I am just loving this shot of Christina and KC, whom I shot on the 10th. They were so much fun, and Christina had so many ideas, which is a great thing. Some people think that as photographers, its all about us choosing the poses and ideas. But when you have ideas, speak out becuase they are your photos, make sure you get what you want!!
I'll be working the next week or so on wedding albums, which I love, but are time consuming. But it also brings me a bit closer to the Canon 20D that I am working towards. Just got anew point and shoot for my purse, and I am loving that!
Have a Merry Christmas!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Cristina & KC
Mark
Took Marks yearly photos on the 10th, and I was pretty tired, having shot a couples photos right before, so I didnt take nearly as many as I usually do, but I got a couple good ones.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Christmas Word Ornament Freebie
I saw another inspiring ad on 4shared, while downloading one of the many wonderful freebies from Perfectly Imperfect. So here are two word ornaments, with mix and match ribbons. Enjoy please!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Theres the smile!
Today was our surgeon follow up, and we were given a clean bill of health. Shelby can get by with just a bandaid and kisses now. She can even take a bath (she was very excited tonight when I ran the bath instead of the shower!). And no more nurse in the morning. That wasnt so bad except that normally when we drive daddy to work in the morning we come back home and sleep another hour or two. But with the nurse (and I picked the time so it is my fault) we had to wait up for her, and we became pretty tired as the week wore on. To the point where yesterday (our last nurse day it turns out) Shelby slept through the bandage change. She can also be with groups of kids again (this was for her health not theirs, she was not contagious). We were told that another one of these could happen, and we just have to be more aware of cuts, pimples or any kind of break on the skin. We have to clean them throughly and watch out for infection. The moment we see one she needs to go on the special antibiotics. Which would explain why we got so many refills on her perscription. The surgeon said I will never look at a cut the same way again. He's not joking!
Merry Christmas!
I took Shelby's Holiday photos today, since the person I was supposed to take photos of didnt show up. They turned out fantastic! She is doing really well. We were able to stop the home nurse visits, because its now to the point where I can change the bandages myself. We have a followup visit tomorrow with the surgeon, and then next week we have a follow up with the doctor. Im hoping that as of tomorrow she can go out and play again. Even though the rain has helped keep her from asking, Im excited for her to get out and be herself again!!
Im quite busy right now with two photo shoot to edit, and a wedding album to make changes to. Cant wait to start scrapping again though.....someday. :-)
Sunday, December 9, 2007
The Surgery
Here is the VERY long entry that I wrote about Shelby bieng in the hospital over on my myspace. Thanks to those of you that wrote me well wishes, as I had just barely started this blog when it happened, it was kinda the last thing on my mind. I am FINALLY done with a huge project, and I can start scrapping again, so layouts of the hospital stay to follow.
Shelby had a little red bump on her butt about a week ago, that I just wrote off as a pimple. She gets those sometimes when she peed in her pullup to early in the night and had to be in it for a while. Usually goes away after 30 minutes to an hour after getting her out of the pull up. But this one didnt go away, and got a but worse as the week wore on.
On Tuesday I took a look at it cause Shelby was telling me that it hurt to sit down. It looked pretty angry, and I ran my hand over it, and it didnt really seem to out of the ordinary, just an angry pimple. But on Wednesday she was still complaining pretty bad. I decided that if I popped it, maybe it would feel better, like most of the time you pop a pimple on your face, it goes away. I had her lean over and I "broke the seal" and greenish red pus came out. A lot. But as I did this I realized that it felt like there was a golf ball under her skin. I called my mom, who said that I should try to drain as much as I could, and see what it looked like the next day. I was still nervous so I called Josh, who had one of these right before we found out about his Lyphoma. He told me to take her in right away. And I called our insurance NurseHotline, who told me that because of the hardness I should take her to the doctor the next day.
I then read some stuff online, and decided that I wanted to take her to an urgent care. (went to Goonight Pediatrics by the way, great place open from 5pm to 5am) They looked at it, she described it as a 2 inch mass, and told me that I needed to take her to an ER because most likely it would need to be drained. They told me that the best place to take her was Banner Desert because they had a kids ER. So even though we lived right next to a hospital, and had to pass another one on the way, we went there.
I neglected to mention that Shelby was not dressed like a normal child lol!!! She was wearing her Sleeping Beauty dress that her cousins old Halloween costume. She ran around the ER singin and dancing. Clearly the least sick kid there! Once we got seen (not counting triage) things changed a bit, as the doctor looked at her owie. He said that it was a staph infection, possibly MRSA. That kinda freaked us out because all we had heard about it was on the news, and that was the "SuperBug" that was killing people!!! But even after that we werent prepared for him to say that she needed to be admitted, at least over night to recive anti biotics!! I thought for sure that they would just stick a syringe in there and suck out all the yucky stuff. But he said that he didnt think that would work because he thouht it was deeper then it looked, and the last time he just drained one, the kids had to keep coming back and it was a mess.
So at that point Mike and I looked at eachother and we were both a little teary eyed, but we thought it was just a "playing it safe" thing for the doctor, and weren't too worried.
They went through the steps of admitting Shelby. Bless her heart she didnt even cry with they put the IV in her hand!! She just kinda whined for the initial prick, but she actually just watched them do it! Then she got to pick out a small toy from the toy closet (she chose a putple hotwheel) take a ride in a wheel chair, which she tough was beyond cool.
Once in her room she was put in a hopital gown, and since we hadnt had any dinner, she was given some food. We hadnt expected to be there so long. We thought we'd be home by 7!!! Shelby had a hard time eating her sandwhich with one hand. That was pretty funny. Mike went home to get a long list of things that I asked for. Shelby's blanket and her pillowcase, some toys and books, slippers, and some pjs for me. And of course, my camera. He thought this was kinda dumb, but he did it anyway. After dropping that stuff off, he went home to get some sleep. Shelby watched tv for a while, it was hard to sleep in such a new envroment, The nurses were in and out all night doing vitals and checking her IVs, and she didnt go to sleep till about 1:30 am!
Nana was there first thing in the morning. Once the doctor came in, he took a look at it and said that he thought that the surgeon needed to have a look at it and then they would decide if surgery was needed. At that point we were like "SURGERY?! WHAT?" It was then explained to us that it might need to be cut open and cleaned out. We tried to put warm compresses on it to draw it out, and possibly avoid surgery. Nana went back to work for, and Mike came back. My sister and law came over to visit and brought Shelby these cute little doggies and a princess coloring book with crayons. And an adorable doggy backpack with crakers in him. She stayed for a while, and soon after she left, Mikes mother came over with some much needed pjs for Shelby to wear. She brought princess jammies and needles to say, those went over really well with Shel. Also some pink slippers and a robe, socks and underwear. All things that went to good use! LaDonna stayed with me while Mike went to work for half a day. The surgeon came in and siad that they needed to sceduale the surgery. Thats when it really hit that was something kinda major. I called some people while Shel stayed with Gramma.
About 3 o clock they came in and told us that the surgery had been moved up to 4:30, and less then ten minutes later they were there to transport her to pre-op. Now somewhere between here and surgery SOMEONE told me that I would be able to go with her to the operating room and be with her till she was asleep. We waited in pre-op for a while, while Shelby playing with toys, hitched a ride with a nurse and donned a surgical cap (the pictures explain this :-) My mom and Mike showed up and we met with the surgeon again and the anesthisioligist. Then they told us it was time. I carried Shelby to the door, where they then took her from me while she was crying and said I couldnt go past the doors!! I started crying and was pretty upset. They said they had no idea who told me that I could go in there but that it just was not allowed. I was pretty upset, but before I could even turn around they came out to tell me that she was already out. We waited in the waiting room about ten minutes (very quick procedure) when they cam out to tell us that she was heading up to recovery.
About 15 minutes later they came to get Mike and I to go to recovery. As soon as we walked though the doors we heard her screaming. The nurse was doing all she could to keep Shelby in her arms. Shelby was screaming that she didnt want mommy, which was pretty hard on me. But ther nurses explained that she didnt know what was going on or where she was, and that was common with kids coming out of surgery. Mike tried to hold her for a while and she would just scream and make her body stiff as a board. Finally in an attempt to get her to calm down they gave her some demeral. You could see in her eyes that she wasnt even focusing on anything. Her eyes were just wild, and that freaked me out a bit. She still wouldnt calm down and they had to give her MORE! She fought it tooth and nail. Finally Mikes arms couldnt take it anymore and he handed her to me, but bieng moved just made her madder. I held her for a minute that then decided to just sit her in the chair. Because on the rare occasion that she does throw a big tantrum, I just put her on the floor and walk away. Shelby calmed down pretty quick after that. I would have tried it earlier but I thought that she might hurt herself. She had peed on the operating table and gotten her nightgown wet so she was wearing hospital pants. They gave her some juice and they had brought out a tv to calm her down when I was holding her, but by the time they set it up, I had put her down and she had calmed down. So now she was wheeled back to her room.
When we got there they gave her a popscicle and some jello ( she hadnt had anyhting to eat all day in hopes of an open operating room, but now was only allowed liquids) She ate the popscicle and watched some Tv with Nana and Gramma while Mike and I went to the cafeteria to eat. When we got back the grandmas where laughing at a stoned as heck Shelby eating Jello! It was pretty ammusing. After Gramma, Nana and Mike went home, Shelby and I went for a walk to look at the trains and bunnies that they have outside by the kids rooms.
When we got back to the room we watched some tv (lots and lots of TV in the last couple days since Shelby was not allowed in the playroom on acount of the infection) and then we went to bed.
The next morning she had her dressing changed, and that was pretty gross, cause the way they pack the gauze in (accordian like) makes it seem like its deeper then it is. The gauze just kept coming out. You could tell it was VERY painful, but they have people there to help distract her with toys and books and to tell you the truth, we really couldnt have done it without the people from Child Life. They were amazing people!!!! Shelby cried a couple tears, but stayed engaged with the Child Life person the whole time. Shelby got a prize of bubbles, and ice cream.
The rest of the day we just took a lot of walks, played games and watched tv. The surguons came in to see how she was doing, and she just leaned over and showed them ber butt. Nothing was sacred anymore!
We went for a walk in the late afternoon, to go see the bunnies and trains again (there are two bunny rabbits there, and a whole model train city). We decided to go pay a visit to the recovery nurse to thank her for her patience but it was her day off. So the supervisor came out and talked to us and I just otld him that I thought that all the girls on that unit, especially Shauna were fantastic and made us feel comfortable even though things were not going well. On the way back to the room, Shelby saw a man being wheeled through the hall, and said "Oh no! He's dead!!" I about died! The man laughed and said "No I'm not." and Shelby clapped and said "He's ALIVE!"
Later that day, Shelby (because the nightgown Gramma got her had Princess Roe on it) had been asking to watch her Barbie Island Princess movie,so Mike brought it. When we asked for a dvd player the nurses suprised Shelby with this tv! Saying that their little princess needed a tv fit for a princess. Shelby went bonkers, and it stayed in the room till we left lol.
Later that night we went for a walk with Mike and his parents. About an hour after they left Josh came to visit and we went walking around with him Shelby then fell asleep in the wagon, so we bid farewell and Josh and Mike left and I went to sleep.
Yesterday I had been told that if I could change the dressing my self, then Shelby could go home, cause she was handling the pain well enough to go home. That put a lot of pressure on me because I would have like to have seen it done once more before doing it myself. But since it only needs changed once a day, it meant stay till Sunday! So after Nana and Grandad left, the time came to do it. The Child Life person brought a book ( a Strawberry Shortcake version of "Wheres Waldo") and the nurse talked me though it. Even though I didnt like hurting her as much as I did, it went well. What I have to do it pull the gauze out of the hole, rinse, then stick a new one in and cover it up. I also found out that we were going to be having a nurse come over everyday to do, or help with the dressing. We will probably use her for about a week maybe, and by that time I think both me and Shel will be better at it, and wont need the help.
Shelby wanted to keep the wand that she had been holding, but I said she needed to give it back. The lady said that she could play with it for a minute and she would go get her a toy out of the toy closet. Now I knew she meant a new toy to keep, cause on the way to the procedure room the first time, the toy closet was mentioned, and I asked if they were new toys or donated toys, cause the place had so many donated toys ( I ended up donating a bag of old toys by the end of our stay too) and she said they were new, packaged toys, but that they were donated. And that time she had been given the small pack of bubbles. So I figured they were like dollar store toys. Well the lady came back with two toys for Shelby to choose from. In her left hand was a baby highchair and in the right was a Barbie Mermadia doll. (Elina from the Fairytopia series at one point has to give up her wings for a tail to save the world.....again. And this doll changed from a fairy to a mermaid) Shelby started jumping on the bed pointing "THAT ONE!" so the girl gave it to her and as Shelby is hugging the box, I told the girl that she just made Shelby the happiest kid in the world, and that she had no idea how totally spot on that doll was for her.
We had been told now that we were going home and they just had to get ready for discharge. In the meantime Shel had another round of antibiotics and 2 meals, and a lot of tv. They got caught up with trying to get the home nurse, and we couldnt leave till that was squared away. We were finally discharded at 7pm. Shelby was so happy to get the IV out and have the use of her right hand back. (they strap kids hands to a board so they can not pull out the IV and she couldnt color, or get on the potty by herself)
But we were finally free! With the exception of me, who once we were in the car realized the barbie had been left behind and had to go back and get it. The nurse said she was so glad I came back, cause they tried to chase after us but couldnt find us and they new how sad she would be. Unfortunatly we were discharged after all the pharmacies closed, so she didnt get her antibiotics tonight, but we will get them in the morning. But right now my girl is sleeping in her own bed, and I coulnt be happier.
Shelby had a little red bump on her butt about a week ago, that I just wrote off as a pimple. She gets those sometimes when she peed in her pullup to early in the night and had to be in it for a while. Usually goes away after 30 minutes to an hour after getting her out of the pull up. But this one didnt go away, and got a but worse as the week wore on.
On Tuesday I took a look at it cause Shelby was telling me that it hurt to sit down. It looked pretty angry, and I ran my hand over it, and it didnt really seem to out of the ordinary, just an angry pimple. But on Wednesday she was still complaining pretty bad. I decided that if I popped it, maybe it would feel better, like most of the time you pop a pimple on your face, it goes away. I had her lean over and I "broke the seal" and greenish red pus came out. A lot. But as I did this I realized that it felt like there was a golf ball under her skin. I called my mom, who said that I should try to drain as much as I could, and see what it looked like the next day. I was still nervous so I called Josh, who had one of these right before we found out about his Lyphoma. He told me to take her in right away. And I called our insurance NurseHotline, who told me that because of the hardness I should take her to the doctor the next day.
I then read some stuff online, and decided that I wanted to take her to an urgent care. (went to Goonight Pediatrics by the way, great place open from 5pm to 5am) They looked at it, she described it as a 2 inch mass, and told me that I needed to take her to an ER because most likely it would need to be drained. They told me that the best place to take her was Banner Desert because they had a kids ER. So even though we lived right next to a hospital, and had to pass another one on the way, we went there.
I neglected to mention that Shelby was not dressed like a normal child lol!!! She was wearing her Sleeping Beauty dress that her cousins old Halloween costume. She ran around the ER singin and dancing. Clearly the least sick kid there! Once we got seen (not counting triage) things changed a bit, as the doctor looked at her owie. He said that it was a staph infection, possibly MRSA. That kinda freaked us out because all we had heard about it was on the news, and that was the "SuperBug" that was killing people!!! But even after that we werent prepared for him to say that she needed to be admitted, at least over night to recive anti biotics!! I thought for sure that they would just stick a syringe in there and suck out all the yucky stuff. But he said that he didnt think that would work because he thouht it was deeper then it looked, and the last time he just drained one, the kids had to keep coming back and it was a mess.
So at that point Mike and I looked at eachother and we were both a little teary eyed, but we thought it was just a "playing it safe" thing for the doctor, and weren't too worried.
They went through the steps of admitting Shelby. Bless her heart she didnt even cry with they put the IV in her hand!! She just kinda whined for the initial prick, but she actually just watched them do it! Then she got to pick out a small toy from the toy closet (she chose a putple hotwheel) take a ride in a wheel chair, which she tough was beyond cool.
Once in her room she was put in a hopital gown, and since we hadnt had any dinner, she was given some food. We hadnt expected to be there so long. We thought we'd be home by 7!!! Shelby had a hard time eating her sandwhich with one hand. That was pretty funny. Mike went home to get a long list of things that I asked for. Shelby's blanket and her pillowcase, some toys and books, slippers, and some pjs for me. And of course, my camera. He thought this was kinda dumb, but he did it anyway. After dropping that stuff off, he went home to get some sleep. Shelby watched tv for a while, it was hard to sleep in such a new envroment, The nurses were in and out all night doing vitals and checking her IVs, and she didnt go to sleep till about 1:30 am!
Nana was there first thing in the morning. Once the doctor came in, he took a look at it and said that he thought that the surgeon needed to have a look at it and then they would decide if surgery was needed. At that point we were like "SURGERY?! WHAT?" It was then explained to us that it might need to be cut open and cleaned out. We tried to put warm compresses on it to draw it out, and possibly avoid surgery. Nana went back to work for, and Mike came back. My sister and law came over to visit and brought Shelby these cute little doggies and a princess coloring book with crayons. And an adorable doggy backpack with crakers in him. She stayed for a while, and soon after she left, Mikes mother came over with some much needed pjs for Shelby to wear. She brought princess jammies and needles to say, those went over really well with Shel. Also some pink slippers and a robe, socks and underwear. All things that went to good use! LaDonna stayed with me while Mike went to work for half a day. The surgeon came in and siad that they needed to sceduale the surgery. Thats when it really hit that was something kinda major. I called some people while Shel stayed with Gramma.
About 3 o clock they came in and told us that the surgery had been moved up to 4:30, and less then ten minutes later they were there to transport her to pre-op. Now somewhere between here and surgery SOMEONE told me that I would be able to go with her to the operating room and be with her till she was asleep. We waited in pre-op for a while, while Shelby playing with toys, hitched a ride with a nurse and donned a surgical cap (the pictures explain this :-) My mom and Mike showed up and we met with the surgeon again and the anesthisioligist. Then they told us it was time. I carried Shelby to the door, where they then took her from me while she was crying and said I couldnt go past the doors!! I started crying and was pretty upset. They said they had no idea who told me that I could go in there but that it just was not allowed. I was pretty upset, but before I could even turn around they came out to tell me that she was already out. We waited in the waiting room about ten minutes (very quick procedure) when they cam out to tell us that she was heading up to recovery.
About 15 minutes later they came to get Mike and I to go to recovery. As soon as we walked though the doors we heard her screaming. The nurse was doing all she could to keep Shelby in her arms. Shelby was screaming that she didnt want mommy, which was pretty hard on me. But ther nurses explained that she didnt know what was going on or where she was, and that was common with kids coming out of surgery. Mike tried to hold her for a while and she would just scream and make her body stiff as a board. Finally in an attempt to get her to calm down they gave her some demeral. You could see in her eyes that she wasnt even focusing on anything. Her eyes were just wild, and that freaked me out a bit. She still wouldnt calm down and they had to give her MORE! She fought it tooth and nail. Finally Mikes arms couldnt take it anymore and he handed her to me, but bieng moved just made her madder. I held her for a minute that then decided to just sit her in the chair. Because on the rare occasion that she does throw a big tantrum, I just put her on the floor and walk away. Shelby calmed down pretty quick after that. I would have tried it earlier but I thought that she might hurt herself. She had peed on the operating table and gotten her nightgown wet so she was wearing hospital pants. They gave her some juice and they had brought out a tv to calm her down when I was holding her, but by the time they set it up, I had put her down and she had calmed down. So now she was wheeled back to her room.
When we got there they gave her a popscicle and some jello ( she hadnt had anyhting to eat all day in hopes of an open operating room, but now was only allowed liquids) She ate the popscicle and watched some Tv with Nana and Gramma while Mike and I went to the cafeteria to eat. When we got back the grandmas where laughing at a stoned as heck Shelby eating Jello! It was pretty ammusing. After Gramma, Nana and Mike went home, Shelby and I went for a walk to look at the trains and bunnies that they have outside by the kids rooms.
When we got back to the room we watched some tv (lots and lots of TV in the last couple days since Shelby was not allowed in the playroom on acount of the infection) and then we went to bed.
The next morning she had her dressing changed, and that was pretty gross, cause the way they pack the gauze in (accordian like) makes it seem like its deeper then it is. The gauze just kept coming out. You could tell it was VERY painful, but they have people there to help distract her with toys and books and to tell you the truth, we really couldnt have done it without the people from Child Life. They were amazing people!!!! Shelby cried a couple tears, but stayed engaged with the Child Life person the whole time. Shelby got a prize of bubbles, and ice cream.
The rest of the day we just took a lot of walks, played games and watched tv. The surguons came in to see how she was doing, and she just leaned over and showed them ber butt. Nothing was sacred anymore!
We went for a walk in the late afternoon, to go see the bunnies and trains again (there are two bunny rabbits there, and a whole model train city). We decided to go pay a visit to the recovery nurse to thank her for her patience but it was her day off. So the supervisor came out and talked to us and I just otld him that I thought that all the girls on that unit, especially Shauna were fantastic and made us feel comfortable even though things were not going well. On the way back to the room, Shelby saw a man being wheeled through the hall, and said "Oh no! He's dead!!" I about died! The man laughed and said "No I'm not." and Shelby clapped and said "He's ALIVE!"
Later that day, Shelby (because the nightgown Gramma got her had Princess Roe on it) had been asking to watch her Barbie Island Princess movie,so Mike brought it. When we asked for a dvd player the nurses suprised Shelby with this tv! Saying that their little princess needed a tv fit for a princess. Shelby went bonkers, and it stayed in the room till we left lol.
Later that night we went for a walk with Mike and his parents. About an hour after they left Josh came to visit and we went walking around with him Shelby then fell asleep in the wagon, so we bid farewell and Josh and Mike left and I went to sleep.
Yesterday I had been told that if I could change the dressing my self, then Shelby could go home, cause she was handling the pain well enough to go home. That put a lot of pressure on me because I would have like to have seen it done once more before doing it myself. But since it only needs changed once a day, it meant stay till Sunday! So after Nana and Grandad left, the time came to do it. The Child Life person brought a book ( a Strawberry Shortcake version of "Wheres Waldo") and the nurse talked me though it. Even though I didnt like hurting her as much as I did, it went well. What I have to do it pull the gauze out of the hole, rinse, then stick a new one in and cover it up. I also found out that we were going to be having a nurse come over everyday to do, or help with the dressing. We will probably use her for about a week maybe, and by that time I think both me and Shel will be better at it, and wont need the help.
Shelby wanted to keep the wand that she had been holding, but I said she needed to give it back. The lady said that she could play with it for a minute and she would go get her a toy out of the toy closet. Now I knew she meant a new toy to keep, cause on the way to the procedure room the first time, the toy closet was mentioned, and I asked if they were new toys or donated toys, cause the place had so many donated toys ( I ended up donating a bag of old toys by the end of our stay too) and she said they were new, packaged toys, but that they were donated. And that time she had been given the small pack of bubbles. So I figured they were like dollar store toys. Well the lady came back with two toys for Shelby to choose from. In her left hand was a baby highchair and in the right was a Barbie Mermadia doll. (Elina from the Fairytopia series at one point has to give up her wings for a tail to save the world.....again. And this doll changed from a fairy to a mermaid) Shelby started jumping on the bed pointing "THAT ONE!" so the girl gave it to her and as Shelby is hugging the box, I told the girl that she just made Shelby the happiest kid in the world, and that she had no idea how totally spot on that doll was for her.
We had been told now that we were going home and they just had to get ready for discharge. In the meantime Shel had another round of antibiotics and 2 meals, and a lot of tv. They got caught up with trying to get the home nurse, and we couldnt leave till that was squared away. We were finally discharded at 7pm. Shelby was so happy to get the IV out and have the use of her right hand back. (they strap kids hands to a board so they can not pull out the IV and she couldnt color, or get on the potty by herself)
But we were finally free! With the exception of me, who once we were in the car realized the barbie had been left behind and had to go back and get it. The nurse said she was so glad I came back, cause they tried to chase after us but couldnt find us and they new how sad she would be. Unfortunatly we were discharged after all the pharmacies closed, so she didnt get her antibiotics tonight, but we will get them in the morning. But right now my girl is sleeping in her own bed, and I coulnt be happier.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Away from my desk
My daughter is in the hospital since Wednesday night, with a staph infection. She has already had her surgery and is doing freat. More when I get back.
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