Hostage

The delay in posting is due to a hostage crisis in our home. You see, my business is holding me hostage in our office until I complete a crazy amount of orders and prepare for the first show of the fall season. Thankfully, I am only committed to a couple of shows and then I will concentrate on the stores and personal orders…oh, and I can give 100% to my REAL full time job of being Ellie’s mommy and Brandon’s wife!

So, I’ll start with our trip to Texas Children’s Hospital last week to visit Dr. S, Ellie’s new pulmonologist. She is the clinic chief for the pulmonary clinic at TCH and has been on staff there for 23 years. The clinic takes every precaution to keep all people with CF safe (over 300 pediatric CF patients) by asking us to “mask up” while we are in the hospital. Ellie LOVED wearing her Mickey Mouse mask and I think she thought it was pretty cool that mommy had to wear one as well. She was a super trooper through the chest x-rays, double gag sputum culture and “interrogation” by five members of the CF team. I was very proud of her! The doctor did mention a spot in Ellie’s left lung that is cause for concern. It was a very cloudy spot that was about the size of a quarter. Because Ellie has been having some sinus like issues (coughing, sneezing) combined with the suspicious spot in her lung they want to watch her very closely…which means we go back for clinic every 4 weeks until otherwise noted. I made Ellie a very cute goodie bag for our clinic trips, but to be honest we were busy the entire 3 ½ hours we were there and she didn’t even get a chance to play with any of it. I decided to keep it all a secret and I’ll just bring it to our visit in September and surprise her.


The most comedic part of the whole visit was Ellie’s conversation with the dietician. It went something like this:
Dietician: Hi, Ellie! What do you eat for breakfast?
E: Ummm, macaroni
Me: NO YOU DON’T!
Dietician: Oh, you eat macaroni for breakfast
E: Yes!!!
Me: Ellie, you don’t eat macaroni for breakfast. You eat egg beaters with fat free hog doggies and cheese.
E: Eww, yuck, splaf!
Me: (rolling my eyes and getting a little embarrassed) She eats the same thing almost every morning: Eggs with hot dogs and cheese, sometimes she has waffles and rarely she eats cereal.
Dietician: Okay Ellie what do you drink with breakfast
E: strawberry juice
Me: WHAT?!?!?! You have never had strawberry juice in your life
Dietician: (acting like she was actually believing my toddler that was making up meals by the minute) Mom, does she drink strawberry juice with meals?
Me: No, she usually drinks milk or water. I buy Motts for Tots Apple juice, but not regularly.
Dietician: Ellie, what do you eat for lunch?
E: macaroni and cheese and strawberry juice
Me: (about ready to die of embarrassment b/c I do actually cook almost every meal for my child and they are usually very healthy) Okay, she does eat a lot of macaroni and cheese…but, NEVER strawberry juice!
Dietician: Ellie what do you eat for dinner?

I’ll let you guess what she said! Apparently, Kraft Macaroni and cheese (yes, people ~ the blue box is the best) has left a huge impression on my baby girl!

After we got through hearing the toddler’s version of her daily diet I set the record straight and we moved forward. She did say that we need to make sure and add salt to all of Ellie’s food, which isn’t a problem b/c she typically adds salt and “sneeze” to ALL of her food by herself! I mentioned Ellie’s love for pickles and all other salty foods and they said that most of their CF patients prefer salty over sweet…interesting. I have never liked sweets, but give me a bag of chips any day! I wonder if any other CF’ers are like that???

We decided that because Ellie was such a big girl and she needs to increase her salt intake…we would buy her a surprise. Ellie’s favorite thing to snack on is popcorn. She LOVES to eat popcorn for some reason. So, we bought our very own counter top popcorn maker and it has been a HUGE hit (aside from the fact that B hates the smell of popped popcorn)! We are averaging about two batches of popcorn per day! Fun times!!!

Not only am I being held hostage by my home office, but I am also being held hostage by my body!!! We were thinking that we would have started our IVF meds by Monday at the latest…we are still waiting! I hate this body of mine! You can’t count on it to ever cooperate and it does everything on its own time…which is never on time or at the same time. So, while I work…I wait…impatiently! However, I remind myself that this life’s blessings are a gift only God knows and they are not on my time. Through this journey I have loved this scripture…it is my reminder that He can hear my prayers and in His own way we will be blessed.

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.
Psalms 40:1

I also want to let all of our friends and family know that we were invited to attend The Women’s Hospital Labor of Love luncheon on Saturday to honor Team Chunky Monkey being one of Houston’s top family teams in the March of Dimes 2009! Coincidently, it is also the show that I have a booth at. For the past few years we have had a booth there, but never have we been invited to attend the style show and luncheon. It is a huge honor to be included this year and we owe it all to you for your support. We will be start fundraising again in a few months and we would be honored to have you support our team again.

Blessings,
Angie

Here is an interesting article about CF and infertility.