It's A Bad Sign...

...When the E.R. registrar knows your entire family by name and can recite all of your pertinent information just as well as you can.

Last Wednesday evening, Noah asked me if he could jump on the trampoline. Joe was already in the backyard and dinner was about five minutes away from being ready so I told him to go ahead, but make it quick because I was nearly ready to put dinner on the table. As I sat the dish of asparagus (Noah's favorite) on the table I heard the screams from out the back door. Noah had fallen wrong on the trampoline. Not off of the trampoline, just landed wrong when he was jumping. I have no idea how it happened since I did not see it and every time I ask, I get a different version.
I could tell his arm was starting to swell and he was really in a lot of pain, so I left dinner on the table and Joe taking care of the babies to rush Noah to the E.R. Turns out that his arm was broken just below the elbow and just above the wrist. They put on a temporary cast and he had to see the orthopedist the next day for his full cast. Poor guy is spending Spring break in a cast.
I asked for the darkest color they could find because I knew how it would look after just a few hours, not to mention a few weeks. Unfortunately they ran out of dark blue and had to use white! It is no longer white, but is now an awful shade of disgusting. He had a couple of rough nights at first, because he had a lot of swelling and it would make the cast tight in addition to the pain, but now he is doing great.
The doctor also reamed me out for letting my kid jump on a trampoline. We have not decided yet what we are going to do about the trampoline. Joe wants to get rid of it, but I feel like it was just a freak accident that could have happened walking down the steps. We are always very careful with the kids on the trampoline, they have to have an adult watching and only one can jump at a time. But as the Dr. so rudely told me, "There is no careful with a trampoline!" So what are your thoughts...freak accident or an accident waiting to happen?

The Never Ending Day

Thursday was one of those days that just refused to end. It started out at 4:00 am when Joe and I had to finish prepping Jonah for his colonoscopy. The prep involved an enema and a two year old...I need not say more. We arrived at MUSC about 7:00 and got Jonah all registered and checked in. He was in a foul mood already (remember the enema?) and did not want ANYTHING to do with the nurses. They finally decided that I would sit on the bed an be rolled back with him into the operating room. Once there,I held him while they put him to sleep. I then left him and a little over an hour later, they brought him back out to us. Everything looked normal with only one exception, but they took several biopsies and should have the results early next week. We woke Jonah about an hour later and headed home.
On the way home, Dad called and said that my grandmother was in Walterboro hospital receiving blood and needed someone to sit with her and drive her home. I sent Joe on home with Jonah and I stayed with Granny. After I got Granny settled, I came home to Joe and Jonah snuggling on the couch. I went and got Noah and Micah from Mom's house and came back home to get supper for everyone. Jonah still had not moved since he had gotten home and Joe said that he was feeling a little warm. I gave him some Tylenol and started checking his temps. I watched as they continued to rise. At 101.9 I called the Dr. who had performed the endoscopy/colonoscopy only to be told that I needed to immediately get him to the closest ER and have a chest x-ray taken.
Joe stayed home with the boys while I went to the local ER with Jonah. The whole ride there I kept telling myself that this was just a precautionary measure, that surely nothing could be going wrong from his procedure that morning. When we arrived his temp was over 103. I knew at that point there was something really wrong, but when the Dr. came in and told me he had pneumonia, I was floored. I think I asked her if she was kidding or something like that. I was so tired at that point that I really don't even remember what I said, I just know that I was shocked. Whether it is anesthetic pneumonia or just pneumonia made worse by the anesthesia, we will likely never know.
They started him on antibiotics and I was able to bring him home that night about 11:30. He is responding well to the antibiotics, but I still have to give him Tylenol and Motrin round the clock to keep the fever at bay. He acts like he feels much better, he just gets tired more easily than before. Hopefully we will get good results from the Dr. next week and all of this will have been worth it.

Is It Over Yet?

Our life usually tends to lean towards the crazy side instead of the normal. However, our normal craziness has been replaced with some bizarre roller coaster ride this past week.

Thursday evening I noticed a small lump on my inner left thigh. I really did not think much of it since I had been at the OBGYN that morning and they found nothing wrong with me. Joe looked at it and said maybe it was the start of a pimple or something. It grew a little on Friday and Mom gave me some black drawing salve to put on it. By Saturday evening it was the size of my fist and very painful. All that night I suffered with fever and chills, by the next morning the "boil" was larger than both of my hands put together. Sunday I made it through Easter lunch and egg hunt, but by Sunday afternoon I was miserable. I had exceeded my maximum dose of Tylenol for the day and still could not get my high fever to break. I headed to the ER with Joe to have what I thought was a boil lanced, get a bottle of antibiotics, and be home in time to put the kids to bed. This was my normal crazy life, the bizarre happened when I got there.

After looking at my growing problem, the first words out of the E.R. doctor's mouth were, "This is way out of my league. I'm going to have to call in the surgeon." I can assure you those were not the words that I wanted to hear. After consulting with the surgeon, I had to undergo a CAT scan to make sure that the infection had not spread into my pelvis. The bad part was that the chemical they inject during the CAT scan is passed through breast milk and is harmful to babies. That meant no breast feeding for 48 hours. (Good thing I had plenty of milk pumped and stored in the freezer.) The CAT scan results came back good and the surgeon lanced, drained, and then packed what they were now calling an abscess. The surgeon was pretty sure that we were dealing with MRSA so I was put on a very strong IV antibiotic and admitted to the hospital.

This really took us off guard, so Joe decided to go home and get a few things and then come back to spend the night with me. It seemed like it took him an awfully long time to get back. When he did get back, I found out why. Just as he was getting to our driveway, he hit a deer. It took out my driver side headlight and signal light and put a dent in the driver side door. Joe had to use his truck to come back to the hospital since my vehicle no longer had lights. When he came back out of the drive, he saw the deer still in the road. He got out and checked and the deer was still alive but with what he thought was a broken back. He did not have a gun with him, but knew he needed to kill the deer to get it out of its misery. (And so we could have meat for the freezer) Anyway, since he did not have a gun in the truck, my redneck husband killed the deer by hitting it in the head with a baseball bat. (I know you are cringing, I cringed too when I heard about it.) Joe loaded the deer up in the back of his truck and took it to his Dad's house. His Dad was going to deal with it so that Joe could get back to me at the hospital.

Once again, this was the normal crazy life. The bizarre part is that later that night Joe's brother heard a noise outside. He looked out the door in time to see the deer raise it's head, get up, jump out of the truck, and run into the woods. How does a deer come back to life? I guess in bizarro world anything is possible.

Back to the hospital. You would think being in the hospital meant that I would get some rest. Think again. I ended up on the one floor of the hospital that was being renovated. So in between the constant fever, chills, and needles; I heard skill saws, hammers, and drills right outside my room all day long. The nights were not much better. They scrubbed and waxed the floors at night with a machine that is louder than Joe's eighteen wheeler.

I was actually continuing to get worse, so the surgeon put me to sleep Tuesday afternoon and went back into the abscess. He inserted two drainage tubes that I will have removed next week. That is when things started to really turn around. I felt much much better after surgery. Turns out I did have MRSA. The antibiotics for MRSA are too strong for Micah to get them in his breast milk, so I continued to pump and dump as he continued to drink the last of the stored breast milk mixed with formula.The antibiotic (vancamiacin) is really tough on your veins. I blew ten (yes I said ten) IV's during my five day stay. My arms look like I am a heroin addict. By Thursday, I had no usable veins left so they put me on oral meds and sent me home! I was so happy to see my house and family.

We are following very strict measures to sanitize everything and try to keep this germ contained to me, but the fear is still there that I am going to give this to my children. When I got home, Noah was complaining of a sore throat and I could see tiny little blisters way at the back of his mouth. Paranoia set in and by Friday morning we were on the way to the Dr. with him. Turns out Noah just had a bad cold and the Dr. gave him some medicine that is already making him feel better.

But once again, it could not be a normal appointment like other people experience. While we were in the doctor's office waiting room, Jonah got stung on the hand by a wasp! His fingers started swelling immediately, but after some ice and TLC, he was fine.

I can not nurse Micah for two more weeks and we are out of stored milk, so he is on formula now while I am still pumping and dumping. It is a big adjustment for us. I am used to just lifting my shirt and feeding, usually while in a semi-sleeping state. This washing, mixing, and warming bottles is ridiculous. Why would anyone actually choose to do this? And while I am on the formula issue, let me just mention the poop. Yuck, yuck, double yuck, gag. Enough said.

So, is it over yet? I have no idea, but I sure hope so. I mean really, what else could happen? Then again.....Maybe I shouldn't ask that question. I think I will just sit back, close my eyes, and try to find humor in this bizarre ride that we are on.

First ER Trip

Back on January 20th, we had quite a scare. Our night started off as normal, but at about 12:15am, Noah woke up gasping for breath. He had another loose tooth and I thought that maybe it had fallen out and he was choking on it. After looking in his mouth, I discovered that the tooth was still in place, he just could not breathe. Noah was starting to turn blue, so I woke Joe and we put Noah in a steamy bathroom, which helped him get enough breath in so that the blue coloring started to fade. Needless to say, I was freaked out. Noah was fine when he went to sleep and he had NEVER had any breathing problems before. Even though he was breathing better at that point, I knew there was no way I was getting any sleep that night wondering if it would happen again, so we loaded up in the car and headed to the hospital. While on our way to the hospital it happened again. We pulled over at the manned EMS station at Bells and I beat on the door until the paramedics woke up and let us in. By the time they had come to the door, Noah was once again breathing much better, (turns out the cold night air allowed him to get his breath) but the paramedics said they could hear a "croupy" sound in his chest and that he needed to go on to the hospital.
When we got to the hospital at 1:00am, they took him right back and the Doctor diagnosed him with croup. Croup is a virus that causes inflamation in the bronchial tubes just below the vocal chords. Anyone can get this virus, but it effects children much worse than adults because thier breathing passages are much smaller and more prone to closing. This is why he seemed to get better every time he was outside in the cold air. Cold air reduces inflamation, therefore allowing air to pass more easily.
Noah got a cool mist nebulizer treatment and then two steriod shots. I'm glad he got the treatment before the shots, because he got so upset by the shots, he had another attack of croup. Thankfully, this was the last one! They also ordered chest x-rays to rule out any other serious problems. Noah thought it was great because they took him over to the x-ray department in a wheelchair. They kept him all night to monitor the oxygen levels in his blood, but about 5:00am, they let us bring him home.
We took Noah to se his regular doctor that afternoon and he prescribed oral steroids for about a week to make sure there were no re-occurances. He also warned us that since it was viral, Jonah would probably get it and it would be worse on him since he was so much smaller. Just what every parent wants to hear! Thankfully, Jonah never showed any signs of getting the virus and I think enough time has passed that we no longer have to worry.
I surely do not ever want a repeat of that night, but I think the fact that Noah was five years old before we had to make our first trip to the emergency room is pretty good. Although I hate to admit it, I have a feeling that with raising what is soon to be three boys, this may have been our first trip to the ER, but it certainly won't be our last!