Update and a Bloody Surprise

Just a quick update because I'm exhausted....

Thanks for all of the prayers guys! You are all the best. Eli is home from the hospital now but last night was interesting to say the least. I originally took him down to the ER because of his wheezing and temp but when I was dropping off Carson at my parents house he started retching. I vented him in the car before I left their driveway from his g-tube and tons of blood came out instead of the air I was expecting. When we got to the ER his temp was 104.2 and he was diagnosed with gastritis, a GI bleed, and an unknown virus that was causing the wheezing/temp. He had 4 x-rays of his chest and abdomen, was put immediately on NPO status, and had an IV placed. Surgery came down and assessed him because they thought he was going to have to be taken to the OR to stop the GI bleed. Thankfully the bleeding slowed and after a gastric lavage with saline and a CBC, the surgeon decided it was okay to let him go home on "blood watch".

Now we are home with an Eli with 102-104.3 fevers, pain, fussiness, and irritability. He isn't eating much and we're venting him q1hr to check for bloody drainage. If he has an increase in blood drainage from his g-tube or blood stools, back to the hospital we go for surgery. We meet tomorrow with his normal surgeon as well as his GI doctor to discuss where we go from here. His wheezing is much better and his lungs are back to "Eli normal". I just wish I could make my baby feel better. They also put him back on Prevacid because they think one possible explaination for the gastritis is too low of an acid pH in his stomach causing an ulcerated area. He hasn't been on any GERD meds since his Nissen fundoplication surgery 12 months ago.

I'll keep everyone updated but I just wanted to pop in and let you know how things went last night and thank you all for caring about us!

Prayers Please

Eli is pretty sick. He has a fever of 103.4, is extremely lethargic, and has been wheezing w/o regard to his Albuterol and Flovent for almost 24 hours. Please pray that it is not aspiration pneumonia as he has been having more difficulty the past few days with his liquids (more than normal ;) ). I'll update with more info as I get it.....

New Do

I finally went and got my hair cut this morning! I have been neglecting myself lately with nursing school and the boys taking first priority and my friend Mandy insisted that it was time for me to pamper myself a bit. I'm so glad she did because I'm feeling much better now that five pounds of hair have been cut off my head. Here are some pics of my new do....enjoy!

Crazy Dayz

After a 13+ hour day of clinical today to be followed by another 13+ hour day tomorrow, I'm exhausted! I had many great learning opportunities with my patients today and was able to handle a case load of four patients BY MYSELF on an ortho floor! YAY for me! But teh best part of the entire day was pulling up in my parents' driveway to see my two smiling boys come running to meet me shouting "Mommy, Mommy, You're home!". Nothing beats some giant squeeze hugs from Carson and sloppy wet kisses from Eli to make me lighter on my feet and put some energy back into my body after a long day. Now that they are in bed fast asleep, I think I will join them since 5:45 will come all too early.

Goodnight!

"You're Hired!"

That's right folks...I was offered the nursing position of my dreams today after my big interview yesterday morning. This summer after taking my NCLEX (and passing) I will officially be working in the NICU at Children's Hospital as an RN with my BSN. WHOOOHOOOO! All of my education has paid off and my goal of being a NICU nurse and helping families and infants go through one, if not THE, most trying times of thier lives. I thought my interview went quite well yesterday and after almost two hours with HR and the nursing manager on the unit, I felt confident that I would get an offer. They told me that I would know by the end of next week. Then after a hard and exhausting 13.5 hour clinical shift today, I came home to a message on my answering maching offering me a job! The pay is great, the benefits excellent, and the job is the whole reason why I changed majors from medical technology to nursing in the first place. What more could I ask for?

Oh yeah, and I'm not getting screwed over like the typical "new RN grad" and having to work night shift or rotating shifts. I was able to pick day shift and will be working 12s and am even able to pick a 36 hour or 40 hour/week schedule. Thanks for listening to me go on about the next step in my life for the past few minutes. I can't wait to get out there and start working with the patients that our wonderful Children's Hospital takes care of every day. Children's has been such an intrical part of our lives for the past year and has saved both Carson and Elias's lives. I will be proud to be employed at this institution right out of college.

We're Alive!

Sorry for no posts for the past three weeks....saying things have been hectic is an understatement. I'm in my final quarter before graduation (June 10th YAY!) and school is keeping me busy busy busy! The boys are finally both healthy after a lovely 11 day bout with Rotavirus. Thankfully we were able to keep both out of the hospital due to Eli's g-tube and Carson's love for gatorade and hot tea w/ honey. I'm sick of changing diarrhea diapers and cleaning up Carson's vomit though. Thank God it's over! We have tons of wonderful Easter pictures to post and when I get a break on Wednesday I am going to post a much better update with lots of great pics of my two monkeys.

I just wanted to let everyone know (if anyone is still reading) that we aren't dead or in the hospital but instead, consumed with the crazyness of the final quarter of nursing school, PT, OT, speech and feeding therapy, preschool, and the ever changing summer/winter weather of Ohio. Love for some fun pictures and a detailed update on Wednesday when my schedule is FREE for the first time in what seems like forever! Here's a sneak peek as a teaser....

Home at last

Carson was discharged late this afternoon from Childrens and we are home re-cooping from the past two days. He is in a lot of pain when his Tylenol w/ Codeine wears off and stops talking completely and kicking/hitting about 30 minutes before his next dose is due. We are almost positive the aggression is solely connected to his pain level and his inability to talk due to his throat hurting so much.

Last night was rough. He needed Morphine around 8:45 for break-through pain that caused him to start crying and screaming around 8pm. Thank goodness the ENT doc on-call was generous with his medications and Carson was pain free by 8:50 and sleeping by 9:45. He had a ton of desats all night long but they were all minor in the low to mid 80s. His baseline oxygen saturation was hanging around 90-91 so they debated adding a cannula for the night but Carson was not having anything on his face so they just watched him closely and stayed on top of his q2hr Albuterol and q4hr Flovent. He was wired this morning when he woke up and wanted to run around the room, down the hall, jump on the bed, scream, etc but REFUSED to eat or drink. Al finally got him to eat some jello, a few bites of eggs, and to drink some chocolate milk and we were cleared for discharge right before 4. Thank goodness because I did not want to stay an extra night because he wouldn't drink or eat.

We're home and resting for the next few days. Eli was "excited" to see Carson (his new favorite word is excited) and Macy licked him all over. It was obvious that our little man was much more comfortable at home than in the hospital and went right to sleep once he was in his own bed. I'm hoping the antibiotics and pain meds keep him infection and pain free for the coming weeks. Thanks for all of the well wishes. It was a new experience having Carson in surgery/recovery compared to Eli who is an old pro. It's much more tiresome with a 3.5 year old who isn't used to constant surgeries and hospitalizations than with a 20 month old who has had more than I like to count. I'm off to bed now but look for some great pics of Eli tomorrow on the blog.

Here are the pics of Carson's bronch. The top two pictures show the narrowing of his trachea (tracheal stenosis). The trachea should be a round, ring shape but as you can see, Carson's is a boxed shape with the right and left sides flattened by scar tissue. This scar tissue was caused by his intubation and ventilation during his NICU stay at birth. As I said in the previous post, he should grow out of the tracheal swelling and croup due to this narrowing in about 5 years. The bottom left picture is where his trachea splits and goes into his right and left lungs and the bottom right picture is of his vocal cords. Enjoy!

In-patient

Carson is out of surgery and up on the 4th floor of Children's Hospital for the night (at least). He did really well during surgery and he now has no tonsils or adenoids and brand new tubes in his ears. His ENT said that his tonsils were very large and that he will be a new kid with them out. His other ENT surgeon came out to talk to us and show us pictures of his bronch and tell us about Carson's trachea. It turns out that Carson does have tracheal stenosis but it is minor and WON'T require surgery. He has about a 10% narrowing of his trachea caused by being intubated at birth in the NICU. This narrowing is made up of scar tissue and makes his trachea square shaped instead of nice and round (I'll definitely post pics when I get home and scan them....they are cool!). It is almost 100% responsible for all of his croup in the past 3 years. His ENT said that we don't need to do any dilation procedures to try and widen the scar tissue or (thank God) any reconstructive trachea surgeries. The bad news is that we now must just wait for him to grow out of it. Their best guess is that it will take about 5 years before Carson doesn't get croup with every upper respiratory infection. They will treat him with steroids every time he gets a cold and/or URI so that the swelling and inflammation of his trachea is kept to a minimum since it is already partially narrowed.

Now on to post-op in the room. Carson is having a anesthesia reaction. He is bright red all over his face and arms. He is extremely tachycardic (around the 130-150 resting) and hypotensive. He is also having respiratory complications along with the reaction so they put him on q2hr Albuterol in addition to his Flovent and antibiotics. Carson has only desatted 4 times and it was only down to the 81-83 range so we aren't too concerned about his respiratory status but they are doing q30min vitals on him to make sure he's stabilizing and not getting worse. They finally have him off of the Morphine and moved onto Tylenol w/ Codeine and he is tolerating it pretty well. He is very nauseous from swallowing all of the blood but they are holding off on the phenergan order for another hour to see how he does. He will be on IV fluids until discharge because he isn't having much fluid intake and they don't want him dehydrating. So far we have gotten him to eat two whole purple Popsicles and three tiny bites of vanilla pudding. He also drank 2oz of apple juice.

I'm off to go watch some more movies, ready books, and try and make my big baby feel better. Sometime today I have to squeeze in some study time because my statistics final is tomorrow morning at 10 and it is cumulative over the whole book. I'll try to update tomorrow when we get home. Pray for an uneventful night full of sleep and good sats!

Carson's in surgery

We're waiting in the parents surgery waiting room at Children's Hospital for Carson to get done with his ENT surgery after arriving this morning for pre-op at 6:15. He is having his tonsils and adenoids removed, ear tubes put in, and a broncoscopy/laryngoscopy done to determine what his tracheal irregularity is. His left ear looked a bit infected in pre-op but they decided to go ahead with the surgery and pump him full of antibiotics b/c he needs to the tubes to prevent future hearing loss. His tonsils were at 3+ today with no illness so his ENT is happy to get them out of there. This should help him tremendously! They ended up giving him Versed prior to going back because his sensory issues were on overload this morning without his meds and with the extra anxiety/stimulation of pre-op. Thank God for Versed. He was a much more pleasant child after it and wasn't banging his head on the bed and bed rails. He was wheeled off to the OR with his handsome puppy in one hand and a kiss on the forehead from Mommy and Daddy. We should hear from the two surgeons in about 1.5 hours.

I'll update once he is out of recovery. We are hoping he is able to come home after several hours in recovery instead of needing to stay the night.

Another Life Lesson

Today was a hard day. A close friend of my little sister's was killed in a car accident on Wednesday at the young age of 22. They grew up together starting from first grade. We were on swim team together throughout out childhood, worked together as life guards at the local pool, and even lived in the same neighboorhood. Our parents continue to go out for drinks on occasion and play cards a few times a year. His dad lives a few houses down from my parents and a smile and wave from Sean was a welcome occurance after dropping off or picking up the boys from their house through the past few years.

Today was his showing. It's never easy going to a showing of someone you have known for years and years. It is even harder when the life lost is young and vibrant. Full of love and life and joy. Sean was a neat kid and it is an incredible loss to those who he touched in his 22 years here. May he rest in peace and continue to enjoy the art, music, and good wine wherever he is as he did here with those that he loved and that loved him. I pray that his family is able to find some sort of peace in the coming months and years. I hope my little sister is able to deal with loosing yet another classmate and friend (she has lost so many out of their graduating class already).

As a mother I have held my boys a little tighter once again because it is amazing how quickly life can change. They each got extra kisses and hugs tonight and Carson probably thought Mommy was a little crazy for wanting to snuggle longer at bedtime instead of turning out the lights early. I hope I never have to deal with the loss of one of my children. We have come too close a few times but to have that reality is unthinkable.

Last Week of the Quarter

This week begins the last week of my winter quarter. While I realize this brings me to the point of being ONE QUARTER away from graduation on June 9th, it also carries with it a boat load of stress, papers, exams, lab tests, discussion board postings, and studying. My planner is packed from beginning to end with nowhere to even squeeze eating in....hopefully I'll get at least four showers this week (I truly hope this is sarcasm).

The boys are doing well. Eli went through a lovely respiratory virus last week and ended up on steroids once again. I don't know exactly how many round of Orapred this makes for him this winter but it is a ton. He is still on Albuterol in addition to his normal BID Flovent but his wheezing is getting better and he's only coughing a lot at night now. We also had a great visit to his surgeon last week. His stats were 25lbs 1oz and 33.75" long. They decided to switch him to a shorter stem length on his MIC-key button b/c his old length was too long and he was continuously getting acid burns from leaking stomach acid out of his stoma. His new size is a 14 french, 1.5cm length. It had completely fixed his leakage probably and his stoma is healing with the help of some stoma barrier cream.

Carson is also having a good week. He has found a couple new loves. The first is crafts. Aside from the normal obsession of trains and trucks, Carson now wants to make crafts with scissors, tape, construction paper, markers, crayons, staples, punch-out shapes, pipe cleaners, etc at school and at home. It is adorable. He comes home from school everyday and pulls out piles of "pictures" that he made for me. His teacher, Ms. Linn, told us at his parent/teacher conference on Friday that he gets all excited to "make Mommy beautiful pictures b/c he knows his Mommy will love them". Gosh this age is wonderful. His second love is a bit harder to swallow but typical for a soon to be four year old. Carson has become infatuated with calling people names. Now these aren't mean names or rude names.....they are food item names. If you are in his presence you may be called any one of the following items: Coconut tree, pineapple, chicken, pear tree, grape, chicken pop, turkey, chicken livers, apple head, coconut lovers, pineapple bush with grapes, etc. It is becoming quite the annoying habit that is one of that hardest we've tried to break. Just imagine walking down the grocery isle to get your bread and an almost 4 year old shouts, "Hey you Pineapple bush!" in your direction. This is what my day consists of. Somebody please tell me this phase passes as well...



I am going to wrap up this post and finish procrastinating. My books are calling my name with their incessant nagging, "study me, learn me, know me". If I can only make it through the next 9 days, I will be ONE QUARTER (that is 10 short weeks of class!) away from graduating with my Bachelor's in Nursing! Oh what a day that will be.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Today is my birthday and my thoughtful little Carson decided to make me breakfast in bed. He went downstairs and dragged a chair into the kitchen and up to the freezer door. Next he opened the freezer and pulled out a box of Eggo Waffles. He said he picked the strawberry ones instead of the blueberry ones because the blueberry were his favorite (at least I'm teaching Carson to be honest, right?!). Then my bright 3.5 year old proceeds to open the unopened box of strawberry Eggo waffles, open the plastic to the inside package, and get out three waffles. Two for mommy's birthday and one for him. The toaster wasn't plugged in so he decided to plug it in himself (yes, we had a L-O-N-G talk about this point). While the waffles were toasting he climbed on top of the kitchen counters and got out two plates and two forks. Our waffles popped out of the toaster, needed butter and syrup, and a long journey upstairs to mommy in bed.

I was awoken by a loud "Happy Birthday Mommy! Here is your yummy breakfast! I made it all by myself just for you because I LOVE YOU! You are the greatest mommy ever!" Now what better birthday present could a mommy ask for???

Now don't worry, the kitchen didn't burn down, there wasn't butter and syrup all over everything, the rest of the Eggo waffles were returned to the freezer where they belong, AND we had a gentle discussion about needing an adult to help plug in appliances and cook food in the toaster/stove/oven/etc. He did a perfect job cleaning up after himself and what three year old knows how to make breakfast?? I think I am going to have him train Al! But boy was my Carson proud of himself for his culinary masterpiece birthday breakfast surprise for Mommy. As he should be. These are certainly the moments to cherish.

I love these boys!

This week has been fun with the boys. Carson behaved really well from Wednesday through today and has been a joy to be around. We have read books, done crafts, and played trains/trucks all day long. He just came over to me, hugged me, and said, "Mom, you are just a beautiful mommy!". How can you not love that? Eli on the other hand has been a fussy pants all week. We finally broke down and took him to the germ infested ped this morning to get checked out. Diagnosis: sinus infection. Lovely. Another round of antibiotics....this time Augmenten. His g-tube site is also looking icky still after his antibiotic round a month ago so hopefully this new round will help clear it up for good. We go to his surgeon for a post-op appt on Thursday so he will have a g-tube recheck then.

Valentine's Day went smoothly and we have spent the last few days going over and over all of the various cards Carson received from his friends at school HUNDREDS of times. This little guy just loves his valentines. Too cute. Carson then hides his valentine bag from Eli so the equally curious valentine lover doesn't tear them all to shreds!

Carson helped me bake a cake last night. He loves to pull his stool up to the counter and assist me in measuring out ingredients and pouring them into different bowls and pans while I cook. Carson has christened himself my "Big Boy Helper". Last night we made a Funfetti cake and I was feeling adventurous. It was the very first time I let him crack the eggs by himself!! He did such a great job and the smile on his face was priceless. Oh how I wish Al hadn't been busy putting Eli to bed so he could have caught the fun on video or at least camera. The cake turned out beautifully and Carson of course sunk downstairs this morning for a secret taste around 5am. He came and woke me up about 5:30am with icing all over his face accompanied with a huge grin suited for the most mischievous boy ever. I couldn't help but smile. Don't worry...Eli got a few sneak bites of icing this morning in between his apple and cereal too!

As you can see, this week has been fun and my boys are amazing (what, you expected less??). I can't wait to see what the future has in store for the four of us. More smiles, hugs, and kisses I'm sure (with lots of cake for good measure).

20 sentences and a pic

Okay, I just typed a huge post about nursing school, Eli, and Carson but blogger is acting up and deleted it all. So....here goes the abridged version.

1.) Nursing school is keeping me incredibly busy.
2.) The boys are doing great.
3.) Ohio weather is crazy
4.) Eli almost certainly will be diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy.
5.) It should only affect his fine motor tasks.
6.) He gets to go to school starting in August!
7.) He now has 10 teeth.
8.) Carson is gaining a bit of weight.
9.) Carson is becoming incredibly independent.
10.) He wants to make his own food/drink and dress himself all the time.
11.) My house is suffering.
12.) We got 11" of snow yesterday.
13.) Carson has missed 5 days of school in the past 2 weeks due to weather closings.
14.) I need prayers.
15.) Carson received further diagnosis on Monday (see #14)
16.) I don't want to discuss it here for many reasons.
17.) I may or may not ever discuss it on this blog.
18.) I'm struggling with this and I don't know why b/c it's not that big of a deal.
19.) I love my boys no matter what.
20.) They also said Carson "most likely has a genius IQ"

Okay...there is the short and sweet version. I will get into more details later but I need to study for my nursing exam that I have tomorrow at 11am. Wish me luck on my exam and on dealing with my issues. My hubby did get me a beautiful 1 carat channel set, princess cut diamond wedding anniversary band for V-day and my birthday. It was a highlight of the week!

Enjoy this pic of the boys in the snow from this morning!

I'm a Slacker...

Okay, sorry for the complete lack of posting that has been going on for the past two weeks. We are still here and alive. School is keeping me quite busy and the boys are doing a wonderful job of tying up the rest of my time. So, here is an abbreviated list of what has been going on since my last post on 1-19.

Carson-

~ He was taken off of the Adderall due to the psychosis and then had to be put on to Focalin XR due to a complete inability to function. The Focalin XR did a great job of keeping him focused during the day but had a pesky little side effect of causing Carson to wake up at 2am and not go back to bed AT ALL and take no naps the whole day. After 5 straight days of our house being torn limb from limb and the whole family (well, minus Al) getting no sleep, we took Carson off of the Focalin. We started a new med called Tenex which is not a stimulant, it is actually a blood pressure med that they use for ADHD children. It has a side effect of sleepiness in the initial few weeks which we have definitely been noticing (i.e. Carson is taking a nap everyday AND going to bed at 8pm every night w/o fighting us!!) but it also has the benefits that is won't stunt his growth or kill his appetite like the stimulant meds. His teacher sent home a note today saying that "there has not been so much impulsive hitting this week and is it good to see him working cooperatively with other children!". That was a great note to get!

~ Carson had a sleep study last Tuesday at Children's Hospital that was interesting. They glued electrodes all over his head and face, he had sensors on his arms, legs, and body, there were bands around his chest and abdomen, a carbon dioxide monitor that looked just like a nasal cannula with tusks, and a pulse-ox among other things. Then the electrodes had wires attached to them and he was attached to a unit on the wall! I don't know how the child slept but he did. We don't have the results back yet but the nurse told me that he snored, had some apnea, teeth grinding, and sleep talking through the night. We should have the official report from the ENT's office today or tomorrow.

~ The visit to the hematologist on Friday went well. The ENT sent us there to ensure that Carson does not have Von Willebrand's Disease even though they did a complete work-up for it in December through his ped's office. I guess since he was on a bunch of steroids at the time of the December blood draw, it could have falsely elevated his blood levels so they needed to re-do all 9 vials of blood. The T&A surgery and possible reconstructive throat surgery Carson is having is quite bloody and if he did have Von Willebrand's Disease, he would have to have a drug called DDAVP prior to the surgery so he wouldn't bleed out. Well, the hematologist called yesterday and his preliminary blood results look GREAT! They are almost 100% positive that he does not have Von Willebrand's Disease like his daddy and Granny Bass!! YAY!


Now on to Eli....

~ Massive amounts of wheezes seem to have taken up residence in Eli's lungs. We are on Flovent BID as usual and Albuterol q4hrs. They almost wouldn't give him his Synagis injections last week b/c it is contraindicated in children with a pronounced wheeze. Thankfully we convinced them that Eli is just too respiratory compromised to take the risk of not getting his Synagis and that since he is already wheezing, if he got RSV on top of that, it would be a bad hospitalization for sure. They agreed but made us stay over 30 minutes post-shot to ensure his wheezing didn't get worse.

~ Eli is a crabby baby lately. He is finally getting some teeth (right now he is 19.5 months and only has 6 teeth). His top two molars are trying to break their way through and the tiny white points have managed to pop through the gums. He is a miserable teether and is constantly chewing on his hands and fussing. We noticed two days ago that there are two white bumps beside each of his bottom teeth so hopefully he will have a grand total of 4 bottom teeth in the next few weeks.

~ Eli is growing!! We are still on the Peptamen Jr. elemental formula (Tiff, I know you asked). It is 60% MCT oil and broken down for Eli's compromised GI system. He seems to still get a slight bumpy, red rash when he gets normal milk instead of his Peptamen Jr. We are doing a great job of weaning down on tube feeds and only need his feeding tube a few nights a week. He still needs vented through his MIC-key several times a day and his teething seems to have aggravated some retching and hiccup routines dealing with his Nissen fundo unfortunately. Hopefully that will pass.

~ Speech is coming along fabulously. New words are popping out of his mouth everyday. He loves saying Carson's name and Carson gets a kick out of it too. Last night he wanted a bite of my cookie and I said, "What do you say?" and he said, "I say peeaaasss." It was so cute. I'm loving this. I'm sure when his speech therapist comes in a few weeks that he will be discharged! Hooray for one less appointment!

~ I'm keeping an eye on a weird foot turning in thing (is that technical enough for you??). Eli is turning in his left foot funny when he is sitting or laying, not walking, all of a sudden. It looks a bit like a CP thing to me and so I will mention it to our PT and OT when they come. I'm hoping it is just a habitual thing but he doesn't seem to realize it's happening.


Now that I've written my SHORT update, I'm going to follow this post with a picture post since I know you have missed seeing Carson and Eli's cheery faces!

Playing together?

I was able to catch an unusual (but more frequent) moment in our household this week. Carson invited Eli to play with him. It was brief but such a joy to witness that my mommy senses kicked into overdrive and the camera just jumped into my hands. Enjoy the moments....I know I did!

Grow baby, Grow!

Eli went to the pediatrician today for a follow-up appointment for his asthma and ear infections. Unfortunately he still has wheezing in his lungs even with the Flovent added in two times a day. They want us to reintroduce Albuterol q6hr this weekend to see if we can open his lungs up and keep him from escalating into a full blown asthmatic crisis. It doesn't help that he has BPD on top of his asthma either.

Now on to some good news, no new ear infections to report today! Eli still had some residual fluid left in both ears from his double ear infection last month but no new inflammation or fluid build up. Hooray for the absence of ear infections for once!

Just when I thought we were going to escape the doctor without a script for an antibiotic, his ped saw his g-tube site. I wanted him to take a look at it anyway b/c it had been looking icky (great medical term, huh?!) and Bactroban wasn't clearing it up. Well, Eli has another g-tube infection and he earned himself a script for Omnicef. Hopefully his site will look better by his surgeon appointment next Thursday.

The best news of the day came at the beginning of the appointment though. We have been waiting and waiting and waiting for our little man to finally grow length wise and it looks like he did it!! After making such huge strides in his weight gain over the past 6 months, Eli has gained some ground in the length race too. After an official weight of 24 pounds even (again), Eli measured a whopping 33.25" long. YAY! For his adjusted age of 15.5 months Eli is in the 90th% for length and 40th% for weight. For his actual age of 19 months he is in the 60th% for length and the 20th% for weight!! YAY Eli (yes, I know I'm abusing the exclamation points in this paragraph but I can't help it!)!!! His weight-for-length percentage has climbed from being so far below the charts that they were going to admit him 6 months ago for FTT, to being in the 17th% today :)

Our little man is growing up (both figuratively and literally), talking, running, climbing, and teasing his brother to death. Our house is so much fun right now.

Photo Shoot

Doctors appointments and meds, OH MY!

Sorry for the long silence in between posts. Winter quarter started back in full force for me on the second and I feel like I haven't stopped since. I'm going to focus this post on Carson since most of the past two weeks have been spent hopping back and forth to various doctors offices, pharmacies, and radiology departments for a very active 3.5 year old.

ADHD- Okay, on the ADHD front, we have been suspecting that Carson has been having hallucinations or psychosis as a side effect from his Adderall for a few months. The side effects started getting worse and Carson was seeing bloody ghosts, bunnies attacking him, clapping gloves under his bed, etc, etc. His appetite dropped off almost completely. He lost 2 pounds. It was time to figure out something else for his ADHD. Our pediatrician consulted with one of the pediatric psychiatrists at Children's Hospital who agreed that Carson needed taken off the Adderall immediately and needs a consult/evaluation due to the complexity of ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. So, we take Carson off of the Adderall (10mg of Adderall XR in the mornings and 5mg of normal Adderall in the afternoons) this past Tuesday. He also started on Prozac to help with his extreme anxiety involved with going to bed and sudden abandonment issues. The first two days without the Adderall were a bit more active than normal but tolerable none the less. Then came Thursday and Friday.....better known as the days from HELL. Carson was uncontrollably impulsive, violent, hyperactive, and miserable. He could not stop moving. He spun for over an hour followed by 90 minutes of running from our front door to our back door. I needed a few beers. Carson was a serious danger to Eli and was adding new bruises to himself with his overactive and unsafe behavior. We gave him half a dose of Adderall this morning and he was at least tolerable and not unable to function today. He goes to the Behavior Clinic at Children's Hospital on 2-12 for a medication adjustment and further screening.

SPD- Carson's oral sensory input needs are increasing ten-fold. The child is chewing on everything and anything he can find. He wants us to buy him a chewie because he has one at school. His spinning has increased and his sensitivity to tags and clothing is getting worse. The good news comes from the bathtub. He is loving bathtime now and no longer screams in terror when you tell him that he is dirty and needs cleaning. We are looking into bumping his OT up more times a week.

Medical- We went to the ENT the first week of January and Carson is getting his tonsils and adenoids out. He is also getting tubes in his ears due to having 4 severe ear infections in the past 3 months including 1 perforation and 1 near perforation. This has caused some mild hearing loss for Carson and needs to be treated as soon as possible. The ENT was also quite concerned at the number of times Carson gets croup or croup like symptoms/cough. At 3.5 years old, croup should be a rare occurrence, maybe once a winter. Carson had croup from September until the end of November and three times since then. This led the ENT to order an airway fluoroscopy test to look for subglottic stenosis. Carson had the test on Tuesday morning. They didn't find subglottic stenosis but instead an "irregularity of the trachea". This could be one of many things. A cyst on his trachea, a papiloma, a hemangioma, or scar tissue caused by being intubated at birth. Carson now has to have a laryngoscopy and bronchoscopy to see exactly what this irregularity is. If it is a cyst or a papiloma, his throat surgeon will just cut it out during the bronch. If it is a hemangioma, they will leave it alone unless it is obstructing too much of his airway b/c of Carson's risk of Von Willebrand's Disease. If it is scar tissue, they will evaluate the severity and then schedule surgery based on the results. It can be a simple as a few laser cuts along the scar tissue to as serious (and terrifying) as a full tracheal reconstruction and a tracheotomy for at least a month! Carson will have a sleep study at Children's Hospital prior to his tonsil and adenoid surgery/tubes to make sure his sleep apnea is only caused by their enlargement. The bronch will most likely be before his T&A and tube surgery since his airway takes priority. All this is scary but we want our baby fixed! The great news is that Carson's asthma is finally under control with the use of Flovent twice a day, Singulair at night, and Albuterol as his rescue medication. YAY for asthma control and no more wheezing!!

School- Carson continues to adore preschool. His teachers Ms. Linn and Mrs. Lippert are amazing and continue to stimulate his environment in just the right ways. Every morning Carson wakes up and runs into our room excited to get dressed for school. He plays hide and seek with me while we're waiting on the bus in the morning and is all smiles when we pick him up at the bus stop at lunch. We are incredibly lucky to have a program like this special needs preschool in our school district. Carson has learned so much intellectually and socially. He is a different kid than 6 months ago and is constantly astounding us with his abilities and sense of humor. The tough days are tough but he is a great kid with a personality that shines.

I'll end with a quote from today in the car. Carson was just chattering in the backseat as he always does when all of a sudden this comment popped out....

"Mommy, I won't be able to add anymore if they take my adenoids out. That makes me sad."

Ahhhh.....he kills me every time!

Christmas pics long overdue!

I realized that I never shared many of our wonderful Christmas pictures with everyone here in Blog Land this year. This post is simply a conglomeration of the joy we had with our boys and our family (click to enlarge them)....enjoy!