Turn around

Grace is back suddenly and surprisingly today; but of course quite welcomed. She acted completely normal today and we had a really good day except for at the doctor's office. We called Grace's friends from down the street this morning and they came over for a few hours to play. They tried to play outside for a while but the younger sister wasn't letting them do what they wanted to do so they all ended up coming back inside to play. After that we had a quick lunch and left for the doctor's office.

For her five year checkup she had to have her finger pricked for a cholesterol and hemoglobin test that bothered her a lot. She cried and cried and said how much it hurt. This is the type of prick you would give yourself every day if you were a diabetic; a simple tiny needle that barely breaks the skin. She of course was practically bleeding profusely. The nurse only needed a couple of drops and it was running down her finger; and Grace was horrified. I'm not sure if it was more the sight of the blood or the pain. But her cholesterol is 187 I think which seems high but the doctor says is fine as long as it's below 200 for her age. Hemoglobin was 4.6? I don't really remember the number but I do know that her level was fine.

Her weight now is 40 pounds which is about 50th percentile (They told me just two weeks ago that she weighed 41 pounds and that it was 75th percentile.) And her height is about the 70th - 75th percentile. I'm not convinced these percentile figures are very accurate. I'm not so sure that one pound could make a 25 percentile difference. But I do realize that one pound is significant considering she has only gained about 2 and a half pounds over the last year.

She also had to pee in a cup; something else she's never done before. She did quite well as she was nervous I think. This test was for iron, protein, too many white or red blood cells in it and maybe something else I can't remember. Her levels were all normal though. Then she had S. H. O. T. S.'s - three of them. One for chicken pox and something else plus a flu shot. For these she was deathly afraid; as soon as she saw the needles she was afraid. The nurse asked me if she knew what was happening and I replied "no." So she took charge and told her what she was about to do. Grace immediately began to cry so I held her and helped the nurse and we got through it but she cried hysterically and carried on for a few minutes afterwards. But the nurse helped out in getting her to move on and stop crying a little sooner.

After that we came home and relaxed for a little while and then it was time to make dinner. I timed dinner perfectly today and it was ready and on the table just as Julie walked in the door. So Julie and Grace got to spend some good time together tonight after dinner. I spent the night reading the Sunday Tribune.

I found a few articles in there that were quite interesting. Have any of you heard this new story just now coming out about how Saddam Hussein faked having nuclear weapons (weapons of mass destruction) in order to prevent Iran from invading his country. But what he ended up accomplishing was having us invade instead. It did prevent Iran from invading but he didn't get the complete result he was looking for.