My grandmother died Friday night. She was 90 years old. This is a hard thing to write about because, well, death just is. I love my grandmother very much and will miss her. I'm sad that WG probably won't remember her. She will know her through stories and pictures.
I've been thinking about what I will tell WG about Grandma. The beach... the zoo, and her relationship with Max and Jenny who were two ourangutans who lived at the zoo... Taffy the very large next-door-neighbor dog... the fun times playing in the attic with Aunt Bonnie's old formal dresses, crutches and Grandma's shoes... playing with Dad's old skee ball... the push lawnmower... the horse hitch in the front and the milk door in the back... Little tree Lindon who absolutely REFUSED to die despite everyone's best efforts... bridge mix (mmmm)... Playing Uno, Yatzee and occasionally rummy... Hamburgers on Friday (Sat?) night with buttered grilled buns... Fried perch... jello salad (99% of the time she made a great jello salad with jello, marshmallows, nuts, and who knows what else. It was creamy and while it was solid I don't remember it being particularly gelatinous. One time, though, she told us that she had made jello salad and it turned out to be lemon jello with spinach, celery, nuts and something else that was equally horrifying. It sticks out in my memory because she was a very good cook and it was one of very few misses.)... O&H bakery... bedlunch... the wooden puzzle that looked like a shoe... her knitting and many many donations for charity... watching wheel of fortune... writting letters back and forth... seven kinds of homemade cookies every time we visited.....
Grandma was a knitting fiend. She always had something going until a little bit before WG was born when she couldn't knit anymore due to arthritis. She knit sweaters, caps, layettes, blankets... She donated TONS of items to a gift shop to be sold to raise funds. (I can't for the life of me remember what the affiliation was, I think it was a Lutheran nursing home?) We are lucky enough to have a pink sweater she knit. It's a little small on WG now. We've packed it away for whichever grandchild winds up having the next girl. We also have a baby hat she knit. She gave me the hat when I was pregnant with WG saying that it was to be her going home hat. I smiled and thanked her but was privately freaking out because the hat was HUGE. The hat still fits WG's four-year-old head to give you an idea of the size. As a first-time-mom I had no idea what to expect and the thought of something that large coming out of my body made me want to run to my OB and ask for a C-section.
I will miss you, Grandma, but I am happy that you have gone home.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
A good resource
WG is taking Prevacid for reflux and whatever else is going on in her tummy. We have pretty good prescription drug coverage, but it's still a $30 copay every month. Add to this that she is taking two other GI meds and it gets expensive quickly.
A friend tipped me off that Prevacid offers a "frequent buyers" program of sorts. If you sign up on their site, they will send you information about prevacid (of course) as well as an instant rebate card that takes $25 off each refill. No forms to fill out each month, you just give the card to the pharmacist and get the discount. We got WG's card today just in time because she needs a refill.
Here is the URL to sign up for the program: https://www.prevacid.com/offers/landing.aspx I put in WG's information (name, age, etc) which was strange because she's only four, but it seems to have worked. I have no idea if Prevacid will spam me or send us things in the mail, etc, but honestly, for $25 a month in my pocket I don't really care!
A friend tipped me off that Prevacid offers a "frequent buyers" program of sorts. If you sign up on their site, they will send you information about prevacid (of course) as well as an instant rebate card that takes $25 off each refill. No forms to fill out each month, you just give the card to the pharmacist and get the discount. We got WG's card today just in time because she needs a refill.
Here is the URL to sign up for the program: https://www.prevacid.com/offers/landing.aspx I put in WG's information (name, age, etc) which was strange because she's only four, but it seems to have worked. I have no idea if Prevacid will spam me or send us things in the mail, etc, but honestly, for $25 a month in my pocket I don't really care!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Happy Birthday, WG!
Four years old. It's crazy because I feel like WG was a baby last week. I blinked and now she is a little girl....
We had a nice day today. WG's birthday is bittersweet for me. Of course it's a joyous thing to be celebrated, but it's also the anniversary of the beginning of a very scary time for Tim and I. It's a difficult thing to explain to people who have not been affected by prematurity. Watching your child struggle to live when life has hardly begun is something no parent should have to do. It is life-altering. Every year the memory gets easier but I think it will always be something we think about on her birthday. WG and I had a relaxed day. We snuggled in the morning and around 10:30 am, which, incidentally, is about the time she was born, she asked me to "tell (her) the story about when she busted out of (my) tummy." She was particularly interested in the part where Tim and I ran around like crazy people at 4 am trying to pack bags since my water broke a month early and we didn't have the hospital bags packed. She wanted to know what we took with us. I told her that I only remembered what we forgot to pack: underwear, toothbrushes, basic essential items.... We looked at her hospital anklet which shocked both of us with it's smallness. I held it to her ankle now and it didn't even go half way. We also looked through her NICU baby book which has pics and stats from that time and is one of her favorite things to look at. We had cake and presents when Tim came home from work. I pushed the "easy" button this year and bought a gluten-free cake, chicken nuggets and tator tots from the organic grocery store. WG wanted to eat her cake first so we had backward dinner tonight: dessert first, then dinner. She was so excited about blowing out the candles that we lit them for her twice.
She (of course) loved all her presents. Aunt Beth, she opened the card you sent, took out the fabric and started waving it around yelling, "A fat quarter! I got a fat quarter for my birthday!!!!" I'm still on the hunt for a needle guard to get her started sewing on the machine.... I'll have to take some pics of her creations. She does a whole lot with my scraps and a bunch of straight pins!
We had a nice day today. WG's birthday is bittersweet for me. Of course it's a joyous thing to be celebrated, but it's also the anniversary of the beginning of a very scary time for Tim and I. It's a difficult thing to explain to people who have not been affected by prematurity. Watching your child struggle to live when life has hardly begun is something no parent should have to do. It is life-altering. Every year the memory gets easier but I think it will always be something we think about on her birthday. WG and I had a relaxed day. We snuggled in the morning and around 10:30 am, which, incidentally, is about the time she was born, she asked me to "tell (her) the story about when she busted out of (my) tummy." She was particularly interested in the part where Tim and I ran around like crazy people at 4 am trying to pack bags since my water broke a month early and we didn't have the hospital bags packed. She wanted to know what we took with us. I told her that I only remembered what we forgot to pack: underwear, toothbrushes, basic essential items.... We looked at her hospital anklet which shocked both of us with it's smallness. I held it to her ankle now and it didn't even go half way. We also looked through her NICU baby book which has pics and stats from that time and is one of her favorite things to look at. We had cake and presents when Tim came home from work. I pushed the "easy" button this year and bought a gluten-free cake, chicken nuggets and tator tots from the organic grocery store. WG wanted to eat her cake first so we had backward dinner tonight: dessert first, then dinner. She was so excited about blowing out the candles that we lit them for her twice.
She (of course) loved all her presents. Aunt Beth, she opened the card you sent, took out the fabric and started waving it around yelling, "A fat quarter! I got a fat quarter for my birthday!!!!" I'm still on the hunt for a needle guard to get her started sewing on the machine.... I'll have to take some pics of her creations. She does a whole lot with my scraps and a bunch of straight pins!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Let the demolition begin!
The kitchen overhaul has officially started. It's hard to find words that express my glee... Today we found a range hood / microwave on clearance at Home Depot so we scooped that up along with flooring. I had a wedding and reception today so Tim started ripping out the old floor while I was away. At first he shooed WG away but she was very insistent about helping so he put safety glasses on her and had her pick up bits of tile and then scrape paper off the floor. He said she loved it and was actually a very big help.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Endoscopy follow up
WG had her follow up with the GI doc today. In a nutshell, nothing new. All the allergy tests came back negative, she tested WG again for the celiac gene: also negative (again), nutritionaly she is also doing okay. The biopsies just confirmed what she saw: irritated, angry, enflamed GI tract.
SO, the game plan for now is to finish the carafate, stay on prevacid and add miralax for the next month for constipation. WG is horribly constipated. Who knows if this is due to her tummy woes or if it's due to the prevacid / carafate. Constipation is a side effect of both drugs.
The doc asked if WG was having any stomach pain. I told her that it was hard to say because WG has a very high pain tollerence and would do just about anything (including lie) to avoid having to go to the doctor. Also, as our friend pointed out to me, WG has had so many chronic tummy issues that she probably doesn't know if she is in pain.
WG will see the GI again on August 21. She has her four year (!) well check on the 19th, so an appointment filled week for her. I was dissappointed that we were put on a short leash (three weeks between appts). I was hoping that she would get a three month window before needing to be seen again. Her doc is concerned about the constipation (WG is bleeding with BM's) and also thinks that an emptying study may still be in her future, so three weeks it is.
SO, the game plan for now is to finish the carafate, stay on prevacid and add miralax for the next month for constipation. WG is horribly constipated. Who knows if this is due to her tummy woes or if it's due to the prevacid / carafate. Constipation is a side effect of both drugs.
The doc asked if WG was having any stomach pain. I told her that it was hard to say because WG has a very high pain tollerence and would do just about anything (including lie) to avoid having to go to the doctor. Also, as our friend pointed out to me, WG has had so many chronic tummy issues that she probably doesn't know if she is in pain.
WG will see the GI again on August 21. She has her four year (!) well check on the 19th, so an appointment filled week for her. I was dissappointed that we were put on a short leash (three weeks between appts). I was hoping that she would get a three month window before needing to be seen again. Her doc is concerned about the constipation (WG is bleeding with BM's) and also thinks that an emptying study may still be in her future, so three weeks it is.
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