Fitty Grand Yo

Luigi’s count this week was 50,000 (up from 43,000)  Yipeee

I had blood drawn this morning also.  And I can tell you right now that I will NOT be taking Luigi to have blood drawn before school ever again.

Last week, I took him really early in the morning.  The woman that drew his blood was one we’d not seen before. Just as she jammed the needle in his arm, I saw how big it was. I was like HOLY CRAP!!  That’s an adult needle.  I asked her about it and she said it was normal size and blah blah blah….

When we went this morning, the same woman was there. She took his blood first and then did mine. Luigi bled and bled and now he’s got a nice bruise on his arm.

I’m very capable of taking pain. Five kids and no pain meds.. I can take a stick in the arm!  When this woman poked my arm, it hurt.  When she sucked blood out with a syringe (I’ve never had anyone do it that way) I felt like my veins were collapsing.  When she removed the needle, I almost vomited from the pain. I think she needs a refresher course!!

I just called up to the hospital to see if they’d finished with his test yet. I talked to the man who normally draws his blood and he told me that the needle she used (I knew the guage of it) was too big to be using on a kid with a low platelet count. He said he’d expect a large bruise and more bleeding with a needle that big.

I let him know that I’ll see HIM next week. He’ll be drawing Luigi’s blood from now on!!!

Sharing Is Caring

Share #1 - I took Luigi for his blood test this morning. They just called back with the results. 30,000 last week. 43,000 today. WooT WooT — I’m so happy!!

Share #2 - A link to the most hilarious thing I’ve read in a long time. This blog post set me off laughing and earned me quite a few puzzled looks from the family. What’s Your Last Name from The (After) Life of the Party (Formerly known as Life In The L O)

Share #3 - A story for you. One much like the one you hopefully just read. Harmony’s story is much funnier that mine. So if you choose to read only one, go read hers.  =D

On the way back from a baby shower, my mom, grandma, aunt and I stopped at a rest area. We’d been in the car for 2 hours and were all ready to stretch our legs.

We all headed into the bathroom to do our thang… The stalls were all full and the 4 of us had to wait our turns. One by one, we all went in and came out. All but my aunt who was taking forever.

Grandma left and went to walk around outside while Mom & I washed our hands and waited on the slow poke. Grandma came in a couple minutes later and was quite irritated at having to wait so long. She proceeded to yell out to my aunt, “Good grief!!!!  What crawled up your butt and died?!?  Hurry up!  We’re all waiting on you. I hope you didn’t die in there. OMG what a smell!!! … We’ll be in the car waiting.”

The three of us headed out to the car and… guess who was outside sittin’ on the curb smoking a ciggarette? No really… guess.

Bahahaaa…….  I miss my grandma. She was a riot!!!

Luigi The Actor

My new friend Putnam Pig asked Luigi to play a part in his newest video.  Go check it out. Luigi posted it on his website.

Feel free to leave comments. Just make no mention of Text Imps. I try to keep it hidden from my family and others who like to pry into my life via my blogs. That’s also why I use nicknames for all of my family. Not because I’m worried about kidnappers & stuff like that. But because I don’t want someone to search for my kids’ names and find me.

Anyways……. please go visit him & check out Batpig and Robin. I’m sure it would thrill him to no end to come home to a bunch of comments from all of my wonderful friends. *hint hint* =D

Luigi Pictures

Texan Mama asked for a picture of Luigi. Who am I to deny such a request? *smiles*

So, here ya go. =D

And this one… this is my favorite picture of him….

Weekly Luigi Update

For anyone who needs caught up on what’s going on with my 8 year old, Luigi…..  basically, long story short, his platelet count is low. Dangerously low. That means he has very little blood clotting abilities. That means that the slightest wound can be life threatening. That means, I’m scared!!!!!

Normal count is between 150k-500k.  Dangerous is anything below 20k.

About a month ago, his count was 16,000. Four days later, it was 15,000 and he was given a transfusion of meds to make his spleen stop killing platelets.

A week later, his count shot up to a whopping 258,000. Yippeee.

Last week, back down to 59,000. Grrrrrr

He has his blood drawn AGAIN yesterday. His new count is only 30,000. We’re going in the wrong direction!!! We now have a standing order that will allow us to take him for a new count on any day we choose. If his bruises started getting worse or he gets a nosebleed or anything like that, we need to take him sooner than next Wednesday.

If next week’s count goes down more, we will have to go back to Riley’s Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis again for another round of meds. If those don’t help this time, they’re going to try a different medicine. If THAT doesn’t work, I don’t know what the next step is. Hopefully we won’t have to find out.

Thank you for all of your kind thoughts and comments these past couple of weeks. You’ve really helped me in dealing with all of this…. whether you realize it or not. =)

Ad Images

See… That’s what happens when I blog at 2 in the morning. I leave out all of the important stuff!

So, regarding the ad image request, here’s what I need.

The pictures need to be 125 x 125 and have your blog’s name on it… or something. LOL I’m really not picky. I’ve found that what works best are images that don’t flash and say “Hey look at me!! Look over here!!”

I made a lot of the ads you see over there. Basically, all I did was… I went to the persons site and grabbed part of their header. Or grabbed some of the colors they used on their site. And then, I just put the name of their blog on the button. Nothing fancy really, but it gets the job done.

I think what I’ll do is just go ahead and see if I can make buttons for those of you who said you don’t know what to do. I’ll email them and get your feedback. And, if in the future, you make another one, just send it to me and I’ll swap it out. =D

*UPDATE — Comments are now closed because the spam bots found this post.

Help Me Help Ya’ll

See those 4 blog ads over in the right column? The ones above the Google box? Well, that’s my way of helping out some of the bloggers I like. Those are only 4 of my ads. They’re set on a rotator and each time you load a new page, you get to see a different set of links. And hopefully, you (and other visitors) occasionally click on those links and check out bloggers you haven’t seen before.

Now, I know that my wee little ads aren’t making the bloggers rich. They might not even be helping them gain subscribers or get more comments on their posts. But, I feel like it’s my little contribution and my way of saying thank you for entertaining me and sharing your life with me.

Last night, I realized that I’d really fallen behind on my duties. I realized how many bloggers were out there that I really liked, but I hadn’t added to the rotator yet. Shame on me!! Shame Shame I say.

So…. I added some new links. But guess what!! Some of the people I wanted to add didn’t have little images. Ugh. Come on people!! I need pictures. How the heck am I going to link to you without a picture? Huh Huh??? Tell me. Come on…… I’m waaaaaaaaiting…..

I do actually send out some traffic believe it or not. By my count, I send out an average of 3 clicks per ad, per day. That’s not bad really for a little ol’ blog like mine IMO.

Wanna see? Do Ya?? Okay, here’s my proof. Here’s a screen shot of the clicks I’ve sent out from the ads over there. This was taken just before I added He Blogs She Blogs, Petra, Putnam, Stacie & Texan Mama last night. Notice how I put those in ABC order? LOL I’m slick like that. That way you don’t think I’m playing favorites.

Also, the counts are actually higher. But I got bored one day and decided to reset the stats. LOL Boredom+Chris=Not Good.

Anyways, here’s the screen shot.

Now… I need your help. I need more images to put over there. Here’s the list I’ve made of the people I’d like to have links from. AND!!!!!!! I may’ve somehow left you out!!! So if I did please tell me!! If I comment on your blog or if you comment here, hollah!!! Seriously!!! Don’t feel silly about requesting a link out. And if you feel weird about requesting it in the comments, then send me an email. I’m chris [at] textimps [dot] com.

Here’s my list of people I need images from. And, feel free to stop at their blog and pester them for me until I get my image!!!!!!!! Also, if you need an image made, let me know. I’ll see what I can do.

488 Miles Away
A Day In The Life Of
Allyson Lyon Photography
Barbara’s 365
Confessions of a Desperate Housewife
Life In The L O
My Very Last Nerve
Poop On Jelly
Raising Stink
Riding The Short Bus
Us And Them

By the way, while you’re over there pestering Captain Dumbass at Us & Them, check out his awards. I swear that man gets the most hilarious awards!

No Stopping or Standing

I feel like everything is at a standstill.  Nothing is moving forward. Nothing is getting accomplished. I’m standing in a rut with a shovel and the hole is getting deeper. To make matters worse, there’s some drunk with his 4×4 tires in my rut. He’s slinging mud everywhere. The mud is splattering my face and I don’t have any kitty litter to put in front of him to give him traction.

If you asked me how things are going, I’d tell you they were fine. Same ‘ol stuff. Nothing exciting. Nothing worth mentioning.

But that’s not really how it is. Things are crazy hectic and I’m feeling like life is getting ready to spin out of control. I have no idea what makes me think this. I’ve never had life spinning out of control. I’ve always been very much IN control. But things have changed over the past few months.

In November, we added a new member to our family. 5 kids. 5 kids is a lot no matter what kind of crazy freak of a great mother you are. And me? I’m somewhere along the lines of “good mom”, at least in my opinion.

The biggest change is Luigi being sick. I can’t stand this. I can’t handle the fear of the unknown. And the fear of “what might be” makes me sick to my stomach.

His platelet count dropped again and his bruises are back. Are they going to be down more this next Wednesday? Am I going to have to take him for a bone marrow test? That’s the next step, ya know. A freakin bone marrow test. And they don’t put you to sleep for that. WHY??  Why don’t they put you to sleep? That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. A procedure that would make a grown man cry and they don’t put a baby to sleep to do it. Grrrrrr

See. That’s how my thinking processes go. Things just spin and spin and the thoughts just fly in. I could literally sit here for hours and just type. Type everything that comes to mind. My thoughts just race through my head at exponential speeds.

But I won’t do that to you. Mainly because, when you finished reading, you’d be calling the looney bin and telling them where to pick me up.

“Hey??  Does this straight jacket come in black??”

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all of you lovely ladies out there.

Uhmmm….  I had more to say but now I can’t remember what it was.  I bet it was really funny or really important. And now, you’re not going to get to hear it.  Poor Poor You.

Okay, quit rollin’ your eyes and move along….

Good News And Bad News

Let’s go ahead and start with the bad news so we can end this on a happy note. I took Luigi to get another blood test done last night after school. Riley Hospital called me this morning with the results. His platelet count is back down. He’s still up higher than the “danger zone” of 20,000.  But… it’s only at 59,000 now.

The woman I spoke with said it’s normal to have the count shoot way up after the medicine he was given. And also normal for it to drop again. But, because it DID drop, he has to have another blood test next Wednesday. Poor kid!!  This will be the 5th time in less than a month that he’s had a needle jammed into his arm.  *sigh* Poor kid!!!!

And now… for the good news.  The really good news.

He Blogs She Blogs is back.  WooHooo!!!

For those who don’t know what He Blogs She Blogs is, boy have you been missing out. HBSB is put on by Petra The Wise (*Young*) Mommy and Captain Dumbass.  They answer questions from their readers and you get to see the Male vs Female perspectives.  And believe me… it’s hilarious!! And actually sort of insightful at the same time. But, the laughter is what makes me go back for more.

But anyways, HBSB is back & they’ve moved to their own little Blogger Home. Yippee!!!