"We're not doubting that God will do the best for us, we're wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." -CS Lewis
I came across this quote recently and I think it pretty much sums up how I feel about our life sometimes and certainly about our Spring. I am trying to remember, though, that our dark clouds always have some beautiful rainbows interspersed.
Anyway...in January, our tenants in the house we own in Eugene reported some leaks around two windows. We had roofers out on a couple of occasions but the leaking continued whenever there was rain. Finally, the suggested that we probably needed a contractor out to evaluate as they felt the issue was with flashing missing around some windows. So, about two weeks after Teddy was born, we had a contractor out to the house. He concurred with the roofer's opinion and gave us a $2k estimate to fix the flashing and the caveat that he couldn't completely tell what was going on until he took the siding around the windows down. He agreed to start the next day. The next day, mid-day, I got a call from the contractor. I've since learned that calls from the contractor generally do not bring good news. When he took down the siding, he discovered that the house was built out of code (it was built in 2003, we are the second owners) and had no rain barrier (e.g., Tyvek) installed between the siding and the framing of the house. Consequently, the entire back door needed replacing and he had to install the rain barrier. And there was mold and rot. He couldn't tell us how bad that was until more siding came down. To make a very long story short, over the next two months, all of the siding for the entire house was removed, windows taken out, approximately 60% of the framing cut out and replaced, the back door had to be replaced entirely, the downstairs flooring and subflooring had to be replaced due to rot, the house completely repainted, and the window around the front door had to be replaced, as well as mold remediation efforts. It was a nightmare. And that $2k initial estimate? Well, that's pretty laughable now. So, now we are just in the beginning stages of trying to recover the costs from the builder, which, of course, involves legal fees. We also had to reduce rent for our tenants and put them in a hotel for 11 days during part of the construction. When we were living in that house Jared and I had always wanted to replace the flooring and repaint the house but didn't have the money. This is definitely NOT how I envisioned having to do it.
In the middle of all of this, my mother and I took Teddy and Charlie and headed to Cincinnati Children's Hospital to have some diagnostic testing done in hopes of getting some answers. We were there for a week, during which time Charlie had a surgical procedure and a 24-hr test and a surprise blood transfusion due to anemia. Cincinnati is ranked #1 in GI services. The primary test they did was a test to determine if he had an actual motility problem through his GI system. We knew going into it that if there was an actual underlying motility issue, there wasn't a whole lot that could be done. If there wasn't, there were some things that they could try. It was a good experience and we liked the doctor we saw and he spent a long time with us reviewing Charlie's history. He was very determined to get Charlie off of TPN and back to j-tube feeds. After all the testing was complete, we found out that, as we suspected, there was an underlying motility issue. So, we came away with some answers, but not a lot of new things to do for him. He had some suggestions for trying to wean him from TPN.
Less than a week after we returned from Cincinnati, we moved houses! Only about a mile but given everything else, it was a major effort. However, the payoff was great and we have a beautiful house that we are seriously considering buying at the end of our lease (we are a little gun shy after our situation with our other house). A lot of that will depend on whether we can sell the other house and other financial considerations. Our fingers are crossed as this is the PERFECT neighborhood and house for us.
The night we moved in, Jack tripped on the transition from the hardwood flooring to the carpeted family room. And broke his wrist. Seriously, at this point, I almost just laughed. Can one more thing really happen to us??? He was a trooper and got a glow in the dark cast to show for it. Let me tell you, I am now a PRO at bathing children who have various parts of their bodies that can't get wet. :)
Back to weaning off TPN...we came back from Cincinnati determined to get off TPN as quickly as possible. Now, I love TPN for what it is doing for Charlie's health but I hate it for what it does to my anxiety levels. He has gained 7 lbs since February and went from the 0 percentile to the 15th percentile. I, however, live in constant fear of infection, sepsis, blood clots, the line breaking, etc. I have all kinds of fears when it comes to this line that has given my son health and yet can result in a lot of harm very quickly. Well...a couple weeks in the new house and I started to notice some tissue around his j-tube. Granulation tissue is a benign tissue that can grow around a stoma, or the place where the tube enters the body. However, this didn't look like the granulation tissue I'm used to. I sent a picture to our doctor, who immediately referred us to surgery. We went in for an evaluation of the tissue and learned that his tube had prolapsed, meaning intestinal tissue was poking out, for lack of a better description. The "fix" was surgical and would be painful and not necessarily successful. If we left it as-is, it would likely result in some discomfort and leaking around the site but was not particularly dangerous. We opted to let it go until we absolutely needed to operate on it. And that's where we are today. Unfortunately, this has meant a greater reliance on TPN, so we aren't moving in the right direction there, and we've had one hospitalization due to skin breakdown but we are holding steady. I would just like Charlie not to have to undergo a surgery for at least a couple of months.
Right now, we are celebrating a week and a half with no trips to the hospital. Here's hoping for a few more weeks of that. :)
