UP

No, this is not a movie review. I have, however, heard that Pixar's new movie "Up" is fantastic, just haven't had the time to see it.

Things here are looking UP a little. Daddy-O has a real good lead on a second, part-time job. The girls finally got accepted to the insurance plan (after taking a pay cut) that we had hoped they could get on. Kate's health isn't necessarily better, but isn't much worse. I feel like I'm "handling" my stress load a little better this week.

Last weekend we skipped church and went to brunch and the movies. We saw Night at the Museum 2, which Leah loved and Daddy-O fell asleep in, while Kate and I roamed the halls. She has an issue sitting still....and being quiet....

Other than that it's been business as usual. Work, work and more work. Last week Leah finished up this session of gymnastics and starts back next week in a new, more intense class. Mom and I have taken advantage of the late school dismissal and have been selling our rag letter shirts to all the area schools. We have a lot of schools wanting them for their official school shirts next year so we will be BUSY in August and September. We've been keeping Isaiah a lot too, since Micah has been travelling. It is so fun to watch the "cousin bond" form. He's a fun kiddo to have around.

In the health department, Kate started antibiotics again on 5/11 for sinus, ear, pink eye (for the umpteenth time) and we had Leah go in and get check out too. She had been having a bit of junk and my thought was if we could get them both on antibiotics at the SAME time, maybe they wouldn't keep passing this stuff back and forth. We saw an on-call doctor who said Leah looked fine and her ears had lots of wax. She said the part of the ear drum she COULD see looked like it had fluid, but was fine. Here is where our wonderful doctor would have ALWAYS cleaned out said wax to be sure (plus the wax needs to come out). So we went on our way, $75 lighter. By Thursday we were having to yell at Leah for her to hear us. We tried Q-tips and ear wax removal drops, but nothing would work. Friday morning we got an appointment with our doc and headed back in. She didn't see any wax and said she couldn't hear because there was a ton of puss in her eardrums. Poor baby. I felt so bad. If the doctor had gotten a good look, Leah wouldn't have felt so bad all week (and we would have saved some mullah). So she started a round of antibiotics. The doctor also put her on the eye drops, just to be safe.

Kate and Leah both got off their medicines around the 22nd. Kate did real well on this antibiotic, Bactrim. She didn't have any diarrhea, only had fever once, had one "viral rash", but that was it. It seemed to really work on this bug. We had the healthiest 5 days in the past several months. By the 26th she had a horrible rattle in her chest and more green eye and nasal drainage. We got back into the doctor on the 28th (who saw us for no charge...I thank God for this lady!!!) and started the same antibiotic up again, this time with breathing treatments in place of the eye drops. She had viral bronchitis with wheezing, sinus and eye infections. She is still on the antibiotics and an occasional breathing/inhaler treatment. She is doing significantly better being that all her drainage is now clear. She does still have a cough, runny nose and some wheezing. She is also cutting 3 more molars and was up almost all night last night. AND here I thought being an adult was tough!

I know that Bactrim is an antibiotic you can be on long term to prevent infections. I'm wondering if they are planning to keep her on it long term or if that is an option since it seems to be working. Who knows!

Anyway, thanks for all the prayers on our behalf. They have, most definitely, been felt.