I love my life!

What can I say? I have an amazing husband and two amazing and adorable boys that make my world feel absolutely complete! I'm such a lucky woman. Plus I have the most amazing support system in the world. I cannot believe how many people truly care about our family! I cannot thank everyone of you enough, this past year has been such a crazy but beautiful year. I never realised how amazing total strangers can be to a family in need. Thank you with everything in me.

Ok Ok enough of the sappy stuff, here is whats up.

I have been working on my typing everyday since school trying to get my speed up and errors down, I'm not doing to bad, I am averaging about 63 words per minute and 3% errors. I am excited about starting my Basic Human Anatomy class on Monday and then my next computer class on Thursday. I think that school is going to be a wonderful thing for me and maybe it will make me feel like I am doing more with my life than sitting at home and cleaning up after my two boys.

Reiko is fighting this cold again, of course it never fails that he always seems to get sick right before his treatment, I don't know if it has anything to do with his treatments, but it always seem to happen. I hope that it doesn't get any worse at all, I have been giving him his puffers and saline drops and advil but I cannot give him anymore advil until after his treatment now because it can be fatal to his kidneys with the treatment, so hopefully he will be feeling better soon. I thought I broke one of his ribs today at the birthday party, I was bending over to pick up his bottle and he was in my arms and I felt a crack, I looked at him right away and he didn't cry or make any faces, so THANK GOODNESS it was nothing at all, PHEW!!! I hate it when he breaks something when we are out around other people, for some reason it embarrasses me to think people seeing me break a bone of his, its not him or the disease that embarrasses me, its the fact of people seeing me hurt my baby, even though its no ones fault. But thankfully it wasn't the case today and he is still doing great at 11 weeks break free! He deserves a medal or something for that greatness!

Kai and I went to a friends birthday party today, I brought Reiko along for the first bit, but brought him home once it was time for Kai and I to go to the pool with the other kids, Kai hung unto me for dear life, killing my neck while at it lol, he was petrified of going under, but he will hopefully get better as he swims more. He had a great day with his friends though and we didn't get home until 8pm, and he is out cold right now! He wanted to sleep with me tonight and I said yes since I will be gone for a few days soon. I always miss him like crazy when we go to Montreal, I would love to be able to bring him oneday, but we will wait until he is older.

Life has been good though, boys are wonderful, Derek is amazing and I am just reeling from all the love and support we have been given. Somedays it feels as if it is a dream that this year has happened. I am just in awe really of people. This world really isn't such a bad place when you have such fabulous people in your life.

Ok everyone have a great night! Take care!!
xoxoox

Life is good

Reiko is break free now 10 weeks! HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT??! he is happier than ever! and doing so wonderful! I am so happy with how well he has been doing. Life has been so good lately, I can't complain at all. I know it has been 13 days since my last post, but life has been busy. Reiko had his 3rd port surgery last week, everything went so smooth, thank goodness! I was so scared that his break-free streak was going to end from getting an IV, but for the first time ever they were able to get an IV in him in 1 stick! They thankfully agreed that they would put Reiko to sleep with the mask first before inserting the IV incase there was any breaks. He came out of surgery wonderfully and he hasn't complained at all since it either. Now we just have to pray and hope that this port will not come through the skin like the other ones did.

I start school this week, on thursday I will start my medical wordperfect/excel course,then next week I start my online course for basic human anatomy, of course it starts the day Reiko and I go to Montreal, so now I have to bring along my huge book and laptop lol, fun! I cannot wait to start these courses though and at least then I can get an idea of what to expect from school.

Today Reiko and I went to a grade 8 class to talk about his OI, a girl in his class did her project on his disease and asked that we come to her class and talk to them. I was quite nervous honestly, my knees were even shaking when it was time to talk to them, and hopefully I didn't ramble on to them, but it is so nervewrecking to talk in front of 20 grade 8 students lol. Glad its over, but so glad we were able to get the word out and people got to meet him.

Kai has been doing wonderfully, he has been fully potty trained for a few months now and has not had an accidents at night yet, he has been getting smarter and smarter everyday and is super funny! This morning we were talking about how Roger is a boy cat and is white and Daisy is black and is a girl cat, then Derek says, "what am I Kai?" and Kai says " daddy your a boy, and your white" then Derek's friend Jay is black and he goes "and Jay is brown" lol we were cracking up so hard, the things they say at 3 years old! This saturday we have a birthday party to go to for his friend Nick, but I am not telling him about it until the day of, because he would drive me batty asking about it constantly. Last weekend was Easter and we had a fairly busy weekend, with Kai playing with kids everyday, he was in heaven! He enjoyed his easter egg hunts as well, and was really in the zone at the square's egg hunt, when the horn blew, he was a madman picking them up, he was going so fast though he was missing the basket until I held it for him lol. We left with a heck of a lot of chocolate eggs lol. And we now have more chocolate than anyone should need in one house lol.

Derek is thinking about doing an Ironman this september, or maybe starting in a smaller triathalon first lol, my sisters husband is thinking of it and asked derek to join him and he is really excited about it. Derek bought a new bike yesturday and loves it, and we are going to save up for me to buy a bike as well so we can go for bikes as a family with the boys! I think it would be amazing if he did do the triathalon or Ironman, he is such a motivating person and I know he would do amazing at it.

Ok that is the update for now! Take care,

Jessica

So blessed!

Today we met up with a lady named Melissa Rivers, she is apart of Coldwell Banker All Points-Festival City Realty, Brokerage, she runs a charity  www.apfcr-charitablefund.com and they would like to make Reiko the face of their charity. Every year they choose 1 or 2 families to help out any way that they can, and they have chosen Reiko! They will be having a home and garden show on May 24 weekend and they want to make Reiko the face of the show as well! We have been so very very blessed that people want to help our family out. This year would have been so much harder without everyone's love, support and yes donations. Even yesturday finding out just how much the Mocha Shriners really does for us, saving us almost 1000$ every 3 months, and that is for the flight alone...I don't know how we would have gotten Reiko these amazing treatments without the help we have recieved! So Thank you to everyone that has been there for us in the last year and half! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. To think that people really are there to help you in a time of need is amazing, not many people get to see how giving a community can be until they are faced with the really hard times..I know that I will definitely try to help out any families that may need it.

Tonight I had Zumba, and boy was my cardio down from being sick the last 3 weeks, I was feeling winded after 2 songs lol, but it was a good night. Sadly I found out tonight that my amazing instructor Stacey will be moving to Manitoba in June, so we will not be doing any more Zumba or Turbo after June...but I hope she realises how amazing she has made the last 4 months! I hope that she gets an awesome group in Manitoba, they would be soo lucky to have her as their instructor. I am really going to miss her, she is a wonderful woman.

Reiko was up at 9 when I got home from Zumba tonight, he was sleeping when I left, but he was wide awake, until almost 11 tonight lol...just like last night. Kai was thankfully already in bed, he was pretty tired tonight, so Derek said he went down very easy. Well I hope that since Reiko stayed up tonight he will sleep good tonight like he did last night, he only got up once last night at 4am, so that wasn't bad. Plus I had a nap today, it was a really good one too lol...it seems I have my best sleeps when I am napping  during the day lol.

Ok time to get some sleep now that he is down for the night. Take care!
Jessica

Right down memory lane..

So today Reiko had a Respirologist appointment to see how his 02 Stats were on the mini sleep study at home, I knew it wasn't that good, but since he was sick his doctor just told us to redo it in June when cold/flu season is over and he is not sick at all. His doctor also informed me that since he has had this same mass for about 6 months they want to do a CT Scan of his lungs, here is the mass :

They are not sure what it is, it has been there for about 6 months now, it has sometimes gotten better but never goes away, they don't know what it could be..It could be scar tissue, or something else..so we will find out in June what it is. They aren't worried about it though, they just want to know what it is.

But after that appointment I thought that it would be really good to go see the people who made me sane in the first few weeks after Reiko was born, the nurses at St.Joesph's Hospital. I wasn't sure whether they would recognize us, but the minute we got into the NICU we were surrounded by tons of nurses going gaga over Reiko, they remembered him well, and me too. They were so excited to see how far he has come and told us to come back again! They really were such amazing people, and I was sooo very lucky to have met them when Reiko was in the NICU. The NICU is not fun, there are sick babies everywhere, but these ladies make you feel as comfortable as possible..I will never forget them. While walking into the hospital I had flashbacks of labour, of standing outside the doors with Reiko for the first time and waiting for Derek to pull the car up, I was honestly petrified of every single person coming near us, incase they hit his carseat by accident...I remembered walking down the hallway everyday to see my baby, going into the little room that he was in for 5 weeks, going into the care by parent room, where I looked after Reiko for a full 24 hours for the first time! So today was definitely bittersweet, 1 year ago our life was so crazy and different and now it is feeling so much more normal. Everyday he is getting stronger and for the first time since finding out there was problems when I was pregnant, life seems easy/good...it seems perfect. Although this is the hard part, the waiting, never knowing when the next break is going to happen...he has been break free for about 8 weeks now, so I am expecting it anyday now...But I will be soo happy if it doesn't happen anytime soon..*please please please don't let it happen*

Right now the boys are talking in their room, oh yea and it is 1030 at night! Kai woke Reiko up at bedtime and now they wont stop talking to eachother...it was cute at first, now an hour later...not so much lol...I am really tired and hoping to go to sleep soon, well at least maybe this will mean that Reiko won't wake up much tonight..I would take that lol.

I am finally feeling better! This flu lasted like 3 weeks, and was awful! But I finally got rid of it, I just had a headache today, so yay!! Tomorrow I go to Zumba again, I am so looking forward to it! Turbo is thursday, crap I just thought of something, Derek has a work meeting on thursday night...I don't think I will get to do Turbo...which totally sucks because I haven't done Turbo is sooo freaking long! And I won't get to do it again until after my schooling is done, because that starts Thursdays at 6-9pm....grrr.........well the schooling will be so worth it though.

Ok so I guess I have updated you all. So hope you have a good night. Take care!

Jess

He is rolling!

WOW! He is soo amazing! to think of everything he has been through this year and now Reiko is rolling from tummy to back, he will not stay on his tummy lol. here is a video! Ohh and he is starting to sit by himself now, here is this video as well! Enjoy! Happy Weekend!

ok so the video wont work right now, let me try again in a minute!

still sick

sorry for no updates, I did actually write up a big blog the other day and then accidently deleted it, so I said Eff It! I have been so sick lately, yesturday was the worst nausea I have ever had in my life, I even took a pregnancy test I was feeling so sick, but thankfully, I am not pregnant, just fighting the worst flu of my life that won't go away. I am about to go for a nap, I feel awful still. I will update more later. everyone is good otherwise, Kai and Reiko are great and not sick and Reiko hasn't broke since February! KNOCK ON WOOD!!! Ok I'mm ttyl.

Rough week

So I picked up the flu..twice in one week..ughhh..it was hell.

The first time wasn't as bad as yesturday, I felt like someone had ran me over multiple times, I was so sore and cold and felt horrible. I almost fainted before I ended up getting sick, I was alone at the time and had just gotten out of a bath, so yes I was alone and naked and was passing out at the toilet..it was horrible. But thankfully Kai was already at Oma's and Derek brought Reiko out there too, since he worked and I was in no condition to look after him ..let alone move. After fainting, I was scared to move without Derek around so I stayed on the couch til he got home and put me to bed. I haven't felt that awful in so long. I still have this awful cough and tightness in my chest, but I can handle this.

The one day that I didn't feel awful this week we had appointments in London for Reiko, first he had to get his RSV and 12 month shots but was unable to because he was also sick, so he was put on more puffers, and antibiotics, and we also had our photo's done by the Ronald McDonald House. Krista the photographer was amazing and did an excellent job. She was nice enough to edit them and send us the photo's! The Ronald McDonald Marketing team will pick out which pictures they like the best and use those in their ads across Canada for McHappy Day. I will post a few pictures, but there are sooo many to look at.

I have been following this story on facebook, a ladies family who lives about an hour or so away, her teenage son had cancer, and I was so sad to hear that he suddenly passed away the other day, its those moments that can't get out of my head, I picture the family, him, how they are feeling, and it sticks with me all day...I feel so awful for their family and I can only hope that they can find peace someday. They are a very religious family and I think it helped them deal with the situation. I am glad they have that to comfort them.

Today since I was feeling better I decided to bring Kai to the Matinee to see HOP, I tried taking him to Shrek last summer but that didn't work out at all, we had to leave after 15 minutes, but today he did great, he played around in the seats next to us, but sat down most of it. Then he had a sugar crash on the way home and slept for 2 hours lol. It was a good time for us both though. So at least now I know he can handle going to the movies.

Reiko has been using an exersaucer that my sister gave us, and he is doing great in it. It really stregthens his core muscles and he loves it! It is nice to see him upright like that and lets him work on putting some weight on his legs, although he still has a few inches to go before he can fully touch the bottom on the exersaucer even on the highest level lol...he is just so tiny. At his appt the other day we weighed him and he was 13lbs 7.5 oz, he cannot get above 14lbs! He has been stuck at 13lbs for like 5 months now lol. Reiko has been getting better though, he usually is super happy during the day and gets up alot at nights, but at least he is happy lol.

Ok here are some pictures. Enjoy!