Random stuff from the weekend

This post is a little random. I am sitting in class as my students work on homework and ask me questions every now and then (and getting pretty bored).

This past weekend Justin and I went to the movies (something we only do a few times a year) and saw The Dark Knight on IMAX. First of all - we thought the movie was great! But I have to admit, I really don't think it was worth the price to see on the IMAX. Considering if we had gone to the theater closest to our house (which is a really good theater) we would have spent $6.75 a ticket (for the matinée) and we spent $16 a ticket (since we ordered online, otherwise it would have been $14 a ticket). Yeah, I have to say - not worth more than double to see on a giant screen. Just the DLP screen at our regular theater would have been fine.

Then when the movie was over Cafe Adobe smelled so good and we were starving! Plus, we figured we could get some good Tex-Mex for about the same price that everyone else was eating movie nachos and hot dogs (BTW, I LOVE living in Texas where there is great Tex-Mex - there was no decent Mexican food when we lived in Florida). It is kind of funny, because when Justin was talking about what to get, he said he couldn't decide whether to order his food with no cheese, or just take a lactose enzyme tablet he had and have the good stuff. I was actually pretty surprised (and impressed with his self restraint) when he ordered his food with "no cheese". Of course when his food came with cheese anyway, he wasn't about to complain. And we were both pretty happy that the lactose enzyme tablets seems to work pretty well and he had no effects from eating his food with cheese.

However, since we don't want to cheat all the time and just have Justin take lactose enzymes, we headed to Central Market in search of more lactose-free substitutions for Justin. This was the first time either of us had ever been to Central Market before and we were pretty impressed with how much stuff they had. However, we weren't impressed with the prices - ouch!!! Lactose-free items mean more expensive items. Since we are only experimenting with this stuff, we only bought a little - a couple things of soy yogurt, tofutti sour cream and cheese, non-dairy ice cream. However, in the end we spent over $40. Personally, I think it is much more cost efficient for me to continue cooking with regular cheese and all and have Justin take his lactose enzyme tablets. Isn't that terrible?

Anyway - just some ramblings from our weekend!

Back home at last!

We are happy to say that Justin was able to be discharged from hospital on Saturday and come back home. Yesterday it was back to life almost as usual and Justin returned to work today.

I say "almost" as usual because we have had one major change around here - it wasn't just for his stay at the hospital, Justin is now on a lactose-free diet. Although finding lactose-free milk was easy and finding almond milk and rice milk (both of which are lactose-free) were easy, it is not a fun task to go through our cabinets and figure out what Justin is allowed to eat. For instance - did you know that Saltine crackers are made with milk? So many of the things that Justin typically eats are no longer allowed - his morning cereal, the granola bars he takes in his lunch, etc. We are going to have to start paying very close attention to ingredient labels before buying food now.

This will also make our evening meals a challenge. Did you know that we love cheese? Not that we had cheese incorporated into every meal, but we do like our cheese. I read somewhere online that most hard cheeses are already lactose free, however that doesn't really agree with the info we were given by Justin's doctor. We have already found a couple websites that have lactose-free recipes and last night I made some vegan peanut butter cookies that were pretty good. Here's to trying new things!

Free at last?

So, my stay at the hospital may be coming to a close. I started off on an IV and ice chips for food. Then, Tuesday they started me on clear liquids. (Mmmm, jello and chicken broth) Yesterday, I got promoted to soft foods, which apparently includes fajitas.

I am becoming a fan of Ensure drinks, the strawberry flavor is best. I think the cafeteria has it out for me, because my orders say I am to get lactose-free food, and they keep trying to give me ice cream, half and half for the coffee I don't drink, parmesan cheese, and a carton of milk (which was on the same tray as the "Lactose-free" milk to go with my Cheerios).

If all goes well today, I may get to go home tomorrow. They're going to start me on the oral steroids, as opposed to the ones via IV, and if I take well to that...adios hospital.

Thanks to everyone who has been keeping me in their thoughts and prayers.

Justin

This post is all about Justin.

For over a year now, Justin has been suffering from some digestion problems. :( After a few visits to our regular doctor, Justin went to see a gastroenterologist. Last year (I think it was October) we found out the cause of his problems was ulcerative colitis and treatment began.

To make a long story short, every medication Justin was put on made him feel a little better for a bit, but then his symptoms would get worse again in which case the doctor would either up his meds, or try a stronger medication. Which means the disease was never in remission and it seems like he was continually building a resistance to the medications he was put on.

Back in May when Justin was doing particularly poorly the doctor suggested that Justin be admitted to the hospital for an undetermined amount of time so that he could go off of all food and be nourished via IV. The theory is that by resting his colon, his colon could finally start to heal. However, May was not a good time for Justin to have to be in the hospital - I was feeling horrible from IVF and needing Justin to give me an injection every night, and Justin's mom, brother and future sister-in-law were coming for a visit. We discussed it and opted for another stronger medication instead.

However, history repeated itself and although Justin felt a bit better for a while recently he has not been doing so well again. Which means that Justin was admitted to the hospital on Monday.

He has been feeling quite a bit better since going into the hospital, however even though it has only been 2 days he would LOVE to have some real food for a change. Not to mention that I am sure he is pretty bored as well, even though he says he is fine with his laptop and the joys of having a Slingbox hooked up to our DVR here at home.

We still have no idea how long he will be there before he is able to come back home. This morning they let him have oatmeal for breakfast and some kind of soup for lunch so we are hoping that means that he will be able to come home soon (we are actually really hoping for tomorrow). I have been going to visit him in the mornings and in the evenings (but I have to teach in the afternoon so it really limits how much time I get to spend with him).

Colby is seriously going through withdrawals from Justin not being here. I guess he has forgotten that Justin used to travel a lot and would only be here on the weekends. When Justin didn't come home on Monday night, Colby chewed his sandal to pieces (something he has never done before) to let him know he wasn't happy with him for not being here.

Here's hoping Justin is back home soon!

We are so grateful

Justin and I feel that we have a lot to be grateful for right now.

1) We are grateful to Dr. G, the infertility specialist that I started seeing in February of this year. Unlike Dr. T in Tampa who I saw for 8 months, his office did not lose test results or test samples and he didn't make me wait around to see what happened - he took action! And unlike Dr. M (not an infertility specialist) who I started seeing last year, he didn't put me through yet another HSG to check my tubes. Again. By the way, 3rd time is not the charm - that test is terrible every time they do it.

2) We are grateful for all the advances in infertility treatments over the last 20 years, and even over the last 5 years. And we are grateful that if we were going to be in the situation we have been in, at least it is when we had options and didn't have to leave everything up to chance.

3) We are grateful for Justin's company's choices for health insurance and for choosing to cover infertility treatments, including in vitro. Otherwise, we would be saving for the next year to be able to afford to try to get pregnant (something most people do for free).

4) We are grateful that although the injections made me pretty miserable, we were able to get so many good eggs from one round. So many, that we had 7 embryos survive long enough to be frozen, waiting for when we are ready to go for baby #2 (and #3).

5) And last of all (and most importantly) we are grateful to be in the 60% of people who have success with in vitro. And that by the end of January our home will be home to one very special little baby.