Ryan, April, Tatum, Jack, and Sienna: The year that IHC owned us..

Today was a good day.

Today I checked our mail, and there wasn't a single medical bill in there!

I think we are finally done.

The year 2012 was a pricey one at our house.

Besides having a baby, which is always a little on the spendy side, we had:

1.Ear tubes for Jack

2. Home Health IV's for me during my first trimester

3. Knee Surgery for Tatum

4. 3 days in the hospital for Sienna

5. One day in the hospital for Jack

We have to meet a 1200 deductible per person before our insurance kicks in at 80/20.

so.
Just on deductibles alone that's 4800.00.

And that was really just a scratch to the surface.

With that being said..

I am eternally grateful for the insurance that we DO have, as well as a stable income to be able to pay those medical bills.
So grateful.
Holy cow.

1. Jack is allergic to penicillin.

With a strong resistance to all other forms of antibiotics. So after a whole month of trying, and 2 rounds rocefen shots, we were unable to cure his double ear infections, so we were scheduled for ear tubes.

It was the day before his first birthday.
Valentines Day.

I am so grateful that were able to afford this minor surgery so that he was relieved of the pain he had had for almost a month.
I am grateful for insurance.
Nothing gives you a belly ache like your baby being in pain.

2. When I was pregnant with Tatum, I ended up on IV's. But with Sienna, it was much more sick, and ended up with an IV for about 6 weeks I think? Maybe a couple of weeks longer?

Anyways, the IV's help me so so much. It is a physical impossibility for me to drink for that first three months of pregnancy. Let alone eat.

I truly feel that without those IV's, like if I were a pioneer. Ya know? I would have died.

Really. Seriously. Kicked the bucket.

I am so thankful that in addition to the stress of being sick, and having my family struggle because of my illness, we didnt have the stress of no insurance.

I can't imagine.

I am grateful for insurance

3. One day, Tatum came home from school very upset.

A girl at school had said her legs were weird.

I gave her a pep talk, "nobody can make us feel bad about ourselves unless we let them.

blah blahblah. yada. yada"

Maybe I should have paid a little more attention..

The comments continued, and her frustration with my pep talks grew.

Her legs were weird.

No. Her legs WERE NOT weird.

They were perfect.

They have always been perfect.

My child is perfect.

Kids are mean

They are just jealous.

My kid is one hundred percent perfect.

So.
You can imagine my dismay when I finally took her to an orthopedic surgeon and he confirmed that she was one of the most "remarkably knock kneed children he had ever seen."

Now, of course this doesn't mean she isn't perfect, but for her well being, and to avoid some very serious future problems we decided to schedule a surgery for the next week.

She was all but giddy.

Really, and truly.

Isn't that crazy? I really and truly never ever noticed it.

Never once until a 5th grader brought it to our attention.
Jerk 5th graders.
Thank goodness for jerk 5th graders huh?

Neither had Ryan, Eric, or Hayley.

I guess love is blind.

It was a pretty simple surgery. Same day. Less than an hour.

They made a small incision on the inside of her knee caps and inserted a bracket into her growth plates so that as her legs grow, it will force her knees to grow inward, instead of outward.

After she is finished growing she will have the brackets removed.

Her recovery was easy, and she was thrilled to use crutches and have a week off of school.

Again. I am so so grateful that we have insurance, and were able to help our little girl.

I would have felt terrible if we would have had to keep struggling for any longer with that insecurity.

4. When I took Sienna into the hospital it was Christmas Morning.

Both of the kids were sick, and Sienna's fever was at 102.

To be honest, Jack seemed much more sick than Sienna.

Even as a newborn she was so mild mannered that I didn't realize how sick she was.

I had simply called an instacare to see if I could give her some ibuprofen to help contain her fever because the Tylenol wasn't keeping it down for long.

They told me to go immediately to the Riverton Hospital ER.

We hadn't opened any presents, only played with the things that Santa had left out.. But even Jack was too sick to play much.

I didn't know that was such a big deal for infants, so I was really shocked with they admitted her.

They put an IV in to her tiny arm, tried several times to insert a catheter, and hooked her up to a few different beepy machines.

We were supposed to be picking Tatum up from Eric's and heading to Cedar City.

I was sure that it was just going to be a few hours of getting her re hydrated and then we would be on our way.

3 days, a spinal tap, some EKG's and lots of tears later, we were released with a diagnosis of
Influenza A.

It was the worst.

At first they couldn't find anything wrong with her.

Her temperature wouldn't come down

Her heart rate was hovering between 130 and 150 bpm for a really long time.

They did an EKG on her at that time, and when she was upset during it, her rate shot up to 170 for a few minutes. It was more than awful.

Beyond awful

Bawful.

It was then that they decided to do a spinal tap.

That, to me, seemed like the scariest thing in the world.

I couldn't bring myself to stay in the room.

I ran down the hall to the waiting room bathroom and called Ryan in hysterics.

They had been warning us that because of her high heart rate and the crazy flippy flops it was doing, that a "lumbar puncture" was probably on its way.
Miraculously, about an hour after Sienna's spinal tap she turned a corner, and started to get better.
Her fever broke, and her heart rate came down.
This was about 3 am.
Up the road, Ryan was wide awake doing a puzzle.

We were only about a mile away from each other, but we were both so scared and all alone.

He was doing all he knew how to do at home with our sick little BabyJack.

And let me just state for the record. He did more than amazingly.

I'm the mom ya know.

While Ryan has helped with more than his fair share of poopy bums, baths, and bedtimes,
he had never once given any medicine.

He had no idea of doses, children vs infants.
Piggy backing. Pedialyte. Or about the BRAT diet.

He didn't know that diarrhea leads very quickly to dehydration in small kids.

That 2 of Jacks favorite things, fruit, and a hot bath, were to be avoided.

That the rate of his breathing in the night is directly tied to how high his fever is.

He figured all of this out very quickly with the help of his mama, and our good pal Google.

But.

5. Even with all he did, and what a great job he did,

I knew the second that I walked into the door from the hospital that Jack was dehydrated.

He was too sick.

It was unavoidable, and would have happened even if I had been home to help care for him.

I immediately scheduled a doctors appointment.

Our doctors office is at Riverton Hospital.

They sent us immediately upstairs to the children's floor, where they admitted Jack in the room next to the one I had just spent 3 days in with Sienna.

They swaddled him in a huge blanket and as efficiently as humanly possible put an IV into my sick little man.

It was so sad, but he did so so good, and was luckily only there for about 12 hours.

Sienna was exclusively breast fed, so my sister in law came and sat with her while Ryan came and switched me out.

He stayed at the hospital with Jack while I went home with the baby.

And PS. Tatum had Influenza A during all of this too.

My poor big girl was without her mama while she was feeling as awful as she had ever felt.

It was one of the very worst times of our lives.

Isn't that awesome?

I mean really. Totally incredible.

That the worst thing that we had ever encountered was the flu?

Gimme a break.

I had never felt so entirely blessed when I realized that.
**KNOCKING ON WOOD SO SO DANG HARD**

We had just gone through something really hard, but came out with 3 healthy kids, and lots of new knowledge, skills, and insight.

And
A new found recognition of just how blessed we ARE.

We completely missed Christmas.

Which wasn't even a bleep on our radar.

We become connected with some of our new neighbors that brought me a bag of stuff to the hospital, Gatorade and tissues to Ryan, and shoveled our driveway.
We were again made aware of how much of a part of our family Eric and Hayley are as they cared for Tatum, and helped us out with visits, and encouragements.
And.
We have insurance.
The ER was flooded with people on that Christmas day.
So was the children's floor at the hospital
I'm sure that some of them didn't have insurance.
That some of those parents were going through equal and certainly worse scenarios than we were.
But with the added stress of thousands upon thousands of dollars accumulating each hour they were there.
Ill say it one more time.
I am grateful for insurance.

........

We are very excited for a Christmas do-over next year.

All of us together.

Some people this flu season, this year, and this lifetime, are not so lucky.
....

Some documentation: