First Sledding Expedition of Winter '09

The kids woke up this morning and were begging to go sledding. It wasn't even 9 o'clock! I have been exhausted as I think I overdid it a little over Christmas and I did NOT want to go. But, I caved in and sledding we did go. I am glad we went. The kids had a great time. Me? Well, I was exhausted and all I did was stand and watch. I ended up taking a two hour nap late this afternoon.

Jacob remembering that you have to come up the hill after you ride down!

Lizzie and Zach climbing up. This is the first time that Lizzie has gone down the hill. She would only go with Zach though!

Ready for the first run!

This is soooo much fun!

The Paragi kiddos getting ready to start their sledding expedition!

The forecast calls for a little more snow and no warm up anytime soon. We are hoping to hit the sledding hill with family when they arrive tomorrow!

Just some fun shots

Kaitlyn is one silly girl!

I let Zach drive up the driveway from my grandma's house to my mom's house.

Lizzie and her Aunt Kenni Lea after a snowball fight.

Mom and my aunt with all the grandkids

The kids shared popcorn and Sadie with Kaitlyn

My grandma's and Lizzie's hand

Jacob just makes me smile!

Christmas Memories Continue

We spent the night Christmas Eve with my mom and Jim. We were up bright and early Christmas morning - 5 am to be exact. We had lunch and visited with the entire family at my grandparent's house. We had a great day with family.

This is the first Christmas that we have celebrated in my grandparent's new house. I wondered if it would feel weird not being where we have been my entire life. The answer? No! It is so good to see my grandparent's moving around so easily in their one story house. And, it doesn't matter where we hold the Christmas festivities. It is with whom we celebrate that makes the day!

Jacob said, "Come on, dad! Turn that frown upside down. It is 5 o'clock!"

A DSi

Zach playing with his gift.

While waiting for us to get ready to do lunch, Lizzie crashed on the couch. We had just painted her nails, and she fell asleep waiting for them to dry!

Grandma Wellman, Lizzie, and Baby Punkin'

The kid's table

Yummy rolls

Zach and cousin, Kaitlyn

Mamaw and Lizzie

I tried and tried to get a pic of the girls together in their dresses with their babies. However, Kaitlyn was not interested in such a pic. This is as close as I got!

Uncle Cain and Zach.

Steph, Butch and Baby Brycen

From my dad's house to my grandma's, we were spoiled with gifts and we made memories that will not soon be forgotten. Thanks to all who made this Christmas so memorable!

Christmas Eve 2009

We enjoyed Christmas Eve at my dad and Karen's house. We had a good time eating, playing games, and opening presents. We made lots of memories that we will not soon forget.

Dad's new shirt: I am just one big freaking ray of sunshine aren't I? How appropriate!

Testing the PS3

Zach was shaking at this point. A baseball autographed by Derek Jeter!

The Snuggie. Jacob has wanted one for about 6 months and since it was buy one get one free, Zach got one too!

Yea, I got the snuggie!!!

Grandpa makes them work to find their PS3.

Lizzie loved opening presents.

A Busy Sunday

We started our day with Jacob screaming from his bed. I walked back and gave the normal line, "If you are going to scream like that, there better be blood or a bone sticking out." He said, "there is blood. It is gushing." Sure enough Jake had lost a tooth and gaping hole was indeed gushing.

Then off to Sunday School and church.

Basketball and then lunch with the team.

We finally returned home to find that Santa, that magical old elf, had made his way to our house. He brought a foosball table for our basement and some other gifts. Thanks, Santa, for coming to visit us early. I would have hated hauling that table all the way back to Illinois!

The snow started to fall and the kids played and enjoyed their new walkie talkies while hiding and playing in the snow.

Finally, roaring fire, hot chocolate and a movie!

Zach bringing it up the floor.

Zach played very good basketball today. I am very proud of the entire team. They played tough!

Oh, that Santa must have a sense of humor. Every time we go to Target, Zach throws razors in the cart and says he needs them for his "mousestach." One of the elves must have heard because here he is with razors from his stocking.

Trying out the foosball table. By the way, I am TERRIBLE at it. I scored twice for the other team! Zach was not pleased since he was on my team.

Making snow slushies.

Whoa. . .he did some major fishtailing.

Lizzie couldn't let them have all the fun!

Jake shows off his fishtailing skills too!

Holiday Basketball Tourney

Zach's team is playing in a Holiday Basketball Tourney in Champaign. They played two games today. The following pictures kind of sum up how our day went. Can you say 0 and 2.

Oh well, there is tomorrow to get ready for! No time to sit and mope. He did come home and fall sound asleep for a while before heading to a friend's house to hang out.

I Love This Season

The tree is finally up and decorated.

The stockings are hung and we had our first "cheating fire." We used a fire log. It is so neat to watch the kids be so excited about the first fire of the season.

We had a little bit of snow earlier in the week. It quickly disappeared much to our disappointment.

MRI and Neuro Appointment

I had an MRI of my brain and my thoracic spine today with a follow-up appointment with the neuro later this afternoon. I do have some plaque on my thoracic spine that was not there in June. So, I now have plaque on my cervical and thoracic spine as well as abnormal proteins in my spinal fluid.

What does all that mean? Well, it means that I will start disease modifying therapy for MS after the first of the year. We will probably start with a drug that I have to inject into myself once a week. For those of you who know how terribly afraid I am of needles, just imagine my response to that!

My neurologist will still follow-up with Dr. Cohen at Northwestern. In his notes, my neuro said that "the patient appears to have a demylenating disease like MS." Why not go ahead and say for sure since I have met the markers? Well, since I have para-thyroid issues, an extremely high antistreptolycin result, and an enlarged spleen, there is still a very slight possibility that I might end up having some sort of "weird ass auto immune disorder." Yes, those were his exact words. :>

I am not overly optimistic that I will end up with an auto immune disorder. As a matter of fact, I don't know which would be better.

Bottom line? I will start treatment for MS and pray that the medicine we have chosen will work.

Thank you to all of you who have prayed for me, encouraged me, and loved me through this. I will be ok! God will not leave me and He has provided me with incredible friends and family to see me through anything - the good and the bad days!

FYI

I see my nurse practitioner on Monday to discuss my enlarged thyroid and spleen. I already have my thyroid function tests back and they were normal. In my expert medical opinion, I would say they are enlarged due to either an infection or a result of an autoimmune something or another. Yep, I know, I am not a doctor, so I will wait for Monday for the real results!

Then on Friday, I have an MRI of my thoracic spine and brain at 1 and see the neurologist at 4. That could be a very telling day in terms of what is to come for me concerning treatments or no.

I will let you all know. In the meantime, I would greatly appreciate all prayers. Thank you!

4 out of 5 Paragis. . .

now wear glasses or contacts! Jacob went and picked up his new glasses this morning. He is so darn cute with his glasses, hat hair, and yellow teeth from his after school snack! What a nut!

And The Diagnosis Is. . .

We still aren't sure. At first the doctors were ready to diagnose me with MS. Believe it or not, I was ready for that diagnosis. I cried tears. However, in a way, I was just glad we finally had a diagnosis. Then, the doctors re-examined my records and decided that they weren't ready to call it MS just yet.

So, a quick run down - I have abnormal proteins in my spinal fluid and I have plaque build-up on my cervical spine. Those two things in and of themselves would be enough for some docs to diagnose me MS and start treatment. However, the big wig in Chicago and my neuro here do not want to treat if not absolutely necessary. Since both those things were found in my spinal column, they believe it could still be a "clinically isolated demylenating syndrome" of some sort.

I am going to have another MRI of my brain and thoracic spine to see if there have been any changes. If they see lesions on the brain or plaque build up on the thoracic spine, then I will have the official diagnosis of MS and start treatment. If the tests show no change, then I will continue like this and see if the symptoms actually start to go away with periodic MRIs. The good news is that a lot of my symptoms have either gotten better or gone away since this summer.

The docs did say that if I am adamant that we start treatment, they would do so. We will see how I feel in the upcoming weeks as we wait for the MRI and the results. I have to say that I completely trust my doctors. The neurologist at Northwestern is THE neurologist who specializes in MS and is the director of the MS clinic there. My neuro locally is incredible. He is not afraid to seek a second opinion and is very thorough. I couldn't ask for better care.

So, there it is in a nutshell.

Thanksgiving 2009

For Thanksgiving 2009, we traveled to Fort Wayne to visit and stay with Brian's family. We had a good time visiting with everyone. The kids especially enjoyed playing with their cousin, Ben.

Wrestling and dancing was a big time hit with Ben, Jake and Lizzie.

Molly and Chad

Karen kept the kids busy for a while decorating some left over Halloween cookies.

We played lots of Uno.

Lizzie and Ben played their "games." Check out their legs!

Aunt Molly and Lizzie - they really look alike in this pic!

Karen and her sister, Aunt Kathy, who hosted Thanksgiving.

Ben, Jake, Zach, Lizzie and George all hanging out at Aunt Kathy's. This may be the only time they were all sitting still.

Brian and his sister, Molly pretending they like each other

The dancing fools had a great time. Unfortunately, Ben lost his footing in this one!

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving too.