Sunday, September 13, 2009

Daddy's home!!

For two enjoyable weeks, anyway....  The military flies them stand by, so we don't know until last minute whether or not they make the flight.  He had two long days of flying, but finally at 11 am his plane landed in Dayton!!  I only had an hour and a half to pick up the kids at school and get everybody to the airport. I surprised him by bringing the kids.  It was soooo good to see him.  The kids were squealing in delight (and I was on the inside!!)  It has taken him all weekend to try to adjust to jet lag and the time change (Iraq is 8 hours ahead).  But, he is doing better tonight.

Cute pic of dad and the kids going for a bike ride....  Gary can't get over at how green everything is....


I am SOOOO looking forward to Wednesday.  He and I are leaving for our "GETAWAY FOR TWO!!!"  My mom is coming to stay with the kids (yay for grandma's!!) so they can still go to school.  It will nice just to have quietness....together....



Danielle....this is for you....
A pic of our house...

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1 comment:

Danielle said...

One of THE most moving moments ever...

Jonathan & I arrived at the airport for his dad's funeral...right outside a military dad had obviously just arrived home and we watched as his daughter ran and jumped up in his arms bawling.

We did too btw...

It was so bitter sweet. J saying goodbye to his dad. And the little girl saying hello to her's.

I hope you guys have a wonderfully romance filled time away!

And OMG-osh...I could EAT your house! I KNEW it was gonna be adorable!

...danielle

September 15, 2009 at 8:40 AM

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Beautiful Hannah...

How this journey started....

Hannah was born prematurely at 34 weeks gestation. She was a relatively healthy preemie; initially having difficulty maintaining body temperature and needing to grow. She weighed 4 pounds 9 ounces at birth. When she was four months old she began to drool, non stop. We were told the first year she was "teething." At 18 months old, we really started searching for reasons of why her shirt was always soaking wet. We saw various specialists who always sent us to another specialist, saying "everything looks okay." She spent years in oral motor/feeding therapy to help her not to drool. It wasn't until she was four years old and in preschool that we started to get some answers. Her preschool teacher commented one day that she wasn't reponding when her name was called. I took this information to her pediatrician who then orderd an EEG, "just to rule it out." Much to our shock and amazement, the results showed, she was having seizures. That is the day our journey REALLY began. Once she began taking seizure medication the drooling almost stopped completely. (She will still drool to this day when she is having seizure activity). Since then, it has been a roller coaster; countless medications and medication changes. She has never really reponded well to any medication.

About two years after she was diagnosed with epilepsy, the doctors noticed that her blood pressure was running high. After many tests, she was diagnosed with hypertension. We still are not sure why, but her cardiologist feels her blood vessels are thicker than normal.

About this same time, we also began looking into why Hannah was such a horrible sleeper. She would thrash, talk, move every which way, during her sleep. The sleep studies revealed that she has alveolar hypoventilation sydrome, which means she has too much carbon dioxide in her system when she sleeps. To help this, she wears a BI-PAP at night. This has been monumental in giving her more effective and quality of sleep.

Every day is a challenge for Hannah and our family as a whole. Blitzen has been an absolutely wonderful addition. She calms herself sometimes just by petting and loving on him. He has been trained in behavior disruptions and will sometimes be able to stop a meltdown from getting out of control.
It has been extra hard on the whole family since daddy is deployed to Iraq. He has been gone since January 09 and will gone until Jan 2010. We get to talk with him by phone and on the web cam; which is nice, but not the same!! Blitzen has helped to make his absence go just a little smoother....