Mission Complete

3rd year in a row of Nablopomo = DONE.

Some days were really easy writes and others came in just under the wire because they were hard to pull out of my head.  We've had a lot going on this month in terms of doctor stuff for Ollie so my brain was busy dealing and sorting through other things.  I am happy I did it again this year, I find that it helps get the wheels greased.  There seems to be a rut that I fall into around September every year.  Maybe it's the whole "holy crap the year is almost over, Christmas it coming!".
This challenge shows up at just the right time to keep me going into the new year.

All Systems Go

After waking Ollie up this morning we drove over to CHEO for the umpteenth time this year to have an MRI pre-assesment.  Our appointment was at 9:45, we weren't seen at 9:45 though.  An hour of waiting around and playing a really annoying game of musical waiting rooms we where finally greeted by some doctor that we will probably never see again.  She asked a couple of questions, listened to Ollie heart and lungs then cleared him for the light sedation required for the MRI on Tuesday morning. I will be with him when they put the mask on before he goes in and it should take about 30 minutes to wear off once the mask is removed.  I think they will want him to eat and drink before they let us leave but she didn't really mention that part of it.  The sedation is just enough so that he doesn't move around while they are getting the images needed.  I've tried explaining it to Ollie but I'm not too sure how much he actually understands.  Maybe it's better that way, he probably won't remember any of this.

Progress

Last night we painted the basement, it is amazingly pretty and retro looking.  The stair area is a happy semi-soft yellow and the rest of the room is a soft blue with a touch of green in it.  No clue what the name of the blue is, it was one of the oops cans the day we got lucky at Home Depot and I can't find the card for the yellow anymore so it will remain nameless for now.  I did the rolling of the blue and ended up with a blister on one of my fingers, I went down to see what it looked like today and I missed a few spots, will have to fix that on Thursday.  I have been looking for a red clock and some retro wall art to decorate with, i'm positive that with my owl obsession there will be a few that will find their way down there.  I am really happy that I will have a place of my own where I can get away for a few hours at a time.  It will be the art area of the house, all crafty thing will happen there.

Do you have a place to run off to when you need time to yourself?

Sickies

The past week has been full of snots and cuddles.  Ollie has had a "cold", it's more just a stuffy runny nose with a bit of coughing when his nose is too stuffed.  He still runs around like usual, he just stops by for a cuddle every now and then.  I'm hoping that this issue will not affect his ability to have his MRI done in a week, we've been looking forward to it, in a weird way, wondering if his pituitary gland is normal looking or not.  We are still waiting to get the approval from the insurance company on the growth hormone stuff, they are more then likely going to approve it we just have to wait for the paper work to go through before we can get all of our injection stuff and start with implementing a new routine.  Our fridge has been re-arranged to make room for all of our new things, the hormone has to stay cold so we gave up a shelf in our door.  I talk to Ollie about how his bed time routine will change a little, 

Bath - Brush teeth - Books - Injection - Bed

This will become our new normal, just like taking a pill in the morning has for his 1 alpha hydroxylase deficiency.

Sniff

Really been missing her lately.  This will be our 2nd christmas without her.

5 more

5 more days to go.  Holy crap this month has gone by quickly.  I really have to get in gear and finish up with the presents, the ones to be bought have been but we have a few that need to be made.  I have been having a really hard time picking things that I want for christmas this year.  There is nothing that I desperately want and I don't really need anything either.  I am apparently the hard one to buy for this year.

Movie Date Night

A lot of our time recently has been focused on the basement, we finally got to the point where we filled in all the holes and patched up the ones we cut to run wires.  The drywall compound we chose is the low dust version, when you sand it it all just falls to the ground instead of flying around and getting into your nose. The issue is with it is that it takes a long time to dry, up to 24 hrs.  Since we came to a standstill with our renovations we did what everyone else would do and decided to go to the movies.  I'm pretty antisocial, I don't like huge groups and I really don't like people up in my personal bubble.  So why go to the movies on a Saturday night then?  Because we haven't been in a while and I really wanted to see the new Bond movie.  We got there an hour before the show and it was already sold out, holy crap.  Looking up at the board to survey our other choices we landed on Wreck It Ralph 3D.  It was seeing that or going home and I didn't go all the way to the theatre to just turn back around.  We settled into our seat with our big bag of popcorn and our massive pop, put on our glasses and crossed our fingers that it wouldn't be too busy.  We really enjoyed the movie, i'm glad that we didn't decide to bring Ollie to see it, he wouldn't of kept the glasses on and parts of it would of probably freaked him out.  It was great to see all of the bad guys from our youth all pilled into one movie.  Oh how I missed qbert.  

I'm a big fan of Mario.  What's your favourite video game?

Date Night

We just got back from Louis' company christmas party, my god was it ever entertaining.  My ears are currently angry with me that I put them through that loud of music.  I would have to say that I am a chair dancer, If i'm sitting I will dance around but once standing I have no clue what to do with my feet and I just get mixed up from over thinking.  They actually played 2 slow songs, we danced to those, spinning around in a slow circle is easy enough that I can manage.  Lot's of them will probably be taking cabs home tonight, they rang up a big tab in booze.  The food was alright, a cocktail type buffet because they have too many employees this year.

I think that I'll go to bed now since I am starting to get a headache.

Good night and no I am not drunk.

super soft

Another late night post

I've noticed this year that my hands started to crack much earlier in the season than usual.  I've tried a few products that work for a short while but nothing that I would write home about.  Petroleum Jelly ended up being my go to cure, it works but you can't do or touch anything after putting it on, sleeping with your hands up int he air not to get it on the sheets.  I had a pair of those white gloves before but I kept waking up with them no longer on my hands, apparently I'm pretty busy while I sleep.  On a recent visit to Home Depot for paint I was intrigued by a little green jar, as I got closer I noticed it was hand cream.  O'Keeffes working hands, not too expensive either, around $7-$9 a jar depending where you get it.  I figured that no harm could be done by giving it a whirl.  I tossed it into the cart then chased Ollie around the paint department while our cans were being mixed.  The girl called out our colours to let us know it was ready and as I was collecting them to put in the cart I noticed that the staff had the little green jar on their desk.  I asked what she though about it and she went on and on about how much she loves it.  With this new knowledge I was even more excited to try it out.  It's been about 2 weeks now and my hands are always super soft.  I put it on twice a day usually, in the morning and before bed, it's not greasy and doesn't smell like anything either.  Working in clothing retail really dries out your hands and with this product I no longer have issues.  

No more bleeding knuckles.

Digital vs. Analog

Our meeting today went great.  Questions were answered and we got to have a quick visit with our Growth Hormone Nurse.  She set up a get to know your options session.  There are 2 devices that we are considering.  One is an analog click to get your dose pen, the other is a digital all you need to do is put the needle in and push a button.  We are leaning towards the digital version, at least that way when everything is set up Ollie can push the button to help give his injections.  Our plan is to have him as involved as he can be with his treatments.  He finds great joy in doing things himself, he loves to hang up his coat and get water out of the dispenser.  With us letting him do thing on his own he has a lot less fits and less fits means that everyone is happier.  We will let our GH Nurse know tomorrow what our choice is and she will follow through with the paperwork needed for the insurance and all of that stuff, she will even deal with our pharmacy for us.  Once everything is approved we will meet with her again and get the full 3 hour lesson of how to give the injections and everything else we need to know.

This is a lot less worry then I thought it would be.

thoughts of the future

My brain has been busy today.  I have been going through all of the different possible scenarios for Ollie's life for the next 13-15 years.  Will he want to play sports semi-professionaly? Will he have restrictions in his day to day life? What happens if you want to travel?  We have our appointment with our endocrinologist tomorrow morning.  About 30 minutes of new information, some decisions and lots of questions.  We will be deciding what course of treatment we will use, dosing and schedules will also be figured out.  It's actually pretty hard to think of questions to ask in advance, I think that with the information she will give us tomorrow we will come up with them as we go.  We will probably also schedule our appointment for our lesson with the growth hormone nurse to learn how to give the injections.  You never think you will ever have to have a sharps box in your house.

I keep telling myself that it isn't anything that I did or didn't do, this issue is more then likely not genetic either, it's just something that happens. It's not life threatening and we will not let it affect his full life potential.

#300

Look at that, i'm at 300 posts already.  I never though of hitting this milestone before Ollie's 3rd birthday.  We are still busy around here, repurposing rooms takes a lot of work.  We are taking what use to be my workshop upstairs and turning it into a guest bedroom, guests use to sleep in the basement.  The basement will then become my new workshop, where I hope to actually get some work done.  Currently everything is sitting in our kitchen/dinning room and I am getting frustrated that we have no more room.  The painting and flooring are pretty much done upstairs.  Just a few touch ups left to do.  Bringing up the futon will be interesting, I guess we will take it apart before trying to lug it up two flights of stairs.  A dresser and a wooden chest will make there way into the room too.  There is so much dust covering most of the other rooms up there so we will have to do a deep cleaning soon.  I am still not sure exactly how we will organize everything in the basement, don't know how to place the workstations for it to be useful and efficient. 

If you have any sewing/craft room ideas let me know.

to the right

Hey everyone, look over there, way over there, to the right, there's a new button.  I found out that some people don't re-visit sites if they can't get them in their readers, I wasn't too sure what that was so I looked it up, thank you internet.  I now have a button to facilitate everyones reading adventures.  Is there anything else that could be added to the site to make lives easier?

This has really been a learn as I go along type of deal.  So let me know and I'll look it up and learn how to do it.

A-Z 2012

At a loss for what to blog about today.  Noticed I haven't done one of these in over a year so I figured I would see if anything has changed.

A. Age: 27
B. Bed size: Queen
C. Chore that you hate: Folding laundry
D. Dogs: still don't have one
E. Essential start to your day: hugs from the kiddo
F. Favorite color: green
G. Gold or Silver: Silver or white gold
H. Height: 5’3"ish, hasn't changed
I. Instruments you play(ed): Saxophone, took guitar lessons
J. Job title: Part-time sales associate and #1 cashier (according to my assistant manager)
K. Kids: 1 son, Olivier
L. Live: Gatineau
M. Mother’s name: Danielle
N. Nicknames: Chrissy
O. Overnight hospital stays: 3 nights - C-section nothing since then
P. Pet peeves: clients at my work
Q. Quote from a movie: do or do not there is no try - Yoda

R. Right or left handed: right
S. Siblings: no biological, 1 sister-in-law and a best friend who is pretty much my sister
T. Time you wake up: anywhere from 7-9
U. Underwear: lots of them
V. Vegetable you hate: most of them
W. What makes you run late: I rarely run late, I hate being late
X. X-Rays you’ve had: teeth, wrist(broke), abdomen(kidney stone)
Y. Yummy food that you make: Cakes and cookies
Z. Zoo animal:Still the hippos

growth updates

Remember last week when we had to spend 6 hours at the children's hospital to have Ollie tested for his growth hormone levels?
I was ready to wait a while to get the results since the paper that they gave us said that it would take up to 5 weeks to get them.  We didn't have to wait that long for them though.  The results are in, we got a phone call from his endocrinologist this afternoon.  It looks like his levels are very low.  This means that his pituitary gland is malfunctioning for some unknown reason.  It has nothing to do with his prematurity.  It's not anything we did or didn't do, it just happens.  I just find it odd that he has no after affects of his prematurity but has 2 separate problems that are not an every day occurrence.  Our endocrinologist will be squeezing us in to talk about the situation and answer our questions then we will meet with the growth hormone nurse to learn how to give Ollie his injections.  They would like him to start the treatment before christmas, the earlier the better seems to be their motto.  Now we will have sharp boxes, syringes and vials in our house, something most parents never think of having to deal with.
We are trying to see the bright side of this.  We know why he is small now, it is no longer a mystery.  It is something that is relatively easy to fix/treat.  An injection a day, 6 days a week until he's about 18.
We just hope that we don't find anything else wrong with him.

Movember 2012

I thought I would do a roundup of people I know doing Movember this year in a way to help support all of them.

Mathew R.

Steven P.

Aaron L.

Tony C.

As of now these are the 3 that I know of.  If you know someone else that I can add to the list just let me know.

Movie Marathon Over

This post is coming later then usual.  We had decided since Louis hurt his back and has to rest that we would watch the whole Harry Potter series in 2 days.  We watched 4 on the first day and the last 4 we finished today.  I had completely forgotten how the series ended.  Going to be honest here and say that I read 6 books out of the series, I never finished the last one.  I have an issue with that it seems.  I have to force myself to finish books when they are part of a series, in a way it feels like I am loosing a friend or something sentimental and corny like that.  I have yet to finish the Inkheart series, the julia child life in france book and a host of others.

Back to the subject of the movies.  Holy crap they are long.

Off to go tidy up the house now, looks like a tornado went through it thanks to the toddler.

HP

no not the sauce.

Currently sitting through a Harry Potter marathon.  We started at 8:30 this morning and it is now 6pm.  Apparently this will be a 2 day affair since we are only on the 4th movie.  I had forgotten how crazy and messed up his aunt, uncle and cousin are.  Also, how great would it be to have an owl, so much cheaper then having to use canada post and you would never have mice.

A magic wand with a spell to clean the house would be amazing too.  Who should I speak to about this?

poking and prodding

Yesterday we spent the day at CHEO.  We went in nice and early to have Ollie tested for growth hormone deficiency.  It required him to take a pill that had a side effect of making him sleepy.  For 2 hours after the pill dose he got blood work done every 30 minutes.  At the end of that test they injected him with a glucose solution to stimulate his pituitary gland to see if he is making enough growth hormone.  After that injection he gets blood work done every 30 minutes again for 3 hours.  He had to have an empty stomach for this test so he didn't get anything to eat until the test was done.

a quick one

This is going to just be a quick post to let you guys know that we are at CHEO today to have Ollie's human GH levels tested.  It takes about 6 hours so we will be there from 8am till about 2 or 3.

If I get a chance you might even get a 2nd post today, all depending on how everything goes.