The Buckles Family

First and foremost, we would like to wish our sweet, "baby" girl Taylor a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!  She turned 8 years old on Friday.  I know, I can't even believe it either!  She is the most easy-going, sweet tempered, courageous girl we know, and she is wise beyond her years.  We are so proud of her each and every day, and we are absolutely blessed to have her in our lives.  God truly granted us a special gift when he gave us Taylor Joy!!  She was born just 21 minutes shy of Halloween, because I didn't want her to share her birthday with any kind of holiday.  She was two weeks early, and she was a beautiful surprise! 

This year we started out Taylor's birthday in the E.R.  Not a great start to her special day, but true to form, Taylor didn't complain at all.  She had a fever the day before her birthday, so she couldn't go to school.  Thankfully Kevin's mom is in town, so she was able to stay with her for the day so I could actually go to work.  Thank you Jean Jean!!  I'm worried they're going to get a little tired of me missing work!  Anyway, a little after 5 that evening, Taylor started to have intense chest pain, to the point where she was crying hysterically.  I immediately hooked her up to our pulse oximeter (which measures the oxygen saturation in her blood and her heart rate).  Her numbers looked good, except when she would have the pains.  At that point her heart rate would go up, but not to any alarming levels.  I listened to her lungs, and they both sounded clear.  I guess it's a good thing we have so much equipment and knowledge.  We feel prepared for *almost* anything.  I decided to take her to the E.R., along with Jade, while Kevin stayed home with Erin.  Jade has had abdominal pain for 3-4 weeks now, and we are doing everything we can to figure out what is causing it.  We figured we could have them both checked out to avoid another trip in for Jade.  Anyway, after being triaged, we sat in the waiting room for quite a while.  Once we were taken into a room, they ran a few tests on both girls, including blood, urine, and a flu test for Taylor.   Much to my surprise, the flu test came back positive almost immediately!  What?!  We had all three girls vaccinated with the new H1N1 vaccine just the week before!  It had obviously not kicked in yet, and Taylor was exposed before she was protected.  I explained to the doc that Erin was in great danger if she got this flu, and she agreed that we needed to protect her as much as possible.  She prescribed Tamiflu for all three of them, hoping it would help in staving off this illness.  Taylor was quietly reading Harry Potter the entire evening, miserable as she was with her fever.  Taylor was taken for chest x-rays, but everything looked fine with those.  She very patiently waited until Jade was done with all of her tests. 

In the meantime, Jade had to get an I.V., which is usually pretty traumatic for her.  She was extremely brave, though, sitting on my lap while they first inserted the I.V. and then drew blood.  She had to have a CT scan, so she had to drink the contrast solution to help them see all of her organs.  They brought in this GIGANTIC cup, and at first said she had to drink the entire thing!  Seriously, she has never in HER LIFE drank that much in one sitting.  After some careful consideration, they agreed that she only had to drink half of it, which was better but still A LOT!  She was a great sport about it, especially after I told her that the faster she drank it, the faster we could go home.  It was 11 p.m. by this time.  She was finally taken for her CT scan at 11:30, and she was very brave (almost excited).  She knew her sisters have both had these fairly recently.  Jade has had them as well, but she was too young to remember.  Anyway, the scans had to be read at a different hospital, so we didn't get out of there until almost 1 a.m.  The results?  Nothing unusual.  We are still answer-less, and she is still having abdominal pain.  We have now done blood tests (2), urine tests, x-rays, and a CT scan, as well as 3 physical exams by three different docs.  Can you say "Frustrating"?!  We're still working on it!

Anyway, because of the H1N1, all three girls had to stay home until Wednesday.  They were all anxious to get back to school, especially Taylor.  She missed being in school on her birthday, and she was very sad that she couldn't share that with her friends.  She never complained, but we could see it on her face.  Taylor did end up getting a cough, and she had a fever through Monday, but overall the flu didn't hit her too badly.  Luckily Erin and Jade escaped it altogether (knock on wood) this time.  It's not a guarantee that they won't get it at all, but I think they're better protected now, especially since the vaccine has had more time to work.  We will hopefully get the booster in a few weeks, so we will feel a little more confident about their health. 

We celebrated Taylor's birthday on Saturday with her grandma Jean Jean and big brother.  After having cake and then dinner (yes, a little backwards but fun), the girls were able to go out trick or treating for a little while.  We got Taylor a doctor's costume, and it had a mask, so she wasn't spreading germs anywhere.  Around here, everyone puts the candy in the kids' bags, so she never touched anything or anyone.  She was thrilled to be able to go out for a short time, and it was definitely worthwhile.  Erin and Jade had a fantastic time as well.  Jade is no longer scared of the skeleton costumes, which is a relief.  She used to walk around muttering to herself, "it's just a costume, it's just a costume!"  It was very funny, but we didn't want her to be scared.  Erin was a princess this year, and Jade was Scooby Doo.  We recycle costumes around here.  Taylor was Scooby for 2 years in a row, and this was Jade's second year as him as well.  We certainly get our money's worth!  Erin wore a princess dress we've had in their dress-up box, and she loved it.  So did we!  I'll try to get the pictures up soon.

Everyone is finally back in school, and I am back at work.  What a relief!!  The wonderful and amazing people I work for are allowing me to work full days in order to make up for the time I missed.  I just need to reiterate again just how much we love the school and everyone in it!!  I am blessed to be a part of such an outstanding faculty and staff!! 

I have two extremely important posts that I need to write.  Hopefully I will get time soon.  The first post is about our experiences in Baltimore at Kennedy Krieger.  I'm not sure there are even words to express how amazing it was!  The second post is about Erin's service dog, SOLOMON.  We recently were able to spend three days in a row with him, and it was fantastic!!  Erin's excitement about him doubles, triples and quadruples each time we see him.  He will be graduating on November 14th, and we should have him at home with us full time by Christmas!  What a WONDERFUL Christmas present!!!!  We want to thank Terry for bringing him to us each of those three days and for so patiently working with me to teach me how to handle SOLOMON.  We all adore the dog (and Terry too), and we can't believe he's almost ours!  Yay!! 

O.k., more on those two things later.  I have to get our girls ready for bed.  We hope you're having a great week!!  We want to thank everyone for taking the time to stop in and check on us.  Thank you for the wonderful, encouraging comments, and thank you, thank you, thank you for watching Erin's videos on youtube. 

Oh, one last thing:  the new show we are involved in will be airing on TLC on the evening of Sunday, November 15th.  I don't have a time yet, but as soon as we know, I will post it here.  It is about formerly conjoined twins, and we will be in it with 2 other families.  It should be wonderful, and we can't wait to see it!  We want to thank Figure 8 Films for being so great, and for truly caring about our girls!

O.k. now I'm going!  Take care!