Five on Friday - Favorites

Well, we survived the first week back to school after Spring Break!  I will definitely say that I was on the struggle bus the majority of the week.  After floating around in our Disney bubble for a week and then getting home and floating around in our Easter bubble for a few days it was really hard to get back in the swing of things!

Here are a few of my favorite things from the last couple of weeks…

O N E – Field Trip with My Boo

Jacob’s school was closed for Easter Monday so he didn’t have to be back from Spring Break until Tuesday, and then on Tuesday that lucky little guy had a field trip!  I went along as a parent chaperone and we had a great time!  We went to a local environmental learning center and the kids learned all about reptiles and amphibians.  They got to touch a turtle, a snake – EEK, and a baby alligator – DOUBLE EEK!  I opted not to touch since they were alive and squirming around (gaaaah), but Jacob and his friends were all in, and they touched everything. 

Once the program was over, they let the kids go outside and catch bugs and then we went on a nature hike through the preserve followed by having a picnic lunch.  The weather was perfect and it was a great day hanging with the Boo, both first grade classes, the teachers, and a few of the other mommas.

T W O – My Birthday

My birthday was yesterday!  Since it was in the middle of the week we didn’t do anything super special… we just did our usual school and soccer Thursday things, but Brian and the kids did make the day special, though.  We are going to celebrate this weekend some more!

And in case you missed it, I did a “36 Things for Age 36” post yesterday… I posted lots of new random facts about me that I’ve never mentioned on the blog – some weird and some funny – so check it out if you missed it!  It might help you get to know me a little better!

T H R E E – Disney By the Numbers

We’ve been back from Disney for a whole week and I have yet to get a recap post up, but I was able to get one of my “By the Numbers” posts up!  I broke down our entire trip park by park and shared how many rides we rode in each, how many characters the kids got to meet, how many autographs we got, and so on…

The real recaps will begin next week so be sure to stick around if you love all things Disney!

F O U R – Amazon Faves

Amazon is pretty much our go-to for everything these days, and we are constantly buying all the things from there.  I’ve actually been an Amazon shopper for 16 years – CRAZY – so I decided to share a look inside our Amazon account and some of my all-time favorite Amazon purchases throughout the years.  You can see the post here.

F I V E – An Answered Prayer

Finally, we had a pretty big health scare with Olivia right before we left for Disney.  I never mentioned anything on the blog or social media because we wanted to keep things private until we knew what we were actually dealing with.  I do blog to the public, but surprisingly, I’m a pretty private person, and I also try to respect the privacy of our children as well while they’re small and don’t have their own voices just yet.

About a week before we left for Disney, Olivia had a routine check-up with her ENT for her tubes in her ears for chronic ear infections.  Right when Olivia was getting ready to leave, the doctor asked her a question, just chatting with her, and Olivia just so happened to look up at the ceiling when she answered.  When she looked up, the doctor noticed that she had a huge lump bulging on her neck (near her thyroid).  Brian and I had never noticed it before because you couldn’t see it at all unless she tilted her head back to look up. 

Anyway, obviously it was something that needed to be looked at quickly so he scheduled an ultrasound at the hospital for two days later.  We got the results from that a few days later and the doctor said that it was likely a “thyroid nodule” and that it was 2.5 cm in diameter.  He said that thyroid nodules are fairly common in adults (about 1 in 4 have one and don’t even know it) but that they are really rare in small children.  He also said that hers was much larger than most, and then he told us that there was a 20% chance it was cancer.  The odds were definitely in our favor, but when a doctor tells you that there is a 20% chance your baby has cancer, your mind can really go to a bad place. 

The next step was to schedule some blood work at the hospital (which Olivia was a complete BOSS for) which came back normal, and then we had to schedule a needle biopsy that would have to be done under anesthesia since she’s so small.  The needle biopsy was scheduled… sigh… the day before we were scheduled to leave for Disney World.  We knew it was important to get it done ASAP and the doctor assured us she would be fine to leave the next day, but goodness was I worried she would end up feeling bad during our trip.

We had to be at the hospital at 6 AM Friday morning.  We watched a bunch of old Disney princess movie song clips on YouTube while we waited for them to wheel her back, and when the nurses came to get her, she was so brave!  The procedure took almost an hour so they had to use an IV for her anesthesia instead of the easier general anesthesia by mask, so I was a little nervous.

When the doctor came out of surgery he told us that everything had gone well but the bulge ended up looking more cyst-like rather than nodule-like which meant that the matter that came out was more liquidy than expected.  Therefore, he thought that this could possibly make it impossible for the pathologist to determine whether or not it was cancerous or benign which meant that we would not have a clear-cut way on how to proceed.  Ugh.

Once we were done talking to the doctor, they let us go back to the recovery room to be there for Olivia when she woke up from the anesthesia.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been around a child after they wake from anesthesia, but it is really rough.  The anesthesia makes them all out of sorts – crying, screaming, flailing around, and completely out of it.  When Olivia had anesthesia for her tubes, she actually woke up happy and smiling which shocked the nurses because that’s so rare.  I was hoping that would be the case this second time, but nope.  She cried and cried and flailed around for what seemed like forever, even though Brian says that it was only about 15-20 minutes.  Once I was finally able to calm her down she drank some water and then they discharged us in the late morning.  Before we left, the nurse set up our follow-up with the doctor, and since we were leaving the next day for Disney we had to wait until we got back to get the results.  Ugh again.

Olivia had a bit of a rough rest of the morning because the anesthesia made her sick to her stomach, but fortunately she only got sick once and then she was able to eat the donuts I had picked up for her as a treat for doing so well.  By the afternoon she was back to her usual jolly self, we were able to leave the next day for our trip as planned, and the day after we arrived home from Disney (Good Friday, actually) we went to the doctor’s office and received the joyous news that it was, in fact, a thyroid nodule and the pathologist was able to determine for certain that it was NON-CANCEROUS!  Thank you, God, for good news on Good Friday!

It has been a whirlwind, emotional last few weeks around here and I’m just so thankful that she is okay.  I was worried that waiting for the results during our Disney trip would put a damper on the trip, but that actually didn’t end up happening.  Instead, the trip ended up taking my mind off of things for the most part and we had an absolute wonderful time.  Every now and then a wave of sadness and worry would wash over me, but it was usually brief.  Now we just have to follow-up every three months with the doctor to make sure the nodule doesn’t come back.    

God is so good!

Happy Friday!

*Linking up with A Liz Adventures and Carolina Charm for Five on Friday, A Little Bit of Everything for Friday Favorites,  September Farm and The Farmer's Wife for Oh Hey, Friday, Meet @ the Barre for Friday Favorites, and Cup of Tea for High Five for Friday.