2006 Journal ~ Long Version

Friday, January 13, 2006 2:42 PM CST


Hope everyone had happy holidays. We had a pretty good time this holiday season with the exception of the girls getting sick right after Christmas, and they haven't been well since.

Emily had an ear infection in both ears, Alexa had an ear infection in one ear and Madison had the runny nose, cough, yuckiness that the other girls had but apparently did not have the ear infections.

We took the girls to the doctor yesterday, to follow up and for their 18 month check up. Emily's ear infections are gone, Alexa now has an ear infection in the other ear, and Madison and Alexa both are wheezing. They think they may have RSV, so now we have to give Alexa and Madison breathing treatments every 4 hours. It's not fun trying to get them to let me hold the mask over their nose and mouth, and even when they do let me they usually don't want to sit still for the entire 20 minutes it takes for the treatment. We do the best we can though, and I must say they tolerate it much better than I expected.

Their most current weight and measurements are:

Emily........18 lbs 8 oz......28 1/2 in
Alexa........18 lbs 1 oz......29 in
Madison....15 lbs 7 oz.....28 in


Hope to update again soon...until then, we wish everyone the best.



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Wednesday, January 25, 2006 2:55 PM CST

I was looking through pictures and just couldn't resist putting some older pictures on here. It's so funny to see how they looked then, compared to how they look now.

The girls got good reviews from their urologist this past week. All of the ultrasounds on their kidneys came back fine and the doctor was pleased. No changes were made at this time. We will have to go back in July to have the HORRIBLE VCUG test done to see if the reflux is better or worse. Unless Emily is miraculously healed, she will still have to have surgery sometime after she turns 2.

Emily went for a hearing test yesterday. It was recommended because she seems to be a little delayed in her speech, and with all the ear infections it was a good idea anyway. Her results were inconclusive. Her left ear was pretty good, but the right ear failed. They think it is because she had fluid in her right ear (probably from her last ear infection) and so we will have to repeat the test once her ears are well again.

Alexa has been cutting teeth like crazy lately. She went for a long period where she didn't cut any, and now she cut 4 in the last couple weeks. Emily and Madison have also cut a couple teeth lately.

We are focusing on weaning them off of their formula and off of their bottles. They don't like to drink regular milk or anything except their formula and they only want to drink it in a bottle. So far it is going pretty well. I have been able to get them to drink juice or other drinks in a sippy cup, but just not anything resembling milk yet. The doctor wants them to drink Pediasure instead of milk (to help them put on more weight) so I have been sneaking pediasure into their formula little bits at a time. Hopefully that will work.

We'll keep you posted!




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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 3:15 PM CST

The girls had been sick the last few weeks (what's new right?). The difference this time was Mommy and Daddy had it too, and that wasn't fun. It's really hard to try to take care of sick kids when you are sick too. I hope we are about done with being sick. Come on Spring/Summer!! We want to play outside in the warm weather.

I haven't quite pinpointed what is causing it, but Madison and Emily have started waking up in the middle of the night again...EVERY night. Sometimes they want a bottle, sometimes their noses are stuffy, and sometimes we don't know what's wrong and they cry themselves back to sleep. The one thing we do know for certain - this is getting old, fast!

They aren't gaining weight too well at the moment. Probably because of them being sick and the whole weaning issue. We are still weaning them from their formula and they are doing much better. They now only drink from their bottle twice a day (instead of four times) and we aren't too far from having them completely switched from their formula to Pediasure. They were last weighed on Feb 9th and here are the results:

Emily.........18 lbs 4 oz........29 3/4 in
Alexa.........17 lbs 15 oz.......30 1/4 in
Madison......15 lbs 3 oz.......29 1/4 in

Emily goes to an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist tomorrow. She will have another hearing test done, and then we will see the doctor. I imagine he will recommend tubes for her ears, but we will find out for sure tomorrow.

I have accidentally taught Madison to count to two. When I tell her 'no' if she doen't listen, I count to three and if then go get her. I guess I do it frequently because now when I say 'one' she says 'two' before I do! All of the girls are talking so much better and know dozens of different sign language signs.





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Wednesday, May 10, 2006 11:12 PM CDT


A lot has happened since the last entry. I will try to catch things up without writing a book.

Emily had tubes put in both ears. That went fine and she is doing so much better now that she has them. I'm glad we didn't put it off. Alexa had her 2nd tear duct probing in both eyes and we found out that her tubes are not formed properly and she will need more intensive surgery to correct it. It's called a DCR (dacryocystorhinostomy)which basically means they will construct tear ducts for her. She is scheduled to have that surgery near the end of May. The surgeon that will perform Alexa's surgery will take care of Emily a couple weeks later. He will try to probe her tear ducts first, but if he finds the same problem that Alexa has he will perform the DCR for her right then.

Things seemed to quiet down for a little while until Scott hurt his back so bad that he had to go to the ER. They did an MRI and found that he has degenerative disc disease and a herniated disc. He was admitted to the hospital and they did surgery to remove the portion of the disc that was pressing on his nerves. He spent a total of 7 days in the hospital. He is now back to work, but isn't permitted to work full days yet. Maybe in a week or two.

If that wasn't enough, Scott came home from the hospital on a Friday, and on Sunday Alexa was admitted to the hospital. She was in respiratory distress and had pneumonia. She spent 5 days in the hospital. During those 5 days I stayed at the hospital with Alexa and Scott and his parents took care of Madison and Alexa. Emily was starting to show the same symptoms as Alexa, so she was on all kinds of medication and breathing treatments, had pediatrician appointments to go to, etc. So Scott's recovery time was cut really short! We couldn't have made it if his parents hadn't helped him and if mine hadn't came to the hospital to help with Alexa and give me a break. Thank God for family!

Things are slowly getting a little less chaotic. They are sleeping through the night again (most of the time), they switched completely to Pediasure and that is going great. They were weighed on Monday and here's that info...

Emily........19 lbs 6 oz....30 1/4 in
Alexa........19 lbs 3 oz....30 3/4 in
Madison....16 lbs 7 oz.....30 1/8 in

Emily recently started saying her own name. She says Emmie, and actually all 3 girls can say Emmie. Madison and Alexa both try to say their names too, but it's not real clear yet. They are kissing and hugging each other now which is too cute. Of course on the other side of that they are also hitting, kicking, pulling hair, pushing...yep, they're almost two!

Have a great day!





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Tuesday, June 27, 2006 10:11 PM CDT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Emily, Madison and Alexa!!!

Our babies are officially 2 years old now. We have SURVIVED the first 2 years of parenting triplets. Shouldn't we be presented with an award, with balloons and confetti falling from the rafters? (I'm delirious, I know.)

I'm just kidding anyway, these past 2 years haven't been that bad. It's actually hard to believe that they are two already and that they aren't my "babies" anymore...they're toddlers. Before I know it they will be out of diapers, and then I will blink a couple times and they will be in kindergarten. Wow, I'm really getting ahead of myself.

Back to reality.... Alexa and Emily both had their surgeries on their tear ducts. They each needed the more intensive surgery to create tear ducts for both eyes. The surgeries went well overall although Alexa ended up having asthma problems during surgery and needed some breathing treatments in the O.R. and needed oxygen for a couple hours in recovery. She hasn't had any episodes since then, so were glad about that! It's too soon to know for sure if the eye problems have been corrected, but things are looking pretty good at the moment.

We went to the pediatrician today for their well check up. Everything is fine, except the doctor is still not happy with their heights and weights. He has referred us to see an Endocrinologist to discuss using growth hormone treatments. We don't have the appointment made yet to see the specialist, and I'm still real skeptical about it, but I told the pediatrician that I would go and at least hear it out before I made any decisions.

Speaking of heights and weights...I have misplaced my papers from the doctor today, but here are the stats from the last time the nutritionist was here on June 6th.

Emily..............20 lbs 5 oz.........30 3/4 in
Alexa.............19 lbs 5 oz.........31 1/2 in
Madison.........17 lbs 1 oz.........30 3/4 in

The girls are saying so many new words. The newest word is Gorilla, which they pronounce "la lilla" It's too cute! I keep trying to get them to say their own names or each others names, but so far they only call each other "sissy". I may have to create a book with their pictures in it if I want them to learn their own names, because they sure can name off any of the sesame street characters in their books without any hesitation! They can say Grover, Telly, Zoe, Elmo, Ernie, Oscar, Big Bird....but not Emmie, Maddie or Lexie? Oh well, they'll get it soon enough.

I hope everyone is having a great summer, and I will try to keep you updated as often as possible. Thanks for stopping by the website to check up on us!




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Sunday, September 3, 2006 2:55 PM CDT



Lots of little updates to give....

The girls went back to their urologist in August about their kidney reflux. They had another horrible VCUG test done. Emily still had grade 5 reflux in her left kidney, and her right kidney appeared not to have any (about the same as previous test results). Madison had grade 3 reflux in both kidneys (slightly worse than her previous test results). Alexa has about grade 2 reflux in both kidneys (slight improvement than her previous test results).

Their doctor says that Emily's reflux is still severe enough that surgery is needed, and the sooner the better. Alexa's reflux got a little better so we aren't making any changes with her. Since Madison's got worse instead of better, she recommends we go ahead and do something about Madison's reflux. Madison's isn't as severe as Emily's so we have a few options. We can do surgery (like Emily), or we can try the "injection" procedure, or we can wait and see if the next test results are any better. There are pros and cons to each option, and for the moment we haven't decided which we want to do.

Emily will have her ureteral reimplantation surgery on Sept 14th. Once we see how Emily's surgery goes, maybe it will help us decide what we should do for Madison.

Also in August we went to see the endocrinologist as recommended by the pediatrician. Because the girls are so short and lightweight for their age, the pediatrician thought they might benefit from growth hormones. Much to my surprise, the endocrinologist did not agree with the pediatrician. She reviewed medical history, and factored in the heights and weights of Grandparents, Uncles, etc. and said that at this point in time they do not qualify for growth hormone therapy nor does she think they need it. She asked that we come back in 1 year to be re-evaluated, but until then just work on getting them to take in as many calories as possible. (Easier said than done)

We also took the girls to the dentist for their first cleaning and check up. It didn't seem to bother Alexa at all and she did just fine, as usual. Emily didn't really want to, but she didn't fuss much and did pretty well. Madison was kicking and screaming the entire time, which was not surprising. On the bright side, they all got great reviews from the dentist which is such a relief after all the trouble I had with my baby teeth. Plus I know I don't brush the girls teeth as often as I should so I was expecting the worst... but they are starting to like brushing now so hopefully that will improve.

Alexa and Emily are scheduled to have their tubes removed from their eyes September 22nd, but now that Emily's kidney surgery is scheduled for the 14th I don't if we will reschedule both girls or just Emily's...or what. Hopefully once the tubes are removed, their new tear ducts will work properly and they won't need any more eye surgeries, eye drops, or any of that stuff.

The girls have made big delevopmental improvments lately. They no longer have an occupational therapist, or developmental therapist. Right now they only have a speech therapist and she said that they are doing well enough that we could probably stop services if we wanted to. (But, the girls really like speech therapy so we are continuing it for now).

They are saying and repeating just about anything and everything now. They are learning names now too. They like to point out other kids in pictures so cousins Nick (or as Madison says "mick") and Jayden are favorites. It's cute the way Madison says Uncle Larry's name (pronounced Ware-wee).

Madison (unprovoked) said I love you for the first time a week or so ago. I wish I could tell you that she said it to Mommy or Daddy, but instead she said it to one of the Sesame Street characters on TV. She said Bye Bye, I wuv you as the scene changed and whoever it was wasn't there anymore. She has since said it to Daddy and yesterday Mamaw and Papaw Huffman got her to say it, but Mommy has been left out. Her newest cute saying is "Mmm-hmm". When she says something she wants you to repeat it so she knows you understand her. Then when you repeat it she says "Mmm-hmm" (like Uh huh). She absolutely adores her dalmation doggy and her teddy bear.

Alexa is now counting to 10 and can name several letters of the alphabet by seeing them. She still loves to "read" books and is speaking very clearly. We have to be most cautious around her because she repeats everything so well. Her newest cute saying is "I funny". If someone laughs at her or if she does something silly she says "I funny" and laughs. The plays the most with her magna doodle and looks at books.

Emily has become the little mother. She enjoys her baby dolls the most and almost always has one in hand. She also is starting to be mommy's helper. She likes to clean up (without even being asked), she passes out drinks and food to her sisters, is trying to dress herself, and wants to drink out of a open cup all by herself. (which has caused many messes as you can imagine). I can't think of a recent funny saying of hers, but she likes to talk on the phone to her Mamaws and Papaws and she will talk well for a while and then all the sudden will start talking gibberish and then looks at us like we should have understood every word she just said. She thinks she's so grown up, and it's cute.

This update seems to have gone on and on. I'm sure I have forgotten something, but I will have to mention it some other time because the girls are awake from their nap....



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Sunday, September 17, 2006 9:31 PM CDT



Emily had her kidney reflux surgery. It was scheduled for 2:00pm on Thursday, but they were late taking her to surgery. The surgery lasted about 3 hours and she spent around 1.5 - 2 hours in recovery. She spent 3 nights in the hospital and was released from the hospital this evening. Her surgery went well. In case I haven't gone into the details before, here goes...

The goal of this surgery was to detatch her ureters from the bladder and reimplant them into a different spot in the bladder (which should stop the reflux). The reflux has caused the ureter to become dilated so they had to taper it down when they reimplanted it into the bladder. Luckily they did not have to cut away any of the ureter, they just pinched it (for lack of a better description).

Since they had to taper the ureters, they placed a stent in each one to increase her chances of the surgery being successful. Those stents go from her ureter, into the bladder, they come out another spot in the bladder and then come out of small incisions her abdomen. I didn't initially realize that stents were going to be a possibility in this surgery, so I wasn't expecting her to have 2 additional holes in her abdomen. Luckily they are very small and the stents will be removed by her doctor in 7-10 days.

Emily handled the whole ordeal very well. They had given her a sedative before they took her back for surgery, so she didn't make much of a fuss when the took her back to the operating room. (I think the adults needed sedatives too, cause it was SO hard on us to let her go!) She had an epidural type anesthesia called a caudal. This worked really well and the first night after surgery she was very calm. It wasn't until the next morning when the caudal had worn off and she started getting the bladder spasms that things started getting ugly.

She had a morphine pump, several doses of valium, and a special medicine for bladder spasms that finally got things back under control. Now our main issues are keeping her pain and bladder spasms under control, and getting her to drink fluids. She hasn't drank much of anything for the last 4 days, and when she was in the hospital it wasn't that big of a deal because she was getting IV fluids but now we got to keep an eye on her.

Madison and Alexa were very glad to see Mommy come home for the first time since Thursday morning. Madison was also very happy to see Emily and kept trying to love on her, but Emily still feels yucky and didn't want any part of it.

Hopefully Emily will feel much better tomorrow after a nice peaceful nights sleep at home.





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Tuesday, December 19, 2006 8:21 AM CST

Merry Christmas Everyone.

It has been brought to my attention several times that Melissa and I have not updated this site for a long time. I apologize, time has been cut short. Melissa is now working during the evening 5-6 nights per week (6PM - 2AM). This has left me taking care of the kids and the house. Neither of us have time for each other let alone take care of this website appropriately. However, I will do my best to update you to the girls health and wellbeing as I can. When I get a chance, I will update some pictures for you.

Emily has been doing well since her surgery. She has some apparent scars, but they will become less visable as the years progress. The same with Alexa and Emily's tear duct scars. Madison has been gaining weight and is now above 19 pounds. YEAH!!

The girls are still doing some sign language. However, as they get older they are doing less. They are communicating verbally more.

They have two new cousins. Devon Huffman and Nathan Lee. The girls were a little shy at first, but eventually, they became attached just like the rest of us.

We missed out on the big family christmas parties because the girls and Melissa were sick with the flu. That left me at home with 4 sick females (poor daddy).

Melissa and I did not send out many cards this year. So, I am sorry if you did not receive one. Please know that all of us at the Huffman household wish you and yours the merriest of Christmas's this year.

Hugz for the Holidayz,

Scott, Melissa, Alexa, Emily, and Madison Huffman