Tuesday, September 8, 2015

A Little Hiatus

I know it's been pretty quiet on the blog lately, and for now, I will likely be posting sporadically if something big happens. We've had a LOT of stress in our lives over the last month, and some big changes are headed our way.

About a month ago, we found out that John's workplace is being bought out/merged with someone even bigger than they are. Because of where the new parent company is located, John's position, along with the entire operations department, will no longer be located in PA, so they will not have jobs once conversion is completed. That could happen any time from next spring, all the way through next November. They do have the option to post into positions within the company that will be located here in PA, but it will not be what any of them have been doing. All of those jobs are in NC, and while people do have the option to relocate if they're willing, we know that a move that big is not possible for us. We wouldn't have any help at all with Judith, and I honestly can't bring myself to move that far away from my family because then my parents won't have anyone to help them out. That's one of those challenges that makes being an only child tough, but realistically, I love living in PA, even if our roads are the worst in the country, and I don't want to leave. John is also in a fantastic church that is really awesome and supportive, and none of us want to leave there.

There are plenty of options that John is looking in to, including similar positions at other banks that will allow us to stay in the area. But in light of all of this, we had to temporarily pull the house off of the market until we know where he'll be employed. We said with our luck, now would be the time when someone would come and put an offer in on the house, and then we'd have a problem, because we don't know where we'll need to focus our house hunt. We'd still love to be in the area that we were originally looking at, but we're also thinking that if he gets a job closer to the county line, we could move into my home county and save on property taxes.

In the midst of all of this, we've been trying to settle into the new routine with Judith's nebs, and to top it off, last week she got sick. Very long story short, we ended up going to our CF center for an x-ray, because while we were at the pediatrician, Judith vomited bright green bile, and everyone was concerned about a blockage. Everything looked good, though, and no admission was necessary. Her CF team thinks she may have had a bout with enterovirus with GI symptoms (instead of the respiratory symptoms). She was miserable for a couple days, because there was a ton of sinus drainage going into her stomach, which triggered her to vomit pure mucus a few times, along with the incident of bile once, but other than that, a fever, and some stomach pain, she didn't have any other symptoms. It threw me off and panicked me a bit, because when I think of stomach bugs I think of things like norovirus, but this was different. She's doing much better now, thank goodness.

I've been having a rough go with all of the stress and anxiety lately, and I need to start taking better care of myself. It's funny; one of the biggest pieces of advice I've given to fellow preemie/CF/special needs parents is to remember to take care of yourself. Apparently I'm terrible at following my own advice. I'm getting additional help with everything, and frankly this was long overdue. I'm kicking myself for not doing this sooner and letting things spiral as far as they did, but at least I now know I'm taking steps to do what I need to do to help myself.