San Diego

A few weeks ago we went to Sunny California. We pretty much did nothing but sit on the beach and hang out. We met up with friends and Aunt Sherry. We caught sand crabs and boogie boarded. It was heaven!! While we were there we decided that we need to buy a beach house in Coronado. Any one want to go in with us on it? We will put up the first $100,000 and you all can do the rest ok?

Happy 4th of July

Let the Rivalry Begin

Jayden cheers for Skyline and Coleman plays for Olympus. Looks like we will be rooting for both teams in this house!!

The Birthday Boy

I adore this kid. He is truly the world's best boy. This year Coleman turned 11. We tried to celebrate by going to Seven Peaks but the weather didn't hold up for us. Just about the time we got there the sky opened up and started to dump rain! Fortunately for us, Transformers came out on this same day so we opted to go see that in the dry movie theater instead. Coleman will be having a party with friends next week but we celebrated with Red Robin, Chik fil a, and the movie.
Some things I never want to forget about my 11 year old Coleman:
1. He is the kindest boy around. Truly, he is always thinking of others (with the exception of his little sisters)
2. He has a bit of a temper on him...he likes to slam doors and has been known to throw out the "I hate you" bit before. But this is only when he doesn't feel like he is being listened or understood. We are trying to get Coleman to understand the difference between understanding what he says and agreeing with it. Hard concept sometimes.
3. He LOVES to read books. I am pretty sure that he has read every book in his school library that interests him. He would like to write books someday!
4. He wants to go to MIT and become a reverse engineer. In his spare time he will write books and invent stuff.
5. He has an amazing testimony and absorbs information like a sponge. So many of his teachers at church tell me he asks questions they don't even know the answers too. Many times during scripture study at home he understands what we are reading far better than I do!!
6. He is a great cook and makes many a meal around here. From ramen to eggs to grilled ham and cheese to hamburgers on the grill he loves to cook and share it with those around him.
I love this kid and I'm glad if I only have one boy it's him!! Love you Coleman!

The tonsils

Chloe got her tonsils and adenoids out today as well as some work on her sinuses. She was a trooper and is recovering nicely! Thank you for all the nice gifts and calls!
Before:





After:





Let's hope that she can get better before our trip this next weekend!!

Quick Update

So much to blog...so little time! I am so terrible at keeping things updated. So much for the "journal" experience. A quick medical update since New York...
We had the 22 vials of blood taken and so far, nothing of significance has panned out. We saw our pediatrician who agrees with the auto immune theory. He has been in practice for about 35 years and has seen cases before of people who have symptoms years before any test results come back positive. We have switched our focus from finding answers to managing symptoms. We took her off the gabapentin and amitriptyline and put her back on the trileptal. This has helped with her memory loss and tingling. I think a lot of the newer neurological symptoms we were seeing were more medicine induced than related to her illness. She still gets the sharp shooting pain and then the swollen spots (like on her hand, both feet, the back of her leg, and her forearm) and we haven't been able to find anything to help with that. Both doctors think that it is rheumatically related but there is no test that has confirmed that. We finally found the domperidone in Canada so that it is significantly cheaper. ($38/month vs. $35/week) We switched her nausea meds to the patch so hopefully that will help. She has gained back 11 pounds since we last saw the GI doc which is good! Dr. Sorenson did another bubble test and found that her device is in place with no leaks so we are cleared for 9 more months!! I still need to call about getting the spinal MRI done...I have just been busy and haven't had a chance! We started doing biofeedback therapy and I am interested to see how it goes. The theory behind bio feedback is to retrain your brain. The therapist was telling us about some of her other patients and it was pretty interesting. She has a girl who has excruciating pain in her 3rd toe. This therapist has taught her to block the pain sensor to that toe so that she can't feel it most of the time. Interesting stuff!!!
Jayden has been going to dance and cheer and has done pretty well. She takes it a bit easy and is still really tired when she comes home but we are at least functioning!!! School is out...YAY! Every doctor says that summer is the best time to heal without the stress of everyday life. We are hoping that is true. Between cheer practice, dance performances, Disneyland, Cheer camp, Youth Conference, Girls camp, and family vacations, I hope that we have a chance to catch our breath! Yay for summer!!

New York

New York was a blast! We did lots of shopping and sight seeing and mixed in a few doctor appointments as well. The short story is that we ruled out MS (which is great news) and were sent home with more tests to do in Salt Lake. Our insurance company will pay 100% in Salt Lake and only 70% in New York. The doctors in New York think it is some kind of auto immune problem but narrowing it down will only be done by trial and error. Yesterday we got the blood work done, all 22 vials of blood!! Hopefully we will be able to get the answers we need soon. Jayden was part of a research study while in New York and they would like her to come back to be part of some additional studies in the future. Looks like we will be going back in a few months.