Lux et umbra vicissum…

I thank the Lord for Haymarket Pediatrics! I got Eli in there yesterday afternoon. His lungs were sounding clear by then, so his coughing had gotten the worst of the stuff out of them. When the doctor looked in his ear, she said she couldn’t see in very well because wax was blocking the canal. That’s happened several times with both him and Desta because, according to the ENT, they have very narrow ear canals. So the doctor got out her little wire thingy that she uses to move the wax aside.

Just a side note: the urgent care doctor we saw before had to stop at this point in an examination because he didn’t have one of those tools available. So continue reading knowing that if we had gone to the urgent care the rest would have been invisible to the doctor there.

After moving the wax aside, the doctor looked again and said, “Oh!” She sat back in her chair and said, “Well, I still can’t see all the way in, because the tube and everything around it is blocked with puss.” Lovely!

Eli’s now on two medicines. One is an oral antibiotic, the other is an antibiotic ear drop. The doctor said the ear drop will do wonderfully once it can get in there, but the tube needs to be open for the drop to get in so he’ll need the other antibiotic to start the process.

I love our pediatricians!

When we lived out in Bristow, we had an absolutely fabulous pediatrician.  Actually, there were two doctors in the practice by the time we moved, and we liked both of them.  They were excellent doctors, and also excellent organizers.  By that, I mean that they limited their patient base to a number that allowed them to see people when they needed to be seen, and they tried to leave a reasonable number of sick-child slots open each day so they could get people in the same day they called whenever possible.

Out here in Winchester, there’s a definite dearth of pediatricians.  The practices that exist consist of five our six doctors in one practice, which isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, but it does mean you don’t really get to know one doctor very well and they don’t know your individual kids all that well, either.  I’ve also heard stories of some of the doctors in these practices saying really stupid things that I even knew were wrong (experienced mother that I am).  Add to that the fact that all of them are overbooked, none are accepting patients right now, and you have an altogether unsatisfactory situation. [Read more →]

I hate fungus.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I love mushrooms on pizza, in meatloaf, on salads, etc.  They’re healthy and yummy.  I would say that if you start eating them, even if you don’t like them at first, they can grow on you.

But they shouldn’t grow on you.

I don’t remember having problems with fungus before  picking up the newest additions last July, but since then it’s been an almost constant battle.  First it was just that Desta had ringworm and didn’t seem to be able to get rid of all of it.  Even so, the doctors were very hesitant to give her oral medication because it tends to have icky side effects (stomach cramps, etc.).  We smeared her twice a day with anti-fungal creams.  Next Alexis and I picked it up, then Joel.  We smeared away and kept thinking we had gotten rid of it when it would suddenly resurrect. 😛  Part of the problem was that it was harder to remember to keep doing the cream once the itching had stopped.

Anyway, we reached a point where we thought we had finally beat it.  There hadn’t been any instance of it for at least a month which was longer than any of our other breaks.  Then Desta broke out with six or seven spots at once that looked like ringworm, but didn’t act like it.  They had the ring shape, but they didn’t expand.  They definitely itched, I’ll say that much.  We took her to the doctor, but he couldn’t identify them.  We thought maybe it was chicken pox.  We waited.  They cleared up on their own.  Then they came back.  I took her to the allergist.  He decided they were probably eczema (which I do think she has aside from all of our fungal issues.)  Then Branwen had what started as a normal scrape on her knee turn into a bubbly white itchy fungal infection.  Then Charis got fungus between her toes.  (Possibly unrelated, I know, but it’s just part of the whole fungal experience.)  Then I started getting itchy spots again.

At this point, I’m ready to put us all on the oral medication and anti-fungus bomb my house, no matter what the side-effects are!  This itching is torture.

The anti-fungal cream seems to be helping, I just don’t know how we’ll ever know if we’ve actually gotten rid of the darn stuff if it can sit waiting for a whole month before coming back.

In the meantime, I’ll order mushrooms on my pizza.  Somehow it feels like a form of revenge.

I thought I had it made this morning. When we got to church and I went in with the four littlest to drop them off at their classes, the four year old went in perfectly happily. “Wow!” I thought. “No fireworks this morning, no having to coerce or bribe her… progress!”

HA! [Read more →]

A friend from our web board recently received an email that really got me worked up. She and her husband are both on the pastoral staff of their church, and they’ve been trying to keep the church family up to date on adoption happenings. (They’re mid-process right now.) They’ve mentioned their financial need to people, but they haven’t pushed that aspect and they haven’t asked people directly for contributions. She sent out an email to various church friends and family members the other day asking specifically for prayer support. [Read more →]

I was getting ready to write a rant about an email a friend received, but I realized as I was thinking it through that a good portion of my rant would address PAD, or Post Adoption Depression, so I decided I should make a separate post on that first.

Being part of the adoption community (and specifically the Christian adoption community), we’ve heard all kinds of stories about how people have felt they’ve been attacked spiritually when they went through their adoptions. I’ll address some of the issues that have come up in my other post, but one major one that keeps coming up is PAD. Unfortunately, it isn’t a widely known or understood condition, so many adoptive parents don’t even realize it can happen. Even among those who do, many don’t think it will happen to them. [Read more →]

Ok, we’re switched over! Joel says I’m going to become a PHP hack because I was mucking about with the code for my blog a good bit yesterday (which is why I didn’t end up posting at all). That is to say, if something doesn’t work, it’s probably my fault. 🙂 Feel free to let me know and I’ll call my tech support (“hey, Joel!”).

Btw, Charis’ stomach bug seemed to be more of a 48 hour thing, but she’s much better today. I think we may even be able to all go to church tomorrow!

Just a heads-up to anyone checking the blog. We’ll be moving to Word Press soon, and the site will have a new look and feel. It’ll be a little friendlier.

Didn’t get much time to blog today. We got one of those wonderful parenting rewards… the chance to clean up vomit. Charis has a stomach bug. Anyway, hopefully it’ll be a 24 hour thing and I’ll have a bit more time (and energy) tomorrow.

For our first adoption, we had to complete a full home study. A home study is an incredibly detailed document created by a social worker in which she says whether or not she thinks you’re a fit family to adopt a child. Part of the home study has to do with whether or not you keep dangerous items away from the children, if the home has enough bedrooms, etc., but the larger part has more to do with the people adopting than with the physical house they live in. [Read more →]

And this morning we got the papers witnessed for the new adoption that needed to be witnessed, and I got them out in the mail this afternoon! One more step in the right direction! And the Lord provided the funds for this first installment towards the second adoption (an initial agency fee of $2500). We’re trusting Him to provide the rest since it’s certainly not there right now! I look forward to being able to share the wonderful ways God works throughout this adoption. 🙂