Physical Therapy

Samuel's occupational therapist suggested that Sam get evaluated for physical therapy.
During the session, the therapist thought that doing an intense, twice a week program for a month make a lot of progress. 

Here is a video from his therapy session. He is wearing a compression vest and has inserts in his shoes. For some reason, I can't download anymore of the videos or photos. My phone is being weird.

Standard First Aid with CPR - Child and Infant

I have been wanting to sign up for a CPR and First Aid Class since I found out I was pregnant.

After completing the online protion of the class, on Saturday, August 27th, for 3 hours, I will be heading to the local Red Cross Office to participate in the classroom portion.

Here is the class description.
Train lay responders to overcome any reluctance to act in emergency situations and to recognize and care for life-threatening respiratory or cardiac emergencies in infants and children. Provide the lay responder with the knowledge and skills necessary in an emergency to help sustain life and to minimize pain and the consequences of injury or sudden illness until professional medical help arrives. Students who successfully complete this course will receive certificates for Standard First Aid with CPR-Child& Infant which is valid for two years.

This course consists of on-line content and classroom segments. On-line material must be completed prior to attending the classroom activities.


I'm so excited!

In a Fog

I'm taking a break from this blog for a while.


My mother has terminal cancer and I have a lot going on with that. My mind isn't anywhere near where it needs to be to write anything meaningful. I am still going to be updating my blog with my son, Samuel's pictures (of course, I'm behind on posting those, but I do take the pictures every day).

I have also already committed to raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, so I'm selling items on another blog to benefit this wonderful cause.

Items for Sale to Benefit Charity

Thank you for your understanding. I'll be back when my head is sorted out.

Meatless Monday

I always forget that there are a large number of blogs that I read that schedule recipes on Mondays that are free of meat (Meatless Monday). today, accidentally, I am actually participating in it for dinner tonight.

Unless Brian decided to have something else, our entire family is going meatless tonight.

Pasta with Veggies for the entire family

Yea!!!

Shifting Your Focus

I have recently become aware of a website that has made me think about things differently and how I want my life to be alligned.

Becoming Minimalist

Operation Minimize (where we are reducing the amount of things in our home) is a portion of "Becoming Minimalist."  This idea is about zeroing on those experiences and reducing the clutter of debt, time constraints, goals, and living a fuller life.

Today's post from Becoming Minimalist is about living a life you can be proud of.

It just may begin to shift our focus upwards to things that bring us true, lasting pride. Things like:

• A Clear Conscience. Living a life consistent with our values.
• Character. Choosing to treat others and ourselves with high esteem and respect.
• Sincerity. Living with no attempt to deceive those around us.
• Wisdom. Not being tossed and turned by the culture of the day, but laying a foundation of certainty from outside our ever-shifting culture.
• Love. Embracing a heart that, above everything else, seeks to love others.

this is my goal.  I'm not sure how long, if ever, it's going to take me, but I really want to live life to it's fullest without a lot of extra BS.

Sam's RSV Update

Road Trip!!

My husband took our son to his follow up appointment for his RSV diagnosis from November 5th.

Based on the readings that they got (on room air) in the office, Sam is able to come of oxygen during the day but will have to go back on at night.  That is still a great development.



Gunnison, here we come!!

By the way, if anyone is still wondering what to get me for my birthday later this month--  Toy Story 3-- Hint!  Hint!

TMJ- Temporomandibular Joint Disorder

I have heard of people with TMJ, but never thought that it would affect me.

TMJ- Temporomandibular joint disorder- is an umbrella term covering acute or chronic inflammation of the temporomandibular joint, which connects the mandible to the skull. The disorder and resultant dysfunction can result in significant pain and impairment.

My jaw had been bothering me since mid last week, but I just thought that it was something small, so when the pain with away with Tylenol, I wasn't very worried.

The night my son was admitted to the hospital with RSV, I was unable to sleep because, whenever I laid down, my jaw was in tremendous pain.  I kept trying to take Tylenol to make it go away, but even after 4 pills (and hours of not sleeping), the pain wasn't going away, at 2am I decided to go down the hall to the emergency room to find out what the hell was going on.

I was seen pretty quickly by a doctor who diagnosed TMJ and gave me 600 mg of ibuprofen and 6 Vicodin.  After an hour, the ibuprofen still wasn't working, so I decided to take 2 Vicodin.  After a half hour (around 3:30am), the pain subsided and I was able to sleep until 7am, when my son woke up.  The rest of the weekend was much better for me, personally, but I continued to worry about Sam.

I have been taking the ibuprofen every 6 hours since then, but I have discontinued the Vicodin.  I'm thinking that it was the stress that caused it.

Does anyone have TMJ?  How have you deal with it?