high stinkin' blood pressure

When I woke up this morning I decided to call the doc to see if there was a cancellation because I was nervous about my blood pressure and I was feeling kind of yucky.  They had an 11:30 appointment so I went.

Had a new doc.  At this point, I didn't want to be choosey and she was pretty good.  Very young and calm and thorough.  My blood pressure came in at 130 something over 100.  She asked lots of questions.  Plan is to have me take the Hydrochlorothiazide every day (I was taking it occasionally for some edema), get some blood work done, and come back in two weeks. 

I got a nap in today.  I tried getting Moxie to sleep with me but she jumped off the bed.  I had been hoping we could snuggle and she'd lower my blood pressure--that's what "they" say, right????

Casey had a much better day today.  Derryk met him right off the bus and they had some good chat time.  Julie said she thought that set him up for a good day :)  He even did some VTAAP (Vermont Alternative Assessment Portfolio) without much fuss.

Highlight of today.  The lasagne that Gene and I made.  It was very moist and cheesey.  Store bought sauce, which many would say is taboo, but it worked for us.  We rarely seem to ever cook together.  One, the kitchen is small.  Two, he and I don't always have the same style when it comes to menu selection or prep.  Three, one of us is usually catering to the boys needs.  Poor Gene has  problem with layering and getting the proportions right, so he kind of actually asked me to help.  And, it turned out yummy.

I hadn't done a Saturday night in a while.  I got Gene up at about 7:00 to sleep with the boys for a bit while I went up for a couple of hours.  I did pretty well, except that I was wide awake from 1AM to about 2:30 AM.  I hate that!!  Casey didn't want to turn much and Colin only wanted to maybe 4 times so it was a pretty quiet night.  I think I filled the boys humidifiers at least 3 times each because it's been SO dry!  Oh, our cute penguin room humidifier cracked--not sure when, but I ordered a new one the other day.  I always am nervous about using a humidifier at all because of what can grow, but we are pretty careful  about cleaning them.

We woke the boys around 9:30 or so. Gene threw in Aliens in the Attic and both of them were quiet as mice!  Gulliver's Travels was next.  Casey was quiet for that one, too.  He loves the part when Jack Black pees on the fire in Lilliput :)

Next, Colin got a shower.  Guess who he peed on.  Yes, ME.

Everyone got settled in the living room.  Tried Colin with some episodes of Merlyn and he liked them.  Casey got his football.  AC came and played some wii.  She is very stuck in  part of UP and no one is happy about it.

Boys are in bed.  Watching the Grammy's. 

Pamidronate Infusions, ugh

So we're here.  Casey went in first.  Infusion Bay is very busy today.  They only had space for one boy at first so we volunteered Casey.

Julie and I got him out of his chair and comfy on the bed.  IV came right in to get him started.  He needed some warm packs and towels because his hands and arms were freezing, but it's about 8 degrees out so I'm not surprised.

IV Nurse Micki got his IV in pretty quickly (for us, anyway).  Success on first try in left wrist.

Colin was another story.  He ended up with 3 picks, total.  One successful, finally.  I was not happy but I didn't actually see when they were poking.  Colin was a trooper although he did "OW" a lot and had shed a tear, but no full blown crying.  It took the two IV nurses trying but they were successful in his left antecubital.

Colin was very happy watching movies.  His first one was Tron.  After that I tried reading City of Orphans with him but didn't get too far.  He is going to be in big trouble with Priscilla tomorrow because we didn't read as far as we were supposed to.  Funny how during the movie he hardly "owed" at all but when I was reading he was full of "ows." 

Woozy Colin.

Casey went through periods of being good and being very needy.  He had a grand time yanking the Child Life Specialist's chain :)  Jenny was a good sport about it and played along with him.  He was telling her that he wanted a funny movie/show about animals that is normally on during the day.  He had her scouring the Internet looking for this show--that doesn't exist, lol!  I think she was impressed with his DynaVox use and tried to honor his requests. 

Grump and woozy Casey

Casey was done right at 2:00.  The nurse had called ahead to Dr. Hubbell's office to say we might be a tad late.  We only had to wait for a minute before they took us back and Dr. Hubbell came in right away.  Casey has only one tube which is in his right ear (he's been like this for a couple of years now).  The left ear looked perfect.  His right ear had lots of 'debris' that Dr. Hubbell sucked out.  Julie and I both wish that the suction tubing was clear so we could see what gunk came out of him, lol!  He also looked in the back of his throat because Casey had said it hurt yesterday but it looked nice and healthy to him. 

Interesting aside here.  Yesterday Casey told Julie several times that his throat hurt.  She looked in his mouth and felt around but didn't see anything concerning.  Then, at bed time, I could hear something in Casey's throat when I suctioned his mouth.  It took a lot of work--coughing, saline and pressing on his tongue--but I got a pretty large plug out that was very stringy.  I wonder if that was bugging/hurting him?????   With Casey, it's hard much of the time to know when he's being serious or just telling us tales, so this was interesting to me. 

Colin was still infusing when we were done so Julie and Casey packed themselves up and went downstairs to check out the gift shop.

Finally, Colin was done infusing and had his saline flush and was done by 3:00. 

Headed down to find Casey and Julie.  Got the van.  Loaded up.  Julie drove home.

It was a very weird drive home.  Casey was quiet as a mouse and we are NOT used to that!  I kept asking Nancy if they were okay back there. 

These infusions sure wipe the boys out.  Casey even more so than Colin.  Casey looks pale and puffy and tired.  Colin looks a little pale but is quite full of it and is yelling at Aunt Chris while she plays wii.  Casey goes from being very quiet to fussing loudly, doing a little talking on his DynaVox. 

I felt very comfortable driving the van.  It sits higher than our old van and the nose is longer but it was pretty easy to drive.  YAY!!  It will take us a little bit longer to get used to tying down the boys chairs but we did pretty well.  It would help if it wasn't as cold so we could be more comfortable while we work on positioning and all that.  But it's nice to have these Q'Straint QRT Max tie downs.  It literally takes one hand to secure them and one foot and a hand to undo them.  So much nicer than our old ones that I don't even know the name of!

Cousins Jessi and Timmy

Timmy and Gene headed out and got DD coffee and donuts.  Yum.

Tyler was supposed to pick Timmy up at 10:00 but you know how Tyler is--especially after a Super Bowl party, ha ha.  Timmy, Gene and I chatted and hung out.  Timmy helped Gene take the seats from the van and put them in the garage.  NOW we'll have some nice room in there!

Jessi came over in the afternoon to visit.  She ended up playing wii UP.  That made the boys happy.  She was a good wii player!

Super Bowl Sunday

I actually got to go out to lunch today.  I met Grandma and Grandpa O'Neill, Julia, Jessi and Tim at Cody's.  It was nice to be with adults for a change and sit and relax and have good food and conversation.  I also enjoyed being by myself in the car--so freeing!

Being disappointed with the Patriots not being in the Super Bowl, we were half-hearted in our plans to watch but we did (I guess I should speak for myself here as Gene always likes a good football game and so does Casey).

At one point we thought we were going to have Timmy, RJ, Tyler and Jessi here so Gene started cooking more than we had planned.  It ended up just being Timmy and us and Aunt Chris.  So we had about 10 pounds of wings, 2 9X13 trays of nachos, chips and dip, celery and carrots, cake (from Grandma) and brownies.  We put a good dent into everything--Timmy is a big eater!

I really liked the wings.  Whatever sauce he used was good and sweet and hot so it was totally delicious!  The nachos were just okay but it didn't stop me from eating them!  Timmy brought some Sam Adams Winter Lager and I had one.  I didn't quite finish it but it was tasty.  

Colin watched Netflix, mostly, but half payed attention to the good parts of the game.  We all just kind of ate and chatted and watched the game.  I guess that's what game day is all about!  Casey was pretty good-he didn't fuss too much and he didn't have need his ipad while we were watching the game.  That would have been typical Casey--watching the Super Bowl on the big TV and watching another game on the ipad, but he was satisfied with just the big TV today.

Bummer that the power went out at the game because the boys ended up having to miss much of the second half because they had to get to bed.   We were snuggled in bed and I finished reading right before 10 o'clock when Deb came.  We finished our Magic Tree House  #48, A Perfect Time for Pandas.  I know the boys are getting a little old for Magic Tree House but we enjoy reading them together so I'll keep on reading them until they don't enjoy them anymore.

I showed Timmy his accommodations.  He said he thought he'd fit :).   I'm not sure how tall he is but he's at least 6' 4" and is VERY big.  He's got LOTS of muscle and some extra on him, too, lol.  We called him Aunt Tim for the night because he was staying in the "aunt" room.  He's the first guy to sleep in there, that I recall, anyway.

I didn't take one picture so this is all you get, ha ha.

  PS. They were the best wings Gene has ever made!