week, however, his reward for getting the shots is getting to choose dinner that evening. I have a feeling we'll be having pancakes most Friday nights! Although, my boy loves Mexican and Chinese like I do, so with a little persuasion, I may be able to convince him some weeks ;)

For M (who I need to do a post on her badly, since her brothers have received so much attention with starting school and all), yesterday we had her 6 month eye exam and she's doing great! I'm not certain I've ever mentioned what we had to do for her. When she was about 6-9 months old, I noticed her left eye was "lazy". It would wander outward much of the time. At her 1 year well checkup, our pediatrician noticed it as well, and suggested we bring her to a pediatric opthamologist. After a little testing, they determined that she needed to wear a patch on her good eye for 10% of her waking hours so that she would use her bad eye more. Here is a picture from when she started wearing the patch:

We patched her for 6 months, and then for the following 6 months we reduced the time to half. Then for these past 6 months, we have done nothing as her eye was as good as it would get without surgery. 6 months ago, and yesterday, both her eyes wander equally. What this means is both her eyes are working together, and are at equal strength. I asked if there was anything we could do to help strengthen her eyes even more, so they don't wander at all, and the doctor said, just in her normal day-to-day life she will use them more and strengthen them, but this is probably where she will stay (or according to the text books, some times it does get a little worse). Her eyesight is 20/20, so she does not need glasses. What we may face though is surgery when she is 4 or 5 years old. I'm thankful this isn't a decision we need to make today. Basically its a matter of cosmetics. You do see her eye wander, that is true, but days will go by and I don't notice it at all! It is one of those things that we may need to make a decision for her now on her behalf that she would want to make if she was old enough. In other words, when she is a young woman, she may want her eye to be fixed and not wander at all, you know what I mean? So we have a few years, and as with O's asthma, I believe God can heal her little eye. Of course, there is a very large part of us that wants to think we can raise her to be content in how God made her, and that we can explain that we thought it would be best to not take any risks with eye surgery when a simple blink for her fixes it. The Lord will lead us.

Well, fall decorations never were put up the other day. Too much weeding and yard work to do first. We found out my son O is a terrific edger, and he is making our flower beds look so neat! He also LOVES manual labor, and I want to encourage it as much as possible. If we do much of the prep work now, next spring it will be easier on us as we will have a little girl to get to know :) I'd like to do as much now with the flower beds, so next spring, we can get a load of mulch delivered and put in some pretty flowers (or bribe my parents to do it with a meal or something :) I'm sure if I can't get them to do the planting, they too will like to hold that little girl while I do some gardening :) ) This weekend though, Daddy will pull down the fall decorations for us, and we'll start making it look more like fall around here!

Have a beautiful weekend and enjoy time with your family and worshipping our Lord on Sunday!