My favorite Kiddos!

Last Saturday I got a rare chance to spend a little time with my favorite kiddos!  I baby sat for my goddaughter JEM, and watched my two nephews play soccer!  It was a nice momentary escape from my sad life of studying around the clock!  Here’s a few pics!  I love all these guys so much (including my other nephew and niece I didn’t get a picture of this time!)

My nephews! Soccer Superstars!

My goddaughter JEM and her big sis!

 Aren’t they so cute!

BTW, I actually have a bit of a break this weekend.  I just finished two of my classes, OB and Pediatrics.  I ended up with a 3.8 in OB and a 3.9 in the Pediatrics…yay!  All my hard work paid off!  Monday I start on Med/Surg 2 (Adult Nursing 2).  I still have 2 weeks left of Peds clinical this coming week and next before moving on to the Med/Surg 2 clinical but the end is near. 

Did I mention that I am still loving Peds!  I swear, most of the kids are the sweetest!  I even got some baby cuddle time last Wednesday since the mom had to leave to take care of her other kids for a few hours!  Granted that will not happen as much when I am a full-time nurse with 4-5 patients per shift vs. a student nurse who only gets 1 patient!  But still, I think I will really enjoy it. 

I am officially halfway done with nursing school.  Only 6 more weeks left this semester, then 4 more months next year!  I CANNOT wait!

 I called PPVI last week and found out that they will be open over the holidays (well, all except Christmas Day and New Years Day, understandably).  So I am thinking this could really happen.  They are sending me the new patient paperwork and I will talk to them on Tuesday to see if I can get on the schedule.  Then all I have to do is call my primary care physician back to see if my out-of-network referral for Dr. Keefe was approved…keep those prayers a-coming!

My PPVI Letter!

So I got my letter from PPVI today! 

Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as revealing as I was hoping….but I was somewhat prepared for that based on the letter a fellow blogger, Lisa, also received from Dr. Hilgers recently.

It pretty much told me what he understood my problem to be from my history and previous doctor’s diagnoses:

Functionally abnormal cycles, unusual bleeding, premenstrual symptoms, type V luteal phase defect, a history of endometriosis, and a septate uterus.

Then he stated what he noticed from my charting and medical charts:

Markedly low post peak estrogen, low androgen levels, regular mucus cycles, premenstrual spotting, tail-end brown bleeding, intermenstrual bleeding and frequent “2W” observations.

He thinks these could all indicate possible:

hormonal dysfunction, ovulation defects, endometriosis, chronic inflammation of the cervix, and/or chronic low-grade endometrial infection.

As a result, he would like me to come to PPVI for 7-10 days and have the following tests performed:

Ultrasound series, diagnostic lap/hyst, selective HSG, and endometrial cultures.

Ok, like Lisa, I wasn’t expecting a diagnosis in the form of a letter, but I guess it would have been nice to get a tad more information…ya know?  I almost felt like it was a form letter where he checked the appropriate boxes for my situation.  I’m also bummed because I’ve had all this done before with the exception of the endometrial culture (and even that, M and I just finished antibiotics to treat for it anyway despite not having the actual culture done).  So after all that, Dr. Hilgers will then decide a course of treatment for me.  I guess that is the real gold of Dr. Hilgers, not just the diagnostic stuff.  It’s how he looks at it and treats for it, I guess!

However, he stated at the end of the letter that he is booking out 3-4 months for surgery but that if I wanted it sooner, I could contact them and see Cather.ine Ke.efe M.D. instead because she has been trained by Dr. Hilgers to perform the “same medical services.”   Do you guys think it would be a mistake to see her instead of waiting for Dr. Hilgers himself?  I mean, I would imagine they still consult each other with tough cases right?  So I would still get HIS knowledge even though she would be my main contact, right?

I am actually sorta thinking I may go ahead and try and have this all done in December with her instead of waiting until next May/June.  I made some calls and it is possible that my current insurance will pay for it although I will know more in a week or two.  If they do, it would be nice to get it done while I am off for Christmas break.  I get almost a month off from school.  It will only require me to be in Omaha for 7-10 days…so not too bad.  I just don’t know if my cycle will cooperate and have the right timing for the surgery/ultrasound series.  It’s not like I want to be in Omaha by myself over Christmas or anything.  Given that, I only have a good week or so of availability  (December 13-23).  So in order to have the ultrasound series done, I would need to have shortish (26 day) cycles the next two months which isn’t really that common for me.  If anything they will probably be longer than even 28 day cycles and then I will totally be off for doing it in December.

Oh well, I put all the calls into everyone I needed to (my primary care physician for a referral and PPVI to see what their schedule looks like) so I will leave it in God’s hands.  I know from past experience that I can’t force it if it’s not His will so I’m going to do what I can to make it happen but I’m not going to stress about it if it doesn’t.  In the meantime, now I am just waiting to hear back from the adoption agency to get all the paperwork in hand.  I figure it will be a few weeks at least so I still have some more time to kill busting my butt in school!   At least I have a distraction no matter how painful school is at the moment, ha ha!

Hope you are all having a great evening!

Long time no post

Yes, I know I’ve been completely awful about blogging lately, but I have a good excuse, I swear.  My life is pretty much hell right now with school and a wedding I was in last weekend.  Don’t get me wrong, the wedding itself wasn’t hell.  It  was actually quite lovely!  It was just that with the craziness of school on top of all the wedding festivities (which included a bachelorette party the weekend before involving me as the designated driver and the maid of honor puking her brains out and going to the ER…nough said), well that on top of a million killer exams and massive projects…well, that is why my life has been hell lately.

Hence…no timey, no blog posty!

But since I have a second…and yes, just a second and due to the fact that I am basically slap-happy with exhaustion at the moment, I wanted to update you on a few things. 

1.  No, I am not pregnant.  (I know…big surprise there eh?). 

2.  I just mailed in our initial adoption paperwork today.

3.  I still haven’t gotten my letter from Dr. Hilgers yet.  Although for a second there today I thought I had.  PPVI so kindly sent me a generic letter asking for a donation.  Dang – it!  I really got my  hopes up.  But I’m used to that so…

4.  I am into my pediatric rotation at the hospital and I wanted to seriously steal my assigned patient today.   He was 4 years old and had a smile that could melt any heart and he definitely melted mine!

5.  That’s it…no more.  Gotta head to bed!  Sorry for my lack of commenting lately.  I’m still praying though, as always!

Good night!