Many Things

Lots of things going on lately. Let's go from the beginning of the month, I guess?

So, the new homeschool year has started. I'm teaching/guiding 11th, 8th, 2nd, and PreK this year. The first week was a little stressful, but I told myself it's the new year, new routine, new things to learn. It's not going to be easy and I'm going to have to be patient. I filled up the month of January in my planner with lessons, activities, menus, etc. to make sure I had something definite to do each day. It's less stressful, but also more stressful. But, we're doing it. Tomorrow starts week 3.

I brought Jac and Leah to the doctor Friday to get their annual checkups and see about getting a referral to a GI doctor for Jac and a urologist for Leah. Jac's all caught up on his vaccines for now, so that's checked off. Onto the other things:

Jac has been having an upset stomach multiple times a day for a few weeks now. At first, I figured he was eating too much candy. All the candy-filled holidays are back to back and Zac keeps finding discount holiday treats. But, after cutting out candy, the sickness continued. I had him take meat from his diet, just in case, but it's still on-going. So, I brought him and Leah to the doctor for wellness checks and he's up to date on his vaccines now, but also got him a referral to a GI. From what we know, he's possibly having an intolerance to something. He's always had issues with popcorn ever since he was little, and usually has an upset stomach after eating corn chips or corn on the cob. Basically regular corn, not so much corn biproducts like corn syrup or corn starch. So in the next few weeks, I should hear back for an appointment to talk to a pediatric GI specialist to see if he's going to need an endoscopy or colonoscopy. He's keeping a food journal for right now to see what he's eating, when, and when/if symptoms occur. But, his blood work was fine. No anemia or other issues.

Leah is probably constipated. She has trouble emptying her bladder or feeling like she's finished, which could indicate constipation since she has no symptoms of a UTI. She also hasn't started her cycle and could have a hormone imbalance. I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was younger, as well as dealing with precocious puberty, so I kinda have her set up for issues. Awesome. So, she's getting referred to a GYN urologist to do an ultrasound on her kidneys and ovaries and check for cysts. Neither are excited for any type of possible blood work.

As for Cole's issues, he had an infection around his foreskin a month ago and it left scar tissue. So, it looks like he has phimosis and needs to be circumcised. We've been treating the scar tissue with a steroid cream, but it's not working. The good news is he can be put to sleep and won't feel anything and it'll heal better while he's little than if he were to have to get it done as a teen or older. I just hate he has to have it done. It's also genetic to have phimosis, so basically all our kids were doomed to get some sort of ailment from us.