From Processed To Organic

I think perhaps most things are good when they are back to the way they were originally intended to be. Food is a big one in this area. I recently came across a blog with the similar challenge as my blog challenge. They were posting everyday but that was not the main objective of their blog. The main objective was no fake food for 100 days. We're talking omitting processed, artificially preserved, hormone infused, antibiotic overloaded food.

And here's the real kicker: They were doing all of this on a budget of $100 a week for four people. While I am a believer in healthy eating I'm afraid to say we still miss the boat at times. We Fullmers love us some junk food. I've been doing better since watching Food Inc last February but I have far to go in the healthy food department as much as I wish I had it down.

Baby steps seem to be best for me as I have a tendency to look at the bigger picture and be overwhelmed. Three years to go of endless homework and various other assignments to earn the degree I want all having to be done while homeschooling and properly nourishing and caring for five children one with a wide range of special needs. This to me appears overwhelming and has me wanting to head to the nearest spa. But I can't look at it that way. You just do the next thing. The next school assignment, the next load of laundry, the next appointment and somehow before you know it you've conquered the overwhelming picture. The giant wasn't so big after all.This is the approach I'm taking to healthy eating. Ronan is my first overhaul. Lucky for him. He is on a strict pureed diet and also will eat anything I shove into his face. This made him an easy candidate for my experimentation.

I was asked by many therapists, doctors ect.. if I puree Ronan's food myself. My answer would be my higest ambition is jar food. I found this to be unacceptable. I decided we would see just how much time pureeing our own food would take and I was astonished at the result. Here is the break down. 15 minutes to and from the Farmer's market and that includes time spent there (we have a farmer's market super close to our house). 10 minutes to wash and chop fruits and veggies. 15 minutes to puree, store and clean up.

40 minutes total to provide 6 super healthy meals to Ronan. Not as bad as I had in my head and it's another example of taking things as they come. Does this mean that we will now no longer grab for that pizza or doughnut every once in awhile? Probably not but slowly and surely I am wanting to take our family from Processed to Organic or at least more fruits and veggies. A girl has to start somewhere.

Another Hospital Stay

Here I am once again at the peds floor of Mercy Hospital. Ronan has been admitted to the hospital. All the nurses remember him and comment on how big he's gotten. They all clap and smile when they see him walking as he was still crawling during his last stay. I guess that might be the point you realize your kid is at the hospital too much , when the staff starts to know him well enough to remember personal facts about him.

This roller coaster began over a week ago. His brothers and oldest sister had strep and he was coughing. I took him in to the doctor and they said he had bronchitis and put him on an antibiotic. He finished up the antibiotic but he continued to get worse. For the last three nights I was up with him until 6:00 am giving him treatments and suctioning out his nose. On Friday night I took him to the ER because he was destating on his pulse-ox and sounding really bad. I was told then he just had a cold and was fine. I told the doctor we had the Buddy Walk the next day and asked if he would be ok. The doctor told me Ronan was fine and he should be good to go for the buddy walk.

We made it home at 6:30 am and caught a couple hours of sleep before getting up for the buddy walk a little after eight. Ronan woke up happy, he ate his breakfast fine and was acting like himself again. Taking this and the doctor's words into consideration we went to the Buddy walk. That evening (yesterday) I noticed his eyes looked red everywhere and not just his surgery area. I figured if it continued I'd call his eye doctor on Monday. Around 3:00 am he started his destat and congestion. I got him up, gave him a treatment and suctioned him out.

I noticed his left eye looked swollen and the lid was a red/purple color. I got his stats up and we went to bed. When he woke up he was horribly congested and his eyes were sealed shut. I wiped them clean and he could barely open them due to swelling. The left one was worse by far than the right. The pictures don't even do the swelling justice. I made the call to take him into the walk-in clinic.

The doctor thought he could hear pneumonia and ordered a chest x-ray which confirmed his assumption. He decided to do a white blood cell count and that came back 13,000 and normal is between 4,000- 10,800. He was also concerned about his eye but didn't say much else about it. He wanted him admitted to the hospital. He called the hospital and they wanted Ronan run through the ER to make sure they agreed with the assessment.

At the ER they repeated the white blood cell count and it had jumped to 20,000 meaning it was double the high end of normal. They said another test, one I've never heard of before had really elevated levels. The doctor said that that high result mixed with the white blood cell count meant he need to be admitted for high dose antibiotics. One to target pneumonia and one the eye. She explained more about the eye at that point. She said that he has periorbital cellulitis. The concern is that it could turn into orbital cellulitis pretty quick which puts great pressure on the optic nerve and could render him blind. They were deciding if they should do a CT scan to make sure. They decided that since he was staying in the hospital for the pneumonia that they would treat him as though he had the orbital and give him the high dose antibiotics for the eye.

If he is not improved or worse in the morning they will order the CT scan of his eye. The doctor was pretty sure we wouldn't have to and the antibiotics should do the trick. After five hours in the ER and eight total from the time I took him to the walk in clinic we were given a room on the peds floor. The nurses remembered him. One nurse said she had to find him some presents from their back toy room to take home with him.She brought him a cute penguin book and a brand new build a bear bear with the tags still attached. It even had its cardboard build a bear house. As long as the antibiotics work he'll get to go home as soon as tomorrow or Tuesday. Hopefully his white blood cell count will be down and will quit climbing.

Buddy Walk 2011

Our third Buddy Walk took place today. Ronan's Buddy walk team consisted of Me, Both his Grandmas, Grandpa Fullmer, all four of his siblings, his cousins Caleb and Hannah and his Aunt Alana. Isaac was there too but he was one of the photographers. He was helping out another friend of ours take all the official photos.

We made it just in time to get in line for the walk. The turn out was pretty good and there were hundreds of people participating. Ronan fell asleep half way through the walk .We got a team picture taken and then we took a family one. It's been a while since we've had a family photo together.

Inara enjoyed the day too. Today was her very first day wearing shoes. At first she pulled on them and said "Shoes off." When she realized I was not going to comply to her request she began trying to walk around in them. Her walk looked pretty close to a march.

Inara was excited to find Daddy and had to get some Daddy hugs and kisses. The boys climbed a few trees and had fun with their cousin Caleb.

Jadzia was thrilled to see Disney princesses present. Mickey was also there but her phobia of costume characters would not allow her to go near Mickey.

Ronan was a star. His picture and bio were featured in the Down Syndrome gallery. Some great ladies took a lot of time to create the adorable posters. Ronan's was on display on an easel. People would look at my shirt and see the name Ronan. They would ask me if I was Ronan's mom. When I said Yes they would say what a cute little super man he is (referring to the symbol on his shirt in the gallery picture). It was a good day for Down Syndrome awareness and thanks to the governor of Iowa today was Down Syndrome awareness day for the state of Iowa. I'm happy that the future is looking brighter than ever for my son.

T-Shirt Frenzy

I burned the midnight oil well into the wee hours of twilight this morning. I had to finish the t-shirt project since the Buddy walk is Saturday. I had counted on the shirts I had ordered weeks ago but the people placed the order wrong and the order never came through. Ronan has 15 people on his Buddy Walk team and I'm thrilled. The first year we walked there was seven of us: my mom, myself, our friend Marye, Landon, Xander, Jadzia and Ronan.

Ronan was two months old at his first Buddy walk. The second year (last year) his team grew to ten people and now 15. I'm thrilled more people are showing Ronan support.

Since the t-shirt disaster I had to get the t-shirts made. After several other things falling through I designed the t-shirts using iron on transfers and sharpies. Not the most professional looking but it works. Here's is how my shirt turned out. The side with the picture is the front and the footprints are on the back.

I also incorporated a side project. I made Lalaloopsy shirts for Jadzia's upcoming birthday party. As anyone who has read my blogs knows she is a huge Lala fan. She always has at least one of her loopsies in tow (usually Princess Jewel). They help her coordinate tea parties and doll social events. They all sleep on the end of her bed and I have to tuck them in at night as well. They have their very own blanket.

She requested a lalaloopsy birthday party and I decided we would make t-shirts for her, Inara and their cousin Hannah. Jadzia of course got Princess Jewel, Inara got the new dutchess one, and Hananh picked out the school one.

Inara got the dutchess because that is her Daddy's nickname for her. He calls her his little dutchess. Her t-shirt read Inara the Dutchess. Inara loved her shirt. She is always stealing Jadzia's Lalaloopsy dolls. When I put the shirt on her she looked down and discovered what her shirt had on it. She pointed at it and got a huge grin. Below is her reaction to her shirt discovery.

Besides t-shirt decorating school for me is now in full swing. I had art class tonight. I am thrilled because my teacher said if all you can draw is stick figures you'll leave this class being able to truly draw. Besides that class I have creative writing , per-algebra , Physics and medical terminology. I'm excited to really get into my classes.

New Blog Preview

Here is a Blog preview. An inside look into the new blog I'm going to be starting. This is round two of Bring on the Blessings Fullmer Edition. More mishaps and happenings of our day to to day lives but maybe a little less frequently. I'm playing around with templates and a few ideas. For now I'll post today's pictures.

Today we worked on Buddy Walk t-shirts. The Buddy Walk is two days away so it's crunch time. I got most of the pictures transferred to the shirts with my mom's help. My mom and sister in-law cut all the pictures out for me and helped to make a stencil from tracing Ronan's feet. This way his real foot prints will be on the shirts.Landon seems to have a tummy bug and on only his third day of 1st grade we had to take a break. He rested on the couch most of the day.

I know, I know you thought now that the year challenge was over I would quit spamming your Facebook news feed with my blog posts. What can I say? Old habits die hard. Not to worry I'm going to most likely be taking a break here soon but I wanted to get this preview out there. Maybe the new blog will be overloaded with excitement. Contests? An Ad or two on the sidebar that pays me ten cents every time someone clicks on it? I probably will not get that ambitious.At any rate at least there will be cute pictures of adorable kiddos so if nothing else you can check those out when I post.