UPDATE

Well thank you all so much for praying for me! We had a very good weekend! We made it to the store, I budgeted for the month, my sister and I got a lot done, not one tear was shed while my in-laws were here, and Ava's lip looks remarkably better!! I wish I had a picture to show y'all! Church was still a little rocky. Ainslee & Ava cried so much that their teachers called us to come stay with them in their classes. We'll keep working on that one! ;-)

Thanks again for the prayers!!!

I'm stressed...

and feeling completely overwhelmed right now! But I just took some of the wonderful herbal stress pills that Joanna gave me and said a very specific prayer so I am feeling better. If you would like to pray for my stress level here are some specifics you might want to mention:
*that we can make it to the grocery store tonight (all 5 of us) in the pouring down rain
*that I can get the budget budgeted tonight
*that the kids will have some great quality time tomorrow with my in-laws instead of displaying their separation anxiety that has come on rather suddenly
*that I will be able to help my sister get a lot done at her house tomorrow
*that Ava's lip will heal already
*that we can go to church Sunday without kids crying in their classes (see...separation anxiety)
*also thank you to God that we have a grocery store, money to budget, kids that love us so much they don't want to be apart from us, 2 sets of grandparents that love our kids, my sister & her new house, doctors and medications to treat Ava's lip, freedom of religion, and wonderful congregations in town!

Easter Bunny & Oreo Balls

I am so excited that the Easter bunny is coming to our house tonight!!! Does the Easter bunny (wink, wink) come to yours??? Our kids are getting candy (no chocolate), sunglasses, & umberellas. The bunny doesn't bring big gifts to our house; he brings small things that they've been wanting for a while that I really don't buy in our every day outings. What are your kids getting?

I'm also in the middle of making some fabulous oreo balls! I can't wait to rip into those bad boys! I have never actually made anything with almond bark before, and I'm not really enjoying waiting for it to melt on the stove. I should probably be stirring it right now since the package says in all caps DO NOT OVERHEAT!

More on the lip...

Well Monday did roll around, and it still hadn't shown much improvement so I called the dermatologist again, and she was able to get us in that morning. (Can you say, "Wow!" Who ever heard of a same-day dermatologist appt???) She was not at all happy, although very professional, that the pediatrician had taken her off of her orginally-prescribed medicine in exchange for, what we learned, was actually a less-effective medicine! (And you remember how much it cost right???) So $90 worth of medicine got thrown in the trash, and we refilled the meds that Ava was originally on. We're on another 2 week round with another appt scheduled for April 23rd. I gotta say, though, it seems with this bug it's two steps forward, one step back. It, again, started to show real improvement, and then she woke up this morning with it oozing again. I think it must really itch her in the night, and she rubs it on her sheets. Who can blame her? But how can we stop her???

Update on Ava's lip

After I posted about Ava's lip, it continued to not improve. It really didn't get any worse, but still, it showed no improvement. She continued to bleed at night and seemed to be in pain. On Monday after posting, I decided that I didn't want to wait until the following week to have her seen by her regular dermatologist. I called her pediatrician, and his nurse was very kind and got us an appointment for that very day for a dermatologist within their clinic. That doctor was wonderful, and in fact, we may switch because I liked her so well.

Anyway the lip...she preliminarily diagnosed her with impetigo and gave us an antibiotic and cream but still took a culture and said she would call us if it came back as something other than impetigo. Well she (not the nurse the actual doctor!) called our house phone 3 times Thursday. It was too late to talk to her by the time that I got home Thursday evening from work, but I was able to leave my work phone number with her nurse. Friday, she called me at work (I still can't believe the doctor called me herself! That makes me think a lot of her!) and told me that it was not impetigo, that it was actually MRSA. Well the only thing I knew about MRSA was that it had been all over the news a while back and that people had died from it. So naturally, my heart started racing and I was getting out of breath, but still trying to listen to everything she was trying to tell me about caring for the "super bug." Her lip had already begun to heal and looked tons better by then so she felt like we were on the right track, and continued the same treatment, only adding a topical antibiotic to the oral antibiotic and topical ointment we already had.

That night, after spending the afternoon googling (in between teaching of course) MRSA and now knowing just how contagious it is, I checked over my other two children, and to my dismay, found a spot on Ainslee's bottom that also looked like the dreaded staph. I took her directly to our urgent care clinic, where they confirmed my suspicions, and thanks to Walgreens (you know how I love my Target pharmacy, but they close at 9:00) we were able to get her on an antibiotic that night as well.

Then Wednesday when we picked the kids up from the babysitters, we noticed that Ava's face was starting to look infected again. It was looking so good! Pretty much healed. I don't know why the change of events, but through my reading, I learned that this strand of staph adapts rapidly and can become worse fast. We knew we needed to get her seen again. Well evidently dermatologists take off more than pediatricians so we weren't able to get her back into see the new doctor, but we were able to get her into a pediatrician (not our regular one but who cares) and she prescribed yet another antibiotic ($45 medicine!) and another cream (another $45 medicine). It's looking some better, but we're not blown away by the progress. I figure I will call the dermatologist again on Monday if things haven't improved.

Ainslee, on the other hand, is looking great. She has a persistent eczema spot on her bottom that she scratches a lot. I guess she came into contact with Ava's MRSA, got it under her fingernails, and transferred it to her bottom. Nevertheless, it is pretty much healed.

Thank for the emails and well-wishes. I really hope we get this taken care of soon!