Monday, March 29, 2010

Merrijig and Mount Buller

The laptop is just holding up and I managed to put together and edit this panorama of the Merrijig Valley near where we stayed with Marion and Tony. About one third in from the right and one third up from the bottom is Mount Buller. It was a bit of mammoth Photoshop cloning job because as locals would be able to tell you telephone lines and power poles run straight through the shot from the position where I shot it! It's not perfect yet, there is a bit of tidying up to do, but it's most of the way there.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Mitch running

Over the weekend we went down to country Victoria to visit Auntie Marion and Uncle Tony in Mansfield. We had a great time and Mitch absolutely loved it. There was a lot of fun and playing.


I haven't had much of a chance to process the pictures I took because my laptop is on it's last legs and I need a new one because it keeps turning itself off in the middle of doing things. Very annoying. I did manage to process this series of Mitch running on the back deck:

Created with flickr slideshow.

More to follow!

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Good news!

Some very good news. After the tests on Monday and the results of other tests coming back, the doctor has concluded that Mitch doesn't have diabetes. This obviously comes as a huge relief to us and a huge answer to prayer. His explanation of Mitch's higher than normal Blood Glucose readings is that they are normal hormonal fluctuations. There is still one test to come back which might say that Mitch is more prone to diabetes, but at least for the time being he doesn't have it.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us and Mitch, we have really appreciated your care and concern and especially your prayers.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

New achievements and a big test

Sam took a while, but he has finally caught up in crawling ability to his (slightly) older brother. He's not as quick as Lucas (who is getting much quicker everyday) but he gets there eventually. Normally they crawl around doing their own things, but they often come together and sometimes you hear them complaining because they're trying to sit on the same piece of ground. They have the whole floor to sit on and they end up  sitting on each other! They like to follow Mitch around too which is both a source of delight and frustration to him. He likes it when he wants them to follow him to his room and play, but he doesn't like it when he is playing his own game and they come and interrupt and try to play with "his" toys. We're trying to teach him to distract them with alternative toys, which usually works! They also like to watch him when he is in the bath. They can't pull themselves up to standing yet, so they sit on the floor of the bathroom reaching up to the edge of the bath and try to look in. It's very cute. I'll have to get a photo soon.

Here is a very quick video of Sam clapping and crawling (and me making a goose of myself).


In other news about the little boys, Meeks weighed them both the other day and they were both the same at 10.3kg. Little chunky boys!

In news about Mitch, he has a glucose tolerance test tomorrow at the hospital. Basically he can't eat or drink after midnight tonight (Sunday) and then he has to go to the hospital tomorrow morning for a 9:30am session where he will get a glucose drip put in and his blood sugar will be monitored for the next two hours to see how his pancreas is working. Obviously it is going to be very hard for the little guy to not eat for hours and have a needle in his hand and sit around not doing much for hours. Meeks is going to the hospital with him and I am staying at home with the twins. We're going to try and make it as fun as possible for him by taking DVDs and Meeks' Netbook so he can play games, but he is going to be sooooooo hungry. Poor little guy! Meeks is quite apprehensive about it all, as you can expect. His Blood Glucose Test readings this week have continued to be a bit high, but nothing too out of the ordinary, so who knows, maybe it isn't diabetes, tomorrow will tell us more but still may not be definitive.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

More photos

Another slideshow of the little boys. Lucas is in the greener top and Sam is in the lighter top

Created with flickr slideshow.
If the slideshow doesn't work you can view the set here in Flickr

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

One for their 21st Birthday

You might remember Sam and Lucas enjoyed a bit of niggle right from early on.




Well now they have graduated to using weapons!

 

It always seems to be Sam doing the biffing! 

Update: I should actually add, that despite what it looks like in this image, Sam is not actually hitting Lucas. Rather he was just holding the golf club and Lucas leaned into it. Makes for an amusing photo though :)

Monday, March 01, 2010

Mitch's diabetes - progress update

After Friday's events we spent the weekend doing fairly regular blood glucose tests. Mitch is such a good boy and is being so brave and good about it. All we have to say now is "Which finger?" and he offers up one (usually the same one so we have to suggest a different one!) and then he helps take out the little test strip and put it in his glucometer. He still is not fond of us pricking his finger (no surprise there) but is being such a good boy about it. We have had to bribe him a couple of times, once with a toy car and normally with a (sugar free) lolly. We think it is still a bit of novelty at the moment,  but hopefully he will remain okay about it when the novelty wears off.

His tests over the weekend were generally pretty good. They were slightly higher than they should have been, but none were dangerously high, which means he is somewhat borderline. We also changed his diet quite a bit to cut out a lot of the sugar he had been inadvertently eating (did you know Uncle Tobys sweetened muesli is 30% sugar!) so that in itself may be contributing to a bit of a honeymoon effect (that is the term used whereby after being diagnosed with diabetes a change in diet or commencement of insulin use gives the pancreas a "rest" and allows any still active cells to produce insulin, it is only a honeymoon period though and eventually ends) with his pancreas. Obviously we will know more later in the week when we get the results of the blood tests performed in hospital.

Meeks had to tell Mitch's Pre-School about it today. Their policy is that they will do blood glucose tests on Mitch at a prescribed time each day or when his behaviour is unusual and if there are any issues will ring Meeks. They will not however administer insulin, if it comes to that, which we're fine about. Overall that is a pretty good situation. Some Pre-Schools wont even do blood tests.

It is amazing how much Meeks and I have to learn about given Meeks has been a diabetic for so long. Having a small child with diabetes is a completely different situation from when she developed it as a teenager.