A Nice Family Weekend

Had a great last few days with the family!  On Thursday my mom and dad were in town and my mom and I went downtown for a little pampering. I got the best massage ever and my mom got a great hair cut and color.  Then we met up with my dad, Jamie, Jacob and Owen for ice cream at Yo Mama.  It was nice to see my parents for a bit.  They are coming back this coming weekend to babysit while we celebrate Jamie's dad's birthday.  I think my dad might even be staying so he can go to the Brewer's Opening day on Monday.  Baseball is starting... that means the weather has to warm up soon right?

I have spent LOTS of time with Jacob in the last week.  He couldn't go to daycare because he had hand foot and mouth.  :(  Basically a rash that is really contagious that is going around right now.  Thankfully he is pretty much over it and KNOCK ON WOOD, no one else in the house seems to have gotten it.  Man I hope I didn't just jinx myself! Is anyone else ready for spring to get here already?  As if the cold crappy weather wasn't enough to deal with, it seems every household has been SLAMMED with back to back sickness!  I think we all need a good dose of spring, warm weather, sunshine, opening up the windows and letting the fresh air in.  I can't wait for that!

Saturday I got to go on a little date with Owen.  We went and saw a movie together in the morning with his cousin Cooper and his buddy Sam.  Then we went for lunch afterwards.  We were all full from popcorn and candy so we just ate french fries and ice cream for dinner!  Healthy, I know.  Oh well, sometimes it's fun to have days like that.  Owen was such a gentleman and was sure to hold every door open for me even when the doors were so heavy he could barely hold them.  He's such a sweetie.  Then Saturday afternoon we went and saw my niece Emma perform in a play and she was amazing!  It was so fun to see her in her element. So proud of you Emma! 

I also spent a TON of time these last few days on the phone with our insurance company.  I never really talk about this but agh.. I think this could be a full time job figuring out all the insurance stuff between myself and Owen.  About 10 days ago our insurance all of a sudden decide to deactivate Owen's pharmacy coverage, for no reason... just an error that they couldn't figure out how to fix.  For most people this wouldn't be a big deal but for someone that requires daily medication this IS a big problem.  Plus we were trying to add a second seizure medication for Owen and we could NOT get this new prescription because of the insurance company.  

Owen seems to still be struggling since his last seizure which is also when we switched his medication.  We thought it was just him trying to recover from the seizure but the longer this drags out the more we are wondering if his new medication isn't working for him.  His speech is most noticeable.  He went from doing SO great with his speech to now I can barely understand half of what he says.  His speech is really quiet, slow, broken and hard to understand and he is also having a really hard time thinking of the right words.  He couldn't think of the word fridge the other day, he was calling a menu at a restaurant a map. It's just really hard for me to see this when just four months ago he was doing so great.  His neurologist wanted to add a second medication to see if that helped, perhaps his current medicine was still allowing lots of discharges in his brain which would affect him and hopefully the addition of this second medication would fix that.  I can tell you when you are trying to get medication to help your child function better at school you want to get the medication started ASAP so waiting 10 days for an insurance company to get their crap together in downright INFURIATING!  I never write about our struggles with insurance because it's just annoying and I am only writing about it now because finally after 8 days of spending over 2 hours a day on the phone with insurance customer service I got it FIXED!  I don't know if it was the fact that I threatened to write a complaint letter to the insurance commissioner, the fact that I told them I wasn't just trying to buy Tylenol.. that I needed this corrected for my five year old son who needed seizure medicine to help him function at school or that after eight days of calling I just randomly got someone that knew how to do their job over there.  Whatever the case it's fixed, Owen was able to start the second medication two days ago.  I anticipate it taking a few days before we can tell if it's doing anything but I PRAY it helps him.  It's so hard to watch your child struggle, especially when you know how hard they work everyday to be like everyone else.  I just wish we could easily tell if it was the seizure that set him back so much or if the new medicine wasn't working.  It's just hard not knowing.  Yet, another reason the brain surgery would be such a blessing for Owen, eliminating medicine AND seizures!  What a relief that would be for him and us.

I am off to bed.  Here are a few photos of the boys.  I have NO idea why these have a red tint to them. I am so annoyed.  They don't look like that on my computer, I just completely shut down my computer and rebooted and they uploaded the same way.  Oh well, enjoy the red tinted photos.  :)  Well one of them displays correctly.  

Good Night!