Updates from the last 6 weeks...

So it's been awhile since my last post because we have been extremely busy around here.  Let's see where to start.  My last post was about Maggie, so I'll update her status first.


Maggie:
She was starting to build up fluid around her neck again and antibiotics didn't seem to be helping, so she had surgery to remove the cysts around her neck. She did great and only spent one night at the vet.  She was ordered to be on limited activity for 2 weeks while the incision healed.  Anyone that has met Maggie knows what a challenge that is. She had 2 cysts removed and came home with 2 "drains", which were open to air, meaning anything that came out of those drains just dripped out.  Nice, right?  We prepared for this by placing sheets on the couch and rug and hoping for the best.  Luckily, she only had one instance of really oozing out of the drains and incision, so it wasn't too bad.  She had the drains removed on Monday and is not leaking out of the holes where the drains came out of.  We take her back in a week to remove the stitches from her neck and then she should be good to go.  She kinda looks like Frankenstein because of the large incision on her neck.  But all in all, she's doing great.

Here she is post surgery with drains:

Mini Vacay to Fredericksburg:
Jeff finished his increment and shuttle mission, so we headed to Fredericksburg for some R&R for about a week.  We stayed with his parents and had a nice time.  Jeff and his dad went to a few wineries, we picked strawberries, made jam with those strawberries(well, helped a little bit with the making of jam ;)), went to Austin for a day to visit a couple of friends of mine, went to a "living farm" and saw cows, chickens and sheep and had a nice picnic and then went to our niece's first birthday party.  We were plenty busy on our "relaxing" vacation!

Here are lots of pics from our trip:



Rebecca's Birthday:





Charlie:
Charlie had his 18 month checkup and weighed in at a whopping 21 3/4 pounds! Still my skinny little guy!  He also had a double ear infection, which we had no clue about. He didn't exhibit any symptoms.  He took his 10 days of antibiotics and was fine at the follow up visit.  He continues to learn and do new things everyday.  He understands more and more of what we tell him, which is nice.  He has so many new teeth that I lost count.  We have gone to mostly one nap a day, which I was dreading, but it hasn't been too bad.  He's mainly in 12 month clothes and some shorts fall off of him cause he's so skinny, but what can you do? We get a lot of wear out of his clothes, that's for sure!

Lauri & Baby:
I've had an interesting month myself.  At the very end of March, the pollen was out of control here.  I got pretty sick from it, sick enough for my OB to get concerned and send me to the hospital.  I had a lot of fluid in my sinuses and a bad cough that turned to wheezing.  So I went in for a 23 hour "observation" to see a pulmonologist that would make me feel better.  That was a joke.  He claimed that I had a "virus" that just had to run it's course. My xray was clear and when he examined me, I my lungs were clear as well.  :(   I did not get one respiratory treatment while there.  I got claritin, sudafed, and one dose of iv antibiotics.  Oh, and lovenox, a blood thinner (a shot, by the way), since I was laying in bed.  I did my best to be a "good" patient and tried to get out of there as soon as I could.  I got a z pack prescribed to me for when I went home (not sure of that since I was told I had a virus), but I think that helped me get better, since I really think I just had a bad sinus infection.  I was fine for 2 weeks, when I woke up one morning just feeling weird.  My stomach was crampy (more menstrual than contractions) and my hips really hurt.  I took a warm bath, but that only helped a little.  A couple of hours later, I noticed blood in my urine.  Knowing that is not good, I called my OB, who promptly sent me back to the hospital, but I went to the Assessment center this time, I was not being admitted.  They checked out me and the baby and really could find nothing wrong. The baby was fine, I was not contracting or dilated or in danger of going into labor, so all good news there.  My OB ordered an ultrasound, which was supposed to be a kidney ultrasound, but instead I got a baby ultrasound.   Every time I get ultrasounds, I ask them to make sure of the sex of the baby.  I told the girl that I was having a girl so let's be sure it's still a girl.  Well, she did a really thorough u/s and then started acting kinda weird and even left the room at one point. She had seen what she thought were boy parts and didn't want to tell me!  She fessed up that she thought it was a boy, but she had been wrong before and maybe it was really a girl with swollen parts, blah, blah, blah. But from what I saw on the screen, I thought it was a boy too, but what do I know.  Now I was really confused and wait till I tell Jeff!  He took the news well (it really doesn't matter in the end) and now we have to come up with 2 sets of names just in case!  I went back to my OB the next week for a follow up for the blood in my urine (had just a trace, so that's good news) and told her the whole story of we thought it was a girl, but now we think it's a boy and she's confused as well.  My high risk dr is the one who told me it was a girl (twice!) and he's NEVER wrong! We had a quick scan in the office and it was pretty inconclusive, so now we have no idea what it is.  Guess we'll find out when I deliver!

I had my 3 month checkup at MD Anderson today and the results were great! No tumors showed up on my xray, so my next checkup will be mid-August after the baby is born.  Yay!


Easter:
We had a nice, quiet Easter at home. Charlie and I went to church so the Easter Bunny could come. We had an egg hunt inside and outside, but Charlie figured out quickly that the eggs with the candy were only inside, so he wasn't too interested in the eggs outside.  We have one smart cookie on our hands!  But it was a nice, relaxing day and we enjoyed ourselves.  Here are the pics from Easter:




Charlie with the Easter Bunny:

I think that's about all I had to update on, and I'll try not to wait so long between posts!