The Mess....and More!

So things have certainly been interesting around here...as usual.

I’ll go back a little....

A little over a week ago we had to take our new puppy to the animal hospital because one of the kids {accidentally} closed the door on the doggie’s leg and it looked pretty gnarly. Fortunately she was okay and no broken bones {$130 later}.

This past week on Friday Natalie had a fever in the morning, so we didn’t send her to school (just in case she’d have a fever later and they’d want us to come and get her). Then throughout the next 3 days all the kids & Jon seemed to have some form of just general “yuckiness” with a fever scattered here and there and some vomiting. Unfortunately we had Natalie vomit in the middle of the night and all over her bed. NOT fun to clean up. My poor washing machine can’t catch a break around here!!

Saturday evening I was able to go by myself (since the rest were all sickies) to a fun gender reveal party for our dear friends Tim & Suzie. Turns out my guess was right - baby Sophie Marie is due in August and I cannot WAIT to spoil her (and take lots of pictures with HUGE flower headbands - haha).

Monday evening I had the privilege of taking photos for our church’s passion play for the second year in a row (more to take at Thursday’s rehearsal too). I was really tired and needed a pick me up to do the photos, so I got an iced caramel macchiato at Starbucks (my new favorite, though they are too pricey to feed that addiction too much) to wake me up. Stupid mistake - but probably a blessing in disguise. I drank that at 6 p.m. on Monday. Needless to say I had a hard time falling asleep that night.

Finally around 3 a.m. I felt like sleep was coming. Then I heard a loud noise upstairs. Natalie's bedroom is directly above our bed and she walks like an elephant, so I just thought it was her going to the bathroom and tripping over something (maybe the bin I had left sit in the hallway - oops). So I listened for a few minutes and still heard a little noise, so I thought I better go check on her. I walked up the stairs and didn’t take in the whole picture - I focused right on Natalie standing in the kitchen coughing and crying saying “I can't breathe!! Mommy, why is there so much dust!?” I then opened my eyes to realize the house looked like it had been covered in baby powder and there was thick dust in the air you could taste. Adrenaline kicked in and I woke Jon up and said something is wrong, I don't know what. He came upstairs and immediately knew the smell. He said it’s a fire extinguisher. What is going on?? We looked down the hall, and sure enough the closet door was open and the extinguisher in the closet was on the floor. I later found the pin during cleanup, who knows how that was pulled, and the only thing we can figure is it fell over and squeezed the trigger enough to spray.....EVERYWHERE. {see pics} We quickly took all 3 kids downstairs to our room, which was the ONLY room in the house which had zero dust in it since it’s so separated and the door was closed. Natalie was coughing pretty badly saying her throat burned, and Jon tried to help me figure out how to start cleaning, but he was coughing and eventually vomited from the chemicals, so he stayed down with the children. I took about an hour and just tried to use my regular vacuum to vacuum up the really loose stuff. About 4:15 I decided I needed to get at least some sleep because Tuesday was going to be a busy day of cleaning, unfortunately. So myself, Jon, all 3 kids, and Mia {puppy} all found a spot on our bed and slept (with no heat on a 28 degree night mind you since we turned the furnace off until we could clean up all that dust). 7:00 a.m. came quickly and we were struggling to wake up, but we had to get the girls to school. So I went upstairs and found clothes for the girls, grabbed a cup of milk and fixed some yogurt with granola for each, took them downstairs and had them sit on the floor and eat breakfast. We got them out the door to school and then the day’s tasks consisted of getting a shop vac from my father and vacuuming what I could, and then LOTS of scrubbing. Nevaeh’s room needed dusted and vacuumed, the hall closet where the extinguisher was needed completely emptied, all linens washed, and everything wiped down, the upstairs bath needed everything cleaned, the kitchen needed floor to ceiling wipe down, and one pantry needed completely emptied and wiped down - plus all the upstairs laminate floors needed mopped - 2 times - and still need more. We had two friends come and help with the cleanup, so I was actually finished around 5:00. Not bad. But boy was that a nightmare - especially finding it in the middle of the night!!! Natalie was originally going to see the dr last evening because she was complaining her throat hurt and her chest hurt (she had the most exposure to it other than me from cleaning) and I was concerned, but then she was running and playing just fine outside, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad!! We are thanking God that despite the mess, frustration, and inconvenience, nothing serious was damaged (we threw out some food that was exposed) and no one has any health issues from it. So God is good!

Last evening the kids went to bed at 7:00 and we never heard another peep from them and they slept until 7:00 this morning - so they all got good rest. I had only had about 2-3 hours of sleep the night before, so I was sawing logs by 9:30 and felt pretty rested this morning!

So today Jon had to be at Hershey for a 9:00 {new} appointment with an endocrinologist. He was being seen to help evaluate why his Vitamin D & B12 is deficient and how to help him get to a good level and maintain. It was a good visit, and this doctor is nice.

He was mainly concerned about his Vitamin D levels more than his B12 and said to just continue taking the 15,000 IU daily that he’s been (in addition to what is contained in his bariatric multi) and we’ll keep an eye on it, but that he’s in an “ok” range right now.

His Vitamin D is 8 and should be minimally 30. So, now that he is able to walk again and should be increasing his activity, he again stressed to be outside 20-30 minutes a day to help get some naturally from the sun (which he was already trying to do, it was just not happening very often). He will have extensive labs done to check various things, and then will be given a regiment to follow for 3 months and be rechecked in August. He said he may be taking a large amount of supplements (we thought 200,000+ IU a week was a lot) to bring him up and even maintain, but that there is never “too much” you can take and we just have to figure out how much is enough for him. Unfortunately this is a side effect of the gastric bypass, and unfortunately his family practitioner isn’t well knowledged in care of a bariatric patient, so this is where we’ve come. BUT, we’re moving forward with doctors who DO know how to help him and are working fervently to find the solution. And this doctor made a comment that was reassuring that regardless of the complications, this surgery was a good thing Jon did for his health (coming down from 500 pounds to a low of 197 - gaining about 60 pounds while being basically immobile for a year which he hopes to lose again).

So that’s what’s going on around here - always something new it seems.
But God is GOOD and we are so thankful that Jon is able to walk again, be outside and even help with some yard work, and hopefully work his way back to being stay at home dad while I work my normal hours. In that aspect if you could please pray for us as parents. Riley is a difficult child and we’re dealing with a lot of behavior problems which are especially straining on Jon when he tries to watch him while I work. Just pray for God to show us the right things to do and to be calm and have the right attitudes through it all.

We appreciate your prayers and are so thankful to be giving GOOD news lately rather than bad!!! Hopefully they will continue to be good updates in the future!!

God bless and have a wonderful week!

{Just a few pics for fun}