Angels

Last Tuesday I had to take Vinnie to the vet, while checking in for the vet the hospital called to schedule Colin's procedure.
I then spent all the time between taking to vets about Vinnie texting people to get things in line for his procedure the following Tuesday. They then told me Vinnie needed to stay for about 4 hours to get a test done. I didn't want to wait that long so I called Chris to see if he could pick Vinnie up after the test. He agreed to do it.
After I left the vet I was going to head straight home, but I was so stressed that I pulled into a Mimi's cafe and decided to have lunch.

I got seated and the waitress came by and asked if I wanted a drink, at first I said no, but then she said that I really looked like I could use one and she had this perfect mix of three juices with champange so I said yes.
She came back and sat down at the table and asked if I was okay. I started crying and told her no. I explained about Colin and the dog.

She started crying and told me that her son went through a lot of the same things. She told me about different procedures that he went through and how when he turned 5 things seemed to turn around for him and he is now 13 and does BMX riding and other things.

When I left she gave me 4 free muffins and wrote her cell number down on the receipt. I gave her a huge tip and wrote a thank you note on the receipt back to her.

Today I was going through my wallet and found her number texted her today to tell her about Colin. She just sent a huge text back telling me she has thought about me every day since and was so glad to get an update.

I truly believe that God sent her to me to help me that day. I will probably never see her again because that Mimi's was over an hour away, but she holds a special place in my heart.

Update on Colin

Today Colin went to Children's Hospital to have a bronchoscopy, cilia biopsy, and scope of his throat. All of theses we to try to figure out what he was having the recurrent pneumonia. 
They went down into his lungs and his lungs were full of a milky white fluid. So they did a bronchoscopy wash. They took samples of the fluid and of the tissue of his lungs to send for cultures. We should know the results in 48-72 hours.
Then they scoped his throat and in your vocal cords form a V shape. At the top of the V there is a bump that is supposed to help keep fluid and food out of your lungs. He doesn't have a bump so we have to figure out how to fix it. It can be as simple as adding something to thicken his water and juice to another surgery to fix it. We will have to explore more and see what works for him.
They also took the cultures out of his nose, but we won't get those results for 4-6 weeks.
So no answers yet, but we have a better idea of a few things that could be causing the pneumonia.
There is still more procedures and tests to do but at least one of the bigger ones is out of the way.

I was able to walk Colin back to the OR and hold his hands until he fell asleep. I was then in the recovery room before he woke up. Watching him in recovery was super hard. He was so out of it that he was not responding to our voices or stimuli. It was heartbreaking to watch him. Luckily it only took about 5 minutes before he woke up.

I spent most of the drive to the hospital crying and wondering if this was the right thing to do. I am glad that we have a few ideas of things to try. I'm hoping that by getting this started now it won't be as bad of a winter this year. 

Vinnie

Today I took Vinnie to the vet. After an examination the vet felt that his joints were filled with fluid. So she wanted to test some of the fluid, and see if he has a condition that is very much like reamatory arthritis in humans.
He was sent home with some more medicine and we will get the results of the fluid sometime later this week.
I hope this makes him feel better because the poor dog has been in a lot of pain lately.

Hello, Did you miss me?

Wow July 9 was my last post.
So much has happened since then. Colin got out of the hospital and recovered nicely.

Instead of playing catch up. I will just write about what is going on right now.

Vinnie is really sick. 3 week ago I noticed Vinnie not coming downstairs as much as usual and not eating as much as he normally does. I took him to the vet and they couldn't find anything wrong but said they could tell something was wrong and sent us home with some medicine. That was a Monday, on Friday he still wasn't better so I took him back, after some more testing and a shot he was sent home. Tuesday he still wasn't better so back for some x-rays. Those showed nothing. Friday still not better so more x-rays and another shot.
Today still not better so we go to see a specialist tomorrow. They are thinking there is something wrong with the area around his stomach and then something wrong with his leg. I am really hoping they will look at both issues tomorrow since I have to drive over an hour to get there instead of making me come back but I'm not sure.
He breaks my heart when he can't jump up on the couch or his back legs give out and he just falls to the floor. He has lost 2 pounds, and while he could stand to lose a little weight losing it this way is not how we wanted it to happen.

Colin
Colin went back to the pulmonologist on Friday and he has to have another procedure done. I am waiting on a call back from the ENT to schedule the procedure. He will have samples taken from his lungs to check for fungus and bacteria, he will have his throat scoped to check for aspiration and he will have samples taken from his nose to check for PCD.
I am super nervous about all of this and wish I had a date of when it would all happen because the wondering and waiting is super hard.
On Friday they also took a chest x-ray which they are hoping shows "normal" lungs since everyone they have on file shows infection they wanted a normal one to compare to. He also had blood work done to check for allergies.
They changed some of his medicines from a nebulizer to an inhaler which cuts down the amount of time we have to spend giving him medicine considerably.

Chris
Chris has moved job sites and is now gone from the house about 14 hours a day and works 7 days a week. This has been a hard adjustment on everyone and we are hoping things will slow down in about 4 weeks.

Me
I am in talks with the church to move my daycare from my house into the church within the coming year. I meet with board members next Monday night and if they give the okay I will get to meet with the church council in September. This is something that I have wanted to do for the last year and I am super excited and nervous to see what the future holds for the daycare.
As of this week the daycare has been open 2 years. I would say a very successful 2 years. I couldn't be happier with my families and business. It hasn't always gone as planned but it is everything I have ever wanted.

So that gives a good update and I will try to be a better blogger as the weeks go on.

1st Movie/No more diapers

On Sunday Alyssa went to her first movie ever. I had tried once before but we left 5 minutes into the movie because it was too loud and bright for her.
My mom, Duane and I took her to see Madagascar 3. She LOVED the movie and did really good. She started off sitting in my moms lap and then about half way through the show she moved over to my lap. She ate almost a whole small bag of popcorn by herself.
By the end she was getting a little antsy but was still sitting. I don't think a movies will become something we do often but I think it will be nice to be able to treat her to a movie every now and then.


In other big news of the weekend Alyssa decided that she was no longer going to wear pull ups at night. Last week her pull up was dry one morning. She came running into my room to tell me that her pull up was dry and she gets a pillow pet.
BACK STORY: For a few months we have been telling Alyssa if she keeps her diaper dry at night she would get a big present. So while we were on vacation she saw a commercial for dream lite pillow pet. She said she wanted one if she kept her diaper dry. Chris and I said Okay, yet when we talked later on we said we really didn't want her to have one because she would play with it all night.


Well now she is dry and remembers she wants the dream lite pillow pet. So after breakfast we sit down and order a pillow pet. She was still wearing a pull up at night but on Friday decided that she wanted underwear at night. We said okay and she has kept her underwear dry every night since she put them on. 
I'm super proud of her and glad it didn't take many nights of bed wetting to get there.

Alyssa Sick

Friday while I was in the hospital with Colin I got a text from my mom saying Alyssa was running a fever of 99. I told her it wasn't a big deal.
The evening she called me and told me Alyssa had thrown up and had a fever of 102. I felt like the worst mom in the world that I couldn't be with her.
I sat in the hospital room crying because both my kids needed me and I couldn't be there for both. I did the next best thing and sent Chris home to be with Alyssa.
She was doing a little better Saturday morning but still running a fever. Sunday the blisters showed up for her, she also had Hand Foot and Mouth.
Her blisters are all in her throat making it harder for her to eat and drink. She is still eating and drinking enough that I'm not super worried about her, I just hope the blisters clear up soon.

Hospital Visit #3

On Thursday morning Colin woke up and I knew something was wrong with him. I called the doctor as soon as the opened at 8 and got him a 9:15 appointment. By the time we got to the doctor I knew he had pneumonia. The doctor confirmed the diagnoses and sent us home with some medicine.
I put Colin down for a nap and when he got up from the nap two hours later he was shaking, throwing up and couldn't sit up. I called the doctor again and they told me to give him more Motrin and if his fever wasn't down in an hour to take him to the ER. Well it was down slightly at the hour mark so I gave him Tylenol on top of the Motrin and he seemed to be getting a little better.
He ate dinner and then started to get clingy again. We put him down to bed, and within 10 minutes of laying him down he was throwing up again and his fever was back up to 102.6 so off to the hospital we went.
When we got there his fever was still 102.6 and his heart rate was over 180. We got back to a room and after waiting what seemed like forever we finally had a plan. We were going to give him more meds and try to get him to drink. If his fever came down and he was drinking we could go home, if not we were spending the night.
Well 45 minutes later he still wasn't drinking very much so we were admitted with iv fluids and a new medicine to help with the pneumonia.
On Friday morning I found out one of the kids in the day care had Hand Foot and Mouth disease so I told the doctor about that. All Friday Colin barely ate or drank. He slept a lot and just sat staring into space.
Friday evening I asked Chris to bring him a milkshake. That seemed to be the turning point for him. He started to drink more and eat a little. I asked the doctor if we could go home. He said no so we stayed another night.
Saturday morning he was eating and drinking much better and we were discharged and able to make it home in time for lunch. He also developed the blisters associated with Hand Foot and Mouth.
Sunday he was still a little under the weather.
Today he was back to his normal self. He was eating everything he could get his hands on.
It is so nice to have my baby back.

I am having a hard time knowing that he has been hospitalized twice now because of things brought in to the day care. I know in my head that if he went somewhere else he would be just as likely to pick it up, but it is hard.