Whats Next!!!

Okay, I will continue to mix in posts about previous but I have to post about the past week.

Last Tuesday night, Josh starting telling me he didn't feel well. Thinking once again this was just his classic headache I gave him some Tylenol and sent him to bed. Wednesday morning we woke up to him throwing up at 5am. He only did it once but then he started complaining his belly hurt. By 9am he couldn't stand up from the pain and so I rushed him in to the doctors office. The minute he got there he shifted into defense mode which is laugh instead of cry and pretend everything is fine. The doctor looked at him, and even though he had the pain and a fever, since he was laughing and seemed to be okay there, sent us home. Later that day he was back to being miserable so we called the doctor and they ordered a blood test. When the results came in at 9pm all the signs were pointing to appendicitis. At this point we had managed to get him to sleep so they told us to wait until morning and bring him in to the office again and they would check him over. At 9am the next morning we were back in the office. By this point Josh had heard that appendicitis meant surgery and was scared so he kept telling the doctor it didn't hurt and he was fine. Wrong. Since he was lying to the doctor and doing his laughing thing again, once again we were sent home with the doctor sure it was a virus. At 3pm I was fed up. My bouncy little boy was laying around miserable. I called the doctor and insisted they order another test. They ordered an ultrasound up at Primary Childrens. We loaded Josh in the car and raced to the hospital. The ultrasound tech was very polite while he did the test and then instead of sending us out told us to wait just a moment. He came back less than a minute later with the radiologist, who then got the doctor on the line, who then got the surgeon on the line. Needless to say, he had appendicitis. They admitted us to the hospital and Josh was freaking out! Luckily my awesome cousin Jeff works with the anesthesiologists and Josh really likes him. He came to get Josh for surgery and held his hand when we couldn't. He was even there for him when we was waking up. Thankfully the surgery went well and it hadn't ruptured. Once he was awake they took us back to the room and all Josh wanted to do was play video games, now that he was feeling better, forget sleep. The nurse and I finally made him take some medicine and go to sleep at 2am. Thankfully he is doing well and recovering quickly! I am so grateful that I listened to that little voice that kept telling me something wasn't right, because I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn't. Also, I don't know if he reads this, but THANK YOU JEFF!

Zachs Play

Zachs Show - photo slideshow

Reflections

I forgot to mention that Joshua entered the Reflections contest at school. The theme was Diversity. He didn't win but had a lot of fun making his art project.

October Pictures

October Fun - photo slideshow

Crazy Month

So, once again good intentions have not kept this blog up to date. I’ll start with Halloween and November as that was an insane month for our family. The week before Halloween was a lot of fun. We had our usual pumpkin carving party with Melody’s family. Josh and Zach both got cute Mr. Potato Head pumpkin sets from Grandma and Grandpa Terry, so they put those together early in the day. Then when everyone came over we had dinner and started carving. Josh had a little help with cleaning out his pumpkin but carved the rest completely by himself. Then Christian and I got very ambitious. I had found some patterns and so Christian carved Dr. Doofenshmirtz, while I carved Phineas, Ferb, and Perry. They turned out pretty cool! The Saturday before Halloween we went to a ward Halloween party which was a lot of fun. They had a Witch come and ready scary stories to the kids. On Halloween I took both kids out trick-or-treating, with my sister and her kids, while Christian stayed home and handed out candy. That ended our October.

November started off fairly harmless. Zach was working really hard getting ready for his school play and things seemed to be going really well. Then about the middle of the month our phone rang and it was Zachs teacher saying he was having a seizure and what did I want them to do. Now, they have mistaken his happy dances for seizures before so after going through a lengthy check-off list I said to give him his meds and jumped in the car. By the time I got to the school the seizure had been going for about 20 minutes. We ended up rushing him to the closest ER when it finally stopped after 40 minutes. By the time we got there his fever was up to104 and the poor kid was miserable. They took him by ambulance up to Primary Childrens Hospital where we spent the next 3 nights. It turns out that his Phenobarb level (his anti-seizure med) was way to low. His dose had to be adjusted and now he is doing much better. He got out of the Hospital on a Friday and spent the weekend recovering at home. The next Wednesday and Thursday were his school play. They put on Beauty and the Beast and he played Phillipe. Grandma Jean made his costume (did you know you can’t buy a horse costume for a large child in the US?) and he looked awesome! He was so proud of himself and did such a great job! The first day, he had a little bit of stage fright for his first scene but got over it and by the end on the last day was mad it was over. Josh even got to miss a couple hours of school to come and see his brother in the play. That Saturday Christian and I went on a date while the boys played at Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s. When we got there to pick him up he told us his stomach hurt. About halfway home he started throwing up (thank heavens for popcorn buckets and empty big gulp cups) and couldn’t stop. After a couple hours of that he couldn’t move he was so sick and had nothing left to throw up but his body kept trying. Christian took him off the ER. It took them so much medicine to get him to stop throwing up that they insisted on sending him by ambulance up to Primary Childrens Hospital. By now it was about 3am so I hurried to the ER just in time to jump into the ambulance and Christian went home to Zach. Turns out he had gastroenteritis. Luckily after giving him a ton of IV meds and letting him sleep for a long time he was able to come home Sunday evening. The next week I started feeling sick with a sore throat and yucky lungs. I went into the doctor and he said it looked like bronchitis and sent me home with antibiotics. Then it was Zachary’s birthday. I couldn’t go to his class, on the off chance I was contagious, so when he got home we took the boys to see the new Muppet movie. It was great but I was feeling awful. When I woke up the next morning I couldn’t speak at all or swallow anything. My Mom called the doctors office for me, since I couldn’t, and they squeezed me in for an afternoon appointment. By the time I got to the doctor a little after 3, I couldn’t even swallow my own spit I was having a hard time breathing. He sent me to the ER (shocked?) to get an x-ray and for some help with pain and monitoring. They got me straight back since the doc had called ahead and it turned out I had an abscess in my throat. It is extremely rare and incredibly dangerous. On top of that, I also had pneumonia. They started me on 4 different IV antibiotics and IV steroids to bring down the swelling, and admitted me to the hospital where I spent the next 4 days. An ENT had to come at least once a day and check it with a scope to make sure it was healing okay. I was released on December 3 and spent the next several days basically taking antibiotics, pain medication, and sleeping. That was our November!

I will post about December, January, and February soon as well as adding some pictures from Halloween and the play!