Is It A Funny Day or Even Day Mom?

Out of the mouth's of the little one's come so many things that brighten my days.

After a tough weekend dealing with a bad case of the flu, it is a good morning here at the Rogge house. We are enjoying Spring Break week and the upcoming festivities of Megan & Janson's marriage and reception as well as some fun family time.

At our house, we have a constant challenge over whose day it is to pick things (movies, which way we go to town, who helps out, etc). When I was a kid, my parents solved this issue with Even & Odd Day - the first child (me) got to do the chosing on odd days and the second child (my sister) got to chose on even days. Admittedly this only works well with 2 kids (or at least when only two have the battles). So when this became an issue for us about 3 months ago I thought Aha - Mom knew what she was doing and we insituted her Even/Odd rule. Chase is the oldest and gets Odd days so Kenzie gets Even days. In the beginning this was a much bigger deal for Chase than for Kenzie (not because he wanted to choose but because he was assured it was even-steven between them). Now Mackenzie is the one that wants to know if it is her day to pick (not because she wants it even-steven - she is egocentric and wants to pick naturally). When we get up in the morning, I can count on her asking in the first hour we are awake whose day it is. As she gets ever closer to five years old (how did that happen so quickly), she is more into even versus odd then "whose day" but this morning she hit me with a new one. "Mommy, is it a funny day or an even day?" At first I was puzzled and then realized her question, she now understands that "odd" means "funny" in her book or at least out of the ordinary so naturally a synonym for "odd" should be "funny". The moral of the story for her was it was an even day so she got to chose but I was most amused by her thesaurus in her brain that substituted "funny" for odd in her questioning. Gotta love kiddos!

They Are Engaged

Well, it is a little delayed in posting but I wanted to wait till first I had a good picture for this post and second till we knew more info. Most of you know of my step-daughter Megan who lives near us and is a good friend of mine. Her boyfriend of over 6 years proposed to her on February 13, 2009. It was a total surprise to her - well not total in that they had been talking about it but the timing was definitely a surprise. They have been raising their respective kids with one another for several years so have chosen a low-key courthouse event for immediate family but I wanted to share with all that we are gaining a son-in-law (we have considered him such for a long time but now it is official) Janson and two more grandkids Zach & Rhianna. Megan and her daughter Alura are very happy for this occasion. Alura has always loved the concept of "family" so she now will have more family. The official date is Wednesday, April 1, 2009.

Congratulations Megan & Janson!

FINALLY A DIAGNOSIS

After over 6 weeks of testing and normal results and testing and normal results, etc~~~We finally found the problem today. Mackenzie was not getting better instead more fatigued and continuing with the fevers. This week she started complaining of her "brain" hurting. I was done being nice and just taking the "we don't find anything" answer~I called the pediatrician yesterday and got a little (OK maybe more than little) pushy about seeing him and getting answers. We had an appointment this morning at 9 AM in Wenatchee. Up and at 'em early and off we went to Wenatchee. The pediatrician ordered a repeat CBC and C reactive protein and a sinus CT. If all those were normal, we would move to a sedated MRI. We went across the street, had the blood work done and the CT scan done. We went back and waited for results and him to review them. Finally at 11:45 we got the answer - A RAGING SINUS INFECTION!!

Yes, after all of these tests, fevers, missed school days, sleepless nights for Mommy, Daddy, Grandparents, etc - it was a sinus infection. Her right sinus is completely impacted with infection and the left is half impacted with infection. The picture is amazing. Thankfully it is an easy fix and is a self-limiting issue. We start antibiotics and nasal spray tonight and will have yogurt at lunch every day and hopefully we will be on the mend.

Thanks to all for thought and prayer!

Tagged

OK, I have been tagged (first time ever on my blog so I must be doing something right sometimes) by Heather.http://multiplehats.blogspot.com/

This one started as 6th in 6th - the 6th photo in the 6th folder on your hard drive but she is giving us more flexibility to us whatever number we want.

However, being spontaneous about what folder and picture requires more brain power than I have left tonight so I am sticking with the 6th folder (Camping July 2008) and 6 th picture - dancing part of stage show at Rockin B Ranch in Spokane, WA. If you find yourself over there in the summer and have an evening free, it is a great family experience. The food is fabulous and the show is great with talented folks. I didn't even know which photo was being uploaded till it came on the screen but I am glad I got to share about this little hidden treasure. http://www.rockinbranch.com

Mackenzie

UPDATE!!

We went to see the pediatrician today for our follow up. She has NOT run a fever of more than 99.8 since Saturday at noon. All her tests from Friday are normal. Her temp was 99.7 at the doctor today. He called the rheumatologist at Children's while we were there and had the call on speaker phone so I got to hear and ask questions as I wanted. With all that has been done, since her fever is coming down, we are going to watch her for another week and see him next Tuesday the 10th. If the fever continues on its path to going away, we will just figure she had a bug of some sort and be thankful it went away FINALLY. If the fever comes back, we will go to a head MRI to look at her hypothalamus. For the non-medical people, we have ruled out problems with the car engine, carbuerator, etc but the car is still overheating so we have to check out the thermostat (her hypothalamus). In a car, we check the thermostat first, in people we check in last when we can't find a reason for the overheating. She was thrilled to get to go back to school after missing 3 weeks. Mackenzie said this morning that her "sick had passed away and she was all better now". Let's hope she is right!

(posted to Facebook on Saturday - copied here for the whole story for those not on Facebook)

After lots of posts about things going on and lots of requests for more information on Facebook, I decided that maybe this was the best way to update now and keep updating as we continue this. She began running fevers of 101-102 four weeks ago yesterday. She is also more tired late in the day and has a varying appetite which is unusual for her. No other symptoms at all!

I let it go for about 10 days then I started with our local doctor (Waszkewitz - love, love, love him). After a round of blood work, UA and chest xray with no finidings, he referred us to a pediatrician at Wenatchee Valley Medical Center on January 23.The pediatrician started with repeating some blood work on Wed the 28th in an effort to rule out leukemia and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis by watching her platelet count and her C-reactive protein. Those remain normal. Her alkaline phosphatase continues to be elevated with no good reason. All he mono screens are negative for mono now however she has indication in blood work that she has had it in the past.

Friday the 30th we saw the pediatrician again and he did more blood work (LDH & TORCH screen), another urinalysis, a repeat chest xray and a thorough abdominal ultrasound. I talked to him yesterday the 31st and the LDH is normal (can be elevated in childhood cancers), chesst xray is normal, urinalysis is normal and abdominal ultrasound is normal (no Wilm's tumor, no neoblastoma, no masses, no liver abnormalities, no spleen, kidney or pancreas abnormalities). We are also doing stool cultures to rule out salmonella and ghiardia.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and I will update this as we no more information. I tried to answer all of the questions that have been sent but may have inadvertently missed something.

PS - for those who don't know - my mother came up for 10 days to help out through parts of this so that was a HUGE help.

A Beautiful Dinner & Program

Cali's Proud Parents - Calvin & Jane (isn't she lovely?)

Yesterday, Megan and I took a drive to Moses Lake to attend the reception for Ray & Cali (Payne) Follett. We have the joy of attending Jane Payne & Deb Keeley's scrapbook retreats twice a year. Cali is Jane's oldest daughter and we were pleeased to be able to attend the event and see the Payne family, meet the Follett family and met up with scrapbooking friends we usually only see twice a year.

The happy couple

In true "Payne" style, Cali & Ray's dinner and program was such a nice event with friends and fun. We had a great dinner and enjoy many stories as we got to know more about Cali & Ray and their courtship. - including how Cali had dumped Ray twice before he even knew they were going out. To follow are a few of the fun snapshots I got at the event. Thanks for a great evening!

Father & Daugher - Calvin dances with Cali

Great friends - Tracy & Susan


Cali's brother, Abe dances with Grandma Payne

Mom & Son - Jane & Abe share a dance



Susan's husband Terry dances with his daugher Lillie (so sweet )

Resolutions

As we enter the time of year that resolutions are so easily and frequently tossed about and in a couple of weeks forgotten about, I thought it appropriate to share a thought about just that.

Recently when my parents were up to visit before Christmas, my Dad preached the sermon on Sunday morning at church. He preached on a different view of the "resolutions" we toss about this time of year. His encouragement to us was to look back at resolutions of the past and measure how far we got in those areas before we randomly throw out more easily forgotten and/or broken resolutions. If we are looking to make resolutions, we are indeed "resolving" to do whatever that goal is. Webster's dictionary defines "resolve" in several ways but the one that applies to resolutions at New Year's is to reach a firm decision about. That to me reads as a decision made with thought and determination not one made for just something to say.

My challenge to you on this eve of 2009 is to think about prior resolutions and what made those not work and commit yourself and "resolve" to do something you will see through to the end. It takes a person of great character to commit and stick to it! A song we sing at church has the following words that I think are appropriate as we look at the coming new year - "I am resolved no longer to linger, charmed by the world's delights, things taht are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured my sight."