The Youngs

Monday, October 11, 2010

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

What's Up With Emma?

First let me say thank you to everyone who has expressed love and concern for Emma and our family. We have appreciated and felt all of your prayers.

So many of you have been asking about Emma and we finally got the results from her kidney biopsy.

The official diagnosis is FSGS (focal segmental glomerulosclerosis) The doctors are going to start with a steroid treatment which 1/3 of patients usually respond to. If she falls into the category of patients that don't respond they'll try another medication. There are 5 or 6 treatments to try before dialysis or transplant would be considered necessary. (Thanks for all of you who have already offered up a kidney already. You're all awesome!)

We feel very blessed with our options and with our doctor even though she is 4 hours away. But I guess pediatric nephrologists are hard to come by.

Emma's puffiness seems to be reducing which is a good sign. There are some pictures below in the slide show. The only thing she has to worry about now are the side effects of the steroids which are (to name a few) a change in her facial appearance, swollen abdomen, and increased appetite. She's also on a low sodium diet and she figured out really fast that most sweets are low in sodium!

The Army's treating Brad great by letting him remain on hold in his training until things normalize with Emma. We are definitely enrolled in EFMP now, which eliminates our overseas options, but we just want Emma to get the best treatment.

As always we miss you ALL. Hopefully Brad and Ava will make it back to Utah for Thanksgiving. Hope to see everyone soon. I'll try to keep updates coming but as you can see I haven't kept up on the blog since the Triathlon because things have just been a little crazy.

thanks again to everyone.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Triathlon

Hey Mom. These pics are for you. The other girls that raced all shared their pics on facebook so I did the same. But here are some you can see.

The race was great. Except the swim that took forever because I was flailing around like a dying fish on land. The bike portion was awesome and the run wasn't too bad either.

I'm in the orange cap and black shorts facing the water. I can't wait until the kids are a little older and I can do this more often. Maybe with the kids competing too. That would be awesome!

I'm glad i could be everyone's motivation. All my friends were out to get me. What? It's like they've never heard a little smack talk. I think I did back up the smack talk sufficiently with a 3rd place in my age category. Props to Brenna for 2nd. It's killing me to think I talked her into competing. I've been getting 3rd time after time and was wanting that 2nd place. But she earned it that's for sure.

Brad was the dutiful husband taking pictures and cheering me on even when I was the second to last out of the water. I could hear him cheering me from the sidelines the entire time. He's my rock.

It' s the Hot Mom Club: Fort Rucker Chapter

The first running picture of me that actually looks like I'm running. Now I just have to work on smiling for pictures.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Green Thumb

Here are some shots of our little plot on the Community Garden. We've got a ton of green tomatoes. We're so excited for when they finally turn red! We've also have peas and cucumbers.

I run to the garden every morning to end my run. It's only about a mile from the house. Daeli is sporting her totally awesome swimsuit and formal jacket look and Mikey is hooked to the ipod watching his new favorite Wonderpets.

Duathlon Yeah!!!

This first picture is NOT me. It's my friend Kristen. We got this shot because she was reenacting her totally awesome First Overall Female Victory. She is definitely a runner. My running shots always seem to look like I'm standing still.

There are the bikes. I think I was the only person riding a mountain bike. At least they still let me race. There was someone with a cruiser bike there but they were just hanging out supporting the real athlete. Kristin's bike is sooo shiny, look how clean those tires are.

There's me standing still...oh.. I mean sprinting for the finish. Gotta love short, gimpy legs.

So it was a 5k Run then a 13 Mile bike and then a 1 Mile run to finish. I LOVED the bike ride. Thanks to the rest of the family letting me live out my dream of how I would love to spend every Saturday morning. That dream became a nightmare on that last mile leg. Super tough but I can't wait until the Triathlon in a couple weeks!!

Friday, May 21, 2010

The MRI

Brad was brooding over these images for a week while we waited for his appointment. When you see distinct masses you can't help but worry. Uggghhhh! Brad spent hours online researching -in a very non medically trained kind of way- and diagnosed himself with about a hundred things. I was most fond of the "Brain Cloud" theory. Anyways, It's all good now, I just hope nothing more comes of the symptoms they're overlooking.

As always we feel very blessed and know that Heavenly Father has a hand in our lives. We love our ward here and we have the best friends here, there, and everywhere.

And the Survey Says?

So Brad's been having some peculiar symptoms but the diagnosis is Awesome! He's got some mucus retention cysts on the right side of his face (thanks for the heads up Jared -what a guy-), and a pinched nerve (so he can't feel the side of his head), and even though he "grayed-out" in the cock-pit the doc's going to go ahead and give him the thumbs up to fly!

*What?*

*Really?*

Yep. They're just going to Overlook any symptoms and give the green light.

Well...at least it's not cancer or anything fatal and he will be with us for a while so that's good.

What a relief.

Awesome!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Falling Waters

Swim if you dare

What a fun group we went with. We were glad when the Peterson's finally caught up with us too.

Oh my precious family. hmmmm.

oh look is that Ava smiling...nope, didn't think so.

Fathers and Sons

Brad usually goes to Father's and Sons every year but he takes the kid in the ward that the dad can't go or is inactive or something....but...This is the first year that he got to take his own son -yeah!-

pretending to fish

trying to escape

What a proud moment to be able to hold your man cub up high at fathers and sons and what an uneventful, relaxing evening we had at home without them. *sigh* :)

Swimming on Post

Minute to Win it!

There's more pics of our neighbor because he could do all the games so awesome! We were BBQing with the neighbors and thought it would be fun to do some of the games from Minute to Win it. (fun family show)

Stack 3 golf balls vertically

stack 8 bolt nuts vertically

remove a dollar bill from between 2 glass bottles

move an oreo from your forehead to mouth without touching with hands

Brad's stack (way more than a minute) but well done dear!

She Makes A Mamma Proud!

Totally amazing that she would stand up in front of the whole school and parents and sing by herself. She's sooooo AWESOME!!!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Mikey's Two!

Thanks for the wonderful boxes and gifts that were so thoughtfully sent so they would arrive on his birthday. We sure feel loved even though we're far away. Brad always steals the chocolate licorice and any candy before the kids even see it.

Mikey and Henry's birthday's are a week apart so we celebrated tonight together. Jacob Magonigal is not forgotten in this I just know you're still recovering:)