Come What May And Love It

These two little people have just about killed me lately. I thought they were hard when they were toddlers, but the last 3 months have been, or at least seemed, so much harder than those years.

The school year started off great. I hated sending them back to school like I always do. I spent a few weeks just folding laundry and watching movies until I could adjust to being home alone all day. Then I got used to it and started loving my freedom and found projects to work on. And suddenly, one day in October I got a call from Joseph. He had a terrible stomach ache. I checked him out of school and we ended up at the hospital getting him tested for appendicitis. Turns out he just had a 12 hour bug. He got over it and was back to school the next day. 

All was well for a week. Then the next Wednesday, I got a call from the gym teacher at school. "You'd better get down here quick. I think Joseph might have broken his foot." So I rushed down to the school to find Joseph on the floor of the gym, surrounded by concerned classmates trying to help. He had done something awful to his foot and couldn't even stand on it. His friends made a stretcher  out of gym mats and rolled him down the halls of the school out the door to the car.

Another trip to the doctor for ex rays. Luckily he didn't break his foot but tore several tendons, which they informed me can be more painful than a break. He sat on the couch for days, but could eventually walk\limp on it. He eventually just learned to deal with the pain and after a few weeks it didn't bug him too much anymore. Sadly, this happened 2 weeks before Halloween and he couldn't walk around very long to trick or treat because of the pain. He was seriously bummed. And to make matters worse, the week before Halloween he suddenly got the worst case of hives he's ever had. Like every where on his body. He has had them many times before, but never this long and never covering his entire body. Back to the doctor we went.

They couldn't do much for him, which I should have known. Unless he was struggling to breath, we had to dope him up with Benedryl and Zyrtec to help with the itching and awkwardness of the hives. For one week I would get up at night to check on him, make sure he was breathing okay and give him more medicine. And then, as quickly as they came, they just disappeared. Just like that.

Halloween came and I felt like finally our lives were going back to normal.

We had one week of health and happiness. No worries, no serious trials. Oh, except Neal was turning 40. He was super freaked out about that but we decided to have an 80's bash to help him forget. It was totally a blast and the kids loved it. Lots of good food and great friends came to support Neal in his old age.

I seriously thought life could not get any better. I was starting to plan for Christmas, was enjoying my free time, volunteering at school and started getting into genealogy.

And then suddenly our world turned upside down. On Saturday, November 9th we took the kids out to dinner to celebrate their good grades. We went to PizzaPieCafe and let them eat until they were sick. When we got home we all got in our pj's and crawled into our bed to watch TV. Without warning, Olivia suddenly got an excruciating headache. Like so bad she couldn't handle noise, light, or being touched. She was so miserable and I couldn't do anything to help her. Over the course of that weekend we tried baths, medicine, oils, massage and anything else I could think of to help her. She just constantly had a headache and nothing helped. We went to the doctor, and he said he was very concerned and saw a lot of red flags as she was describing the pain. Yeah, that didn't help her already freaked out mother. I had been sleeping in her room with her or really instead of sleeping I would spend hours trying to comfort and help her.  We went to another doctor and he said she probably has a sinus infection and gave us meds to try. They did not help at all.

My sweet girl went from being a very happy, energetic, playful girl to a very sick little girl. I would often hear her in her room praying, asking Heavenly Father what had happened to her and why all of her joy was taken away. She told me many times that first month that she wasn't the same girl anymore. She said she had been erased like a picture on a chalk board and a new girl had taken her place. She said the new girl was sad, sick and upset all the time. It broke my heart.

We were in and out of the doctor several times each week for the first little while. We went to the chiropractor,  eye doctor,  family doctor and our pediatrician's office several times. I can't even tell you how many doctors we saw during that time. We finally got to see our regular pediatrician (who saved Olivia's life when she was born, but that's another story) When he started checking her I started bawling. There was just something different about what he was doing that helped me feel better. He was very thorough. He determined from what he was seeing that she was healthy, but wanted to do am MRI to see if we could see any serious problems. We took her to Primary Children's a week later for her test. We were so scared, but hopeful.

Livy was so brave and didn't have any problems. The hospital staff was wonderful and so helpful. We were told it might take a few days to get results, but as Olivia was coming out of sedation a sweet little man appeared at my side and told me he was a pediatric neurologist. He just happened to be there and looked at her MRI. He said "Her brain is perfect. She doesn't have any tumors or any other issues that we are concerned about. She is going to be just fine." He was a tender mercy and an answer to prayer for me. Although it wasn't exactly a direct answer as to why she is having headaches, he gave me the answer we most feared. She didn't have a brain tumor.

We left the hospital feeling relieved and again hopeful that we could get some resolution. Since the MRI, we have been working with our pediatrician a lot. He started Liv on a medication to help with what he has diagnosed as chronic migraines. It took about 4 weeks for us to actually see results from the medication, but it has finally started to help. It has it's own terrible side affects though. It makes her hungry all of the time and because it is an antihistamine, it makes her so sleepy. She is constantly asking for food and feels sick when she doesn't eat.

The headaches are getting better, but she still has them frequently. The weekends, especially Sunday, are the worst. I haven't been to a full 3 hours of church in months. Livy has missed a lot of school too. School is so hard for her because of the noise. How do you tell a 7 year old to just deal with it? I have had to many times,  as instructed by our pediatrician and it is hard. She has to go on with life and not let her headaches change things for her. Something like this can be so debilitating. She just doesn't understand why she has to deal with this and why she is having this trial. I don't know either and I wish I had an answer for her. We have talked a lot about her strength, her compassion, her love for others and how she loves to sing. She has been singing a lot about this trial. I love the days she feels well and feel so grateful for those moments.

While this is far from over and now several others trials have been added on top of it, I am determined to rise to the top and learn from it. I will Come What May And Love It!  (find this talk @ lds.org)

I still wish I knew what to do. I wish Heavenly Father would just tell me plainly "if you do this, Olivia will be healed." Wouldn't that be so nice? But I know that won't happen. However,  I do know that if I keep calling on him he will help. He will give Olivia the strength she needs to deal with this. He will strengthen our family and as we are faithful and give ourselves to Him, we will be blessed.