Saturday, March 15, 2008

Prayers, prayers, prayers

Please pray for our friends, the Grimm family, as they lost their 14-year-old son Ethan today to cancer. http://www.caringbridge.org/ia/ethangrimm


Also, please pray for a special friend of ours, Patti, as she struggles with her fight against pancreatic cancer.

And since your already praying...maybe just tack on another small one. Our problem seems very meek compared to those above, but Austin's fevers/pains/abnormal blood tests continue. We met with the rheumatologist on Monday. Besides the abnormal sed rate and CRP, the only test that came back abnormal again was the test for inflammatory bowel disease. The doctor referred us to the GI specialist. He also prescribed Austin some Naprosyn for pain/fever. We got into the GI doc right away. He is definitely not convinced Austin has an inflammatory bowel disease. He doesn't have the family history or even the typical symptoms. But since just about everything else has been ruled out, we are going to proceed with a colonoscopy and an endoscopy on the 26th.

The good news is that the Naprosyn really seems to be helping with Austin's pains. And his temperature has been down to 99.5.

Thanks so much for praying!

Monday, March 3, 2008

Getting Back to Normal...I Hope!

Okay, after the hospital visits, the ER, the flu, and my mother-in-law passing away, I'm hoping we can get things running back to normal this week! Austin is still having nighttime fevers (usually around 100 to 100.5), but he is feeling pretty good during the day, other than some hip pain. He had blood tests last week, which still showed extremely elevated inflammation. He went to Children's today for another blood test that the rhematologist ordered, so maybe we will find out something there?

Austin did so good with homeschooling today. He always does, but he blew me away today. He seems to be picking up on some phonics. I'm so excited! After being shown a picture, he was able to find the matching word by sounding it out. He also did very well on some fractions...showing that he knew 1/4 and 1/2. He has learned over 100 sight words now. He is spelling some words with the online keyboard and typing into his own blog each day. He is doing a unit study on U.S. Symbols for Social Studies and studying the earth in Science. We are now using Grapevine Studies for bible, and are doing an overview of the old testament. We signed up for an adapted version of "Extra" by Weekly Reader and he loves these. We usually do these on Fridays.

Amber has been very stressed out about school, particulary regarding her math classes. I try to remind her she only has one more year of school left. To me that will go by so fast, but to her...it sounds like eternity!

Kevin has been sick. He has another ear infection, but on top of that he has a lot of coughing and headaches. I felt so bad for him being sick at his mom's funeral. What terrible timing. But he is starting to feel better now thank goodness.

Sammy...Go...Fetch...Hop, Hop, Hop

Lapbook

Lapbook Unit 2