Recent Doctor's Visits for Cody

On Monday...Cody and I headed to Syracuse to get 2 appointments out of the way.  At our Ortho visit, they moved the wire a little and that was that.  These visits have become quick like that as we are waiting for some adult teeth to come in before we can really start to do much work.  So for now we are maintaining the progress we have made.  The good thing about that is the visit is quick and not that painful for Cody and our time inbetween visits have gotten longer.  We talked about his front teeth.  There is nothing left to these teeth.  They have been worn down as far as they can without disappearing (key word).  Dr. D said we will most likely have to pull these as there is just nothing to grab onto to wiggle them loose.  We left though with a "don't need to see you till March unless something happens".  Awesome!  March...we get the winter off!  Yippee!!!

This is the "progress" we have made!

So after we left Dr. D....we headed down the road for our 6 month check up with Dr. Tatum.  He noticed that his scars were a little pink and asked about that but I told him those only get really pink when Cody has a cold.  He checked out his ears and the right ear we need to keep our eye on.  He couldn't see the tube, saw some fluid and when he did the tympanogram he wasn't liking what he saw.  So he said to watch for ear infections and if we happen to notice the volume of the TV going up.  The tubes may need to be replaced.  After all, these tubes he has had in since he was 2.  Pretty good tubes if you ask me.  So we will watch it.  Hopefully we will get by till summer when we have our team visit again. 

Fast forward to Tuesday night....Cody says to me "Mom, am I supposed to have a tooth here?".  I turn the light on...."um yah you should".  Where did it go?  That has become the million dollar question.  Where is the tooth!  I could rub my finger on the tooth and feel something.  So I took pictures like Dr. D. told me to do and sent them to him. 

This is his mouth now.  See where the wire stops by the teeth - that tooth is gone.  Look at the picture above and the tooth is there.  So I play some email tag with Dr. D.  He was thinking the tooth fell out - I said no.  So instead of driving for an hour we headed to ur local dentist.  It also gave me a piece of mind that I wasn't crazy.  This tooth just didn't fall out.  She took x-rays and sure enough, there is the tooth - IN HIS GUM!  So I emailed Dr. D back this picture:

You see two rows of teeth.  The top teeth are his adult teeth.  The bottom are the baby.  You can see the wire and above that is the tooth in question... "the missing tooth".  So today I talked with Dr. D again.  (Thank god for cameras)  He said that basically as an adult tooth is coming it, it eats away at the root of the baby tooth.  Once the root is gone the baby tooth falls out.  Because Cody's tooth was not a normal shape and did not hang below the gum like a normal tooth it didn't just fall out.  So now we wait for Mother Nature to take it's course and for that big adult tooth above it to move on down and continue to eat away at that baby tooth.  He said that we will probably never have a tooth 'fall out" so now the tooth fairy has to get creative in what we do to honor this tooth.  We will watch the area for any redness or if the wire bother's him.  If nothing we will still go back in March. 

I'm praying for March! 

Oh and if you wanna know the secret to taking that picture of the x-ray......hold it very close to the light bulb and turn off your flash and Presto.....a picture! 

It's been awhile

Wow - it has been a long time since I last wrote on this blog.  Our anniversary.  A whole summer has gone by and a start of school and so much I should of wrote about but didn't.  Over the past couple of weeks I remembered why I started this blog.  It's great to go back and read through things.  What we did, what we saw, what the kids said, doctor's appointments, the list goes on.  I have been tossing around the idea of making a new blog.  I have some how gotten my blog to post to facebook after every post.  While I really don't write anything that I don't care if other's read - what I write is for my benefit.  If other's like to read what we are up to then that is great.  So not sure how long I will keep The Luckey Family but for now it's late and I'm tired and not feeling overly creative to come up with a different name so I'm sticking to this. 

10 Years

10 years ago I became a very "Luckey" lady.....I married my best friend.  It's been a long road.  Like any marriage we have had our ups and downs and had lots thrown at us.  But in the end we have come out on top and still "have it"!  :)  I love him with all of my heart and am so happy that we have the amazing little family that we do and I love watching us grow.  It's an amazing feeling when the kids do something and all it takes is a quick glance to each other to know what the other is thinking. 

I put together a cute video of our last 10 years...really 15 if you count all the dating.  I can't wait to order it and have it to watch at home. 

In doing the video I realized one thing - or rather couldn't find one picture.  However, I am not sure if the picture even exists.  I have a little "family" picture from when Tyler was first born.  You know those shots where mom looks like death but still smiles, a tiny baby so wrapped up you can just see a face and a beaming dad who just did nothing while you pushed for a couple of hours.  lol.  Well, I don't have that little "family" picture from when Cody and Dylan were born.  My heart is really sad about that.  Obviously we didn't have the same type of birth with Cody and Dylan as we did with Tyler - and we got a lot of unexpected things that January day but I still wish we had gotten that picture.  I guess it's one of those things you "shrug" off and obvioulsy move on from.  We did / we have! 

Team Visit

Our morning started early.  Off we went to Syracuse for 2 doctor's appointments.  Nice to get them all done in one trip though.  Today was Cody's yearly team evaluation.  We get to see a slew of doctors and with any luck, walk away with good news.  We got just that!  He did awesome - as always!  He's my big kid and knows he has to go with the flow of things.  First up for the day was dental x-rays and molds.  He did the x-rays and all is well.  We got in the room to do the molds and I told her he had a palate expander in his mouth.  She continued.  I could of told her it wasn't going to work - but hey, I'm not the hygenist.  She mixes it up and in it goes on top.  As he is gagging and hating it but keeping his cool, she pulls it out and YEP, it didn't take.  All of that goop is all stuck to his expander.  We are trying to get it out, not pretty!  Come to find out after our visit with Dr. Dillingham, he had told them to do the x-rays and molds but he said he didn't think he had to tell them to put WAX on the expander so the stuff wouldn't stick to it.  I really am still ticked about that.  Then she did the bottom teeth.  I joked that maybe his loose tooth would fall out.  Sure enough - the mold came out with the tooth in it.  Glad the tooth is out...he likes to hang onto them for dear life.  Dr. Tatum was next although we didn't get to see him.  He got called into a meeting.  The guy that filled in for him was OK however, I didn't get the warm and fuzzy when he didn't even know who Dr. Dillingham was.  Thankfully I really didn't have any major concerns.  Cody has been dorment for surgery for a few years now.  I just know that will change.  It's not "if"...it's "when".  They are thinking bone graft at 8 and jaw surgery at 15-16....of course these are estimates and who knows maybe we will dodge the bullet a 100% and not need either.  Hard to say but not likely that will happen.  Hearing is perfect, met with gentics - nothing new from them, got his pictures taken.  I realized that my kids can't have a camera in front of them and NOT smile!  :)  OOps!  Met with Speech.  Eileen is very happy with him.  He's having a hard time with the /s/ sound still and the /f/ and /v/ sound.  These have a lot to do with placement of tonge and teeth and jaw and all of those go against Cody right now.  So we will practice. 

We had a few hours to kill until we met with Dr. Dillingham so we ate lunch and hit up Target.  Target is where I realized why I DO NOT shop with my husband.  OMG!  He was looking for a backup pair of swim shorts and it took forever.  And he thinks I'm bad to shop with. 

Dr. Dillingham's visit went good.  He moved the wire and bonded it to help push out the front teeth so they stop wearing on the bottom teeth.  Now that Cody has lost the bottom front 2...we can't have his upper teeth wearing on the bottom and causing damage.  He filed down a front baby tooth that is basically dead.  We are waiting on the upper 6 year molars to come in.   He's getting his bottom two now.  When the uppers come in - we will switch out expanders and he will start to wear the head gear.  Time line for that is in about 9-12 months.  Until then, we maintain what we have.  We did find that a piece of the expander wire has broke.  We both think it happened at the dental clinic with the mold disaster.  UGH!  So he repaired what he could and we'll have to watch it.  We don't see him till October! 

I got an awesome shot of the inside of Cody's mouth today...but have to wait to post the picture as I just packed my camera cord. 

And our teacher is....

We are anxiously awaiting to see who the boys teachers will be for next year.  Of course we haven't gotten Cody and Dylan's yet....but Tyler's came the other day.  I am soooo happy he got Mrs. Cluck.  Same teacher that Cody had.  I loved both of the boys but I think Tyler will mesh well with her.  So we will wait to see who the other two have and then it's the daunting task of back to school shopping!  Oh who am I kidding...I love to shop!  :)

Cody's Endo visit

Today was Cody's endo visit...our last one was in September.  He had been doing really good and for a while I just thought this would be a routine visit.  For the most part, it was but I had a couple issues to discuss with the doctor. Cody gets to the point and it's 8 o'clock and the kid needs to sleep.  Which is fine but he seriously lately has been loosing his mind if he can't get to sleep.  So I thought it was odd and night time has become a real chore with him.  Crying, upset, can't sleep - I had no idea what to think or what was going on.  A friend told me that his thyroid could be off.  So today I told Dr. Wu about all the recent over tiredness and explained that not much has changed. If anything, his daily activity has gotten lighter with school being out. You can be more relaxed at home. Dr. Wu said that would explain his blood work. His TSH level is high. Last September it was 2.54 and today it was 5.5. He said that we need to increase his daily dose of medicine but because the range is high at 5.0 and Cody is just over that he is only increasing us a ½ a pill every other day. So every other day he will take 1 and ½ pills and 1 pill on the other day. Probably going to get confusing. He said that before the dose increase he was looking to take us off the med to see if his body had re-adjusted but because of the dose increase we are looking at another 1 to 2 years and then who knows. If we have to increase again then we are probably looking at something more long term. He wants to re-test the blood in 4 weeks and then he’ll let me know. He said he doesn’t need to see me unless those numbers come back really high or higher than we are at today. Right now we go back in Feb.

He said he is growing fine though. He weighed 60lbs and is in the 50th percentile for weight and height. So thankfully this thyroid issue is not affecting his growth. Which is good.

I explained it to Cody – I forget how big of a kid he really is when he has to be. I told him he has to have his blood taken again and he was OK with it. He had a good experience the other day when Brett took him. Matter of fact he just keeps reminding me that I promised him silly bands and haven’t gotten them yet. Although, he said he would take any “toy”, like a Bakugan! :)   I just told him he was so tired and the pills help him not be as tired. And his body needs more of the pills so he won't be so tired. He said “I understand mom, I still love being me”. Yah, I could of cried! 
So I knew something was up with my Cody. He has never had such a hard time falling asleep before. He’s been pretty attached at my hip lately too. And I have no idea why I let others make me feel like I don't know what I'm talking about or doing with him.  I DO know him, I know him like the back of my hand.  I've got this!  We are a great team and even though Brett is there and has been very involved and great with Cody - Brett has always said he trust me 100% when it comes to things with Cody.  So darn it, no more of that.  If I feel like something is wrong - it is going to take a Doctor or more to prove to me that I am wrong! 

Catching Up.

Wow - so much to write about...shame on me for not doing it.  So now I get to search my memory bank and write.  I some how think that only the "important" stuff will still be up there.  :)

Kindergarten Celebration - June 18th.
Such a cute event.  We were quickly told by the principal though that it was a "celebration" and not a "graduation" as Binghamton only has one of those.  Whatever! Really, the school can't recognize the completion of Kindergarten.  They sang lots of songs....Cody and Dylan both had a part in one song.  They held up flash cards through the song.  It was very nice that they stood next to each other for this event.  Because after that - they went to opposite sides and trying to watch 2 kids at one time while they aren't standing next to each - yah, next to impossible.  Cody sang his songs proudly....Dylan sang them as if he was annoyed he had to be doing it.  After the songs and little video/picture presentation we headed to the cafe for cake.  Still can't believe the school year is over and they are now 1st Graders. 

Relay for Life - June 18th
Starting last year my company has organized a team to walk. Last year we did much better with raising money but for our small group we still manager to raise almost $2000.  So that was awesome.  This year we had fantastic weather - no rain - and lots of sun and HOT.  It gives you goosebumps as you stand there and clap as the survivors walk by.  It's a lot of fun to walk, great exercise and raising money for a great cause.  Not to mention it's something you can do with the whole family.  My kids love to walk the track. 

Pre-school Graduation - June 21st
Tyler had his moving up day.  Ty is my shy kid.  Not sure where he gets that from although Brett seems to think he was shy when he was younger.  I'll have to see if I can find any truth to this.  Cause lord knows he's not shy now.  They sang a couple of songs and Tyler finally started singing the second song.  They wore cute little blue graduation hats.  I thought I had a hard time with C&D moving up - I really can't believe my baby is going off to school in September.  That doesn't seem possible at all! 

Tyler's Birthday - the big #5!
After a quick trip to Cuba for a graduation party, we came home on Sunday to celebrate Tyler's birthday.  He choose to have a batman birthday party.  Although if you asked him what he wanted it was Toy Story everything. :)  We had a small gathering, had invited the preschool class and was expected 4 kids to show up plus or normals.  Well here is a big pet peeve of mine - if you RSVP you are coming and then don't come - you need to call.  It's so rude!  That happened with 3 kids.  UGH.  So then as we are about a 1/2  hour into the party doesn't a kid show up - that we had no idea was coming.  OK, whatever - glad he came as Tyler and him really did get a long great this year.  However, he shows up with no gift.  Not even a card.  Now it's not about the presents but really not even a little something.  $5, whatever!  So I thought maybe the mom would bring a card back with her when she came to pick him up....nope!  Then she had the nerve to tell me that she'll be inviting Tyler to his party in August. Yah, we aren't going!  But we had fun, fun, fun and the weather was awesome.  The kids played and jumped on the trampoline and we had cake and ice cream and it was great.  He had a smile all day and that's what counts. 

So now we are onto a busy next couple of weeks and I'm thinking the month of July will fly.  I am silently hoping anyways....as we head for our family vacation the first part of August!  :)