summer fun and a visit to children's hospital...

Well, it's been almost two months already and I can't believe I'm already thinking about what I have to do to get my room ready for the first day of school! This summer has been almost a blur! The first month we were busy going to the park or parks, had a picnic lunch or two (I"m sure Austin will not forget the picnic under the tree when a bird, well, pooped on his sandwich-UGGGHHH), went swimming, had Preston's birthday party, went to the movies, had sleepovers, boating and camping, visited the nature center and went on a hike...then June 17th was the day our summmer would be turned upside down for awhile! Austin came down with high fever and at this time there was a fever virus going around so we thought that was it, went to a Cardinal game that sunday assuming since it was a virus his fever surely broke the night before since it was 104.4! He was fine all the way to St. Louis and no sooner then we got out of the car and to our seat did he spike the fever of 104.4 again. We left obviously and gave him motrin and an hour later he was good to go again! This continued and Monday morning was the same, high fever, bad headache, even threw up! By this time we hadn't really slept in several days because austin was sick with the stomach aches and headaches and the high fever was very concerning to me! So, I got him to Dr as soon as possible! Fortunately, my sister was still in town and came to stay with Chloe and Preston! Strep was negative so they ran blood work. Finally, after returning to dr on Tuesday for chest xray (to rule out pneumonia, he also had strange random cough) and a x-ray on Wednesday, dr called up to childrens hospital when he got a positive staph result in austin's blood work! For some reason we went to southeast hospital, I guess because the dr was confident they could treat it here. However, when we woke up Thursday at southeast and dr had to call to st.louis to see what to do, we requested Austin be sent to Children's! I could not have been more impressed with the doctors! The team of doctors! They were AwEsOME!! So, we found out it was MRSA in his blood which is basically an antibiotic resistant staph which only a few antibiotics work! Fortunately, austin was able to take the iv antibiotics and finally got a negative blood culture 3 days into it! However, in the meantime he was still running fever and blood work was positive and Children's didnt have the images of the MRI from southeast because they forgot to send them with us on the ambulance ride (which by the way was awful, the driver and EMT were not very nice people, I felt so sorry for Austin to be stuck with them the whole way there~no one even talked to him) I couldn't ride with him either, had to follow! So, southeast hospital couldn't even get the MRI images fed x over night so eventually, after two days of waiting on it, the poor kid had to get another MRI because the infectious disease doctor needed to see if there was puss on the bone which would have meant surgery to drain it out! So, this time Austin knew what to expect and as very nervous so they let me go with him and I held his hand as he went into the MRI machine, I wished so bad that I could take his place! That machine is scary but Austin was a brave young man throughout the entire week, a CAT scan, two MRI's, blood work everyday, two IV's, being put to sleep to have picc line in which brings me to another nurse story, Austin was told the medicine would help him relax when they put the picc line in. So, 4 a.m comes and he wants a drink, the tech says, oh you can't have anything to eat or drink when you are going to be put to sleep!! OMG seriously, well needless to say, we were up the rest of the morning, in and out of bed to take him to the bathroom, his stomach was upset to begin with because of the medicine, now he was so nervous! Eventually, we convinced him he had to do it so we could get back home, the doctor was great and really calmed him down. They talked about baseball and within 30 minutes I was back in the room with him and he kept saying, that was fun! Pretty crazy what medicine can do, I didn't like seeing Austin like that, very strange! 10 or 15 minutes later he was back to himself! His dream while sleeping.. he and Albert Pujols were flying through the hospital on a baseball! I think he was trying to escape! haha
So, even is 10th birthday was spent in the hospital! It did get him an ipod touch though! Thanks to uncle adam for pulling it off, picked it up for us and even downloaded music and movies! This little gadget was a lifesaver, it was stuck to palm of austin's had over the next few days! He even had visitors! Our wonderful friends came to see him on his birthday and unfortunately, Parker and Hailey couldn't come up to see him (we didn't realize kids weren't aloud under 15 unless siblings)! So, Steve and heather took turns visiting with Austin while I visited with them in the lobby! We tried to get a hold of jess to tell her about the visitor rule but didn't get in touch so we did the same thing! I know Austin was happy to see everyone and the kids all made video messages to share with each other, thanks to our i phones! We had cake with danielle and adam! We just tried to make it as special as possible! The days to follow would consist of .... to be continued

catching up....again

So, as usual life is busy and there is not enough time to blog! Actually, I am trying something new... each kiddo has a journal and I'm trying to personalize it to each of them with the silly things they do and say! Today I would have to write in Austin's about what a great big brother he was trying to teach Preston how to swim underwater without holding his nose! He was so sweet and even went behind him in the pool, put his arms around Preston's and showed him to move his arms underwater! Definitely a kodak moment! However, a few minutes later the attempt to go under without holding nose was unsuccessful! I think he held his breathe too long before he went under and ended up inhaling!