I'm back for summer questions

[Tammy]

Hi all,
How is everyone doing?

We had quite a scare with Regina. She devoloped blood clots, which clotted off her small bowel. After 2 surgeries, 5 weeks in the hospital (4 of which were in the intensive crictical care unit) 4 weeks on a respirator, which required a treachea tube, we are back home now.

She is still weak, which is to be expected, but otherwise she is finally well. All the IV lines, treach tube, and all the other tubes are out and other than a few black and blue bruises she is good.

She will now be on Coumadin (a blood thinner) for the rest of her life. We have to have her blood tested everyday for awhile, until they get her levels where they need to be. Then they will slowly decrease the amount of times we need to check it until she gets to monthly.

So how is everyone else? Has anyone tried many of these recipes? How do they work? Janine, did you decorate Nicholas' cake?

The only real trick I use for the summer is when we go to picnics. I take Regina's hot dogs along. I put a toothpick in each end of them. That way I can just throw them on the grill with the rest of the hot dogs, and I know which ones are hers. As a "covered dish" I usually take the broccoli supreme along. I take it warm, but it can be eaten after it cools down. It's one of the few casseroles I can eat cold.

Does anyone have any questions or concerns I may be able to help with? Hopefully we have made our last hospital trip so I'll be checking in here more regularly again.

Hope everyone has a fun summer
Tammy

[Kelly Grace]

Hi Tammy!

I am so glad to hear that Regina is home and on the mend. How did all of this come about?

Lily is recovering from bronchitis. We found sugar-free Robitussin that she was able to take before her doctor prescribed an adult antibiotic that I have been crushing in sugar - free chocolate puddding.

I've tried a few of your recipes and found success! We made the green peppers and the babies loved the meat filling. I also made the cheeseburger pie and they liked that as well.

Right now, they eat simple things but I was anxious to give something new a try to see what they thought. They love cream of mushroom soup mixed in their meat loaf.

I looked at Sam's Club for the Jimmy Dean or Bob Evans breakfast sandwich but it had sugar listed on the box. Is it such a small amount that it doesn't matter?

Right now I microwave a couple of eggs with spinach and a few diced hot dogs for their breakfast. I also give them whole wheat pancakes ... I use whole wheat flour mixed with milk and a touch of dextrose. They love it with a cheese slice for breakfast.

Do you have any recipes for salad dressing ... like a ranch dressing that they could have?

We're so glad that Regina is at home and doing well. I think about how lucky we are to have met you! Especially when I thought of how you said they could have pudding. It has made it easy for Lily to take her medicine.

Talk to you later!

Kelly Grace

[Tammy]

Soup in the meatloaf. What a good idea. I sometimes put a drop of milk in just to give it a little moisture, but the soup would work better.

The Jimmie Deans I got at our Sams just says "dextrose". Maybe it was made at a different plant. We'll have to keep a watch on it and check each box. Maybe the next shipment your Sam's Club gets will be the same as ours. I use Bisquick and just add milk, egg and a little oil for pancakes. Sometimes if I want a different flavor, I add a little cinnamon.
She also eats a lot of instant oatmeal for breakfast.

Regina's whole hosp trip started with a belly that hurt. A week and a half, and 3 trips to the ER later they found the problem. A blood clot showed up on a CAT scan. (They did a CAT scan the first time we were there but it didn't show on that one so it must have just been starting then). They sent her to a better medical center by ambulance and they admitted her there. The blood clot backed her blood up into the small bowel and eventually up into even her stomache. She was bleeding from the rectum and bleeding from her stomache (They had a tube down her nose pumping the blood out). By the middle of that night she was in septic shock. They removed part of her small bowel. The outlook was very bleak at that point. Even the dr's didn't give her much hope. It was a very scary time. 2 weeks later, they had to go back in again because she had another CAT scan which showed air where it shouldn't have been.

But 5 weeks after we were admitted, we are home and things are looking much better now. She is weak but eating and doing things normally.

She is "antithrombum III defiecient". Which means her liver isn't making the right proteins and she is clotting. they say this is something that she probably always was, but it doesn't show up until late teens or later.

So she now takes Coumadin to thin her blood and will take it lifetime. This will prevent her from making new blood clots. I also crush these pills up and put them in pudding.

One thing about the whole hosp stay. Every single day there was something that either the drs or nurses tried to give her that contained sugar. example: They use a contrast that she had to drink before the CAT scan. They checked to make sure she could have the contrast, which she could, then they precedded to mix it in some kind of Kool-Aid juice. My tip off was that it was orange colored. When I inquired why it was orange, their response was "oh we didn't think of that, we just made sure the contrast was ok". The last week we were there, 3 days in a row (different nurses) they tried to give her the medicine crushed up in applesause. So beware if you ever have to go. Don't assume that they are supposed to know. We had to check everything ourselves. Even the dietician would call and ask me if she could have things.

Thanks for asking, it's nice to know others care.
Tammy