Girls Follow Up DR Apt

Hello all. Just a quick note to update on the girls and their follow up appointment today. I promised the girls I was all theirs tonight so. I'll make this short and put other pieces in later.

We had our follow up appointment today. The girls O2 stats even with not being sick with the flu...still sat in the mid to high 80's. Again suppose to be 95. The doctor filled the paper work out for me to take to the school. They will be homebound. For those that do not understand this. Cause I didn't understand it till a few weeks and ago..and never heard of it. NO I will not be homeschooling them. Are you kidding none of us would survive that. The county school systems will appoint a teacher to come to our home one hour a day to teach the girls. My girls are very upset about this. They LOVE school and want to be with their friends. I am concerned about their lack of social skills. I mean with them being twins they are very tight and in some circles stick together, tuning everyone else out. Their lack of social skills is one of the main reasons they are in T-1 and not first grade this year. Now that social time is being taken away all
together. Yes when they get better we can return to church...but have been advised not to push that till the winter months are over. Which I hate cause we have not been able to be in church since this summer. With Michael's proceedor this summer, my depression and hospitalizations, the girls sickness on and off and their hospitalizations....I mean TRBC from the bed on Sunday mornings are great but...without true fellowship it's difficult. We all long for that fellowship again. But can't risk the girls health to be there for that.

Anyway, please continue to pray. This homebound is going to be a tough pill to swalloe for all of us. This also means I must make their days at home more productive during the day. Which means we will have to use more expenses to make this happen. What I mean by that is that the DR wants to get them to the YMCA for programs that help kids with asthma learn to live with their illness. She STRONGLY suggested both girls take swim lessons all year. This will help build up their lungs. We have a YMCA membership but with us paying $700 a month on meds for the girls and I...that extra $70 dollars a month is difficult to add back in. So I froze our YMCA membership for the time being.

The Miley Cyrus song The Climb is so perfect for the girls right now. All three of us are in love with that song. It's on in the back ground. Anyway. That was a bunny trail.

We covet your prayers so much during this time. Our church family has been such a great support. We love you all and hope that God will bless you all in return for your faithfulness to bless us in all the ways you have.

Trying to stay calm in the storm,
Michael and Candy Justice
LeAnn and Terra

LeAnn and Terra Update

First THANK YOU ALL for your prayers most importantly, calls, cards, gifts, text, emails, visits, food, and everything else. Whether you know me or not, close to me or not, talked in the last few years or not...Our family has felt over whelmed with all the love. Your prayers have been felt as well.

Second, there are no words for the shower I was able to go home and take this afternoon. That was the first time I had left the hospital since Thursday. Thanks to Ed and Diana Parker for that much needed gift. I said that to say this....if you saw me in Target with a wet head, quickly filling a buggy and avoiding those I saw that we know....please forgive me and don't be mad. I was trying to get things to cheer the girls as well as things we needed here in the room. I did not want to keep the Parker too long. I too had to go get a cake at Kroger. See it's the 100th day of school tomorrow, Monday and the girls class is having a party with "Happy Cake". That's what my girls call it. So I had promised we would have our own 100th day party here. If we don't get out of here soon we will be celebrating my birthday and Valentines Day in here. But we will cross that bridge when we get there.

Let me answer the questions I have been asked alot.

Yes my girls have been sick on and off since October but no they have not been sick that WHOLE time. Yes LeAnn and I were here for Thanksgiving, me in VICU and LeAnn in peds...but no she has not been here since then and is not here for the same thing. Neither am I a patient at this time. The girls did have the stomach flu a few weeks back. This is not why we are here either. We had a few day break from that when this started.

Terra went to school Friday a week ago after having had the stomach flu, LeAnn stayed home just cause I wanted to give her another day and the weekend before returning. Terra began feeling sick at lunch that day. By that night she was dealing with a high fever and just yucky. LeAnn started feeling the same on Saturday afternoon. Called the DR Monday, was told don't bring them in. Lets make sure its not the 24 hour bug that is going around. Waited till Wednesday, took them in. They were tested for strep and flu. Negative for strep both positive with the flu. O2 (oxygen) was low. 90's for LeAnn and upper 80's for Terra. No typo YES Terra was worse than LeAnn. We decided to give them 24 hours with a triple dose of steriod to see if we could get the O2 up. They kept decreasing, ended in the ER at general for hours and transfered to Baptist, via ambulance.

WHY on God's green earth do Peds have to go to the ER at general, knowing they will have to be transported to Baptist if admitted. Does a women in labor go to General. UH NO. Why, cause Mother/Baby and the birth center are at Baptist. So WHY would they not treat Peds the same????????? O that's right...how can we get the MOST money from our patients??? Of course make them go to one hospital, pay those doctors, for the room and what you use in it, the works, then pay for the ambulance (by the way did you know that's $600 dollars for an ambulance?). Then you will pay for another set of doctors, another room, and all you use here too. WRONG, it's just wrong I tell you.

Now I am not going to go through all the ups and downs that we have had the past 4 days. I'm sorry for those that are not included in the people that are in my cell and that I know have text...I was sending 3-4 text a day to those people. I have had only my phone to check email and facebook. Now I have the computer so...

Most know that Terra had a major turn for the worst Friday night. Friday night and Saturday were the worst of all of this. We saw the lowest number for O2 that we have ever seen for our girls. Terra had a 81 stat. For those that do not know, our doctor like a 95, anything below that they do like to admit them. Terra went through alot Saturday. At one point in the early afternoon, Terra asked for another breathing treatment. It had only been 30 minutes since her last one. I called the nurse, they were having a code blue on the peds floor so of course that was being taken care of first. NO COMPLAINT. Terra was breathing and had O2 goin so. LeAnn pulled her O2 out of the wall by accident. So I walked across the room to help her with that. Terra called for me to come back. No sooner than I turned around to walk back to her, she turned white as a sheet and fell out of the bed. She hit her head on the wall and landed on her knees. I paged the nurse in a panic...which they were not use to hearing from our room. I couldn't even get Terra up before there were 12 people in our room. They looked her over from head to toe. Asked Terra and I twice what happened. I had to fill out a form, they checked for a concusion...then this conversation like one on House started happening between this older doctor and 4 resident doctors. Fine for TV but not what you want happening for you family. They ran test and more test, uped meds, changed meds, we finally started seeing improvement in Terra late Saturday.

LeAnn this whole time has been very lethargic and uncaring about what she needs to do to get better. I truly think that LeAnn has had enough of this mess for 7 years. So she looks worse than Terra but her stats have been better than Terra's. UNTIL late Saturday night. LeAnn took her turn to drop quickly. She never got to an 81 her lowest was 83. It was so frustrating. We went through everything EXCEPT the falling out of bed, with LeAnn, same as we did on Terra. Keep in mind LeAnn started 24 hours after Terra.

So now at 11pm on Saturday, I have both girls asleep. Their stat has dropped a little cause they are in deep sleep but this is normal. Neither of them are on O2 right now. We need to keep it that way for 24 hours. Then we can recheck with a chest xray and talk about when we can get out here. Like every night we've been here...as soon as I was done with bed baths, teeth brushed, hair brushed, room cleaned, story read, prayers said by the girls....I prayed over my girls.

My hearts cry tonight is that they will maintain the 91 O2 stat. It's not 95 but we have come so far. SO I will take the 91. Praying that God will continue to heal with no more slips backwards. I want with all my heart to believe that we are on the up and up but when you've been back and forth for 10 days where Terra has a bad day, then LeAnn has bad day, and flip flop this whole time...you start to doubt. Not doubt God, but doubt or have a false hope that we are nearing the end of it all.

Where's is Michael? Poor guy started getting sick with flu like symptoms Wedcnesday. I had my flu shot in the VICU but Michael has not had his. LeAnn and Terra have been trying to get them since October, how ever you can not have the shot when you are sick, on steriods or antibiotics so...that has not happened since October. Michael is feeling alot better today. But he had to leave to go out of town for work this afternoon and will not be back till the early hours of Tuesday morning.

As many of you are doing, please keep prayin. I am tired of my girls not being able to have a normal life as other kids. I had NO issues like this when I was young and neither did Michael. Breathing should not be a concern for a 7 year old. We are scheduled to have alot of specialist looking at the girls throughout the summer as this year has been their worst. SO we are hoping we will get some answers and find things that will make this all better.

God Bless You All, we can not thank you enough for everything.

In Christ Arms

The Justice Family