Whooo-whoooo's the cutest owl?

This little owl fit in perfectly with our camp theme for Trunk or Treat this year.  You are so stinking cute.

Lost and Found

Last Friday I was so amazed at how God told me where your contact was hiding.  For the rest of the day I was on a mountain top.  Until we when went to church that evening and lost it again.  Good gracious.  We did everything right this time.  Checked before we got there, checked when we picked you up, searched high and low in that nursery. Gone.

When we got home I (half) jokingly walked over to your wheelchair and checked under your cushion, telling Daddy maybe I overlooked the other four from my dream.

So today when your classroom nurse--who we think is absolutely amazing for more reasons than just this one--emailed me that she hadn't seen you wearing a contact for a few days, I explained what happened. A couple hours later I got this response:

"Lost and found!!! I went to set up Audrey’s pump with water and low and behold a contact was in the net basket at the back of her stroller...Nothing like finding $250 bucks on a Friday morning to put a smile on a face!! :-)"

So incredible! Audrey, it's obvious to me that God thinks your vision is important.  He wants you to see!

(Side note: There is no way this contact is the same one you lost at church, because you didn't even have your wheelchair at church. But the location in the basket and angle of the chair makes it very likely that it fell out when I  checked underneath the cushion.  That would make two out of five from my dream!)

I Had A Dream

After searching off and on for that blasted contact much of yesterday, I went to bed bummed.  But then….I had a dream.

I dreamt that I pulled out the bottom cushion of your wheelchair and found not one, not two, but FIVE contacts hiding under there. My dreams so often come true that I woke up and knew exactly what to do.

Poised to catch the contacts that were about to come cascading down, I pulled out the bottom cushion of your wheelchair and found not one, not two, but—

Ok, just ONE of your contacts.  But one is all we really need. They are super thick and don’t get dried out like normal contacts, so I cleaned that sucker off and stuck it in your good eye.

I love it when God speaks to me in my dreams! That is seriously cool, right?

Loss of Contact

As a medical mama, I get most aggravated over eyes and meds.  These are the two things that seem to never go right around here and are the source of my greatest frustrations.  Today it’s the eyes.

Insurance will pay for one pair of your contacts every three months.  Losing them before that time is up means we are out of pocket $250. Per eye. I would have no reservations paying that IF there was a guarantee that those contacts would stick around.  But there’s not.

Take this month for example.  Thanks to backorders and shipping delays you were without contacts for three weeks. Once they arrived the first one was lost after two days.  Your right eye we are told is completely blind so technically it doesn't need a contact, although I like to keep one in there just in case.  I figure it is best to treat that eye like it can see, rather than damage it further by assuming it is blind. But when we are down to only one contact it has to go in the left. That one was lost this morning only 10 minutes after I put it in. How does that happen??

I’ll tell you how it happens. If I don’t put the contacts in right, make sure they are perfectly aligned or check often enough to make sure they are still in place, you rub your eyes.  Well of course you do! Knowing we lost a contact and it was probably my fault is one of the quickest ways to make me grouchy.

So now we are faced with the decision.  Go nearly three months without any contacts (which for you equates to complete blindness) or order the contacts taking the risk that in a few days we might find ourselves in the same situation—blind and but now out $500?

Think, think, think…

Bugged Out

It took you longer to bounce back from your "Audrey episode" this time than it usually does. When Liam woke up yesterday morning vomiting, it made me wonder if you had the same bug. Last night it hit Daddy and took me down a few hours later.  Since you still hadn't fully recovered by this afternoon, it seems most likely that you were sick-sick rather than Audrey-sick.

That left us no choice but to cancel the brow surgery that was scheduled for tomorrow morning. I am so ready to get this taken care of for you and protect your "good" eye. But after losing Luke, I am not willing to take any chances.  This is a minor procedure with our greatest risks being infection and anesthesia. Still, I am as concerned I ever have been for a major surgery before.  I don't think my heart could take--well I don't even want to type it out.  I just want everything to go smoothly, get in, get out, and not take any unnecessary risks.

We don't have a new date yet, but it will most likely be a few weeks off.  I'll work on getting that scheduled, you work on getting healthy.

Gecko Grief

Yesterday a gecko made his way into the house. In six years of living here, that has happened two other times.  Liam helped take care of the most recent of these. The other I was pregnant with you, and since I didn't keep a blog during that time, I thought I'd share this memory with you.

I woke up during the night--probably to go to the bathroom--and went to the kitchen for a drink of water.  On my way back to bed something caught my eye on the living room floor, slightly illuminated by the moonlight.  Everything is a bit more ominous in the dark, so rather than just scooping it up, I bent down and poked it, looking for clues.  My first thought was a gummy worm, but knew that wasn't right, so I poked it again.  Slowly, as my eyes somewhat adjusted, a thought registered in my mind and I caused me to take a couple steps back.  I flipped the light switch on the wall, and walked back to the unidentified object with dread.  I looked down, and as my fears were confirmed, let out a terrified scream...or two...or more.  Daddy had been sleeping but ran into the living room faster than I would have thought possible, certain I had cut off my hand or was being held at gunpoint.  When all he found was a gecko on the floor, he was pretty stunned.

But to me it wasn't just a gecko. It was a gecko that had been torn apart by our cats and I had touched it.  TWICE. Plus, this one was transparent and I could see all of it's gross insides through its thin skin. And the eyes...ewww, the eyes. I tried to explain all this through my sobs while holding my right hand out to the side as if it was leprous. Though he didn't understand, Daddy pretended he did and walked me to the kitchen sink so I could wash my hands. Once there I refused to touch my right hand with my left.  So he washed it for me.

In hindsight I'm thinking hormones might have played a small role in this situation.

Sick Shnook

Last night you were up all night long sick.  It's the usual Audrey episode--vomiting, diarrhea, fever. I'm hoping you get back to your normal self quickly so that you can still have your ptosis surgery on Friday.  This surgery is way overdue--an infection this close to your "good" eye makes me nervous.  A couple times your lid has swollen and your eye has gotten a little gunky.  We've got to protect whatever vision you have!