I {heart} Foto Fly

 

They did SUCH a good job of getting my kids to be comfortable and happy! These were taken in May, after Griff's first 2 surgeries and we were nervous about how he'd be since he had been SO clingy ever since. We scheduled these pictures a couple months in advance though, so I didn't want to keep putting them off. We drove 2 hours from home to get them taken, and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Chapter Three

Apparently I'm writing a novel, so here's chapter 3... Three seems to be a very common number in patterns and other predictable things. Three's company, 3rd time's the charm, bad things come in 3's.  To be honest, after Griffin's second surgery I was sure there had to be a #3 bad thing, but also sure it wasn't going to be him again! I have felt uneasy about Griffin's health since the 2nd hospital stay, but was just starting to move past that a couple of weeks ago as his incision finally closed up and he was looking really healthy. Two weeks ago tonight, we were getting everyone ready for bed and Griffin started complaining that his tummy hurt. I got him dressed and was a little nervous, but sure it was nothing because it would make no sense to have another issue this long after the last time. I watched him get up after saying prayers as he whispered "ohhh" in an agonizing but trying to be tough kind of way. Then I watched him walk to his bed like a little old man walking with a cane- bent over to one side and kind of limping.  I looked at Adam with that look of "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" and he just shook his head and gave me a half smile. We both knew what was coming even though we didn't want to admit that's what we were thinking.  That night he woke up crying and had a temperature of just 100. I wondered if maybe he was just really hot from being bundled in his blankets, but still gave him some Ibuprophen just in case. The next morning his fever was gone, but he was in pain. I had talked with a friend the night before and asked if she could watch my kids if I needed to take him in again and she of course said sure, but also reminded me that surgery scars can hurt long after surgery and maybe it's just a little irritated. I needed that to help me sleep because I was a little paranoid before! So, knowing I had a babysitter on call, I called the surgeon's office the minute they opened at 8:00 and talked to the nurse.  The Dr. was out of town for a week, but she said it sounded like he was probably fine, but to call back if his fever spikes. She also suggested maybe calling our pediatrician if I became concerned. I thought about it for a minute and decided to call the pediatrician's office. Griff had a well child appointment scheduled for the next day anyway, so the nurse suggested just bringing him in to be checked in case and maybe they could get the well child check in if he was otherwise fine. Our pediatrician is an hour south of us because we just love her so much we haven't been able to find anyone local to replace her. It usually works out ok because when we need to go to her office, I can have my mom or Adam's watch the other kids since they live close. They got us scheduled in for 10:30, and I figured worst case scenario, we'd need to stay the night for whatever treatments needed, best case, we'd stay the night so he could have his well child check the next day. So, I hurried super fast and packed one night's worth of stuff for everyone, including Adam, and headed to Ogden. I called my Mother-in-law on the way and asked if she'd meet me and pick up the other boys. We got there right at 10:30 and by then Griffin was hurting pretty bad. He wouldn't let anyone near his belly, and based on his symptoms and history, the Dr. suggested getting a CAT scan done to look for infection. This being the 3rd time around, she suggested we skip the local hospital and go straight to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake to get any testing needed and take care of whatever the problem may be. Adam was unreachable and I needed moral support if Griffin was going to be getting poked and prodded more, so I asked my mom to come with me. I picked her up, dropped a couple things off for the other boys and headed off to the hospital.  Luckily, I got a hold of Adam just in time for him to get there at about the same time as I did. We went into the ER and got check in right away and by then Griffin's fever was up to 102 and he was pretty miserable again. We spent the next 11 hours in the ER running tests and waiting, waiting, waiting.

Every medical person to come in our room suggested that this had to be some other thing causing his problems since he's felt good for 4-5 weeks. They checked for a bladder infection, they checked for a regular virus, they check all kinds of things and then decided to do a CAT scan. It was miserable trying to get him to be still for the CT. I told them they'd need to sedate him, but they really wanted to try "other calming techniques" first. It took an hour and a ton of different medications pumped through his IV to finally calm him down enough to be distractible.
At PCMC they have "Child Life Specialists" that come and visit with the patients and explain what is happening and play a little bit to help comfort them. One of the specialists brought in an iPad with games to keep him busy. They'd work for a minute, then he'd remember he was strapped up in the air to a moving machine and freak out. We finally found one that he liked called "Talking Tom". It's a cat that repeats what you say in a funny voice and you can punch him and knock him over. G thought it was hilarious to punch him, so about 4 of us stood around the  machine cheering "get him! punch him! Harder!" to keep him occupied. After the CT scan the surgeon came in and showed us the image of his belly. There was a huge pocket of infection right behind his incision that apparently had been "brewing" in there for over a month! From the reports he read, the surgeon concluded that his appendix actually HAD ruptured initially and was never fully taken care of.

 We were given 3 treatment options, which the surgeon considered to all be pretty good options. 1. Treat with just antibiotics for as long as needed- possibly a few months. 2. have a radiologist stick a needle in and "suck" the infection out, which could possibly result in needing surgery to finish cleaning it out. 3. Open the incision back up and clean it out and place a couple of drains in there to help it keep draining for a while. To me, the one that sounded most likely to work the best was surgery, and we wanted this to be our last hospital visit for this, so whatever's going to work best is what we wanted! They decided to wait until morning to decide what to do, so they admitted us to the surgical unit.  In the morning we told them that we wanted to do the surgery, so off he went, again, to surgery. My brother had mentioned stopping in for a visit since he worked right by us, so I asked if he'd come and help Adam give Griffin a blessing before the surgery. He got there just in time and I was so grateful for the Priesthood at that moment. The surgeon said he was originally leaning to option #2, but that he really felt like surgery was the answer. It never gets easier sending your baby off to an unknown place with strangers. Before the surgery, the anesthesiologist was telling us the risks and how they have such a low occurrence rate and I just rolled my eyes because so far just about everything we've been through with this has had a low occurrence rate! I told him thanks for the comforting words, but I was still skeptical. It was a long long long hour waiting, but the surgeon came out and showed us pictures of the incision and said it went really well. We were supposed to stay that night and head home on Saturday. They placed a PICC line (internal IV basically that goes up his arm and ends right next to his heart) while he was in surgery so that he can have IV antibiotics at home and any blood draws would come from there as well. On Saturday, we were told that they needed to keep up another day while they run a test on the bacteria to find out if it was the same bacteria and which antibiotics were best. So we stayed another day.

Saturday night they were filming their annual telethon, so they had a big party for everyone at the hospital. Griffin was doing much better and had been up running the halls and talking everyone's ears off, so they came and asked if he'd talk on the TV about being at the hospital. Being that I had only packed 1 day's worth of things for Adam and I and we were kind of grungy looking, we weren't exactly in the mood to be on TV, so we said no thanks! The party was fun, there was tons of food, people dressed as SpongeBob, a mermaid and pirates, there was a fishing game, crafts and face painting. While Griffin was decorating a "wish fish" to put on the wishing wall, they asked if he'd put it on the wall while they did a live shot of the hosts in front of him. It was fun for Deegan to get to see him on TV. Griff got to eat all the treats he wanted- cupcakes, candy, soda! He was in heaven for a little bit! Sunday morning the nurses told us that the bacteria needed another 24 hours to finish the test, so we had to wait until Monday to go home. We were SO ready to go home by Monday! Monday morning they told us that they had set the bacteria up with the "normal set up" of antibiotics to test and they didn't get the results they'd expected so they were going to do it again with a customized set up. Luckily, they sent us home and were going to maybe change his antibiotics after a couple days. They set up a home health nurse to come to our house and show us how to administer his IV meds and help with dressing changes, etc. We've been home a week and 2 days and are starting to adjust. He gets his antibiotics 3 times a day for an hour through a little "water balloon" type thing (and one 5 minute one through a syringe). It's kind of weird playing "nurse", but it's going well. We're still not sure when this will all end, but hoping for sooner rather than later, and really hoping this is the end of the complications- although my optimism is a little damaged this time around. Whatever, as they say, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". I think Griffin will be a tough kid growing up!

Being silly, killing time while he was hooked up for antibiotics

Walking the halls- too anxious to wait for mom and dad!

I think they hand picked this room just for Griffin to be able to watch tower cranes and construction workers all day!

Ready to go HOME!!

 

 

We've been watching WAY more movies than we should be, but when he has to sit with tubes hanging out his arm at 1 in the afternoon, what better way to do it than in front of the TV? Plus, he has a dose at 9 pm and 5 am which means not a lot of sleep for me, so I need a little down time in the middle of the day!

"Take a picture of my band aid mom"

 

Chillin'

Double Jinxed

" While it's not over yet, so I shouldn't probably jinx myself again, things have worked out just fine and we are still loving life!"- Me, in my last blog post...

I've decided to keep my mouth shut about how great or not great my life is and just stick to the facts because apparently the Lord has a good sense of humor (and knows I do too I guess) about my "bragging" about my good life. The Thursday after Griffin's surgery (4 days later), he woke up with a fever of 102. I gave him his pain meds and that brought it down to around 99 where it stayed the rest of the morning and afternoon. He was different though. It almost like he had the same pain as before his surgery again. He had been up and running around on Wednesday, but Thursday he could hardly move. He cried a lot. I thought he may have been in more pain because Adam and I removed his original bandage Wednesday night for the first time since the surgery. I waited until afternoon and he was just acting miserable, so at the last minute I called Kelly Stack (Amanda's mom) and asked if she could go with me to the dr. if they could see him today. I knew he wouldn't be able to sit in his car seat, so I couldn't drive him there without someone to hold him. She agreed, so I called the dr. and they said to bring him in. We got there and by the time we were there he was pretty much lethargic and sweating pretty bad. His temp was up a little but not much- I think around 100. The dr. looked at his belly and said it looked a little inflamed, but not that bad so he may need some oral antibiotics. He decided to check Griff's white blood cell count just in case, but like has been the constant in all of this, he was skeptical that anything was that wrong.  After a torturous blood draw, the dr. came back to tell me that his white cell count was back up to where it was pre-surgery. He sent us straight to the hospital to be admitted directly to the pediatric unit again and prepare for surgery #2. He said it was probably just some infection in the incision site and it would be simple to wash it out. Luckily at this point, Adam was almost home from work, so I made arrangements for Deegan to stay a little longer with my sweet neighbor Briana until Kelly could pick him up and take him and Ritter to her house for the night. Kelly and I headed to the hospital with Griff and Ritter and got checked back in and hooked up to all the monitors and IV. That was about where my emotions from the whole week broke through the barrier! One surgery I could deal with, but that much pain and trauma for an almost 3 yr old in one week is too much! Adam and Amanda's dad (Harold) met us at the hospital just in time to give him a blessing and send him back to surgery. It was a LONG LONG hour waiting. Much longer this time! When they brought him back to his room he was still sleeping. The nurses said everything went well and they took out about a tablespoon of pus just inside his incision and he should be good by the next day to go home. The next morning (at 4 am!) the lab guy came and drew more blood to check his white cell count. It had only dropped from 27000 to 26000, which was not a good sign. My mom came and picked up Deegan and Ritter and took them to her house for the day before sending Deeg to Adam's parents for the night and Ritter to my sister's for the night. Deegan had a dress rehearsal for his play Saturday morning, so the Powell's were going to bring him back up here for that. My sister's kids were at their dads, so she volunteered to be the one staying up all night with a baby who wants his mom! (From what I hear, it was a rough night!)

They kept us through that day and monitored his fever which spiked once or twice, but not too high and not for long. He was pretty miserable that day. He hated seeing any medical personnel come near his room, he hated all of the poking and prodding and the IV and oxygen monitor. I think he was more aware of what was happening this time around and so he knew to be scared and sad. By Friday night, things still weren't looking any better, so the dr. said that we'd stay through the night and check his white cell count again in the morning. If it hadn't improved enough then we'd do a CT scan to see what else was going on inside his tiny little body. They next morning (4am again) the lab guy came and drew his blood again. When the surgeon came through later in the morning, he told us that the white cell count had dropped to about 17000 which is right at the high end of normal. They sent us home with oral antibiotics and hopes to never see them again! At his follow up appointment the next Tuesday, the surgeon said everything was looking good and we could just go on with our normal lives now! His incision is still closing, and it's still painful for him, but so far, we've stayed on the "steady improvement" path, so hopefully we are almost done with this ordeal!

He's been extra tired since all of this, and a few days ago I was cleaning up the kitchen before lunch and he was playing in the kitchen. He hid under his blanket and within seconds was asleep! The next day he fell asleep at the front door waiting for me to find Ritter's shoes before Deegan's play practice.

Jinxed

Last Saturday morning I posted this on Facebook:
"Sometimes when my life is as happy as it is, I worry that something big is going to happen to throw off our balance, but for now I'm just loving my life!"

Life has been so good! We occasionally have a bump or 2 but things work out so well that I can't possibly think the Lord hasn't had his hands in everything all along!

Last October Adam left the company he'd been with for 5 years (company A) for another job that we knew was probably only temporary but also had a lot of potential if it ended up not being temporary (company B). He was supposed to be laid off by the end of December and wasn't until the first week of March. It was fine since we knew to expect it and he made arrangements to go back to company A and got a raise to do so. After just a few days at company A, company B wanted him back. They had had to lay off basically everyone (with the exception of a few key staff to keep things going), but really wanted to work something out for him to come back. It took 3 weeks for them to work it out, but now he is back and happy as can be to be staying with company B! Small bump in the road, but no biggy! That is about the extent of the drama in our lives until Saturday. Life just sails on so smoothly that I worry when the big storm will hit!

Friday night Griffin woke up in the middle of the night HYSTERICAL, looking for his sticker that he had gotten from the library the day before. Since he was not real excited about the sticker when he got it, I knew he was probably not feeling well when he was so upset about it. He woke up 3 times that night looking for that dang sticker, and one of the times he mentioned that his tummy hurt. He's never really told me that his tummy hurts before, so I didn't think much of it other than it was a little odd.  Saturday he woke up and was happy as a clam and played for the morning until something upset him just before lunch time. He wanted his blanket (as he always does when he gets upset), and I was just pulling it out of the washer to dry it. He was NOT happy. I held him for a minute while we let it half dry- enough to get it out and let it air dry while he cuddled. He told me again that his tummy hurt, and kept crying. Nothing I did made him feel better, so I started feeling his belly to see what the problem was. Since I'm not a doctor, I had no idea what I was feeling for, so I assumed he just ate something that wasn't sitting right. After an hour or 2 of him crying on and off and it seeming to be worse as time went on, I called the on call nurse. He had no fever, no vomiting, etc., so she said it was probably just a gas bubble that was causing him pain and to call back if he started getting a fever. I worried, but common sense said he was fine and just needed to wait it out. After poking around more I found that it only hurt him on the right side, which I always immediately associate with Appendicitis, but still no fever. He ended up falling asleep around 5 and woke up just as we were putting Deegan to bed, so we let him stay up with us watching movies in our bed. It was a LONG night of wrestling him wanting to be held and Ritter wanting to nurse and 4 in a bed. His temp did get up to about 100 that night, but I figured maybe he was just really hot  from being snuggled in blankets when I took his temperature, so I didn't trust it too much. Sunday morning, Adam was getting ready to go to the store to get some Sprite and I was just cuddling with Griff. I had a really nervous feeling about him leaving, but couldn't pin point it. I kept trying to figure out why I didn't want him to leave for the couple minutes he was going to be gone and it finally occurred to me that we probably need to take Griff to be checked just in case. He had no other symptoms. His fever was gone- he was just tired and hurting. I told Adam I should probably take him and he agreed. He was going to stay with the other boys, but then I thought "if they have to draw blood or anything like that, I may need moral support". I felt kind of silly calling a babysitter because I was sure they were going to send us home and say he just had a cramp or something that needed to work itself out. My darling Amanda, who has been our go to babysitter for almost 5 years now, came over and took such good care of Deeg and Ritter and even got them ready for church and took them to Sacrament meeting! (We kinda love her!). Adam and I headed to the ER and drove past Instacare and decided to just stop there instead. After the Dr. came in and examined for a minute (Griff was pretty un-cooperative), she said "Well, I've never seen Appendicitis this young, but it's possible and it sounds an aweful lot like that's what it is or maybe a twisted intestine." She sent us to the ER to get an ultrasound and maybe some blood work to be sure, but we were all still skeptical. Griffin kept saying all this time that Deegan bumped into him. I was pretty sure that wasn't the case, but thought maybe it was a small possibility. At the ER, the nurses and Dr. were also skeptical. The Dr. even promised Griff a popsicle when he finished looking at his tummy. They sent us to radiology for the US and he just wouldn't stop crying because it hurt so bad to touch his belly or even to move. We ended up going back to the ER to hook him up to an IV and get some narcotics in him to calm him down and ease his pain. It was really difficult getting the IV in and Adam and I were almost in tears watching him fight and cry so hard. He's not even 3! Anyway, 30 minutes later, back to the US we went, then back to our ER to wait. Shortly after, the Dr. came in and said "well, guys, I really didn't expect this, but it looks like he needs to have his appendix out. It looks pretty nasty and probably will rupture soon if it hasn't already". Apparently the US can't tell if it's ruptured or not, so we had to wait until he was opened up to know for sure. An hour later the OR was prepped and they were ready to get him back. We made arrangements for Adam's parents to come get the other boys and our home-teacher, Orrin, came up to help Adam give Griff a blessing to get him through. They wheeled Griff and I back to a hallway in the OR (Adam came too-just walked) and we waited for the rest of the team to assemble. When they were ready, they had me stand up and I thought we were going to just get Griff situated so they could put him on a bed or something to take him back, but the surgical nurse grabbed Griff and turned to walk away as another nurse told us where to wait. I was a little caught off guard, and it  really sucked watching and listening to my baby be carried off to an unknown place and not being able to go with! Adam and I waited and watched the clock anxiously. It took a little over an hour from when they took him to when we met him in his recovery room. When he got up there he wanted 2 things- me and his wheelchair. Everything went great, the appendix hadn't ruptured yet, but was very close they said- within 24 hours or less. He and I sat in the wheelchair for a few hours until I finally convinced him to sit with me in the bed instead.

We spent Sunday night and half of Monday at the hospital. They said he had to be able to walk before we could leave, so we took lots of walks outside his room, but most of them he sat in my lap in a wheelchair. He's up and moving a little bit today, but still struggles to climb on beds, sit up from laying down and bend over. We've watched WAY too much TV and he has loved eating anything his little heart desires- Apple juice, unlimited popsicles, suckers, cookies and brownies and pudding.

We had an overwhelming amount of love sent our way from friends, family and ward members. I even had to "break up" a fight over who was bringing us dinner! We have an amazing neighborhood and ward at church. Life is good, as long as I keep up with Griffin's pain medications! He is still telling me that it's Deegan's fault because he bumped into him though!

 While it's not over yet, so I shouldn't probably jinx myself again, things have worked out just fine and we are still loving life!

Christmas Simplified

We had a new kind of Christmas this year. We simplified and spent most of the holiday season at home with just Adam, myself and the kids (as opposed to spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day at our parents' houses and going to all kinds of parties). It was a lot of fun, but I did miss some of the traditions we've had since I was young and the time with my siblings/parents. In keeping with the simplicity, here are a bunch of caption-less pictures of our holiday season. Simply put, I love my family and I love my Savior.

 

Finishing out 2012

It's been a busy couple of months with the holidays and Adam and I both working extra hours. Adam is really enjoying his new(ish) job and they've been keeping super busy, but we've missed having him around when he has to work 6 day weeks. My work has been a little more busy this time of year as well as the company has just merged with another and taken on more work and people taking off for the holidays. I still only work part time in the early mornings, but the last few weeks it's been more like 5 hours/day than 3. It's amazing to me how much just an extra couple of hours can take over a whole day with the kids!! Anyway, now that Christmas is over maybe things will start to slow down and we can get back to enjoying our free time!

 

Here are a few things we've been doing leading up to Christmas (that's a whole other post of it's own!)

 

We decided to join the masses in the "Elf on the Shelf" tradition, and I have to say I was a little bored with it after the 2nd day. It was nice to have something for the kids to do when they got up so they weren't hanging on me while I finished working, but I got tired of trying to come up with things for him to do and most nights I forgot to move him so I had to hurry in the morning before they boys were awake. We planned on doing fun mischievous things, like most of the things I see on Pinterest, but then it occurred to me that having this elf to make sure the kids are being good while he was being naughty didn't seem like the best plan! He spent the majority of December just sitting on shelves or other objects around the house.

 

We had a Gingerbread house making/Christmas movie night and watched Elf. Elf was the boys' favorite movie this year. Deegan loved the part when Buddy says "He's an angry elf!" and Griffin's favorite part was the elf saying "Little Buddy Diapers"- and they would quote them all the time!

 

Ritter figured out how to get out of "tummy time"- and his pants.

 

I convinced Adam to let me put the tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving ;-)

Ritter loved sleeping to the sound of the train.

He finally fit in the Bumbo! I LOVE the Bumbo, especially for Colicy, reflux babies that refuse to lay down! (I know it says not to put your kid on the counter, but I only put him there when I can watch closely)

 

Deegan and Griffin were both in love with the train!

 

Deegan played Santa a lot

 

Ritter gained exactly .5 oz/day for his first 3 months (which is on the low side of average, but still acceptable!!)

 

My mom bought this super cute outfit...

 

And the other boys had to have hats too!

 

In early November, Ritter's colic was all but gone and we had a relatively happy baby for about 3 weeks! It was HEAVEN!  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Adam ended up staying late at work and Ritter chose that day to bring the Colic back! He cried from 5:30 that evening until 11:00. Adam was gone until almost 10 and I was on the verge of killing some children! (Not really, but my tolerance was very low!)  From that night on, Ritter has cried increasingly every day. I decided to pull out all the stops and try anything and everything suggested to me. We tried the Chiropractor and the allergy spray he prescribed, probiotics, me going milk free, feeding him formula, increasing his reflux medicine dosage, tummy soother, gripe water, gas drops and finally essential oils (as well as different positioning and sleeping techniques). NO LUCK! So I finally made an appointment with the pediatrician last Friday. When I took him in of course he was happier than ever and laughing and smiling at her. She felt his belly and said she couldn't see anything that could be causing him to be crying like he is (2-4 hours at a time, 2-3 times a day). Then she looked at his head and was concerned. She said something about the way the ridges are separating and that his head is growing really fast. She didn't tell me the measurements, but pointed to the chart and he's close to being off the charts on head measurements. I told her that my other boys' head grew fast like that too and that they had big heads when they were babies (Griffin still does!), but she was still concerned that maybe he had some fluid causing pressure on his brain. So, we headed over to the hospital to get an ultrasound done on his head and some lab work to check for any other inflammations or problems. While I was there, Adam texted me to tell me that Griffin's mouth, which he had smacked pretty hard 2 days prior on the side of a bed, was hurting him pretty bad and maybe it needed to be looked it. I told him we were at the hospital for an ultrasound and he said "Great, what's Deegan going to do to even this out?". Deegan woke up that night with a stomach bug and was sick for the next 2 days! Luckily, Ritter's tests all came back normal and my mom looked at Griff's tooth and said it would be fine. Now we just have to figure out how to deal with all this crying and avoid Ritter's head getting flat like Griffin's did from sleeping in his car seat and his head growing so fast.

 

Deegan taking pictures of himself while he was sick.

Ritter FINALLY happy.

 Griffin's fat lip.