A Diagnosis: Early Multiple Sclerosis

Yesterday Bryan, Seth, and I headed to Vanderbilt to meet Dr. Moses, a neurologist who specializes in Multiple Sclerosis. We went sort of expecting to hear the same things that we have heard from every other doctor so far, but that ended up not really being the case at all. It's standard procedure to walk down a hallway briskly and to read an eye chart when you arrive each time to the MS Clinic. After obtaining some vitals we were able to see Dr. M just a few minutes later. It was such a pleasant change for a doctor to be on time and actually even early because we arrived at the clinic several minutes before my scheduled appointment time. Dr. M was super personable and from the few patients we heard him talking to in the hallway, he seemed to genuinely care. After taking a look at my MRI scans and the results from my blood work and lumbar puncture, all the while explaining everything that he was looking at and showing me the scans, he said he was more than 90% sure that I have early MS. If I had not been pregnant he said he would have started treatment that day. Because I am though, we will have to wait until after "little" is born and after I have been able to breastfeed between 3 to 6 months. Apparently breastfeeding has some of the same qualities as the MS medication and by exclusively breastfeeding it is almost as good as receiving the treatment. Once all that has happened then we will get into all the details of choosing the right preventative treatment for my situation. Without treatment I have a 50% of having a flair up once a year. With treatment I only have about a 30% chance of having a flair up every three or more years. We learned the flair ups could be mild or they could be severe which could be anything from dizziness, numbness of limbs, change in eyesight, or balance. It doesn't sound too bad, but the flair ups could be very damaging and over time they could add up to a lot of permanent nerve damage. Dr. M mentioned that my MRI scans showed only mild nerve damage and there was no spinal cord damage so I am in a very good situation since we are starting treatment so early. I was told that I needed to just take some time to process all the news and unless something happens before then I will see Dr. M again in September, one month after "little" has arrived. I had a little more blood work done and then we were on our way back home.
A few minutes after the doctor's visit Bryan asked me what I was thinking. To be honest the only thing that I could think about was the fact that I might only be able to breastfeed for as long as 6 months. I had asked if it could be a year and Dr. M had mentioned that at the 3 month mark we will have to assess where we are and that at 6 months we would probably need to start treatment because it would benefit my health more than the breastmilk would benefit the baby. That is really the only thing that upset me the whole day. But we will do what we need to do when the time comes.
There are a few things that I am very thankful about. Bryan and I knew we wanted to try to have another baby shortly after Seth turned a year old in September. We were pregnant with "little" by the end of November. If I had lost my eyesight due to optic neuritis and I had not been pregnant the chances of us being able to have another child would have been very slim because the treatments would be extremely dangerous for pregnancy and the risks being off of treatment while trying to get pregnant could have adverse effects on my health.
I am also thankful to have an answer to my fatigue. I thought I was just really tired because of the pregnancy, and while that could play a role in it as well as taking care of a very busy 18 month old, my need for a nap every day during Seth's nap is more than likely due to the MS. We are working on getting approval from my OB for a vitamin that just might help.
Lastly, I am thankful for a more definite diagnosis, everyone's prayers, and my slowly returning eye sight. It has been one heck of a learning experience these last few weeks and I am sure it will continue to be.

First Day of Spring Celebration

At the beginning of every season we try to have a celebration welcoming the change in weather and the transition into different activities. Today is the first day of Spring so it was time for a "First Day of Spring" celebration.

We started our celebration outside. I found tiny flower pots in the dollar spot at Target. We planted parsley, basil, and strawberry seeds. After two years of starting seeds and not being very successful, we are just going to buy plants at the farmer's market for our garden. But Seth is going to be in charge of these three tiny pots and hopefully something will grow for him.

He loved carrying the flower pots all around the yard.

Then we needed to do some watering.
Seth thought the garden hose was fun.

We watered our daffodils.

After seeing such beautiful flowers outside we headed in to do some flower painting. I saw this idea on Frugal Family Fun Blog and knew we had to try it. We opted to paint the inside of our flower with a paintbrush though just so we could have some extra paintbrush practice.
Several weeks ago, I picked up a package of carrot and chick Easter eggs at Mighty Dollar. I knew they would be the perfect addition to our "First Day of Spring" celebration. I filled them with marshmallows, raisins, and one mini Reese's cup for Seth to eat as a special snack.
After a long overdue nap, we read books about Spring out on the front porch and then we had dinner as a family on the deck. When we came inside Seth and I checked on our baby chick. It sounds strange I know, but my mom picked up a hatch-able egg at Dollar General to contribute to our celebration. We had to put our egg in water Friday evening in hopes that it would hatch by today and sure enough, out popped a rubbery baby chick this afternoon. It quite possibly could have been the best part of Seth's day.

He thought the chick was a duck and kept saying "duck" over and over as he went squealing through the house full of happiness. He couldn't wait to show daddy who was in the other room.

For dessert, we decorated some confetti cupcakes with flowers.

Seth was a big fan of the icing!

Welcome Spring! We are glad you are here!

Our Lucky Day

We've never really been into celebrating St. Patrick's Day, but we definitely don't mind taking advantage of a bargain. Today around town there were some great St. Patrick's Day deals so it was our lucky day! We started off our day at Hopscotch Playplace where you could get in for $4.00 if you wore green. Sporting our green we were off to play. This was the first time that we had ventured to Hopscotch and Seth was a little unsure about it at first. There were a lot of older kids running everywhere but after a minute or two he just kind of dodged the kids that ran by him and went about his business. He liked playing on a small slide that they had, but he spent the majority of the hour that we spent there in this plastic cottage playing with the kitchen stuff.

He loved washing his hands and cooking on the stove.

But then of course, you need to do some grocery shopping, so with a baby in tow he went to get some food outside of the cottage.
While Bryan shakes his head in shame at these pictures, I would just like to point out that one day my son will be a wonderful husband and his wife will be thankful that he knows how to cook, clean, and shop. We are going to have to work on Seth putting babies in the freezer though. That only happened once. :)After we played, we met Bryan for lunch at Chick-fil-a. Then we were off to pick up something at our local Parent-Teacher Store. It just so happens that next door there is a frozen yogurt place and they were celebrating St. Patrick's Day by giving customers half off of their purchase. We decided yogurt was the perfect treat and we ate our $1.19 cup of vanilla yogurt, strawberries, and marshmallows out on the patio. It was such a fun day!

In other news:

• I am 18 weeks pregnant today. We have our ultrasound scheduled for April 6th. We can't wait to find out if "little" is a little boy or girl.
• I went to the eye doctor on Tuesday. All of the inflammation on my optic nerve is gone. That is good news, but Dr. K was unsure of how much more vision will return. It could be more or it could be none. I am staying hopeful that more will return. I say that I have probably 85% back. I can see fingers and how many fingers are being held up if they are less than about two feet away. Everything is still really blurry in that eye though. I have been asked to describe what it looks like looking out of my bad eye by many people. It's kind of hard to describe, so I thought some photo editing might help.

If this is what looking out of my good eye looks like:

Using both eyes is not much different from that other than some haziness around the edges.
But this would be what it would look like only looking out of my bad eye. Not horrible, but definitely not back to 100%. Only time will tell if it will improve.

Seth: 18 Months Old

Would you take a look at this little man? He is 18 months old today!!! I can hardly believe it. Our little guy has grown so much. He is now 34 inches tall and weighs almost 26 lbs. He grows more handsome every day and has such a sweet personality. He loves to please and he has a smile that is contagious.
While Seth is not such a great eater these days, he is great at learning all kinds of new things. He loves to try to repeat everything and he can say: mama, dada, Bella (our dog), ball, hot, Nana, Pop, bye-bye, book, bear, ba-ba (for blanket), duck, bath, hi, biper (for diaper), and ella (for elephant). He can sign too many things to name and can pick up a sign after seeing it just a couple of times. Teaching sign language to him has been so helpful. Seth loves to investigate everything and is just like his daddy when it comes to figuring out how things work. He loves to take things apart! We enjoy playing outside and he would be happier playing with an acorn or some random item around the house than any toy.
You can usually find Seth with a book of some kind in his hand. He loves flipping through books and trying to read them himself. He has moved up to Toddler Time at the local library. At our first visit this week, Seth made a shamrock (with mommy's help, of course, but notice the little white scribbles :)).
Speaking of crafts, Seth loves to draw, write, or make anything crafty. Besides the fact that he loves to chew off the erasers on pencils, he does surprisingly well with crayons and colored pencils.
People used to say to me, once you have a child you just won't be able to imagine life without them, and they were right. He is such a joy to have in our lives.

Things That Make Me Smile

There are many things during my day that are constant reminders of happiness. I find myself smiling about a lot of things. Here are some of the most recent things that have made me smile:

Daffodils blooming in our yard...

a special note from daddy on Seth's magnetic board...

a special Dollar Tree find,
a strawberry that transforms into a reuseable bag...

a smiling baby on a new big boy bed

(here's a sneak peek of the new bedding)

and last, but definitely not least (or all),
little kicks from "little."

Two New Fish

The big boy bedroom is well on its way to being complete. We just have a few more things to move, a headboard to pick up from Jackson, and hopefully soon Seth can start the transition from sleeping in a crib to a twin sized bed. As we were rearranging we thought it would be neat to bring the fish tank back up from the basement. If you have been reading for a while, you might have remembered the fish tank was in the nursery before Seth was born. I had just brought it home from my classroom and didn't have the heart to just flush the little fish that had survived all year. Once he passed though, we shut the fish tank down in hopes of putting it to good use one day. Well it's back and running again and it's been so much fun!
We went to the pet store Friday night to pick out our new pet. Seth signs "fish" so cute and he loved looking at all the fish in the store. After talking it over with the Petco guy, we decided that we would go with two $0.12 feeder fish. He told us they would be great fish and we loved that they were super cheap. We let the fish acclimate to the water temperature as soon as we got home and then right before bedtime we let our fish get to know there new home. Seth watched as daddy dumped the fish in the tank.

Then we watched our new fish swim and swim.

Our new additions have been a big hit!

Rearranging and a Medical Update

We have been busy around the Tillery household. We are getting rid of stuff, rearranging the house, and we even made a trip to Jackson this past weekend. I have been slowly cleaning out the basement although it has a long way to go. We are moving the office into our area that we call our hallway, although it used to be the old kitchen back in the day. Seth's room will be in the room that used to be our office, just when I had it the way I liked too, but I am excited about a new decorating challenge. We made a pit stop in Nashville on our way home from Jackson this weekend to pick up some cute new bedding for Seth's new big boy room and we have even purchased a twin mattress and box springs. This week we are saying goodbye to the futon and the furniture is going to be moved around. We might have a cute new room to reveal soon! I definitely won't forget this time.
In medical news, I went to see a neurologist at Vanderbilt today. They are preparing me for a diagnosis of MS although it can't be confirmed just yet. I will see a MS specialist sometime in the future, but until "little" is born, we really can't do anything (which we knew already). Apparently for a definite diagnosis of MS you have to have two or more lesions on your brain and you have to have had two "flair ups." I do have two lesions on my brain that they can see from the MRI, but I have only had one known "flair up" which is the optic neuritis. Once I have an MRI with contrasting dye, if there are more lesions, they can be more sure about the MS and I will more than likely start preventative treatment for it. As for my eye, the returning of vision has been slow and it is still very blurry. I can see outlines of things now and colors are starting to come back. I can see fingers if they are held up right in front of my face, but things at a distance are still a blur. Each day seems to be just a bit better though and for that I am very thankful.