Small (and One Big) Successes

1. Somehow I missed last week! I remember why...constant illness in our house! Baby Gift had croup, Valiant had a fever, I was getting ANOTHER sinus infection in the SAME month after getting over the previous one....ugh! It was not pretty here! I did however do catch up posts in the last week you can scroll down to see. Many of them are pictures of our days. I still need to update our Advent, so check back for that! It hasn't been the Advent I would have planned for us...but I'm accepting it as a true time of preparation and penance!

2. Despite all of us being sick, we've kept up with homeschooling. You can click to see our plans and scroll down for other ideas and catch up lesson posts. Taking the advice of a dear friend, I simplified for Advent. Boy has it been the right decision with all the illness in the house and my reduced energy level.

3. I took care of ME this past weekend. Our family has been sick since before Thanksgiving, and this past weekend I got worse. I decided to go Sunday to the doctor and found one in my plan that had weekend hours some distance from my home. It didn't start off being a JOYFUL Gaudete Sunday and feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but I walked out feeling joyful because I had some health answers for the first time. I need to do a post all on its own, but it was joyful success. I do ask for prayers because this afternoon I have the start of some medical testing to get to the bottom of my chronic sinus infections. I learned Sunday from the doctor (a SMART one who made a connection none of my other doctors have made this year) that my constant battle with sinus infections is pretty much related to the fact I am a carrier for the recessive Cystic Fibrosis gene. I don't have CF, but I learned many carriers can suffer symptoms of CF especially with the sinuses. It wasn't until I was pregnant with Gift that we learned I was a CF carrier, so before that we never knew this information. Since I was a child I've suffered infection after infection. Allergies never seemed to be the cause, my immune system always was low, and every cold became an infection, and I seemed to make so much mucous that went into my lungs. I've posted so many posts tagged  "sinus infection" or "sick" over the years. Now, learning this connection offers HOPE!! I was given a new antibiotic CF patients use (I haven't been able to nurse Gift with it - BOO!), and later today I will undergo a CT scan of my sinuses with IV contrast (which leaves me unable to nurse for another 48 hours until I'm no longer "radioactive" in my milk) to see if I have any structural markers or polyps and surgery could be an option. Could you please spare me some prayers for that, and for little Gift and that the time away from nursing happens ASAP. I hope he'll still want to nurse - I'm nervous!

Now that I know the CF carrier connection, my heart goes out even more than before to the sufferers of CF. If what I feel is barely anything a CF patient faces - they are truly the heroes we all know them to be! I can't imagine dealing with the sinus side of it all, and lungs, and digestive issues in this terrible affliction. I shouldn't complain at all!

Whew! I know when I do a real post after this afternoon and the info there, and a new meeting with an ENT, I'll have even more to share.  Until then...how are YOU??! 

Thankful Thursday

This week I'm thankful for....

1. Great doctors!

2. Good medicine.

3. Good health when we have it.

4. the support of my husband.

5. our kids.

6. the blessings we are given.

Much love! Thanks for the prayers!!