Glasses

Sometime back in January I noticed Mason's right eye crossing, a lot. It started to get worse really quickly so I called his pediatrician and she referred him to a Pediatric Ophthalmologist Dr. Gordon Smith. He was very nice and is definitely good with kids. It was a very long appointment, at least 2 ours. They checked his eyes and then dilated them and checked them again. He did good and was just really bored by the end. The Doctor concluded that he has Accommodative Esotropia which is basically that he is farsighted which means he can't see near and because he is struggling so hard to see it causes his eye to turn inward to accommodate. He has a +6 in one eye and a +5.5 in the other which I guess is pretty high. I left the office feeling completely in shock. I had no idea that glasses would even be a possible solution. Once we got into the car I sat and cried for a few minutes just trying to take it all in. Having to accept that your 2.5 year old needs glasses is really hard especially when no one in your family has eye trouble.

I wanted a second opinion so I took him to my eye Dr. who treated and did surgery on my brother when he was little for Strabisimus. Dr. Cohn did all the same things that the other specialist did and came out with the same diagnosis with a slightly different prescription but the same none the less. He was given to information about Mason's previous visit to the other Dr. so when he said the same thing I finally had to accept that my little baby was going to be getting glasses.

Once I got online and went to a few stores I realized that he didn't have to have really ugly or dorky glasses. They actually make some pretty cute stuff for toddlers. We found a place in Newark that had a lot of toddler glasses and ordered a pair from them. During this whole time I decided that I would start wearing my glasses on a regular basis so he could see them and hopefully would like his own. When we got his glasses he took to them immediately, he wouldn't wear them all day at first but after a week or two he started asking for them and he just loves them.

Now when I look back at pictures of him without his glasses I find that he looks weird without them. It was a very trying experience but I am just so happy that he can see :)






<3 Krista

Camping!

Camping....I have to admit I was terrified to do this with my almost 3 year old, but I have to say I think he tolerated the whole experience better than I did :) We took a long weekend May 14-16 and went camping/boating at Lake Don Pedro. There was a total of 9 of us, wow. Me, Bobby, Mason, Danielle (Baby girl too! I guess that's 10!), Jon, Brian, April, Roman and Gary. Again, wow. We had 2 campsites side by side.

It was a long drive and it was hot when we got there but it was definitely fun. Mason did really well on the boat and actually fell asleep part of the time, but he did not like tubing, maybe next year. The first night was very uncomfortable, somehow Mason ended up on my bed inside my sleeping bag that is only meant for one person. He slept great after that I however did not sleep at all. The second night I decided that I would zip our two sleeping bags together and sleep on the big bed with him and Bobby slept on the twin :) We all slept much better that night.

Overall it was fun and I would have done it again but there was one little problem...




Yeah that's right, that's a bear. He was literally about 10 feet from our tent and you can see what he did to our food locker. FYI DO NOT bring chocolate and carmel covered popcorn camping if you don't want to see one if these. He ate all of it, I had opened it a few days earlier and had a handful. Oh yeah and a whole loaf of unopened bread.

So yeah, never camping again. At least not where there are bears.

Somehow the only pictures I took while we were camping were of the Bear, guess I was too preoccupied.

We told the rangers at the park about him and they said unfortunately they would have to capture him and euthanize him. Very sad but I can see how it would be dangerous, he was too comfortable with people and got too close

If your going to Lake Don Pedro, remember, there ARE Bears!


<3 Krista

Easter

So I know this is about 2 months late but I figure better late than never right?? Here are some pictures of our Easter, lots of eggs and lots of playing! Can't wait to have Baby Girl Lemos next Easter!

Setting up our egg coloring station

Coloring Eggs!















Making Easter cupcakes with Mommy















Loving his car that the Easter Bunny got him














Hunting Easter Eggs in our backyard



















Finding Eggs at Grandma's!














Helping Roman!















Making Easter Cake with Grandma
















<3 Krista

6 Week Post-Op

So I know it's June and my 6 week post-op was like 6 weeks ago but I just havn't had the time to get on here to blog.

I went to my 6 week post-op on April 29th and I was feeling perfect! The Dr. said everything looks great and was healing very nicely (it apparently takes quite a long time to heal completely). I have to say I am breathing soooo much better through my throat and my nose! I never even knew I couldn't breath well through my nose and now I can't imagine it being back that way it was. I am sleeping so much better and am not nearly as tired during the day as I normally was. My snoring is also completely gone, I couldn't snore even if I wanted to because most of my uvula is gone. I go back again at the end of July just to make sure everything is all the way healed.

Overall I would say if your sleep numbers are as bad as mine were or you just can't or don't want to tolerate a CPAP machine I would recommend this surgery. It was terribly painful but so far I think it's worth it. I was really nervous going into the surgery because of all the horror stories I heard from people online about complications or long term side effects but I have had none. I can eat everything, nothing feels weird, I don't gag, I don't drool (thank goodness!) and I don't get food up my nose. Definitely do your research on this surgery before you have it done. I think the key to not having the side effects was that I didn't have my Uvula all the way removed. I will have to say that Dr. Van Tassel was/is an amazing Dr. and would recommend anyone getting this surgery to consult him first.

Thanks to everyone who helped me through this and good luck to anyone who is having this surgery!

<3 Krista

14 Days Post-Op

So here I am 14 days later and I have to so I am soooo happy. I am feeling pretty good. Still some minor discomfort in my throat but nothing that isn't tolerable. So lets go back a little.

7 Days Post-Op I had a appointment to see my Doctor so he could check my progress. He looked in my mouth and said I am healing well and was surprised at my pain tolerance then said "well your a mom, mom's tend to be tough" which made me smile. At that point I sill wasn't eating anything more solid than some broccoli cheese soup. Anyway after he said my throat looked great he asked about my nose and I told him it was fine but still very stuffy. He smiled and says "would you like me to fix that?" I said I didn't know you could and told him yes. He proceeds to have me tilt my head backwards and puts some tweezers up there, grabs onto something for dear life on pulls hard. I was absolutely disgusting and shocked at what I saw come out of my nose. I though well maybe there is some gauze or something up there I didn't know about, but no, it was what he called a "scab" I beg to differ. It was the biggest most disgusting 2 inch long snot ball. After he pulled the first one out I was a little hesitate to let him do it to the other side but I did let him. He proceeds to tell me that he knew I would make one of those and laughs a little. A little warning may have helped! I had no idea he would be doing that, gross. Anyway I am very glad he did because it was instant relief! I could breath and I am very happy about that!

My pain has been very minimal since then so I won't even scale it. On day nine I was so ravenous that I forced down most of a In N Out burger, yummmmm...The next day I did regret it though because my throat was really sore so I went back to soup for a day. Day 11 I was able to eat my delicious Artichoke pasta I made for dinner for my boys, it hurt a little but not enough to stop :)Day 12 and 13 I was able to each pasta again and some chicken. So here we are on day 14, I would say I could eat anything if I desperately wanted it but I think I will wait until I am healed more to have anything that isn't on the softer side.

So far I am not please nor displeased with the surgery, I am not sleeping better yet but I am also not done healing. My Dr. promised me at my next appointment (one month after the first) I would be feeling great and sleeping great! I am very hopeful! One good thing for sure that came out of the surgery is I dropped 15 unneeded pounds and my hunger isn't as uncontrollable as it used to be so maybe the weight loss will continue. I will update after my next appointment and I expect to be feeling great! Thanks to everyone!


<3 Krista

6 Days Post-Op

So 6 days ago right now I was just coming out of surgery. Wow, I am so glad I am on day 6 and not day 1. I have to say 'Thank You!' to all of my lovely family who has helped me through all of this, especially my husband and my mom, I don't know what I would have done without them.

So lets go back a few days, I think the last thing I posted was on Friday which was 1 Day Post-Op. I don't really have a lot of memory of Friday but Saturday was miserable. Day 2 was absolutely the worst, the swelling the pain the stuffy nose w/ constant dripping, bad. I finally gave in on Saturday and took some of my Hydrocodone making sure to take plenty of anti nausea medicine first (yes, I am one of those people that can't even take medicine with out getting dizzy). I have to say even though I wasn't nausea I was still terribly dizzy and light headed but it was worth it, the medicine didn't take away my pain at all it just took the edge off and I was actually able to drink some fluids without nearly crying. My pain on Saturday was at about a 9 the medicine took it down to like a 5 or 6, much more manageable. I was only supposed to be taking it every 6 hours and I was to paranoid to take it more often but it was only lasting about 2.5-3 hours. So in between taking my medicine I pretty much was camped out on the couch all day and slept. Sunday was very similar. By Monday morning I was feeling remarkably better, I hadn't had any pain medicine since Sunday morning because I was going back to my regular routine on Monday, Bobby was going back to work so I would be home with Mason and Roman. The day wasn't too bad, I think I actually was able to get down some heavily chewed mac and cheese that night. Tuesday was so much better, being able to eat some actual food helped with my light headedness, but that day the coughing started....Ouch.....I guess it's a good thing because my throat is starting to get kind of itchy which hopefully means it's healing well but it is so painful that it almost makes me throw up every time along with the tears that I can't control because of the pain. Today is 6 Days Post-Op and I have to say I am feeling much better than I expected to be. My pain is down to a 3, if I'm not swallowing, coughing or eating/drinking. When I drink I would say a 4 and when I eat (which I am not doing much of...down 8.5 pounds in 6 days because of it though!) a 6. Still pretty bad when I eat and that's anything that is soft, I am terrified to venture and eat anything that I can't chew into mush. Something I didn't expect is that cold things actually make my throat hurt more and warm things like soup help, weird.

Tomorrow I will being going to see Dr. Van Tassel for my post-op appointment and I pray that I am healing quicker than he expects. I cannot wait to be done with this. So far I would not say whether or not I would recommend this or if I am happy I did it. I have a lot of healing left to do so it's to hard to say. I will say that my Dr. was great, he was very nice and seemed like he actually cared. I will keep you all updated on how my recovery is going, hopefully I will have good things to say!

<3 Krista

1 Day Post-Op

So I am finally home, got home at about 8am this morning and just woke up about 20 minutes ago from my very long nap. Last night before I went to bed I caved and asked for some pain meds. I received a a shot of morphine at about 8pm that did nothing for me at all, but thank goodness is also did not make me sick like I was expecting, the only thing it did was help me sleep a little (and I do mean a little considering my 6-7 bathroom trips that I made) At 2am my wonderful nurses came in to take my vitals give me more antibiotics and more pain meds. Since the morphine wasn't helpful I asked to try something diferent which I believe was Lortab and that helped my pain considerably. I was able to actually drink some water without having to brace myself for the pain. That medicine did however cause me to become dizzy so I quickly layed down and went back to sleep. 6:30am was another round of antibiotics and more pain meds which helped my get a little bit of food in but made me terribly dizzy, still trying to get rid of the dizziness from that. My nose stuffed up making me have to breath out of my mouth and drying it out making it hurt worse, I am allowed to use nose spray but I cannot inhale or blow my nose which makes things difficult. So right now I am at about an 8 for pain and desperately trying to choke down some jello and water to keep myself hydrated. I was given some Hydrocodone w/ Acetaminophen to take at home but just found out it is the same as vicodin which I do not do well with, oh well. I will do my best to go without it, I think I can manage. So, so far this surgery has not been nearly as bad as I expected. I am hoping at my one week post-op I will be feeling pretty good.


<3 Krista

7 Hours Post-Op

So first let me just start by saying WOW. There are so many things that I didn't expect and so many things that are better than I expected. First off my pain (so far) is tolerable with out pain meds I might ad. I would say if I don't move, talk, swallow or do anything throat/mouth related I am about a 4, but, if I do any of the above I would say at least an 8 maybe more. It isn't the kind of pain I expected though, it is much easier to deal with than what I thought. Another really great thing, I have not thrown up which makes me super happy! A few things I wasn't expecting. My nose is a constant drip of blood and other fluids, very annoying but not at all painful. I also feel like i'm gagging a lot, like maybe there is a piece of cotton in my throat (there isn't..I made them check, lol) They told me it will probably feel like that for a week or 2 while I get used to it and while it heels. It is probably because of the sutures along with the caulderizing (is that right?) I also am having a hard time controling my sleep. Out of no where I feel tired and start to fall asleep, I would assume because of the General Anethesia. This morning though when I was coming out of my surgery I barely remember much, I remember looking over at my mom (gotta love moms :) ) and really that's it, I was in and out of consioucsness until about 2 or 3 when they wheeled me into my recovery suite and that it where I am now. I am terrified to eat but the brought me food anyway and I almost want to force myslef to endure the pain because their menu is from Panera. Who woud ever think you would get delicous food from Panera in the Hospital, well out patient surgery anyway. I will contnue posting about my recovery, hopefully it will only get better.


<3 Krista

Surgery

So I've been thinking about starting a blog of my own because it seems like everyone I know is doing it. I couldn't think of a way to start so I decided to go with what it going on in my life right now. On Thursday I will be having surgery and I have to admit that I am terrified.

A few months ago I went to my regular Doctor and told him I was finally fed up with my grossly enlarged tonsils and I just wanted him to take them out. He referred me to my ENT, he told me that insurance companies were kind of stingy about adults having their tonsils removed so I would have to go to a sleep study before I could get approval. A couple weeks later I did the sleep study (super sucky) and found out that I have Severe Obstructed Sleep Apnea! OMG My ENT told me it was so bad that I was probably turning slightly blue at night while I slept because of lack of oxygen which is causing my heart to have to work very hard. Then he went on to tell me that if I didn't have it taken care of I would probably end up having a heart attack in 20-30 years. Very scary. I only wanted my tonsils out and now I am having my tonsils removed, my uvula trimmed, my tongue shrunk (kinda weird), some extra skin in my throat trimmed and a reduction of the turbinates in my nose. I have read and been told that it will be a incredibly painful recovery...

I will be staying overnight at the surgery center and coming home early Friday morning unable to talk or eat. On the plus side I have read that people lose between 10-30 pounds during recovery because they are unable to eat solid foods. It will be strickly liquids and jello for a while. I am very hopeful that my surgery will be successful and will see some improvements with my sleep. I will update afterwards with how my recovery is going. Wish me luck!


<3 Krista