Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Riverside Park Photoshoot

Got some pics earlier this week when we went to the park. It was fun to get out and enjoy the scenery and nice day.We had beautiful weather this week!
We saw the dam, Dawson wasn't sure what to think of that.
They swung on the swings facing the river too. They really liked that.
Then we went to the stone wall and did pics there
Tyler loved it
He was growling at me
Very happy to be outside and away from people so he could have his mask off  :)
Dawson was being difficult, he wasn't smiling for me, no matter what! This is as close as I got.
He mostly just liked walking on the little wall. 

Dawson's teacher comes today, she'll be happy with his progress. He's been imitating and picking up new words often. When I say something, he tries to say it. He's really getting the hang of it. I think words are coming much easier than before and he likes that he can tell me what he wants sometimes.

I got Dawson a train set off Craigslist last week too. He really likes it!
Tyler likes it too
Dawson is very protective over his train set, so as long as he wants to play with it, Tyler can't. Tyler seems to know this, he sat back and watched for quite a while. I was surprised! Unfortunately that didn't last too long and the track ended up in pieces.
So it now has a home on a table where Dawson can play without interruption. He sure liked that idea. :)  Tyler has a more durable little car/train track set on the floor to play with that he likes.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

New Camera

Lots going on lately. Tyler had a spinal tap last week, it went well. I took some pics, he only has 1 spinal tap left. It will be at the end of  June or first week in July.
Here's him with his port accessed. They covered it with gauze to hold the needle steady. He was still asleep.
Here's his scar (the dark line up by his shoulder) from the 2 port surgeries. It got a little thicker the last time I think and it's still pretty dark. I'm hoping it'll lighten up over time.
I got a new camera! Mine broke, the lens came off and when I brought it to Best Buy they said it's a model that they don't bother fixing. So we get store credit for it if we want. Dan and I went back the next day and decided on this one! It's way nicer than the old one, it has more features and stuff.
Dawson was curious about my new toy.
I love the settings! This is the Sepia setting.
It has Black & White too
It also has red, blue and green settings, where it makes that color stand out. This is the red setting. The blue works great for the sky and the green looks awesome with the trees.
Normal setting, cute kid. :)
I love the zoom on this thing! My old one had 5x zoom, this one has 20x! If you look at the top of the treeline across the river, there's a tower poking out the top of the trees, about 2 inches to the left of the power line.....
This is that tower!!!
Dawson is already trying to help Daddy with things outside. He loves cars, he'll walk around them all in the parking lot and he'll try to help Dan every time he's outside
It's cute seeing Dawson follow him around so happily.
A friend from ECFE class held a garage sale for Tyler's benefit last weekend. It went well, we have a lot leftover though. Another friend is having a sale too, so I may put some things at her sale and we are looking into having one at our apartment too. I just need to find out if we're allowed or not.

I went skating tonight, it was fun but my skate was acting up towards last. Still waiting to hear about the new wheels but unfortunately it'll be too late by the time I get new ones anyway. Adult night is over at the end of the month. We do still plan on going on weekends sometimes, so hopefully I can get that figured out soon.

I've been walking a lot more again, now that the weather has been nice. We have a 5k on Saturday that we're looking forward to. They're going to have a table for donations and Tyler's bracelets will be selling there. We've also been going to lots of parks and playdates. We have something going on almost everyday, the boys are loving it. Hopefully it'll continue to be a fun-filled summer. :)

Friday, May 7, 2010

Dawson Head Update & Silly Pics

Dawson has been doing great. I put ointment on the wound everyday and I kept him on pain meds for 3 days, which he took very willingly. He finally isn't flinching at me touching it so I stopped the meds. It's healing, but I'm sure it'll be a scar, it was pretty deep and still looks like it's healing pretty wide. It's a little hard to tell though, there's dried blood there. Haven't really tried to get it off yet, I didn't want to hurt him.

He was being really goofy the other day, wanting me to take pics of him. It started by him catching me take this pic. He does this all the time, climbs in, plays a while and then throws all his toys out.
So he decided to start posing for me to take more pics
I guess being halfway across the room wasn't good enough, he had to come over to where I was sitting instead, wanting me to keep taking pics. And no, he didn't just hit his head a bit too hard, he's always a goof!
Tyler had come over to see what was going on, so Dawson was playing with him a bit too.
I asked him to give Tyler a hug....awwww!
It's hard to get a decent pic of them both. I'm lucky if I can even get them in the same pic and see both their faces too! Dawson cooperated just for a tiny bit so I could get this one.
I never said he was enthused about the situation, but at least he sat there.

Today we went to Jess's house for a MOM's Club playdate, the boys had fun, played, had a brownie and made a craft. Afterward we went to the library and then played in the hallway and stairs after we got home. They really wanted to go outside, but it was raining and snowing (yes, there were flakes in MAY!!!) so it was too wet to play outside. We did bubbles, rolled a ball down the stairs and walked around the hallways for a while. At least we all got some exercise.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Dawson's Head Injury

Today started as any normal day would. Dawson woke up, came to bed with me and cuddled a bit. Then we got up and I got him his cheerios, banana and some juice and he watched a cartoon dvd while I nursed Tyler in our bed. He always nurses and then falls asleep in there for a while. I had a fairly fun and relaxing day scheduled. A 4:30pm evaluation for Tyler today. Pat was coming to our place to determine if he qualified for a weekly teacher or not. Then skating at 6:30pm. I had it all programmed in my phone to alert me before certain events came up and reminders of things to do and people to call. Yes, I have that much on my mind, I started to program it into my phone so I don't get overwhelmed trying to remember it all! It has a neat calendar option so I can have an entire schedule on there if I want to.

Dawson was being so good today, playing with his toys and not even getting into anything. A rare thing for him lately. I was nursing Tyler again while Dan was up and getting his work things in order, packing his lunch, etc. He noticed a dark spot in the carpet, about the size of 2 quarters. Then he noticed a plastic baby toy book had something freshly spilled on it, definitely blood. He brought it to me and confirmed that it did look like blood, but Tyler and I were fine and Dawson was off playing! He recalled that Dawson had cried and fussed for a tiny bit about 5-10 minutes before that, but he does that often. Pinches a finger, a toy is stuck, etc. He's almost 3, stuff happens and he cries! It didn't sound like anything alarming so nobody looked. Dawson will come to us if something needs to be kissed or dealt with, or his cry sounds more alarming if he's hurt. Dan found him by the patio door, looking outside, he looked fine at first. He said "Dawson are you ok?" and Dawson turned his head to look at him. His hair was matted down with blood, at least an area the size of a baseball. He brought him to the bathroom, calling for me and got a washcloth. I took over with cleaning it up and found the source. He had a 1 inch, maybe a bit longer gash a few inches above his right ear. The most we can figure is he fell off the riding toy that Tyler got for his birthday. He's been playing with it a lot lately and it was the last thing Dan saw him playing with, by that spot on the carpet. The wound was open and was moving around like it was deep. It was also still oozing blood a bit when I washed close to it. We decided it would probably need stitches and we wanted to double check even if it didn't.

I got on the phone with Heartland Clinic, of course it's Tuesday, his pediatrician's day off. The receptionist transferred me to another Drs nurse and I got voicemail. I tried again and got the same thing, so the 3rd time I told her I can't get through and need to talk to someone asap. She told me to just go to the ER or Urgent Care. I called my mom to see if she knew which was faster. No answer. Tried her cell, it was off. Tried my sister's cell to find out where on earth my mom was, but the number was unavailable! grr  So I called a MOMs Club member, Amy, who told me they have both Urgent Care and ER at the hospital and suggested I ask the ER if he needed to be there or if we could go to Urgent Care. So we decided to go to the ER. My mom then called me back. Turns out she had gone out to get the mail. Figures. I suppose it's not fair to ask her to be on 24/7 house arrest incase I have a question. ;)

While on the phone I was running around gathering my usual hospital things. Mei tai carrier, bubbles, suckers, snack crackers, pop tarts, a few small toys they like and put them in my tote bag. Thankfully I'd stocked the diaper bag the day before. Dan was impressed at how routine my hospital preparations have become. I've been doing this for 10 months now, I'm pretty used to it. I turned around to get Dawson so we could leave and he was jumping on the mini trampoline!! Seriously, he has a head injury and he's acting like nothing is wrong at all! I got his shoes on and he was excited about that. He loves going places! I had to wake Tyler up. Thankfully he was napping through the cleaning and phone calls, so I didn't have him underfoot. He wasn't too happy about being woke up, but as soon as he realized we were headed somewhere, he was excited too.

We got to the hospital and the ER parking was full. So we had to park in the ramp and find our way to the ER from there. Got a bit lost but finally found it. Tyler was clapping on the way in, he for some odd reason still likes those places. Must be the bubbles, toys and the nice nurses. The guy by the metal detector didn't even look through my bags after I recited what all was in them, I was surprised. He seemed to get that we'd been doing this a while. Maybe it was Tyler's mask? When we walked up, the receptionists were talking about how busy they were today and how long the waiting list was. I was still hopeful since I brought Tyler. I told them that Dawson had a gash in his head and then explained that Tyler has Leukemia and isn't allowed to wait in waiting rooms because he's Neutropenic (meaning low ANC/immunity). At the word, they began scrambling to figure out where to put us and quickly decided the head trauma unit would be the most appropriate as they rushed us back through the doors, away from the people. Even Children's didn't usher us back quite that fast, I was impressed. I had given up hope on the St. Cloud ER being capable of any type of speed!

We saw the admitting nurse and the treating RN before we could even get very comfortable! I was amazed. They got him entered in there, and got me holding a cotton ball with some numbing medicine to numb Dawson's head. He did NOT like that one bit. He was really fighting me, but Dan turned on some cartoons and he was mildly interested in that. The bubbles Dan was blowing were pretty neat too. I was so glad I brought him. The bed's slot railings were too wide and Tyler is able to slip right through them. I really don't like those type of beds. So I knew it'd be hard to have both, because he wouldn't want to stay in the stroller but couldn't really safely be on the bed. So Dan was holding Tyler and blowing bubbles at the same time. The nurse came back in and put a disposable ace bandage around his head to hold the cotton ball for a while longer. He looked funny with tufts of hair sticking straight up. I was very bummed I hadn't really thought to grab the camera before we left. Dan thought to take a pic with the phone but my battery was almost dead and it wouldn't let me.

The nurse came back in and asked me if I wanted to hold him down or burrito wrap him in a blanket. I voted for the blanket, that boy is strong! She cleaned it up and came at him with the staple gun. I've never seen one before. I've seen a lot of unpleasant things, but I couldn't bring myself to watch this one, so I did look away. He couldn't feel it but was rather upset by being held still and all. He didn't try to touch the staples at all, he couldn't even feel them. They put antibiotic ointment on it and gave me some packets to put on each day.

For discharge orders, we were told to give him Tylenol or Ibuprofen for the pain, anti-itch cream so he leaves it alone and to keep up with the antibiotic ointment. We're also supposed to "keep him calm and quiet" for 48 hours. I refrained from laughing at her. I said "um, he's almost 3!" and she said that they don't really expect us to do that but we should try to avoid really strenuous activities. That sounds a bit better. By this point, Tyler was looking insulted that Dawson was getting all the attention and he was just a bystander. Don't they all know that the world revolves around him?! They must've missed the memo at this place. I told the nurse this and she appropriately cooed at Tyler and he grinned and clapped. We got out of there and treated Dawson to some McNuggets and a sundae. He sure didn't mind that at all, he was very hungry. It was about 3:30pm when we were leaving and it was 5:30pm when we got to McDonalds. That's a record for us!

We got home, got Tyler in and saw that he'd thrown up in his infant carrier, so I got his Zofran out and cleaned him up. I called the pharmacist to find a dose for Dawson's Ibuprofen and gave him that. He loves meds, so that was no problem. He wanted more! Then I fed Tyler as the babysitter was walking in. Dawson went over to her and was babbling away. I've never heard so much babble! He was obviously telling her all about his traumatizing day. Once he finished I explained Dawson's head injury and what to watch for, though it'd been 3 1/2 hours since he did it and he should've had a problem by now if he was going to. He was still active and alert, but I went over it anyway. She's so awesome, she started babysitting when Tyler had his central line and watched him after his last 2 surgeries and everything. She's pretty comfortable with it, which is really comforting. We had a good time skating, we really needed that! We got cones at Dairy Queen on the way home and I gave the last half of mine to Dawson when I got home. He loved that. She said he was fine the whole time. He would say "owie" occasionally but never tried to touch it. Hopefully things will continue to go well and he'll leave the staples alone.

Here's a couple pics. It was hard getting him to hold still.
Here's one he took of himself the other day.