Idaho

We were able to go to Idaho this weekend to help my grandma move. She bought a cute new house that is a little smaller and all on one level so it will be much easier for her to manage. She is having a lot of fun getting new furniture and decorations and already has it looking great! My Aunt and Uncle who lived in the basement of my grandma's old house bought her house so it will be fun for them to have a place of their own.

We left Friday night and Easton had quite the runny nose that day. When we got there I thought he felt a little warm and then in the middle of the night he got a really high fever. We didn't get to bed until 2:30 that night because he was screaming and having a really hard time breathing. We took him for a drive to get him out of the house because he was waking everyone up and went to buy a temporal thermometer. Tyson says this was the best purchase we have ever made! If you have kids you should DEFINITELY get one. It makes life so much easier! You just have to slide it across their forehead really quick and you're done. Anyway, he slept for about 3 hours that night. In the morning he was really wheezy and croupy and just kept crying and saying "ow". It was so sad. We decided to take him to the instacare there in Twin Falls where we found out he has strep. (Just what we needed=).

While we were waiting at the doctor's office we found out that my great-grandma was being rushed to the emergency room unresponsive after choking on an apple. So we were preparing for the worst. She lives in a very small town and it took the ambulance 10 or 15 minutes to get there but she is alright. She is home now and taking antibiotics to prevent pneumonia from aspiration.

After that we rushed over to my cousin's baby shower, the other reason we were there. She has the most beautiful little girl and got LOTS of diapers! It was sort of a stressful weekend, but we're staying home today to try to recuperate and get our homework done!

Life is so crazy! But we are so blessed. Here are some pictures of the move!

Good news and bad news (post scan)

Ok so here's the deal. I went and had the scan today. Everything went really well. Unfortunately, I don't know for sure if there's a problem with the parathyroid or not. I'll have to wait for Dr. Riddle to figure that one out. But, I did discover that I do NOT suffer from claustrophobia. In fact I completely fell asleep during the scan (even though I had a machine put about 1/4 an inch over my face for 30 mins). The only crummy part of the scan was that my nose itched the whole time and I wasn't supposed to move! For a moment I was able to forget about the possibility of dying from cancer because I was sure that the itch would kill me long before! Anyway, I got to see the results of both scans and I honestly couldn't tell what was going on. Here are some pictures of a typical sestamibi scan.

Here is what I saw on the scan. (nothing)

This is what I expected to see.

If there is a tumor it's extremely tiny, (which is good news) but if there is no tumor then my high calcium levels are coming from somewhere else. (which could be not so good news). The real good news is that we're leaving this joint and headed to Idaho for the weekend. Thanks for caring!

Sestamibi Scan

Hey, just an update. Tyson is scheduled for a Sestamibi scan tomorrow. He will be injected with radioactive protein at 10 AM and then go in for his scan at 2 PM. This will show which of the four parathyroid glands isn't functioning. We are excited to find out and get the ball rolling!

On the Mend

Things are starting to look up for us again! Easton's rash is healed! Yay! I guess the doctor was right, we just had to ride out that darn virus! I would not wish pityriasis rosea on anyone.

As for Tyson, he isn't exactly healed, but lots of people have been asking about him so I thought I'd hurry and post the latest. We were able to see the specialist last Wednesday because they had a cancellation. We really liked Dr. Riddle. He looked at Tyson's previous lab work and felt that since his calcium was so high and his parathyroid hormone (PTH) was in normal range that it was looking more like cancer (most likely bone or lung) than hyperparathyroidism. He ordered more blood tests and said he would schedule a PET/CT scan after he received those results. They called with the results of his blood work Friday night while we were in the temple and couldn't leave a message. So that made for a long weekend of wondering!

We found out this morning that his calcium was still very high at 11.7 (normal is 8.4-10.1 -- this was down from 11.9 in his last test) and his PTH was 106 (The normal range is 12-88 -- this is way up from his last test). To sum it all up this is good news. It points more towards a benign parathyroid tumor than to cancer. The doctor is going to call Tyson and discuss it all a little later today and hopefully get a scan scheduled. That's all we know for now. It's not much, but we feel good about the way things are heading. Thanks for your concern everybody!

Update on the Boys

Well, as far as my sick boys go, this week has not been much better:) Easton's rash looked a lot better for a day or two and now it is back to this.

I'm just so sick of it. I want him to get better! We've tried oatmeal baths, bleach baths, baking soda baths, lotions, steroid creams, benadryl, motrin (for inflammation), washed all his bedding and clothes. Nothing has helped. (Although I appreciate everyone's comments and suggestions!!!) Some things I haven't tried yet that I will probably attempt this week are primrose oil and switching to soy milk. I didn't go to church last week because it looks like my child has an infectious disease! The doctor has said that the virus it was diagnosed as is not very easily transmitted, but still. I'm guilty of looking at someone's kids and thinking "why on earth did they bring them here to infect my child?" So bottom line, I don't want to take him anywhere. At least (as you can see above) he is still a happy child.

Update on Tyson: I said in my last post that his results all came back normal, however the next day we found out that his blood calcium levels were high and that the doctor wanted him to go back and have his blood drawn again to have it re-checked. Normal range is 8.4-10.1 and his was 10.7. So this morning we got his second test results back and it was 11.9. Not a very good sign. We have been doing a lot of reading, and although we know we can't trust everything we read online, it is likely that he has a problem with his parathyroid gland (which controls the amount of calcium in your blood). Soooo.... not to worry, this is easily fixed. We are actually hoping for this because Tyson has been feeling so crappy for so long. We are dealing with a seriously bad bad bad doctor (who we only saw one time, the day we went to anyone who would take us when Tyson was having a fainting spell). So we've gotta find a way to ditch him and get to a specialist. The one we were referred to by a co-worker can't see him until March 8th. So we're hoping to find someone who can see him sooner and put him out of his misery.

Until then, we're just keeping up the normal routine! School-work-homework-up all night with Easton-School-work-homework-up all night with easton-etc... It's really not that bad, we have so much help from our mammas. Looking forward to a long weekend!

In other news, Tyson is still working on his photography and is doing a great job! He has some really cute pictures of some puppies on his photo blog if you haven't checked those out!

So Sick of Sickness!

Ever since we moved in to our new apartment it has been one sickness after another! I shouldn't complain because I can think of a lot of people who have it a lot worse than we do! But considering that we are normally a healthy family, we sure seem to be having a lot of viruses in our lives lately! Around Christmas Easton broke out in a rash. It started out as one patch that looked like a big ringworm circle. It slowly started to spread and I just tried to treat it with antifungals and didn't think anything of it. Then, the night we moved in, Kelsey was throwing up, and that weekend I was throwing up. Probably more than you wanted to hear, but I haven't experienced that since I was probably 3. Then Easton's rash broke out all over his whole body. It was diagnosed as pityriasis rosea, a childhood virus that lasts about 3 months. Awesome. 3 Months. He hasn't been sleeping through the night at all since we moved in so we decided to start letting him cry it out. Again. I took cookies to the neighbors to prepare them. We let him cry for a couple nights. The third or fourth night he just would not quit. So we went and got him and he had a fever of 102 degrees. That makes you feel like a good parent. Letting your child scream while their blood is slowly coming to a boil. The fever persisted for a few nights and then came his turn for throwing up. That lasted about a week. My sister had strep so we thought we should get him tested. Although he had all the symptoms (fever, vomiting, red throat with sores all over it) his tests were negative. Then we thought the rash was getting better. And then it turned into this.

This is a totally different rash than it started out with. He had his 15 month check up today (where he got 3 painful shots) and the Dr (who we really trust) thinks it is just eczema brought on by the virus. The virus probably isn't gone yet either because it has only been about 6 or 7 weeks. 6 more to go:( In addition to Easton's sicknesses, Tyson has been feeling constantly dizzy. When he went ice fishing on New Year's he passed out on the ice and gave his friends a good scare. He has been feeling dizzy and light headed pretty much every day. So we took him to the Dr and the chiropractor and had some lab work done. He wore a monitor for 24 hours to check his heart. He's textbook normal in almost every way. I'm still trying to convince him that all he has to do is stop eating potato chips and ranch for breakfast:) I'm glad there's nothing seriously wrong with my boys, I just hope they start feeling better soon!