Well, I'm realizing that I am terrible at this blogging thing since I haven't posted since July. I MUST do better.
We had a busy weekend. Soccer tournament in Clinton was cancelled due to rain. Carson's friend Cheyenne stayed with us for the weekend. I love that crazy little redhead. Our weekend started on Friday evening with a trip to Sam's which is alway a blast with five kids! On Saturday Doug did a few things around the house. Carson and Cheyenne went to a dance clinic in preparation of trying out for the FMS dance team this coming Friday. Cortlin and I went shopping at Ballyhoo for me a new purse. Saturday evening I cooked steaks and Allana joined us for dinner. Carson said the blessing and asked God to "please bless the food to the nourishment of our bottoms." Prayer ended at this point. I don't need my bottom blessed anymore! Sunday went to church at Richland with Papaw Craft and then ate lunch at his house. We were quite a sight walking in five minutes late with six kids (we picked Allana up before church). Then after lunch it was off to the mall with all six kids dressing shopping. After much searcing and my exasperation (me), we finally purchased a dress for Carson. Now, time for a busy week!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Monday, July 12, 2010
Our Weekend...
We had a good weekend. The kids were out of town, so we enjoyed being a "couple" for a few days. I cleaned Colton's room all day on Saturday. How does a bedroom of a 14 year old get so dirty?! Saturday evening we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Cowboy Jim's. Sunday morning was a great morning of worship and then a little shopping afterwards. Sunday afternoon we decided to rest awhile and I woke up a couple of hours later. We missed church. We finished cleaning Colton's room.
The kids have come home today, so we will be back to our normal family schedule tonight.
The kids have come home today, so we will be back to our normal family schedule tonight.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
A little about us...
I started this blog in 2009 to chronicle our very busy life raising four active kids. I am going to try to start posting regularly.
A little information to get you started about our life...
I have a wonderful husband, a fourteen year old son, a thirteen year old daughter, an eleven year old daughter, and a daughter about to nine. Yes, I had four kids in a span of about five years. All of them are beautiful and look a lot alike but look so different too. I was told when they were toddlers that those were the easy years and it would get harder as they get older. Well, I didn't believe that then, but I do believe it now.
I met my husband in the spring of 1990 as a senior in high school. He was 26. We were engaged in November of 1990 and married on May 25, 1991 (exactly one year after I graduated from high school). I started in college in the fall of 1990, but dropped out after getting married thinking that working to help with the income was the best thing to do at that time. Towards the end of 1994 we decided we were ready for children. After two years of infertility and fertility pills our first child, Colton Douglas, was born in April, 1996. We were surprised to find out when Colton was six months old that another babe was on the way. In June, 1997, Cortlin Susanne, was born. Carson Olivia joined our family on May 25, 1999 (our eight year anniversary). Early in 1999, my husband, Doug, started having headaches and pain down his neck and eventually his pinky finger went numb. He was working on a college campus and went to see the nurse and she sent him to an orthopedic doctor. At the visit the ortho told him that his symptoms really didn't make sense and he suspected that we were looking for a workman's comp case. So, he was through with doctors at this point. He was working and living off of 8-10 tylenols at a time. Finally on July 22 he came home from work and told me to get him to a doctor. I took him to a friend of his from high school that was a doctor. This doctor really thought maybe it was muscle spasms and gave him meds and sent him home. The next day Doug was worse. I took him to another doctor who did bloodwork to test for Lyme's disease. The next day, Saturday, July 24, when Doug got up he couldn't open his left eye. At first I didn't panic thinking that maybe it was the effects of the meds that he was given on Friday. By the evening it was no better, so I took my 3-y-o and 2-y-o to my mother's and loaded the baby (9 weeks) and Doug, went got his brother and headed to the hospital. That evening consisted of tests and by Sunday morning they put him in a room. The nurse said that I needed to get the baby out of there because they thought he may have meningitis. So early that morning I left with the baby and my sister-in-law to go home and get a little rest. By mid morning my brother-in-law called and said that I needed to come back to the hospital. He had arranged for a friend of ours to meet me there to get the baby and tend to her. This was hard because I was nursing her and knew my friend would have to put her on formula...but I had no choice. The doctor that was on call, a pediatric ENT, (it was Sunday), told me that my husband had a mass in his sinus cavity. He was going to do a biopsy that day. Doug was very sick and spiked an extremely high fever after the biopsy. The doctor told me that he thought he had a fungal infection. The hospital where we were wasn't equipped to handle this critical illness. We would be moved to another local hospital that could give better care. It took a long time to get him transferred. Later we learned that the hospital didn't want to take him thinking that he would surely die. Finally after many hours and stress he was transferred. At the new hospital they started the testing all over. They put him in ICU and once again we were told that he had meningitis. The testing had shown that he had fluid from his brain leaking into his spinal column. By Tuesday afternoon they received the biopsy results from the other hospital and it was determined that he did have some kind of fungal infection. They would try to treat him with IV antifungal medication. I was going home in the evenings to spend a little time with the babies. When I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday morning my brother-in-law, who had come to the hospital early that day met me in the parking lot and told me to run to ICU. The doctors met me there and explained that the antifungal medications weren't working and that Doug was dying. They explained that the reason his left eye wouldn't open was because the fungal infection had eaten through his optic nerve. It had also eaten into his skull which was causing fluid from the brain to leak into the spinal column which is why it appeared he had meningitis. The doctors explained that the only hope was to remove the left eye since it wasn't any good and take the tissue from that eye socket and make the repairs to the skull after the fungal infection was cleaned out. The doctors told me that was his only chance. In fact, the doctors told other family members that he was going to die. Doug went into surgery with a team of doctors - ophthamologist, neurologist, infectious disease, otolaryngologist, and others. The surgery lasted over thirteen hours. I was blessed to have many family and friends gather around me during this time. I was able to see Doug about 3:00 the next morning. It was a sight that I will always remember. He was unrecognizable. I was told that even though he made it through the surgery that he still may not make it. He was very unstable. His heart had stopped beating during surgery a couple of times and he had suffered a stroke during surgery. After a couple of weeks in ICU, he was moved to a room. The doctors were amazed. They were still telling me that he may not be himself due to the fact that the part of the brain that controls personality was affected. They told me that he would need to go to a rehabilitation service and didn't know what his future would look like. After a couple of weeks he surprised everyone and walked out of that hospital. He never needed rehab of any kind. By September he was attending an Ole Miss football game. Even though Doug was doing great, inside I was a mess. I was angry about it all. I can't really explain why I was so angry. My husband had lived despite the doctors saying there was no way he would. Maybe I was angry about the loss of his left eye. There was too much damage for a prosthetic eye, so he wears an eye patch all the time. Maybe it was the trauma of it all. Even when he came home from the hospital I struggled. In fact, I wasn't very easy to get along with. I struggled through February and finally went to talk with our pastor and realized that I needed to get my life right with God. I was angry with God for all we had been through. I accepted Christ as my Savior and depended on him to get me through the emotional issues. Some time after Doug came home from the hospital I remember taking him to a doctor's visit and the doctor said, "I don't know who your god is, but that is the only reason we can explain why your husband is alive." I then told him of all of the people all over the world that had been praying for us and praying to God to spare his life. And to think that was before facebook and the popularity of email was just starting. We (me and Doug's family) thought that telling him that he lost his eye would be devastating for him, but surprisingly it wasn't. A doctor ended up telling him - there had been many discussions between me and his brothers about who would tell him about the eye being gone. Doug thought he had been in a car wreck. When he was told that he didn't have an eye, he just said, oh okay. Later he said that losing an eye was nothing. He still had his life and could spend more time with me and his kids. His eye was a small price to pay for that time.
On July 25, 2001, we welcomed Cannon Mae into our family.
Presently I am working as an Administrative Assistant at a local church and Doug is trying to get his landscape company up and running. This fall I plan to return to school to continue work on a degree in education.
We have been through a lot over the years...his illness, financial struggles, but God keeps providing.
A little information to get you started about our life...
I have a wonderful husband, a fourteen year old son, a thirteen year old daughter, an eleven year old daughter, and a daughter about to nine. Yes, I had four kids in a span of about five years. All of them are beautiful and look a lot alike but look so different too. I was told when they were toddlers that those were the easy years and it would get harder as they get older. Well, I didn't believe that then, but I do believe it now.
I met my husband in the spring of 1990 as a senior in high school. He was 26. We were engaged in November of 1990 and married on May 25, 1991 (exactly one year after I graduated from high school). I started in college in the fall of 1990, but dropped out after getting married thinking that working to help with the income was the best thing to do at that time. Towards the end of 1994 we decided we were ready for children. After two years of infertility and fertility pills our first child, Colton Douglas, was born in April, 1996. We were surprised to find out when Colton was six months old that another babe was on the way. In June, 1997, Cortlin Susanne, was born. Carson Olivia joined our family on May 25, 1999 (our eight year anniversary). Early in 1999, my husband, Doug, started having headaches and pain down his neck and eventually his pinky finger went numb. He was working on a college campus and went to see the nurse and she sent him to an orthopedic doctor. At the visit the ortho told him that his symptoms really didn't make sense and he suspected that we were looking for a workman's comp case. So, he was through with doctors at this point. He was working and living off of 8-10 tylenols at a time. Finally on July 22 he came home from work and told me to get him to a doctor. I took him to a friend of his from high school that was a doctor. This doctor really thought maybe it was muscle spasms and gave him meds and sent him home. The next day Doug was worse. I took him to another doctor who did bloodwork to test for Lyme's disease. The next day, Saturday, July 24, when Doug got up he couldn't open his left eye. At first I didn't panic thinking that maybe it was the effects of the meds that he was given on Friday. By the evening it was no better, so I took my 3-y-o and 2-y-o to my mother's and loaded the baby (9 weeks) and Doug, went got his brother and headed to the hospital. That evening consisted of tests and by Sunday morning they put him in a room. The nurse said that I needed to get the baby out of there because they thought he may have meningitis. So early that morning I left with the baby and my sister-in-law to go home and get a little rest. By mid morning my brother-in-law called and said that I needed to come back to the hospital. He had arranged for a friend of ours to meet me there to get the baby and tend to her. This was hard because I was nursing her and knew my friend would have to put her on formula...but I had no choice. The doctor that was on call, a pediatric ENT, (it was Sunday), told me that my husband had a mass in his sinus cavity. He was going to do a biopsy that day. Doug was very sick and spiked an extremely high fever after the biopsy. The doctor told me that he thought he had a fungal infection. The hospital where we were wasn't equipped to handle this critical illness. We would be moved to another local hospital that could give better care. It took a long time to get him transferred. Later we learned that the hospital didn't want to take him thinking that he would surely die. Finally after many hours and stress he was transferred. At the new hospital they started the testing all over. They put him in ICU and once again we were told that he had meningitis. The testing had shown that he had fluid from his brain leaking into his spinal column. By Tuesday afternoon they received the biopsy results from the other hospital and it was determined that he did have some kind of fungal infection. They would try to treat him with IV antifungal medication. I was going home in the evenings to spend a little time with the babies. When I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday morning my brother-in-law, who had come to the hospital early that day met me in the parking lot and told me to run to ICU. The doctors met me there and explained that the antifungal medications weren't working and that Doug was dying. They explained that the reason his left eye wouldn't open was because the fungal infection had eaten through his optic nerve. It had also eaten into his skull which was causing fluid from the brain to leak into the spinal column which is why it appeared he had meningitis. The doctors explained that the only hope was to remove the left eye since it wasn't any good and take the tissue from that eye socket and make the repairs to the skull after the fungal infection was cleaned out. The doctors told me that was his only chance. In fact, the doctors told other family members that he was going to die. Doug went into surgery with a team of doctors - ophthamologist, neurologist, infectious disease, otolaryngologist, and others. The surgery lasted over thirteen hours. I was blessed to have many family and friends gather around me during this time. I was able to see Doug about 3:00 the next morning. It was a sight that I will always remember. He was unrecognizable. I was told that even though he made it through the surgery that he still may not make it. He was very unstable. His heart had stopped beating during surgery a couple of times and he had suffered a stroke during surgery. After a couple of weeks in ICU, he was moved to a room. The doctors were amazed. They were still telling me that he may not be himself due to the fact that the part of the brain that controls personality was affected. They told me that he would need to go to a rehabilitation service and didn't know what his future would look like. After a couple of weeks he surprised everyone and walked out of that hospital. He never needed rehab of any kind. By September he was attending an Ole Miss football game. Even though Doug was doing great, inside I was a mess. I was angry about it all. I can't really explain why I was so angry. My husband had lived despite the doctors saying there was no way he would. Maybe I was angry about the loss of his left eye. There was too much damage for a prosthetic eye, so he wears an eye patch all the time. Maybe it was the trauma of it all. Even when he came home from the hospital I struggled. In fact, I wasn't very easy to get along with. I struggled through February and finally went to talk with our pastor and realized that I needed to get my life right with God. I was angry with God for all we had been through. I accepted Christ as my Savior and depended on him to get me through the emotional issues. Some time after Doug came home from the hospital I remember taking him to a doctor's visit and the doctor said, "I don't know who your god is, but that is the only reason we can explain why your husband is alive." I then told him of all of the people all over the world that had been praying for us and praying to God to spare his life. And to think that was before facebook and the popularity of email was just starting. We (me and Doug's family) thought that telling him that he lost his eye would be devastating for him, but surprisingly it wasn't. A doctor ended up telling him - there had been many discussions between me and his brothers about who would tell him about the eye being gone. Doug thought he had been in a car wreck. When he was told that he didn't have an eye, he just said, oh okay. Later he said that losing an eye was nothing. He still had his life and could spend more time with me and his kids. His eye was a small price to pay for that time.
On July 25, 2001, we welcomed Cannon Mae into our family.
Presently I am working as an Administrative Assistant at a local church and Doug is trying to get his landscape company up and running. This fall I plan to return to school to continue work on a degree in education.
We have been through a lot over the years...his illness, financial struggles, but God keeps providing.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
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