Anyways, the weeks following my 2nd surgery were chaos to say the least. Jamie's grandmother passed away the morning of my surgery, so the funeral was that weekend and I wasn't able to make it. I also found out that I had a few small spots of cancer on the left side of my thyroid as well. One week following my surgery, I was emptying a casserole dish and it shattered, slicing open my hand at the fatty muscle part under my thumb, very close to the bone. I'm pretty certain I should have gone to the ER for stitches but chose not to and held it together with butterfly bandaids. However because of the location of the cut, I couldn't use my hand for a WEEK! It was probably more painful than my incision in my neck. Then that same weekend, BOTH of the boys caught a stomach bug and spent Saturday throwing up... which led to Jamie catching it as well. It was nothing short of a miracle that I didn't catch it, considering I was consoling my sick babies and cleaning up puke all day. God totally had my back on that one because I couldn't imagine vomiting with having had my neck cut open just 1 week prior. For 3 weeks, YES 3 WEEKS, the kids had terrible diarrhea, multiple (as much as 5-6) times a day, following that bug. It was pitiful and I know they lost weight. Thankfully, after lots of yogurt, probiotics and bland diets they got over it. For about 2 weeks following surgery, I experienced TERRIBLE reflux. Anytime I would eat, I would have awful pressure in my belly and sometimes even throw up. I could only eat very small meals and drink water and there were days where I was nauseated all day long. I lost about 5lbs in a week (which is big for me since I've had hypothyroidism over the past year and losing weight has been such a challenge). Life was rough for a few weeks there. Every day, Jamie and I would look at each other and say, "alright, whats next?!" because for a while there it seemed it was something every day. Thankfully, life has settled down now (other than 3 out of the 4 of us being on antiobiotics for sinus infections {me} and double ear infection/sinus infections {jamie & collier}). I guess I can just look at it with the 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger' perspective!
Following my post-op appointment for the second surgery, my surgeon referred me to a Oncology/Radiology doctor here in Florence to have my Radioactive Iodine (or I-131) treatment. I met with him 2 weeks after surgery but didn't have a great feeling after the appointment. I had a lot of questions that went unanswered and all the things that I had read about the treatment, weren't what I was being told by this doctor. For instance, I've read that I'm supposed to follow a very strict low iodine diet for 2 weeks prior to the treatment, however he didn't know anything about that and said the Nuclear Medicine technician would give me those details. When I spoke with the Nuclear Med. tech, he told me the doctor would give me those instructions and when I told him he hadn't, he said, "well then I guess I wouldn't worry about it if I were you." They were trying to give me the radioactive pill 3 weeks after my surgery and everything felt very unorganized, rushed and the doctor/everyone involved seemed uninformed. I even asked his nurse (who was my main contact) if she had ever been apart of administering this procedure to any of his patients and she said, "no, but I assume Dr. {so-and-so} has." Needless to say, I called my surgeon at UAB and he referred me back to an Endocrinologist at UAB for the procedure. I later found out that I can't even receive the treatment until 6 weeks post surgery and that the diet that I was told to 'not worry about' is crucial in making the treatment effective. CRAZY. So glad that I went with my gut instinct (uh hum... GOD telling me) that I shouldn't do it in Florence. I do know that I'll have to be admitted into the hospital for a few days and I'll be in complete seclusion during that time (because I'll be radioactive) and once I'm released, I can't be near the kids for a few more days. I am guessing that I'll get the treatment sometime in April. I was trying to have it done in Florence simply because it would be much easier to arrange, as opposed to going back and forth to B'ham for bloodwork, etc however I've realized that knowledge and experience far outweighs convenience when it comes to your health!
Last weekend, mom and I took the boys to Disney Live! We played hookey from church and set out that morning to eat lunch at Mellow Mushroom before the show began at 1pm. It was our first time ever eating there and it was delicious! While we were eating, Collier got out of his seat and was standing behind me playing. I wasn't really paying attention to him because we were in a hurry to finish eating, pay the bill and get going but I noticed some of the tables around us laughing... I turned around to find him with his pant down at his ankles, playing with his belt. My mom got to him first and yanked his pants up and I took the belt off of him thinking it was bothering him. Well a temper tantrum ensued and he laid in the floor and began crying (screaming). It was at this time that we were heading out the door, with the pizza box, purse, kids' backpack and to-go drinks in hand and he WOULD. NOT. get up off the floor. Lately the "terrible twos" have been in full force. Fun times! We made it to the VBCC just in time for the show to begin and the kids really had a great time. Noah was so attentive the whole time and Collier really enjoyed it too and was clapping along to the music. He would wave and say "Hi!" to 'Mouse' and 'Duck Duck' everytime they would come onstage. It was a really cute show and we enjoyed ourselves. It's kind of a given that with 2 small children (or 1 special needs and 1 two year old) things aren't going to go perfectly smooth and be necessarily 'easy' but overall, it was totally worth the trip and the effort because the kids really enjoyed themselves.
Afterwards, we had a few errands to run and ended up at Bridgestreet to make a few purchases. It was such a beautiful day so we bought cookies and sat on the edge of the fountain at Bridgestreet to eat them. In typical 2 year old fashion, our outing was concluded with an awesome display of protest as I tried to help Collier by carrying his cup full on Hi-C as we walked back the car to head home. I mean how DARE I try to help my child from spilling red punch all over his clothes. You know the whole dramatic drill: throwing himself to the ground, screaming crying and laying there unconsolable all the while drawing the attention of every passerby. Collier has almost perfected the infamous 2 year old tantrum at this point. And I've perfected the 'scoop and run'... because these tantrums almost always seems to take place when I have no less than 5 items in my hands, including a purse and a backpack over my shoulder, so all I can do is scoop him up under one arm and head off as fast as I can to the car. Despite the couple of breakdowns from Collier, I still enjoyed our outing and was happy that we were able to take the boys to the Disney Live! performance. It was nice to get out of the house after feeling so cooped up the last 2 months.
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Our house is in progress however it seems slow at this point. They started on it, then had to take a week and half break to finish another job but thankfully they are back on it and have been working on our house every day this past week. They are finishing up with the foundation and have it blocked in and filled with gravel. This next week they will be laying the plumbing, then sealing that with concrete, then on to the framing. Jamie said once they start the framing, we'll begin to see more noticeable progress and it will seem to go a little faster. I sure hope so because living in this rental has already gotten to me and we've only been here 6 weeks! I'm baffled how it's already mid-March and that this year is just flying by so quickly. In just a few short weeks Noah will be on Spring Break and it literally feels like Christmas was just a few weeks ago!
{I'm standing at one end of the house, in the study/kids playroom looking
across to the other side of the house}
{this is a picture of the study/playroom, the foyer/where the front door will be and
a portion of the dining room}
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{this is the den and that back room in the corner is our master bedroom}
{Here's the houseplan to help you see which rooms I'm talking about although we did make a few changes with this plan... mainly where the guest bedrooms are and the bathroom placement}
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