What the Rash?

Livie has had a full body rash since Wednesday night. She's had a fever every OTHER day since Monday. After the fiasco with clinics and Medicaid on Wednesday, I figured she'd be ok till today to see a doctor.

Yesterday she acted as if nothing was wrong. You'd never have known she was or had been sick if it wasn't for her head-to-toe rash. 

But this morning, she woke up grumpy. She stayed grumpy. She tried playing. She wanted to play, but toys would annoy her to the point of throwing a fit if she couldn't get them to do what she wanted. She had a fever again also, so I decided to call the doc. 

We got to the doctor's office a little before the appointment. She was sleeping on me at the time, but we were in the waiting room for a while.

Eventually she woke up and just got sadder and sadder. She was just crying, and I couldn't get her to stop. 

We finally got to see the RN. She's awesome. We went over everything. She even sent pics to the doc, who was off today, to get his opinion. 

They both realized they didn't know what it was, but it looked viral. The only thing I could do was give her Tylenol. All I have to do now is keep an eye on her and hope she gets better instead of worse. 

Emma, taking a turn with Livie snuggles

She was grumpy most of the night. But she fell asleep very quickly at bedtime. Lets hope she sleeps through the night and feels much better in the morning.


Update:
Livie felt and acted normal Saturday. We stayed home from church on Sunday and from therapy on Monday because she still had the rash. But it finally faded with no more fever!

'Merica!

Another 4th of July holiday celebration is under our belts.

We started with our 2nd annual 3rd of July celebration. That consists of a "new" video game for the Wii, junk food, and staying up late. We started this on the 3rd because none of us have any place to go on the 4th, so we can sleep in.

We got a used Ghost Recon, popcorn, candy, donuts, Yoohoo's, and A&W Rootbeer. Livie ended up going to bed around 10 because she was just too tired to stay up any longer. But the rest of us stayed up till after midnight. I don't know how many donuts Emma ate, but while she was drinking her Yoohoo, she started complaining that her stomach hurt. I looked over at her, and she kept drinking! Silly. I told her that's why her tummy hurt. So she stopped for a while. But about 30 minutes later, she got another Yoohoo! She's such a goober.

We thought the kids would like Ghost Recon 'cause they've played other "war" games at the neighbor kids' house, but they got bored with it after about an hour. I think it's because it took a little getting used to the controls.

On the 4th we went all the way across the street to my brother and sis-in-law's house to eat burgers and hang out with the rest of the family...and Brady. Paul grilled on his new grill. Livie entertained everybody by dancing to music. And Momma brought homemade ice cream and homemade magic shell. We had watermelon, cantaloupe, way more chips than we could ever try to eat.

Paul's got an old 80's juke box with 45's in it that we queued up for a while. Then we started playing with his turn table. He has all sorts of 45's that won't fit in the juke box, and I brought a few from home.

Benjamin and Emma got to watch Gage and Brad mess with fireworks for a little while. Then Paul turned on Newsies! It's sad that I know almost all the words. We did get to see some fireworks just down the street. I think one of the ones that are supposed to look pretty in the air went off right in their backyard. About 30 seconds later, I heard, "Sorry!" Anyway, we were over there till past 9 then dragged the kids home to get them all in bed.

That's right, folks. My husband is Cap'n 'Merica!

'Merica

I've Gotta Rant!!

It never fails. My kids ONLY get sick on holidays or weekends when it's impossible to see the doctor. Livie has a fever and rash. I tried calling the pediatrician around 5:30pm, but of course, I get the answering service. They end up transferring me to Children's.

I left a message, and they actually called me back within 30 minutes! That was surprising. Basically, I was told that what she has isn't an emergency, but that she should be seen within the next 24 hours. Well, tomorrow is a holiday. The pediatrician AND the walk-in clinics are closed tomorrow, so I decided to take her in tonight after we ate supper. They close at 8, and the pharmacies close at 9, so I wanted to get going.

I get to the clinic by my house. I tell them she has Medicaid and what her doctors name is expecting them to give me the speech about him. Ya see, he doesn't, as a rule, give any of his patients prior authorizations to go to the clinics here in town. So basically, if you can't see him, ya gotta go to the emergency room. Yeah, right.

I was expecting to have to pay for it. Whatever. I didn't care. Turns out that they don't even accept Medicaid. Not only do they not accept it, but they don't even treat patients that have it! Even if I wanted to pay cash and not use Medicaid at all, they still won't see her! SO STUPID!!!!

The receptionist told me a different clinic takes medicaid, but that one's horrible and is almost as bad as going to the emergency room. Even if I got over there before they closed, the chances of being done before the pharmacy closed was a million to one, so any meds that were prescribed to her wouldn't be taken for another day!

I give up.

She's eating, drinking, acting ok except for extra whiney, and her fever isn't super high. She'll be fine till Friday.

Oh, yeah. Then there's Down Syndrome.

Today at church, the message was about "bad" things that happen to good people and why. The focus wasn't on whether they sinned or whether they didn't have enough faith, but rather that whatever is happening is for the glory of God alone. We may not always know why God does what he does, but he has his reasons.

Tim talked a little about his hardships, and talked a little about other people in the congregation. He even talked about us having Livie, born with Down Syndrome.

After Olivia was born, I knew just by looking at her face. But I didn't know for sure till the pediatrician came in, talked to family, and sat down. He wasn't the social type. I almost blurted out the news before he could get to it. But, ya know, it didn't bother me. I knew I'd have to re-learn how to take care of a special needs child. I knew that she'd be different from my other two kids. But, so be it. We knew God wanted us to have her just the way she is. This was no accident, bad luck, tragic thing. It was just another cute baby that...oh yeah....has Down Syndrome.

Learning that she had a hole in her heart and that she'd have to spend time in the NICU, however, was much harder to hear. But, again, we never questioned God. He knew from the beginning. After the doctor told my hospital room full of family about Livie's diagnosis, my Momma went into the hall to call my brothers and sister. One of my brothers already knew. He'd had a dream months before that Livie would have Down Syndrome. When my Momma came in and told me, I laughed. I couldn't help it. As my brother says, "God's such a creeper sometimes."

One week old, no more oxygen tubes! They moved her feeding tube to her nose so she could nurse better.

Two weeks old, no more tubes!

Olivia was born just the way she was supposed to be. This morning, Tim also talked about these various people, with ailments, getting to heaven and how they'll be healed and perfect. He looked over at me and said Olivia would no longer have Down Syndrome. My first thought was, "NO!"

I was the song leader this morning, and said something before the last song about all of this. I looked over at Tim and told him that I hoped she'd still has Down Syndrome when she gets to heaven. Yes all her ailments that physically don't work right will be fixed, but if she didn't have that extra chromosome, she just wouldn't be Livie. She'd be some other kid I don't know. I like her and love her just the way she is...squishy, huggable, grunting, ornery, smilin' Livie. And if her purpose here on earth is just to give people hugs and make them smile, then I one proud momma, 'cause she's doing a great job!

Let's try this again.

Ah, so blogger is a google thing. Nice.
Anyway, thought I'd try to blog. I realized after going through tons of pictures that are only a few years old that I'm forgetting some small things I thought I'd always remember. So now, I'm gonna do this so I won't forget anymore!

Oh, I guess I'll just empty everything from my head onto this page. First off, I've been babysitting two little boys for the past few weeks while their momma takes classes. They're 6 and 3, and my girls at least have a good time playing with them. Benjamin, however, is always down the street playing at Colby's house. They've been playing together since school let out for the summer. Colby has an older brother, but right now he's playing with our next-door-neighbor's kid while he's in town.

Our neighbor had a new baby last week. I still haven't seen him. I need to go over there sometime this week.

Rebecca had her gall bladder out last week. She almost couldn't handle the pain, but is feeling much better now.

We've finally made some progress on our house thanks to my parents! We've been wanting to turn the garage into part of the house for well over 5 years, but have never had the money. Now, we've got 3 sections done from the front of the house almost to the kitchen. Now we've got to raise the laundry room floor before we do the rest of the other floor. Otherwise, we'll have to lift the washer and dryer out AND UP through the door. We're just trying to get what we need little bit at a time because that's all we can manage. And we really can't afford that right now. :-/

Jake had a phone interview today with a company down in Arkadelphia. I pray he gets it. I'm so tired of having to deal with and rely on the government to help pay our bills: all three kids on ArKids1st, Livie on SSI, and we're still barely squeaking by. That's what $30,000 year income for 5 people will do. blah....so sick of it. This other job could pay enough that we could get out from all that government stuff. Of course, that means we'll have to pay for health insurance, but at this point, I don't care anymore. It's worth it for our sanity.

I finally got to order school books for the kids for this next school year! Yay! I didn't really wanna spend the money but I'm so grateful we didn't have to go into debt! Now, I can start getting lessons ready as soon as the books come in. Am I a nerd for being excited about this?

Why do I worry about money? I guess everyone does at one time or another. I've been shown SO MANY TIMES that I don't need to worry. Good grief, can I even list all the times?.....

Jake got fired while I was pregnant with Benjamin. The plan was that I was going to stay home when we started having kids. We blew through our savings, but never had to borrow money to pay the house payment. We still were able to pay the bills on time. Then Jake got a job right before Benjamin was born. We were able to survive on his income alone.

After Livie was born, one of my first thoughts was, "How are we going to pay for a child with special needs?" Then we got her on TEFRA. Boom. Thanks, Mike Huckabee.

Jake got a good paying job in the beginning of 2012. We were finally able to get out of debt, refinance the house, and stick some money in savings. That money came in handy for when.....

Jake was laid off at the end of 2012. We blew through what savings we had. But a job FOUND JAKE! It doesn't pay enough, but he's learned so much that his web developer skills have greatly improved. Now he's able to apply for bigger and better jobs!

We thought over the last few months that we were going to have to go into debt to pay for a ton of things we needed: a new window a/c unit, school books, my yearly exam, my contacts, and a brand new computer because mine got fried in the storms that blew through Moore, OK.

Turns out my computer was fixable and the fix-it shop still hasn't billed us, I only needed to pay for 6 months worth of contacts for now, my yearly is 100% payed for through my insurance, we had enough in saving for pay for the school books and the a/c unit.

Why do I question God when I've been shown so many times that I don't need to? I really wrote all this so that I can come back and read it to remind myself that we're always taken care of.

This whole blogging thing...

Thought I'd try this out, or at least take the time to mess with a layout and design. Chances are, that's as far as I'll get.