Update

I'm still working on the post for the boys' birthday party we had on Saturday (by "working on", I mean "it's on my mental to-do list") but I wanted to give a short update on Christopher.

As far as I know, Chris didn't have an episode while wearing the monitor (which he was WAY ready to get rid of by the time the 24 hours was up!) but when I told that to the nurse, she said "You never know." Sometimes they have an episode while sleeping, or don't notice them because they're distracted watching TV or something. So we'll just wait and see. The place that processes the monitor results is running behind, so it'll be another week or so until we hear.

Meanwhile, Chris hasn't had any episodes (I assume) and I haven't felt worried about it. Really, aside from that first day when I wrote the blog post, I've felt better and not stressed. That's good. Stressing does nothing for me or Christopher, so there's no point. Anyway, I just wanted to let y'all know what's going on. I'll keep you posted. :)

Here You Go Julie...

Molly Ringwald is the redhead....

Well Alrighty Then...

As you may remember, we've discovered Chris has something called WPW Syndrome (and if you don't remember, you can read his story here). Well, he's had four "episodes" of his heart racing in the last three weeks. You know, I wasn't too terribly worried after the first one. A little worried, yes, but not a lot. After the second one I thought, "Hmm." After the third one, I realized that each episode increased my worry and I started wondering what was going to happen next. The first three episodes lasted just a couple of minutes each.

The fourth one, which was last Friday, lasted for 25 minutes.

Well, I figured it was time to touch base with the doctor and let him know what was going on. Since these episodes still weren't troubling Chris, my expectations were that the doctor would reassure me that this wasn't enough to worry about. After all, we're no where near the 2 hour episodes he mentioned in the office. But we were also above the one episode a month thing he mentioned too. I figured I'd give him the details and he'd assure me we were still in "let's keep an eye on it" mode. I was calling him to ease my mind.

The doctor was out on Friday but I talked to his assistant, who said I'd get a call back Monday. He still wanted me to explain what was happening though, and I did. Again he said the doctor would call me back. He also said if Christopher gets lethargic or complains of his chest hurting, he needs to go straight to the ER.

Okay.

Well, I'm thinking to myself, that's just a precautionary note. It's not likely to happen. I still think (hope) that's true. But, I thought, this is also the kind of thing his caretakers need to be aware of, just in case. I had already made sure his school nurse, teachers (school and primary), etc all knew about the situation. That was mainly so they would know to record an episode if he had one (I'm keeping a log). Now I got to tell everyone "Hey, not to worry, but if you ever see these symptoms, please rush my child to the ER."

My plan to be comforted was not working so great. Still, I figured the assistant was just covering all bases and a call from the doctor would reassure me.

Today the doctor called. After I explained what's been happening and he asked me a bunch of questions I didn't know the answer to (like "Do these episodes stop suddenly or gradually?" - a question I never thought to ask Christopher), he basically tells me what's been happening is "concerning."

Now, the word "concerning" was in the middle of a big ol' sentence, but heck if I can remember that sentence because my mama bear brain heard one word: Concerning.

That word flipped a switch. It's the switch that makes a mother worry, no matter what. I keep telling myself the worse-case scenario is this relatively non-invasive, low-risk surgery that will solve the problem. I know Chris is going to be fine. The mama bear in me is only a little comforted by this. Anyone have a solution to this? Because it's completely non-productive to worry over it and there's no point making myself crazy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The doctor decided he wanted to monitor Christopher's heart for 24 hours, in the hopes of capturing an episode. He wants to see exactly what's going on. If they can't capture an episode that way, they may do some other monitoring thing that lasts 30 days. I don't know anything about that one. I only know about the 24-hour one. Cuz here it is:

I took him straight after school to get hooked up to this (called a Holter monitor). He'll wear it for 24 hours (sleeping, school, everything), then I'll take it back and they'll analyze the data and get back to me in 3-5 days. I was given a little log where I'm supposed to write down the time of meals, going to bed, waking up, and activity - all things that affect his metabolism and heart rate.

It's hard to know what activity to write down for a five-year old. I'll write down recess and wrestling around with his brothers. But what about spinning around in circles off and on for ten minutes while I'm at the bank? Does that count? What about when he's in bed but not asleep and keeps getting up to get drinks and go to the bathroom? Does that count?

The instructions that came with the log say to write down anything that elevates your heart rate. THE LOG IS VERY IMPORTANT! the pamphlet says. But what we're really trying to do here is capture an episode, right? This is a monitor they use for lots of different heart conditions. How picky do I need to get?

I'm erring on the side of caution. I go back and forth between thinking they're going to think I'm a crazy, anal mother putting down things they couldn't care less about, and worrying I'm not being accurate enough and it's going to mess up the results.

Don't even get me started on the fact that most of the hours he'll be wearing this will be at school. I'll get to trust other people to get this right for me. Mama bear is very excited about this.

Christopher, as always, is pretty easy going about the whole thing. He's being careful with it (good thing - replacement cost = $1300 and I got to sign a form saying I'd pay up if it breaks) and he doesn't seem particularly bothered by anything. Even that 25 minute episode didn't faze him. His biggest worry was sleeping with the monitor. He was afraid he'd roll over on the monitor and break it. I assured him he wouldn't. (He won't, right?)

So, yeah. That's that. I'm trying not to worry. I keep telling myself, "Stop worrying! He's going to be fine!"

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Well, maybe tomorrow I won't be worried. Maybe I just need to sleep on it.

Look at the Size of This Thing!!!

Brother Penman brought this back from, of all places, New Mexico. I told Brian we had to get a picture of this thing before we cut it. It's huge and it's heavy!!!

This is for you, Uncle Freddie

Behold, the pizzokie:

These each come with two spoons, which implies sharing, which is weird, because me no share-y my pizzokie.

Girls Weekend Away!

I'm finally getting around to blogging about this. Every time I'd think about it, I just didn't know where to start or what to say about it. Finally I realized that my favorite parts about this weekend are too personal to blog about, so I'm not going to try. These ladies are just amazing. I'm grateful for everything we shared and the good times we had.

So here's a somewhat superficial post about my fun weekend with these fabulous women. (To clarify, it was a weekend away for them, but not for me because they came to Scottsdale. Niiiice!)

We did a LOT of swimming at the hotel. (Does lounging on floaties count as swimming?) Anyway, this is the group. Left to right is Steph, Pam, me, Polly and Lynn. (If you want to know how I met Steph, Polly, and Lynn, see my previous posts here and here.) Pam was new to the group, also from Sparkpeople. The only one who knew her was Lynn, but we were happy to have her along. This whole experience has made me open and enthusiastic about meeting new people. It's been fun. :)

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As an aside, there was a poolside bar which served drinks and ridiculously expensive sandwiches and fruit. Also the absolutely best french fries I've ever had in my life. I'm tempted to go down there in my swimsuit, pretend I'm a guest, and order some. Yum.

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Polly bought everyone a round of drinks, which you see here. Steph and I had Virgin Strawberry Daquiris, which I think is the grown up way to say "Strawberry Slushie". It was quite good!

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Lynn is a Superwoman. She truly is.

This is the very lovely lady who took the pool picture for us. I do remember her name, but I won't say it in case she doesn't want that on the world wide web. I'd say half the people we saw at the pool we ended up talking to for some length of time. I'm getting pretty comfortable talking with perfect strangers. People are fascinating.

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I won't go into all the people we met and the conversations we had... or the Jewish wedding party we almost crashed. I really thought we were going to do it too because we had an invite from the father of the bride AND her Uncle Steve, so it's not really crashing then, is it? I was stoked, man! You'll never guess who chickened out... Polly. I was so disappointed! But later on when we passed the banquet room and saw everyone had settled down around the tables I was glad we didn't go in. Mingling is one thing, but that would've been awkward (whether we'd met half the people in there at the pool or not!).

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And the food. I must give a least a partial account of the food. Thursday night everyone came to my house and I fed them Indian Fry Bread, then Friday I made Crockpot Enchilada Casserole which we let cook in their room while we swam. It was awesome. Friday night we went to Rancho Pinot Grill, a place recommended to us by Scott. It was pretty good!

Here we all are...

And with Scott.

Now, guys are NOT allowed during a Girls' Weekend Away. (And believe me, Lynn's beau Drew really tried to convince us to let him come.) But Scott is different. He knew how to show up at the pool, this restaurant, etc just long enough to spoil us, have fun briefly visiting with us, and make us feel like queens, but he never stayed so long that it kept us from having our girl time and girl chats. Lynn dubbed him Pamperer Extraordinaire and I'd say that's about right.

The Rancho Pinot Grill is across the street from their hotel and Scott's restaurant, so Scott gave Lynn and Polly a ride back in the golf cart.
The next day Polly returned the favor by giving him (and me and Steph) a ride in her new Camero.

Ooooooh yeah!

I think this car suits Polly perfectly! It was only 3 or 4 days old in this picture.

Polly's words as soon as we were done taking pictures? "Okay, stop touching my car now!" LOL!

That night (Saturday) we had dinner at Flemings, which has been a fantastic experience every time I've gone. We requested our same waitress, Michelle, who's expecting her second baby (yay!). It was so fun to see her again. Earlier that day she was talking to the poor guy who was assigned to our table. She asked him if he remembered us from last time, and his response was a terrified, "Oh, the water!!" LOL! We had to tease him about that.

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You know, I can't believe that we didn't think to take pictures at this restaurant. We'll have to remember next time. If you're looking for a great restaurant, this is the place to go. The food is amazing.

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After dinner we were planning on going to see Rock Lobster again, but right before we left there was a bit of... um... drama. I won't go into it, but I think Pam got some bad news via her text and it upset her. I don't know for sure because she wouldn't talk about it. Anyway, she ended up going to bed and the rest of us went out. That was hard on Lynn - she has a firm Girls' Weekend Rule that no one gets left behind. But there also comes a point where you have to respect another person's wishes, and Pam really wanted to be alone.

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Anyway, instead of going to Rock Lobster, we ended up walking around the galleries there in Scottsdale.

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(Sorry Lynn, I know you don't like this picture but I don't know why. I think it's cool!)

Love the purse!

This picture feels symbolic to me. This is what I've been doing for the last several months of my life... staring things down. Illness. Trauma. Insecurities. Doubts. Fears. I'm not running from the bulls in my life anymore. It feels good.

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This has been a truly pivotal year for me. I'm not the same person today that I was six months ago, one month ago, or even one week ago. And I know I'm not done yet. I'm in the middle of a transformation that has been thrilling, exhausting, frightening, liberating, and wonderful.

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There are many people and many events, good and bad, that have contributed to all the changes I've gone through. This girls' weekend and the one back in May have both been part of it. It's been amazing.

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As we were walking past one of the galleries, Lynn was ahead of Polly and so saw what was inside before Polly did.

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"Don't look," she says to Polly.

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I look and see a larger-than-life sized clown, all contemporary and artsy looking. "She's afraid of clowns," Lynn says to me.

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I look back at Polly, knowing full well that she's going to look in spite of the warning. Sure enough. She looked, she flinched, we laughed.

Scary!!

This is the second time we've gotten pics of Steph with horse sculptures, which is appropriate because she used to own horses. I've decided that's the recurring theme of our weekends. Horses. (Not the other theme girls... at least, not on the blog. ;)

This is the same place in the hotel lobby where we took the final group picture last time. I think that needs to be a tradition. (It wasn't nearly as late this time, though!)

Before I said my final goodbyes, we sat at a table by the pool and just talked for awhile. When I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the sky, this is what I saw:

I love this picture too, not just because it looks cool but because it makes me remember how I felt at that moment: happy, peaceful (and yes, a little tired because it was late).

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Thank you for the great weekend girls. I can't wait until next time.

In Brief...

If you're looking for a heartwarming, funny, and/or clever post about the first day of school, you'll have to try another blog. You get a photo and the following summary:

The boys left home excited about school and returned just as happy. Hooray!

I had a fantastic (did you see that? a fantastic) day at home.

I love summer and I love my boys, but this school year is going to completely rock.

End of Summer

Historic Cape Spear Lighthouse

Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, Canada

I ran into Julie at the library today and our conversation reminded me that I've been meaning to give an update on the homeschooling thing. The update is this: we haven't done it for the last half of summer. Nice, right? ;)

The boys kept saying "let's do it next week" and that just kept going. I was not going to push it. I didn't want to make it stressful. Every now and then I'll quiz them on the geography we've learned, to try to keep it in their little minds. I might get a routine going during the school year where we can practice geography and learn new things. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, during the girls' weekend we met people from Newfoundland and I was proud of myself for actually knowing where that is! Woot woot!

I think I'm ready for school to start. The boys met their teachers today and they are soooooo excited to start school. I'm both excited and nervous to have the whole day to myself. I had a few days in July all to myself and it felt like I was kind of floating around a bit. I missed the noise and the routine. So school will mean an adjustment for me... but I'm sure I'll figure it out. ;)

Check it out...

A post about my fantastic girls' weekend is forthcoming, but until then, check this out. I was a guest blogger on Photoloom's blog... do I get to say I'm published now? ;)

Go here to read it.

Thing One and Thing Two

I have two things to blog about, both about Christopher. I'll save the fun one for last.

Thing One:

Normally I would put the end of the story at the end of the story, instead of the beginning, but in the interest of not causing undue worry I'll say the end right now: Christopher is more or less fine.

So here's the rest of the story.

Last Wednesday I took Chris to his doctor for a well check and Kindergarten shots. When the doctor got to the part where he was listening to Christopher's heart, he furrowed his brows and listened some more.

And some more.

Then he had Chris take a deep breath. Then he listened while Chris was lying down.

None of this was the kind of thing a mother wants to see. But I kept my cool and waited.

He finally told me he heard a faint heart murmur. He said he thought it was probably what's known as an "innocent murmur," but he would prefer a pediatric cardiologist check it out to be sure.

A little worrying, I'll admit, but most of me knew Chris would be okay. I'm actually proud of myself for not working myself into a panic about this. I decided to assume the best (or try to) until I heard otherwise.

Thursday we went to see the pediatric cardiologist. First thing the nurse did was take his blood pressure (which Christopher LOVED!) and then hook him up to an electrocardiogram. That's that thing where they hook a bunch of wires to your chest to create a big printout with your heartbeat, etc on it.

Then the doctor came in and talked to me about this printout. He said his heart is beating normally, with good rhythm, etc, but that it showed something that has nothing to do with a heart murmur. He said it showed that there is a problem with his "wiring." He said, let me take a listen to his heart and then we'll talk more.

Okay.

So he listens to his heart and confirms that the murmur is innocent. He can hear the blood going into one of the upper chambers and out of one of the lower ones, but that's not a problem. No worries.

Now back to the wiring. He draws me this little picture, explaining things as he draws:

I'm going to go ahead and explain everything he explained to me, for those of you who are interested in these kinds of details.

He starts with just the heart shape ("the highly anatomically correct heart shape" he says) and divides it in half lengthwise. The heart has left and right chambers, and also upper and lower chambers on each side.

Blood flows into the upper chambers (see handy arrow flowing into upper left quadrant) where the blood collects, and then it gets pumped into the lower chambers, and then pumped out of the lower chambers. The lower right chamber pumps blood to the body. The lower left chamber pumps blood to the lungs, through that T-shaped artery.

With me so far? Okay. So in the upper left chamber, he put a star. This is the pacemaker. It's job is to send an electric current out, which makes the heart pump. The curved lines going down and away from the pacemaker show where that wave of electricity goes. The electricity wants to go to the lower chambers too, but there's a thick (I forget if he said mucus or what) but a thick thing that stops that current from going to the lower chamber in big waves the way it goes to the upper chamber in big waves. The yellow line represents that thing that blocks the electrical current.

(Side note: Even though the mommy in me is a little freaked out because he's getting ready to tell me what's wrong with my little boy's heart, the curious part of me found it fascinating to hear more about how the heart works. It really is amazing, and I'm in awe of the kind of people who can figure it out. I mean, how in the heck do they figure out how electricity flows through the heart??? But I digress...)

Okay, so the way the electrical current gets to the lower chambers is through the area in the middle, represented by that big black oval. See how he drew a line, in the lower right chamber, from the black oval, around the wall of the chamber and back up? That's the normal flow of electricity in each chamber, causing the lower chambers to pump, again stopped by the yellow line. Once it gets to that yellow line, the heart stops cold. Then the pacemaker sends out another signal and it starts again. That's how the heart pumps: upper, lower, stop... upper, lower, stop.

Cool, yes?

Okay, so that's all how the heart normally works. In Christopher's case, there's an extra electrical path somewhere. For the sake of example, the doctor drew that thick black arrow, outside the heart shape, on the left hand side. That represents Christopher's extra pathway, though the pathway could be anywhere, and in fact I later saw an illustration online that showed an extra pathway inside the chambers.

Anyway, he said when the pacemaker sends out it's signal, electricity is going the normal way, but also following that extra pathway to the lower chambers. Because of the way electricity works, that electric signal is met by other electrical path coming back up the chamber, and so the "circuit is closed" and the flow stops there. Therefore, that normal electrical path in the bottom chamber is stopped from flowing back up the extra pathway into the upper chamber.

This is hard to explain without being able to point to the drawing.

Anyway, if for some reason electricity does NOT go down that extra electrical path, that means the circuit is open and when electricity is coming from the lower chamber to the upper chamber, it has an open pathway up to the upper chamber, instead of being stopped completely by that yellow line. That electricity will then reach the pacemaker, which will overstimulate it, causing an extremely rapid heartrate. We're talking 250 to 270.

So, as long as electricity is always going from the pacemaker down that extra path, there's no problem. If for some reason it doesn't, it will flow up and Chris will get that rapid heartrate. That can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours.

Now, the doctor and I both asked Chris a couple different times if he's ever felt his heart beating super fast. He said no every time. The doctor said he may never feel symptoms, and will probably eventually grow out of it.

To make sure there were no other problems with his heart, they did an echocardiogram (basically an ultrasound but for his heart). That took awhile, because the heart is a complicated organ that's always on the move, so it takes awhile to get measurements, check all the different angles, etc. It was interesting to watch. The lady doing it was good about explaining things to me. When I said, "how do they figure things like this out?" she said, "I think the Big Guy Upstairs figured it out." :) Yes, I agree. And it's only one of about a billion absolutely amazing things he's done. Then I said, "Yeah, but how do people here figure out what He did?" I don't know, but it's good that crazy smart people like that are in medicine. It's a good way to use the gifts God gave them.

Anyway, waiting for the doctor to tell me the results of the echocardiogram was the worst aprt. That's when I started to wonder if there wasn't something desperately wrong. But fortunately it showed there are no structural problems with his heart, no holes, etc. Thank goodness.

So here's what the doctor said about this extra electrical path, which is known as Wolff-Parkinson-White or WPW Syndrome. He said Chris may start having symptoms (that rapid heartbeat). If he does, we don't need to worry. Even though it's not good for the heart to be that overworked, obviously, this isn't an issue of him dropping dead or something.

Good. To. Know.

The doctor wants to see Chris in a year to see how he's doing. If Chris has, say, one episode a month, that lasts a few minutes. That may not be enough to want to do anything to stop the symptoms. If he has an episode that makes him go unconscious, then we may want to talk about it. Or, he may not have any symptoms at all.

So after the appointment, I got to talk to Chris about what to do if his heart ever starts beating really fast. I told him first of all, not to worry. Nothing bad would happen, and he didn't need to be scared. Then I told him secondly to tell me if it happens. He asked why, and I said I just need to know if it happens.

So that was that. We were there for 2 1/2 hours. If I'd had any idea it was going to take that long, I would've found a sitter for John and Ben. But for being there as long as we were, they did really well. Afterwards we went to Sonic for half-price slushies and I got frozen pizza for dinner that night. It was time to celebrate and take things easy! I was happy it was nothing serious and felt pretty confident we wouldn't see any symptoms.

Silly me.

The very next day, Chris says to me (all cheerful like) "It's happening!"

"What's happening?" I ask.

"My heart," he says.

Okay.

I feel his chest and yes, his heart is going VERY fast. Brian felt it too, and we exchanged a look. The good news is, Chris took to heart (no pun intended) my advice not to be scared. He wasn't scared one bit. In fact, he was very excited about something (see Thing Two below) and went on like it was nothing. I told him to tell me when it stopped and a minute or two later, he did.

Okay.

So now Brian and I are wondering. Has he had this before but just doesn't remember because he's so little? When his heart was going fast, I asked him if he ever felt that before and he said no. But what are the odds? I mean, the next day? I don't know what to think about that.

So later I looked up WPW Syndrome online. The doctor told me pretty much everything I read, except for what they do to treat it if symptoms are a problem. One option is medication, but that has to be taken 2-3 times a day for the rest of your life and (for kids especially) is not a good option.

The other option is a "minimally invasive" surgery, that involves putting a catheter through his veins, into his heart, and burning/destroying that extra electrical pathway. One or two days in the hospital.

Okay. I guess it could be worse, and if it comes to that, I guess... well, I'm not going to pretend I wouldn't be stressed about that and worried for Christopher, but I know it could be a whole lot worse. But I'm still going to hope his symptoms aren't bad enough to need any kind of procedure and that he outgrows this on his own.

So that's Thing One.

I'm way ready to move on to Thing Two!

Christopher finally has a new bed! He's been sleeping in a toddler bed this whole time and, yeah, it was getting a wee small for him. So here are pictures of Christopher on his new bed with his Wall-E bedding. :)

He had to pose for me. A LOT!!!

Chris wouldn't let Ben on the bed till he was done showing me all his "moves". Ben couldn't wait to get on the new bed! This is now the most popular hang out in the house.

Chris thinks it's very cool that he can now reach the blinds so he can open them himself.

And that's what's new in Christopher's life.