World Traveling Military Family

After stopping at McD's at 8:30 pm to get Bea her final meal before midnight we arrived at the hotel at 9 pm.  The hotel was below our 'standards' but I was too tired to care and knew we'd be getting up super early to head to the hospital.  

After fooling around for awhile she finally went to sleep around 10 pm, Mr. B and I were out shortly after that.  Around 1 am I heard Bea get up to use the bathroom...I thought she was taking a long time but as I was starting to get up to check on her, she got back in her bed.  Mr. B got up at 3 am to use the bathroom and woke me up after finding blood all over the bathroom!  We turned on the lights and found that Bea had a bloody nose earlier (it was all over her pillow, and the tissues next to her) but did not wake us up!  The silly goose!  When we woke her up at 4:45 am she was grumpy from not enough sleep and was scared.  She told us she had changed her mind and didn't want to have eye surgery anymore.  I felt bad that she was scared and we read the Deut. 31:6 verse

"Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; He will never leave nor forsake you."  We also prayed and that helped to relax her.  

It was finally here in her room at the hospital that God washed over here with His calming presence and she began to feel more comfortable with moving forward with the procedure.  We explained things that would be helpful but not frightening.  Our nurse was great. 

Bea about to get wheeled back to the receiving room, right before heading to the OR.  

We were able to accompany her there and her stuffed animal 'Benji' even got to ride with her to and from surgery.  They had given her some liquid meds (orally) to make her sleepy/loopy and she was cracking us up!  She was telling us the walls were moving, and she told the nurse that she (the nurse) had 3 eyes!  The great part was that they don't even put in the IV at this hospital until the kids are out cold, and since it was taken out before she was fully aware of what was going on, she has no idea she even had and IV...which is great cuz she was worried about 'needles.'  As we're waiting for the nurses to come and wheel her back, I hear the Dr. fussing with a patient next to us who his having problems.  He was loudly telling the patient to open his eyes, alarms were going off, and I seen the nurse running to get meds to put in the IV.  I have NO idea what was going wrong, but I know something 'not right' was happening, so I immediately started praying for the guy and the Dr.  Thankfully a few minutes later I heard the guy come around and everything was settled...talk about a nerve shaker for me as I'm sitting with Bea waiting for her to undergo surgery!

The nurses come and wheel Bea off to the OR and she's so sleepy she's find with Benji and the nurses keeping her company.  Mr. B and I head to the Family Waiting Room to get a beeper to be paged when the nurse updates us. I start Tweeting and texting friends and family to report on Bea's status. 

  In the waiting room I was trying to find that 'calm' place to wait out the surgery, after reading my Bible verses and praying, I was calm enough to read a recreational book.  The nurse called and said surgery had started and she would call again in 45 minutes to an hour.  Mr. B decided to get some snacks and I hear a loud banging noise coming from the snack hall.  I look over to see what it is and to my horror I realize that it's Mr. B!  He's rocking the snack machine back and forth to get his stuck candy!  Guess he really wanted that candy ;) LOL!  So we start eating our snack and we get called again, this time saying the Dr. wanted to talk with us.  My heart dropped as it had only been about 20 minutes since the first call!  I felt all these negative thoughts coming to mind and I prayed for a sense of calm waiting in the conference room....

After about 10 minutes of waiting (which seemed FOREVER!) the Dr. came and and told us everything went great!  Praise God!  And even better than expected!  She only had to operate on the outside muscle of each eye, and did NOT have to operate on the bottom muscle.  I was happy to hear that!  We headed to Bea's room to wait for her to arrive from the recovery room.

Bea arrives and she's groggy from the Demoral they gave her and NOT happy!  She is upset that she can't open her eyes 'because there is crunchy stuff in them!' and she keeps sitting up and laying down in pain.  By the time the nurse comes in to flush her eyes with saline (which Mr. B had to hold her down for) I am reduced to tears and had to head to the bathroom.  Thankfully while I was gone they removed the IV as well so I did not have to witness that and be tempted to pass out ;)  I pray for Bea while I'm gone, and when I get back Bea is still VERY upset, I do what all moms would to and try to comfort her by singing.  Thankfully she falls back asleep!  There is LOTS of bloody tears pouring from her eyes (thankfully we had been pre-warned by the previous nurse) and it freaks me out so Mr. B takes over eye wiping duty.  She is given meds for nausea and a sedative for the 2 hour car ride home.  She will NOT open her eyes.  We decide to go ahead and leave while she is sleeping and hope she slept for most of the ride home.  

I had promised her Skittles if she did well and she woke up in the car asking for Skittles, Sprite, and lunch.  Thankfully we had the Skittles and the Sprite in the car, and Mr. B was able to make a quick detour to Burger King for her.  We then proceeded to Chik-fil-a for our lunch.  Just after getting through the drive-thru she tells us she needs to go potty, and I think of all the IV fluid she has been given!  I have Mr. B park so he can eat his food and I can take Bea potty.  All the people in Chik-fil-a looked at me like I was crazy carrying Bea in but she couldn't see so I wasn't about to let her walk.  We get fed and on the road home.  Thankfully after eating she dozes back off and wakes up occasionally for a few Skittles.

We finally get home and she wanted to be put in my bed and she still wasn't wanting to open her eyes.  More praying, Tylenol, and eye drops and finally she is suddenly able to open her eyes all the time and no more watering eyes!  God has been ever present today with us!  I can finally say she's really in 'recovery mode' and doing wonderful!  

Here eyes are red but that should only last a week, no swimming or playing in the dirt for a week.  We'll know in a month if the surgery fully corrected her exotropia, it's 80% successful the first surgery.  I know that God will heal her!

Please pray as we head to the hospital for Bea's eye surgery today.  Pre-op Anesthesia appointment is at 5:20 am, pre-surgery admittance at 6:20 am and we were told the surgery 'should' take place somewhere between 7-8 am.  They expect it to last for at least an hour, and recovery for 1-2 hours.  I'll update later as we get more information.  

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We're heading out to Dothan, AL in a few hours in preparation for Bea's eye surgery tomorrow. We have to be at the hospital at 5:20 am and since that is very early making a 2 1/2 hour drive even earlier than that didn't sound too fun.  Thankfully the military is paying for the hotel stay, the drive, and even food for Mr. B & Bea.  Our hotel is only 9 minutes from the hospital so that should make things go pretty smoothly in the morning.  I'll be updating everyone tomorrow. Keep Bea and us in your prayers!

I took Bubby this morning to get skin allergy testing done here in AL, even though he already had it done in Japan, they needed to determine the specifics to start him on the allergy shots.  Mr. B went with him last time so this was a first for me!  Bubby did so great!  He got pricked 49 times and was super itchy but did a great job handling it with a foot massage from me to distract him...a trick I picked up from my doula skills ;)  The results showed he's VERY allergic to grass as the previous test had also indicated.  He still needs to go see a Dr for his headaches, but that is something I'll work on in the next few weeks when they are out of school.  The Singular has them down to 1-3 a week so that's better than 5-7 a week.  I took the camera to take some pics today, Bubby wanted to see what his back looked like.  All in all one more thing checked off our never ending list of appointments :)  

Just after the 49 pricks were done

7 minutes later

Up close view of 7 minutes later

20 minutes later after anti-itching cream has been applied, see the huge ones on the upper right and the lower left??? Those are grasses!

 A picture Bea drew for me yesterday, she says it is her :D

Me and Bea made our first yard sale trip since arriving back in the States.  The guys were headed out early for camping so Bea and I got up super early (5:45 am!) to pick up a friend and hit a HUGE neighborhood yard sale.  I found a few little finds for Bea like a Disney Princess music box for $1, some barbies, a Dr. Seuss book for 10 cents, cabbage patch doll for 75 cents, ect.  But no major big finds.  It was a great way to break Bea into learning how to yard sale.  She did great, although I was TIRED by the time we got home at 9 a.m.  While it was fun I don't see myself getting up that early on a regular basis to hit the yard sales...maybe once in awhile :)  When I clean Bea's room I might try to find it all to take a pic.  

Bubby and Mr. B went to Lanark, a nature center, today for Bubby's field trip.  They went on a nature hike, looked at animal skins, and went fishing!  They had a great time!  It was nice weather in the high 80's and a breeze to keep it from being too hot.

Bubby with the catfish he caught

Fishing with a bamboo pole

Holding one of the animal skins

Holding the fox skin

Looking Foxy

Saturday I had a down day, and I mean down in bed all day!  I woke up with sinus pain and a low grade fever so after crawling out of bed for breakfast and meds I crawled right back in and spent the day there.  Thankfully Mr. B ran the household and took care of the kids so I was able to rest.  I drank my garlic lemonade and by Sunday I was feeling much better, although still drained for most of the day.  Today I'm feeling back to normal which is good as once again I was off to Dr. appts.  

Well I figured while we're in the US and have free unlimited text-messaging I might as well make the most of it before we (hopefully!!) move back Overseas!

I have finally signed up for Twitter.com and you can follow my Tweets if you wish, you'll need to sign up at Twitter and choose to follow me.  Basically I update Twitter (and Facebook also) with my Cell phone text messages!  Amazing huh?!  

Also I've set up my blog so I can update it by cell phone as well!  This will come in handy on the 30th when Bea has surgery, I'll be able to update the blog throughout the day, so keep checking back that day!  

Ok off to marvel in the amazing concept of all this new technology...who would've guessed this would've been possible 20 years ago?

Bubby came home today with an assignment to find some labels off products that tell where they were manufactured.  He was looking through the food items and was disappointed that he was only able to find ones from the US, so he ventured off upstairs.  The next thing I hear him yell is "Yes!"  So I ask what he found and he said "a pair of underware that go on your thighs! and are even made in Thighland!"  I was laughing SO hard!!  I told him it was Thailand but he insisted that it's Thighland, hopefully tomorrow he'll tell his teacher correctly it's Thailand otherwise she might get a chuckle herself!  Gotta love 8 year old minds and how they work!

He's label supply, he only needed 3 but you know he's an overachiever...wonder where he gets that?! ;)

The "THIGHland" label

Nothing new or super exciting to post today so I thought I'd post pics of how fast our puppy, Mac is growing!

April 2009

Feb 2009

April 2009 (Almost 4 mo old)

Feb 2009 (7 wks old)

Here are some pics of the kids this morning hunting Easter eggs.  Hope everyone is having a blessed day!

The kiddos all lined up ready to hunt for eggs!

Bea dancing when she found the 'Golden Egg' LOL!  I just happened to catch this!

The boys hunting for eggs

Bea with her finds

Bubby with his eggs

Boo with his eggs