Catching My Breath

I don't think I have sat down in peace for the past two weeks. The last week of July was spent planning for Morgan's birthday, helping Fan Target pack, creating Jas' website and preparing for Granna's visit- and first glimpse of the "new" house....

Morgan's birthday was a total success! So glad so many of our friends could make it, and a "Thank You" shout-out to everyone who helped with the little details. We are so blessed to have such great friends and a giving family! Here are some high-lights of that special day:

Things were going great and then like WHAM- things took a scary turn. I have taken every day that my children have been happy and healthy for granted. I have always just assumed that scary medical mysteries happy to other people, or on House. But when Luke woke up Monday morning, unable to walk across the room with out falling over, I just about lost my mind. What had happened to him, when not 12 hours before we had all been out to dinner- he was running around, jumping of the landing at Babes?!? He was fine. And then he wasn't. He was scared- Jas and I were terrified- because we thought the words that no one would dare say out loud- wouldn't dare put them out into the universe. I rushed him to the doctors, only to be sent home with the diagnosis of a stomach flu that was making feel so bad and weak that he was CHOOSING not to stand. After a nap- and no stomach flu symptoms, he still couldn't walk from the bathroom down the hall without slamming into the wall- my Mommy Instincts told me Enough. I wanted every last inch of him looked over. This was not my son. This was not right. Thank God for Children's. Thank God for doctors that listened to me, that understood how terrified I was behind my "Everythings Going To Be Fine" smile. I tried to stay upbeat with Luke. He was feeling fine- he wasn't sick- so there was obviously something going on inside him that needed to be uncovered. We saw three different doctors in the ER and each one just shook thier heads and told us they had no idea what was going on. Which in my scared shitless state- I took as "We think we know whats wrong, but its bad, so we're not going to say anything yet." Scared. Confused. Exhausted.

We spent the night at Children's- and after blood work (so brave), urine samples(Luke LOVED peeing in a cup, thought it was ridiculous fun), Tox Screens (they thought he might have poisoned himself) CT scans (he had to be wrapped like a baby burrito) and an MRI (thank God they knocked him out)- everything was clean. They still had no real idea what he happened to him. For most of the time we were there, Jas didn't say anything. I thought he was mad at me- making a mountain out of a molehill- but as we were released and we walked back to the car to go home, both of us lost it. He was so freaked out by the whole thing, thinking our little boy had a brain tumor- that our lives were going to be shattered, I realized that he just needed to sit and be quiet, to get through it. I cried all the way home. I had kept my happy face on long enough, and Luke couldn't see me then. Just the thought of what could have been, how we had been saved and blessed in the end- how thankful I was that he was "fine"- that is was something, but something we could handle. As we left the hospital, Luke hugged our sweet Nurse Gayle and said, "Thank you for having us."- like the past 27 hours had been a vacation! We spent all day Wednesday trying to get our hearts to beat properly again and by Thursday, Luke was walking fine- I'd say he was back to 100% even. The past week has been fine, we've just been taking it easy waiting for his appointment with a NEW pediatrician, maybe this one won't dismiss me as a hyper mother and actually listen to my concerns (Bitter much? Me? No way...) He will also be seeing the ENT specialist at Children's next week, since its not his brain- they think it might be an inner ear issue. We just want to know something. Anything that would make since of what happened.

So thank you to everyone for thier prayers. Thanks for my mom and Martha for taking such good care of our girls that we knew we had nothing to worry about. Thanks to Lysh for calling and stong-arming the lady at Children's so we knew where excatly to go. Thank you to Nedra, for coming up to the hospital and being the best medical liason we didn't know we needed so much. I'll keep everyone posted on what the doctors say over the next few weeks, too.