Our Crazy Week

This past week has been crazy. Saturday shortly after I returned home from the orphan care conference, we found ourselves taking cover in our closet due to a tornado headed our direction. When it was over and the kids had quit crying, I snapped a picture of 4 of them huddled together.

Sunday, Shayle was on stage at church with the preschool choir singing in their spring concert. She must have felt like she was going to fall off of the risers because she held onto one of the standing microphones beside her. She was dancing around and having a great time.

After church, she went to a friend's birthday party which was a tea party. They were so cute all dressed up. Shayle went as a Chinese princess.

Sunday evening was our award ceremony for AWANA'S at our church. Darrel has been the game leader for the last four years and Arron helps him. I have taught 5th & 6th grade girls for the last four years. Myranda has been in my class the last two years and now she will move into our youth department this summer. I will miss her very much. Payton will now get to move into my class for the next two years, so I am excited about that. Shayle was excited to receive a participation award for cubbies. She wasn't in cubbies until January, so she did not get to finish her book. Next year she will move up to Sparks in kindergarten.

Tuesday was our 6 month post placement visit, which went well and was nice and laid back. However, just a few hours before our social worker was due to be at our house, our bathtub faucet broke and would not turn off. I had to shut off all water to the house. Of course, Darrel was at work and I knew it would not get fixed before our 2:30 appt. When she arrived she asked to use the bathroom. I had to explain what happened and that she could use the bathroom but I would have to go outside and turn the water on. She just laughed and understood. My oldest son also stayed home from school with fever the same day. Anyway, she was amazed out how well Shayle has adjusted and how much she has learned in the past 6 months.

Wednesday, I left to take Shayle to her post op appts. for her palate and tubes in her ears. The palate surgeon saw her and said everything was looking good and he was pleased with her repair. She does have one area that has thinned out, no hole yet, but could still develop one. Pray, Pray, Pray she does not develop a hole. This would require another surgery in the fall. Next we went to the ENT office to check her ears. This appt. was supposed to be short but ended up being 2 hours long. When he looked in her ears, he said the tubes were blocked. He sent us over for a hearing test. She did pretty well, but not well enough. After he read the hearing report, he decided he would need to try to clean her ears out. He said it would be traumatizing, and he was right. I had to hold Shayle down along with 3 more nurses while he tried to clean out her ears. She was so terrified and kept screaming "mommy, mommy". This just broke my heart, and I didn't want any part of holding her down. She began clawing and pinching my neck and then jerked my necklace off and broke the chain. He was able to clean out one ear, dried blood from her surgery was blocking that tube. The other ear we weren't so lucky, he could not clear it out. He believes she has fluid dried up blocking it. He then decided we would need to come back next week and sedate her in order to unblock it. So after all of that, I have to take her back this Wed. am to do the procedure. She will be in an outpatient facility near Medical City, which will require partial sedation with an anesthesiologist. Then we will go back the middle of June to check her hearing again and hopefully not have to go through all of this again. Pray for her this Wednesday, I know she is going to be scared when she sees the building and terrified to see the doctor.

Thursday, she had her first speech appointment. Surprisingly she did well and liked her therapist. She will be going 2-3 times a week for 30 minutes each time. Next time I won't be able to back with her, so hopefully she will do good this week.

Friday, she went to school and had a good day until later in the day she began vomiting with a stomach bug. I had began having a sore throat on Thursday and thought it was allergies, but when it continued to get worse, I had my hubby do a strep test and yes it was positive. Glad I went ahead so that I could start antibiotics. Shayle is better today and hopefully will not get strep throat. She can't understand why I won't kiss her on the lips. I'm trying to keep her well.

Next week she will have 2 days of school, 2 days of speech, and 1 day over at the ENT in Dallas. Please keep us in your prayers.