We have made the almost impossible decision to move (no, not back to Nebraska - building a new home here in Colorado). Just like a lot of decisions over the past couple years, we never thought we’d be moving, but one day, we had a change of heart. I’ve learned to trust a change of heart because I truly believe that is how God guides us. And it hasn’t led us astray yet.
But moving is a bitter sweet. If we think about the four walls of our house, we want to GET OUT! We want to go far away from the memories that are here. Maybe the memories will always remain and it’s more of the triggers we’re trying to escape. But whatever the case is, we desperately want something new and fresh.
The bitter part is thinking outside our four walls. We would have probably moved back to Omaha two years ago if it weren’t for the support from our neighbors. It’s not just “support” - they held us up. What we have here in the 57th Place cul de sac is something that doesn’t exist anywhere else. And that makes it almost impossible to give up. And that is also why we considered hiring an arsonist just to burn our house down so we could build new right here! (Which is illegal and I would never do that… fyi.)
With a new house we’ll essentially be cashing in on some equity of our home. Our new home isn’t necessarily a downgrade, but it allows us to pay some things off and for me not to work for another year or so. Also, over the past four years we haven’t done any work to our current house. Now it’s to the point that every room that I walk into has a “project”. A new home buys us a good few years before we have to think about maintenance projects. And a few years to focus on our family’s healing and Lily’s recovery, is a good thing.
Some details of our new home…. We’ll be moving to Leyden Rock in Arvada. It’s only a few miles north of our house now. We’re building new and expect it to be completed in February/March. It’s a two story with hardwood floors - that would have been a nightmare two years ago but something we’re excited about now! The neighborhood has a nice park and pool because that was something we couldn’t give up. It has smaller lots but something we know we need to get use to in order to afford a new home. We might not have the “killer” views that we have now, but not too shabby either. I have a hard time telling when I’m just getting lip service from the sales person, but he told us the lot next to our was purchased by a family with two girls - ages 5 and 3. We’ll see… that’s one I’ll believe when I see it! But it would be pretty exciting for the girls if that was the case!
I try not letting my head go to that place of “what if” but sometimes I have to wonder what our lives would be like IF things were different than they were over the past couple years. I don’t want to dwell, but... would I be working, would we be moving, would Lily and Annie have a brother or sister, what would our financial situation be without medical costs? Hmmm... coulda, shoulda, woulda… here we are and what a journey it’s been! We’re hoping we can start cashing in on more of the good that comes with the bad.
Moving is stressful, we know. That’s another bitter thing. But the sweetest, joyous, exciting, sunshine-iest thing we have to look forward to is a fresh start and a chance to make new memories!
Update on Lily: We had a 12 day stretch without any seizures! We have now seen 5 nights straight with seizures which is a bummer. But we think we understand why we had 12 good days and we think we understand why we had 4 bad days. And it can be corrected. It’s just a matter of reducing one of her seizure medications that is making her “toxic" because we are increasing another medication. (I know more about the P450 liver enzymes than I ever care to.) But reducing medications is a very, very slow process. We can take away 1.25mg of Onfi every two weeks. She’s on 28mg. If you do the math, that’s a long time! But hopefully we can reduce her levels enough over the next month to have an impact. We’re hopeful!
A peek into our lives: When I have the girls home with me in the afternoons, I find myself laughing a lot and not with them, AT them. They are at such a cute age! Lately I’ve been laughing because they don’t have any concept of time which is evident whenever Annie tells me she wants to go to the park “esterday” and when Lily tells me she drank all her milk “last week” which was just last night. But it’s the small things, right?
Lily has been into tucking things in lately. And when she’s wearing a dress and doesn’t have pants to tuck things in, why not tuck into your undies? At school, restaurants, outside… why not?
If there is any kind of a breeze outside it seems we need our stocking caps even in August. And a fake tomato in our mouth. What? So Annie!
They say keto kids enjoy feeding non-keto siblings non-keto food. And we’ve seen this several times before. And Annie likes it! The crazy thing is that Lily wouldn’t even think of putting a bite in her own mouth. She just knows! It’s pretty amazing and pretty heartbreaking… some day she’ll be able to dive into her very own bowl of overpriced Kraft mac and cheese at a restaurant! Can’t wait!
