What have we been up to?

Well, being the awesome Mom that I am, I took these pictures before helping him out. Seem's like this is an occurance almost every day this week.

He has been sitting on everything he can, that you really shouldn't sit on. I promise, I was nice once this week, as just this morning he sat in a basket for some toys and was stuck. I almost grabbed my camera but figured he had enough of being "tuck" as he would say.

Christmas

This Christmas was a lot more fun, than last. McKay is not quite old enough to really open the gifts, but he sure showed a lot of excitment with them.That was the best part, seeing how happy he was. I can't wait for next year. I think the Holidays are much more fun with kids.

Happy New Year to Me and McKay

We had such a fun new years eve. It's our nephews birthday on the 31st so we always have a fun party for him and to celebrate the new year. I definitely will not be keeping McKay up again until midnight, until he is old enough to handle it. He really did pretty well all night and we thought for sure that he would fall asleep on the way home but he didn't. I should have known that was a start to an awful night. None of us slept that night. I thought he must have just been over stimulated and overly tired to fall asleep, I think he finally fell asleep 5 am and didn't sleep very long. It made for a very long day the next day, and that's when it all started.
Sunday, my sister was speaking in her ward and teaching her lesson in relief society, so I went with my Mom to her ward. I wasn't feeling very well, just really sore everywhere and exhausted. I thought it was for sure that I just needed to get some sleep. Steve stayed home with McKay so that he could get a nap in before our ward started. When I got home, I came home to one very lethargic little boy, and I was feeling quite awful by then too. we all stayed home from our own ward and I went upstairs to take a nap. Before long I was throwing up and running a fever and could barely move. The flu again!? We had just gotten over the flu a few weeks prior. Mckay hadn't been throwing up but had a very high fever and wasn't eating, sleeping or doing anything at all. I knew whatever I had, he had too. As soon as we got McKay to bed on Sunday, horrible pain hit. I could barely breathe. I felt like a knife was ripping through my chest. we contemplated going to the Dr that night, but honestly, it was the first time we got McKay to sleep, we just couldn't wake him up. So I tried to relax and had a blessing, and prayed the pain would go away.Between throwing up blood, and coughing up blood, I was finally able to rest. As soon as I got up Monday morning, Steve took me to the instacare. I was still throwing up blood and The pain was so horrible. They did a chest x-ray and said I had pneumonia but with some antibiotics, I should start feeling better within 48 hours. That was Monday. Today is now Saturday and I am barely feeling like I am not going to die. Since Monday I have had 2 antibiotic IM, 2 IV's of vancomyacin antibiotic, and I am currently taking 3 different oral antibiotics. I spent most of the day at the Dr's and the hospital yesterday, as they thought I might now, on top of the pneumonia, have a pulmonary embolism. Luckily, I didn't. They determined that the pneumonia had just taken up more of my lungs. After going back and forth whether to admit me in the hospital or not, they gave me another IV dose of antibiotics and sent me home, hoping I'll get better this weekend. I can say today, I can tell a difference. I am not coughing up or throwing up blood, and I am not in as much pain, there is improvement. ya! I feel so bad for Steve. He has had to take care of me and a sick baby boy who has a bad cough, isn't eating much still, and very, very fussy. Steve took most of this week off to help me and I am so thankful for him. More than he will ever know. I hope I will never be this sick, ever again.

Balloons

I am so glad the dollar store sells bags of balloons. I have now invested in a quite a few bags, because I can't handle any more 2 hour meltdowns from McKay because he can't have the balloon that is on the TV. Yes, it was funny for the first few minutes, but it got old fast! This boy love's him some balloons!

30 years old

Tonight was a very special night. It is my brother Spencer's birthday, and I decided that we should start celebrating that. After all, it is the day he was brought to this earth, even if he only spent a short amount of time here. I made some pretty amazing, yellow cupcakes with Raspberry butter cream frosting and bought balloons and invited my family over. I also invited my family members out of state to participate with us to make it even more special. We sang Happy Birthday, ate cupcakes, talked of memories and our love for Spencer, and then went outside and let our balloons go, sending them up to Spencer. It was so sweet to watch my 10 yr old niece's eyes tear up. She really didn't know him, as she was just a baby when he passed, but she still has an overwhelming amount of love for him. . I am so greatful for my family, that we have Spencer in heaven, watching over all of us.

Happy Birthday, my angel in heaven!

Like Mother, Like Son

Well, it looks like McKay is following the trend of being my little twin. Along with the good things, he unfortunately got my negatives. Like, my stomach problems. Like I said in my previous post, I have been having lots of them. McKay has as well. After months of problems with his tummy, we finally did a stool sample and cultures of it to make sure there wasn't any parasite, or something like it affecting him. Good news, after 3 days of waiting and one phone call from the lab saying " umm... has McKay traveled out of the country?" I said no and she then said "hmmm.. um, OK" and hung up. Really? they made me wait 2 more days to get an answer while I tortured myself thinking he had some weird parasite you only get when you go out of country. Good thing he doesn't but they sure need to change their procedure of asking that question. Maybe explain why there were to calm the parent down.
Anyways, so after finding out there was nothing they could see wrong (story of my life) they advised I need to start trial and error. Just like I am doing for myself. We are starting by taking him off all dairy. Since, when he was a baby, he had an intolerance to it. So far, we have be doing it for 1 day and I already see a slight difference. yay! I am hoping this is the answer and we don't have to go through much more trial and error. I have also decided that since I haven't started the gluten free, officially yet, I will wait and see if this helps him. If it does, well I will just try it with me since he is having the same problems as me. Hopefully we find an answer for both of us very soon.

Gluten Free

I've been having a lot of stomach problems lately. well, really for the past 8 years. Its just getting worse and I have yet to find the completely reason. I had a colonoscopy yesterday and was hoping it would provide me with some answers, but it didn't. So, I am taking it into my own hands now, especially since the Dr. did not seem interested at all in helping find whats making me so sick.
I decided I am going to start by taking certain foods out of my diet to see if that helps. I have gone gluten free before, for about 3 months. It helped a little, but I don't think 3 months is long enough to help as much I need, so I am going to try it again. This time, for at least 6 months. If I see improvement in my symptoms I will keep going and hopefully over time it will get better and better. If I don't see improvement in 6 months, to a year then I will then start over and try taking something else out of my diet.
I have written food journals, keeping track of what makes me so ill when I eat, and pretty much I have come to the conclusion that everything does. I can't pin point just one item or food group, etc. So this will be the best way I know how to solve the problem. I am going to start doing this cold turkey on Monday. I really hope to see some change and that I start feeling better. I am sure tired of being sick all the time.