Brandon is ten years old today...

Today, my sweet boy is ten years old. I say this with a wonderful mixture of joy, relief, wistfulness and pride. On this day, when I look at him, I am struck by pure amazement and happiness that he is here with us and that we get to celebrate this day. Each year on his birthday, I wake up feeling enormously grateful to God for granting us THIS year and THIS birthday with our son. We excitedly celebrate each one of our children's birthdays, but there is that something extra special about Brandon's. After he was diagnosed, we celebrated that first birthday (his sixth) like there was no tomorrow- because at that time, we didn't know if there would be for him. We were very aware that that birthday could have been his last and we wanted to make it the best darn birthday in the world. And we did. Even the local news did a story on his for his birthday that year. And we've done the same for each birthday since. Now, of course, we're pretty sure that we're done with Aplastic Anemia and that we're going to get to keep our baby (at least to the extent that any one of us can ever really count on tomorrow). But we know that with his disease and the treatment option he had that he does have about a 33% chance of relapse and a 10% chance of developing a cancer of some sort or MDS in the future. So we relish his birthdays, and cherish them and breathe them in.

It's an amazingly grateful feeling I have in my heart that we are celebrating his birthday and watching him grow and learn and play and develop into a young man. It's almost a surreal experience and one that I am so grateful for. His birthday is more than a celebration of turning another year older, its a celebration that we have been blessed with the ability to hold him in our arms for yet another year and create memories with him for another year and that we are able to see today, things that we were so uncertain of a few years ago. So THIS is what he looks like at ten, so THIS is what he's doing at ten, so THIS is who he is at ten. I don't have to wonder, these questions all have wonderfully beautiful answers. This morning while he was wolfing down his french toast before school I kept reaching out to touch the top of his head thinking "Thank you God for giving us this year and for letting me be his Mom."

To Find Out, or Not To Find Out...

With our "big ultrasound" fast approaching, in about 4 more weeks, our boys have been really putting on the pressure to learn the baby's gender rather than waiting it out until the birth. For those who don't know, we have traditionally always found out, except for our last pregnancy, Kambree, when we waited to be surprised. Personally, I loved the surprise. Of course, I also love to shop whilst pregnant, so I could probably be swayed either way.
Having experienced both, I must say that I enjoyed the surprise. But not for the reasons that many would think. It was tremendously exciting to learn that Bree was a girl at the moment of her delivery. It was also tremendously exciting learning that Sydney was a girl at our 19 week ultrasound. And honestly, neither of those experiences compared to the moment when I learned I was having my very first girl, which was also at an ultrasound. That still to this day stands alone in my memory as the most awesome moment of pregnancy/birth. I have to say that I like being able to shop for blue or pink before baby is born. I struggled with that during my last pregnancy(okay "struggled" is a harsh word for this situation, but you get it) because I was only able to buy gender neutral things and that was well...boring and plain. I know, I know, before we had this technology everyone was surprised and thats just how it was, and perhaps still should be but before technology we also used to take our laundry down to the local stream and beat it clean. Technology has afforded us a different way, and I don't see anyone complaining or NOT utelizing that washer and dryer (at least in our society). No one is wistful of the days' of old and seeking a return to the times when we washed all our clothes by hand each day. Thus I see little merit in the "before techology" arugment regarding fetal gender. What I LOVED about the surprise, was getting to call my family and close friends with the news. That was what made it totally and absolutely worth the wait for me. As far as MY actual moment of finding out- really its a surprise at 20 weeks or a surprise at 40 weeks, so either way its an incredible moment. But being able to share the news after the birth and having it be a surprise rather than just "such and such was born" was really special.
For the children, however, learning Kambree's gender was a bit of a let down. They'd waited the whole pregnancy as well, and received the news from the babysitter. Not quite the moment they were hoping for. I can understand this. They want to be included and feel special too.
So, they probably could sway my vote fairly easily. Albert, however, really loved the surprise and has no interest in knowing before the birth. He says its ultimately my decision, as I'm the one carrying the baby and that he'll be fine with whatever I say, but he really does want the surprise again. I think he's just afraid of hearing "It's a girl" and wants to delay that moment as long as possible!
So, as of now, we're sticking with the surprise and trying to think of a way to make it a better experience for the boys. Any suggestions would be welcome!

Brandon's Heart

Today Brandon played the toughest football game of his little two season career. His team played Fairview Heights and was severely out sized, and out matched. Brandon, who plays on the D-line, was matched against a kid who was, I kid you not, the same size as Albert. I don't like to make accusations, but lets just say, there is no way in heck that kid was 9-10. He weighed well, well over 200 pounds. The field was wet, muddy and full of large puddles due to the rainfall of the last few days. The folks in charge had tried to pump out as much of the water as possible and put hay over some of the largest of the puddles, but these attempts were largely in vain. Mud and water were everywhere.
Brandon was scared, to say the least, when he say the player he'd be up against. In fact, on the first play, Brandon actually ran the other way, away from big #67. Albert charged over to the sidelines and gave Brandon a nice (okay not so nice), firm, serious talk about playing with heart (regardless of the hopelessness of the situation) obligation, and responsibility. Brandon must have really taken what his Dad said seriously because he never gave up again. Although he ended nearly ever play thereafter with his face in the mud and was hurt on most plays, he kept getting up and returning to the line, ready for another snap (and in this case, I mean snap in more than one way). Over the course of the game, as he would come to the sidelines to get a drink, dripping with water and caked with mud, I would see tears streaming down his cheeks. Tears of frustration, pain and embarrassment, but he went back out there every time. Once his fingers got stepped on by Big 67's cleats. A few times he came off the field holding his ribs. Another time, he had to wash out his mouthpiece because it was filled with mud. Each time, he tried to swipe away his tears so no one would see.
As the game progressed to the fourth quarter, he (along with most of his teammates) were so beaten down, that it began to take a bit of time to stand back up after each play. It was quite difficult to watch (because I'm a Mom, after all) as he would get smashed into the ground, then slowly get up on his knees and even more slowly, rise back up and walk (or limp)back to the line, ready to go again. At one point, a ref came over to ask him if he was okay to continue. He said he was. As kids began to get injured and carried off the field, the coaches started asking the kids if they felt they were okay to go back out or if they needed a rest. Brandon asked to go back out.
Their team lost 38-0. They were totally deflated, injured and dejected. They've actually lost worse than this already this season, but this loss was different. This wasn't just a loss, but a good old fashioned butt whoopin'. Brandon was in quite a bit of pain. As he hobbled off the field, I rushed over to him and tried to give him a big hug. Apparently, in the world of football- this is a cardinal sin. He recoiled as though I was a venomous snake and let out a very annoyed moan as he quickly moved far away from me. Yikes. But a few minutes later, as we settled into the van to drive home, I felt him reach over for my hand. And after he'd gotten a shower and washed away the mud, he cuddled up next to me on the couch with his head in my lap.
Ahhh, football is football and we all know its a tough sport. I asked him why he initially ran away from Big 67 and he said "Mom! That kid is the size of Dad! " I asked him "Brandon, were you afraid of him?" and he answered "Yeah!" like it was a stupid question!
I love that kid so much. I wish I'd brought the camera to capture his muddy messy self. He probably wouldn't have been much in the mood to pose though. He was only humble for a few hours though. Later in the evening he was back to his regular self, apparently ready to take on next weeks' opponent- Edwardsville.

Another Correction...

Okay, just as I posted that I had incorrectly listed Cameron's birthday, I realized that I totally forgot Grandad's birthday! We can't leave Grandad out! Yesterday, he celebrated his special day, the kids all got to talk to him and wish him a happy day! I've updated our list to include him. Grandad is very special and very much loved in our home. Our kids are very fortunate to have such a wonderful role model for a Grandfather! Happy Birthday Grandad!

Major Correction!

When I listed the upcoming dates full of birthdays of our children, nieces and nephews, I evidently listed our nephew Cameron's birthday as October 26th, when it is really OCTOBER 25th.
Cam,
I'm really sorry I put the wrong day down for your birthday. If it makes you feel any better, I also listed Isaiah's birthday incorrectly on his paperwork at his last appointment. Uncle Albert tried to correct it, but he also had the wrong date. We actually had to scratch through both of our wrong guesses before we remembered the correct date. There are a good many of you guys and we are getting old. Your birthday is very special to us and we are looking forward to it! We hope you have a big celebration with Nana, your mom, Kylie and Preston and Ashley, Justin, Abbi and Tatum. I'll be calling you on Sunday!
love,
ang

Prayer Request...

I would like to ask everyone to please pray for a little boy named Joey who has been diagnosed with Neuroblastoma. As most of you know, when I was pregnant with the twins, I joined a twins group and we have all stayed fairly close ever since then. Joey's mom, Patti, is a member of that twins group. Joey is 8 years old (I think). Please pray that God will guide the doctors to do the right things, make the right decisions and ultimately cure Joey of this cancer. Please pray that God will comfort Patty and Joe and be with their family as they struggle though this trying time and cope with the balancing act of family, work and hospital. I wish I had more to say, the insanity of the situation causes words to escape me right now. I don't understand how this can keep happening.

Fun News!

Most of you already know this, but we haven't said it officially yet.
So, here we go...
We are very pleased to announce to the world, that we are expecting our tenth bundle of joy (a.k.a. bundle of chaos, stress, happiness, challenges, frustrations, joy and miracles) this coming April. We are so thrilled and can't wait to meet our new son or daughter. As with Bree's birth, we will not be finding out the gender of the baby before we meet him/her though the pressure is on from the boys for us to cave in and find out at our upcoming ultrasound.
We are planning another VBAC but this time, I'm planning to ask for the epidural nice and early rather than waiting until 7 centimeters and taking an increased risk that it won't work properly. I never desire to feel a child's head crowning again.

So far the pregnancy is going well. Feeling very tired and sometimes sick, but this is to be expected and is just a sign of a healthy baby!
Please pray that this is the match we have been waiting for. Of course, it goes without saying that we will joyfully accept whatever God has in store for us, but having a match for Brandon is a very strong desire and commitment for us, and boy would we love to call our family complete with baby #10!!!

Oink Oink....

Brandon has a case of "suspected swine flu." I say "suspected" because Dr. Rob didn't do any confirming tests, apparently most doctors aren't anymore. He said that based on the symptoms and how Brandon looked and the course of the illness he thought it was "probably swine flu." Here is the great news- if it was swine flu- Brandon handled it AWESOMELY. His body, even with faulty marrow- did exactly what it was supposed to do and it was no different for him than any other virus. His fever got to 103.6 at its highest, which is actually lower than the usual 105.something when he's got a virus. He's definitely had much nastier bugs than this.
Dr. Rob said that nationwide, kids with suppressed immune systems are doing much better with swine flu than expected. Most of the real damage and bad outcomes with swine flu in kids is occurring in children that have respiratory issues such as really severe asthma. He also said that his bigger concern was that if it is indeed really swine flu, that the little ones, like Kambree don't get it. He recommended getting the vaccination for all those who we could. We ran Brandon's counts and they were holding up really well. We'd been prepared for a downturn temporarily in counts but we were pleasantly surprised. Platelets were down a bit, to 131,000 but still a fine number considering he's had a fever for 6 days and any one's platelet count slips a bit under those circumstances.
So it was a happy day. Brandon is feeling better and is on his way to recovery. He'll miss school again tomorrow to be safe but should be back Monday! We are so thankful and grateful to God that he has brought Brandon through this unscathed. I had feared swine flu for him and it seems his body handled it fine!

Back to Clinic with Brandon tomorrow

So we'd been cleared to stay away from clinic for six months, but alas Brandon is on day 5 of a very high fever and spinal pain so tomorrow we go back for a checkup with Dr. Rob. Not sure what the deal is with the pain in his spine. He's never had that before- probably no big deal and just some muscle pain, perhaps the result of a rough tackle in football, or maybe he slept wrong during the last several nights curled up at the foot of our bed. Either way, we'll get it looked at tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be on his way to feeling great again soon, all this school he's missing is not helping his already less than impressive grades.
I'll update when I can.
In other fabulous news, Brandon will be turning ten in just a few days! His birthday is always one of the highlights of my year. I love it. He's the happiest kid in the world on his birthday- he's an attention hog and just baskes in the radiance of his day. It's hilarious to watch. Hoping he feels better soon so he can get back to planning!

The Twins Birthday- Lots of Pictures...

Our bonfire site:

The twins relaxing together by the fire:

It's impossible to get a decent picture of all three of them:

Opening presents on thier actual birthday:

Alexandria's prized My Little Pony:

Auntie Mimi and Alexandria

Celebrating with brothers, sisters and cousins:

Isaiah eating his cake:

Alexandria with chilli dog on her mouth:

Our twins turned three! Wow, that was a fast three years. I'm not sure where the time went but it's been an amazing, wonderful three years. Last Friday, we took them to Eckert's Orchard to celebrate thier wonderful milestone. The orchard they have in Millstadt, IL is absolutely amazing, and features breathtaking views of the cityline of St. Louis city. The kids rode on a few rides, like the spinning apples, and the swings, visited the animals in the little petting paddock (they had the cutest baby goats). We watched the orchard folks shoot pumpkins out of a cannon (so much fun) and went to the pig races. Pig races are a blast, for anyone who hasn't seen one!

When it got dark we loaded up all the kids (babies too) on a tractor for a haunted hay ride. That was a big thrill for the kids. It was very scary with lots of special effects and guys dressed up in crazy costumes that jumped out from the vines and from behind pumpkins to chase the tractor. It was lots of fun. The babies were a little afraid. Brice was a lot afraid. Kambree was too small to care. After the haunted hay ride we headed over to the bon fire site that we had reserved and roasted hot dogs and made s'mores. The babies sat like angels in the lawn chairs we brought, snuggled under blankets eating their food (later, our chairs were covered in chocolate and marshmallow). It was a terrific night. I highly reccommend Eckert's to anyone. The bon fire was amazing. We sang to the babies and had a great time together as a family.

Monday night (their actual birthday) Albert's sister and her two little boys came over and we did cake and presents. We stuffed our scarecrow whom we affectionately call "Henry." We got Henry the year I had the twins, in fact, Henry was brought home (also interestingly, from Eckert's Bellevillle location) on the exact day I was at the never ending non stress test that resulted in bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. Every year we buy hay and stuff Henry for the fall holidays.

We also made chilli dogs last night and boy were they yummy! Cake and presents topped off the night. Enjoy the pics!

A Lesson in Laxitives

We got home yesterday afternoon, and Isaiah is so much happier! We are really only waiting for one test result to come back, the blood work for Celiac, and if that come back fine, which we are expecting it will, then he probably just has plain ole' functional constipation and we just need to find the right combination of laxatives to control it temporarily until his colon has a chance to heal, at which point we can wean him from the laxatives and let his body function on its own.
I have learned a bit about laxatives in the past couple of days. Apparently laxatives come in three types- stimulant laxatives, non-stimulant laxatives and herbal laxatives.
For children, you want to avoid if at all possible both stimulant laxatives and herbal laxatives due to the way they work- apparently these two types work by causing the tummy to contract and squeeze in order to move the stool down and through. All this squeezing and contracting can be painful and is not what we want a three year old's belly to do.
What we want is the non-stimulant type of laxative, which works by drawing water into the stool and thus causing it to soften and be easy(ier) to pass. Because it doesn't force the tummy to contract and cramp, this is the type we want to stick with if, at all possible. Hoping it works and that we can get his belly regulated. I'll post when we hear about the Celiac, but we really aren't expecting it to come back positive. Goodness, I hope not. I can't imagine trying to implement that Celiac diet at our house. I don't want to have to be the parent that says "Here's your gluten-free birthday cake!" We'll see though...

It's not Hirschsprung's Disease

This morning's barium enema ruled out Hirschsprung's Disease. This is quite a releif. However, Isaiah remains badly constipated despite the "Go Lightly" which ran overnight. He is pretty uncomfortable and today I can't even get a smile out of him. He also still has a low grade fever. We haven't seen the doctor yet today, but are still hopeful we can go home. Thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes.

poo problems again

So today we brought Isaiah into the gastroenterologist for his appointment. He hasn't pooped in a month despite our best efforts. We arrived at St. John's and went downstairs for an X-ray. Then upstairs for the appointment. The nurse practitioner, who is awesome, came in and promptly told us that he had quite an "impressive" amount of poop all the way up to his chest. I immediately told her I felt it was time to explore the possibility that this was more than just functional constipation and that I would like to test for celiac and Hirschprung disease. She agreed that she also wanted to look at these things as well as hypothyroidism and a few other things I can't recall at the moment. She said he'd need to be admitted for an NG tube so that they could administer "Go Lightly" to help him poop.
We were admitted immediately. Isaiah got two enemas which did result in some output, but this was just a drop in the bucket compared to what the X ray showed inside of him.
So, now he's on the "Go Lightly". He is pooping some, very frequently but not very much. It's all pure liquid. Sadly, he is throwing up much more than he is pooping. The nurse just mentioned that this may be because he is so backed up that the "Go Lightly" can't break through it and so it has no where to go but back up and out as vomit. Hoping he poops more because we can't go home tomorrow if not. He has also developed a fever. We are not alarmed about it right now though because of the fact that there are several possibilities for this. Sydney was sick with a fever a couple days ago and also Isaiah got his HepA vaccine a couple days ago so either of these could account for the fever, which is fairly low grade at this point, at only 100.6.
Tomorrow, assuming the "Go Lightly" works as it should, he will have a barium enema and then an X-ray to look for Hirschsprung's disease. We are, of course, really hoping this is not it, as it would mean surgery and likely a colostomy. We are also hoping its not celiac, as implementing the celiac diet would be difficult to say the least in our house! It's very likely that it is indeed just functional constipation and we are hoping that this is it, but felt that it was definitely beyond time to explore other options.
Please pray for our little boy. He is feeling quite miserable now. I put Albert on the phone with him a few hours ago and all the poor kid said was "Mommy's mean." I'm sure he thinks I am the worst mom in the world for letting the nurses give him 2 enemas and put a tube down his nose!