A New Prescription

Wow, it has really been a crazy busy year for our family.  Since my last blog (5 months ago), we have moved in to a beautiful home in north Peachtree City.  We have been busy with projects since we moved in mid-July.   Everyone is enjoying the new house.   Eric loves the proximity to the interstate (he does still have a decent commute all the way to Buckhead though), the girls absolutely love their enormous playroom and the big yard, and I love pretty much everything about it! Eric will be in heaven once his basement is complete and he finally gets his man cave.  Right now, we have doubled our square footage from our first house and when the basement is finished we will have tripled it! It is so nice to finally have room to spread out. 

I started this blog as a way to keep friends and family and anyone else who may be curious, up to date about Peyton’s progress.  That is what I will continue to focus on.  Our sweet angel, Peyton, is now 14 months old! She is about 8.5 months post-surgery.  Lately, we have been averaging about one visit to the ophthalmologist a month and sometimes two. Unfortunately, her doctor no longer comes to the Newnan office one day a week, so I am bringing her all the way to St. Joseph’s hospital on the north side of the city.   It is worth the drive to know that she is receiving the best care possible.  When I was in the office this week, I met a mother whose daughter had skull surgery as an infant.  Her neurosurgeon told the mother that Dr. Lipsky is hands down the best pediatric ophthalmologist in the state.  Those are pretty comforting words coming from a neurosurgeon.  It also helps me understand why I generally wait well over an hour every time we go to see him.  An excellent doctor is worth the wait.

The doctor continues to tell us that from an anatomical stand point her eye looks absolutely perfect.  However, her brain is still being stubborn and not wanting to use her left eye.  The absolute only way that she will make improvements and have a chance at remotely decent vision in that eye is for us to force her to use it through wearing a patch and/or her new treatment which I will get to shortly. Peyton’s patching regimen has changed multiple times over the course of the past few months.  Most recently, it has been all day, every other day.  The problem with the patch is that Peyton HATES to wear it.  On patch days, I would literally spend the entire day distracting her.  Some days she still managed to go through 6-8 patches/day.  She would be cranky and cry all day long.  I can’t hardly blame her.  The patch became a huge source of stress and guilt for me as well.  I knew that since patching was the only thing which could help her, the future of her vision depended completely upon how well I was able to keep her patched.  If she pulled off the patch and I wasn’t able to get it back on right away, I would feel this pit in my stomach knowing that every minute she goes without it takes away from her ultimate prognosis.  I really could not do anything on patch days. No cooking, no showering, no going out to run errands, and no doing chores around the house.  I felt guilty that I couldn’t give Leah much attention.  I also felt guilty that I felt sorry for myself when Peyton is really the one that I should feel sorry for.  This past Monday I took Peyton to see the doctor and he told me that despite my many efforts, Peyton is still not making much progress.  Thus, we must move on to the next course of treatment.  It was extremely disappointing to hear that she has not made progress and I also felt somewhat like a failure.  However, I am extremely optimistic about this new course of treatment and so far she seems to be much happier with it.  Instead of wearing an eye patch over her good eye, Peyton will now wear a contact lens in it.  Right now we are working with simple daily contacts with the highest prescription they come in (+6).  She will wear the contact every other day to completely blur her good eye, therefore, forcing her to use her bad one. The hardest part is obviously putting the contact in.  She does not like it to say the least.  Eric has to hold her down while I put it in.  I have actually been able to get it in after only a couple of tries.  Once it is in, she is completely fine.  In fact, she is happy as a clam.  This is a huge improvement.  I like it because I don’t feel like I have to be hovering over her all day now.   Of course, there is a reason that this is only the back-up treatment.  When you are putting a high powered contact lens in an eye that does not need any prescription at all you always run the risk of hurting the vision in that good eye.  This is why she will be closely monitored by her doctor.  Since we are now actually putting something in her eye, there is also a slight risk of infection.  Of course, we have complete confidence in her doctor and trust that this treatment will be effective without any negative side effects.  So poor Peyton now has an implant lens in her left eye, a contact in her right eye, and glasses on top of that!  In addition to all of this, she will almost surely have an additional surgery on her eye muscles in the coming year.  So that is what is happening with the eyes! Please keep Peyton in your prayers.  Pray that her brain accepts her left eye and starts to use it.  Pray that she will have awesome vision in both eyes!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will say that we have many things to be thankful for this year.   We are thankful for our beautiful daughters who are so very different but have equally blessed our lives beyond words.  We are thankful for our amazing friends and family who have been so supportive this year.  We are thankful for Peyton’s excellent doctor and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  We are thankful that Eric has a job that he loves and that allows him to provide for our family while I stay at home with the girls.  We are thankful that after 19 months our house finally sold! We are thankful for our new home.  Finally, we are thankful that we have an awesome God, without which we would have nothing to be thankful for!

 

 

 

Moving On

  So it has been quite some time since I last posted.  We continue to have so much going on! In the past month we have moved out of our house, enjoyed a visit from Auntie Mel and Abigail, gone to Athens to watch Auntie Em graduate from the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!), and spent a week in Florida.  I think that things will calm down a bit for a little while though.

Our First Home

We moved out of our house the last weekend of April.  Shout out to Chris Shaver and Andrew Barnes for helping us move.  I promise that my husband will return the favor when needed.  It was sad to say goodbye to the home that Eric and I shared for over five years.  We bought the house a month before our wedding and brought both of our babies home to that house.  Turning out the lights and closing the door one last time was more difficult than I thought it would be.  Hopefully we are moving on to bigger and better though! For now, we are still living at my parents’ house.  Even though their house is quite large, it still feels a little cramped and we are anxious to have our own space.  I always thought that it would be easy to find something once we sold ours, but that has not been the case.  I have looked at about a dozen houses and spent countless hours on GeorgiaMLS.com with no luck.  I still think that I am stuck on that first house that we lost.  We had given ourselves until June 1^st to find something before we look in to building.  So I am meeting with a builder this Friday.  I am still skeptical about building.  We were definitely hoping to get a “deal”, but we also want to be happy with such a big purchase.  I guess that it is a gamble either way.  If we simply wait for something to come on the market, then we are taking a gamble, because what if it is many months before we find something we are really happy with.  If we build we are gambling in that we are assuming nothing will come on the market.  Hopefully we can find a lot, a floorplan, and a price that we like!  We have been praying for 2 years that God would lead us to the right house for us, so we are trusting that he will!

Leah is growing like a weed.  She is definitely a kid and no longer a baby.  I miss her as a baby, but it is fun to see her growing up before my eyes.  She is full of personality and spunk!  She is talking like crazy and repeats everything.  We really have to be careful what we say around her.  The other day she dropped something and said, “oh crap!” She loves to play and is Miss Independent.  We built a fort today and she told me, “Mommy, get out of here!” She definitely has her two-year old tantrums from time to time (mostly triggered by me not understanding what she is trying to communicate to me), but she is a sweet kid.  She always says, “I love you so much!” and at night she says, “I wanna snuggle Mommy”.  It just melts my heart.  There are so many moments that I just want to capture and remember forever!  I keep a journal for each of the girls to tell them what sorts of things they are doing and basically just tell them how in love with them I am.  But it makes me so sad to think that I am probably going to forget some of these things that I love about them at each stage.  Leah is currently in pacifier detox, but she is recovering quite nicely.  I had hoped to be rid of the pacifier long ago, but with all the changes that have happened since Peyton was born, I just let her keep it.  She only had it at naptime and nighttime, but I thought that it was time for her to say goodbye.  So we just went cold turkey.  I told her she was a big girl now and she threw it in the trash and said, “bye, bye binky”.  That was pretty much the end of it.  She had one meltdown, but hasn’t really even asked for it in about 5 days now.  Peyton will be rid of her binky by 15 months.

Peyton is a happy little eight-month old.  She has two teeth and is getting in to everything! It is a combination of rolling and army crawling at the moment, but she has been trying to crawl and stand on her own.  She says “Dada”, “Mama”, “Nana”, and I swear she said “Leah” the other day! We had a slight setback when we took her to the eye doctor a few weeks ago.  From an anatomical standpoint, her eye looks perfect.  The implant lens took well and her eye is completely healed.  But her brain is still reverting to her right eye and not really wanting to use that left eye.  We increased patch time to all day every other day.  Hopefully this will help.  I guess that we just have to keep fighting the fight! She really hates the patch, but she has been tolerating it better lately (Not fussing so much when wearing it).  Unfortunately, she is starting to figure out how to take it off.  This could get expensive.  On top of that, her eye is wandering, so an additional surgery might be in her near future.   Whenever I take Peyton anywhere, literally everyone looks at her.  Some people point and even say things out loud.  I really should just hold up a sign that says, “My baby wears glasses!!”  I also have had several people ask me if her glasses are prescription.  As if I am going to torture my child by forcing her to wear glasses that are not necessary.  These are some of the frustrations that we face, but in a way I guess I can’t blame people.  I would probably look too if I saw an adorable baby wearing glasses.  The good thing is that by the time she is able to notice people looking at her, they probably won’t be because it won’t be that abnormal for her to be wearing glasses at that point.

So that is the update on the Shaver Family.  Hopefully it won’t be another month and half before I post again! 

The Girls Enjoying the Beach!

It's a Small World

I feel as if my life has been moving in fast-forward since February 1^st.  That is the day that Peyton was diagnosed.  There has just been so much going on in our lives.  I have actually had so much to blog about just not any time to actually sit down and write!

The title of my post is “It’s a Small World” for the several “small world” experiences that we have had lately.

Let me start with the WONDERFUL news that our house FINALLY has a contract on it.  Our house is a wonderful four-bedroom ranch in an amazing neighborhood, but it has its limitations for us.  It is four bedroom, but a small four bedroom with absolutely no storage space.  We are just bursting at the seams.  Also, we don’t really have much of a usable yard.  None of this was a problem when we moved in five and a half years ago, but we never intended to be here when we had children, much less two.  But the economy took a turn for the worse and we were pretty much stuck.  We are losing quite a bit of money on the house, but we are hoping to make it up when we buy and well everyone makes at least one bad investment in their lifetime, right?  Let’ s hope this is the only one.  It is a small world, because I think that I know the buyer, but I am not positive.  I guess I will find out at closing (May 4).

You are probably wondering where we are moving….and the answer is….my parents’ house! Since we knew that it was going to be a while for our house to sell, we did not want to find something that we love only to lose it because we couldn’t sell our house.  So we did not even really look until we got a contract on our house.  Since we lost money on this house, we want to look at our next house as an investment and hopefully get a deal on something.  This is going to be a difficult task. We actually fell in love with a home this past weekend and made an offer on Monday, only to find out that someone offered full asking price on Tuesday and it was accepted.  Total bummer….who offers asking price in this economy anyways??  The good news is, this helped me realize what I want.  The bad news is, my standards are now WAY too high and I probably want something that I can’t afford. So I think we have basically decided to take a step back, move in with my parents, and wait for something to show up on the market that fits our tastes and our budget.  It is going to be crowded since my little sister will be moving home from college this summer, but I don’t want to rush in to making a decision that we will regret.

About a month ago, Eric was at our neighborhood playground with Leah when he noticed a little girl with the same glasses that Peyton wears.  He asked the parents why she wore them, and they said that she was born with a cataract! The little girl was three years old, but was diagnosed as a baby.  The poor girl was not fitted with an implant lens like Peyton was and she developed scar tissue which caused severe glaucoma.  She has had to have subsequent surgeries to treat the glaucoma.  Anyways, Eric learned about the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired, which has been a great help to this family.  I plan on getting in touch with this center very soon. I wish that Eric had gotten the contact info for this family, but they left while Eric was busy swinging Leah and they actually don’t live in our neighborhood (they were just using our playground).  It is still always nice to know that we are not alone and that there are support systems out there. 

On the very same day, my dad was flying back from Chicago and whom was he sitting next to?  None other than the doctor that examined Peyton in the hospital…..basically the doctor that missed her cataract.  My dad actually did not know that she was THE doctor that saw Peyton, but he did ask her about infant cataracts.  She said that they are hard to find in newborns, etc.  I will admit that it is probably hard to find in a newborn because they don’t usually open their eyes, but this doctor did not even look at her eyes.   Anyways, that is all in the past now, but just kinda funny that he sat with her and on the same day that Eric met that other family.

Last time that I posted on my blog, we were in Hilton Head Island, SC for our much needed getaway!  We had a really great time.  Leah normally does not do well at the beach.  She does not tolerate heat well at all.  She gets very red and last time she even developed a horrible case of the hives.  Basically, she is forced to stay inside the whole time and someone has to stay with her.  Since it was March, she did not have any negative reactions to the weather.  She loved the pool (it was heated) and wanted to spend most of our time there.  She would not walk on the beach because she said that they sand was, “disgusting”.  I am not sure where she learned that word, probably from me changing her diapers.  Anyways, she would sit at the edge of the blanket and play in the sand, but she would not walk on the unpacked sand.  She would walk on the wet, packed sand and watch the water wash up.  Every time that we would enter the lobby of the hotel, Leah would start slow dancing to the classical music that was playing.  It was absolutely hysterical.  That is her latest thing…slow dancing and singing princess songs.  I just love that kid.

Peyton is still adjusting to her glasses, but she is doing quite well with them.  She is almost seven months old now!  This past weekend, she was baptized.  My dad actually performed the ceremony in front of three crosses and the lake that is behind my parents’ house.  It was beautiful, and I am so glad that we were able to share that moment with our wonderful family.  In other Peyton news, I am trying to get her to take a bottle and having a VERY hard time.  She literally acts like I am trying to feed her poison.  I know, I know….I should have had her on the bottle a long time ago, but it is just so easy to let her nurse.  If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.  I have tried different bottles.  I have tried breast milk and formula and she will literally take nothing from the bottle.  On top of that, she will not take baby food either! We have tried different types, but she just clamps her mouth shut.  I guess that she is just content with nursing. 

So for now, we are just packing up our house and looking for a new one.  Next month we have the closing on our house, Emily’s graduation, a visit from Auntie Mel and cousin Abigail, and hopefully another beach trip!

Glasses and Goodbyes

This week pretty much revolved around glasses and goodbyes for our family.  I will start with the Goodbye part so that we can end on a good note!

Yesterday we finally had to say goodbye to our sweet little Charlie.  I never imagined that it would be so difficult to say goodbye to him.  We tried to keep him around as long as we could, but we never wanted him to be in pain.  He really started to slow down last week and early this week he stopped eating and was not sleeping well at all.  It was clear to us that it was time.  We spent about two days saying goodbye and then Thursday morning I gave him a whole bunch of whipped cream (he loved whipped cream) and took him in.  Dad went with me and we were both there with him.  I pet him until he took his last breath and his tiny little heart stopped beating.  We took him home to my parents' house (I don't have much of a yard and am trying to move) and Dad buried him in the backyard in a nice box that Eric built.  Charlie was one month shy of 5 years old. 

I am left with so many wonderful memories of Charlie.  He really was the most amazing little dog.  I wanted a bichon frise for the longest time.  I have no idea why, since I did not know anyone with one.  For my wedding present, Eric gave me a bank in the shape of a bichon and put a couple hundred dollars in it.  He told me that whenever I found one, I could go get my bichon. I checked the paper just about every day, but decided to wait until the summer when I could spend time training a puppy.  It actually worked out because the breeder lived only about ten minutes from us.  I fell in love with Charlie the moment I saw him.  He was only about 3 pounds and hopped everywhere.  He used to sleep on the top of my pillow at night.  Charlie was my only baby for almost three years.  I feel a little guilty because he didn't get nearly the same attention once my kids came along.  He was very good with the girls though.  He knew to be gentle with them.  When Leah used to cry in her bassinet, Charlie would run over and check on her.  Charlie won over my entire family.  Everyone loved him.  It will not be the same without him.  I like to think of him sitting on Jesus' lap up in heaven.

Charlie as a puppy

Checking out his new sister (Leah)

Just about a month ago. Such a sweet face.

This whole ordeal with Charlie really has been a reminder to me of just how truly blessed I am.  This has seriously been the saddest event that I heave dealt with in my 26 years, which means that I have had a great life.  I hope that I can be more compassionate towards others who face far worse.  I truly believe that everything happens for a reason and that God has a plan for all of us.  In the words of the great philosopher, Kelly Clarkson, "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." 

Now to the glasses part.....

Peyton got her glasses this week and boy does she look darling.  It is funny because I thought that her initial response would be to pull them right off, but she didn't.  I think it is because she can finally see well! She actually immediately seemed intrigued.  I did not realize how poorly she could see out of that eye until I saw the prescription in her glasses.  It is like a magnifying glass.  I am already used to her wearing the glasses though.  Her ears stick out a little bit (like her Mommy's do), so that is  helpful in holding her glasses up! Poor thing still has to wear the patch for four hours in the morning too though which she does not like.  Surprisingly, Leah has really cared less about the patch or the glasses.  It is like she almost doesn't even notice that Peyton is wearing them.  As long as her prescription does not change and they don't get messed up somehow, she will wear them until she is 2.  Leah is the family ham, but Peyton might give her a run for her money because these glasses get Peyton so much attention!

Once we knew that this would be Charlie's last week, we decided to get out of town for the weekend to try and get our mind off of our grief.  Honestly, it is not really working.  I still break down every time that I think of my Charlie.  However, it is fun to see the girls enjoying themselves.  We went swimming in the pool and went down to the beach this afternoon and Leah was having a blast.  I am treating myself to a facial and a pedicure at the resort spa in the morning.  Hopefully Eric will survive with the girls alone for two hours.  Also, I am pretty sure that I am going to win $290 million in the Mega Millions lottery tonight, so I will more than likely be a multi millionaire next time that I blog. 

Things are looking up!

I am a bad blogger.  Most people probably think that being a stay-at-home mom is easy.  I thought it was going to be...back when I had one child.  Well I have been a working mom and a stay-at-home mom and I can honestly say that being a stay-at-home mom is much harder (at least when your children are not in school yet)!  I love my kids more than anything in the world, but when you stay at home, there is no break! I now get excited to go to Publix or take a shower.  It is difficult to find time to blog between potty training Leah and trying to keep Peyton calm while she gets her "patch time" in each day.  Plus, I have never really been the most open person, so this is all quite new to me! Anyways, that is why it has been a month since my last blog.

Our days are pretty boring and monotonous, but here is a brief summary of our life this past month!

Leah is the cutest little toddler in the world.  She just turned two last month, and yes sometimes they are the terrible two's!  However, most of the time, she is the sweetest girl.  We are right in the heart of potty training.  We have had several attempts at potty training since she was about 15 months, but it seems that I have given up each time upon realizing that she just had no interest in being potty trained.  In the past few weeks though, she has shown more interest in being potty training.  She has told me a few times that she needed to go, but most of the time she just tells me after or not at all.  But we are definitely making progress.  I would love for her to be potty-trained by the summer.  I am absolutely amazed at how she picks up on things.  She is saying 4-6 word sentences now.  She counts to 10 and has been since she was about 16 months.  She knows most colors, although she calls brown "chocolate" and black "coffee" for some reason!  It is so funny how she will get really interested in one thing for a few weeks and then switch to something else.  She is currently very in to the Disney Princesses, particularly Sleeping Beauty.  She loves to watch Sleeping Beauty, which is kinda unfortunate for us because it is literally the worst animated Disney movie!  She absolutely adores her little sister.  Surprisingly she did not even seem to notice Peyton's patch, however I did find a sticker directly over her stuffed dog's left eye...so cute!  Leah is just the most loving kid.  The other night we went to Longhorn for dinner and she literally told me she loved me like 100 times.  I just love that kid!

 

Leah gave her puppy a patch!

Peyton is doing very well! She went back to the doctor for a post-op last week and he is still very pleased with her progress.  She now wears the patch every day for 4 hours.  She still doesn't like it, but she is getting used to it.  She was fitted for her glasses and they should be in next week.  She tried some on, and I must say that she looked absolutely adorable.  Keeping them on should be a challenge.  The doctor said that from here on out it is pretty much in our hands, but hopefully she will thank us in 30 years.  She does not go back to the doctor again until May.  I have said before, Peyton has got the sweetest disposition, but she has definitely tried our patience.  She is a pretty fussy baby.  I don't know if it is colic, or gas, or what, but she cries a lot.  This is new to us because Leah has always been the happiest baby and kid!  I keep thinking that she will grow out of it, but that has yet to take place! I am hoping that once she gets her glasses and can see better, she will be happier! But when she is happy, her smile is as big as her face and her laugh is absolutely contagious!

She is quite chunky!

On to sad news...Charlie was not able to have his surgery.  When we went in, the surgeon determined that it was just too advanced for him to do the surgery.  He wanted us to bring Charlie to Knoxville for surgery with an oncologist, but he would have had to have at least three ribs removed and spend a week in the hospital.  He also said that the cancer was likely to recur.  We already spent about $600 just to diagnose him, and after surgery and chemo we could have been looking at spending $10,000 easily.  With the amount of pain he would be in and the likelihood that it would recur, we decided that it was not worth it.  He is still a happy little dog and other than the massive lump, you would never know that he was sick.  He is living with my parents now since they can give him more attention.  When he shows signs of being in pain, then we will put him down, but for now we are just letting him be happy and spoiling him!

I mentioned in my last blog that we are trying to sell our house and have been for like 18 months.  We have had incredible activity lately.  About 10 showings in the past two weeks.  We had refrained from looking at new homes until recently because we did not want to fall in love with something that we could not have, but with all the activity, we feel like it is bound to sell soon! So we started looking and we fell in love!  We went in a model home in a new neighborhood and we pretty much have to have it now.  We will probably build it, provided that our house sells and we are unable to find an incredible deal somewhere.  I will give more details once our house sells (keeping my fingers crossed that it is soon)!

So February was a tough month for us, but things are looking up now! We are loving this warm weather and looking forward to the spring and summer!  

Seeing is Believing

Well it has certainly been a very long and stressful two weeks, but we are constantly reminded of how incredibly blessed we are.  We are so thankful for the wonderful friends, family, and even strangers that were and still are praying for Peyton.  Peyton had her surgery one week ago and we have gone back to see the doctor for two follow up visits.  So far the doctor says that he could not be more pleased with the outcome.  He is always sure to remind us that we still have a very long road ahead of us, but for right now things are looking good.  I guess we just have to take it one day at a time, but I am confident that Peyton will have perfect vision.

                                                                      Pre- Surgery

Last Thursday was a very long day.  Handing my baby over to the nurse so that she could take her back to the operating room was perhaps the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.  I felt completely helpless, but I knew that God would be guiding that surgeon's hand and everything would be fine.  It was still a very long hour and a half.  Cataract surgery for an adult is only about 15 minutes I am told, but Peyton's surgery took 6x that long. The doctor said that it is because an adult's cataract wants to come out, but on a child they have to really work to get it out.  I am not even going to attempt to explain what exactly the doctor did because it is miles beyond my scope of understanding.  The man is a genius.  I can not even fathom being able to implant a lens into a baby's eye without messing anything else up in the process.  He deserves every penny he is paid!  Anyways, the best thing about her surgery was that the doctor was able to fit her with an implant lens which for right now means that I do not have to attempt to put a contact lens into her eye and hopefully means that she will not need further surgery!  She can now see out of her left eye, but she doesn't really understand what she is seeing because her brain had gotten used to not using that eye.  She will probably always favor her right eye, except of course when her right eye is covered by a patch.  The patch.....this should be a great adventure for the next 8 years or so.  Right now Peyton wears the patch every other day for the entire day.  I am not sure how long that will go on, but she will wear the patch at least for a couple of hours until she is 8. Poor baby!  She has also had to endure 10 drops in her eye each day, but luckily we are down to just 4.  She will be fitted for glasses at her next appointment (in 3 weeks) and she is going to look darling in her new frames!

Post-Surgery

I would just like to add that Children's Healthcare of Atlanta was truly amazing.  We met just about everyone involved in the surgery beforehand and everyone was so incredibly kind and helpful.   I hope that I do not have to go there again, but if I do, I will know that I am in wonderful hands. 

 On to sad, but optimistic news....

Charlie, our almost five year old bichon frise, was diagnosed with a tumor last Friday.  The doctor initially thought it was cancer, and it might still be, but we are not exactly sure at this point.  Charlie had a growth that we noticed around Christmas.  We believed it was just a fatty tumor and figured it was harmless.   Around the same time that Peyton was diagnosed with her cataract (about 2 weeks ago), we noticed that the lump had gotten quite a bit bigger.  I had every intention of taking him to the vet once our lives calmed down a bit, but it just kept growing and he was starting to show signs of pain.  He could not use his right front leg well and it was very painful for him to bark.  So I took him in to the vet last Friday evening.  The doctor was fairly confident that it was cancer.  He took X-rays and determined that it is in a very difficult location.  Wrapped around ribs and touching his chest wall.  He explained that the surgery would be very expensive and difficult for Charlie.   They would be removing some ribs and have to rebuild his chest wall or something like that.  Again...over my head!  Regardless, it does not sound easy.  The recovery period is about 3 months and he will need a great deal of attention.  Well, I don't really have a great deal of attention to give at the moment since I have a 5 month old still in recovery mode.  I had decided that I just could not take on a difficult surgery and recovery right now, especially if he was going to be in pain and there was no guarantee that he would survive much longer.  I was going to put him down.

After crying for nearly the entire weekend, my INCREDIBLY AMAZING parents offered to take Charlie in while he recovers from surgery.  We went and had some more tests run and they are still not sure if it is in fact cancer, but they do not believe that it is the really bad kind of cancer.  I just can't bring myself to give up on him without a fight.  Best case scenario would be that the surgeon is able to get the entire mass out and that will be the end of it.  We are believing in a best case scenario!  Charlie is scheduled for surgery on Monday morning.

Leah giving Charlie kisses

On top of all this, both girls have had bad colds and Leah has been throwing up all morning!  I am still feeling pretty blessed, but I would not be opposed to 2012 getting better.  We have a very serious cash buyer looking at the house on Monday....maybe they will buy it! Let's hope so.  After 18 months on the market, I am ready to move!!!

Staying Positive

Well I don't think that I had really ever read a blog until yesterday and today I am making my own! Last week I took Peyton to the eye doctor and I was told that she has a cataract that needs to be removed ASAP.  In my quest for more information I found the blog of another mom whose child is going through the same thing.  I was getting very frustrated finding only statistics (which were quite negative) and I was in desperate need of finding a positive story of a child with a cataract.  That is when I stumbled upon this other mom's blog.  It was so comforting to know that we were not alone.  It also seemed like maybe it is therapeutic to write out your thoughts and feelings when faced with an adversity like this. So that is why I decided to start a blog!

Let me first just give a brief overview of our family and then I will get in to Peyton's eye.  Leah was a very planned baby.  She was conceived using fertility drugs and shots and lots of prayers.  I actually have a picture of Leah when she was just an egg (not even an embryo yet)....CRAZY!  She is a beautiful, smart, healthy little two year old.  I distinctly remember last December saying to Eric something like, " I would so rather have a surprise baby than go through all that fertility mess again!".  Well even though I wasn't quite ready, God must have been listening because a month later, we learned that I was pregnant again! I was very excited, but also very nervous and strangely I felt an overwhelming feeling of guilt.  Guilty that I was not going to be able to give as much of myself to either child.  But after speaking to numerous people with children close in age, I realized that this is a blessing.  They are going to be BEST friends.   Especially since they are both girls. After what seemed like a very long pregnancy, Peyton arrived in September.  She is absolutely beautiful.  The word that I always find myself using to describe her is "sweet".  She is just the sweetest little baby.  Leah is sweet too, but in a different way.  Leah is a total ham and loves to get attention.  I don't feel like Peyton is going to be like that.  She is more of a calm, shy, relaxing sweet.  Yes, it is tough having two kids 20 months apart, but I am looking forward to the days when they will dress up and play princesses like me and my big sister did.

Now to Peyton's eye. We noticed very early on that Peyton's left eye wandered quite a bit.  I even mentioned it to her pediatrician at her one month and two month appointments, but I guess it is quite normal for an eye to wander early on.  I even called the eye doctor and was told to wait and let my pediatrician look her over.  I should have listened to my instincts and taken her in anyways.  By the time her four month appointment came along, her eye was not wandering as much (maybe she had started to give up on it), but my pediatrician noticed her right eye not focusing.  She sent me to a pediatric ophthalmologist just to be sure.  I got her the first possible appointment which just happened to be Leah's birthday.  I told Eric he did not need to go with me because I fully expected them to just tell me that she had a lazy eye.  I thought maybe we would do a little patching and possibly surgery and she would be fine.  Little did I know that he would drop a total bomb on me.  After examining her eyes for what seemed like forever, he sat me down and told me that my precious little four month old baby had a cataract in her left eye.  That she would need surgery immediately in order to save her vision.  That she would probably have to wear a contact, have multiple surgeries, and have life long issues with her vision.  The analogy he used was, "it is like a very steep mountain and the surgery is just the foothills".  Peyton has a congenital unilateral cataract.  Meaning that she was born with it and it is only in one eye.  Yes I am glad that it is not in both eyes, but they say that having one is actually more difficult than two.  I am not sure why, maybe because she does have vision in her right eye, she has started giving up on that left eye.  We have been patching her good eye every other day which is tough because it more or less leaves her blind since she can't really see out of her left eye.  She goes for surgery on Thursday morning.   I will learn more about the journey ahead of us then.  Everyone keeps telling me how simple cataract surgery is.  Yes, cataract surgery is simple for a grown adult whose vision has been established for decades.  For a small baby who has never known what it is like to see clearly, not so simple.  The ideal age for this surgery is said to be between 6 weeks and 3 months.  Peyton will be one week shy of five months when she undergoes surgery.  I know it is just an eye and not a heart or some other life threatening problem, but I can't help but find myself on the verge of tears at every moment thinking about how unfair it is that my sweet baby girl is going to suffer through this adversity.  I would take it from her in a second if I could, but I know that she will be a stronger person for it.  I am so thankful for the incredible, loving support from our family and friends.  I am thankful for the prayers from friends, family, and even strangers.  I am thankful that God is going to heal my baby and one day soon she will see clearly out of both of her eyes.

For anyone reading this, please pray for Peyton.  Please pray for Dr. Lipsky to perform a perfect surgery on her and that she have no negative side effects as a result of it.  Please pray that her vision be corrected and for Eric and I to have patience through the long road that we have ahead of us.

I will update with the good news after her surgery!