Chad's Mom (Grandma) came to town this weekend, to meet her sister on their way to Yellowstone Park. It is an annual trip that Mom has taken for years now. Chad and I have gone with her twice, last year with the Boys. We have enjoyed those vacations VERY much. Jimmy, Chris, and Tyler (their cousin) were all sad that they didn't get to go. The boys still talk about our vacation a year latter. Unfortunately I wasn't Blogging then and so I don't have a post that I can refer you back to with all the AWESOME pictures that we have. I think we took abut 400 pictures, not that we could put them all on the blog anyways...lol but there are some pretty great ones. So anyways the boys and I went to Mom's hotel and swam with her last night and ate pizza together in the room afterwards. Then bright and early this morning before church we all went to breakfast. Mom and Aunt Jo took off on there vacation from breakfast. They will have a great time for sure.

ok so... Steve let me know that he isn't in the Blog very much...(like I am???)... so I found this one...This might explain why....LOL...

not really... I just mainly take pictures of the boys...isn't that what I'm suppose to do???...LOL ops :)

The others are just ones of the boys over this week just hanging out and being silly. The last ones are Jimmy showing off his new shoes.

That is Jimmy's "blankie" that Nana made...one of the last quilts that she made was his.... It is sentimental to many of us :)

Chad's brother had planned on coming by to see us and spend some time here when he took his in-laws to a family reunion. It just happened to be the last day 1/2 that Chad was in the hospital. When Chad got out we were all able to spend some time together. It was real nice. On Monday (Jimmy's first day of school) Chris took us to breakfast. Little Chris had already eaten but cousin Ty was eating pancakes so he decided he needed a second breakfast. He is going through a BIG growing spurt. He eats 5-6 times a day right now, it's nice because it's normally a bit of a strugle at mealtime with Chris. :)

Thank you Chris it was a great and FUN breakfast :)

p.s. I'm finally cought up with my posts :) :) :)

Chris was so excited to start school too... He's in a preschool program called... Joy School. I think that it is a great learning program, and I really am hoping that it will help him in many ways. He obviously doesn't have a problem with his social skills... lol, but his attention span....well it's a three year olds (I guess...I'm told anyways). He loves doing the crafts and coming home and showing me, Uncle Chad, and Dad what he got to do at school. He loves to tell me about his day and asks, "when do I go again" :).

They are a great and BUSY group, I know I teach 5 of them on Sundays!!! 6 of them are boys, so it's going to be FUN :)... but what a great way to bond with good friends at such a young age.

Thank you Jenny for including us!!! I know that it will help Chris be an even stronger person!!... I LOVE WATCHING HIM GROW AND DEVELOPE!!

SIDE NOTE:
Here are a couple of pictures he took that morning as well....lol He liked his "teachers" shoes....lol
his new shoes his teachers shoes

Ok so I'm 10 days late on the post... I'm working on getting caught up on my posts (almost there)! Jimmy counted down most of the summer, he was so excited for school to start. We started at the door, the ever Tammy's calling card (the photo in the car before the special event), waiting for Principal Carter to open the doors, hanging up his back pack on his special hook, sitting at his spot that he picked out on Thursday at the Open House (there was a special box with supplies just for him waiting), sitting next to his "best friend" and listening to Principal Carter's announcement welcoming everyone back to school, to ....really Aunt Tammy... you can go NOW!

Now Chris... He was just as excited for Jimmy... He LOVES his big bother!! so I had to post his picture "following in his bather's footsteps" :)

Chris's ever favorite posse right now...He's quite proud of his "back side". He was on the stage in the gym/lunchroom as I was taking care of lunches for Jimmy.

We thought that we would post about Chad's latest bout with his medical problems, but first here are a couple of pictures from his first visit at the hospital in April. The one of Chris is when he came to visit Uncle Chad in the hospital and Uncle Chad feed him some Oreo's while I was in a mtg with the hospital advocate.


Now onto the present...

Chad has still been having problems since the hospital visit in April, but we thought we knew what the problem was and we were working with the Dr. hoping that we were on the right track. Well we weren't, but now we ARE.

So Chad has been taking lasix since March, and still suffering with the swelling. Little by little it getting more and more out of control, till finally it was out of control as it had been in March/April. After being in and out of the Dr. office for a week and trying everything that we could to get the liquid off of him, including Oxygen at home. I took Chad to the Hospital on Tuesday August 12, 2008. I was able to bring him home on Saturday night the 16th. This time was so much better than the last visit. We had his Internalist the whole time, so we didn't have to continually repeat ourselves to a new Dr. He knew his whole past and what had been happening up to this point. He had an idea of what was going on and being in the hospital confirmed what his belief was.

Chad has sleep apnea and has had a C-Pap for the last 8 years. However his apnea has progressed to the point that he is not getting enough oxygen when he is sleeping (even just laying down to relax), and he is breathing VERY shallow. This has caused a sever chain of reactions. Due to his lack of oxygen the right side of his heart is contracting and not allowing his blood flow to get were it needed to be. His lungs aren't getting oxygen so they are holding onto the fluid so that they can stay saturated. His CO2 levels are DANGEROUSLY high. The normal should be in the low 30's and he was at 70, which causes anxiousness (hummm), confusion (mmm), acidic in his blood (so the blood that was getting pushed around was poisoned), and exhaustion, just to name a few...all of which he is suffering with greatly. His Potassium was dangerously low as well do to all the lasiks, from before and during the hospital visit.

On Wednesday night I watched my love nearly die. It is something that I hope to never have to experience again. There were "some" that had said I didn't need to stay there with Chad (I only left to go home and get things that he needed and a Dr apt I had), but I am so glad that I listened to myself and the promptings of the Holly Ghost. I was able to be there when he really needed me, and made sure that he got what he needed. The out-come of what happened was, we had the House Nurse and the respiratory nurse amongest others there to help him. As you will see in the pictures they had him wear what they called the "jason mask" (you'll see why). It was a REAL struggle to get him to put it on, but finally we were able to get him to wear it. He didn't know till today that I was able to get pictures.

They were able to get 7 gallons of fluid off of him, 35 lbs., and got his CO2 levels better, not as far down as they wanted, we couldn't get him to wear the Bi-Pap enough, but they were at least low enough that they felt ok with releasing him. His Potassium was still really low too, but we are continuing to work on that out of the hospital.

Getting his CO2 levels more normal brought back my husband that has been "lost" for quite some time. I keep asking him if he's "ok", because the only time that he's been this CALM or quiet is....well I don't remember it must have been ages ago. He said today that he can feel the edgy feeling coming back a little, he's struggling a little since he started back to work with changing habits that have to be changed. At least now we know what it is and how to "fix" it. All in all they helped him 100% more than his visit in April (different hospital this time too). They did more for him and actually figured out the prob and are working with him to resolve it. He felt much better this time coming home.

The short (LOL yea right) of it is... he has oxygen that he wears at night with his C-Pap, adjusted meds, habits that have to be changed, and quiting "chew". (The nicotine is also constricting his blood vessels adding to the problem) Not much at all...LOL

We would both like to thank ALL of our family and friends for their concern and prayers on Chad's behalf. We know that these prayers saved Chad's life and helped the Dr. to find what the problem was and the way to help Chad heal and feel better. We wanted you all to know that and to let you know that he is doing better and on the road to better and stronger health!!

The three of the helicopter are from the window in his room. It was a great view, and we enjoyed watching the helicopter land and take off. Got a video of it too.

This is one of the last days that the kids all had of summer vacation...
They had so much fun :)... they had been ridding bikes all day and then decided to "work" on their bikes... Can you see, even Chris has his bike "fliped" to work on. It made me smile and realize just how much and how fast they grow up. I can't beleive that Jimmy's going to be a first grader. How quickly time goes by.

He Sleeps....

This is an entry that I have meant to post for some time now, but I am about 4 posts/weeks behind. I'll explain in a new post why....

I just thought that this was just a classic of Chad sleeping, and why should I be the only one that gets to see how amazing this is...:)

I love this guy with all my heart, and it amazes me how he can sleep this way. I took the picture to have prof for him that I wasn't making it up that he "buries" himself while he sleeps. There is usually a wall of pillows all around him and as you can see sometimes on top of him.

What we haven't know is how his SLEEP is causing so much "havoc" on his health.

Here are the pictures of the Scooters that I promised....

The last two are them taking pictures of each other... I think that I have some photographers on my hands :)

So here are some of the pictures that I have taken of Wicket
... they start from the begining of him coming to us up to... well Chad giving him a "hair cut". Wow I really can't leave him alone...lol

He was really trying to help, but I let him know that he definatly isn't a "grommer" he was close, just the tail just seems wrong...LOL ... Oh well, at least is was cooler for him in this heat we've had. I just hope now that it's cooling down he'll grow his hair a little faster :) We had a good laugh and Chad asked me to post the pictues and show his "handy work"....

Well it really has been too long!!

It's only been two weeks since I posted, but the last post was for July 4th.

So I feel like it's been a whole month.

We have been busy with life, just like everyone else.

Chad is working hard at his job. He really likes it and having a regular schedule, even with the doubles. He has great potential of advancement with the company and his position. I have three jobs now. I'm able to still work from home, for now, and working really hard. My day starts by 7 each morning and ends around 2-3am. Hopefully it is only for August at this phase and then we will finally be on our feet again. Chad and I both decided we would work as hard as we could this month and that the sacrifice will be worth it when the month is done. Then we can go to some sort of "normal" life, finally. So I'm trying hard to not take on too much this month and stay as focused on the tasks at hand.

The boys are trying to get everything out of the rest of summer that they can. Jimmy worked very hard this summer at chores not only here but at our friends house to earn money so that he could get a scooter. When Chris figured out what he was doing he too was helping and working on not whining (one of our BIG stages right now). Well they both earned there scooters and got them on Friday. They are so excited, but it's been so hot that they haven't wanted to play outside the past few days. So tomorrow night we will get them out again and I'll have some pictures.

Here are a few pictures of the past few weeks. I decided it would be easier to just post one big or longer post than try to do several shorter ones. Then I'll try and keep up again, including getting and keeping up with your posts. :) :) :)

Ok so I was going to just post a few pictures, but there are more than I thought and the boys really wanted me to post them. Please bare with me and another of my slide shows... :) :) :)...MUCH LOVE....US