Saturday December 4: I had volunteered to wrap presents at Kmart for the Shop with a Cop event that happens every year. If you haven't heard of this event, it's when the cops take under privileged kids shopping for their families for Christmas so they can have a nice Christmas. It's been described as Black Friday for children. We were going to wrap presents for a couple hours in the morning and then we were leaving because the family was going to Temple Square to see the lights that day and to the Festival of Trees in Sandy at the Expo Center. Anyway - so that morning me and Marie went to Kmart and are getting things set up and Nate calls me. He said that Kamry has a "huge bump" on the side of her neck. I didn't know what to think because I had just fed her earlier that morning and I didn't notice anything. I told him to take a picture of it and send it to me. That picture is on my phone and being technologically retarded I don't know how to send it to the computer so I'm not posting it. Anyway, you could tell in this picture that the bump was pretty dang big. Me and Marie ran home without being able to participate at all and Nate and I got Kamry into the doctor. My pediatrician's office has a weekend clinic so I called and luckily they could get us in at 10. (I say luckily loosely because I kind of had to force my way into an appointment over the phone... but a frantic mom on the phone seems to get results.)
We saw the on-call doctor and he said that it was her lymph node and it was just infected. Sometimes when kids get infections if they're lymph nodes aren't able to fight off the infection it overwhelms them and they get swollen like hers was. So he put her on antibiotics and said he wanted to see her on Monday. Sweet. Hopefully this antibiotic took care of things and we would be fine. We went to the Festival of Trees and then to Temple Square. It was a lot of fun. We went with Marie's niece Sharon and all of her kids. They hadn't ever seen the lights before so it was a fun experience for them. I'm a slacker and didn't take hardly any pictures of that. This is pretty much the only one I got. This is Kamry sleeping in the stroller. I had her in warm fuzzy clothes, this hat (which has matching mittens) and then her bundle me. She was toasty warm the whole time and it's a good thing because it was pretty cold outside that day.
We were hoping that the antibiotic would take care of this lump but it didn't. Monday when I took her in to the doctor he was worried about it and recommended we take her over to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. I asked about Dr. Blotter because that's who Nate's dad Allen see's but he wasn't in so I said whoever was available. We got in to see Dr. Bennion. He is really nice and laid back. He agreed with the diagnosis that it was a swollen and infected lymph node but he was concerned because when it happens it's usually in kids that are older than Kamry and he worried about her ability to fight off the infection. They put her on a different antibiotic and gave her what they call a "peanut butter butt shot". It was a different antibiotic called rocephin and it goes in the top of the thigh. It's really thick like peanut butter so it hurts really bad going in. She screamed and I tried not to cry. He said he wanted to see me everyday that week so he could check it and so that they could give Kamry this shot. I wanted to die... this shot EVERYDAY in my baby? AHHH!
Here are two pictures that show you just how big this lump was. The first picture makes her look really weird but you can see the lump on the left side of the picture (her right side).
This one really shows the lump.
Well, we went back everyday and at first the lump was going away but when I woke up Thursday morning it was MASSIVE! Even bigger than before! I called and was able to move her appointment up so she could get in sooner. Dr. Bennion was right, her little body couldn't fight it off so we were going to have to do surgery. He said what they would do is make a small incision on her neck (about an inch long running horizontally) and drain the infection. They would pack it with an antibiotic gauze and I would have to bring her in every day so they could pull a little of the packing out and trim it. It needs to heal from the inside out so they would have to leave it open to allow that to heal. Her neck would be wrapped to keep bacteria out. Dr. Bennion was leaving town that night so Dr. Wood was going to be the one to do the procedure. We set the appointment for the next morning.
This is me holding Kamry at the hospital before she went in for her surgery. Her little gown was so big on her!
After her surgery, on the oxygen again. We had to have her stay overnight to be sure that she was breathing okay. Pretty much the same thing as when she had her hernia surgery. It's just a precaution and I wouldn't have it any other way. Nate and I slept on the bed in the room and she was in the giant crib next to us. The doctor told us everything went great but he was really surprised to see how much infection was in there. To make sure they had cleaned it all out they drained it with a whole gallon of saline!
The pink thing on her hand is her IV. They had to wrap her hand up so she couldn't pick at the IV. It made her look like she had a broken wrist or something.
You can see the wrapping on her neck in this one.
My angel. She was being so good through this whole thing.
This is a video of my happy little girl! Even when she had just had the surgery and was not feeling good she is happy! This was the first time she ever really giggled and I had her going so good that I just had to video it. SO CUTE!
I took her in to the doctor every day and they pulled some gauze out and then when it was all out, they repacked it again and we did it all over again. It was the worst thing in the world to see her get that pulled out. You could tell the it hurt so bad and she would scream so loud. I hated it. At the doctors office I had to help hold her down so she wouldn't squirm away. It was horrible, but I know that if Nate had to take her to the doctor there is no way he would have been able to handle it. It's amazing how "soft" dad's are when it comes to their little girls. By the time Christmas Eve rolled around she only had a band aid on it.
This is me and Kamry at my parents house on Christmas Eve for the King Family Party.
Kamry and Aunt DD
Here is Nate with Kamry on Christmas morning. She looks so sleepy still! I think the sugar plums were still dancing in her head.
Kamry with all her presents
Another shot of Kamry with her presents
Grandma and Grandpa Lundgreen gave Kam this rocking horse. It's still too big for her but when she's big enough she will love it! If you squeeze it's ears it will nay and make the "clicking" sound like it's running and it's tail will move. SO FUN!
For New Years, luckily Kamry was fully recovered because we had made plans to go to Denver with Kelsey and Brady. We had tickets to the Sunday Jan. 2 Broncos game! I'm not a huge football fan, mostly because I don't understand the rules and the scoring and stuff. But I didn't want to miss the opportunity to go to an NFL game. They played the San Diego Chargers. We left on December 30 and drove in Nate's new truck to Denver. I think normally it was supposed to be a 7 hour drive but we hit a horrible snow storm and I-80 was closed. Nate used his navigation and we found a different route. The roads weren't even terrible but we varied in speed from 20 mph to 55 mph at times. It took us 12 hours to get to Denver! We stopped in this po-dunk little down to get diesel and use the bathroom. While the guys were filling up I went in and asked if there was a restroom I could use. This beasty lady snapped at me and goes "It's for customers only!" so I looked at her and said "well my husband is filling up with diesel right now." I wasn't as snippy as she was but I was still a little snippy. I couldn't believe how rude she was! There was absolutely nobody else around and it amazed me that she didn't notice the giant truck outside fueling up. What a brat!
Denver was way fun. We ate awesome food the whole time and went shopping on 16th street. On New Years Eve we went to Market Street because apparently that's where "it all happens". It was a lot of fun. They shoot of fire works every hour to celebrate New Year's everywhere. There were a ton of people. It was SO FREEZING COLD though. I think if I celebrate New Year's somewhere other than Utah I'll for sure go SOUTH where it's warmer and can be in shorts instead of 12 layers of clothes. It was 25 below zero with wind chill that night!
Me and Nate
Me and Kelsey
Pictures from the Broncos game. The stadium really wasn't as big as I had pictured. On TV they look massive!
The Bronco that runs across the field a few times prior to the game.
They set up this huge bronco entrance and light of fire works and stuff. During the National Anthem they have fighter jets fly over. It was awesome and gave me the chills because it's right at the climax at the end of the song and the jets flew over. Kelsey was looking up with her camera and I was like "umm... what are you doing?" and then the jets flew over. WOW!
Me and Nate freezing at the game. It wasn't too bad when the sun was shining but of course the seats we were in were the only section of the stadium that didn't see the sun.
Me and Kelsey. She looked so cute and I looked like a scrounge with my hair in pig tails. I'm a dork.
During the game. We ended up losing 28-32 but we came back in the 4th quarter and were SO close to a win. It would have been so fun to see them win but oh well. The Broncos didn't have a great season and just a couple weeks before that game they had fired their head coach. It was definitely not their year.
The main entrance to Invesco Field
Invesco Field
New Years was a lot of fun but nothing compares to the week I had when we came home. That first week in January was quite the ride for me and Nate. We got home on Monday January 3. On Tuesday January 4 I wrecked my car. I was driving home from Sunshine Terrace where I'm doing my internship and an ambulance was coming toward the intersection at 400 North and main in Logan and the people in front of me could have made it through but they slammed on their brakes instead and I just skidded right into the back of them. I hit them at like 10 mph. The guy jumped out of the passenger seat and asked if I was okay. I was fine and they were fine so we pulled off the road into the 7-11 parking lot so we weren't blocking rush hour traffic. Of course I hit them right at 5pm. The couple was really nice and the guy even offered to buy me a hot chocolate while we waited. The cops came and got our statements. The guy I hit had his arm in a cast from his shoulder down so I couldn't help but ask him what happened. Well - apparently they had a really bad year too. In the beginning of December his wife got a brand new car. Well about 2 weeks before Christmas he was climbing over the doggy gate they have blocking the stairs to their basement when his foot got caught and he tumbled down their stairs. He had a compound fracture on his arm (if you don't know what that is, it's when the bone in actually sticking out of the skin!) so the wife was rushing him to the hospital and they hit a deer and wrecked her new car. The car that I hit them in was their rental! I felt so much worse after hearing that story. The cop just couldn't believe it either. I was just happy that I didn't have Kamry with me when it happened. Whew! Anyway, so I called Nate and luckily he was just in Wellsville on his way home from work so he came to 7-11 and picked me up.
The week is going on and I'm working with the insurance but Kamry had not been sleeping well. Two nights in a row she woke up screaming bloody murder and didn't sleep hardly at all. I was able to make her an appointment with Dr. Wood (the ENT that did her neck surgery) for Friday. Well, Friday morning January 7 I got a call from the insurance saying that they decided to total out my car because the repair work was going to cost $7,000 and they only valued my car at $9,000 so it wasn't worth it. Okay... so that's one more thing happening. Nate and I had refinanced my car in October because interest rates were so much lower (3.4% vs. 7%) and we pulled a little extra off to pay off his dirt bike. When the value of my car came back from the insurance and everything was said and done, I owed the bank a whopping $64. I could live with that... my loan was getting paid off and the dirt bike is officially paid for. The day was looking up.
Well, I get Kamry into her appointment and find out she has an ear infection and a ruptured right ear drum! Things were not looking so good. We got her on an antibiotic and I just had to make a return appointment to get her looked at in 2 weeks. I felt so bad. This poor girl just can't catch a break! To top things off... my period was a week late. That's just not normal for me so I took an at home pregnancy test. IT WAS POSITIVE! WHAT THE HELL?!?!? I ran up to the hospital lab to get a blood test and they had a sign that said "All pregnancy tests will now require a doctors order". I made the fastest call to Dr. McCulloch's office and talked to her nurse Becky. She is so nice and was like "Um.. didn't you just have a baby?" I was like "YEAH! I NEED THE TEST!" so she called it in for me. I got the blood test, and 2 hours later when I called for the results they said "Congratulations! It's Positive! You're pregnant!" I almost fell off the couch. I think I would have passed out if I hadn't have already been sitting down. I didn't know what to say. Then my thoughts were.... how do I tell Nate?
How I told him: When I got home that night I got out my new 2011 calendar that my mom gave me for Christmas. I started going through and writing birthdays on it. The doctors office told me I was due September 9th (it's now since been changed to the 8th) so when I got to September on the 9th I wrote "BABY DUE" in big letters. When Nate got home I said, "Hey honey I've got a funny story for you." I grabbed the calendar and go "I was filling in the birthdays and the weirdest thing showed up in September. Look at this" and I pointed to September 9th. He was like "baby due. baby due. why would your mom give us a calendar with stuff written on it?" and I just stared at him quietly thinking to myself "proudly" that this was my husband and oh he is just so smart. haha. Anyway - I looked at him with a serious face and just said "Nate! BABY DUE!" and he continued to stare at me so I finally just said "I'M PREGNANT!" and he just busted up laughing! He thought it was so funny! He had been telling me for like 3 weeks that he thought I was pregnant and I just kept telling him he was crazy. Ha! Who's the crazy one now?
We waited a couple weeks to tell family but once I started getting sick I told him we just had to tell them because it was going to become obvious soon enough. We were at Sunday dinner with my family and previously that week my dad had surgery on his sinus' and nobody had told me until after the surgery. So during dinner I kept making a big deal about how nobody tells me anything and how everybody is keeping secrets. So I looked at everyone and said "lets just go around the table and have everybody tell what they're keeping secret" so my mom just said nothing, Brian and Kelli said nothing and then Kevin goes "well Jeneil's not pregnant that's for sure" so I piped up and said "well I am!" and everyone just stared. My mom kind of laughed and goes "you're not serious, right?" and we just looked at everyone and said "yup. we're having another baby." Of course everyone was way excited but it took us all a minute to let it sink in that we were serious. Pretty funny. Then when we got home (to Allen and Maries where we are currently living) Kallie and Kory were here. We sat down around the table with them where they were chatting and Nate was trying to get everyone's attention with Kamry and finally he raised her arms in the air and just said "I'm going to be the best big sister in the world!" and Kallie goes "WHAT!? ARE YOU PREGNANT?" Marie wasn't listening to Nate so all of a sudden she just goes, "WHAT?" and then after a couple seconds she goes... "IN MY BASEMENT?" haha. It's like it just clued into her that we "do that" in the basement. It was pretty funny. So that's how we told the families. I just called the other siblings that weren't there and then called my Grandma. It was a crazy beginning of January that is for sure!
Kamry is getting so big! She is sitting up perfectly on her own and can even rock a little and keep her balance. She can grab things like a champ and switch hands without issues. She eats anything I put in her mouth and is so happy all the time. She takes awesome naps and wakes up smiling. I couldn't ask for a better baby.
At her 9 month appointment her stats were as follows:
Weight: 16 lbs. 2 oz. in the 7th percentile
Length: 28 1/2 in. in the 3rd percentile
Head Circ: 42cm in the 5th percentile
She has never been in the percentiles before! The doctor is really happy with her growth and said she is developing wonderfully. He's not concerned at all about her. I'm so happy. And she is getting to be such a chunk!
This is her sitting on the floor so good
Her first time playing and sucking on licorice. Trust me, it was everywhere.
Grandma Marie had a valve replacement done last June so she has a "ticker" (mechanical valve) and Kamry just loves to listen to it and fall asleep on Grandmas chest.
Marie has this fuzzy red blanket. We love to take off Kam's pants and let her lay or sit on it. She loves to rub it with her legs and feet. Marie said we get to take it with us when we move out because Kamry loves it so much.
I have a new goal to update my blog at least once a month. We'll see how well I do. If my next post is before the end of April I think I'm doing dang good!
