Christmas Weekend

Tim and I had a wonderful Christmas weekend together. Friday night, Tim surprised me, as he was offered two free tickets to a Dinner Theatre in downtown Portland from one of his bosses, at the radio station. So, we scurried around Friday night, and got ready for an evening out. We enjoyed a 4 course meal (spaghetti/meatballs/french bread/ceasar salad/spumoni tiramisu style cake) and were entertained by a great bunch of actors. The Theatre presented "Who Stole My Dead Husband". The actors were based out of Brooklyn, and Italy...as you can imagine, it was hilarious.
On Saturday, we picked out our Corian bathroom countertop, with our friends, Kristi and McKenzie. He has graciously offered his time to us, and is installing it for free this week! Not to mention, his boss gave us the slab of Corian for free as well...wow! We bought a sink at Lowes, and found a new faucet at The Rebuilding Center for $20 bucks. We also painted our kitchen and main wall in the dining room, and Tim put my kitchen cabinet doors back on, now we just need to paint the faces of the doors, and all will be done in that room. Well, done for now...we are planning on replacing the countertops with granite tiles, and putting in stone tile in the kitchen down the road.Tim and I had a nice relaxing day yesterday; we spent some time with my side of the family, and shared gifts, and food together. Tim and I carried our own tradition out by seeing a movie on the big screen too. This year, it was The Pursuit of HappYness.It was great. We are looking forward to another 3 day weekend coming up, and plan on going snowshoeing Saturday.

Pituitary Adenoma

As promised, here's a brief update since my Dr.'s appt. on Tuesday. I have what's called a Pituitary Adenoma, more commonly called a brain tumor in the Pituitary Gland. Sounds scary, I know, but really, it sounds like everything will be allright. Allright? For some reason or another (studies have yet to conclude where these things come from!) I have this little tumor growing on the Pituitary Gland, that is secreting Prolactin into my body, essentially tricking my body into believing I'm pregnant, even though I've never been, nor am right now. So, maybe that's why I feel a little crazy sometimes! :) All joking aside though, the high level of prolactin in my body has confused and shut down some of my hormones, throwing everything out of balance. So, my Dr.'s solution (that I am having a hard with) is to put me on Bromocriptine, a low dose at first, to encapsulate the tumor, or just "turn it off", making my prolactin level return to "normal", which in turn should make my other hormones in balance once again. It sounds rather easy, if you think of it this way, though finding the right dose of this medicine is delicate, and every 8 weeks, I will be having labs done, to check my levels again. A few questions I walked in with, that I have been asked by many of you reading this include:
Is it cancerous? No, this is not cancerous, it's very rare for adenomas to become cancerous.
Will I be able to have children? Yep (at least we hope so!), according to my Dr. "everything" should return to normal within 6 months to 1 year.
Will I need to be on Bromocriptine forever? Yep, even through future pregnancies. Even when my body is working right internally again, I will still need to be taking medicine, to continue to keep the tumor isolated.

So, I think that sums it up. As homeopathic as I try to be, even my Dr. has nearly demanded I get on this medicine, simply because she doesn't want this to continue to grow, and require brain surgery down the road. So, I will fill my RX like the good girl that I am, and in the meanwhile, research like crazy, consult with naturopathic professionals, take my Shaklee supplements, and pray for God's healing hand. Tim and I thank you, blog readers, and friends alike, for your prayers and encouragement during this challenging time. We love you guys.

As far as everything else goes...things are chaotic. Moving, unpacking/remodeling/painting/working full time/etc. has been so time consuming, it's hard to believe Christmas is on Monday. Tim and I played "catch-up" last night, and realized we still need to finish our Christmas letter, that has now turned into our New Years letter, bake cookies together, and finish our Christmas shopping for each other. We plan on continuing the one tradition we've done for the past 3 years now, and see a movie on Christmas day. We are hoping to hit the mountain and do some snowshoeing as well. We are really looking forward to our 3 day weekend together. Last night, Tim and I went to Shireen's (my sweet 3 year old girl whom I've nanny'd for 2 years) Montessori School Christmas Pageant last night. It was absolutely adorable, I'll post pictures of the event one of these days. Well, Adios, Feliz Navidad and Merry Christmas!

Trees and kitties and lights, Oh My!

Well, it has been a while since I have posted a piece on here. Lately my days have been comprised of working one of my 3 jobs while looking for one of 3 more places. Part time at one place, random hours at another and whenever needed and yet one more.
But, we got a break this weekend to hunt for the perfect tree!



We originally were planning to get a permit from the National Forest Service to "go out in the wilderness and find that perfect tree", but when Heidi was sick and the recent news of James Kim, we decided not to risk the backcountry. Instead we opted for a local cut-your-own-tree farm to continue the tradition of cutting our own live tree. We headed out to Sandy near Mt. Hood (with the intent of getting a tree AND stopping by Joe's donuts). We found a place where the trees were "$5-$8" If that was cost per foot, it would be expensive. Most trees around here are between $3-$4 a foot. Anyway, we stopped in and sure enough, they were clearing out their field to have more room for the horses.

We found an 8 ft tree for $8 and a smaller Charlie Brown looking tree for our upstairs movie room for $5. But as we set out for 1 tree, and changed our minds for a second, we left with 3 trees! We remembered Grandma and thought, they would love a tree, but can't get out to get one, let's surprise them. So, for another $8, we snagged them a perfect little fir for their living room. We delivered it, set it up, shared our donuts and Heidi even came back later that evening to help decorate their new treasure. It was a great Saturday and we are now enjoying the smell of Christmas in our new little home!

Enjoy some photos from our adventure!







Snickers enjoys the lights and Emma found a cozy spot in the garland (not Judy Garland though)

More to come , so stay tuned!....


-T

Yikes!

The highlights of our week: (the good, bad and the ugly!)

1. Heidi got the stomach flu last week. Not so great of a highlight--but, thought you'd be interested anyway :) I guess I'm doomed (until my Shaklee vitamins arrive in the mail!!) when I care for 4 girls 3 and under, 2 of which are exposed to icky germs in preschool.
2. We are almost done painting our hallway and upstairs. We will finish that tonight, hopefully.
3. Heidi had her Brain MRI last week. For those of you who aren't aware, my blood test results came back recently showing my prolactin levels were elevated, and since I'm not pregnant, my Dr. suggested we do an MRI to check for a Pituitary tumor in the brain. Sounds scary, it was...it is...but things are looking good. I do have a small tumor on the Pituitary gland, and will chat more with my Dr. on the 19th about some options. Sounds like I can take medicine to shrink it, and keep it away. Though, I am researching more natural ways, as the thought of medicine isn't so intriguing.
4. Our first born, Freckles, is missing. She's been gone for over 2 weeks now, and though the Missing Cat posters are up everywhere...we've had no luck in finding her. After balling my eyes out with Tim last night, we are ready to make a memorial for her I think. Of course, we've not given up hope of her returning to us either. But, as the days pass, the more unsettled we feel. Just pray for us right now, it's a rough time without our fiesty one.
5. Tim has some new work possibilities opening up for him...another thing to pray about. I'll let him share if he'd like.

As for the future:

1. We're going snowshoeing Saturday to find our Christmas tree...you know, the real kind that you have to cut down yourself. Yeah, we live in Oregon. Enough said. :)
We'll post pictures of our crazy endeavor.

-H