Happy Friday!!

Happy Day After Valentine's Day!!

M had a great time at his party at school yesterday and there were no food allergy incidents - yahoo!!

The only disappointment was how many of his Valentine's included candy that was not safe...M was most disappointed when he realized that the card from his best friend included a lollipop that he could not eat. He received M&Ms as well and told me I could have the blue ones. :) We made a deal that we'd swap all the candy from his stash to safe candy - that seemed to help ease the pain a bit!! Food Allergies Suck :(

BUT on a much happier note we had a blast making safe chocolate fondue last night! It was quite yummy!

One Happy Boy!

I very happy to say that things are going very well for M at his new school!!

The picture below was posted on face.book by his new school and I realized that he is looking directly at the camera. At his previous school, we received a handful of pictures in his time there but realized he never looked directly at the camera/ipad when the picture was taken.

The change in M has been wonderful...he goes to sleep happy, he wakes up happy, is smiling and giggling on his way to school and we have not had a case of the "Sundays" since we told him he was changing schools. I am beyond thankful that we made this change!!

Changes

Where to begin...we pulled M out of his school where he was attending private kindergarten. We had been on the fence about this decision for a couple of weeks and made the decision last Thursday.
I'll see if I can make a long story a bit shorter for those who still keep up with us. :)

What caused us to finally make the decision was a safety issue last week at M's Halloween field trip. The kids went to a memory care unit for trick-or-treating. This was M's second field trip, because it was going to involve candy/allergens J and I decided we'd both attend. I am SO glad we did!! When the kids got off the bus I looked M's teacher and realized she didn't have anything with her to indicate she was carrying M's Auvi-Q (epinephrine), so I casually asked her if she had it. She replied "No, it's on the bus." I asked her if she could please get it, so it would be on her body just in case anything happened. She looked outside and said "Oh, that's the bus that just went back to school." SAY WHAT?!!? Thankfully, because J and I were there, J had the other set with him, so at no point with M without his medication. The reaction I received when she realized the medicine was on the bus was complete apathy...no concern, panic, remorse...none of that. It was pretty much at that moment we decided M was done with that school.

We had other incidents that led us to our decision surrounding M's happiness. In the past 6 or so weeks, his mood/behavior at home has changed. He has begged us not to take him to school and told us that he's going to sleep all the school days and only wake for weekends. One of the days I was taking M to school he screamed at me to not turn left onto the road that would bring us to school. When we got to the street for his school he again yelled at me...he saw a yellow traffic sign and said "See Mommy, you can't go - the sign says 'Turn around - don't drown!" (A common saying in our area during the rain - it had been raining for a week at this point.) It was heart-breaking.

J and I also had our own issues with the teacher. Her communication skills were lacking to say the least. She never told us in person how M was doing in school. At the beginning of the year we did receive a message telling us that M was doing great in class and she could not wait to see how he was going to grow during the year. If we tried to start a conversation, we received one word answers. It was just bizarre.

We did speak to the Director of the school, hoping she could shed some light on the situation for us. Unfortunately, she was as clueless as we were. She spoke with the teacher, but nothing changed. We met with the Director and the owner today to explain why we were leaving. I am glad we did but I am exhausted now...I feel like we've just gone through a break-up. Thankfully, I do feel like we got closure. For whatever reason, our family and the teacher did not click.

M is day #3 at his new school and is happier than he's been in a long time!

5 years later

The Red Sox won the World Series last night!! We are die-hard New England sports fans and have not given up any of our teams since moving to TX. We suffered some serious sleep deprivation this weekend with the games, but in the end it was worth it!!

When M went to bed last night we told him we'd wake him up if the Red Sox won...well, we got him out of bed but he did not wake up. I just could not see forcing him to wake up on a school night...so instead we just took his picture. :)
(He spent the majority of the post-season rooting against the Sox!!)

It was a lot of fun recreating the picture we took of M 5 years ago when the Sox last won the World Series and M was just under a month old!!

 

 

 

Update with Pictures

Instead of a bullet update, I'll give you a photo update. :)

Our boy turned 5!!! This was his cake at home...not one of our best, but still yummy! Most important...he loved making it and eating it!!

Grammie came to visit for M's birthday party weekend! In M's words "Of course she's coming to visit, she doesn't want to miss all the fun!"

 

 

 


Puzzle time - M and Grammie love doing puzzles together!

 

 

M loves watching American Ninja Warrior...this was him climbing to the top of Mount Midoriyama :) He had so much fun at the playground running through pretending he was on his own obstacle course!

 

 

Me, post-MOHS surgery on Monday. A bag of blueberries was a great ice pack! All in all, it wasn't bad at all...I was very lucky and was cancer-free after just one layer of skin was removed!

 

SO much rain in TX lately...we are very lucky, because we have not suffered the flooding like other areas have.

This is from this morning...first pic post bandage. It's a lot of stitches...the surgeon said that this way it will lay flatter in the long run when the area heals. I am just happy he used clear stitches!!

 

Follow-Up on Me

Last Wednesday I had my stitches out and finally received the results from the pathology report...not the news I wanted but I wasn't all that surprised either.

The mole removed from my forehead is basal cell carcinoma...next step is MOHS surgery. I need to wait for the official path report to be sent to my PCP and then she will refer me to a MOHS surgeon. I am hoping the report is received today. I want this off of me.

The other two moles came back as inconclusive...the pathologist thought they were bug bites. My PCP told her she highly doubted that but they are not sure what they are. My PCP is hoping the surgeon might be able to tell what they are from the path report or looking at the area.

I was looking at the list for people at high risk for skin cancer and I can tick off almost everyone item on the list:

A lighter natural skin color. - YES

Family history of skin cancer. - YES

A personal history of skin cancer. - NO

Exposure to the sun through work and play. - YES, I live in TX!

A history of sunburns, especially early in life. - YES, almost every summer growing up!

A history of indoor tanning. - Thankfully, only did this once!

Skin that burns, freckles, reddens easily, or becomes painful in the sun. - YES

Blue or green eyes. - YES

Blond or red hair. - Red hair isn't natural but light brown is close enough. ;)

Certain types and a large number of moles. - ??

Fingers crossed I am able to have the surgery within the next couple of weeks and start healing.

Hello from Soggy Texas!

It has been rainy in our corner of Texas since Sept. 3rd...we have seen so much rain! M wakes up most mornings telling us he's tired of the rain and wants it to stop. Thankfully, it looks like we are going to get a bit of a break this week! I just looked and for the next 3 days we have 0% chance of rain. WOO-HOO!!

I realize that most of my updates have been about M and not much about me. At the beginning of July I finally found a new primary care doctor for myself. I got myself back on my Syn.throid and back on the pre-diabetes meds. I was surprised how much better I really did feel after getting back into my meds routine. She highly recommended that I not go off them at the same time again and think that everything will be okay!

While I was having my initial appointment/physical the P.A. noticed a new mole on my forehead and asked about it. Then she noticed a couple on my chest - they were also fairly new. Which brings us to me needing to have them biopsied. I had them removed almost 2 weeks ago and I am still waiting for the results. I go on Wednesday to have the stitches removed and will receive the results then. To say I am anxious is an understatement. The cards are stacked against me in terms of skin cancer...I'm of Celtic decent, I've had sooo many sunburns throughout the years, I have fair skin and blue eyes. My fingers are crossed for positive results but I am also ready to face this head on if it's not positive.

On a positive note, on Friday afternoon J and I both picked M up from school. He was a bit crabby when we got home and decided he wanted to have a lemonade stand. I had to explain that we can do that once it's not raining...he didn't really take no for an answer so we had an indoor lemonade stand that was ready for when J got home. :)

Unfortunately, this is what our skies have looked like lately...silver lining is we have gained A LOT of water in the aquifer and are almost out of the drought!!

Hopefully later this week I can show you some sunny skies!!