November: The Rest of the Month
As our last hurrah before the baby came we went to Great Wolf Lodge for a night! This was Carson's first time and we had a blast. Our favorite part is just swimming at the water park all day everyday and that's basically what we did. Carson loved it and was going on all the slides he could, exploring everywhere. Brooks was a little more timid about the bigger slides he could go on and a giant bucket that would dump water on you. He and Carson both loved the little kid slides and went down them together constantly. I loved watching Brooks look out for and help Carson!
Arcade in Pj's because why not!
My phone was awful at taking pictures in the water park so I didn't take any but believe me, we had fun!
When we walked it we ran into one of my friends and her family! What a coincidence! It was so fun to spend time with them and have the kids play together. Some of us adults switched off watching kids so others could go on rides it was wonderful! And her phone took much better pictures than mine haha
This pregnant lady was SO SORE the next day. Walking has been so painful this pregnancy, it feel like my pelvic bone is splitting in two! So obviously going from daily low steps to over 10k steps I was hurting! But secretly hoping this could help put me in labor when I got home. (spoiler alert: it didn't)
Dan has been officiating football again this year and loves it.
36 weeks!
Carson always passing out in the school pickup line
My little buddy!
37 weeks!
Matching Christmas pj's!
38 weeks!
39 weeks
Of course we had Nathan- all that's in another post- and my parents were here to help. Brooks and Carson had an awesome week with them!
Thanksgiving
We had a great low-key Thanksgiving. My parents were here and we knew we were going to have a newborn baby so we planned to make the easier appetizers and dinner ever! For appetizers we had shrimp cocktail, a relish tray, deviled eggs, cranberry salsa with ritz. Dan smoked the turkey and made the mashed potatoes, we had boxed stuffing (honestly my favorite anyway), gravy from a packet, cranberry salsa that I made a week before and froze (it was SO good!), my mom made frozen rhodes rolls, and easy broccoli salad, then for dessert we had Marie Calendar pies - SO EASY and honestly still just as tasty.
The end of our November was very low key with a new baby and I was recovering. We did a lot of playing games, napping, watching movies!
Christmas movies!
Parosmia
The day before Thanksgiving Dan developed Parosmia. We didn't know what was going on, let alone the name at the time. Dan had made waffles for breakfast and later asked me if they tasted ok. I told him they tasted fine and he thought maybe he had just made the buttermilk wrong (lemon + milk) or added too much. Thanksgiving is when Dan knew something was up when he couldn't eat Thanksgiving dinner.
Parosmia is a condition in which smells and tastes are distorted. Normal things taste and smell like sewage, rotting trash, poop, burnt hair or some describe it as smelling like death. It's a long term symptom people get from having covid and people refer to it as covid nose. Dan was fully vaccinated when he had a mild case of covid in September but still lost his sense of smell. He hasn't been able to smell since until Nov 24th and now everything smells/tastes wrong.
Meats, peanut butter, nuts, eggs, salsa, citrus in general, mint, toothpaste, oils, onion, garlic plus more all smell and taste awful. Shampoo, deodorant, perfume/cologne, lotions, soaps all smell disgusting. It was pretty rough in the beginning but we've been able to figure out how to make things work. I've also done a lot of facebook research of what can help and tips/tricks. This is pretty new that a lot of doctors don't have answers.
Cinnamon mints/gum taste fine to him a long with cinnamon toothpaste. Bread, dairy, cereals and most sweets are ok. Pork seems to be ok too. A lot of people see improvement with time and constantly trying foods. Over the last month Dan has seen some improvement! He tries to eat as normally as possible, power through it if he can or use a nose clip to block the smell while he eats.
When it comes to hygiene products we found all of my things didn't smell to him! I used Native which is sulfate-free and there's a theory that the sulfates and nitrates are what make them smell to people with parosmia. So we ordered him some of their things- deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste. Bar soap and unscented lotions are fine!
They say you have to retrain your brain in a way for it 'remember' how to smell things normally. Apparently COVID can damage nerves in the olfactory system, used for distinguishing smells, and the cells can regenerate and heal- it just takes time. This is APPARENTLY what happens, we are obviously no experts.
Our completed thankful turkey
Carson sharing with Nathan
And we ended November decorating for Christmas and dancing to Christmas music, just the way I like it! I can't wait to celebrate Christmas with my family!
Comments
Post a Comment