Have you ever known something was wrong with you, but were not sure what it was?

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to start only taking a half dose of the medicine I have been taking to drop my heart rate. My rapid heart rate was supposedly caused by my pregnancy. I'm not pregnant anymore, so surely I could slowly decrease the dose until finally I was weaned off the medicine.

After a few days, I noticed I was becoming increasingly dizzy. After five days, the dizziness intensified and I was having trouble breathing with exertion. I started taking my full dose of heart medicine and started feeling better, although the dizziness never went away.

I saw the doctor last Wednesday and he ordered a bunch of blood tests. The first results he got back showed that my thyroid was out-of-wack. Again. This time I was experiencing hyperthyroidism, so I stopped taking my thyroid meds and hoped this would fix the problem. It didn't.

On Monday, the doctor got another lab result back - my d-dimer. The d-dimer test measures clotting factors in your blood. Mine was 4x the normal level, which meant I needed to get a spiral CT to rule out a pulmonary embolism.

A pulmonary embolism, or PE, is a blood clot that develops in another part of your body, breaks free, and then lodges in the lungs. It doesn't sound good, does it? That's because it isn't.

To make a long story short, I got the CT done on Monday and it showed that I have THREE PEs. Two of them are very tiny, the other is larger. This is what has been causing all of my odd-ball symptoms. Although I was prepared for the results, it is pretty scary to think I had a ticking timebomb in my chest for over a week, maybe longer.

The treatment for a PE is pretty simple. Lee gets to stick one of these

into my stomach twice a day. I also have to take oral bloodthinners for 6 months. Not fun, but necessary to keep more clots from forming, and to allow the three that are already in my lungs time to dissolve.

Why did I get a PE? They are fairly common in pregnant and post-partum women, and since I just had Eliza 6 weeks ago, that's probably what caused mine. Since many of my blog's readers are women of child-bearing age, I really wanted to make you all aware of the symptoms of a PE.

• Unexplained shortness of breath

• Chest pain that gets worse with a deep breath, coughing, or chest movement

• Coughing up blood.

General, less-specific signs and symptoms may occur, including:

• Anxiety or feelings of dread

• Lightheadedness

• Fainting

• Rapid breathing

• Increased heart rate

• Sweating

I had about all of these symptoms (except coughing up blood and fainting), and yet I never imagined I had a PE. Thank goodness my doctors did!  

If you think there is something wrong or "off" with your body, please get it checked out!!

She says she's skipping her birthday this year, but I'm not content to let it go by unnoticed. She's going to get a sappy blog entry whether she likes it or not!

My mom is great. She puts up with her children and all of their vagaries. And, boy, over the years we sure have had lots of vagaries. I might be having one right now. She is a loving grandmother to her 4 granddaughters and 1 grandson. 

My mom is always there for me. She rode on a drafty Amtrack train just to be there when Abigail was born. She helped kept me on the side of sanity when Abigail didn't arrive for another week and looked after Lydia while I was in the hospital. She was actually in the delivery room when Eliza was born, and she remained calm when I most assuredly wasn't.  She brought a week's worth of delicious food to us in the days following, which was greatly, greatly appreciated.

My mom is the strongest person I know, mentally and physically. She's one tough cookie. For years she taught aerobics and was a personal trainer. Although she has given that up for the antique business, she could still intimidate her wimpy children if necessary. I wouldn't want to go against her in an arm wrestling contest. She moves solid oak armoires around like they are feather pillows, so I'd hate to see what she'd do to my biceps!

My mom kept our world going when we were children, and she still does even with all of us grown. I find it hard to keep things together when Lee is on-call for three days straight; she managed a household with her husband gone for a year. My Dad had to live in a different city to get special training for his job while the rest of us stayed behind. Now that I'm in her shoes, I can't imagine how hard that was for her.

Many of things she did when we were growing up had an enormous impact on me, but I will mention only two. First, she took us to church faithfully. The seed she sowed then is bearing fruit in the life of my family today. Second, she took us to the library faithfully. That impacted me in many ways, not the least of which is the way I am choosing to educate my children.

I am the person I am today in large part due to her. In other words, it's all her fault!

I love you, Mom!

Tonight was the finale of VBS. Lydia had a ball and came home every night rattling about the things she did that evening. I know I attended VBS as a kid, and I must have liked it, too. Unfortunately the only thing I remember is my last year of VBS. I was 10 and highly obnoxious to my mom who was in charge of leading us in aerobics during activity time. I'm sure I'm going to get all of that obnoxiousness handed back to me five-fold when it is my turn to help out with VBS next year.

The theme this year was SonHarvest County Fair. Lydia is right in the middle of the photo here, preparing to sing.

Abigail was too young for VBS this year, but she enjoyed the petting zoo afterwards.

This was taken before the pony stepped on Lydia's toes. Lucky it wasn't a full-grown horse!

The highlight for most kids was this waterslide.

Lydia is at the top there, thinking about coming down. She didn't like it because A) the water was too cold and B) it was "too slippery". She did eventually go down the slide, which is good because the line was quite long and the munchkins were about to riot.

The finale was a hay rack ride around the streets of our town. You know you live in a small town when a hay rack ride can be pulled along one of the main drags.

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In unrelated, but highly astonishing news, the hospital CEO was NOT joking about a billboard. I saw the prototype today and it is official. Lee, Eliza and I will have our mugs on a billboard and in a newspaper campaign soon. Better than being on a "Wanted" poster in the post office, I suppose!

The folks who built and ever so briefly owned our house had this:

I always felt sorry for the poor doggies. I can't imagine that a dog run on concrete is very comfortable. But at least it did have a drain (connected to the waste water system, no less!) for their, um, stuff to run off.

Having no need for a dog run, what were we to do with this concrete slab? Turn it into a pool deck, that's what!

Lydia looks like she's practicing synchronized swimming or something here.

This silly girl is fixin' to throw a water-soaked ball thingy at the camera person.

I'd much rather have a pool (small though it may be) than a couple of smelly dogs out here. But that's just me! :)

What is impressive to me is that, even though he is sleeping, Lee still manages to hang on to the remote.

On the other hand, my level of tiredness is improving. Little Miss Sparky has slept 6 hours in a row every night for a week now. I feel like I really deserved to have a good sleeper after Abigail kept me awake every night for the first18 months of her life.  

I haven't seen the results of our photo shoot last week, so I don't know how it turned out. I do have a feeling that the hospital might be pressed trying to find a photo that will work for their purposes. Don't believe me? I'll show you.

Today is Eliza's one month birthday, so we took some photos to commemorate the occasion.

Isn't she sweet?

Those cheeks kill me!

After we did that, we got the bright idea to try and get a photo of all the girls together. (Never mind they were sitting on my unmade bed. It's my bed, and I won't make it if I don't want to, so there!)

Attempt #1:

Me: "Kids! Why didn't you smile?"

Eliza: "Are these two qualified to hold me?"

Attempt #2:

Abigail: "OK, I'll smile."

Lydia: "This is my smile."

Me: "Lydia! A grimace is not a smile!"

Eliza: "Um, Mommy??"

Attempt #3:

Lydia: "Here's my smile!"

Abigail: "Arrr, matey!"

Eliza: (cough) "Help!!!!"

A model family we are not.

Abigail scares me. Sometimes it is because I happen upon her after she has climbed to the top of a bookcase and is teetering on the brink. Sometimes it is because she is channeling a teenager, retaliating for being sent to time out by telling me, "I don't want to play with you anymore!"

Sometimes it is because she does something scary smart.

Just the other day, Lee happened upon her as she was playing with Lydia's Barbie computer.

The little monkey has figured out how to use our desktop computer simply by observing Lee and I, so the fact that she was playing with a toy meant for 1st and 2nd graders wasn't that weird. The scary part was she was playing a spelling game. The game asked her to spell cow, which she knew how to spell. She just needed Lee's help finding the "W" key on the keyboard. Since when does she know how to spell cow? Or anything?

And then today, she looked at the clock on the oven and told me that it was 4:15. Sure enough, that was the actual time. Since when does she know how to tell time?

I tell you, that kid is scary. I guess that's why I've been hearing the theme song to "The Twilight Zone" in my head ever since she was born.

Why is it that however crazy your kids might make you during the day, when you see them sleeping, they melt your heart?

Here's the prime suspect. I can't get her to keep her clothes on. She slams doors when the baby is sleeping, pinches her big sister, and tears up vintage books.

My, she's cute. I had to resist the urge to squeeze her when I took this picture.

This one is so cute I forget the fact that my epidural didn't work and that she's waking up three times a night.

But the real question is why can Lydia can sleep through Abigail howling and the smoke detector in her room going off, but she wakes up when I come to take her picture?

When they are asleep, I don't want them to grow up. When they are awake, sometimes it is a different story!

Speaking of growing up, Lydia has a loose tooth!

I'm in denial. Lydia is plotting tooth fairy strategy.

This morning we had to hurry out of the house for a photo shoot. Yes, you read that correctly. The hospital brought in a photographer to take some pics of our family to use as PR material for their OB services. The hospital CEO said we'd soon see our faces on a billboard. I really hope he's joking!!

Because I had to hurry up and get everyone ready for the photo shoot, Eliza spent some unhappy minutes crying in her swing.

As she attempted to entertain the baby, Lydia said, very seriously, "I say 'Whee!' when I'm on a swing. Baby Sparky says 'Waaah!!!'"

Too true.

Sparky's umbilical stump fell off, so she had her first real bath this past weekend.

(Notice I said Sparky? That is one long-lasting nickname. It might be a keeper. How unfortunate for her.)

Her reaction upon hitting the water. She looks like she smells something stinky.  

Then she started threatening violence, waving her little fist at us.

I think her expression in that photo resembles that of Sam the Eagle. Remember him from The Muppet Show?

By the time it was over, she was a bit more mellow.

Eliza had a wicked diaper rash for a week or so. Abigail became very familiar with the sight of me slathering diaper rash cream on Sparky's little bum. So now when I change her diaper, Abigail often says:

"I don't need sour cream."

Say cheese, Abigail.

We have five acres, of which we have been mowing about half. That task has taken Lee in the neighborhood of five or six hours to complete with our old mowers, leaving him a sad, tired specimen.

That all changed when Lee got a special delivery yesterday.

It goes 10 mph and will mow 6.55 acres an hour. As a result, Lee has had a goofy grin etched on his face the past 24 hours.

I'll admit it does look like it would be fun to drive. But I'd rather keep my ignorance.

Because if I know how to use it, someone might expect me to mow or something. So keep driving, Lee. Keep driving.

It's been a stress-filled week around here. Lee is back to work after a week off, leaving me to realize that:

A) I really do not function rationally when I'm sleep-deprived

and

B) Three children are a lot more work than two. Sorry Kellie! I hate to break the news to you. Maybe after I have 17 or 18 like Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, the older kids can look after the littles, freeing me up to sit on the deck with a cold beverage. (Just kidding, Mom! Or am I? Bwahaha!)

Yesterday had all of the makings of a particularly bad day from the moment I woke up. Lee had been at work until after 10 PM the night before. Yes, Wednesday is usually his day off, but he had a patient that needed to be induced and umpteen charts to dictate from Tuesday. I believe he might have gotten some sleep, but I can't confirm that. The next thing I knew, it is 6 AM and he was telling me goodbye. He had a fun day in store for him - a high-risk patient to deliver, the ER to cover, patients in clinic to see, and a presentation at a senior citizen's center over the noon hour.

Poor baby.

I got a call from him early in the afternoon. Apparently two of these had been sighted near town:

At the time, it was sunny and quite nice outside. Yet the tornado sirens in town were going off and the entire population of the hospital was making its way to the basement.

I checked the radar online - nothing.

Our weather radio did not go off.

Over the police scanner, Lee heard a report that two funnel clouds had been sighted by law enforcement. Sirens continued to blare in town. I took the girls down to the basement, since apparently tornadoes were just randomly dropping out of the sunny sky.  

I checked the radar again - still nothing.

Our weather radio remained silent.

Then a report came in from the fire department. The fire department claimed that there were no tornadoes at all, and that the police department was making stuff up.

Still the sirens in town blared. Still, nothing appeared on the radar.

In the meantime, Lee's OB patient had been moved out of the labor and delivery room and into an interior hallway where Lee delivered her. Mom and the tiny 4 lb baby are fine, and boy, will they have a story to tell about the baby's birthday.

Lee got home late yesterday evening and collapsed. He looked a little like this, but in grubby scrubs and even more tired.

And now the consensus is that there were funnel clouds, but that a tornado never touched down.  Maybe.

If not, see this post.

We accomplished pretty much everything on The List, although we didn't plant the number of trees I had intended. We'll save that for the fall or next spring. Everything else, though, did get done.

Probably the most satisfying accomplishment for me is the completion of the front flower bed. The first time I laid eyes on this house, I was not impressed. I'm not a big fan of ranch architecture, period. But there are not many choices available in our little town, and I was assured that a little landscaping would go a long way toward making our house less homely.

This is what the area along the front porch looked like when we bought it. Note ye olde gravel sidewalk.

And then last fall we had a concrete sidewalk and driveway poured. I did a happy dance.

After many weather-related delays, we finally got topsoil delivered and planted the flowering perennials I had picked out almost a month earlier. Sparky, er, Eliza must have known we were finished because I went into labor three hours afterwards.

Even at her tender age, she knew she had best not cross her mama and come before we had finished The List. Uncharitable souls might point out that I did everything in my power to try and make her come during the week previous to her arrival, and that I documented said attempts on this blog... But I digress.

 Here's what the front of the house looks like now.

 Daylilies are so much more pretty than weeds, don't you think?

It's a big weekend for Lee. He turns 30 today and it's Father's Day tomorrow.

Lee is a great husband and dad. His fatherly duties are not confined to tucking the kids in bed or quoting fatherly platitudes. He is a very hands-on dad. He delivered his third child, spectacularly from what I understand. I was feeling a bit less than spectacular at that moment!  Here he is putting Eliza in her carseat as we prepare to leave the hospital. Doesn't he look exhausted? That's because he was.

Gratuitous photo of Eliza in the car seat. Wow. She's changed a lot since this was taken just one week ago.

We'll open presents as soon as he wakes up. The poor dear is sleeping in because he was up with Eliza for a couple of frustrating hours last night.

I'm so blessed to be his wife.

Happy birthday and Father's Day, Lee!!

No, this entry is not about the salmonella outbreak.

Like much of the Midwest, we have been experiencing our share of severe weather. For starters, we have received well over a foot of rain in the last month. Our area has experienced some flooding because of this, though not on the scale of Iowa and Wisconsin.  We have also had some tornado scares. The most memorable of these was when I was in the hospital after having Eliza. I sat in my hospital bed watching the radar anxiously, inquiring about evacuation procedures, and running up my blood pressure. My pressure is usually 117/72, but I clocked 158/80 that evening.

 Most of the time, however, we have merely had severe thunderstorms. The really nasty stuff went around our area. Here, the area to the southeast of us is getting waxed.

The top of that extremely high cloud formation.

Last night was different. We had an extremely destructive tornado pass within 5 miles of our house. It was the first time since I had children to worry about that I had experienced a tornado warning.

Lee and I were up and watching the radar closely. At midnight, our weather radio went off.

If you do not have a weather radio, I highly recommend you get one. In our case, it is essential. There are no tornado sirens in the country, and our Internet and satellite TV go out in bad weather.

We grabbed Eliza, ran downstairs and plucked the big girls from their bedroom. Or rather tried to pluck the girls from their bedroom. Lydia had locked the bedroom door! Luckily, I had a key nearby so I was able to get in their room quickly.

We hustled the girls into the storm shelter set in one corner of our storeroom.

As you can see, it is pretty full. The big girls sat on the ottoman, while Lee and I squeezed in beside the two Christmas trees. Not long after we entered the crowded shelter, the power went off and we were left in the dark. OK, we did have a flashlight. But it was dark, warm, and eerily silent (other than the weather radio and the sound of children's voices reverberating against concrete).

Recently, I checked out a bunch of books on weather from the library. I had grand intentions of completing a theme pocket on weather before Sparky came, but that did not happen. However, Lydia did read the books, particularly those on tornadoes. I was afraid Lydia would be scared as a result. Not a problem. She thought it was really fun to sit on an old, broken ottoman in the dark and drink a bottle of water. She would have liked me to open a can of the emergency rations we keep in the storm shelter, too, but was told that midnight is not the time to eat cold chicken noodle soup from a can.

Abigail, on the other hand, was a bit more grumpy. She did not like being woken up, having shoes shoved on her feet, and being asked to sit in a dark hole. Throwing her favorite Elmo to the floor, she said, "I do not love this tomato warning." 

Eliza handled the "tomato warning" best of all - she slept through the entire thing in Lee's arms. She is a very good sleeper, hence I have the time to write a long, drawn-out post about a tornado warning.

After about 40 minutes, we emerged from the storm shelter and put the girls back to bed. The only sign of the storm was our continued loss of power and about an inch of rain in the rain gauge.  

A good sleeper and safe family - how lucky can I get?

Here she is visiting with Grandpa today.

Super kissable cheeks!

Lydia holding Eliza for the first time.

Abigail, too.

All the cousins came to see us in the hospital. If Lee looks slightly delirious, it's because he was! He hasn't gotten a day off work yet.

Introducing....

Eliza Faith

Born Wednesday, June 4th at 12:12 PM

6 lb 10 oz.

18 3/4 inches long

We're both home now and doing fine.  More pics to come soon.

Oh, wait. That's not Sparky, that's an old picture of Abigail.

Today would be a great day to have a baby, don't you think?

Needless to say, the Mexican food didn't do it. It sure was tasty, though.

That meant I had to unleash a food-based induction method I was really hoping I could avoid. It was suggested to me by a fellow Sonlighter. I promise I did not make this up.

You take one of these

and turn it into this pile of pablum.

Not gourmet, but edible, especially if you are part of the preschool set.

But then you take this...

Oh the horror!

Put on as much of said goop as you can stand and consume.  

I would never put A1 sauce on a steak, much less macaroni and cheese.I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever consumed something so repulsive in my entire life. Not that I made it through the entire bowl, mind you.

According to the story, you have to be over-due by at least one day for this method to work.

We shall see, but I won't be trying this one again. Ever.

Ever. Shudder...