Here are a few of my
favorite things from the last couple of weeks…
O N E – Field Trip with My Boo
Jacob’s school was closed
for Easter Monday so he didn’t have to be back from Spring Break until Tuesday,
and then on Tuesday that lucky little guy had a field trip! I went along as a parent chaperone and we had
a great time! We went to a local
environmental learning center and the kids learned all about reptiles and
amphibians. They got to touch a turtle,
a snake – EEK, and a baby alligator – DOUBLE EEK! I opted not to touch since they were alive
and squirming around (gaaaah), but Jacob and his friends were all in, and they
touched everything.
Once the program was over,
they let the kids go outside and catch bugs and then we went on a nature hike
through the preserve followed by having a picnic lunch. The weather was perfect and it was a great day
hanging with the Boo, both first grade classes, the teachers, and a few of the other
mommas.
T W O – My Birthday
My birthday was
yesterday! Since it was in the middle of
the week we didn’t do anything super special… we just did our usual school and
soccer Thursday things, but Brian and the kids did make the day special,
though. We are going to celebrate this
weekend some more!
And in case you missed it, I
did a “36 Things for Age 36” post yesterday… I posted lots of new random facts
about me that I’ve never mentioned on the blog – some weird and some funny – so
check it out if you missed it! It might
help you get to know me a little better!
T H R E E – Disney By the Numbers
We’ve been back from Disney
for a whole week and I have yet to get a recap post up, but I was able to get
one of my “By the Numbers” posts up! I
broke down our entire trip park by park and shared how many rides we rode in
each, how many characters the kids got to meet, how many autographs we got, and
so on…
The real recaps will begin
next week so be sure to stick around if you love all things Disney!
F O U R – Amazon Faves
Amazon is pretty much our go-to
for everything these days, and we are constantly buying all the things from
there. I’ve actually been an Amazon
shopper for 16 years – CRAZY – so I decided to share a look inside our Amazon
account and some of my all-time favorite Amazon purchases throughout the
years. You can see the post here.
F I V E – An Answered Prayer
Finally, we had a pretty big
health scare with Olivia right before we left for Disney. I never mentioned anything on the blog or
social media because we wanted to keep things private until we knew what we
were actually dealing with. I do blog to
the public, but surprisingly, I’m a pretty private person, and I also try to
respect the privacy of our children as well while they’re small and don’t have
their own voices just yet.
About a week before we left
for Disney, Olivia had a routine check-up with her ENT for her tubes in her
ears for chronic ear infections. Right
when Olivia was getting ready to leave, the doctor asked her a question, just
chatting with her, and Olivia just so happened to look up at the ceiling when
she answered. When she looked up, the
doctor noticed that she had a huge lump bulging on her neck (near her thyroid). Brian and I had never noticed it before
because you couldn’t see it at all unless she tilted her head back to look
up.
Anyway, obviously it was
something that needed to be looked at quickly so he scheduled an ultrasound at
the hospital for two days later. We got
the results from that a few days later and the doctor said that it was likely a
“thyroid nodule” and that it was 2.5 cm in diameter. He said that thyroid nodules are fairly
common in adults (about 1 in 4 have one and don’t even know it) but that they
are really rare in small children. He
also said that hers was much larger than most, and then he told us that there
was a 20% chance it was cancer. The odds
were definitely in our favor, but when a doctor tells you that there is a 20%
chance your baby has cancer, your mind can really go to a bad place.
The next step was to
schedule some blood work at the hospital (which Olivia was a complete BOSS for)
which came back normal, and then we had to schedule a needle biopsy that would
have to be done under anesthesia since she’s so small. The needle biopsy was scheduled… sigh… the
day before we were scheduled to leave for Disney World. We knew it was important to get it done ASAP
and the doctor assured us she would be fine to leave the next day, but goodness
was I worried she would end up feeling bad during our trip.
We had to be at the hospital
at 6 AM Friday morning. We watched a
bunch of old Disney princess movie song clips on YouTube while we waited for
them to wheel her back, and when the nurses came to get her, she was so
brave! The procedure took almost an hour
so they had to use an IV for her anesthesia instead of the easier general
anesthesia by mask, so I was a little nervous.
When the doctor came out of
surgery he told us that everything had gone well but the bulge ended up looking
more cyst-like rather than nodule-like which meant that the matter that came
out was more liquidy than expected. Therefore,
he thought that this could possibly make it impossible for the pathologist to
determine whether or not it was cancerous or benign which meant that we would
not have a clear-cut way on how to proceed.
Ugh.
Once we were done talking to
the doctor, they let us go back to the recovery room to be there for Olivia
when she woke up from the anesthesia. I
don’t know if you’ve ever been around a child after they wake from anesthesia, but
it is really rough. The anesthesia makes
them all out of sorts – crying, screaming, flailing around, and completely out
of it. When Olivia had anesthesia for
her tubes, she actually woke up happy and smiling which shocked the nurses
because that’s so rare. I was hoping
that would be the case this second time, but nope. She cried and cried and flailed around for
what seemed like forever, even though Brian says that it was only about 15-20
minutes. Once I was finally able to calm
her down she drank some water and then they discharged us in the late morning. Before we left, the nurse set up our follow-up
with the doctor, and since we were leaving the next day for Disney we had to
wait until we got back to get the results.
Ugh again.
Olivia had a bit of a rough
rest of the morning because the anesthesia made her sick to her stomach, but
fortunately she only got sick once and then she was able to eat the donuts I
had picked up for her as a treat for doing so well. By the afternoon she was back to her usual
jolly self, we were able to leave the next day for our trip as planned, and the
day after we arrived home from Disney (Good Friday, actually) we went to the
doctor’s office and received the joyous news that it was, in fact, a thyroid
nodule and the pathologist was able to determine for certain that it was
NON-CANCEROUS! Thank you, God, for good
news on Good Friday!
It has been a whirlwind,
emotional last few weeks around here and I’m just so thankful that she is
okay. I was worried that waiting for the
results during our Disney trip would put a damper on the trip, but that
actually didn’t end up happening.
Instead, the trip ended up taking my mind off of things for the most
part and we had an absolute wonderful time.
Every now and then a wave of sadness and worry would wash over me, but
it was usually brief. Now we just have
to follow-up every three months with the doctor to make sure the nodule doesn’t
come back.
God is so good!
Happy Friday!
*Linking up with A Liz Adventures and Carolina Charm for Five on Friday, A Little Bit of Everything for Friday Favorites, September Farm and The Farmer's Wife for Oh Hey, Friday, Meet @ the Barre for Friday Favorites, and Cup of Tea for High Five for Friday.
