" On Ten!" Recap

Oh boy so much has happened in Payton's tenth month don't know where to begin!Lets start by saying how beautiful, sweet, and madly in love we our of her! She is definitely the apple of our eye!Milestones in month 10 were when she decided to truly just stand up in the middle of the room out of nowhere. She had so much fun seeing our joyous reactions to it that she decided to do squats in the middle of the room! With this milestone we ran out right away and bought a walker for her to walk with which she LOVES! Payton will now give you high fives, give you a kiss sound if you ask for a"kiss face",now is on half milk mixed bottles, and has decided she might drop a nap! Her personality is out for sure! She likes talking a lot, giggles everywhere, now bawks if you take something away that she wants,curious about everything, and smiles with what my family like to call the "chimp grin"! All Payton wants to do is for you to hold her hands while she walks around the house.  With all this walking we had to get out and start buying her some good shoes! When I (who loves to be barefoot )finally starting putting shoes on her little feet she wasn't  to sure on what to do with them. Yes of course we have put shoes on her before but you see she was born in winter. That consisted of me just bundling her in bear suits and then in summertime I just left her barefoot. We went almost a whole year of her really not wearing shoes,wild! Our month ended badly or I should say our hearts broke for little P.K.. She first seemed like she was getting a cold. Then we were startled and scared when she woke in the night sounding absolutely horrible. Coughing horribly and not breathing in without a certain sound. Zack called nurse mom over and ,you guessed it, Payton seemed to develop croup cough.Steamy bathroom, walks outside, and a call to the doctor it was.Daddy to Payton to the doc and they confirmed everything was fine but ,yes, that it was croup cough and two day set of steroid to give to her. Let me tell you as much as I am singing Payton's praises but her evil twin came out when we gave her the steroids. not a true wink of sleep for 24 hours,crabby,and wired! Could not be that mad at her though because through all this she decided to pop ANOTHER tooth. Good news about all this is croup is just a virus and she is feeling back to her old self AND with the doc visit we got her weighed once again. She weighed in at 25 pounds! With this news she is definitely of safety standards to switch her car seat around so we did!I think mommy and daddy were more excited about this then her probably! It is great to talk and see her more in the car and I must say she giggles and talks more in the car also! Here we are in 11 months and I am planning this peanuts 1st birthday! I just cannot believe it!

"DA BEARS"

Think she is a little excited about Bears football season?! A girl after her mother's heart, LOL. Payton spent the day with family while Zack and I headed down to Soilder Field Stadium to go to the Bear's season opener. It consisted of tailgating,cheering, and crying. Crying do to the fact of it being the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and they did an amazing tribute on he field. It was a gorgeous day (in the 80's) and we had a great time! It was nice to let loose and forget about my health issues fo awhile.....

Two sweet cheerleaders

me and my hunny

the girls!

Zack and Keith

Nothing better than an American flag AND a Bear's flag

*Mommy Update #2*

Everything is moving so fast it is hard to keep up! Like i told you guys I was suppose to stay on the meds until my next blood test! WRONG! of course I would have an allergic reaction, we think, do to the thyroid med. I woke up at 2 a.m. one night itching my head like CRAZY! my mom came over in the morning and by then I was itchy everywhere ( no rash) besides my head. I seriously had her check my head for lice or fleas. I am a hairstylist, stranger things could happen. When my mom checked me out she reminded me that when they gave me the thyroid meds they told us to let them know if i developed a rash immediately. Well no rash but decided to just watch it for the day at work. By that afternoon i had a small area of hives coming up. Called the doc and STILL to this day ,almost a week later,  still have not received a phone call back. This was not the only miscommunication or unethical thing that has happened between the doctor who decided to tell me i have cancer on the phone (without a biopsy) that has taken place. With that my mom took control and switched me to a highly rated endocrinologist in the area through Delnor Hospital. We had an appointment and when my mother and I described my diagnosis. the doctor and nurse were appalled. A) they reassured me that my tumors weren't large just average B)They said it is a 4-7% cancer and we are not doing ANYTHING till we get a biopsy and C) stay of the meds till we figure out what we are gonna do. Wow! I felt a lot more relieved considering the other doctor made me feel like I was slowly dieing. But don't worry I have been off the meds for about 4 days and came home from work with hives ALL over my body. GEEZ! I would like to catch a brake,lol. I am beginning to feel like Joeb from the Bible J/K. Hyperthyroid can cause itching also so we are going to give it till a week and if it gets worse then it my be my thyroid not the meds. Another waiting game. I am going to call this Monday to schedule my biopsy and hopefully we will get that done soon. When I start feeling bad for my self I remember that I have a wonderful family, support, roof over my head, abundantly blessed, and stable. Till we know more.......

It's time to " Pick! "

Labor day weekend this year was beautiful! It cooled down and you could smell fall  ( my favorite season) in the air. We decided ,on Labor Day, to go to the apple orchard. We had never been to to Royal Oaks Orchard in Harvard ,IL before. They were the only ones open on such a gorgeous day so we went and checked it out. Oh my goodness what fun. The orchard itself has over 12,000 apple trees and two different varieties were ready for a goo picking : ). Payton absolutely LOVED chomping into the apples. I was super excited to have my daughter enjoy all the wonderfulness of fall as I do. Grandma Kerruish spent the day with us and was the one who found this great apple orchard. I have to say that I think my daughter is the cutest little orchard girl in her Osh Kosh overalls from grandma K, and her cute hand-me-down sweater from her cuz Isabel. What was really great about this orchard was that it wasn't so commercialized AND it had restaurant,store,carousal,petting zoo,train rides, play park,  pumpkin and raspberry picking also. We didn't make it to the raspberry picking because we had so much fun in the orchard we were ALL a little tuckered out. I hope Payton grows to love fall as much as I do. All the plans are in effect already of her Halloween costume and birthday party. How could you not love this season.

getting a good bite of that apple. She loved it

The apples were so full and low on the tree Payton could pick while sitting.

so sweet

daddy and daughter

mommy and daughter

piggies and apples

Gram and Payton

Family Picture

SO many apples!

Two Pecks and a Bushel

Payton loved sitting on the John Deer Tractor!

she really like the carousel also. we were just laughing and laughing on it together

So much fun

*Mommy Update*

So this is whats going on with me. I went and saw an endocrinologist to try to get my thyroid under control. When I was in the hospital for my gall bladder surgery my mom had my thyroid panel ran ( just haven't been feeling good for a while) and they came back showing hyper thyroid. Now that we know what it is I probably have been having symptoms  that just got worse and worse since Payton was born. These symptoms are, anxiety (heart palpitations), hot flashes, dizziness, weight falling of, weakness, exhaustion, irritated, and most recently little black out spells. Now that sounds like tons of fun for my husband, right? : ) I can make excuses for all these symptoms especially because they started after I had my daughter, At first it was : I am anxious because I am a new mother, tired because I have a small child, hot flashes because my hormones are dropping in to place, dizziness because i might be anemic, irritated because I am once again a full time working new mother, and the list can go on and on. was I dealing with some weird post pardem or something? When I was carrying Payton around the house , felt dizzy, and had to drop to the ground as my vision went blurry is when I  got scared and decided it was time to go to the doc. We never made it because I was in the emergency room with gall bladder surgery, but at least we got the results on my thyroid. I was not able to get to the endocrinologist till about 2 weeks after my surgery. I sat in the doctors office as they went through all my symptoms and made me do small tests to see how bad they were. My resting heart rate in the office was pretty much off the charts and my shaking was insane. I guess I would have to say I learned to work through them. I know I know, next time I will get into the doctor sooner, lesson learned. As they checked me out they said  for sure they could feel my thyroid inflamed and that they felt something else. Blood tests, ultrasound, and nuclear scan was ordered up right away and they wanted me to get in as soon as i could. As well as medicine to slow my heart rate. The heart is a muscle ,remember, and with it beating like that it will loose elasticity and not work as well anymore. I sure was glad that all my symptoms were for something at hand and that i wasn't just going crazy but now I was definitely a little scared. then it was days of trying to get all the testes in as soon as possible, messing with my heart meds because I was still pumping between 100-130 and having irregulars, and calling the doctors office for results. Long story short and a lot of miscommunication later I have been diagnosed with hyperthyroid ( Grave's Disease) and have two decent sized tumors on my thyroid. One on each side. Because I have the nodules as well as Grave's doctor says it is a high perecntage it is cancer. I am suppose to be on meds a little longer to get the thyroid less inflamed and then they want surgery to remove my entire thyroid as soon as possible. When they remove the thyroid is when they will do the actual biopsy. I have my times of negativity and shutting down and I know it sounds cliche' but I look at my daughter and husband and my heart and body just booms with positivity and love. I like to say I have good days and bad moments. I think what hurt my heart most and what i still have trouble talking about without getting teary is when  the realization hit that this will be something Payton will have to watch out for.  A plus is that heart medicine is making me feel better ( still can't break a pulse of 90) but anything under 120's feels great when you have been feeling so bad. It's amazing what you will let yourself just get used to. Now it's once again the waiting game till my next blood test to see how inflamed my thyroid is still and then we will go from there. As they sat" Hurry up and wait!". I have faith in my father , my God, that whatever we are dealing with it is truly in his hands. He will take care of our family and my anxious heart!