Biopsy Results

Back in August I needed a physical to go to girls camp, so I scheduled an appointment with my OBGYN, (since I was overdue for my annual anyway) and figured it would be just a quick in and out type of thing since overall I'm a pretty healthy gal :) During the breast exam however my doctor found an unusual lump.  As soon as she showed me and I felt it for myself I was like, whoops, that was obvious. I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn't been doing my monthly self-exams but at least my doctor was on top of it. She ordered an ultrasound and the results showed that the lump was irregular. A needle biopsy was scheduled next, they found that the cells in the lump were rapidly dividing and it would need to be removed and further biopsied. Surgery was scheduled at the end of August and the lump was taken out. I was told I should have results back in a week, but after the first round of tests the doctors couldn't come to a consensus on what it was. Luckily we are blessed to live 40 minutes away from Mass General, the #1 ranked hospital in the nation. My labs were sent to the experts there and a week later, they had results.

We were in Chicago house hunting when I got the call.  My doctor had good news and not so good news. She said that the lump was something called a phyllodes tumor. Not cancer. (Good News!) But it was more aggressive than they originally thought and had the potential to return and become something more serious, so she told me I would have to come back in for surgery to take out more tissue and get clear borders. (Not so good news )

I was happy that it wasn't something terrible, happy that it had been caught early, happy that we were close to such a great hospital and able to get the most clear and accurate results, but in the middle of the stressful task of finding a house and trying to make some huge decisions for our family in a very short amount of time, the thought of having surgery again overwhelmed me and I felt my emotions threatening to fall apart.

As tears started to come, Taber helped me hold it together. He put his arm around me and gave me some golden advice. He said, "Babe, I know we've got a lot going on right now, so let's just take this information, put it in a box, and lock it up for awhile. Right now we're going to focus on finding a house. When we get home, we'll focus on all the other things going on, and in two weeks, when it's time for your surgery, we'll open up this box again."

So that's what I did. I wrapped it up, put it in the box, sealed it up and tucked it in the back of my mind. We got through our house hunting trip. We put an offer an a house and it was accepted! We got lots and lots of paperwork taken care of. My mother, (who had flown out to watch the kids for our trip) stayed an extra week and helped me clean, organize and purge my house so it would be all ready for the movers. We got so many good things accomplished in those two weeks while that thought was locked away.

Tomorrow is my surgery so tonight I finally opened that box up again. Now that all that other stuff is taken care of, the thought in the box isn't so scary anymore. I've got Taber, who is taking off work to take care of me. I've got great friends who are watching the kids and bringing meals. I've got an amazing doctor who I'm sure will perform the surgery flawlessly, and I've got a pretty good feeling that I'm gonna score a milkshake tomorrow, because Taber loves me like that :)

I'm grateful for my awesome support system here, grateful to have good doctors and access to great medical facilities. Grateful for family, grateful for prayers, and grateful for "little boxes" :)

Early Warning Signs and Cam Update

A couple of my friends have asked me if I would post about some of the early warning signs that prompted us to seek a diagnosis for Cam.  To be honest I think if Cam had been my first child I probably wouldn't have noticed anything. He has always seemed like a such happy well adjusted little guy. But since my girls started saying words at 10 months, and were putting 2 words together by 12 months, I definitely was concerned when Cam hit 12 months and hadn't said one single word.

I talked to my pediatrician and she said something like, "Oh boys just develop speech slower than girls, don't worry about it." But my mommy instincts were tingling and I was worried. I started to make more deliberate efforts to teach Cam words, especially Mama, Dada, Uh-oh and dog, things he saw a lot and heard a lot. I would show him pictures, repeat the words over and over, read him books, sing him songs, but not a word came out of his mouth.

At his 15th month appointment I told my doctor that Taber and I were really getting concerned. She still seemed to think he was just taking his time and said that if by 18 months he still hadn't said at least one word we could talk about further testing.  We increased our efforts to teach him words and still nothing. I don't think I would've been as worried if he would at least babble or make different sounds, but the only sounds he ever made were buh buh and duh duh. No other consonants or vowels sounds came out of his mouth.

Another thing that signaled something was off was that he didn't seem to understand language either. We would ask him simple questions, "Where's the ball? Where's Mama? Where's Daddy?" And he wouldn't point or even look in the right direction. I later learned that not pointing to things is an early warning sign, and we've been working really hard in therapy to teach him to point to things and bring people into his world through gestures.

When Cam was just a week shy of 18 months we went to visit family in Utah and Colorado.  Our family members noticed that he didn't talk or even respond to language and they started to worry too. A big red flag was that Cam wouldn't respond to his name. Some of our family thought he might be deaf or have some serious hearing loss. I knew he wasn't deaf because every time music comes on the kid starts to boogie like it's nobody's business! But listening to our family's concerns lit a fire under us and we were determined to find answers.

As soon as we got home from Utah I scheduled appointments with an audiologist and an ENT to make sure Cam's hearing was okay. When his ears and hearing checked out perfectly we went to a speech pathologist who did a thorough evaluation and told us Cam's speech and language development was at the level of a 6-9 month old.  I had no idea that autism was tied to language delays, I just thought it had to do with social development, so when she told me he might be on the spectrum it was a huge shock.

After doing research though I could see the early warning signs and red flags she was talking about:
-Cam was a late walker (17 months) and has really low muscle tone in his legs and upper body
-He drools a lot (low muscle tone in his mouth and face, makes it hard to form sounds)
-He doesn't respond to his name (since we started therapy he responds to his name close to 60% of the time which is a huge improvement!)
-He doesn't point to things
-He doesn't identify objects in pictures or books by pointing to them when we say their names.
-He doesn't look at us to see if we're looking at what he's looking at, he doesn't try to bring us into his world through pointing or gestures (he's looking at us a lot more since working with our therapist)
-He doesn't engage in imaginary play (i.e. feed a baby doll or pretend to talk on a phone)
-He uses us a tool to get what he wants instead of communicating what he needs (example, if he wants me to turn on the t.v., he will grab my finger and make my finger push the button, instead of making eye contact with me and pointing to the t.v.)

So those are the warning signs that prompted us to seek an evaluation. If you are concerned about your child here is a great website with more early warning signs and great tools and resources CLICK HERE

Also others have asked if Cam's seizures might be connected with his speech delays. Several doctors think there might be a connection so he's been referred to see neurologist to have an EEG done as soon as we get to Chicago. I'll be sure to post results once we know :)

I'm just so glad that we found this out early and have access to lots of resources to help him learn and grow. Besides his speech sessions he just got assigned an OT who will be coming this week to start working with him. Also Taber's mom bought him the Baby Signing Time videos and he's learning signs so fast! The other day he came down into the kitchen, looked right into my eyes, and then made the sign for banana. I signed it back to make sure that's what he wanted and he made the biggest cheesiest grin! So I gave him a banana and he was so happy. It was the awesomest thing! He can also sign "milk, more, eat, food, drink, please and all done." We're trying to teach him "help, mom, dad, and water" right now. Having signs to communicate has helped him so much. He still gets frustrated when we don't know what he wants but he's learning that there are ways to tell us and it's been really great to see him communicating.

The one thing Cam has no problem communicating though is happiness. It doesn't require any words, just his deep, rich, wonderful giggles that he freely shares with us every day. What an amazing little blessing he is to our family. We love him more than words and are grateful for his sweet spirit in our home. 

Ward Beach Day and Camp Joseph

I have this dream that someday I will sit down for uninterrupted hours and catch up my blog. *sigh* Wouldn't that be nice? :) Don't think it's going to happen though so I guess I'll just throw random summer posts into the mix every now and then and maybe by the end of the year I'll have everything down in the books, maybe...

On July 21st we had a ward beach day (ward is the name our church uses for our local congregations. :) Tons of people showed up and we had a great time. I think the pictures speak for themselves. :)

 Cam and Brinely heading out into the waves. Love Cam's sassy hip action :)

The beach is best with friends!

 Cam spent a good amount of his beach time munching sand.  I tried to stop him but my efforts were futile. It's like a delicacy to him, seriously...

 Love this face. It's like, "yeah I eat sand, you got a problem with that?"

 I think the highlight for Taber was playing beach football with all the guys.

 It was fun watching them run around and get all competitive.

 I didn't get a picture of it but I totally saw Taber catch a touchdown. Yeah, that's my man :)

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The first weekend in August we had a ward campout at Camp Joseph in Sharon Vermont, the original birth place of Joseph Smith. This was our 3rd year attending the ward campout and I must say, it will be one of the traditions I miss most when we leave New Hampshire!

The girls making S'mores with their little friends

campfire cuisine. Always so delish!

 We played some volleyball and Cam got in on the action

 We also had "Kid Olympics" and Teya was rocking the hurdles.

She also took the gold in the disc toss. That's my girl!

After the Olympics the kids got fake medals and popsicles.

 Cam didn't really love camping, but as long as he had his blanky, his bottle, and his thumb, he was okay.

We had a big old tent for the family and a smaller tent behind it for our food and other supplies. The kids slept pretty good in there thanks to the white noise app on the iPad. Technology rules!

 One our favorite activities at Camp Joseph is heading down to waters of Mormon for some swim and beach time.

 Brave little Teya was all about jumping off the rocks. She's such a little adventurer!

 And we forgot to pack a swim diaper for Cam so he was sporting some saggy baggy britches after our beach excursion. Had to take a pic because it made me laugh :)

 Cute Brinley and her little friends

A bunch of us decided to head out for a morning run one of the days we were there. 2 miles straight downhill and 2, horrible miles straight uphill. I've never climbed that steep on a run before. It felt like I had run 10 miles, not 4. It was brutal but we survived!

 Family Pic by our tent! Happy Rigg campers!

 And group shot of the ward before we all packed up and loaded out. 

 On the way out we stopped at the Joseph Smith memorial. Such a beautiful place with a peaceful spirit that can be felt the minute you step foot on the grounds.

Love my little family and love our amazing ward family. Glad we've been able to do so many neat things with them while we've been here :)

Winds of change...

A few weeks ago, the HR manager position at one of General Mill's large cereal plants in West Chicago opened up. We were pretty excited because my sister lives just 30 minutes south of that plant and the job would be a promotion for Taber. So he put in his application and a week later he got a call from the plant manager inviting him to fly out for an onsite visit and interview!

From the phone call it was clear that Taber was their top candidate so I decided I better tag along just in case I needed to do a little house hunting if he was offered the job :). We flew out last Tuesday and Taber, being Taber, aced the interview and was offered the job the same day! It was exciting and crazy and overwhelming all at once!

We spent the rest of the week on a fast and furious house hunting mission. We walked through almost 50 homes in 5 different cities, visited schools, met with principals, researched early intervention programs and spent every waking minute trying to find the perfect place for our family. We fell in love with a city called Geneva and focused our search in that area. The schools there are incredible and the community is everything that I love. We only had a few days to look but we narrowed it down to 3 great houses. Once we got home we did some more research, had my awesome sister in Chicago do some extra video walk-throughs for us, and tonight we chose our number one and are submitting an offer tomorrow!! If all goes well we will be closing next month and starting a new chapter of our lives in Geneva, Illinois!

I'm so proud of Taber and excited for this opportunity! There is a lot to do in the next 5 weeks before we move but my mom, (who flew out to watch the kids while we were in Chicago) is still in town helping me and I'm SOOO glad she's here because if she wasn't I'm sure I'd be curled up in a ball somewhere having a nervous breakdown ;) 

Luckily that is not the case! :) Instead I'm getting tons of things done, in turbo mode! Having her here is like having an awesomer clone of myself, with super powers! ;) She's already helped me purge all the closets, plus she's cleaned out my garage, scrubbed my walls, cleaned my couches, and organized my DVDs, all while keeping the laundry going, the dishes clean, cooking all the meals and watching the kids so I can focus on all the other crazy details of relocating. She is AMAZING and I have tears in my eyes just thinking about how grateful I am that she's here to help me stay afloat!

So the winds of change are once again blowing for the Rigg fam. It's hard to think about leaving New Hampshire, our friends here are like our family. But I know new horizons will bring opportunity and growth, and I'm excited to see what happens in this next big chapter of our life :) 

Diagnosis

The last few months have been a roller coaster as we've been trying to understand Cam's speech delays and get him the help he needs. After seeing our pediatrician, a speech pathologist, an ENT and an audiologist, all of them told us the same thing: "Your son has some red flags for autism and needs to be evaluated."

Autism? I was shocked. When they first started throwing that word around I didn't really even know what it meant, I just knew that it was a scary word, and couldn't possibly be used to describe my social, smiley, cuddly boy. 

So I started doing research to really understand what autism is. I learned that it is something very complex and varies on a wide spectrum from mild to extreme. But regardless of where a child falls on the spectrum I thought this short bullet point summed it up pretty well:

• Autism is a neurological disorder which interferes with the normal development of the brain in areas that control verbal and nonverbal communication, social interaction, and sensory development.

Once I understood a little better what it was I felt more comfortable pursuing a diagnosis. Cam's speech therapist helped when she said that a diagnosis is just a label. It helps you understand your child and how to help them learn, but it doesn't define them or change who they are. 

So I got on a waiting list. They told me it would be 4 to 6 months before he would be evaluated. In the mean time he's been doing speech therapy once a week but without a diagnosis our insurance would only cover 7 sessions and those 7 session are almost up. 

Then last week, miracle of miracles, there was a cancellation! And even though I was way down on the waiting list, the first 8 people she called didn't answer their phones. I was the first person to pick up and I got the spot!!

So today we went in. A developmental pediatrician, a child development specialist and an occupational therapist spent an hour and a half with him, thoroughly and extensively testing him in every area on the spectrum. They were wonderful and it was obvious they had a lot of experience and knew exactly what they were looking for and how to find it. 

At the end they conferenced together and then came back with a diagnosis. Cam has PDD-NOS (Pervasive developmental disorder: not otherwise specified.) An autism spectrum disorder.

Even though I suspected it, even though others had suspected it, it was still hard to hear. They started talking to me about early intervention programs and support groups and help available but my head was still spinning from the punch in the gut revelation that my son has an autism spectrum disorder. My heart started sinking, but then I shook my head and made my self snap out of it! 

Labels don't define or change who we are! Cam is the same package, just with a different label to help us understand him better. He has so many strengths, so many wonderful qualities and attributes. Even the 3 doctors evaluating him said that. We'll just have to approach learning in a different way with him but he is still the same squishy, happy, amazing little boy. 

When I got home I researched PDD-NOS and learned that is is sometimes referred to as “subthreshold autism." In other words, it’s the diagnosis they use for someone who has some but not all characteristics of autism or who has relatively mild symptoms."

So the good news is, we have a diagnosis. Cam will have access to all the early intervention programs he needs including speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy. Best of all, our insurance will pay for it. I've already seen so much improvement since he started working with a therapist and I know that the earlier you start the better the prognosis is for the future.  Cam is still Cam, and we are grateful to be the parents of such a sweet and awesome little guy :)

Our kids WILL love running, whether they like it or not!

Okay, totally kidding :)  If our kids don't want to be runners that's fine with me, but just in case they DO want to be runners, we are giving them every opportunity to develop a passion for the sport :)

This summer we did our second year of Fitness University which is a weekly running clinic that totally ROCKS! The kids had a blast and on finals day they were ready to celebrate and run their races.

All the kids warmed up with a quick lap around the track

While they waited for their events there was plenty to do. Brinley got some nice pink highlights in her piggy tails.

4 year olds were up near the beginning. They ran 400 meters and Brinley did us proud.

 After her race she got her medal and some post race swag. Future marathoner right there!

Then it was Teya's turn to run. We told her to start out nice and easy. We said, "Let everyone else burn out their engines in the initial sprint and then when you come around the last corner, turn on the heat and pass as many kids as you can!"

She followed our advice to a T and I got some great pics of her smoking past green faux hawk boy at the end. That's my girl!

You like that? She totally came from behind and then BOOM! picked him off like a shark.  Proud coaching moment for me and Taber. :)

 After the races they re-hydrated.

And best of all, everyone got a medal. The girls were excited to add theirs to Mommy and Daddy's collection when we got home. 

Oh and this is how Cam kept himself entertained. If he sees a block, he must stack it. Wish there was a block stacking event in the Olympics because I'm telling you, this kid would win gold! ;)

Miss Brinley Grace turns FOUR!!!

Since birthdays only come once a year, it seems silly just to have ONE day to celebrate them. So here in Riggville we have changed the rules so that birthdays are celebrated for a whole week, minimum. Now that's what I'm talking about.

Back in July Miss Brinley turned 4 years old. We kicked off the celebrations in Colorado with a joint party with her cousin Parker who turned 7.  We hit up Chuck E Cheese and then brought it back to Grandma's house for ice cream cake and presents.

 Brinley was a huge fan of the cake.

Back in New Hampshire we kept things rolling with a little family party on her actual b-day. She opened up presents from Mommy, Daddy, Teya and Cam which included her very own bag of Cheetos! Happy Happy day!

Daddy also bought a giant mylar turtle balloon, just for her. It made her entire year! She loved that thing Sooo much it turned Daddy into an instant hero.

And I attempted to make her a cake. It was...how should I say this? Aesthetically challenged...to put it nicely :) physical appearance aside though, it tasted great!

After the family party we thought we were in the clear but then Brinley said, "That was so fun! Now when is my friend party?"

We were like, "uh, Friend party? oh yeah, your friend party! it's um, well it's going to be on Saturday! Mommy just needs to call some friends and we'll make it happen!"

So I scrambled to throw together a friend party with 5 days notice and a baby who was stricken with an  Evil rash (see post below). It wasn't my best work, considering the circumstances, but Brinley still absolutely loved it. 

For her theme she chose a "Pegasus Party" 

(They didn't have pegasus pinatas but we just imagined this horsey had wings :)

Her two requests were for a pinata (check!) and swimsuits (check!)

 I kept the guest list very small to keep things manageable. 

 The kids brought their swimsuits and we jumped on the trampoline with sprinklers

 Brinley was loving it!

Then they did a little water balloon toss game.

And played bounce the pegasus in the parachute. 

And of course, they got to whack the horsey pegasus pinata :)

For dinner we had mac and cheese and apples, a 4 year old's fantasy feast!

 And then it was cake time! My amazing friend Darby made this beautiful purple Pegasus cake for her. Not only did it hit a home run in the aesthetics department but it tasted awesome too! Darby is my cake making idol!

Blowing out the candles!!

 After cake we opened presents and then said goodbye to our friends. 

It was a wonderful end to a wonderful week of celebrations. 

We love our Brinley Grace and can't believe our big girl is 4 years old!! 

Happy Birthday to our little ray of sunshine.