tumor update

I had an appointment today with the chief of neurosurgery, talk about a smart doctor. He was so good about explaining things to me, and even without Kevin being there I knew exactly what he was talking about. He explained to me that if they do surgery again, the chance of my pituitary becoming non-functional is pretty much a guarantee. I would then have to be on some type of hormone replacement therapy for the rest of my life. As I mentioned before because of where the tumor is located even having surgery would not remove all of the tumor. The doctor feels at this time that oral medication is going to be the best treatment. He wants me to try taking the medication for 3-6 months, after which I will have another MRI, and we will see at that point where we are at. The neurosurgeon has done over 1900 surgeries involving pituitary tumors. With my particular tumor he has only seen about 4 of these cases. As I have learned, you never want to be a rare case in the medical industry.

I am just hopeful that the medication will work, and that we can avoid another surgery. I am grateful for modern medicine and for doctor's who have such advanced training and knowledge.
Maybe I will be staying at the opryland hotel after all.

Superwoman I think NOT!

I am sitting here again at my computer when I should be doing so many other things like cleaning, making Alyssa's lunch for tomorrow, paying bills, and just the other mundane things that I am normally doing while my four girls are asleep. Instead, I am sitting here stressed to the max worrying about this stupid brain tumor. My treatment options are simply this, I can take an injectible drug once a month for the rest of my life along with some other oral drugs in hopes of my tumor shrinking. Problem being the injections alone are $10.000.00 a year. I don't know about you but I don't have that kind of money to just be throwing around on medication that doctor's aren't even sure are going to work. They speculate that there would only be about a 15% chance of the medication even doing anything for this tumor that I have. Second choice is to go right to surgery and hope that the second time goes better than the first. Because of the where the tumor is located surgery at this point is not even a guarantee. Part of the tumor is on the cavernous sinus which basically just means that because the tumor is so close to the the internal carotid artery it makes operating that much more difficult. All these terms just make my head spin. Talking to a neurosurgeon is like talking to someone speaking chinese.( I don't understand either.) I usually have Kevin at my appointments and he speaks with the doctor's in layman's terms and then translates to me in the english language.

My appointment is tomorrow and I have decided to just go ahead and go through with the surgery. I feel like at this point surgery would have a higher sucess rate than just medication therapy alone.

The surgery is slick they can either go through your sinus cavity which is the way that I had it done last time or they can go through your upper lip which I am not too sure about. The best part about the surgery is you loose your taste buds for about 2 weeks, you get to throw up several quarts of blood, you get to have great nurses who give you heavy doses of pain pills to swallow immediately coming out of surgery, you can't complain about the hearty meal consisting of meat loaf, potatoes, rolls, and a chocolate piece of cake that's brought to your room after only being there for less than an hour after coming out of surgery, the stay in the ICU is quite relaxing with all of the monitors, and nurses coming in to bother you every few hours. What's not to love? I was thinking that staying at the Opryland hotel sounded nice but you know for the price I think Vanderbilt sounds like a better resort. Maybe they even have in-room massage services available. Wait... what am I thinking. Why would I need a massage? Being in a hospital bed is just like getting a swedish massage but better. Your body feels so good just lying in a bed that was designed for a midget, and the 10 threadcount sheets I bet you didn't even know they had such a thing did you? Neither did I. Oh, last but not least I even have a $5.00 gift card to the hospital cafeteria. Life doesn't get any sweeter than this. Not even the diarrhea that I have had my hands in for the last several days can compare to the gift card, (you gotta love sick babies and 2 at a time is even better) YES! Vanderbilt here I come......

Since I am superwoman I can handle this and everything else that comes my way. Bring it on Clark Kent! I dare you.

Do your babies ever cry?

You wouldn't believe it if I told you but YES these babies do cry. For some reason I am asked that question quite often. So for proof here is a video you can see for yourself.

My Mom, nephew Jackson, and sister April came to visit. It was good times to be had by all. The week that they spent with us came and went way too fast. Our week was crammed with lots of fun, and lots of food. We went to see a show at the Grand 'Ol Opry. (thanks to my brother Justin for getting us tickets) the show was awesome, and I had really wanted to go to a show for quite some time. It was a fun experience being in the Ryman auditorium. Restless heart performed and just hearing them alone made the whole show worth it. We ate at my Mom's favorite restaurant Captain D's, we also ate at one of our favorite places Dos Margarita's, and we were introuduced to my new favorite place called the Pancake Pantry. For those of you living in Tennessee, the Pancake Pantry is a must. I have never tasted better pancakes in my life than the ones I ate here. Yummy food, and great service! We seriously were just wined and dined for the entire week. It's kind of sad to think that we don't have anymore scheduled visitors. Who wants to be next to come and visit us? You all are welcome.

My sister April had never seen the babies in person and boy was she exstatic to see them. She loved dressing the babies, giving them baths, and torturing them with her many headbands that she brought along for them.

My nephew Jackson was so excited to come back to Tennessee. He is from here, and his Grandparents Charlie and Wanda still live here. He stayed with them, and had a wonderful time. Charlie and Wanda have become like parents to us, and have adopted our kids as their grandkids. It's great having them close by.

My Mom of course had a great time as well seeing the kids again. I think that she is counting down the days until we will be back in Utah for good.

I love you guys, thanks for coming to see us. Hopefully if things work out, we will be coming out to Utah soon. WE LOVE YOU!

The week that My Mom and sister were here came and went way too fast.

Tornados

The sky during the "tornado watch"

people tell me that you can just tell by the sky when a tornado is on the way.

Also you can tell by the air.

The branch that fell onto our driveway

Kelsie assessing the damages.

(Notice Kevin in the middle of the street retreaving one of our garbage cans.)

The other one is down quite a bit further.

One of the main reasons I didn't want to move to Tennessee was because of the tornados. Kevin assured me that they were pretty rare, and there wouldn't be much to worry about. After a couple of days of living in this house, one of my neighbors came over and told me to take a look at one of the trees in our backyard. He then went on to tell me about the tornado that had come only a few years prior. It completely destroyed the house across the street from us, took off several roofs of homes in our neighborhood but for some reason our house was untouched. The only damage the tornado did was put a hole in one of the trees in our backyard. Sounds like nothing much to worry about right? The other day we had what's called a tornado watch. The winds were blowing pretty strong, and the air outside was so warm. One of my friends who lives about 45 minutes away called to tell me that her house was shaking. Both of us being from Utah were trying to sound calm and confident that we knew just what to do in case of a tornado. It was obvious that neither of us had a clue. I had been out shopping just minutes prior if that tells you anything. My experienced Tennessee neighbor called me and told me that I needed to stay inside. She had seen me leave, and wanted to make sure that I had made it home safely. Anyway, it was quite the experience. I didn't feel the house shake or anything, it was just more windy than anything. One of the branches from our tree in the front yard fell across our driveway, and our garbage cans were blown quite a distance down the hill. Other than that it wasn't too bad. I still get nervous just thinking about what could happen though.

Never say NEVER!

In the almost 10 years that Kevin and I have been married it seems as though the word NEVER has come up quite often. Things such as I will never have short hair, I will never live in Salt Lake city, I will never live with either of our parents, we will never get out of student housing, we will never get done paying off student loans, I will never have more then 3 children, and my favorite never of all.... I WILL NEVER DRIVE A VAN OF ANY FORM, SHAPE, OR SIZE! Well, let's just say I caved, and we are the proud owners and drivers of a minivan. That perfect Hyndai Santa Fe that we purchased 3 years ago to hold our 3 kids wasn't quite doing the job of holding 4 kids.I imagined buying a van and having all sorts of room for extra passengers, extra storage space etc.. It's a sad day when your family barely fits even in a van. It's definately a lot better having something to drive that our family acutally fits in. We have been driving two cars around, and it was getting old really quick. Some days I was having to put Alyssa in the front seat of the Hyndai. It didn't help matters any when she would always read the visor and then would say, "you know Mom, I can die riding in the front seat if the airbags go off." Yeah, that probably wasn't the best idea. The van kind of fell into our laps, and seemed like too good of a deal to pass up. I wanted something to drive that I woudn't have to be paying on for the rest of my life. We were able to pay cash for the van which was so great for us. I am a big fan of only buying things that you can afford. Well, here it is... THE VAN that I will probably NEVER get rid of.

I realize that I haven't posted very many pictures lately, and so I made a slide show to catch up for the past few months. Last month Kevin's sister Tracy came to visit us. It was so fun to have her here.

Last week Kevin's family flew out for Audrey and Leah's baby blessing. It was also great having them here. We had Kevin's Grandma and Grandpa Preece, His uncle Mark and Aunt Yvonne, and then his Aunt Ellie and Uncle Lon. The babies were beyond spoiled and of course enjoyed being held every minute. (However, they didn't enjoy when they left and we had to put them down once in a while.) Kelsie thoroughly enjoyed getting teased by Uncle Mark. When she woke up the next day she immediately asked where he was. She wasn't too happy with me when I told her he had to go home. Alyssa got the flu while Kevin's family was here so she could have cared less about what was going on around her. However, she did enjoy doing beads with the bead girl (a.k.a. Aunt Ellie) Apparently Kelsie didn't know that Ellie was her aunt so she referred to her as the bead girl. Yvonne, the babies miss you more than words can say. Grandma and Grandpa thank you again for being there to support us. Y'all come back now you here! We miss you guys!

It's been so nice having constant visitors. I feel like we see our family more now then we did while we were leaving in Utah. My Mom and sister are coming next week. I can't wait to see them again.

Life is good especially now that that the babies are sleeping through the night. They go to bed at 7:00 p.m. and sleep until around 6:30-7:00 a.m. We will keep our fingers crossed that this continues. Sleep is great!

Love to you all!

Kelsie's graduation from nursery

It's official, Kelsie is now a big sunbeam, and she absolutely loves church. I think that she expected her sunbeam class to be a lot like her nursery class. She wanted to play, sing songs, and have snacks. Instead she came home after her first week and said that her new class took forever and all night. I think that she will get used to it and will love it as much as nursery.

I had the twins with me at the graduation and one of the member's of the bishopric said to me. "it won't be long before your babies are graduating from nursery." Yikes, that's something that I hadn't really thought about but he's right. The rate that the babies are growing, nursery graduation will be here before you know it.