Time Flies

Just an update from our corner of the world!

Tyson is working is still working at the farm and it is going good.  I love that the boys are able to go with him sometimes. They are still young but both Logan and Kason are hard workers and I am so grateful for my husband and his hand in that. (It also gives me a nice break!)  

Tyson has been training for triathlons and is doing awesome.  He did his first triathlon in July in Rigby and did great.  He did the sprint race which is a 1/2 mile swim followed by a 12 mile bike ride and then a 3 mile run.  He placed 3rd in his age group with a time of 1hr and 22minutes!  I am so proud of him and the example he is to our boys. (He's pretty hot too!)  He is doing his next triathlon this month in Rexburg and is starting to get nervous. I'm sure he will do great!

Logan turned 8 this year and I just can't believe it!  When did my baby grow up? He will be getting baptized in September and is so excited.  He is turning into such an amazing young man.  His life is starting to get busy and I think this is just a glimpse of what will be in the next couple years.  He has started his 3rd season of flag football and is loving it.  Scouts is also a new thing in our lives!  I'm not sure I'm ready for all this growing up quite yet!

 Kason boy is 5 and I'm a little surprised he is still here!  He is an accident waiting to happen!  Just this summer he broke his arm, bit through is bottom lip, and got bittten by a mosquito that made the whole side of his face swell. His kidneys are doing the same.  He still randomly has blood in his urine but no more news good news....I hope!  He had a swollen lymph node on the right side of his neck for about 1 1/2 years that we had looked at.  All of his labs looked good so that was good, but we still chose to have his tonsils and adenoids out.  We were hoping that this would also help with his kidneys.  He is going to kindergarten this year and is so excited to go the school with Logan, Paige, and Rylee.  This year he is also starting to play flag football.  Tyson is his teams coach...wish them luck! I can't believe how fast he is growing up too.

 My blonde-hair, blue-eyed boy!  He cracks us up all day, every day.  He is so funny and loves to be the center of attention.  He loves taking baths and his favorite food is grapes. Corbin LOVES his brothers and follows them everywhere.  He thinks he is much bigger than he really is.  He is also my first breath-holder.  When he gets mad or hurt or just wants to throw a fit, he will hold his breath until he passes out.  Little fart.  Sometimes we can side-track him or blow in his face and he will gasp for a breath but other times he is just out.  Well his new thing he did (at a birthday party to make it worse) was he held his breath til he passed out and then he had a seizure. It lasted about a minute and then he eventually came around but jeez, that made me a little nervous.  He hasn't pulled that stunt again and hope he doesn't.

 As for me, not much going on. Just staying at home taking care of these three crazies.  I love being able to stay home with them and I have enjoyed most of it!  I was recently asked if I wanted to go back to work one day week and I decided that it would be good for my sanity so I accepted.  While I love staying home I really think it will be good for me to get out once a week.

 

Cents of Style Giveaway

I have been following the blog of the Sullenger Family for some time now and she is currently doing a giveaway.  It is a AMAZING!  I would love to win the purse.  You can also enter to win. Just visit her website and enter for yourself. 

 www.patrickandashley.blogspot.com

Randomness....In No Particular Order

 

Logan and Kason absolutely LOVE their little brother.  They play with him all day.  Sometimes I wonder when/if the "newness" is going to wear off.  I think he is just growing up way to fast because he sees everything his brothers are doing.  They are so good to him, most of the time. 

 Kason loves duct tape.  He calls it "lucky tape" and he can fix just about anything with it.  Here the antenna on his truck wouldn't stay up because it had the balloon attached.  He found some lucky tape and fixed it.  I must admit I was pretty impressed!  You can tell he is farm boy, no city kid could think of that!  For Christmas my Dad gave both of the boys their very own roll of lucky tape.  Kason got neon green and Logan got black and white checkered...who knew it would be such a hit!

 This little boy is pretty mischievious, as you can tell by the look on his face!  My house has never really been babyproofed.  My other kids never really got into a lot of stuff.  Corbin on the other hand tries to stick his fingers in the outlets (now covered), he pulls out all of the dvd's, and has already gotten into the cleaning stuff under the sink.  I think I have my hands full with this little guy!

 My Grandma and Grandpa Storer recently moved to Utah and we miss them terribly.  We were able to go over to their house a few days before they left and say our goodbyes.

 I am so grateful that Logan and Kason got to know them.  I will forever remember going over to their house in the summer and picking raspberries, peas, plums, and many other delicious things from the garden.  What a great example they were to us.  We miss them.

 Isn't he just adorable.  Ooh, I just can't get enough of him.  I love to kiss those fat little cheeks all day long.  I am not sure if it is because he is the only baby I have been able to stay home with or if it is because I know he's my last, but I seriously can't get enough of him! 

 

Kason, Kason, Kason

Our handsome guy has had some medical problems and we have been asked a lot of questions about it so the easiest way to get everything out there is to just update the good ol' blog!

Is he not one of the CUTEST boys you have ever seen?!

Kason came into this world 5 years ago and it has been a whirlwind ever since!

He is a fighter.  A fighter in every way possible!

It all started almost 2 years ago.  One day while taking him to the bathroom (we were still having issues with potty-training) I noticed that he had some blood in his urine.  I took him into the doctor and did some labs and everything looked okay, just bloody urine.  It got better and we had a few good months.  Then it happened again.  Ughh.  Now that it was the second time we had to do a complete workup. Kidney ultrasound looked good.  Thankfully!  They were initially looking for a tumor.  Everything came back okay and we were scheduled with Nephrology (kidney specialist) at Primary Children's for a consult.  That was a pretty uneventful visit.  Dr. Mauch thought he had IgA nephropathy but couldn't diagnose without a biopsy. At that point he had no other symptoms so we decided that we would continue to watch him before we put him through that.  We then had to go back every 6 months for a follow-up.  He would have some good weeks and some bad weeks.  We knew what other symptoms we were supposed to watch for so we just kept an eye on him.  We had a great summer, and by great I mean that Kason hadn't had noticable blood in his urine for like 4 months!  It was amazing!  We went back to PCMC for another follow-up in September and then we came home.  The day after we got back he started peeing blood again.  The thing with the IgA nephropathy is that he should only be peeing blood when he is sick.  Well, he wasn't sick.  No biggie, we'll just watch him.  Well he continued to pee blood.  Some days it was red, some days it looked like cola, and other days you could only tell he had blood by doing a dipstick on it.  This went on for over a month.  I am a pretty calm mom, but at some point every mom needs answers.  We did another ultrasound just to make sure that it wasn't a tumor that we just didn't see on the first ultrasound.  Negative.  Such a relief.  I had a minor breakdown the morning of the ultrasound.  I cried to Tyson that I would have been a horrible mom if he had a tumor and I didn't demand an answer earlier.  He reassured me that I had been keeping better track of everything that most would have.  He's a good husband!

 So after much discussion we decided that we needed an answer.  A kidney biopsy was scheduled for the end of October.  It went really well.  The sedative that they used made him a little crazy and we got quite a kick out of him for a little bit!  The biggest risk with the biopsy is bleeding.  We were told that he was to be on strict bedrest for the first 12 hours.  Ha ha!  He actually did pretty good til the next morning. He was not supposed to run, jump, skip, etc. for 2 wks.  That didn't even last while we were still in the hospital!  We got a lecture when he escaped out the door and ran down the hallway past the nurses station to meed Tyson and Logan!  Oh goodness, that was a looong 2 weeks!

 

The results are what they thought.  IgA nephropathy.  Dr. Mauch also said that he had more scarring and kidney damage than she was expecting.

Now you ask...what the heck is that?  Good question.

IgA nephropathy occurs when the protein IgA (helps the body fight infections) settles in the kidneys.  It causes the kidneys to leak blood and protein into the urine.  There is no cure. I have read different articles on it and each of them give different percentages on kidney failure and so forth.  We do not know what we are up against and there is no way to know.  Every person is different.  We do know that it is hereditary, but we do not know of anyone else who has it.

I frequently get asked if I worry about him and the possibility of kidney failure. I worry, but I am not freaking out...yet.  I am a little concerned that he already had kidney damage so early, but I cannot change that.  We take one day at a time.  I truely believe that he has the attitude he has because he is going to need to be a fighter.  I think that he will have to fight for his life one day and so he is just practicing now! 

We love you Kason!

If you would like to read more about IgA nephropathy you can click here.