Swingset

I'm so grateful for our swingset in the backyard. The girls love playing on it.

We've been home all week because Sandy has hand, foot, mouth disease. Her blisters are starting to heal, but it's contagious until 2 days after they heal completely. Abby has had a fever and I keep expecting her to get it, but no blisters yet. Our pediatrician said they don't usually get it again, though, so I'm glad to know we are getting this out of the way before they are in school.

Neck Ultrasound

I had an ultrasound on my neck on Tuesday.

The doctor that did the ultrasound said:
*The thyroid tissue (the same tissue that was biopsied last August) looks like it is in the scar tissue from my surgery and he wasn't concerned about it.
*With the clear ultrasound and 5 years since my first clear scan (August 2006), I'm probably in remission. (Huh, and I thought I've been in remission since August 2006.)
*To be sure, he recommends doing another body scan. (I've done this before - it would involve going off my thyroid medication, 2 weeks of the iodine-free diet, and then I-131 radiation and I wouldn't be able to be around anyone for a week.)
*If the body scan is clean, then they can adjust my thyroid medication to be at normal levels. Currently, they keep my thyroid medication high enough that my thyroid stimulating hormone is 0.1 or below. Normal levels are 1.0 to 4.0. Side effects of the high medication include anxiety, racing heart, difficulty sleeping -- all things I've definitely experienced. It would be nice not to have the side effects.
*I asked him about the statistic I had read -- 40% chance of recurrence of thyroid cancer within 10 years -- and he said that is true but includes all treatment methods. If I do the body scan - which is what he would recommend - and it comes back clean then he thought I had nothing to worry about.

I really liked the doctor that did the ultrasound, he explained things well. He said he'd send a report to my doctor.

I've been waiting to hear from my doctor. This is the doctor that originally diagnosed and treated me and now, after some insurance changes and a clinic change for him, I'm back with him. I'm surprised I haven't heard from him yet. He should be calling me with lab results and to talk about the ultrasound. I'm supposed to schedule a follow-up with him in January, but I really don't want to wait until then to talk to him.

When I saw my doctor last month, I asked him about the body scan. He said that as long as my labs look good, he didn't think we needed to do the body scan. My last doctor expressed concern about how much radiation I've already had. They've revised the guidelines drastically in the last 5 years and the two doses I had were double the doses they now recommend.

So, my questions for him are:

*What did my labs look like? He's mainly watching the thyroglobulin.

*What are the pros and cons to doing the body scan? He's not recommending it but the doctor that did the ultrasound highly recommended it. Also, when I had my last scan, the radiologist said I would need a scan in 5 years because it was the only way to know for sure.

Wikipedia says: "Some studies have shown that thyroglobulin (Tg) testing combined with neck ultrasound is more productive in finding disease recurrence than full- or whole-body scans (WBS) using radioactive iodine. However, current protocol (in the USA) suggests a small number of clean annual WBS are required before relying on Tg testing plus neck ultrasound."

I like my doctor, but he is the one that told me I had less than a 5% chance of having cancer, so I don't really trust playing the odds. Also, I've been reading online and found several cancer survivors that had the scans 5 years later and their lungs or stomachs lit up on the scans.

*What about adjusting my medication? If I don't have the body scan, will he adjust my medication? If I do have the body scan, will he adjust my medication?

Sunglasses!

My girls love sunglasses! Can you see Sandy's layered skirts? She's wearing a purple skirt with a brown and pink skirt underneath. Her latest thing is layering clothes. She came out the other day wearing 3 pairs of leggings, two dresses, and a shirt over the top. I asked her why she was wearing so many clothes and she said it was so if something got dirty she could just take it off and have clean clothes on.

Funeral

Bill's grandma passed away. She was 88 and lived an amazing life. She taught primary for 49 years. She was a widow for 32 years. Talk about an example of enduring to the end!

Here she is with Bill at our wedding:

A four generation picture with Sandy:

Grandma with Sandy:

Grandma with Abby:

Sandy has been fascinated with death. We took her to the viewing and the funeral. We've tried to answer her questions. I just asked her about it so you can get a glimpse of her understanding of it:

Tell me about Grandma Krantz.

She died.

What happened?

The spirit jumped out of Grandma Krantz's body. The spirit hasn’t jumped out of my body yet. Cuz I’m still a kid.

What happened to her spirit?

That spirit jumped out of her body!

Where did it go?

To live with Heavenly Father and Jesus.

When Heavenly Father and Jesus comes back the spirit will come back too and jump back into the body.

Jesus is really strong. He will help her get the things off her legs (referring to the casket being half shut during the viewing so that Sandy was concerned Grandma wouldn’t be able to get out).

I think I better warn the nursery leaders before Sunday. Who knows what she'll tell them, it might help if they know her great-grandma died this week.

We got to see lots of cousins. Here is Sandy hugging her cousin, Christian, at the funeral lunch.

Labor Day Weekend

I spent the morning looking through photos of Bill's grandma for her funeral video. It made me want to take more pictures. So, we grabbed Grandpa Buhler and got some three generation pictures with the girls.



Sandy got a new helmet and passed her old helmet down to Abby:


They love to go for bike rides:
Here's a random picture of Abby eating a jelly belly. Apparently not a flavor she likes.

I need a roll of stickers that say: I dressed myself today!

Dinosaur Park

We went to the Dinosaur Park yesterday with Laurel & Elise. As we walked into the park, I was a bit shocked to see this:


Sandy insisted that her favorite dinosaur of the day was the "dead one with the blood on it."


I'm not sure if it is because I reacted to it when we first walked in or because she is fascinated by blood and death, etc...

This was Elise's favorite dinosaur:


The three girls:


Sandy & Elise at the Flintstones exhibit:

It was a fun day:

August

August went by so fast! And I don't even have any pictures from the month!

Abby had her 15-month check up and she is in the 99th percentile for height. I'm not sure what her weight percentile is but she was 23 pounds with clothes on and she's been tracking about 50th percentile. The appointment went well. She has four words, which is the milestone for this appointment: mommy, bye, and thank you.

Sandy finished swimming lessons! After 5 sessions (10 weeks total) in level 1, she's ready for level 2.
I made a cake for Janna's baby shower. Janna was my little sister from Big Brothers Big Sisters several years ago and we've stayed in touch. She's having a little boy in September. I'm excited for her!

We spent a week in South Dakota with my parents, which was so much fun! But I don't have any pictures...

I had several stories to tell about the girls, but I've forgotten most of them.

One night we got talking about milk and where it comes from. Confident that Sandy would know the answer (since the week before we had milked a cow at Thanksgiving Point), I asked Sandy where milk comes from. "Costco!" she said. I said, "Remember, where did we go last week?" Sandy, replied, "Walmart?"

At Sandy's 3-year checkup, our pediatrician emphasized that she needed to watch less than an hour of tv a day. We don't watch a lot of tv, and we have days when it doesn't come on at all, but once it is on, Sandy will keep watching as long as I let her. So, I told Sandy that was two Curious George episodes. After a few days of me reminding her, "The doctor said you can only watch 2 shows." one day she came back with, "I haven't watched my two shows. The doctor says I have to watch two shows!"