What a trooper...

We have survived Ana's appointment with the pediatric neurologist in Rochester and feel like we at least have some of our questions answered. We started the morning bright and early with Ana's EEG appointment. I was satisfied immensely with how they dealt with Ana and their attention to detail to make sure that their test was done to the best of their ability - I did not feel this way when she had it done in Spencer. I must say Thank You again to our friends Eric and Nickie for allowing us to stay at their house, and to Eric for helping Chad keep Ana up for half that night so she would be good and tired for the test. Whatever you guys did worked...she was asleep within 2 minutes of laying down on the bed!!


We met later in the day with the doctor and she was wonderful - her name was Dr. Wirrell. She explained things so well and was very patient with us. This is what we know: she has no malformation of the brain or tumors on her brain...halelujia!! Because of the placement of her seizures, it can be determined that the right frontal lobe of the brain is where the seizures are being stemmed from. Since there is no family history of seizures, we can only hope that she will outgrow them, but know that there are no serious side effects of her medication IF she should need to be on them indefinitely. Also, since there is no family history, we went in to great detail about my pregnancy, delivery, and medical history of the girls. Ana was born with a birthmark on her head (which will need to be removed when she hits puberty because hormones cause it to become inflamed) and we were very surprised to find out that this type of birthmark has been linked to seizures!!! Nothing was mentioned of that when we took her to a dermotologist as a baby to have it looked at and honestly, I tend to forget about it now because her hair covers it - thanks to Chad for remembering that she had it!!! Dr. Wirrell was very intriqued because her birthmark is on the left side of her head, which doesn't coorrelate to her seizures being from the right side of her brain! So, Ana continues to be a medical mystery!! There is still a 20-30% chance that she could have a grand mal seizure at some point, but as she said - we had a greater chance of having a car accident going to Rochester than she will ever have of having that type of seizure. She did give us lots of information as to how to handle things if that should happen, so that was reassuring. There is also about a 40% chance that she will begin to have seizures again while on this medicine since she's on such a low dose, but her dosage will just be increased if that happens. We do know that she will continue to be on her medicine for another two years before she is re-evaluated to see if we can ween her off. Needless to say, our greatest hope is that she no longer has any seizures (just as she is now) during that two year period which hopefully means that she may have outgrown them. We plan to meet with Dr. Wirrell once a year, or more if needed because of the reoccurrance of seizures, for as long as needed.


Again, a special thank you to Nickie and Eric - we had a wonderful time with you guys, we just wish it could have been longer. And thank you also to my sister, Ang, who was planning to stay with Kale. Your guys' willingness to help means so much - more than you will ever know. I hope I haven't forgotten anything but I guess if I have, I'll just post another short message!! Have a safe and wonderful fall!!

It's getting closer

Well, we're doing the countdown now for Ana's doctor appointment in Rochester with the neurologist. Ana is very positive about the whole thing and is such a trooper. She will have another EEG while we are there so we look forward to hearing what the doctor says and if this EEG will show anything that can give us a clue as to why she was having the seizures. Since she began the anti-seizure medicine she has had no more seizures. Our biggest question will be how long they think she will need to be on the medicine and if there is any concerns to being on the medicine as far as side effects and such. All we can hope for is that they find nothing as to what caused the seizures to begin with, yet that is so frustrating for us too because there were no symptoms (fever, etc) that caused them to begin with anyway. It's just hard when you have no answers, but we know that no news really is good news. Her appointment is on Monday, the 29th, and we have no idea how long we will even be there, but hope it only takes a day or two at most. Mia will be going along with us because she wants to be with her sister - she's a worrier! It's so sweet though to know that she wants to be there. My sister, Ang, is coming to stay with Kale while we are away so we thank her so much for her willingness to do so.

We will keep you posted as we find out more information.

He just keeps getting bigger

Yes, the title says exactly what we found out at the doctor today!! I took Kale for his two year check up and he continues to stay in the 95th percentile for height and the 85th for weight. His weight has started to drop off a little so that's an obvious indicator that he's either wearing it all off with his CONSTANT activity or that he just keeps growing. When I looked back at the girls' book to see how big they were at this age, Kale is almost 2 inches taller than they were!! It's amazing to me the vocabulary that he has and how much more he has started talking in the past few weeks. Sometimes I laugh to myself because he comes by it very naturally as he has grandparents on both sides of the family that are major talkers as well! His sleeping habits have gotten better since my last post. Just a couple of days after I did the last post he began sleeping through the night again - but in the past few nights he has woken again a few times, but he has some congestion and a molar coming in so I'm blaming it on that. He has been much easier to get back to sleep though...and thank you to all of you who tried to give me some suggestions and support!

I have started a web page at http://fankfamilypage.shutterfly.com in hopes of posting more pictures when I have them than the few that I can put on this site. I will continue to use this blog as my primary way of keeping in touch, but will post a message with the pictures on the web page when I download those. You are all invited to take a peek!!

Please keep your thoughts and prayers with those in Texas who were affected by Ike. My step-sister Carrie and her family live near the area and were, luckily, just without power for 24 hours and received no real damage to their home. Others very near to them were less fortunate than they were.

Sleep...what is that??

I want to start out by saying (and I've said it many times before), thank God we had our twins first because I think they truly broke us in for what we would be facing with Kale!!! Ana was a crier as a baby and was the child to wake up the most during the night - but Kale tops that by 100 times! For about two months now (since we took his pacifier away) he has been waking up every night between 2-6 times a night! YES, I said SIX. Before we took his paci away, he would sleep through the night and really only wake up if his paci would fall out of his crib. SO, I thought, maybe if he had something in his crib that made him feel secure it would get better. The first day at nap time I asked if he wanted to take a toy or anything to bed with him and he chose one of his little tractors, and believe it or not, he only woke up once!! So I allowed him to do it again at bed time - this time his tractor was a little bigger, but I let him because it worked at nap! And holy cow, he slept the whole night!!! I thought I was really on to something so the next day we did it again. By the time bedtime came, he picked his big tractor and manure spreader...it was tough to find a place in his crib for it, but I did it. He slept pretty good until the tractor got in his way and woke him up. Since then, it doesn't matter what he takes to bed, he is back to waking up over and over. Believe me, we have tried everything - night lights, letting him cry it out, laying beside his bed until he falls asleep, rubbing his back, etc. Anyone who has any suggestions - we would LOVE any of them!!!

Vacation is over...

As the girls headed back to school today, Ana said to me "well, I guess vacation is over." Boy, isn't that the truth! It was an absolutely beautiful weekend and we tried to enjoy every bit of it - even if we were working outside. It sure didn't seem like hard work when the sun was shining down on me anyway.

Our weekend was pretty laid back and that was great. Chad has a large "honey do" list and has decided to start some of the projects before he gets busy with harvest. I am loving the stage that Kale is in right now. In just the last two weeks he has really become independent and has found that it's okay to play by himself which allows us to get so much more done around the house which couldn't come at a better time! About the only excitement this weekend was going to our neices birthday party in Graettinger. It was a fun day for the kids because Graettinger has a Labor Day celebration with rides so the kids were all in heaven. You may think the picture of Kale shows him having some apprehension on the roller coaster, but honestly, he was in HEAVEN. He would have ridden it over and over. Ana, being our trooper that will try anything once, went on it with him and has found a new love, I think. Yay for Mommy who loves to ride them as well!!

The other picture is of the kids playing farm with Chad. They set up a whole farm operation with each kid having their own duties. Chad combined, of course. Kale caught the grain and cleaned the animal lots. Ana and Mia were in charge of taking care of the animals and going to auction to buy more. I don't think the kids ever thought there would be something they could ALL play that would be so much fun.

Hope you all had a great weekend as well!! Take care.