The Grand Tour...

I think we have reached the bleak portion of the winter, ugh, January. Our entire house has been to the hospital, or hospitals really in the last while. This hospital visiting is not helping the mood around here at all. Henry at MEEI, Matt at Cambridge and me at Whidden and Somerville for ridiculous injuries; my eye being poked. Really, no kidding, Henry poked me square in the old eyeball and it really hurt. As it turns out I have a corneal abrasion: http://www.emedicinehealth.com/corneal_abrasion/article_em.htm

It looks as though I am all clear, 'cept for some ointment, it's okay.

Eliot is healing well physically, he appears to be a little troubled about anyone messing with him: diaper changes, face washing, hair washing, brushing etc. We know that he has some sensory issues and I will be keeping a close eye to make sure he is doing okay.

Matt is still looking for work and we have been job searching together, he has been applying all over the place. We are keeping fingers crossed that something comes to fruition, Matt is so talented and a wonderful teacher anyone would be lucky to have him. I know, I know, but it's true.

The kids and I have been going to the " Y " to get the lead out and get the sillies out a bit. I am looking forward to warmer weather when we can go the park and enjoy outside. But I am grateful for all the friends and support that we have here in Malden.

Looking at the two corn cakes makes me proud to be their mom, they are so amazing.

Ba-Bye, All Done

We have been home since Wednesday and it was both better and worse than I thought the surgery and hospital would be. Eliot seemed to "know" that we were in a hospital and to understand fully that the people in the white coats were going to get all " up in his grill" so to speak:)

There was screaming and anxiety in the holding room just before surgery, when a nurse or other uniformed person came anywhere near him he would start howling...yes, he knows now.

Thankfully the anaesthesiologist recommended that we try a drug mixed with his Tylenol to relax him. We were happy to try this drug and about 15 minutes after Eliot took the mix orally he looked stoned out of his mind. His adorable little head lolled back as I held him in my arms while his sleepy little eyes stared at the T.V, exclaiming, "Ball, baaaaaaalllllllllll" in a slow drawl.

I went in to the O.R. with him in full scrubs just to settle him while they began the mask, there was no need as he was in the ninth dimension, but I was glad to tuck him in.

Three hours passed in the family waiting room at Boston Children's Hospital, a long corridor filled with four person seating next to windows overlooking more buildings. Some parents looked haggard drinking coffee, others talked too loudly about nothing. Everyone there was stuck waiting.

When our Dr. B came out to let us know that Eliot was great and the operation looked good, we were so relieved. He was in recovery and we could go to him shortly...

Knowing that Henry was at home with Nana was such a gift for us, it really allowed us to focus on Eliot which is what we needed to do.

We went in to see Eliot, he had an IV, an oxygen saturation band-aid attached to his finger in a glowy red light and he looked comfortable. There was no screaming when he woke up, no delirium, we were so blessed. The time before Eliot suffered so much from that wake-up from anaesthetic and whatever they did at Children's certainly did the trick. He woke up slowly, nicely and demanded juice not once, but twice with a shake of his little pudgy hand. He was even a little flirty with his nurse.

The first night in the hospital was terrible, Eliot woke up many times crying and many times had to be given different meds to control his pain /bladder spasms. While he ate a little hot dog, I was warned he may throw everything up. I told the nurses that my son would never waste food like that, this was Eliot after all:) I was right, he kept everything down like a champ.

The morning proved to be a little strange as his cath was removed and yet he was not peeing, his little belly was so taut and round and full by the afternoon that something had to be done. Eliot was so uncomfortable that he could not stand, they re-cath'd him to allow his urine to come out; which it did at a whooping 300cc. Enough to fill one of those vomit kidney pans completely. It was quite impressive.

Dr. B had commented that the pain prevented him from wanting to pee and the bladder spasm meds had relaxed his bladder too much. He was taken off all of the drugs and Voila! He peed, slowly and then more and then on day 3, we were allowed to go home.

No one wants to stay in the hospital, but I felt lucky to go home with my son in pretty good health. Good to be grateful I think.

Eliot tried to hide in the closet to avoid his last vitals check with the very nice nurse and looked at every nurse saying, "Ba-bye, all done" until we really were on our way. He did not even want to go into his room at the hospital, just standing outside the door was close enough. Poor little guy, he has really had enough of hospitals to last a lifetime.

Hopefully that will be our last stay in one for a long, long time.

Now we will do an ultrasound in February just to make sure everything is okay, if it is we won't see anybody until 6 months have passed. Awesome!

The recovery is okay, he thinks he is fine and wants to jump on all the ride-on toys and balloon houses he can, we have to monitor and hold him back from a lot of the rough stuff. But all in all he is doing great.

Pheewwww, I am not even going to utter those fateful words of anything drawing to a conclusion as the last time I did that Matt ended up in the E.R ! That was on the weekend and he had stomach back ache things, worried he got checked out. Looks as though he has one kidney that is a little bigger than the other and he will be getting checked out in six months. Nothing to worry about so far.

So yeah, suffice it to say that we are ready 2011, our little family is ready.

Just another manic monday - The big Surgery Day

Here it is the first day of the new year, that seemed fast somehow. I am hoping that 2011 has some exciting new plans for our little family. Monday is fast approaching, Eliot will be going in to Boston Children's Hospital and Dr. B will be re-implanting his ureter on the left side. It will be a 3 to 4 hour surgery and hopefully minimal recuperation time. It is less invasive than thought before as they will be going into his bladder from the outside in, not the other way around. After a long, long day at the pre-op. appointment on Thursday Matt and I felt confident about Eliot's procedure. I still feel confident but now that it is so close I am a little worried for our boy. I am sure he will be fine blah, blah, blah. But that is our little boy and it is scary.

I will be staying at the hospital with him and I am really hoping that he will recover well and not feel too much pain. I have been reading about bladder spasms that can occur in these types of surgeries and I am keeping my fingers crossed that he will not be one of the ones that it affects. They are super painful and require different meds. for pain management. I am just hoping that our little boy's left kidney will stop being damaged by his urinary reflux and hold onto the 12% function that he has. Some is better than none in this case I am told. Nana aka Shirlee will be staying at ours to help with Henry and the go-between times. We would be completely and utterly lost without Nana and Papa.

I am wondering if we will go in when he is being put to sleep? I have been there for Henry a number of times and while it can be a little weird watching your child fight the mask and its effects, I feel as though it is better they see you before they go to sleep. I can hack it if he can, right?

Pheeewww, I have been writing my crazy little O.C.D. lists and pre-packing all of our things for the hospital. I have made lists of what to do with Henry while we are away, lists of what we need to pack, lists of lists to write, I have made checklists and more lists...I am beginning to realize that part of my coping mechanism in these strange times is the illusion of control. I micro-manage everything that is within MY power in the hopes that everything else will just follow suit. Yeah, I know, a little crazy. But hey, whatever works.

Matt is the only person I could ever do any of this with, really, all of it, which is a lot of "this", trust me:) I think back to the moment I knew that I was falling for him and I said that if we got together it would be something "serious" and I was right. Marrying your best friend is awesome, maddening at times, but mostly awesome. Knowing that we have each other throughout all of this makes it okay somehow - that and our two super cool boys. They are tenacious as hell, ha:)

*Updated blog - check

* Felt cathartic release - check

* Ummm, you get the idea:)

R

Fa, La, La, La...Crafty Craft:)

Yeah! I am friggin' crafty Caroline, cookin' Claudia, glittering Gladys - well, you get the idea:) I have ( and by I, I really mean Matt and I ) got Christmas done - inexpensively and quite beautifully if I may say so. With our limited resources this year we decided to go for the "handmade" gifts. I know, you are thinking badly knitted things and hokey religious mangers out of popsicle sticks - no, no my friends.

Be prepared to be amazed and astounded:

Numero 1, Ze Paper Ornaments :

Made them with the kids using construction paper and basically anything red coloured! We tore up the paper, put it in the

blender with some water, and

formed them into shapes using cookie cutters. Then bake, voila!

Here is the link for the instructions:

http://www.playcreateexplore.com/2010/11/recycled-paper-

christmas-ornaments.html

The next thing we

made were rainbow crayons. I truly love this one. We melted crayon bits in muffin tins mixing gorgeous colours

together and popped them out in a round shape. Awesome for kids, fun for adults to make!

This one we are doing again!:

http://dohdums.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/tutorial-kid-friendly-crayons/

And of course we did the cookie thing, Martha Stuart cookies this year a la cocoa ganache, oh, excuse me:) The kids made the roll cookies with us, they mostly wanted to eat everything. It was really a lot of fun:)

I bought some little things form Target and put it all together with some tissue and love, check it out:

Love it,

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays:)

"In times of stress be bold and valiant" - Horace

Christmas is in full swing, which as most know about me, is fantastic as I love the holidays!

I am trying not to let everything going on both before and after the holidays taint my enthusiasm while Henry has his last eye stent removed on the 21st. It is good to finally be rid of the stents but he needs to be put under, not so good. But he will be all done with the darn eye things after this:)

Eliot's big surgery is looming but Boston Children's Hospital sent us quite a substantial preview and we have a pre-op date that will last hours apparently to discuss all the stuff involved.

I have to admit that I have a bit of a cry every now and then to release all of the internalized worry and stress. Sometimes I just feel as though I need somewhere to put it all and I don't want to worry my own family. Hmmmm, I feel as though this is a bit of a mom thing, no?

I have taken up "Zumba" at our local Ymca and I think that helps, as does the sauna and steam room.

When the chips are down I tend to "circle-the-wagons" and keep my head down, I am trying to juggle - more like balance, all the hard with some of the joy of this time of year. Mostly I try to quiet my mind so that I can relax for a moment and breathe.

When Henry approached me with his plastic pink cup saying, "Coffee? Hot?" this morning it was really, really hard not to just be so happy that I have these two boys in my life - wait three boys, Matt is pretty awesome these days:)

The more things change...surgery date has arrived.

Not what we thought, but still there is some decision that has been made. Dr. B called tonight, prime-time dinner hour which for us is around senior citizen dinner time, five ish. Dr. B said that he talked with his five colleagues and that they had overwhelmingly voted for ureteral re-implantation surgery on the yucky kidney:

http://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/education/ureteral_reimplant_surgery/index.html

So, we are going to try and preserve the last little bits of function that it has instead of just eighty-sixing the whole thing. The weird thing is that we hung up the phone and later on got a call to get the whole thing moving. So, we are on for January 3 and we are thankfully going to have a big preoperative chat with all the people we need to talk with at the hospital.

My first reaction was to cry, the eyes watering, this is all happening kinda leaking crying and Matt hugged me back into okayness. I think this is good, it is nice to be doing something and to feel as though we are working for Eliot now. It is scary, I am terrified, but also feeling good that Eliot may be able to have two kidneys in his lifetime even if the one is a lot less.

On another note, Christmas tree is up, smells great and only one ornament broken. Tree 0, kids 1. The boys are so excited and have been actually saying, "Shhhhhhhanta", I love it.

I will try to keep posted and to tell everyone that I can feel the cyber support, thanks:)

Merry- Merry

La deuxieme partie

Well, it was all very anti-climatic really, Dr. P had not received the necessary info about Eliot's test and was very: it could be this but if it's not then we can do this, or we can not...

Yep, less is not more right now! Anyway, looks like the molars have begun to invade both Henry and Eliot's mouths and they are not happy (read: Matt and I are not happy). It is really hard to console the inconsolable; nothing is working it just hurts Mama and Dada!!!! We are not opposed to tylenol or anything that stops the pain, still, they hurt.

We are trying to be optimistic about life and things in general but I must admit I am feeling more Bitchy Barbara than Susie Frickin Sunshine, that is okay, that is life. I went for a pedi today which somehow seemed to make things a little brighter. Something about bubbling warm water and polish that can pick a girl up.

I am looking forward, looking up, trying to see the light at the end of the proverbial paper-towel roll.