Your Mother

Josh started the IV infusion yesterday. He will do another one today and finish up with one on Saturday. He is getting an extremely high amount of steroids. This will help knock out the inflammation and release pressure on the nerve that is impacting his eye. This will not prevent the washout from happening again, but it will help nip' it in the bud for now.

I asked Josh if a cute little nurse came out to the house to give him his medicine. His response was, "Your mother was here." This stopped me in my tracks. My mom passed away (June of 2012), so I was definitely confused.  He went on to tell me that the nurse was so much like my mom that it was scary. She is short with short hair. She wears lots of perfume like my mom, and she has an infectious personality. They sat at the kitchen table and talked the entire hour she was at the house. She is from MS and has family there. He said what sealed the deal was her talking about buying stuff late at night on the Home Shopping Network. If you knew my mom, this was one of her weaknesses after my dad passed away. (July of 2008) After Josh made the comparison during their time together at the house, he said all he could do was smile and think about what a coincidence it was to have a nurse like "Trish."

On the family front...
Anabelle had gymnastics last night. Josh takes her, which gives me about an hour and a half to get organized and cook dinner. I enjoy this time... I usually have both boys. They entertain each other which is nice. Jack ended up going with Josh and AGB last night. He has a friend there who comes with his dad, and they play the Despicable Me Minion Run game on the iPad together. I was able to get a ton of stuff done! I noticed Josh stopped at Tom and Stephanie's house down the street on the way home. (These are our friends who live 3 houses down... Tom and Josh work together, their daughter Grace babysits for us, and well, we just adore them!) Steph was out to dinner with a friend, and Tom volunteered for the kids to hang out a while. Josh received a picture message of them at his house... Jack had stripped his shirt off and was wearing a graduation cap. In the background, Anabelle was a blur. (She was doing handstands in their living room:) I am so happy they love our kids and enjoy their company. I am pretty sure Jack and Anabelle would choose to live there over our house any day!

Jack
I should save this for his Senior slideshow

Anabelle

Russell is really enjoying sitting up and playing with toys. He is still frustrated due to the fact that he wants to follow the big kids, but he just can't figure out how to get moving. It is going to happen SOON. I am not ready for this... They say with the first child you are sooo excited to see them walk. With the the children after that, you want to push them down, because when they start walking, they become human wrecking balls! (Cue Miley Cyrus wrecking ball... sorry I just put that song in your head:)

Russell

It is Friday. At 3:00 today, spring break starts. I am super pumped about this. We have a busy weekend and week ahead. I am hoping our plans come through for some relaxing time together. I was scared when Josh was diagnosed that things would become drastically different. Yes, some things have changed. I have learned, though, that it is up to us to continue to live each day and take control of the things that we can. No, we can't control MS, but we can keep MS from controlling us.

MS Fact: The course of the disease is unpredictable and no two people will experience the same set of symptoms.
Everyone experiences MS in their own unique way, but they share a common goal... for someone, anyone, to FIND A FREAKING CURE:)

Happy Friday! (Doing my weekend/Spring Break dance now!)

Lori