This is beginning to be a habit

I know it seems like I only post when I am in the hospital or when something is wrong, but that is about the only time  when my life slows down long enough for me to write.  I do want to find more time to write because I want to write my life store but I don't want to post that entire thing on my blog.  There are so many people wanting updates though that I thought I needed to start updating again.  I also have been writing out my weight loss story and I do plan on posting that.  I'm going to post that in sections because it is 6 pages long in Google Docs.

So, on Sunday, we had an amazing opportunity.  President Russell M. Nelson came to San Antonio to speak at the Alamodome.  We left the house at 2pm and  got there and into our seats by about 3:45.  He wasn't speaking until 6, so there was a lot of waiting around to do.  There was a lot of people there.  One of the speakers said there were over 23,500 people there.  Elder and  Sister Bednar spoke.  Sis. Bednar's talk was about 5 things she learned living in Texas.  They lived in Texas for a while before Elder Bednar became president of BYU-I.  Several of their grandchildren were born in Austin around the same time I was having my children. Bro Ochoa of the 70 and his wife spoke.  Then Sis. Nelson spoke about what life has been like since her husband's call to be prophet and the change she has seen in him.  The President Nelson spoke.  His talk was a lot about the gathering of Israel both here and in the afterlife. 

So while we were there, my central nervous system decided to go haywire again.  When the prophet came in, I could stand.  I listened to all the speakers and waited until the general authorities were escorted out of the Alamodome.  I went to stand up when the prophet was exiting the stage and my right leg was paralyzed.  Since it was only the 1 leg, we thought it was going to be a normal MS flare and not an episode of ascending paralysis.  Monday morning when I woke up, my left leg was also paralyzed.  Now we were facing something new.  I have never experienced the paralysis onset like this before.  We weren't sure if this was an MS flare with bilateral paralysis or the start of another episode of ascending paralysis.  I didn't have any weakness anywhere else.  Stan stayed at home for an hour to see if I was going to get any weakness but decided to head into work around 9am.  I emailed Dr. Westgate to find out if she  wanted me to go to the hospital or go in to see her.  She emailed me back around 11am with instructions to go to the hospital.  I had just decided that I needed to go there anyway because my arms and  torso had started to feel weaker.

We got to the ER and they took me back to the room right away.  The ER doctor came in pretty fast too.  He had already looked over my history and my records from my previous hospital admissions.  It was already decided that I was going to be admitted.  I just had to wait on the attending doctor to come see me and for a bed to be assigned.  It took about 3 hours before I got up to a room.  By that point, I could only shrug my shoulders a tiny bit.  We were really surprised that they admitted me to a regular room this time and not the ICU like the last 2 times.  I got to my room around 6pm, got my dinner ordered.  Stan had to feed me.  After the boys visited and went home, I tried to go to sleep, only to wake up about 15 minutes later choking on my secretions.  I couldn't swallow my own saliva and I was having trouble breathing.  The ICU manager came up to my room and stayed  with me until the doctor could come evaluate me and they could get me transferred to the ICU.  The ICU doctor saw me as soon as I got to the unit and decided I was didn't need to be intubated yet and they wanted to wait to see if I could turn things around with the 1st dose of IVIG since it was currently infusion.  They did some breathing tests frequently over the next several hours.  I stayed borderline until partway through the next day.  I was finally out of the woods breathing wise by early afternoon.  I still required oxygen though.  I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything except for 1-2 ice chips per hour because I couldn't swallow without choking.  That lasted until the next afternoon when   I was allowed to start with soft food and slowly advance my diet.  I finished my IVIG on Thanksgiving early in the am (like 4am.)  By the time the doctors rolled around at 9ish, I was able to lift my arms off the bed a little bit, move my hands, move my torso some and wiggle my toes just a tiny bit.

I've been out of the ICU for 3 days now.  I can raise my hands over my head well enough that I can braid my hair.  I can lift my torso off the bed.  I can turn myself with help.  I still have very little movement below my waist except that tiny twitches I have in my feet and my upper body is very weak.  I can't open my milk cartons, or some of the bottles, like soda bottles, but I am getting stronger every day.

The plan is for me to be transferred to the rehab hospital as soon as insurance approved the referral.  I'm going to call on Monday and find out when they estimate an answer.  I know I only have 60 days of inpatient rehab per year and I have used about 34 maybe, so I still have 26 days, almost 4 weeks worth.  I shouldn't need more than 2, maybe 3 weeks.  I usually bounce back really fast from these once I start going through PT/OT, especially

When the neurologist saw me in the ICU (not my normal one, but the one who saw me the last time I was here), he did make a few recommendations for me.  He thinks I should go see a neurologist at one of the teaching hospitals in Houston or Dallas once I am able to travel.  Dr. Westgate, my regular neurologist, has mentioned this once already to me, so she has been thinking this way too.  She hesitated though because the one I saw in Houston prior to seeing her said that my symptoms were being caused by stress.  I have no doubt that stress makes my symptoms worse, but they are by no means the sole cause of them.                                                                                                                                             

Update on the Family

It seems like so much changes from month to month with my kids, especially with Rachael.  The only thing that doesn't change with her is she is still dancing.  She isn't dancing as many hours as she was now that she is a full time college student.  She is in a new chapter of her dance career though.  She isn't in VIR this year since that is a high school thing.  At Tapestry, they started a new things this year that is almost VIR, except it is for adults.  It's called Tapestry, Too.  She started that this year.  She was almost guaranteed a spot for that considering Brenna is the director for Tapestry, Too and Brenna has been Rachael's tap teacher for years.  In addition to Tapestry, Too, she is taking some technique classes at Tapestry and a choreography class through ACC as part of her degree plan.  She is also taking 2 other classes at ACC (for those reading this who are not in Austin, ACC stands for Austin Community College), Literature and College Mathematics.  After she finishes these classes, she will only have 1 science class and 1 speech class and all her "basics" will be complete.  She will only have her Major classes left.  She has her acceptance letter to Texas state.  Now, she just has to find out what she needs to do to get into the Dance program, which should be no problem.  We don't see her around the house much these days between school, dance, working, church and her social life.  She's a busy girl.

Andrew is not very busy at all.  The only extra-curricular activity he has right now is Boy Scouts.  The cooking school he was going to shut down in the fall.  They decided to retire and couldn't find anyone to buy it, so they just shut down.  I was disappointed.  I haven't been able to find anything comparable for Andrew to take that works with our schedule and is in south Austin.  He still is interested in cooking.  He doesn't cook much at home though.  I have discovered that Young Chef taught him how to do portions of a recipe, but never really taught him how to follow a recipe from beginning to end and make an entire meal.  He helps me cook a lot, but I have to help him a lot too.  He is now learning how to make more things and he will soon be able to make things on his own.  He still likes to bake a lot.  Given his choice to do anything, he would play video games all day and that is what I want to change more than anything.

Jeremy is still my little handful.  He is so smart and so full of energy.  He loves to play outside with his friends, he LOVES Legos, riding his scooter, jumping on the trampoline, reading, making up stories, creating movies/plays, and playing video games with his brother.  He has an incredible imagination and comes up with great stories.  He really wants to film a movie for cub scouts.  He started Tae Kwon Do in September and he really loves that.  He got his yellow belt right before Christmas.  He is doing great.  We are having a few problems with school work and some behavior.  He is having a lot of trouble dealing with me being in a wheel chair.  I think he is worried sub consciously that I am going to die since his grandma died only a few years after she had to go into a wheel chair.  We took him to a therapist recently and we will see if she can help him work through these problems.  He is such a sweet kid and everyone who meets him loves him.

Stan is still working at Tokyo Electron.  He is doing more woodworking and is geocaching a lot.  He was called to serve as  Bishop of the Austin ward in January, so that is keeping him really, really busy.  He is gone a lot, which is hard on the entire family, but we are blessed by his service.  I'll post another time with all of Stan's wood working things.  He has made some amazing puzzles and toys.  He is going to help my cub scouts make some things in a few weeks.  That should be fun.

Till next time!