I know it has been a few months since I updated anything here… But in my defense it has been a BUSY few months! So here we go with the update.
I posted after my EGD that I was having one more test before my doctor would do the repeat Nissen and hernia repair. That I had to pass this test in order to get the surgery. Well I can sometimes be a blonde and forget things, like that I have NEVER passed this particular test. But the doctors in Kansas City didn’t require me to pass it in order for the first surgery. So when we got the results back that I have severly delayed gastric emptying and I am not a candidate for the surgery to stop the severe reflux (GERD) I was not too happy. And to make matters worse, there are NO doctors in Omaha who even treat delayed gastric emptying, I was told I would have to go to the Mayo Clinic or back to Kansas City in order to find a doctor to treat me. Well gee, will someone tell my insurance that for me please? Because insurance won’t cover it… so now I am a sitting duck for the esophageal cancer to come back as there is nothing I can do to protect my esophagus from the acid erosion, which triggers the Barrett’s which in turns changes the cells in my esophagus… We are moving soon and hopefully we will be able to find better medical care once we are outside of the state of Nebraska…
So while going through all that, I had another little fun medical issue rear it’s ugly head…. I had a gallbladder attack. If you have had one, a real one, then you know the absolute utter shear agony and pain that one brings. We were driving to Westroads when I started feeling sick to my stomach, by the time we got there I was feeling so bad that Pat and the girls decided to take the babies into the mall and leave me in the van to rest. Wonderful a few moments of quiet to lay down. Not 5 minutes after they went into the mall did I start to have the pains. Sharp Stabbing pains that progressed to my chest feeling like it was being sat on by an elephant. I was sure I was having a heart attack. I couldn’t breathe and I was all alone in the van. All I could think of was my daughters coming out to the van to find their mother dead… I finally got a hold of Pat and told him they needed to get there ASAP and get me to the hospital. They did get there and got me to the hospital and we learned that my gallbladder was full of stones and there was one blocking the duct.
Surgery was scheduled and I was the lucky recipient of not one surgeon but two head surgeons because of my previous liver surgery. I was warned ahead of time that they may not be able to do the surgery laprascopicly, that I may wake up with a full incision. God was good to me and I ended up with a partial open. Dr Rose, my surgeon, informed me that they were pulling out to do the open when they finally found my gallbladder buried in all the scar tissue. I was literally seconds away from another 12 inch scar across my tummy….
After a short stay in the hospital I got to come home with a drain in place. Yeah that was fun, NOT. Stupid thing kept getting stuck on the drawer pulls in the kitchen, and I couldn’t even sit on the couch and hold Carson or Courtney. Thank goodness Dr Rose took that thing out a couple of days early. Boy was that a huge relief. I did manage to get an infection in one of the incisions that sent me to the emergency room where they started me on Levaquin, which I ended up having a reaction to three days out, so I was switched to another antibiotic that I had another reaction to….ugh is all I can say…. Some where around the 5 week mark after surgery my one incision wasn’t closing and getting bigger, my dr said it was starting to get necrotic so she sent me to the wound center where they put this wonderful silver-dine stuff on it and within 5 days it closed!
Ok I think this fills everyone in on the latest of my health and the road that is paved in bumps!



I am a breastfeeding mom. I believe in the power of breast milk. So much so that even though Courtney is not allowed to nurse from me directly (see My Baby has Severe Reflux, Aspirating as She Eats), I pump several times a day to make sure she has mommy milk to eat. Courtney is my 6th child. I nursed each on of my kids. Carson was the most successful nurser of all of the kids. He wouldn’t take a bottle or a paci, just mommy. Which truth be told, SUCKED. I couldn’t leave the house for more than 2 hours at a time without him. When I got pregnant with Courtney my milk went down a little, but he was eating foods and did great. At 4 months pregnant my doctor told me I had to stop nursing, that I had all ready been nursing for too long, so when Carson was 11 months old we got him completely off of me and on straw cups. I had made enough milk the entire time he was nursing, and I had always made enough milk with the others as well, actually with them I made too much milk. So when Courtney came along I never worried about my milk supply.
After having two babies in less than two years, and taking a lot of steroids through the pregnancies, I have some hard work ahead of me to lose the weight and get back in shape. With Courtney only being 4 months old (in a week), I feel like I have done good so far. I am down to the weight I was when I got pregnant with her, but I am still 25 pounds heavier than when I got pregnant with Carson. So it is time to start getting serious about the weight loss and the shaping of my body. I really want to get back in my jeans and to be able to wear a bathing suit this summer without being self conscious.






Some of the basics on GERD, Barrett’s, and a Nissen Fundoplication:
If you have ever been nine months pregnant, then you know how miserable it can be. Like many pregnant woman, I have done just about everything to naturally induce labor. The one thing I just can’t get myself to do is the whole castor oil thing. The thought makes me gag… But I digress…. I see many posts where women who are in the misery inducing final month of pregnancy are asking what ways can I try to start labor. Well as I am ending my sixth, yes 6th, pregnancy, I thought I would share all the various ways that I have heard or tried. In this post I am only going to discuss the food options, I go into the non-food labor inducing techniques or wives tales in another post, which you can read here.
Since I am not a fan of eggplant, I just can’t stomach this particular meal, but I did a little more research and found that the “reason” they say these women go into labor after eating this particular dish, is the oregano and basil. Well I LOVE Italian food, so I got to thinking that this should work for other Italian style dishes, and with my last pregnancy, I ate several helpings of Honey-Garlic Angel Hair Pasta in the final days before labor began. –
Now one that I personally loved, and have several funny stories from is the Labor Inducing Cookies. Now I happened to really like these cookies, but I can’t say the rest of my family did. They taste just like a ginger snap until about 30 seconds after your bite, then you get the heat from the cayenne pepper. If spice is your trigger, than these little bad boys may do the trick for you. So without further ado –
I am compiling a list of all the “you know you are nine months pregnant when” or “you know you are in the home stretch when” posts and sayings I have read just over the last week. These make for a really great laugh, and sadly so many of them are well, SO TRUE! If you feel I have left some of the good ones out, please feel free to leave them in the comments!
Patrick and I got to thinking about what was the best way to share what has been happening in our world over the last couple of months, and decided that the easiest way to give some information would be to share some of the new words entering our vocabulary and some of the words that have been there, but have become more important to our little world right now. We are dividing these Vocabulary lessons out by family member and if we decide to continue to do this, we will do it by month as well.
I never thought I would even be thinking about this, but I read an article yesterday by one of the bloggers over at Pregnancy and Newborn Magazine, 





