July 2018

Wow, I am really nailing this whole blogging thing lately. We have had a busy and fun summer! Guess that shows in my lack of posts...? haha

Here is a VERY brief look at our July (since I failed to post one time the entire month....). In (very brief), we swam a lot, learned to surf (Andy), held some babies (Hallie and Christian), spent some time at the beach and had a big, big swim meet!

Starting with 4th of July at the beach:






Baby Hallie holding:

 Baby Christian holding:

 More Hallie love:

And, a newfound obsession with surfing. He is actually decent. His arms aren't long enough to paddle yet, so he needs Eddie to "launch him" but he's getting it...

See?

Home from the beach in time for a swim meet! These two found each other in side by side lanes. That's more than this momma can take. 

The parent reps worked hard this summer....

We had a birthday party out one night- Trish and Hallie came!

We taped all of our ribbons up on the door to the garage, each row is one meet. Boys loved seeing them up there (and I loved that you couldn't see the names on the backs of them!)

Boys had dentist appointments and were both cavity free: hollllllla

And we had a really, really big meet one weekend (Champs). I had to be there Friday night for the first session, so Ed sent me this picture of he and Andy "prepping" for the am. 

The boys and I arrived at 5:45....in the morning. Cal's hair says it all. 

 They both did SO well at the meet. Both of them dropped times and tried their best. Makes me stupid proud.

Working at the meet with Stacey- these are an exhausting few days!

This little relay team swam 100 free.... and broke the LEAGUE record- meaning they did it faster than ever before in the league. Pretty spectacular!

Sunday, we had the banquet for swim team. These two were looking sharp in their bowties... 

Cal received the coaches award, which was really special. He also received his 5 year participant medal, along with a medal for breaking the record- both the league and the team. 

A few friends had a night out with some Carolina football- any excuse to have a night out with friends is a great one. 

I had my turn at the dentist and got a cavity filled. I walked around for a good part of the day half smiling at people. 

Andy has been doing PT weekly. We love love love his doctor and feel like it's helping (I say that, but really have no clue. They do biometric screening each session and his muscles are getting stronger, which is HUGE. We didn't go this week or last, and he hasn't had as much "success" so I am anxious to get back soon. 

We have been golfing some, when we have time. I took the boys out one afternoon after golf camp, and the three of us had a little golf date. It was awesome. 

And we finished the month with a trip! I will do that post next!

I have so many more pictures I want to share and so much more I want to say, but I know I should just hit publish and be done! July was great!







 

Regional Meeting in Myrtle Beach

We just got home from a weekend meeting down in Myrtle Beach for Eddie's work. It is a long weekend with some meetings for the FA's, one meeting for the spouses, and a lot of fun for families. The theme this year was Royalty.... from the Crown, to the royal wedding... it was fun to see it carried out!

 We arrived Thursday and got checked in to the hotel. We had a meeting at 4 we had to attend. Then it was dinner time!

 There was a falconer there who had birds to show us- they were massive and not my most favorite....hahah and the kids all received awards for their various accomplishments over the year. Once they got their award, they posed with the bird man for a picture.... again, no thank you- haha

After dinner, there was a movie for the kids, but we decided to let our kids run wild on the beach. It was the most gorgeous night ever! My brother came down with his youngest daughter, and my brother in law came solo, so we had quite a group! The kids played so so hard and had the best time. Finally we headed up to the room after 9 (after a quick dip in the pool!)

 I so love this picture of them:

Friday morning, the spouses had a meeting as well. I was super excited about this meeting though because Adrienne Wood was talking! Do y'all know her? She writes a blog called Tales from the Educated Debutante. Find her on facebook or click that link. She is hilarious and a great read. So she came and spoke to us and I loved it! She was funny and so relate-able. She's not writing about fashion (although her posts about lululemon are amazing....), but her posts will hit home.

We spent the rest of the day on the beach- but I didn't take any pictures (gasp!). I had to keep an eye on the boys, who played nonstop in the water and I didn't have my phone on me.

That night, we went to Medieval Times for dinner. It is quite an establishment..... it is HUGE! It is like a Medieval dinner feast....with a show. The boys enjoyed it for the most part, although we struggled to understand the accents- haha

When you walk in, everyone is given crowns. 

It was at this point that I could not stop laughing. 

This group picture sums it alllll up.... and might be my favorite one from the whole weekend- hahahahaha

 Saturday day was spent on the beach with lots of fun games. Someone sent me these pics of the boys limbo-ing:

And then that night, we had the awards dinner. An excuse to get all dressed up and celebrate the hard work Eddie has done this year! Also great to celebrate my dad and brother and brother in law too! I thought my mom looked absolutely stunning- pink is her color!

 The original four:

My daddy-

And Eddie!!!

 Chris came over during the awards and was goofing off. We were not behaving- my mom was not pleased :)

 Three very special men! I was so proud of them (add in Chris, who had already taken off- haha)

We woke up Sunday (our anniversary!) and loaded the car to head on home. We were all exhausted from a fun and busy weekend!




 




 

Andy Update

I want to write about this before I forget it all....excuse the boring post.

As I  mentioned a million years ago, Andy's new doctor at UNC recommended him for PT to help with his bathroom issues. The PT called me soon after his appointment and told me they weren't even booking appointments because they were booked so far out, so it would be a long while before he was seen. Greeeeeeat.

Well, they finally called last week and booked his first appointment...and then the next several appointments, every single week for a while. wow. His first appointment was going to be August 16th.

The next day, I got a call, they had an opening for Thursday morning, could we make it? We were heading out of town for the weekend at noon that day, but we were anxious to go, so we jumped all over it. We met with our new physical therapist and she was so so so nice. She asked a bunch of questions to both me and Andy and listened to everything that's been going on. She asked what sorts of things we have tried so far and I took a deep breath and started listing and listing and listing....y'all....we've tried a LOT. She was even shocked/stunned/jaw open at everything we have tried.

So then- here is where it gets good.....

She had Andy stand up and try several different moves: touching his thumb to his forearm, bending down and touching his toes, hyper extending his knees, etc etc.... I assumed she was just checking out the normal stuff.

She asked if anyone had gone over the results of the test with us. I told her we basically were told his muscles were not coordinated down there. She sort of shook her head and explained...

(more than you ever wanted to know ALERT)...
Basically, the anus has an internal and external function. The external is voluntary and controlled by your brain, the internal is NOT voluntary, and just does what it is supposed to do. Andy's external is working totally fine; his internal is not at all. This is a big red flag  because it should be working without any effort on his behalf.

THEN, so when Andy had the test run, they inserted a deflated balloon inside his bowel and asked him to tell them when he could feel it as they inflated it. Andy failed that test, big time. When he should have felt it, he didn't. Apparently, he let it go way past the point of detecting it, which denotes that his sensors are all out of whack.

THEN, she told me the series of exercises she had him do at the beginning, scored him an 8/9 in hyper mobility, which is where the tissues in his body are extra stretchy, which could effect his bowel sensors! She said there is an extremely high correlation between kids with hyper mobility and bowel issues. 

Okay, so what does this all mean? Basically, this kiddo has some significant factors working against him. Like, big time. She got out her calendar and booked us for every single week through summer and even the start of school. Andy will be working with her once a week to try and fix this problem. Is it ideal to drag a kid to PT once a week during the summer? I mean, no, not really....but, come on.... if she can help him work through this, how huge would that be?!?

I haven't given an update sine starting the new meds. He should be going 5-6 times a week on them. Today, as I type this, it's Sunday. He hasn't gone since Wednesday. They aren't working, sadly. So something has to give!

The PT sent us home with some homework this week:
- more fluid (27 ounces at least every day)
- set toilet time every day (set a timer for ten minutes)
- attempt the squatty potty again (we have tried this before, and it wasn't enjoyed- ha)

SO, there you have it. No real progress, but some exciting news. I left feeling thrilled. We were starting to wonder if he was withholding it, but the PT really did not believe that was the case. I was tearing up listening to her talk about the factors he is up against. Praying we can get this under control soon.

Thankfully, he's up for the challenge.... I hope!