Yeah, not posting much on the blog...

I've become addicted to Facebook...most of my updating about family life is being done there...
if you're a member of Facebook, friend me and check out my Facebook here...
http://www.facebook.com/gottriplets

If you're not a member of Facebook, join!

p.s. I'm also on Twitter... @gottriplets

Vacation

I'm finally back from 'vacation'. This was a difficult vacation for all of us, as my grandmother, my mother's mother, died soon after we got there. We didn't get to see her before she died, but my mom did and my great aunt (from Florida) got to see her the day before she died.
Vacation was put on hold for awhile while arrangements were made and things were tended to.
Stan and I sang at her funeral just as she had asked me to for so many years.
I miss her -- going to Indiana will never be the same.

One year ago today....

One year ago today life stopped for a little bit. I cried more than I ever had in my whole life. I've never been so scared or felt so helpless. One year later, miraculously all is well. Hannah has her eye, and with the help on a lens implant and glasses, her vision. It has been a year long journey that had a relatively happy ending. I want to thank everyone who helped us a year ago and that continue to help us today. I've learned that your life can change in an instant...so grab on to the good times while they're here!

Easter Pictures

Hannah



Sarah



Emma

Happy birthday girls!

9 years ago tonight was the scariest and best day of my life. My little girls were born! It's always a little post-traumatic for me...but hopefully having donuts with candles in them and special lunchables will soften the blow for me....

Pictures soon!

Daddy-Daughter(s) Dance!

Just a quick picture...

A day off!

The girls have today off, so they are going to grandma's to have a little fun. I'm sure they'll have a blast. Myself, I have 2 doctors appointments in a row. The fun of being a grown up!
Here are some pictures of the girls making their own ice cream cakes at Coldstone Creamery!

Hannah's Cake

Sarah's Cake

Emma's Cake

A Valentine Flashback

They must have been about 3 in this picture
(bad mommy, I don't have them dated!)
Aren't they the cutest!
Hopefully this weekend I'll get some current pictures!

Just a quick post

Hannah's Glasses are Here!

I think she looks cute as a button!

She is having a new lens made with the bifocal portion (long story)

but she is thrilled to have them!

A long overdue update

Well, since my last post things have been insane. Stan has been in an out of the hospital during the last 3 weeks. He was in with the high blood pressure readings. Those got under control, but we think that he picked up a NASTY pneumonia that landed him back in the hospital less than a week from when he was released! He stayed another 3 days! His kidneys were doing some scary things and he wasn't responding to oral antibiotics, so he got a bunch of IV antibiotics and a kidney biopsy. We had the biopsy to 1) tell us how much of his kidneys were damaged beyond repair; 2) tell us exactly what disease we were dealing with (was it the same one he was diagnosed with 15 years ago or had it morphed into something else?) and 3) give us a treatment plan. He came home from the hospital last Friday and (thankfully!) has been feeling well and is back at work.
The biopsy results came in today, and, in the exact words of the doctor, "It was better than I expected". Whooooo hooooo! His kidneys are only 25% scarred, the disease is still membranous nephropathy and the nephrologist thinks that with proper management of his blood pressure, his function will go back to near normal. If not, we 'know' this disease and will probably use the same treatment protocol as 15 years ago - cytoxan (an oral chemotherapy drug) and prednisone (a corticosteroid). It sounds scarier than it is, as Stan's only side effects were moodiness! I'll take that, considering the nephrologist was thinking kidney transplant within 2 years before the biopsy! Now it looks like we'll have LOTS of time before that!!!

I have another patient to report on, Hannah. She had her last appointment with the eye surgeon. Her eye has healed nicely and the lens is exactly where it should be! Our next step is to go to a pediatric opthamologist and get her fitted with glasses (her vision is 20/200 right now). It's another miracle in our lives.

Thank you to all those who prayed, brought dinners or just sat with me!! This came out of nowhere and really derailed me for a little bit. Hopefully, 2008 is behind us and 2009 will be hospital free for the Markuns (unless I get a boob job!!)

More 'excitement'

and I use that term loosely. Stan is currently in the hospital, and has been since Saturday night. Seems he missed a few blood pressure pills and his pressure skyrocketed (believe me, that won't happen again!). He is stable, but his kidneys are doing some odd things that are being looked at a little closer.
Never a dull moment here...

Busy, busy, busy

This has to have been one of the busiest weekends in a long time! Friday, I took Hannah (all by myself) downtown for surgery follow-up. I am happy to report that all is fine and I survived the parking garage. Our van is so talk that the antenna scrapes the ceiling of the garage - every cross beam. It's just a little nerve wracking!
Then, I had bunco! Hooray for bunco!
Saturday morning I took my car to be looked at ( it's making a really weird noise ). No one can figure out how to fix the noise, but I needed a new serpentine belt. Aack!
Next, on to my house to pick up the girls and to high tail it to Sam's to pick up my nephew's birthday cake. Then, onto Ransom's 4th birthday. Unfortunately the girls had a birthday party to go to at 4, so we only stayed for a bit, then I took them to the party and I came back to the party. After Ransom's party, I picked the girls up from their party. And that was Saturday!
Sunday was church, Generations of Faith, book reports, Wal Mart any getting Stan's van tuned up and my serpentine belt on.
I'm tired!

Surgery is over

It was a grueling day. We arrived about 45 minutes early and were told that the patient that was supposed to go ahead of us was a no-show, so we could be bumped up. We thought that meant we'd get out of there even faster. Well, that was not meant to be. First, the surgeon couldn't get there until noon at the earliest, so we couldn't start too much earlier. Secondly, Hannah fought the anesthesia (again!) so after a million arguments and tears she ended up having to have an injection of versed instead of just drinking it. I got to wear the full Elvis surgeon jumpsuit and take her back to the OR, I think she was pretty mad at me most of the way there.

Hannah before the fight to drink her medicine

The surgery took much longer than expected, almost an hour longer. We're still not really sure why. The good news is that they were able to get the lens in her eye without using stitches (which apparently is a big deal). She only has one stitch which is where they made the incision to put the lens in. That stitch may never have to be removed, so we may be done with all this anesthesia stuff for good!

The bad news about Hannah having to get the injection is that it took MUCH longer for her to come out of anesthesia. We were allowed back into the recovery room at 2:30, and she didn't really wake up until 4:30. The good news about the injection is that the added medication meant that she woke up very peacefully. No thrashing, screaming or fighting. Just some irritation that she had the pulse ox, EKG leads, IV and shield and gauze on her eye. She had some apple juice, a Popsicle and graham crackers and we were on the way home.

It took us 2 hours to get home...nothing like rush hour traffic on a Friday :-(

Once we got home we had some Panera, went to bed, and got up at 6:30 to go downtown to get the gauze removed and have her eye checked.

Hannah in great spirits on the way to have the shield and gauze taken off

The doctor said all looks well, she has 90% vision in that eye. She has some astigmatism which will most likely have to be corrected with glasses. No biggie.

Now on to fight the insurance company!

Everything seems worse at 2am

Its 2am and I'm the only one awake. I hate that. I don't want to wake Hannah (who is sleeping with me in the hopes that she'll sleep in - surgery isn't until afternoon and she can't have anything by mouth after midnight) so I'm worrying. Not the most productive thing in the world to do, but at least it's quiet.
I just want the surgery to be over with and to have us all snug in our beds again.

2 more days??

Well, we are hoping that in 2 days Hannah will have had surgery and this will all be behind us.
Monday morning I woke up with a 'don't get on the plane' feeling about the surgery that stuck with me all day. Now I know why. Tuesday morning greeted me with a phone call from UIC stating that Cigna had denied coverage for the surgery. A billion phone calls and one super secret authorization code later, I thought all was fine. Nope. This morning, another call from UIC. The authorization will not cover anything but doctors visits, therefore the hospital and the surgery in it are not covered. We were specifically told, when we applied for the Continuance of Care, that ANYTHING the doctor authorized would be covered, including surgery. So, a barrage of phone calls has been made, Stan has called his HR people and I wait. I wait with eyes swollen from crying and a stomach full of knots wondering if this is going to be covered. Wondering if we're gonna bite the bullet and pay the out of network costs, or tell an 8 year old who just wants to see normally again that she has to wait.
I hate insurance.

Countdown to surgery

7 more days until Hannah has her lens implantation surgery. I can't believe we've been going through this for 6 months. Since May 11th, Mothers' Day, to be exact. If I sit down and really wallow in it - it sucks. It's not fair. I'm angry. I feel betrayed. I try to be a good person/mom/wife, follow all the rules, do as I'm told and this still happens.
Then I have to stop myself and remind myself how blessed and truly lucky I am. I have three beautiful, healthy (except for that eye thing!) children that were brought into this world against all odds. Even when they made it to being born, the odds were still about 10% that they wouldn't survive and 30% that there would be something 'wrong' with them. All three of them beat those odds.
I am blessed, too, that I have such a wonderful group of friends who rallied around me when Hannah got hurt. They will never know how deeply touched and awed I still am by all they did for me. I am a giver, and it is almost impossible for me to take. They knew this, and they made me take anyway.
Yep, life isn't fair. Things happen. I guess I am slowly learning that things can happen for no reason at all and it's what you do with the results of that happening that count. Right now I'm counting my blessings and counting down the days until another chapter in this story is finished.

Book Reports

Yes, 3rd grade is the year of book reports. We've just started our first ones. The girls have to make a presentation and a visual aid (in 3rd grade language, that's a poster).

Here are some pictures of their works in progress...

Hannah read Laura Ingalls Wilder's The First Four Years

Sarah read Patch the Perfect Kitten

Emma read Flat Stanley's Christmas Adventure

I don't recall asking my parents to google things for book reports! Or to do a google image search to get pictures! LOL

I think they will do fine!

Halloween 2008

I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, but I was able to get them to stand still for a few!





Emma as a vampire with her vampire husband




Sarah as a witch (a dead witch she told me)




Hannah as Miss America



Here's their whole class:

I must have a sign on me

that says, "Mess with me! Make me panic!"

As I was leaving the house this morning, the phone rang. I didn't answer it, but checked my messages on the way to work. The message was from the eye clinic at UIC. They were calling to remind me that I had an appointment tomorrow to fill out paperwork for Hannah's surgery on the 14th, oh, and Cigna is not contracted with us anymore and when we called them they said you would have out of network benefits which means you'll be entered into our system as a self-pay. Pardon me? I called back to UIC and explained that I had filed a Continuance of Care form and had gotten the approval for in-network coverage through Jan 1. She said they had no record of that and when they called Cigna they were told there was no record of that either. Now I have the letter giving me approval. I know right where it is. I call Cigna, with guns drawn. When I finally get a person, they check it and, yep, there it is. I ask her to call UIC, of course she can't do that. I call UIC back, explain that I am just calling to follow up and if they call Cigna they'll get all the approval information they need. She proceeds to look it up and says, "I don't know what the problem is, the letter is right here and HAS BEEN FOR A MONTH." So she's changing the billing back to in-network and my heart rate is slowly returning to normal.
Don't these people understand that when they call and deliver a mistake like this it literally puts people into hysterics???

Gonna blog more....

or at least try to! That is my "Halloween Resolution". Perhaps it will help keep the anxiety level a bit in check. Maybe not.
Today I am fascinated by a continuing issue in our house. Every single morning my children (and I call them that because they are mine, can't deny it) are SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you, to realize they have to do the following:
1. Get dressed
2. Eat breakfast
3. Pack a lunch
4. Put their shoes on
5. Brush their hair
6. Brush their teeth
7. Put their coats on

Every day is like a surprise party here. I think I will start saying things like, "Girls, get dressed. SURPRISE!!" "Eat breakfast -- SURPRISE!!"

It must be nice to have every day be a new, exiting adventure with all kinds of intriguing tasks. Unfortunately for me, every day is like the movie Groundhog Day.

p.s. Here are pictures of Emma in her new glasses (or being arrested)

I wanted to let you get the full effect of the green fronts and purple sides

:-D