The day Lyric got saved.

 Here I come running to the place I have so many memories I want to save. Even though many incredible ones have happened over the last 2 years that absolutely deserve a space on the blog...this one is of upmost importance! LYRIC ASKED JESUS INTO HIS HEART TONIGHT! I went on a walk with my friend Dianah tonight and when I got home we started brushing teeth and getting ready like usual. I was going to read to him and Daddy was going to read to Levi. He was a tad frustrated because Matt was teasing him that he was going to read to him and he wanted me too. When Matt came running at him down the hallway Lyric slammed the door. Of course Matt didn’t like that and told him if he did that again there would be a consequence. He got a little upset (tired of course) so I was sitting with him on the little couch in his room and telling him how much Daddy loved him and Mommy loved him and God loved him. Then I went on to telling him that God is love. He said “God is not love God died He is in Heaven” so I went in to telling him that God didn’t die to GO to heaven like we will....God created heaven and earth and every single thing remember? Then I said do you want to read a book about Heaven? (We have the children’s copy of Heaven is for Real and I had never read that to him...only to Lane and Luke...so I went and got it off the bookshelf.) He loved it. He smiled the whole time. When I said “The End” he said “God IS love” and I said “yep God is love and God loves you so much He sent his son to die for YOU! And now Jesus and all of God’s love is IN you Lyric” and He said yes it is pointing at his little own chest.  I proceeded to ask him if he wanted to pray a prayer asking God to be in his heart forever and he did. So we prayed. Together. I prayed. He prayed. And he smiled the entire time. We hugged so so tight when we were done and he was so giddy happy! I put him to bed with a big smile on his face  and then got him some water and shut the door. I was sitting on our bed in the next room telling Matt the whole story. And how Good God is because I had just prayed that morning asking God to give me and my little boys a special encounter with Him this week while the big two boys were at church camp. Asking God to give us all a deeper revelation of Him so when they get home he was putting glue in between

us all bonding the pieces together after being apart. As I’m telling Matt my early morning prayer....my friend who I had walked with (and had left and went to pick her daughter up after we were done walking) texted me and said. RAINBOW! Then the next text she says “Amazing double rainbow ending right by your house”. 😭😭😭 We would have never ever seen that. Like I said we were sitting on our bed on the other end of the house. I read the texts and we jumped off the bed. Ripped open Lyric’s door and said “Lyric come on run outside there is a rainbow!” Anyone that knows Lyric knows he loves rainbows! Things being in rainbow colored order is very important to him. We know that a rainbow means God’s promises are true. Even in the book we read tonight it talks about how there are rainbows all over in heaven and he of course said “What! Wow! Rainbows are all over in heaven!?” While I was reading about it. This double amazing rainbow appeared at our house....right out our frequently used Kitchen door within less than 5 minutes of Lyric praying and asking Jesus into his heart. We were covered in chills. And snapped this picture to never forget this incredible moment. God....you are SOOOOO good and Heaven most definitely is for real!! 

The day Luke got saved

February 27, 2019. Nothing new that day...dramatic incident or special church service. Just a boy and his momma laying in bed chatting about the "Sweet Sour Service & Savior" part of our day. We like to do this with the boys at dinner or at bed sometimes to hear what good things happened, what not so good things happened, how they helped someone in their day, and how they saw God in their day. 

Luke and I were doing that and then we got talking about how my sister’s dog had recently died. Luke asked me what happens if you don’t go to Heaven. So I explained the Hell and Heaven and the difference. When I said to him once you accept Jesus into your heart and pray and declare with your mouth that He is your Lord and Savior than you’ll be saved forever and ever. Then we started talking about getting baptized and why you get baptized and I explained it to him that it is kind of like a trophy. It’s not the trophy that made you win the game....the trophy is just a way to celebrate what you did! When you accept Jesus into your heart and decide to get baptized we celebrate our inside decision by celebrating on the outside and declaring our love for Jesus being washed in the water. Then we talked some more about baptism in the Bible etc. Luke with the very sweetest real face says "I have Jesus in my heart" and I said I know you do buddy and when you’re ready and want to pray the prayer to accept Him for eternity you will be saved. 

And in Luke fashion he says "I’m ready right now" In that moment my whole body got chills. He was ready. So of course I told him we would pray and I would help him by saying somethings first and told him he should mean it from his whole heart and pray it put loud of his mouth. Oh how the video memory in my mind will never ever be able to be replayed in words. He was so sweet and so serious and his little eyes laid gently closed...never opening, never squeezing tightly shut, just a peaceful, purposeful, heartfelt prayer. He smiled big when he was done and I was so excited to run into Lanes room and tell daddy about it after Lukie and I hugged it out. Of course Matt was so happy for him and spent sometime with just Luke after a little bit later. 

After the boys were asleep I was telling Matt that for some reason during him praying I had this flash memory of him as a new baby, before his surgery, the way the bow of his lip was, his cheeks, his long face....all of it flashed into my mind what he looked like before his plastic surgery. It was the newborn face of the baby I literally sat up holding in a recliner for 6 weeks every single night barely sleeping a wink worn feelings, wondering, worried, prayerful, post pardum, and so in love with this tiny human who had a BIG hurdle to overcome. It was a moment while he was praying that even though it was a visual flash memory of Luke’s little face as a baby (the pre surgery baby face....) it was a reminder that God is real, He is for us, and that He WILL come through for us) 

We are so so so SO incredibly grateful for Luke and his decision to follow the Lord and accept him into his heart all the days of his life forever and ever. 

Luke's Strep Throat Journey

I have been wanting to document this for a while now and am so glad that I am finally getting it on the blog to reference back to as opposed to just having the info all jotted down in the note section of my planner that I know someday I'll never be able to find again. 

So let's start at the begging....

April 2017: Luke got his first round of strep throat and was prescribed an amoxicillin for it...10 day's of the "pink" medicine and then we had a recheck after that and it was still there so he got another round of the "white medicine" (Augmentin- is the white amoxicillin with a booster. After a few trials with the pink we just started advocating for him and asking if they would start with the white every time because he clearly needed something stronger because every time he had the regular amoxicillin for ANY thing we would need to go back for another round of the white.)

May 2017: Strep throat

June 2017: Strep throat

July 2017: Strep throat

JUNE AND JULY 2017- MONO (very rare for children under 8 years of age to get mono...and at this point he was 5...not even 5 1/2)

August 2017: Strep throat

September 2017: Strep throat

October 3, 2017-Strep throat and his tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy consultation

October 31, 2017: Tonsil and Adenoid removal surgery by Dr. Carney (who now has moved! We absolutely LOVED her and could not say enough good things about this ENT specialist)

November: Check up from surgery...All looked well and he recovered and healed wonderfully.

Nov.-Feb : GOOD! We had a good winter for Luke and he did not have strep....

until....

March/April: His P.E. teacher and school teacher had both mentioned that he seemed "less interested" in activities. His p.e. teacher especially said "Luke just usually is all over running all around having fun and playing the games and he just doesn't seem like himself and I wanted to be sure everything was ok at home." And of course all was fine with us at home and I asked Luke that day "Buddy does your throat hurt"....and he replied.... "YES it hurts every day". 

Now through all of this he had never said he had a sore throat but maybe one or two times out of all of those dates above. We either noticed that he seemed different by attitude or behavior OR we took him in for a re check to be sure it was gone and it wasn't. One time he was bringing the garbage cans up the hill and was crying because he "couldn't do it" and I said to Matt "I bet he has strep throat and sure enough he did." They would always ask him when we brought him in if his throat hurt and he would usually say no and of course they would say to me then why did you bring him? My response would be..."He's sleeping more, eating less, lethargic like and not as active and is super moody." Almost every time they would mention how strong he is because the strep would come back positive when to them he seemed not sick at all. 

So the teachers mentioned that to us and we take him to the doctor.....BOOM

End of March2018/Beginning of April 2018: Strep Throat

After his 9th round of antibiotics I saw the on call pediatrician since mine was out of the country and asked if we could get some blood work done on him to be sure all other things were ok. I know that kids will still get strep throat after having their tonsil's and adenoids removed...they did inform us of that at the time of the surgery. However, they also told us that it is the first 2 years that you would noticed the biggest improvement and much less( if any at all) strep throat cases for him would be dominantly non existent and then after the first 2 years post surgery strep throat could return like regular children get and catch it from friends at school, sibilings, during cold season etc. Luke did have 4 months without strep which was a blessing but it sure wasn't 2 years...or very long at all. I did however hope it was just a fluke...but wanted to get the blood tests to make sure that strep wasn't metabolizing somewhere else in his body that was causing him to just constantly live with an "infection". That isn't good for you nor can it feel good to have your body working in overdrive alllll the time. For me I also wanted to know because It's also a terrible feeling to put your son on antibiotics that often because they too have cons to them. 

Luke has complained about his stomach hurting for months and months, that I too have been tracking to see if it's a byproduct of the medicine or if there is something else going on with an allergy, intestinal bathroom type things etc. 

So we had the on call pediacian do the blood work after a very good and through appointment and this is what Dr. Spellmen suggested we should check for and look at in regards to his throat, stomach, and overall health:

April 2018 Blood work:

Bacteria Culture 

Tested for Influenza A & B 

Tested his thyroid  stim hormone 

Heterophile antibodies

Mycroplasma

Auto Hemogram w/ Auto Diff

Group A Strep Screen

Epstein-Barr Ab test

Praise the Lord ALL LOOKED GOOD! Once you have mono once you're apparently more susceptible to it so I was so curious if it was back but thankfully it wasn't. So maybe just a fluke strep throat in the spring.

But then.....

End June 2018/Beginning of July 2018: Strep throat AGAIN (time number 10 in 14 months) This time he did have a fever and that's how I knew he had it. I am assuming he had it much sooner though by his attitude and such but the fever didn't come until the end of June. 

So we made another appointment and this time We saw our family doctor at Morrison Medical Associates and she just felt awful and said she felt terrible even have to give him ANOTHER round of antibiotic. But she reminded me that strep throat left untreated can be very dangerous as well so she gave us another prescription and referred us back to the ENT to have him looked at by a specialist. 

July 17, 2018 : ENT appointment. I had to take him to Dr. Geisler since our wonderful ENT moved away. This doctor unfortunately was so not helpful and down right rude. I left sobbing and my sweet and so loving husband even went as far as calling the clinics patient advocate department infuriated over it all. They addressed the situation with the specialist and she agreed the appointment did not go as it should. We were not charged out $75.00 copay for specialist appointments due to that situation... Thank GOD! So after that we scheduled an appointment back with our pediatrician to see his thoughts. The good that came out of the ENT appointment is she agreed this repeat strep isn't normal however the surgery was and still is successful. None of his tonsil tissue started growing back(that can happen) and everything looks very good from a surgical stand point. So that was nice to check off my list. 

That leads us to Today

July 25, 2018: Dr. Corpuz enjoyed all my detailed info from above on top of being able to see it all in the computer from records! Hahaha!! But hey...I have to keep track because sometimes we go in town if we can't make it to Clinton.

Here are his thoughts....

Luke's strep throat has colonized. That basically means it is now a resident there. It is a bacterial infection of the throat that lives there. Unfortunately that means that it is either "active" or "non active". But if you swabbed and cultured him on the daily it would probably always test positive for strep. If it causes symptoms of a super bad sore throat or a fever for more than 2 days then getting antibiotic is best....if it doesn't than it is apparently ok to leave it be. It is a little bit of a struggle for me to hear that because I know under treated strep throat is dangerous. I have a very good friend of mine that had her son's travel to his brain and after going to iowa city they finaly realized that he needed a seriously strong medicine to clear that infection. So of course I beg the question with "How do I know when to treat and not treat him...I don't want to give him ONE MORE ROUND of medicine but I would hate to leave him untreated and cause more problems." 

His reply was:

"You're his mom....follow your heart...if he has a fever get him treated with medicine and if he doesn't then let his body heal itself. In the mean time keep doing what you're doing (we have been giving him a good live probiotic to hopefully help with his gut health and restore the good that has been stolen over this past year.) and be sure to give good nutrients, proper rest, lots of fluids, vitamins (extra in the winter etc) to keep his colonized strep laying as dormant as possible and he will be fine. 

He did decided to run another blood panel and check his urine. He had 6 tubes of blood taken and successfully went pee in a cup for the first time.  He wanted to be sure his liver isn't being effected by all this strep and to check for any other stationary infection. 

We got the results back from part of it...so far these all look good and are normal: 

CBC
Platelet count

Electrolyte count

Kidney function

Thyroid function

Urine (liver) function

SOOOOO very thankful for all of that!

The one test they did also take today that will take a few days to get back is a celiac panel. He is thriving and striving in growth so that is a great sign...

however they wanted to rule out his chronic stomach ache issues just to be sure by running a celiac panel test to make sure he doesn't have any food allergies or celiac disease. I will update on that when it comes back. 

For the future....we just pray...that he is DONE with it. All the doctors do agree that it's not normal he seems to be getting it again and again especially after his recent surgery. We are going to boost his immunity and watch him carefully. We pray these probiotics will restore his tummy and those aches will go away. Dr. Corpuz did say that if they don't go away that he would possibly want to send us to a gastrointestinal specialist to take a look inside his tummy closer but from what he can tell the abdomen seems fine and the positive blood test reports also seems like a good sign for as far as any major issues go. He said effects from antibiotics on a stomach (if that is what the pain is from) can take quite a while to restore back to "normal" feeling. 

In our own efforts we have:

*changed his toothbrush so many times

*tried new toothpaste just incase for some crazy reason the one he was using wasn't right

*implemented gargling mouth wash daily because one doctor told us it may help with bacteria in his throat

*changed pillow's and pillow cases

*Daddy pulled back the carpet and all the ceiling tiles to ensure there was no mold or anything causing this chronic strep throat

*Changed the fan from air purifier to regular box fan

*started running a dehumidifier by his room (even though we live on a hill, have never had water, he has huge windows we open often, and air circulates so well in our split level house...we couldn't help but try that too) 

*live probiotics

*oils

*diffusers in the house

*lots of water, juice only once a day, healthy food, lots of good sleep and naps when we can, etc

*and much more I'm sure I can't even think of. 

Now we just wait for the celiac test and keep praying he doesn't get another fever and need more antibiotics for his strep throat. 

IF that does happen in the near future....I am assuming they will send us elsewhere. 

God is good...Luke is thriving and a super healthy boy. So many other children have it so much worse....so we will choose gratitude and have faith for the future. 

27 days left

Yesterday Lane asked "Mom how many more day's of summer break" while we were on our way to the pool. After counting for a few moments I managed to squeak out "28". HOW did that even happen. I enjoyed every second with them after that at the pool. (which I always do) I felt so intentional in that moment to sit and stare at them. To just enjoy watching them swim around and splash and jump. I watched the bites Levi put in his mouth while snacking like he always does when he is at the pool and how he just loves to watch his brothers play. I had a moment where I almost had a flash of these 4 little girls I use to babysit growing up. The Schmidt girls lived right next to me when I was in highschool and their great Aunt is the house that we all so luckily get full pool access at. When the boys were jumping and laughing and reaching their arms up high and falling into the water I had this moment where I remembered those girls. I could even picture in my mind what Jordan's (their oldest) swimsuit looked like. I could picture Ellie's Spider-Man swimming trunks and cubs had and her sweet face in goggles and her sweet toddler teeth. I could picture Gracie girl's chunky little thighs and dark hair and huge smile, and sweet Jaycie's precious eyes staring up at me and that hat she wore outside. These girls are now all grown up. 2 in college, 2 in high school. They drive, work, and live their life going to the pool without their mom. They are stunningly gorgeous and all such amazing and respectable human beings and I am so proud of them. But that moment...wrecked me to my core yesterday. They were just screaming, fighting, splashing, laughing, snacking, napping, sunscreen covered, little kids....YESTERDAY.
That is how fast it goes. Not just for those girls but for all kids. I am so thankful I had that moment and that reminder. I smiled at the thought of them all and then I held on a little tighter to the moments I had with my sweet boys. I want them to remember that mom said yesterday "boy's lets get 2 of our chore's done and then I have a surprise for you"! I want them to remember the moments we ate on a blanket instead of the table, the moments I said "ok yes you can have that" at the checkout. I want them to know that we enjoyed the ordinary moments of everyday life. I want to celebrate each day with them...not just at the pool but even when we have to clean up toys. School is such a different time. There is so much pressure on a mom to have their clothes ready, lunches packed, homework done, and then there is after school activities. If I don't find joy in those things then a lot of times there won't be joy. Because school days have so many to do's....you have to turn your to do's into fun memories. In the mean time we will inch by with popsicle sticks throughout the yard, sticky door handles, and floors that never seem clean even after mopping and inch by inch sink into every moment because these 27 days and this 1 out of  the 18 summers we get with them....will never be again.

Simple summer moments

While the boys and I love going to the pool, the park, the discovery center, having play dates, and doing "all the things"....there is nothing I love more than the simple moments. 

Little hunters

Gordon’s retirement

Matt’s Dad (Gordon) retired from John Deere after 42 years....that’s right FOURTY-TWO YEARS!!! We had the privilege of getting to have cake and coffee with his whole crew on his last day and take a 90 minute tour of where he worked at John Deere. It was incredible to say the least! People looked at him like a celebrity and it was amazing to see the honor and respect everyone has for him. He raised 4 boys and raised them well, drove semi during shut downs, and stayed committed for over 40 years driving daily 1 hour each way. I wish I could have taken pictures during the tour but we couldn’t because no photos were aloud. We had an awesome lunch afterwards and a week later we took Gordon out for dinner and to celebrate him!! We are so thankful for our parents and Matt has a stellar role model in his father!! The boys adore Papa Gordon and hope for many fishing experiences with him now that he has retired. 

Here is my hubby and I on our way to dinner...

Our Decker Family

Sil and I after dinner!