Nelly Belly

We dog sat my crossing partner and close friend's little Chihuahua Nelly June 7th -13th. I didn't tell the girls that we were going to be dog sitting because I knew I would have to hear the endless questions of when Nelly was going to be coming to our house.  Is it today Mom, all day long would drive me crazy!  So we went to Gymnastics and while the girls were doing there thing I went with Allyson and put Nelly in the car.  After Gymnastics was done and when we got to the car was when I told them about dog sitting.  They were so excited!
A little bit about Nelly: very cute dog, but yippee, and growls all the time.  Nelly loves adults, but has a hard time with young kids....young kids Maddies age.  Allyson warned me that Nelly was like this and was worried for Maddie.  Her daughter Peyton who is maddies age gets growled and nipped at all of the time because she won't leave Nelly alone.  Allyson kept asking if I was sure I was up for this.  Honestly no I wasn't, but 1st she needed help, 2nd I really wanted to help her out, 3rd it would be a great learning experience for the girls, and 4th I was getting paid to do it!
Anyways on the way back home from Gymnastics Nelly growled pretty much the whole way.  I thought oh no this is going to be a long week.  When we got home we set up a place for Nelly to stay.  The girls instantly wanted to hold her and play with her.  Nelly didn't want any of that she growled at them.  I had to explain to them that they needed to be really careful with her.  They needed to gain her trust.  She ended up sitting on Matt's lap while I caught up on yard work.  She didn't want anything to do with the girls, which was hard for them.  When it was time to go to bed I let Nelly outside to do her business, and then put her in our laundry room in her little bed.  Then I went to bed, but was shortly woken up by her shrill whining.  I tried to ignore it, but gave up.  I let her come and sleep in our bed.  Matt had gone back to work, so it was just me.  Nelly instantly went under the covers and down by the back of my legs.  I tried to move her and she growled at me.  I got her anyways and put her up by my pillow, and she instantly tried to go back under the covers.  I was worried that I would roll on top of her, or that she would suffocate. She kept trying, and I gave finally gave in.  It wasn't the greatest nights sleep, and I thought boy this was going to be a long long long week.
Instructions for Nelly: indoor dog.  She is potty trained(bonus). She will start to whine at you when she needs to go do her business.   She eats when she is hungry.  She eats in her bed 3/4 cup dog food a day.  She can go for walks.  She can stay in her purse bag during the day if you want her too.  Put her in it when she is being naughty.  Okay to have her sleep in laundry room, but can sleep with you or your girls if you want, but she moves around a lot, so it's hard to sleep.
It really did turn into a good experience and Nelly actually let the girls hold her...well more kenzie than maddie.  Both girls got nipped at once, but they deserved it.  I'm sorry it happened, I warned them.  They have to learn somehow.  Nelly is not a hard dog at all, but she is like a baby.  She likes you to hold her, when she is not in her bag, or on her bed.  She is a drama queen....hence the growling.  She growls if you touch her wrong, pick her up, move her, she just growls.  Allyson said that's the way she was when they got her from her previous owners.  I don't know if it was there fault she was like this, or if it is a Chihuahua's trait.  I got her to sleep in the laundry room the 2nd night on.  I don't know for some reason I just didn't think to yell out be quiet Nelly and go lay down.  Probably cause I didn't want to wake my girls up.  My girls sleep pretty deep, and don't wake up to loud noises very often.  I had to yell it a few times, but she listened and shut up.  Very nice!
We did take her for a couple of walks, the girls had a blast with that one!  They each had turns holding the leash.  It was funny each time we took a walk we would pass a couple of huge dogs, and they would bark at us, and Nelly would bark and growl.  In my head I was thinking yea right Nelly in your dreams!  Those dogs could eat her whole.  Too funny!  Why do little tiny dogs think they are so tough?  Another funny thing she would do was when you asked her where Mommy or Daddy was or if she wanted to go for a walk she would start barking and running around trying to find them.  We all had a good time with that one!
The week was a success and Nelly really grew on me.  Not enough for me to run out and buy a dog though.  It was very therapeutic to pet her and hold her.  The girls were sad to see her go back home.  It's nice not to hear can I hold her now Mom? over and over again all day long. Oh and to also say give Nelly her space over and over as well.

Preschool Graduate

 I can't believe my baby graduated from preschool.  She is just so tiny, but yet so big.  Madisynn graduated Friday June 17th. Her class was a tiny class, only 5 kids.  Madisynn loved going to school, and she has done remarkable.  I'm so proud of her!  The graduation program was short and sweet.  Madisynn had 2 lines to memorize for the program.  They were: Welcome to our Graduation Program.  We will now share with you the fun things we learned this year.  She did so good.  She has the sweetest little voice, that just melts your heart.  All of the kids did such a great job with their parts, and singing the songs.  So cute!

Maddie and her best friend in preschool Brianna 

 Left to right: Joplin, Makaydee, Jason, Brianna, and of course Maddie.

 Miss Hollie and Maddie

 The silly goof wouldn't turn her diploma around!

All done and over....on to new adventures in Kindergarten.  She is just too little to be going into Kindergarten.  She is so excited!  Congratulations on a year well done my little miss maddie moo!

The drama continues....

House of drama, it never ever ends.  So not even kidding you as soon as I hit publish post from my last post Matt took a turn for the worst.  I knew that he wasn't feeling top notch, but hey he just had surgery 4 days before so I thought it was normal.  He said he was having pains like before he had the gallbladder surgery, but worse, and he was nauseous, and dry heaving.  I called Dr. Rabaunavich's office to see what they wanted us to do.  The assistant said she had to call him because he wasn't in the office that day, and that she would call us back to let us know what we needed to do.  While I waited for her to call back I was panicking and trying to find someone to come give Matt a blessing.  I called our friend Dan to see if he was available, but he was at work.  I couldn't think of who to call, but he gave me some suggestions.  While on the phone with him the Dr. office called back.  They wanted us to come back to the ER and run some more tests on Matt.
We hurried and grabbed the stuff we needed, and headed off to the ER to see what was going on.  I was so panicked, Matt was dry heaving, and thankfully Maddie was calm.  I dropped Matt off at the door to the ER went and parked, and Maddie and I ran back to the ER.  Matt was filling out paper work when I got in.  I started trying to call people to see if they could come give Matt a blessing.  I was in tears, I had already called 3 people and couldn't get a hold of them, and one was out of state, so that didn't help.  Then finally I got a hold of brother Peck in our ward and he was happy to come and help.  He said he would find someone to help assist. Matt had finished his paperwork and was waiting, I didn't know what to do for him.  He hurt so bad tears were coming.  Matt has a pretty high pain tolerance so to have tears in his eyes I know it's pretty bad.  We waited in the waiting room for about 20 min.  I decided to call my friend Jacoy to see if she could come get Maddie for me.  I didn't know how long we would be in the ER for, and I didn't want her getting restless and seeing her daddy in pain.  Such a sweet heart Jacoy is, she totally said she could and would.  Thank goodness for good friends!
They finally get us into a room, and then it's another long wait to be seen.  Then Brother Peck shows up, and says that Brother Roberts is almost to the hospital as well.  Then the Dr. comes in and says what they want to do.  He says it's not uncommon for them to miss some of the gallstones after removing the gallbladder.  They wanted to check and see if that was the case.  Then he leaves and the nurse comes in to finally give Matt some Morphine, and Brother Roberts came in around the same time.  Pain meds and priesthood blessing Hallelujah!  The blessing assured Matt that he would have no further complications.  That was nice to hear.  It didn't mean that he wouldn't be pain free though.  After the blessing they took Matt to run some X-rays.
We were in the ER for about 4 hrs.  Craptastic.  Matt suffered, we would press the button when he would start to feel the pain again to have them come give more morphine.  It took them over and hr. to come and give it to him.  We called 2 or 3 times to see what was going on.  It was very frustrating!  The Dr. came back into the room and said that his liver may be inflamed or that he had and intestinal infection.  They wanted to run a CAT scan to see more.  So more waiting.  After the results from the CAT scan the nurse comes in and says there is absolutely nothing wrong with him.  He said Matt was constipated and to take milk of magnesia, and maybe try some home enemas.  He said that they would change his pain meds to something stronger.Then he said the Dr. would be in to talk with Matt.
So we waited for the Dr. to come in for about 10 min.  It makes me mad when he is standing right outside the room talking on his cell phone, when he can come in and just let us know his thoughts.  It turns out that I shouldn't have thought that, because the Doctor came in and said the same thing as the nurse and told Matt that he was a wimp.  We were both in total shock that he would say that.  We didn't know what to say.  What a jerk!  You never tell a patient that ever.  Doctors really need to put themselves in there patients shoes and think about how they are feeling.  He did say though that Matt could be having Muscle spasms.  I've heard those are pretty painful.  So they discharged us, and we went home, with Matt still hurting.  I dropped him off at home and went to pick up his pain meds.  Came back and went and picked up my girls from Jacoy's house.  Came back with Matt feeling a little better.
Matt was scheduled to get his staples removed 10 days after his surgery.  We wanted to go somewhere else to get them removed because we didn't want to see the jerky doctor again.  We were told we couldn't that we needed to followup with that surgeon.  Matt took those 10 days off from work, and tried to recuperate.  He was off and on for those 10 days well 9 days he went and got his staples out a day early.  He had to have a Dr. note saying that he was good to go back to work.
I thought everything was hunky dory when he left to go to work that night.  Matt didn't tell me that he was hurting.  I thought that he would take it easy at work and drive his patrols.  He thought he was okay to walk them.  It's almost 2 miles each patrol.  When he came home from work I knew it was bad.  He wasn't standing up straight.  He was nauseous and just hurting like before the surgery again.  He slept for a little while, but the pain was worse when he woke up.  He was out of pain meds.  I knew something needed to be done when I came into the hallway and Matt was kneeling on the floor butt in the air trying to relieve gas and just sobbing.   I didn't know what to do.  I just wrapped my arms around him, and sobbed with him.  I asked if he wanted me to say a prayer.  He did.  I asked if he wanted another priesthood blessing.  he did.  We didn't want to go back to the ER just to have them call Matt a wimp again.  So I got a hold of Brother Peck again and he was available to come and give Matt another blessing and he said he would find someone to assist him.  He brought Brother Adams with him.  The blessing was reassuring Matt still has a lot to do on this earth.  After the blessing we tried a cold pack on Matt's stomach, but it hurt too bad to keep it on.  I called Dr. Rabaunavich's office again to talk to the nurse to see what she suggested.  She asked the usual questions- does he have a fever? no, is he nauseous? Yes, are his incisions really red or hot to the touch?  Not hot to the touch and his incisions are red, but I can't tell if they are worse from yesterday. He did just get the staples removed. what kind of pain? stabbing or aching.  Is is like the pain before he had the surgery or after?  Before.  I told her that we had gone to the ER the week before for this same stuff, and that the Dr. said it might be muscle spasms.  She then said well their is nothing we can do, but call back in 24 hrs. if the pain is worse or isn't gone.  I then asked are you going to prescribe him some pain medication? he is all out.  Oh yeah of course... where do you have it filled?  I give her the info.  She says to check and see if it's called in in about an hr.
She really was no help at all.  So frustrating!  Matt still hurting rolled up into the fetal position on the couch moaning.  It was awful.  Then brother Peck calls me.  He said he felt inspired to tell me that maybe giving Matt some warm chicken broth would help. Then he suggested maybe going into a cold bath to bring down his body temperature, and then doing the cold pack for a little bit.  Then to finish off with the warm heat pad to relax may help.  I was open to any suggestions at this point.  I told Matt what brother Peck had told me, and so he went into a cold bath right away.  An hr. had passed so I called to see if the prescription was called in and filled yet.  Lucky me it had just barely been called in.  On the way to the store I was worried that Matt had been eating stuff that was aggravating him.  I called my Mom on the way to see if she had suggestions.  She looked online for me.  Tomatoes, and avocados, tuna, lentils were some of the top suggestions.  So I got those things along with more oatmeal since he was still pretty backed up.  Then got his prescription then went home.  My Mom has also suggested that I talk to my cousin Sherilyn she does homiopathic remedies.
The pain meds helped take the edge off, but not much.  I emailed my cousin the next day, she said she could make me some homiopathics and send them to me.  She suggested acupuncture, and some other things like digestive enzymes and warm pad.  She was very sweet to help out!  Thanks Sher!  So I started researching acupuncture where to go.  I didn't want to just go to anybody.  I was scared.  I asked around and a couple of people responded.  Thank you very much!  I thought maybe matt's Tens unit( vibrator thingy majig that helps sooths) might help.  Problem was my brother in law J had borrowed it from us, and they lived almost an hr. away.  I asked Matt if he would be okay for me to go and get it for him.  He hurt and didn't feel the greatest I don't think he would have cared either way.  Also because he was feeling nauseous I researched to see what I could do as an herbal remedy.  It brought me to Ginger tea.  So I was going to go get the tens unit and go to the store and buy some ginger root, and some digestive enzymes when my Mom called.  She said that she had bought me some digestive enzymes and she was on her way to the store and that she was going to come drop them off.  We got to talking and I mentioned the Ginger root and I wasn't sure if I could just buy it anywhere.  She said you could buy it at the grocery store.  She asked if I needed anything?  I said would you buy me some ginger root, so it's one less stop for me.  She quickly said yes and that she would drop it off while I was gone.  What a sweet MOM I have!
So after the girls were fed, we left to go to my sister's house.  While I was there we got into talking about herbal remedies.  My Sister has been through a lot.  She recommended doing a  LSA Pro HHC scan.  Both Kate, and my little brother Quinn have done this.  They have had success with doing it.  I thought why not. So I went home to Matt and asked him what he thought, and he agreed to try.  We called Herbs for Health the next day and made an appointment for the following day.   I was very impressed with Kris Ross!  She is very good at what she does.  My eyes have been opened to herbal remedies.  I will have to talk more about them in another post.  Lot's has been going on in the last month.  We take things day by day.  We are trying to get Matt back on track, and feeling healthy again.  So stay tuned!