Slip-n-Dip

My stepson (Dylan) has been here visiting since the 19th, yesterday we took him and Molly to a pool and water slide (Slip-n-Dip) for a little fun. They really had a blast, really wish I had all their energy to climb all those stairs to get to the top of the slide, in my younger days I could do it just fine, not anymore. Steve and I hung out at the pool, and the kids did the pool and slide both. This time last month we were at Children's Hospital and Molly was recovering from having part of a lung removed, what a blessing she's doing so much better this summer! Here are a few pictures from our fun day...

Great Clinic Visit

This week has been a pretty busy one so far, today was Molly's checkup with the CF doctor.
She had gained weight and got taller, and her lung function was really good for her (80/72). She's up to 91 1/2 lbs and 5' 1" tall , not bad for a CF'er not quiet 12 yrs old yet. Since she blew so good and had such a good lung function we had to stop by the mall in Tuscaloosa, she got a Jonas Brothers shirt from Limited Too as a happy, wow, hard to believe she's in a size 16 shirt now! We've really gotta do some shopping for new clothes, she's pretty much outgrown everything, I'm not complaining at all though, I love it!
I get so stressed before her checkups ... I worry so much, can't sleep well, etc. Now that today went so well I feel so thankful and relieved, I feel I could sleep a week!

Church

This week Molly has been going to bible school at a church up the road from our house. Tonight they had their little program for parents. I really hate Steve had to work and didn't get to go with us but I really enjoyed going. Lately we haven't been going to church regularly and I really know we need to be there. I was raised in Baptist churches and is all I've really attended other than when I was married to my ex husband, he was Church of Christ and that was the only church he would go to...so I went with him to his church. (that caused alot of problems, for me it was that he would never once give my church a try, he wouldn't for anything). Anyway..... this church Molly attended bible school at is Methodist, I have never attended a Methodist church but I don't think I've even been in a church that had such a warm feeling as this church had tonight. The preacher and his wife were the sweetest, most down to earth people. I'm really excited about going to visit it Sunday, I really feel that this could be the right place for us.
Tonight while we were there I was introduced to a lady. She was there with her husband and 5 little children. I was told they were Katrina refugees that now lived in Columbus and about how they had lost everything and were really having a hard time right now. They told me the mother was having serious health problems. Hard not to cry even thinking about seeing this family. They seemed like the sweetest family, even though they have gone through so much you would have never know, they seemed like such joyous people - seemed like they really knew they had God on their side. The children were so precious and well behaved. Really makes you stop and think to see and hear of someone or a family like them.

I guess some people may read this post and think blahhhh blahhhh blahhhhh, it is just a little of what's on my mind tonight. I'm just really having one of those nights I just feel like crying and don't know why. I'm not sad - I think it's just God talking to me.

4 wheeler ride

Yesterday evening when Molly went to bible school at 6pm Steve and I took off for a 4 wheeler ride, it was great fun. We rode for nearly 2 hrs, back on hunting club land, lots of hills, curves, etc. all on little country dirt roads. Good thing he knew where he was going because I was lost as a goose and no way I could have got back to where we started from. Also, at one point he pulled out his cell phone to see what time it was, I can say I was happy to see he had his phone with him in case we did get lost. Of course I didn't let him know that - let him think I had no fear of being off out in the middle of nowhere with him. haha ....I wanted to share a few pictures with you from our ride. Some aren't great as I was hanging on the back, trying to hold on and take pictures at the same time.

It was really pretty country to see, something how it's probably not a mile from our home and seemed like we were just out in the middle of nowhere, there again we do pretty much live in the middle of nowhere. I do just love living in the country though and really can't imagine

living anywhere else! Notice the rabbit in the last picture, we saw so many rabbits, they were just everywhere.

That Time of Year

It's that time of year so everyone beware, snakes are out and about. Yesterday we saw two, that was really odd to me to see two in one day like that but we sure did. The first was a big chicken snake, he was seen going into our chicken pen.

Scary thing was I was just in there not 15 minutes before it was seen. I would have screamed if I'd have seen that thing while in there. Ok, we do about an hour snake hunt but couldn't find him so gave up.

Late yesterday evening I got Steve to walk with me down to the back of the property to get some blackberries, Here we go down the dirt road, as we were walking I thought about that same area last year where we'd killed a rattlesnake by running over it in the car as we were going to check on the kids that were back there fishing in the pond. Yes I know ...... scared me to death that the kids had passed right by there on their bikes. Anyway, back to walking down the dirt road, I just happened to look up ahead of us, there was a big rattlesnake laying in the road! Steve ran back to a shed of his dad's and got a hoe. I was flipping out telling him not to even get close enough to it to kill it with a hoe, I was afraid the thing would jump and bite him so I took off running to get Steve's dad to bring a gun, well there wasn't time, the snake tried to make a get away in the tall grass so Steve whacked it with the hoe. It had five rattles and a button so it WAS a pretty big thing. Notice I said WAS - thank goodness that snake is no more!

Ok.......now back to our chicken snake, it made another appearance today, it came out from underneath Steve's shop ... Steve came inside and got a gun and took care of it. That thing was every bit of 6 ft long. I know lots of people don't agree with killing chicken snakes but a snake is a snake in my opinion and I don't like any of them! The picture on the left is the chicken snake, see how long it was. Everyone just beware while you're out in your yard, working in the vegetable or flower gardens. Snakes blend in so well to the environment , I was amazed especially with the rattlesnake, if it was laying in the weeds it would have been so hard to have seen it unless it moved. That's really scary!

Below are a few pictures of Molly - she helped Steve mow the yard a little while yesterday on the tractor, of course she didn't drive it by herself, she rode with Steve. She was just posing on the tractor for some pictures.

Happy Father's Day

Hope all you Dads out there have had a wonderful Father's Day. I feel I probably won't have many guys reading my blog but just in case ~ Happy Father's Day to you!

I made a quick trip and had a short visit with my Daddy this afternoon, I didn't want to stay to long or get to close because bless his heart he has a terrible cold, I sure don't want Molly getting it. I hadn't gone anywhere really or done any shopping for a gift for my dad and Steve so I decided to bake some tea cakes for them, you know men, the best way to their heart is through their bellies, haha ....
I think they turned out good, they were yummy, me and Molly tasted them to make sure they were good and of course they were. Here's our finished product...

Now we're waiting on Steve to get home to spend some time with him, bless his heart he worked all day (12 hrs), thank goodness he'll be off work tomorrow.
Now I guess I'm gonna get busy and make another quick batch of cookies for my F-I-L , don't wanna leave him out.

Haley Palmer

Today a 12 yr old girl lost her battle, she suffered from CF but had other issues also. Her name was Haley Palmer.
Such a sad thing to hear of someone so young passing away. You can visit her site to leave words for her family, I can't imagine what they must be going through right now. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/haleypalmer
By the way - I hate Cystic Fibrosis! Ohhhh how I wish there was a cure so no children had to suffer.

Tracy

Tricia - Transplant recipient

I have been following this blog a while now and they are really going through a tuff
time right now and could use lots of thoughts and prayers, you can check out their story at http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/. Breaks my heart that they're going through all this now after things were going so good.
When you visit their page on the right side is a section that says "Start here first", you can read that to learn a little about them without having to scroll through lots of pages.

Tracy

The Letter N

The letter "N" is for "nice" surprise. I checked the mail today and what do ya know, I had a package. It was my apron I received from the apron swap. I have been so excited about getting it because I had no idea where or who it was coming from. My apron came all the way from Jennifer in Utah. Isn't it cute! I love the colors and I know I'm gonna enjoy it. I also love how she covered the little notebook with the fabric and added the ribbon, too cute!
If you remember me telling about it, the apron I made went to Oregon. This swap was so much fun, can't wait to sign up for another one.

The Letter M

I haven't been doing very good keeping up with my alphabet challenge, here goes:
The Letter M is for "Molly" and a little about her life ....
Molly is my youngest child, she was born in August 1996, my pregnancy was normal, delivery was normal she was just a perfect baby. There were no signs anything was wrong. For the first 3 yrs of her life we lived a normal life, then at the age of 3 things started changing. Molly had always been a chubby baby, all the sudden she stopped gaining weight and her bowl movements seemed pretty bad for a child. Then there were a few bouts of pneumonia, around the second one our family doctor asked if anyone in our family had Cystic Fibrosis. We said no ... we didn't know of anyone with it. That was all that was said at that time about it. Well, next visit to the family doctor she asked about maybe having Molly tested. She went through a list of symptoms and even though Molly had lots of them I think we were in denial ....then one weekend when my grandparents had came to visit, as they were leaving they both kissed Molly goodbye. My grandmother said "oh Molly your skin taste so salty". At that moment my heart sank and I knew it was time to call the doctor to schedule a sweat test for Molly. On Feb. 7, 2001 we went to Children's Hospital in Birmingham Alabama for the sweat test. After having the test we were to go to the pulmonologist office for the results, sitting in the little exam room it seemed the doctor would never come in. Finally he did though and the moment he looked at me and told me to have a seat I knew Molly had Cystic Fibrosis. I will never forget that feeling ... awful for your child to have something that you can't do anything about, nothing I could do could fix it or make it go away. Such a helpless feeling. I think the first few years after she was diagnosed were the hardest. Things can still get hard but I have learned you can't sit and mope, you can't just lay down and cry ... that isn't going to help anything. You just have to fight, you have to do everything possible to keep her as healthy as you can. I am one that NEVER lets her miss a breathing treatment or her meds. I have said from the beginning that I may not can cure her but I never want there to come a day where she's really sick and me have to say well maybe if I'd done her breathing treatments better she wouldn't be this sick. I know we are doing all we possibly can for her. I do feel bad that I don't do a better job in CF awareness or fundraisers for CF research. There are some mothers who do just great spreading the news and having fundraisers. I guess this blog is a small way I can spread some awareness.
I have so many people even to this day hear me talking about Molly and they'll ask, what's wrong. I will tell them about the CF and they'll say I had no idea, she looks normal. They say you would never know by looking at her she was sick. Well ... that may be so but believe me her life is nothing at all like a healthy child's. During school most children are still snug in their beds at 4:45 am , not Molly though. At that time she is getting out of bed, getting a drink to help clear her throat and putting on her vest to get her breathing treatment going. In the mornings we do Albuterol, Hypersal, Pulmozyme then either Tobi or Colistin (depending which month, she alternates between the two) during the time she's doing these nebs she does the vest for 30 minutes. After we finish this it's time for breakfast, in the mornings she takes 10 to 12 pills. Also, before she eats she has to take her creon 10 which helps her body digest her food, she takes 4 with meals and 2 to 3 with snacks, really depending on what kind of snack she has. At night she does a second breathing treatment, the albuterol, hypersal, and either Tobi or Colistin and 30 minutes of the vest again.
It is very normal for CF patients to develop diabetes, Molly has been borderline for the past couple of years so we have been trying to the best of our ability to limit her sugar intake. This is hard sometimes because she really needs alot of high protein high calorie foods and lots of fat....of course the sweets are full of calories and she needs that so she probably does get more sugar there than she really needs.
I wish these people who comment all the time about how great she looks and how healthy she looks could see all she has to go through in a day to maintain things. Even though we do everything we are supposed to there are still times she gets lung infections and has to go in the hospital for a round of IV antibiotics. We have done home iv's several times, its nice being able to do them at home sometimes but it really is hard on me, there is so much to do as far as the iv's go on top of the other everyday things we have to do. I always say I wish the CF clinic and docs were closer to home, just going in the hospital for a 10 to 14 day stay two hours away from home is so hard. You don't have visitors much because it is so far and you just feel lonely and homesick. We try to always take as much as possible for her stays, we take our own sheets, blankets, etc. I decorate the room cute for her ... that helps it feel a little more like home, but still, there's no place like home!

Southern Summer Nights

When I was a little girl one of my favorite things to do on warm summer evenings was go outside and catch lightning bugs. I can remember having so much fun catching them and putting them in jars to watch them light up. Well the past couple of evenings Molly has had me out catching lightning bugs with her. She loves catching them with her net BUT she won't touch them, mama has to do that! haha ....

I think she'd scream if one got on her.

After looking at them a little while we did set them free, who knows maybe we'll catch them again another night.

A Busy Past Few Days

I am really enjoying this afternoon, just hanging around home getting a few things done. So easy to fall behind on things when you're on the go so much. Since Thursday seems our days have been full. I had a doctor appointment Thursday, fun fun ........ but at least that's over until next year.
Friday was Molly's appointment at CF clinic in Birmingham. Thank goodness it went pretty good, her function was up some and she'd gained a pound. It was a long day though, her appointment was at 2:45 and it was 5 pm before we got out of there. Ughhhh!!!!! We did see one of our favorite respiratory therapist as we were leaving, was nice to get to speak to her. (Hey Lisa if you read this!)
Saturday was the birthday party of one of Molly's best friends little sister Erin, she turned 8 yrs old. Molly had a blast at her skating party.

(Molly & Sierra)

After the skating party we went over to my sister's to swim. It was fun but wore me and Molly both out, something how swimming and the sun has that effect on you, isn't it.

(Austin Lee & Molly)

(Madelyn, Landon, Dylan, and Molly)

This is Austin Todd, my brother in law's son who is up from Florida for the summer.

I heard he got a haircut today ... can't wait to see it!