New dresser

36+ weeks

36 week appointment today - 36 weeks 4 days.  (Got the Strep B swab done today.)  Baby is still moving like crazy.  (He thinks it's fun to kick me in the ribs.)  Heartbeat sounds great.  Swelling in my legs and feet, but nothing concerning.  Blood pressure is good, and my stomach is measuring right on.

Dr. Blackett thinks he'll be in the 8 lb. range when he's born.  I'm dilated to a 1 and 20% effaced, but my cervix is still very posterior, so he'll be in there a few more weeks for sure.  Won't have to have an internal check next week, though, because I'm always late and progress very slowly through labor.  Unless I have a lot of contractions this week.

Still feel like I have a lot to do to get ready for him.  I've been sorting through clothes this week (not just baby clothes - ALL kid clothes), and got the newborn and 0-3 month clothes washed today.  Still have to go through and sort/DI/throw away 6-9, 12 month, 18 month, & 2T clothes until I'm done.

Then, I want the walls washed, the window sills washed, the computer desk moved to the front room, so I can finish his room.  Baby blankets to still make (one for me, a quilt for his crib, one for my good friend Kim Hawkes, and two for a sister in the ward that is expecting twins.)  *phew*  Hoping to get it all done within the next two weeks, though.  Wish me luck!  (And, if anybody wants to come help . . .)  :D

6 weeks of misery and Connor's surgery (VERY long)

Evening of Oct. 31 (Halloween) and morning of Nov. 1, 2012

We had a great time celebrating Halloween this year.  Participated in our wards trunk-or-treat, then headed out to Grandma Shaffer's to do some trick-or-treating.  Came home and put the kids to bed.  Around 11:00, Bear woke up screaming and crying.  We couldn't figure out what was wrong until we looked in his mouth and found his tongue so swollen he could hardly breathe.  Yikes!

We gave him some Benadryl and sat with him until he was able to breathe and sleep again.  This is what started the misery of the following six weeks.  Since this does cover six weeks of yuckiness, and I kept it fairly well updated on facebook, I'm just going to copy and paste the happenings from my facebook page rather than try to remember everything that happened.  That night was also the night that started a horrible sleep schedule for Bear, resulting in several months worth of a sleep-deprived Mom & Bear.

(Six weeks of updates also means that this post is going to be VERY long!  If you kept up with everything on facebook, you can just skip to the part about the actual surgery.)

November 1, 2012

My poor little Bear is so sick today.  Awful sore throat (so bad that he won't swallow), a bit of a fever, and red, tired, sick eyes.  And, he hasn't hardly spoken above a whisper all day long.  Poor guy.

November 5, 2012

Have an appt. for a Bear in a few minutes - nurse is thinking strep.  *sigh*  Part of me wants the answer to be yes it is, and part of me wants it to be no.  At least if it's yes, they'll get him some med's and he can be getting better.  I'm getting quite tired (physically) of waking up with him every night for a couple of hours to help him breathe.  Wish us luck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that evening after our dr.'s appt.

Can I just say how much I LOVE the pharmacy at Smith's Marketplace?  Especially the pharmacists (and especially Sam - I've dealt with Sam several times and have always been so impressed with him).

How many other pharmacists would actually walk out into the store with you, spending 5 - 10 minutes looking over various medicines just to find the medicine that is best going to help your little bug sleep (coughing so hard at night he throws up)?  Then, takes the medicine back with him to find the correct dosage and writes it out for you?

That's what I thought.

(For the record, he was NOT diagnosed with strep - the swab came back negative.  Instead, he was diagnosed with the coxsackie virus - in the same family as hand, foot, and mouth.  He had white blisters all over the back of his throat, and was told it was just a virus and to let us run its course.  We were prescribed Dexamethasone for him - which is a steroid - and just some OTC cough medicine.  I didn't like the idea of giving him a steriod, so we didn't end up doing that.  We were also going on 5 days of up every two hours at night trying to help him breathe.)

November 11, 2012

No church for us again.  *sigh*  :(  Poor Bear has a big blister on one of his tonsils, and his tonsils are HUGE.  Still isn't sleeping well at night because he can't breathe.  They say this virus he has is supposed to run its course in 4 - 7 days . . .  We've been going on 11.  I think there's something else going on.

November 12, 2012 - Connor's 3rd birthday

Update on a Bear: Tonsils are HUGE and swollen, and his eyes are red with the "sick" look.  His tonsils will more than likely have to come out, but the dr. wants to rule out a bacterial infection before they go cut into them.  So, he has ordered blood tests for Bear to check for virus vs. becteria, and to make sure it's nothing more serious.  Going to get his blood drawn this afternoon after his nap.  Heck of a way to spend a birthday.

(The dr. did ANOTHER strep swab, and 24 hour strep test on him - AGAIN they came back negative.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update after his blood draw:

He didn't flinch.  He didn't cry.  He didn't fight.  He didn't struggle.  He didn't even make a sound when they poked him for his blood draw.  He just sat there and watched.  Hoping for results within a couple of days.  (Does this give you an idea of how sick he is?)

November 13, 2012

 

(I posted this video on facebook.  So scary listening to this every night.  We could have used the steroids, but I opted not to, and after going back to the dr., he was glad we hadn't used them.  Apparently, they can give some of the blood tests a false reading, so he was glad we hadn't used them.)

November 14, 2012

So . . .  Bear didn't get up once last night!  Since Brandon went to help out at the elementary school this morning, he got the boys up and ready so Bear & I could sleep in.  I slept until almost 9:00, and Bear slept in until 9:30!  Now it's off to Scott's hand dr. to find out what's next to fix his hand.  Wish us luck!

November 15, 2012

Still no test results back on the Bear yet.  Grr.  ON a good note, though, he slept through the night for the second night in a row.

(Some of the tests had to be sent down to a lab in Salt Lake, so we didn't get the results as soon as expected.  I called the dr.'s office several times, annoyed the nurses to no end, cried and ranted at them, and finally got the dr. to call and get the test results.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally got test results back - his strep test was slightly elevated.  Which means he's probably got strep, and he's probably been fighting it since all of this began.  Why the first two tests didn't catch it, I have no idea.  Hoping that with some antibiotics he'll start feeling better and breathing better.  Still going to get his tonsils out, though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once the antibiotics kicked in, he did great!!  He was happy for two weeks, although he still had trouble breathing at night.  Once he finished the round of medication, it all came back with a vengeance.

November 27, 2012

10:00 in the morning, and Bear's asleep!  He was up several times last night - again.  If I wasn't holding his hand or touching him somehow, he was up complaining.  *sigh*

December 2, 2012

Bear is sick - again.  Tonsils are huge (completely blocking the right side of his airway), white spots on his tonsils, hoarse voice and difficulty breathing at night.  Stopped breathing the other night and woke up gasping for breath.  (Scared me to death - I made him sleep in my room that night - and from then on - just so I could hear him breathe.)

I'm calling the surgeon first thing in the morning to see if we can somehow push his surgery closer, or at the very least, get him on a standby list.  Please pray for us!  Pray that something will open up - soon - and we can get him well.  It doesn't do a mommy good to listen to her baby struggle to breathe.

(We had met with an ENT, Dr. James Blotter, in the middle of November, and after examining Connor, determined that he did need to have his tonsils out.  Said he'd be just fine and that we didn't need to rush it.  So, the soonest they could schedule us was for January 21, 2013.)

December 3, 2012

Went to the dr. this afternoon . . .  Swabbed his throat for a strep test and the swabs came out bloody.  White streaks, red, swollen, full of pus, not sleeping at night, etc . . .  (The dr. (Russell McKenna) suggested that I call the ENT and see if we can push the surgery date up.  I refused, and told him that he had to call and push it forward.)  There's a call into the ENT right now to see if we can arrange something with them and the hospital before the 19th of this month.  Hoping and praying that we can get in quickly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, update . . .  Got the office manager at the ENT's office on the phone, and between working with the hospital and the dr. we're pretty sure she has managed to fit us in for surgery on the 10th.  Yes, in a week!  She said if we don't hear from her, to know that she got us scheduled, otherwise she'd call us back.  So far, we haven't heard from her!  Yeah!

(And, we never did, so his surgery was officially scheduled for the 10th of December.)

December 10, 2012 - surgery

So, the morning of the 10th, we woke up bright and early and headed to the hospital.  We had to be there by 6:30 in the morning, so we were headed out the door a little after 6:00.  He was happy, though, and in really good spirits considering how he felt.  Don't believe me?  Check out the following pictures:

Kind of sleepy, still, but . . .

. . . waking up quickly!

As mischievous as ever!

Sure love this little boy.

A Mommy & Me picture before he heads off

Brandon got the other boys off to school, and then headed up to join us at the hospital.  It was only a 45 minute surgery, but I was nervous the whole time.  Here's what I posted on facebook:

He's done.  Dr. came in and was amazed at the size of the tonsils he took out.  "There was NO daylight in there."  (Something we were already very much aware of.

He had thick, glue like liquid in his ears, too, so he put tubes in while he was working.  Just waiting for the Bear to wake up and be brought back to his room.  Getting antsy to see him and hold my babe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was finally brought back, and I climbed into bed with him to hold him and cry.  (6 weeks of very bad sleep, pregnant, and stressed - I was a little emotional.)  His oxygen levels kept dropping, so the nurses eventually just put the mask right in his face and had me hold it there to get his levels up.  Once he was able to keep his levels up without help, they gave him a popsicle, and a sippy cup with some apple juice in it.  He sucked on those for a while, and then they had us get him up and walk around.  He got to walk out into the hallway and choose a prize from the treasure chest.

Hmm . . . what should I get?

I think I'll choose a ring!

The next two weeks were rough.  He had a really hard time taking his medicine because it would sting the back of his throat.  And, he didn't want to eat or drink anything because his throat hurt so bad.  It felt like the Lortab was wearing off sooner than it should have, so we consulted a pharmacist and the on-call doctor, and he gave us a different dose to try for a bit.  That seemed to help, but he still struggled.  Breathing was still difficult at night since his airway and throat were bruised and scabbed up, but when the scabs finally fell off a couple of weeks later, it was amazing to listen to him.  I had to go in and check on him several times to make sure he was breathing because I couldn't hear him.

In the middle of his recovery, we had two other kiddos get sick with a stomach flu.  G threw up several times, and B was just sick to his stomach.  I quarantined them to the basement so that they wouldn't "share" with Bear.  Last thing he needed was to be throwing up with his throat feeling the way it did.  He never did get the stomach bug, and as soon as the other two were over it, I took clorox wipes to the entire house.

By Christmas, he was golden, and I was so grateful that he was able to breathe at night again.  We still struggled for several months after this to get him to sleep in his own room and not wake up multiple times at night, but knowing he could breathe . . .  priceless.

It was a very rough couple of months for us, and I was beyond discouraged, but we had so many thoughts, and prayers from our family and friends . . .  That made it a little easier.  So, thank you to all of you for helping us through it!

Gavin's surgery

So, back in June of 2012, Brandon & I were bathing Gavin & Connor (late Saturday night, we threw them in together and washed them as quickly as we could), when I looked up and saw a funny lump in Gavin's groin area.  I asked Brandon if that was normal, and after looking and poking a bit, we decided that he had a hernia.

So, we got a recommendation for a dr. from a friend, (Dr. David Harker) and scheduled an appointment with him.  The hernia wasn't bothering Gavin as far as being painful.  It was more sensitive to the touch than actually hurting.  So, we talked to the dr. and asked if we could just wait until September when our new insurance plan rolled around.  (We knew that Scottie would be having surgery, and wanted to have G's surgery during the same insurance period.)

Dr. Harker said that as long as it wasn't hurting him, we could wait if we wanted.  He said there would be a chance that something could happen, and he could all of a sudden be in a ton of pain, and if that happened, to give him a call, and he'd get us in ASAP.  So, we shook his hand, held our breath, and waited until September.

September came with no incidents as far as the hernia.  We scheduled an appointment with Dr. Harker for him to take another look at the hernia and schedule a surgery date.  We scheduled the appointment for Friday, the 21st of September.  We asked Toady the night before if he wanted me or Brandon to go up to the hospital with him, and he chose his dad.

The next morning, Toady & Dad got up early and headed to the hospital.  While I stayed home to get the other boys off to school, and drop a Bear off at my sister-in-law's house.  And, can I just say, I was such a nervous wreck!  I don't think we'll let the kids have the choice again - I'll always be the one to go up to the hospital with them.

Brandon texted me several times to let me know that they'd been checked in, changed, met with the dr. and that he was headed into surgery.  It wasn't a long surgery, and I was worried that I wasn't going to get to his room before he was finished with the surgery, but I got to the hospital and to his room about ten minutes before he was brought back.  The dr. had already come in and talked with Brandon and said that all went well.  When he was brought into his room, I immediately climbed into bed with him and just held him.  I might have even cried a little.

Watching a movie while he wakes up

Laying with a Mom!  :)

The nurses brought in a movie for us while he woke up fully from surgery, and then asked him to get up and walk around before they'd let us go home.  He was really nervous about walking because he knew it would hurt and that he'd be dizzy, but we talked him into getting out of bed and walking around for a bit.  Once he did that, our nurse brought in the prize chest, let us change him, and go home.

He ended up choosing a sticky hand/frog/crab something, and was most disappointed when it broke later that day.  He kept asking us to take him back up to the hospital to exchange it for a new one.  :(

He rested on the couch with an ice pack on his incision site for most of the rest of the day, while we kept him dosed up on his Lortab.  His mood was great, and he acted almost like his normal self

Doesn't look like he had surgery at all, does it?

Whatcha' lookin' at, Mom?

He ended up going to bed at 8:00 that night, completely exhausted.  Brandon stayed up and gave him his medicine at midnight so that I could go to bed at 10:00 with a Bear.  (During the past several months, Connor has had a really hard time with sleeping at night.  He would get up multiple times at night - like every two hours - so nights were rough for us.)  I got up at 3:00 in the morning to give him his Lortab, and he hopped right out of bed to take it, and then slept soundly until the morning.

The next day, Saturday, we kept him on Ibuprofen all day instead of the Lortab, and he did great.  Dr. Harker said to just let him choose the pace.  Unlike adults, if a child does something that hurts, they'll stop doing it.  He was gently jumping on the trampoline that afternoon, and was pretty much back to his normal self by Monday.  He came home from school a bit tired, but overall was feeling pretty good.

The bandage took about a week or two to fall off, and we'd clip the tape every so often when it would pull away from his skin.  But, everything healed well, and he now has a scar that he's proud of that is quite similar to Scottie's.  Grateful for current medicine that allows us to do things like this!

The real surgery . . .

So, we waited another month after our canceled surgery to go in for the real surgery - March 6, 2013.  The time was the exact same as before, so we planned to get there just after 12:00, with the surgery scheduled for 1:45.  Everything went smoothly this time.  We checked in, the nurse came and got us and took us back to a room for the pre-op exam.  (And, can I just say, ALL of the nurses who talked with us before the actual surgery had such thick accents that it was really hard to understand them.  Gah!)  Anyway, they took his blood pressure, weight, temp, etc . . . had him change into his surgery jammies, and then sent in Dr. Hutchinson.  He's told us to feel free to call him Hutch since his name is a bit of a tongue twister.

Getting his blood pressure taken

 

Cute surgery jammies . . .

 

 

. . . and making funny faces at mom!

 

Dr. Hutchinson drawing on Scott's hand to show him what would happen

So, Hutch came in, shook hands, fist bumped Scott, talked for a minute, and then got down to business.  He told Scott what was going to happen, marked his hand so the correct hand would go under the knife, asked if we had any questions, and interspersed all of that with some poking and tickling of the Scottie bug, and just having fun with him.  (I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again - we LOVE Dr. Hutchinson.  He's friendly, he gets kids, he's awesome to work with, and he knows his stuff.)  After he was done with the exam, he told us he'd see us in a little over an hour and then left to go prep.

We packed up all our stuff and went to the waiting room where I settled in a nice comfy rocker to read a book and Brandon & Scott played some Mario Kart Wii.  (For the record, Scott won every time!)  They played, I read, we contemplated what the weird sound was going through the vents, and then it was time to go.

Playing Mario Kart Wii with the Dad

"I'm gonna beat you, Dad!"

I was expecting them to give him some Versed, but the nurse came and got him, said we could walk to the line with them, and then she'd walk him back to surgery.  On the walk, she asked Scottie what flavor of smell he'd like to fall asleep to.  I think he decided on strawberry something.  Lemonade, maybe?  Anyway, we got to the line, he hugged us goodbye, and off they walked.  And I cried a bit.  This was around 2:30 pm.

We were told that the surgery would last about two hours, so Brandon & I headed off down to the surgery family waiting room.  We read, we played some games on the iPad/iPod, we read some more, we ate some snacks that were provided, I wandered because I was uncomfortable . . .  There were a few times where I was tempted just to lay down on the floor because I was so uncomfortable.  But, that thought didn't make me happy, so I didn't.  The chairs in the waiting room are okay, but fairly small.  I managed to wedge myself into one of the longer ones, though, so I could at least lay my head down.

About halfway through the surgery, they called the waiting room to update us on Scott.  I was in the bathroom, so Brandon took the call.  They said that all was going well, but to plan on it taking about 20 minutes longer than first expected.  If it was much longer than that, they'd give us a call.  So, we figured he'd be out of surgery by 5:00 at the latest.

And, then, 5:30 came.  I was starting to get a bit nervous because we hadn't heard anything, when we finally got the call that one of us could go down and sit with him in post-op.  So, I grabbed my water bottle and my book, and headed down.  Hutch met me on the way, so I turned around and headed back to the waiting room so we could talk with him about the results of the surgery.

(He did what is called an osteotomy.  Here's a def. from widipedia: An osteotomy is a surgical operation whereby a bone is cut to shorten, lengthen, or change its alignment . . . or to straighten a bone that has healed crookedly following a fracture.)

So, he cut open the finger, destroyed the rest of the growth plate, and then cut the bone to straighten it up.  He took a bone graft out of his hip and inserted that bone graft into the left side of his finger to help straighten it out.  He then cut the skin between his second and third finger to give his fingers more movement.  Once it was all straightened like Hutch wanted, he put one pin on either side of his middle finger to hold everything in place.  Trimmed the pins down, and wrapped his hand up.  (I'm sure it was much more complicated than my description during the actual surgery!)

Hutch was quite please with the outcome, told us to come back in five weeks, then said goodbye.  So, I headed down to see my Scottie.  I sat in post-op with him for about 20 minutes feeding him ice chips while his oxygen regulated, and he woke up a bit more.  Then, we were moved to a recovery room where Brandon was able to join us.  Poor Scott was so cold.  He had about ten warmed blankets piled on top of him.  After a while, he was able to eat some slushie, and drink some water.

 SO cold.  "Can I have another blanket?"

Even still, he was feeling a bit nauseous and dizzy, so after a couple of hours in the recovery room, the nurses decided to give him some anti-nauseous med's.  Five minutes later, he sat up in bed gasping, and crying saying that he was so hot and that he felt like his body was all of a sudden 1,000 degrees.  He moaned and cried, and moved around while I kept the throw-up bucket in front of his face.  After about ten minutes, the medication kicked in, the side effects left, and he felt better.  We let him sit for another 20 - 30 minutes, then he got out of bed and Brandon helped him to the bathroom.  At that point, we were pretty much cleared to go.

 

A good shot of what his hand looked like for the next 5 weeks

The nurses gave us the discharge instructions, while Brandon went down to the pharmacy to pick up Scott's prescription pain med's.  It was then I found out that they had prescribed pills for him instead of liquid.  He can't swallow pills (although, he's figured out how to swallow an Ibuprofen pretty well since then), so we asked if they could switch to a liquid.  They had to call the on-call dr. to get it switched.  We were pushing it pretty close since the pharmacy closed at 8:00, and it was about 7:50 when this all happened.  Yikes!

 

All ready to go - and even smiling!

Anyway, while that all happened, I helped Scott change back into his jammies, then we waited for Brandon to come back up.  Once he was there, we gathered up our stuff, they wheeled a chair over for Scottie, and they escorted us to the front door.  We left the hospital around 8:45 that night, and made it home after 11:00.  LONG day.

Scott ended up sleeping on the couch bed for the next several nights since he couldn't climb into the top bunk of his bed.  We sent him back to school on Monday (surgery was on Wednesday), where he said he'd had a hard time.  It was hard to keep his hand protected and walk with his hip hurting and so many kids bumping into him.  He felt a little better on Tuesday, so he went to school again, came home and rested, and then headed to Young Men's that night.  By the time he came home, he was as white as a ghost, and couldn't even walk down the stairs.  He was in pain, dizzy, and he kept saying that it felt like his hand was on fire.

We kept him home the next two days to recover some more and sent him to school on Friday.  He was walking a little better, and felt pretty okay.  He rested over the weekend and went back to school on Monday.  But he kept coming home saying that it felt like his hand was on fire, and that his arm and hand just itched.  Tuesday night, he spiked a bit of a fever, and just seemed really restless.

I kept him home on Wednesday, and after I took the boys to school, Scott curled up on the couch and took a four hour nap.  He NEVER does that, so I was scared by this point.  I set up an appointment with his pediatrician for that afternoon, but when Scott woke up from his nap, and ate something he was golden.  Bouncing and running around with Connor, happy as could be.  He said his hand wasn't hurting anymore (other than the normal ache after surgery), and that he felt great.  So, we canceled the appointment for the afternoon, and he's been great ever since.

The bone graft site on his right hip . . .

 . . . 1 1/2 weeks after surgery.

We appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers that went with us from our wonderful friends and family.  I know they helped because I wasn't as nervous sending him into surgery as I have been in the past.  We love you all!