My son's checkup was great!

SO, we had a great time at Children's Mercy yesterday! Joey went for xrays of his lungs, CLEAR AS A BELL, lung functions (strong), sinus check (not too bad), and all the rest of the stuff. He'd even gained a pound since November and he had been losing weight before, so that's wonderful! (kids with CF need twice the calories and fat as normal kids and he doesn't eat enough for a normal kid most of the time). OH OH OH and the blood work. MAN almighty. Every place you go in CMH you are treated like a king, they ALL love children and do everything in their power to make being in a hospital or clinic as good an experience as they can...until you go into "the room." THE ROOM is not fun to go into. It's the outpatient lab. It's staffed by techs, not nurses. I love techs, they are some of my favorite people at CMH, but it's more the environment there, so clinical and so different from the rest of the hospital. They may have started out as nice people before their job was sticking needles in screaming kids all damn day, but let's just say it's not my favorite place to go and I'm not even the one getting stuck. They're good, they're quick, but it's just not a nurturing envirornment. Last time we had to do "the room" I had an almost hysterical sobbing, snotting, choking boy and I don't know who was more traumatized by the ordeal, him or me.

Yesterday Joey asked the doctor if he had to do the "vials thing" (they do a twice a year bunch of blood work and fill about 7 vials, so the thing's in his arm a while). The dr said "yes" and Joey was trying so hard to be brave. No hysteria, but this sad, resigned quiet crying. He'd wipe his little eyes and just sob quietly in my arms no matter what we said. The nutritionist said "why don't you just get the cream?" I said, "what cream?" Apparently there's this CREAM that you put on their arms and it deadens it. Because Joey's in a study where they need additional blood work, we were able to have his insurance approve his blood getting taken in the clinic with a NICE NURSE and the MIRACLE CREAM. He got to watch tv, sit on my lap and didn't feel a damn thing. WHY THE FUXX aren't we using this stuff all the freaking time? Does it cost the insurance companies more money? I'm damn well asking for it in the future. It made the whole day sunshiney and happy.

Anyway, the kid's as healthy as a cf kid could be. Looking at his class playing on recess, you'd never pick out Joey as fighting a big ass disease. YEAH WOO HOO and all that.

PLUS they're signing him up for one of those children's wish foundations. I said, I was thinking of waiting until he's a teenager and can really appreciate it, but the social worker said often they do a family wish as a child and do the Disneyworld thing or something like that and later he can be eligible for hanging out with a sports star or a shopping spree when he's a teen. How cool is that? He's been thinking about our "family wish" ever since. Beth's involved too as I said it's for our "family" so it hopefully won't make her feel left out or him too much of a freak or something.

I'm off to work, just had a minute in the crazy day. My honey came and saw me for a cup of coffee after dropping his boys off at school and we sat & read the paper together and did a little kissing to start the day. mmmm mmmm good. I am so happy!

I even got some knitting done, and am almost ready to start the other sleeve on the tubey sweater. I'm hoping to have the top shrug part done this weekend and will post a pic. I think this one may actually fit me!

Teresa, hang in there on the evil fluffy yarn. Check out this site for any HOW THE FUXX do I do that again??? kind of questions. I used it the other night to remember how to do the M1 bar increase. It's my very favorite site. It has different pictures to click on for continental knitting (left hand holds yarn) or english knitting (right hand holds yarn--what most Americans do). It has videos to show how to do almost anything...including the best kitchener stitch instructions I've seen.

KnittingHelp.com