Wednesday, December 30, 2009

What's up

Danny had a doctors appt this morning and we are finally to the point where we can start to back off some of his treatments, Yahooooooooo! Danny's lungs haven't sounded so good in a VERY LONG TIME. I'm hoping this means he has finally kicked this bug and I can ONLY HOPE that is stays away for an even LONGER TIME. So far Danny's blood work has come up great but we are still awaiting his liver function and med levels. I'm going the with the theory that everything has gone well today so the rest will too :) Dr Kasper was going to refer us back to the local physiatrist so she can follow Danny's tone and therapies and we don't have to travel down to Milwaukee to have him seen. Danny's right hand/wrist is definitely in the beginning of a contracture so I would like to try a slow the process down as much as possible. I have call into Danny's PT to see when he can come out and what he recommends the next steps in caring and maintaining Danny are.
Avrianna is having a blast during winter break, playing with her friends, and sleeping in! Tonight she is having 3 girlfriends sleep over, god help me, lol. So the preparations have begun to have a great slumber party, which is keeping her pretty busy. I can't wait to see how she is going to be like when the regular school routines start to kick back in this weekend, UGH I might need some serious backup, lol.
Dan was able to go the Packer game on Sunday with his buddy. They had a great time and what a great game to be at :) It's way too cold for this beach bunny to go out and watch a football game so I'm glad Dan was able to go with his friend. Dan has been able to spend some quality time at the old house to get it prepared to go on the market soon :) That will be nice to get that off of our plate of things to do.
The New Year is going to be another low key holiday for us. Which isn't too surprising as we are not big in the "Amateur" night festivities. We are going to have a close friend over for dinner, a couple cocktails, and then possibly a movie. I'm sure as years before I won't make it till the ball drop....funny thing is the new year still comes when you are safe and warm in bed. PLUS I don't feel like crap this next day. I HOPE that 2010 is a low key and HEALTHY year for The Osero's. We've had alot happen in 2009 so it would be nice to just have R&R year.
Please keep Danny's BFF Griffin in your thoughts as he is still recovering from a bilateral Pneumonia.
Please keep our good friend Mattman in your thoughts n prayers as he coded yesterday and is in the Children's ICU floor in St. Louis.
Please keep the Arnoldussen family, Dan ~ one of the contractors that worked with our new home, in our thoughts as his funeral is on Saturday.
And please keep my Brother in Law's family (the Dederings) in your thoughts as his Uncle Mike lost his life the day after Christmas.

Earth Works

You will be missed Dan! This last weekend, a very special friend of ours and a great contractor who had a HUGE hand in making our Dream House develop, passed away. Dan was a wonderful man and I am honored that I was able to meet him. He would have taken the shirt off his back if you needed it, if you ever had the opportunity to meet him would know what a wonderful man he was. He showed compassion and joy to my son when not many would show the time of day. He is very special to our family and he'll never be forgotten. My thoughts and prayers are with his family! Dan heroically saved his daughter life the day he lost his...to see the story CLICK HERE .

Monday, December 28, 2009

The Osero's Christmas

Our Christmas tree in the morning....PHEW, Santa cameLooks like we were Good this year
Where's Danny?
Avrianna's stash
My two favorite Dan's!Ah ~ so sweet
She looks sweet and innocent in these pictures.......Boy does she have you fooled! LOL My mom got her this formal dress for her dress-up box. She and her friends wear it all the time.
Here are the socks I cross stitched for each of us
Avrianna helping Danny by reading him the Title of the movie he got
Avrianna got the Digial Piano and the Wii Disney Sing It so she has been singing and playing her lil heart out. Dan got the Wii hunting game and he's been shooting things left n right. I got a coffee/cappicinno (all in one) machine so I've been drinking alot of caffine, heehee. I also got a digital picture frame so I'm really excited to get all my favorite pics together and showcase them off in there.
We had a very low key Christmas once again this year. It was just us four and we hung around in our jammies, played with our toys, cooked together and ate like royality. IT WAS AWESOME! We had no where we had to be and I just loved not running around like crazy people for the holidays. This will DEFINITELY be our tradition for many years to come.
Avrianna has off of school this whole week and she is counting down the days she has "left to play". She is having a great time playing with the neighbors :)
Danny managed to stay well over Christmas and I can only hope this continues into the New Year. He will be going back into see Dr Kasper later this week for labs plus I want him to take a look at Danny's right hand/wrist. It looks to me like he has a contractor there, UGH! Never a dull moment with this BOY, that's ok it keeps me out of trouble. LOL
I am going to participate in a MS walk April 2010 as many of you know I was diagnosed with MS in June of 2009. If you'd like to pledge a donation in my honor please click on the link in the left column or click HERE. You can help walk the journey with me and join my team, My New DreaMS also by clicking HERE. Thanks for your support!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Catching UP

Ohhhhhh what a slacker I have been on the blog, Sorry! Let's see what we've been up too. It's been a very busy week for us.
Avrianna, in addition to her swim meet practices 3x a week, has started private piano lessons on Tuesdays. She really enjoys it and she is really taking to the piano fast :)
On Thursday Avrianna had her school Christmas program. She did wonderful!! She LOVED dressing up in her formal attire.Yeah the social butterfly chit chatting on stage, lolOn Friday she had her Brownie Christmas get together at the troop leaders house. Here is most of the troops .... standing proud with their hats n mittens that they collected for the mitten drive.Then Saturday I took Avrianna to The building for Kids for 3 hours to participate in a Sibshop with the Sibling Support group. She had a blast playing with everyone!
I just got back from running her to the doctors office as she woke up this morning with a soar throat....I was thinking it was due to her breathing through her mouth last night, but when I picked her up from school, after I volunteered in the school holiday shop, I could tell she wasn't running on all cylinders. Well leave it to my kids to get sick over winter break....boy am I glad we're not in Florida, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (can you sense the sarcasm). The rapid strep test came back negative, but that doesn't mean I won't be getting a phone call in a day or two to run to the pharmacy as it grew out in the culture. She is running a fever, pale, chills and is tired so something it brewing. I'm hoping she'll be better in the morning, but she hasn't been ill in awhile. UGH!! Lets hope she doesn't share this! AS..........
Danny is starting to feel better, whoohoooooo! We sat at Dr Kasper's clinic for 2 hours this on Thursday to do a trial on Tobi (a breathing treatment) which went well. We had thought Danny had a reaction to this particular med when in the hospital this summer, but so far no reactions. This is GREAT! The doctors feel this is the best neb for Danny to be on to help fight off the bug he has had forever. So I'm glad we did the trial and that Dr Kasper took time, on his day off, to spend in the clinic to watch over Lil Man....have I told you how lucky we are to have the best ped. around? If the Tobi and new oral antibiotic doesn't work then Danny will have to go in for a PICC line and we'll have to treat him with heavy IV meds.
Wednesday the 23rd at 5:56pm Danny will be 6 yrs old ~ where does the time go? I can't believe he will be 6. What a hard road this year has been for him, I look back at this year and I can't believe what he had went through. I hope n pray that 6 is a good number and he'll be able to enjoy this year instead of fighting for his life n the hospitals. He is starting to vocalize more and his smile is starting to show up more and more. Just brings tears to my eyes knowing how close we were to losing him this summer, I'm so blessed to have more time with him :) Tomorrow will be and has been a rough day for me as I usually dwell on things the day before his birthday and try to get it out of my system before his SPECIAL DAY.
Christmas is going to be very low key here at The Osero's. We are going to make dinner for Christmas Eve and play games hanging out together as a family. Then Christmas morning we'll wake up open our gifts and hang out in our jammies for most of or all of the day playing with our toys, munchin on munchies and making a nice dinner in the evening. Ahhhhhhh ~ I LOVE IT! We did this last year and enjoyed it so much that this is going to be our tradition every year. Spending it with the kids and NO Hustle n Bustle! There is enough time off of school where we can get together with our families and celebrate. The whole idea of cramming everyone & thing in two days is just insane.
Thanks for following our story. Please sign our guestbook or post a comment to let us know you stopped by....we LOVE hearing from you too :) Take care, Be Safe, and Have a Wonderful Holiday

Monday, December 14, 2009

Danny's Birthday Party

It's ALL fun n games till Santa finds out, LOL!Saturday the 12th we had Danny's 6th Birthday Party....his birthday isn't till the 23rd, but we were suppose to be leaving for Florida this week so I wanted to have a party for him with all his buddies before we left (now we are NOT going to Florida)Danny's birthday cake made by : MOM, I love you buddy!Our VERY special Guest! Amazing how busy this man is this time of year and yet he still takes time out to visit Danny and his friends :)Look at Danny look at Santa......I know he "saw" Santa that night. I saw this picture and just cried. I get emotional this time of year anyway, but when a complete "stranger" comes and connects with Danny .......well it just makes me one happy Momma. Thanks Santa you've already given me the best present EVER! If Danny can't get to Santa.........Santa will come to Danny :) I think this picture ranks as an all time fav!We ended up with 32 adults and 18 kiddos (5 of them in chairs). Santa spent time with each kid and then stayed for everyone to get family pictures if they wanted. It was wonderful! Now I think the builder understands why we built the house the way we did, it's all about the kids :)Here's my Mom (aka Nanny) with her elves! Unfortunately Danny wasn't able to stay out for his whole party. I'm not sure if it was all the excitement or a mucus plug that got stuck but he needed to go back to his room so we could do back to back breathing treatments and put him on oxygen :( I was pretty bummed, but he recovered well enough to come back out so we could sing Happy Birthday to him before we cut the cake. Reality slap in the face.....how sick he has been and still is, it's hard not to dwell in those dark places we don't want to mention. How many more parties will he have? Which makes EACH n EVERY moment and memory more special. Thanks to ALL that came to help celebrate Danny's Birthday!! He's definitely growing into my "Lil Man" :)
Danny will be going back into see Dr Kasper tomorrow for more labs. I was going to bring him in today but his temp is controlled with Ibuprofen still and the weather isn't the best to driving or taking Danny out in. We've talked every day with Dr Kasper on the phone ...... what a wonderful man! Danny is SO LUCKY to have THE BEST pediatrician EVER! I've said it before and will say it ALWAYS.....we are indebted to Dr Kasper as I KNOW Danny would not have made it this far without this man. His compassion and commitment to my son is irreplaceable. Unfortunately Danny's liver function have doubled in the last week so we are going to tweek his meds and if that doesn't work we going to have to bang around heads together once again, UGH!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Snow Storm Allison

We'll hanging around the fireplace today ~ Sipping some hot toddies :)Holy Blizzard.....this one is ranking just about the strongest winter storm in December EVER! I'm so glad I'm here to enjoy it, NOT!! Already 12" in 20 hours and we still haven't gotten to the middle of this storm yet. Winds are about 35mph with guts of 51mph. UGH. Then tonight the temps are suppose to drop to negative numbers, YUCK! I do have to say it is pretty though.... this is what we woke up too this morning :)Dan using the new tractor with the snow blower....boy I bet he's glad he got that attachment :)Here is Avrianna playing the snow after school yesterday...attempting to build a snowman. Well today she won't have a problem, other then finding an area of snow that won't consume HER, lol. (I have no idea how I did this picture, but I LOVE it)Danny's Christmas present came so we decided to give it to him early as that is ALOT to wrap. He seems to enjoy it already, but of course it isn't approved until Avrianna tests it out.
Here are some pictures of Avrianna at her swim meet this weekend in Shawano. She got ribbons for 11 and 12 place in her 3 heats. Her third one she would have gotten 9th but got DQ'd for not properly pushing of the wall
Cheering her other team mates on
So serious....getting ready for her 25 FLYCoach Curt discussing the last heat with Avrianna
I LOVE this picture of her
Here Avrianna is doing the backstroke....she is in the 4th lane...look for the lime green goggles. She is doing so well. I'm SO PROUD of her...and as you'll hear, I'm her biggest fan :) (she came in 2nd in this heat)








Friday, December 4, 2009

Still Sick!

Love this T-shirt....so appropriate! Everyone always wants to kiss him!! Thanks Griffy for the shirt! Too bad he was so sick when I took this. You can see how glassy his eyes are and how pale he is. Danny is going on 2 weeks with this last bought of Pneumonia ;( with no real improvement as of yet. Yesterday we went in for labs and more xrays. We started up steroids yesterday and MORE breathing treatments. Poor guy! I feel awful he been so sick lately. Guess I had this false impression that the trache would help him, well I guess it does with the cares of the pneumonia, but I was hoping he wouldn't GET it so much. This makes #2 in the last 2 months. As I know all TOO WELL every pneumonia it gets makes his poor lil boy more tired and can cause more damage to his lungs. I worry about that amount of pneumonia's he has had this year and I'm FREAKING out! I was always told that what Danny has won't take him, it will be a respiratory problem that will............... I'm worried :(
Here's is Danny's other nurse Meghan! I'm slowly getting pictures of Danny with his AWESOME caregivers. Danny and I are SO LUCKY to have wonderful people with us :)
Last night was our REAL first snow. Check out the BIG flakes! It was very pretty.......I've seen the snow and now it can GO, heehee. Um yeah I'm NOT a winter person AT ALL! It's pretty n all but the cold SUCKS! With that being said I don't think we are going to go to Florida for winter/Christmas break like we had planned. I don't want to risk being in another state with Danny being so unstable....I don't think anyone would have fun, it'd be to hard on everyone, and it's not worth making him sicker for just a trip. Danny is more comfortable here in his own bed and we have more support for him here, so I think we'll have to plan a trip down south another time. Danny's health is more important right now plus Avrianna will be pretty happy about it as she wasn't too impressed with being in Florida for Christmas anyway.
Last week Dan and I broke out the Norwegian side of us. We made Kringla and I attempted my first time with Lefse. Avrianna busted out her apron and helped me out with the Kringla this year. Dan has assumed the baking responsibilities, heehee. So we are making it a family tradition :) Here are some pictures of the lefse....I even liked eating this year.

Avrianna being silly last night! :)