Monday, February 11, 2013

A Bit of Catching Up...

I find myself with a little time on my hands at the moment. I thought it would be a good opportunity to tackle this blog update I've been putting off. Thomas has been traveling lately and is gone again, while both my kids fell asleep a bit, er, a LOT early tonight. So I logged on and what do you know, I had page views yesterday! Here I was thinking that NO ONE looked at this unless I shared the newest post on Facebook or something and yet I find that indeed people have checked it out. So I apologize that there hasn't been anything new recently.
I honestly don't know why I can't seem to get a handle on the consistent blogging thing, but I'm assuming it's the same reason I can't to get a handle on consistent laundry washing... But here goes...

The end of 2012 seemed to be a little chaotic. London began coughing a lot while drinking from her sippy cup in June and after failing a swallow study (study showed slight aspiration with each swallow, and her throat muscles are just not stripping everything from her esophagus) it was decided, rather hastily, to insert an NG tube. An NG tube is a tube inserted through the nose, into the stomach, for feeding. She had this for a while and in September she went in for surgery and a G tube was put in (the tube goes directly into her stomach). She did so well during the surgery and even *finally* broke 30 pounds!

Sometime in the midst of this I signed up to become a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant... just thought I'd add to the craziness of life. Why not, right??  I felt like I've slowly lost myself over the past several years and I loved the idea of having a reason to wear makeup and possible dress up.

Anyway, back to London, because I hope she is the reason you all are reading this...
In an effort to (last ditch effort, really) to get a grip on her stinkin' seizures, we had been talking about putting a VNS implant in... So the preparations for that went well, the insurance approved it, and she was put on the schedule for December (thank goodness we got in by the new year, those deductible would have killed us!). It's still strange to think that London now has a neurosurgeon... But things went fairly well and the implant is in now. I've noticed a slight improvement and I'm hoping that once we crank that baby up a bit more that we'll see greater results. She's not seizure free, and maybe never will be, but she's happy and alert for the most part, so we're excited about that.

I guess putting this all in writing makes it seem so much less... well, just so much less, but I feel like my sweet London hasn't had a break from tests, procedures, surgeries, and seizures for 6 months.

As far as our bank account for London's home goes, I think we have somewhere around $7000. I can't even begin to express our gratitude for everyone who has helped us out on this journey so far! We are slowly working on fixing up and finishing our current house so hopefully we can sell it for a good profit when the time comes. I mentioned above that London finally broke 30 pounds, which really isn't a lot until you have to carry her around everywhere... On one hand I'm so happy to see her gain those few extra pounds, but on the other hand, my back isn't too pleased about it. haha!

At the moment, I don't have any fundraisers planned for 2013 (still trying to get a handle on that laundry??) but I'll take any ideas that anyone might have! Thank you all for reading about London and our journey. I'll try to keep a bit more current on the blog.

Love from me and London!