Oct. 31, 2008
Mercy Update for October and the Goings On
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Hello all friends! Thanks so much for being patient with me during my quietness of the past few weeks. I think that I am finally catching up from everything! As far as our going's on for the past week, I don't have need to write of much... just go to Amy's Humble Musings and read about their chicken butchering on Wednesday... that's us only we did 15 birds. And I wasn't inside on the computer, but inside with the three babies... So it is not a collective "We". I prefer to have my meat show up like it's from the grocery store. We had a helper butchering... he was paid with one chicken and all the hearts and livers. He wanted to make a patte...  ... glad I'm not going to have dinner at their house this week. We had hot dogs instead. Oh wait... what's in those hot dogs anyway?!?!Mercy and I went to Cincinnati Thursday. It was a LONG day! We left at 5 a.m., and drove the four hours there. Then we met with the: - Contacts guy. He fitted her contact in, and showed me how to take it in and out. I know it won't be pleasant, but I think I can do it. I was so impressed that it hardly seemed to bother her all day. Upon arrival home (at 8:30 p.m.), we discovered that it had already fallen out (or gotten up into the upper cavity of the eye - there is a lot of space for it to disappear into.). So 24 hours after being fitted for it, we already were ordering a replacement lense. The doctor informed me that on average, children need their lenses replaced between 8 and 16 times a year! I have thought a few unchristian remarks towards the thought of putting contacts into a 21 month old child. I won't repeat them. - Then we went to the cardiologist. Unfortunately, she has an enlarged heart on the left side in order to support the extra blood flow. This is causing some strain on the heart, and she has developed a murmur in the heart, and a "thrill" in the vein. That, I believe, is a murmur in a vein. Her blood pressure is rising, and it just generally looks like her heart is not doing well with the extra pressure it has to get the extra blood flow to the left side of her face. This pushes us to do something before her heart deteriorates to the point of being a danger. Heart damage is permanent, the hemangioma is not. -Dr. Adams is not quite ready with the propanalol study to feel comfortable prescribing it yet. She won't be ready for a few months, so we are not sure we even want to wait until then. It is experimental, and if it doesn't work, we are that much farther down the road with Mercy's heart strain, rather than being done. -That leaves the other option being Vincristine (chemotherapy). I was pretty panicky over the weekend at the thought of giving it to her, but God has really given me a measure of peace that we are to do this and get it over with. On average the course will be between 2 and 6 months. There are many, many practical issues to resolve before we give the official go ahead, but as for now it seems the thing we should do in the best long term interests of our daughter. So I have been busy mentally planning the next week or two... there are a lot of things to pull together before I become consumed with Mercy's practical care. First off I will go shopping today and start cooking up those chickens. I planned out about 15 meals to make (plus broth for soup) out of the chickens, and about 25 beef meals. If I can get them made, the family can maybe eat well during this time, without all the pressure being on Eric and the kids to cook all the meals. I have been wanting to get back into bulk cooking, so this is a good push to do something I should have been doing anyway. We are also setting up our garden boxes for next year!! We are using some cedar trees cut down by the electric company for the "walls" of the boxes. I laid them out where we want the garden, then we are filling them with a layer of compost from our pile (manure from the horses, cow, and chickens, pine pellets from the chicken house bedding, and hay), a layer of leaves from the trees outside, and finally another layer of old hay. Hopefully this will decompose even furthur and we will have around 80 feet of garden boxes without spending a penny. You'll be kept posted!  (Just when you thought it would be same to read the blog without hearing about my garden!)I am off to start a day or three of cooking... I sure am glad I have my vitamins! I'll keep you posted on how it's going, and maybe include some photos and recipes. |
Comments
Nov. 3, 2008 - ~Thanx for the update
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Posted by Nov. 3, 2008 - Untitled Comment
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Posted by Anonymous Nov. 3, 2008 - Mother Hen says...
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