I am sorry we haven’t had much on the blog recently. I actually had a lot to say, but since the only device that I have right now that is really 100% mine is my iPhone, typing a lot just hasn’t been in the cards. A few months ago I let Nathaniel use my iPad and shortly after that he claimed it. Which is fine, I want a laptop anyway, but till I get one, I am sort of short on being able to type. Everything else works GREAT though!
Anyway, what we have been up to. Max is loving being able to see. He wears his glasses all the time and we are seeing minor improvements (though at this point I will take what I can get) in his school work. 8 years of age I guess is the year that they just don’t want to do anything. So we are just plugging away at it. Right now I have Max mostly doing some review. I have been burned a few times when I didn’t allow him to have this time, so I waiting till he masters a few key points on a few subjects before we move on. So school is rather quick lately! We are liking the curriculum we have got him. Song school latin 2 is WAY more intense then Song School Latin 1, so I am reviewing EVERYTHING taught in 1 before we move on to 2. However everything else is about how I expected. Oh except I realized that we are almost through his Writing and Rhetoric book. Not sure how that happened but it is possible we will drop that subject for a bit when we are done. We can pick it up again after the first of the year. We have also dropped Vocabulary (subject) and I am reinforcing vocabulary in each of his subjects even if it isn’t tested on in the subject.
Nathaniel has had about 2 weeks off from school. I was ill, then we were all ill (more about this in a minute) so he is a bit behind. He is chomping at the bit though to start the new month, at the barn or on the barn… it has to do with a barn. He likes the songs in it “Don’t Drop the Chicken Egg!” and “There Is A Cow In My House”. With titles like that, what is not to like?
On Saturday we decided to go to Ikea. We still have Nathaniel in our room and it is getting to be time where he should sleep on his own. I have an idea of what to in their room, but it would involve building, so we wanted to see if there is something better out there. Sadly, there isn’t really. However when we were at Ikea the fire alarm went off. If you have never been into an Ikea you may not get the concept. My father went into one just to use the restroom, an hour later he emerged. Ikea makes you walk in a certain way that makes you cover the WHOLE store. It is a maze of aisles that even with a map can be confusing.
So we are in Ikea and the alarm goes off. The music is still playing so I am thinking that they are going to come on the loud speaker in a minute and say it was burnt toast in the cafeteria, and that will be it. A couple of minutes go by, I am noticing the window near us, but no exit signs anywhere! Oh and the window is on the second floor. We start walking out (maze style) and finally find someone who says we need to evacuate. We don’t smell smoke but the annoying beeping is continuing along with the music. We see some people just shopping as normal, we see others that have about $1000 of merchandise in their baskets. We see others going further into the store! We get to the warehouse (almost out when you get there) and the sound is near deafening. I make the boys cover their ears. Finally we are at the check out area and they are checking people out. We had 2 items so Tony waits in line and I go with the boys to an area that we could make a quick exit on the other side of the cashers. The line closes behind Tony and the line closes next to him. He finds this very odd. Finally he is done and he wants out of there. Our car is under the store though. I notice an elevator so I push the button. It works. So we use that to get down to the car. Down in the basement (for lack of a better term) we see that they are draining the sprinkler system lines. Several firemen are standing around watching it drain. We hop in the car, and can barely get out because they are blocking people from going in.
Later we talk to a fireman we know and they think that someone may have damaged a sprinkler head and it started leaking. You can’t just fix that, you have to drain the system, fix the leak, then fill the system again. In that whole process the place is inhabitable, to employees or customers. However we are still upset that we never could find an exit. Tony has said he wants to write a letter. Hopefully he will.
Changing gears
Today Max had a well check. He is normal. No immunizations. Nathaniel needed immunizations that the will be getting in tomorrow so I have his well check for Thursday. Tomorrow I go in for my deal.
I can’t remember if I talked about this, but back in June when I had my remission check with my oncologist, I found out that I have no immunoglobins. This is a side effect of the chemo and at this point it is permanent. Basically this means that my immune system has no memory. I can heal, I can get well, but if I see something again, I will get sick. Strangely this has nothing to do with immunizations. I am fine there. The body is a strange and marvelous thing.
My doctor told me at the time that if I felt like I was getting sick “a lot” whatever that means, that I could get infusions of immunoglobin G. She said that this may or may not help as I am also deficient in immunoglobin M and A. I sort of thought, I think it would take a lot for me to go back into the chemo rooms to get anything! She said I would only be on it from November to April once a month. She recommended Vitamin C and zinc if I wanted to try something at home. I went home and got some C and something that said it was for “boosting my immunity”. Then in early September I got sick… it was still hot out! How could I get sick? Yet I did. The next week Max got us all sick that I am still just on the tail end of, Nathaniel and Max are normal now. I thought I should see an immunologist, to try out every last thing before I go back to the dreaded chemo rooms. Immunologists and Allergist are 2 heads of the same coin. I went to the Allergist on Max’s birthday so I asked her for an immunologist. She didn’t know where to send me, but got back to me with a name.
I didn’t have a great feeling about the referral. He got a 1.5 on healthgrades.com. At this same time I looked up this infusion therapy and realized it would be like Chemo, only without the hair loss or taste loss. I would be sick for a week after the infusion! Yeah that isn’t going to happen! I would rather be sick with a cold then that! I mean, I would do it if that were my last option, but I feel with the vast world of herbs and vitamins and everything I should be good. After all I was well for my WHOLE pregnancy with Nathaniel. Certainly I could do that again… without being pregnant.
So I thought for a moment and remembered that the PCP that the boys and I go to, also deals with alternative health. I never want the boys to be pushed into antibiotics or anything so that is why I picked him years ago. So I will see him tomorrow to talk about what I can take (other then zinc and Vitamin C) to help me be healthy. I did find something online, that will be easy for him to look at and not try and reinvent the wheel. I mean, I can’t imagine he deals with many like me. This is what I found. It is a list of 10 things I could take and dosing. So that is good. Yesterday I looked up each thing and I guess cows colostrum is actually high in immunoglobins. So that would be VERY helpful for me I would guess. However as always I want to run it by my doctor first. After he’s okay with it, I will also run it by my oncologist to make sure that people haven’t been dying that have a history of lymphoma if they take too much of something. I got really freaked out by that “not being able to get the shingles vaccine due to death” thing that I happened upon with her right before I got pregnant with Nathaniel.
Well I have photos to share but I think I will do that from my phone. Strangely it is easier to upload there, then it on the computer. But I can’t type all of this on my phone. One day it will work well!