HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Today is a very special day for me. First off it is a reminder of all the things in my life I have been blessed with.

The first thing that I'm truly thankful for is my oldest son Coltan. Coltan is my hard headed, stubborn son and I wouldn't change anything about him. I love when I come home and he gives me a hug and tells me he loves me out of the blue. He also loves to wrestle and is always "picking" on me. Well he is officially taller than me so now it is actually a challenge. Coltan has the personality that he is very caring and doesn't like it when someone is upset with him. He is a lot like me. I love you Coltan......

The second thing I'm thankful for is my middle son Cody. He likes to be my little slacker but I have got some tricks to get him up and moving. Cody is usually my go with the flow child and sometimes that is nice in itself. Even though Cody is 12 he still has a lot of kid traits and he really doesn't care what other people think. He is more of a leader than follower and I love that about him. He is wonderful at home with Carson and is always calm with him and very loving. If Carson is crying, Cody will do everything he can to make him better. Cody also about once a week tells me he is going to sleep in my bed. It is nice to see that he still shows affection as well. I love you Cody.......

I know that it is a matter of time that my two older boys will go through that stage where I'm not their mother. Don't all teenagers do that?

My third blessing is Carson. He is kind of my surprise baby. Everyday he gets smarter and cuter and I love his ham personality. He loves everybody. He is so sweet and I'm very thankful that even though we have so many doctor appointments every month, he doesn't have something more life threatening. As I walk into Children's Mercy I look around and even though I'm stressed out with how time consuming all the appointments are, or how many sleepless nights I get, I'm still in a little easier position than some parents of very sick children.

I'm thankful that I have met some of these parents as well. They are a true inspiration with their strength. I pray for the parents I met over the the last few weeks for their children to come home soon and be healthy.

I'm also very thankful for my mother and step father. They have been very helpful with Coltan and Cody and she is always running to the store for me so Carson and I don't have to get out of the house. She is my best friend.

I'm thankful for the rest of my family which is a lot of people. We are always together on holidays and birthdays and days just because. It is nothing for us to walk in a restaurant in the middle of the week and ask for a table of 15 or 20. Most of my family lives with 10 minutes of each other.

I cannot exclude my friends and my blogging friends. You all have been my rock. I have a lot of things going on and to see everyone so eager pushing me forward because you know I can do it, it is wonderful. Thank you to each and everyone of you for your presence in my life. You all mean so much to me.

Most importantly, I'm thankful for God. He has blessed me with everything. There are so many times I question his decisions but I know he is doing what is best for me. One of the biggest things I'm trying to change about myself is to stop trying so hard and let him guide me without me worrying so much about it. Everything happens for a reason and HE is the reason.

I hope everyone has a blessed and wonderful day and eats so much that we all need naps. Only to wake up and eat some more!

Home Sweet Home

Carson and I are back home. He went in yesterday at 1:30 PM and Dr. S was running behind. So he was kind enough to give my mother and I some dinner vouchers. That made up for it a little. :-)

So anyways, we gave him the Versed and Carson was very happy and drunk acting. It was actually very funny. He kept leaning his head into my face and would say "mommy, how are you"? Then he would giggle. Of course his words were very slurred. So when it was our turn and we had to pass him off, he really didn't care that much. He was actually laughing. It was such a huge relief. I got on the elevator and just had the most peaceful feeling. I can't even explain it. Dr S was in there for about 35 minutes and came out and said he did remove a pebble. He said he cut it out along with some scar tissue and will send it off to the pathologist. But he didn't expect anything to come up with that. He also put internal stitches in and said they will dissolve on their own in a couple of months. He then put the steri-strips on the outside. He said he also cleaned up the scar and it will like a thousand times better when it is completely healed.

Because we gave him the Versed before hand he did come out a little slow. He also had some strider like last time but they were so on top of it. I really felt like they did an awesome job keeping a very close eye on my little Porkchop.

We did continue to give him all of his breathing treatments every 6 hours and this morning he did pretty good. They kept him on the IV until about 12PM because he wasn't eating or drinking well but that is just my typical Carson. So we were discharged around 2:15Pm and we went downstairs to eat and then we went to Occupational Therapy at 3:00. Carson had a wonderful time with Nancy and we are starting to work more on his muscles for his eating issues to see if this will help out with our swallowing problems.

We left the hospital around 4:30 and home by 5:00. Carson actually fell asleep in the car and it is almost 8:00 and he is still asleep. Oh boy, am I in for an early morning.

So that is it for now. Hope everyone is having a great day.

Update on Carson....

This is Shari from The Beauty of Life.

I talked with Kaci today at 6:00 her time and Carson has come out of surgery fine. They are waiting to get to a room and he will be there overnight.

She will update as soon as she can when she gets home.

Blessings,

Shari

Surgery is on for tomorrow

Well we went to the Pulmonary doctor today and she was going to have the final say about his surgery tomorrow. Dr E was very concerned with Carson having two surgeries 25 days apart. She went over his history and the lab work came back from scoping his lungs and I'm happy to report that it came back just fine. Then we discussed him being on Advair for the last couple of months. It is a small improvement that he has gone from having flare ups 5+ times a week to about 2-3 times. We are going to leave all alone with his medicine and report back to her in Feb. If he hasn't slowed down on flare ups by then, she will probably go back and do a different type of scope. So keep your goods thoughts and prayers coming that the Advair is going to work. So after that, we discussed Carson's night terrors. How lucky is that ? Our pulmonary doctor is actually in charge of sleep studies? So she gave me a few ideas to help Carson and she said if we don't have any improvement in about 3 weeks, call the office and they will prescribe him something temporary until we come back in this Feb. So after all of that, she said she would allow him to have surgery but she would come check on him on rounds Wed morning and she would let Dr Singhal know that she will not release him until she has seen him as well. She is kind of the Chief in all of this. But I'm glad because I think she truly loves Carson.

So the plans tomorrow??? Well we got bumped back again so now it will be at 2:50. We go to Same Day Surgery and check in at 1:30. I hope they are running on time this time. He does have a 10-20% of ending up in ICU but again, with all of your happy thoughts and prayers, he will be just fine. We will be giving him a medicine orally called Versed. This is a medicine that will calm him down so much that he won't even realize we are passing him off for surgery. I just feel with all the trauma from last time and the closeness of the two surgeries, this will be for the best.

So, please say a prayer for Carson and let us get home soon so Mommy can get us ready for turkey day.

And the winner is...........

First off, I just wanted to tell everyone thanks for sharing your recipes with me. I'm going to be trying a lot of them out very soon. Starting this week. So I put everyone down on a sheet with a number and you received extra entries for extra recipes and also another entry for adding me to your blog roll. I then went to Truly Random Numbers website and had it pick. The lucky winner is Colleen over at Spaghetti.

I will be mailing her a gift card from Wal-Mart this week.

I was very excited by the turnout and the number of recipes that came along with it. Thanks again to everyone and as I do use your recipe, I will make sure to let you know!

So for the rest of the week

Well it turned out to be a very long and busy week. Coltan and Cody both had their usual soccer practices. We did some homework and had some reading time. Nothing to exciting or new with them. We did rent a movie last night called the Iron Man. It was okay. I have heard a lot of good feedback so I was a little disappointed. Guess I'm more into more girlie movies.

As for Carson, well we only had 4 doctor appointments this week. I already posted on his ENT appointment and his plastic surgeon. Thursday we went and had our pre admission testing. The anesthesiologist is a little concerned with Carson going under. I knew on his last surgery that they had a little problems with him after taking the breathing tube out but she made it sound like it was a bigger deal than they told me. So that didn't make me very happy at all to think the doctor withheld pertinent information from me. I understand that maybe she didn't want to worry me more or think that maybe I wouldn't understand completely, but bottom line, she withheld info from me. So anyways, she said he will have a 10% chance of staying on the vent and going to ICU but because he did so well last time, I'm going to stay positive. Dr. M did want to make sure that I knew that we would be staying overnight for observations.

After that appointment we ran to our OT appointment and as usual Carson had a ball. We worked on the swings again and he showed her how he can make a police car now. My mom bought him an etch and sketch and this boy loves it. Nancy had been working with Carson on drawing straight lines, circles, and the letters X and T. So we have been using this at home and practicing a lot. He is always telling me to draw him a car and a couple of days ago he drew a straight line and the two circles for the tires. So Nancy was really impressed. Carson has also learned all of his shapes including diamond, heart, star, oval, rectangle, square, and circle. He officially knows all colors as well including white, black, grey, pink, and brown. We are also practicing all the colors in Spanish. He is so smart.

Now for my cute story, so today I told him that he needed a nap. He hasn't been sleeping well at all and he said NO. So I took him to my bed and laid down with him and told him to go night-night. Carson said No night-night. I asked him why and he said because. I said because why? He said No night, day day. OMG he is getting to smart for his own good. I cannot believe the things that come out of his mouth.

Coltan and Cody went with their dad until Sunday afternoon and Carson and I are going to hit a Christmas shop in Grandview this weekend. My mom went there last week and said they have everything and all at great prices. I'm not sure if I ever told anyone but a couple of years ago my sump pump went out and it ended up flooding my whole basement. My basement is finished and includes a closet, rec room, Coltan's room, a full bath, and a crawl space. Well now I'm slowly replacing everything and I only have until May to turn everything into my insurance for reimbursement. So I'm going to go there and pick up some cute things to decorate my house.

Until next time.....

WERE OFF HOUSE ARREST

Well Saturday was day 15. That means Carson's home bound for 14 days were over! So we went to Crown Center and celebrated. I left my house and went to pick up my mom, dad, and two nieces and off we went. First stop, Fritz and Co. (the train restaurant). Carson was excited the whole time and even got to eat real food. He has been on a non dairy, soft, and clear for the two weeks so today he got to eat chicken nuggets, french fries, and a chocolate milk shake. (with the thickener of course).

After dinner we started walking around the shops and bought Carson a few things that he couldn't live without. He got a cute little dog that sings a Christmas song all while flapping his ears. Then we went to the 'Crayola store and he got a big coloring book with some colors. We ended up leaving there around 6:30 and Carson was out 15 minutes later.

Saturday night Carson woke up at 1:00AM and never went back to bed. I had my niece Aspen come over around 11AM and stay with him so I could sleep for a couple of hours. Carson never went to bed until about 9PM that night and then of course we were up all night long. Carson wakes up and screams for long periods at a time and nothing I do will help him.

So Monday morning started all of this weeks doctor appointments, We went to the ENT for his post op check up and Dr N said his ears and tonsils look great. I expressed my concerns about Carson not sleeping and she stated that he is having night terrors. It is basically like sleepwalking without the walking. The child sits up and screams and hollers and isn't really awake. So since he isn't awake, you are suppose to sit and watch. Sometimes it goes on for a couple of minutes up to 40 minutes. It is so sad to know that he is going through this and there is really nothing for me to do. She said it can happen for a number of reasons starting with being sleep deprived (yup), separation anxiety (yup), or something that was traumatizing (surgery). So she said it can go on up to 1 month and if it goes longer than that, she will refer him to a child psychologist . So that is what I have been up against. Dr N said that I really should try to get some help with someone but Charlie is at the farm until Nov 24th and I have asked him to please help out but he is really involved with deer hunting. So with that said, I'll be the only one tending to Carson helping him through this.

Yesterday we just tried to work on getting him back on a routine and we will see if we can move forward.

Today we had an appointment with the plastic surgeon on his chin and I asked him if he thought this was too soon for Carson with the night terrors and he said it was up to me but why wait for them to stop and then start all over again if we push this back. He thought it would be in the best interest of Carson to get this over with and then not worry about him repeating this cycle in Jan or Feb. So surgery is still on. But he did ask if we could move it to Nov 25 (one day later) and he was very appreciative to me being flexible. I grew a whole new form of respect from him after him thanking me several times and even took the time to walk us to the elevator. What doctor does that? Pretty cool if you ask me.

Tomorrow we have to see the anesthesiologist and then we go to Occupational Therapy. Monday is back for the Pulmonary Clinic and then Tuesday is surgery. We will spend the night and we have OT scheduled on Wednesday so I'm going to see if Nancy would come up to see us.

So that is about all I know for now. I have been pretty busy with everything and cannot believe it has been since Saturday since I posted last.

Coltan came home Saturday and Cody came home Monday. Thank goodness soccer has slowed down a tad. We only have practice now on Monday and Tuesday's since we are now in an indoor fields. Of course we still have lots of games on the weekends. The boys are only on two teams for the winter so that will help out a little as well.

My goal this week is to get all of our X-mas decorations out and start putting them up. (okay Amy, you can put your tree up now. LOL) So wish me luck. I'm going to try and sneak into work tomorrow afternoon and Friday since I haven't seen that place in 3 weeks. I don't even know if everyone still works for me. :-) I think someone would have spilled that. LOL

I will try to update some more and I still have some cute pictures to post when I get the time.

5 Minutes For Mom Contest

So there is this fun contest that I would like to enter Carson in. It is from www.5minutesformom.com . The winner will receive a $500.00 gift card to a local grocery store. Who couldn't use that? This is Carson at his first birthday party. His birthday actually fell the day before Easter so I had 30+ people there for an Easter dinner and Carson's birthday. Poor little guy. He is allergic to everything and actually broke out into hives after eating his first cake. Hopefully this will be something he will outgrow.

Surgery Day Part Two

For those of you that haven't followed long with us, this surgery was actually on Oct 31st and we were discharged on Nov. 1st. I have been behind on posting pictures because I'm tied down with a two year old. So we finally got called back to our room. This is where they took his vitals and where we got to talk to the anesthesiologist and then to the doctors. We started here to get his weight, height, and vitals.

This was the next room that we stayed in for a while. The nurse came in and did a thorough medical history on him.

Thought we'd try to ride the dinosaur for fun.

Well we were told we were still waiting on Dr N so we took him back to the waiting room where there were tons of toys. He really liked going into the house and someone would knock to see if he was home.

Playing with Lego's

Now he is bored, hungry, thirsty, and tired. His patients were going fast as they should be. We were now there in our third hour waiting.

This is nurse Phil. Carson really liked him so I asked him to be the one to help us get Carson back.

One of my saddest moments as a mother. We had to say bye and watch him go by himself. I cried just a little. Phil promised to take good care of him. As they turned the corner Carson was crying out to me saying "mommy, please come back". I almost stopped the whole surgery just so I could take him home and never scare him again.

Update on Carson

Well we are in day 12 and we only have to stay home 2 more days. I told Carson that him and I are going to party at the mall. I'm putting him in his stroller and we will take 5 hours to walk every inch of the mall. LOL I just know that once we get out, we are staying out ALL weekend.

Coltan and Cody have been spending some extra time with Chris this week. We were afraid with it starting RSV season and just the fact that they are in school everyday where they can pass around everything that they were going to stay away. I miss my big boys a lot but I know this is all for a good cause. I do see them everyday because they are getting off the bus here. They still give me big hugs and we talk about their day and homework and then they sneak out with cupcakes and pop. (Cody, like I can't see the box your hiding behind your back).

Cody is also going to Memphis this weekend for a very elite soccer tournament. This particular tournament is only by invite and it is the best of the best. Cody's team was selected and they accepted the invite. He will be playing the top teams from the state of MN, TX, FL, AL, TN to name a few. Chris has volunteered to take him this time since we will be ending our 14 days and Charlie will not be in town to watch Carson for me. This is the fourth ever out of town tournament that I will not be attending. So I'm sad but I know that Cody is really excited because with Chris' work schedule, it is next to impossible for him to take off and go with him.
Chris took Cody two years in a row to Clarksville TN because he has family in KY and wanted to stop off and Chris took Cody to Jeff City because I was pregnant with Carson and in the hospital battling a kidney infection, e-coli, and high blood pressure.

I wanted to tell my mother how thankful I am for everything she has done. She has stopped by everyday and has made Wal Mart and grocery store runs for me. She has even taken some of our clothes home to wash and bring back. I haven't been getting much sleep and Carson is very clingy. If I go downstairs to do laundry, he freaks out. He just wants to be with me 24/7.

Charlie is leaving in the morning to go to the farm until Nov 24th. Guess I still don't have a break anytime soon. But I'm very used to it where he is concerned. We have had a few disagreements over the last two weeks. He doesn't understand how hard it is to take care of a child and not get any sleep AND not be able to up and leave with Carson because we can't chance him catching anything. If he gets sick after they did exploratory on his lungs, we could be in serious trouble.

Carson really is getting his nights and days mixed up. I'm not sure if it is the medicine or just because he is scared to go to sleep. He has finally started taking naps but not more than 20 or 30 minutes. Then he is wanting to go to bed early and we wake up with him crying all night. Yesterday he was up at 4 AM and then he didn't go to bed until 3AM this morning and was back up by 8:00AM. So is this a "this too shall pass" or something else going on? Does anyone have any suggestions how to get my two year old back on a schedule that would be ideal for ME as well? I'm up for advice at this point. I'm really looking forward to going back to work this Monday for one whole week. But I would also like to be awake when I'm there. Then we are having minor surgery again on Nov 24th and will need to spend the night, and since that is also Thanksgiving week I will take that week off as well. I just want to get him well and get my life back to some normalcy. Please pray that this is going to happen for me sooner than later.

Coltan's favorite pastime

Coltan was in a tournament a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to post some pictures. They won the first three games which advanced them to the finals and they ended up losing. They ended up taking second place which is still great to me. Great job Coltan. Mommy is so proud at how much you have advanced in soccer.

He looks like he is getting ready to fall over. I always enjoy taking these action shots because you never know how it will turn out.

He actually headed the ball on this one. He is coming back down and the ball is on it's way up. The boy in red came down and fell causing Coltan to trip over him and landing on him as well.

Surgery Day Part One

Well we started off having to show up at the hospital for our scheduled time of 2:15Pm. They told me that surgery was scheduled for 3:25. So once we were there, we were told that we would be waiting because Dr. N was running behind. Carson decided that he wanted us to drive him around the waiting area while we wait for our name to be called.
He is such a cutie. Mommy cannot get enough of his cute smile.

Daddy stopped to take a quick picture. His job was to pull Carson around the waiting room.

He wasn't very happy hear. We hadn't ate since 7:15 AM and now it was pushing 4:00. He kept asking for crackers and apple juice. Mommy was very sad.

Papa and Daddy are trying to entertain him so he keeps his mind off of food.

One last pose of his matching bear. He hasn't put mister bear down that much while we have been home.

Cherry coolwhip salad

I thought I would share one of my favorite dishes as well. This is all you need and it will make enough to feed 10-15 people easy. It takes about 5 minutes to mix and your done!

1 tub of Cool Whip
1 large can of Pineapple Tidbits (drain all of the juice)
1 large can of Cherry Pie filling
1 can of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk (14oz)

Mix all above together in a large bowl and let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

This taste great! Now help me out and get going on the contest. Submit a great recipe for me to take with to my family Thanksgiving Dinner. Remember there is a $25.00 gift card for the lucky winner.

Wanna win a Wal Mart Gift Card????

Okay, first off, today Carson seemed to be a little better so I was able to play catch up on every one's blogs and get some housework caught up. It was so refreshing that we were acting a little more like himself. Now don't get me wrong, he's not 100% yet but I'll take the small improvement that I did get.

Coltan and Cody were in a soccer tournament this weekend. It is actually Coltan's team and Cody guest played. Well needless to say the boys team took first! I'm so proud of you boys. My mom went to all but one game and said that both boys played great. Coltan plays as a defender (closest to his own goalie) and mom said he did great. Cody plays on top and he scored a couple of goals as well.

My dad, step dad, mom, and two nieces came over and my dad cooked his famous chili for dinner while we watched the Chiefs. WOW, 1-8. Just not looking so hot.

So anyways, I have noticed that a lot of people are already blogging about Christmas. So this is the deal, I know I have a lot of friends that read my blog as well as a lot of lurkers. So this is your chance to delurk and help me out as well. Every year my Aunt Mary has Thanksgiving. Now everyone in my family knows that Aunt Linda brings Pumpkin pie and a corn casserole. Aunt Mary makes a rice casserole and of course the turkey. My mother brings a 7 cup salad and another one that I can't think of the name of right now. My sister is in charge of the store bought rolls, dad is the Tippins pie and I always bring my cherry/pineapple salad and hash brown casserole. So this is my plan...... I would like to take with me a new side dish and/or dessert. So this is all you have to do, leave me your favorite recipe in my comment and you will receive a chance to win. If you have a couple of recipes to share, you will get one entry per recipe.Now if you post it on yours and send me your link so I can check it out, you get an extra chance. I really would like for you to put a tried and true recipe on my blog. If someone else already has a similar one, put it on anyways. If it is that popular, I should be trying it out. I will put everyone who participates name in a hat and have my boys draw one name out. If I choose you, you will receive a $25.00 gift card to Wal Mart. If you want an additional chance, add me to your blogroll and leave me a comment and you will one more chance, If I do not have your name on my list, let me know so I can add you. This contest will end on Saturday November 22rd at 11:59 PM CST. I will announce the winner on Sunday November 23rd by 9:00PM CST. Thanks and good luck!!!

The famous question is, how is Carson?

Well all the nurses and doctor's were right. They all said he would be in the most pain from days 5-10 for the scabbing over. He has woke up every night drooling real bad and can't even swallow. I feel so bad for him with all the pain he has been in.

Wednesday night he woke up at 2:00AM screaming and spit out 9mls of pain med. He is given 3 mls of pain med but he was in so much pain he couldn't even swallow the medicine. I'm also giving him a Maalox and Benadryl mixture that is suppose to help coat his throat. So needless to say, we were up the rest of the night. He isn't taking any naps at all since we have had our surgery. It is almost like he is scared that I'm going to leave him again. He finally went to bed around 8:00PM and I followed shortly after.

Thursday morning he woke up at 2:15,3:00,4:00, and we finally got up for good at 5:30AM. I feel like he is having nightmares because he is crying in his sleep and then he wakes up and clinches on to me. I have had to have him basically sleep right on top of me so he felt safe. When he wakes up I ask him if he is hurting and sometimes it would be yes and I would give him medicine When he says no I ask him what is wrong and he says "scares". Has anyone ever had this happen with your child after any type of surgery or hospital stay? I'm hoping that this is a temporary deal and it will pass.

Friday he was still in a lot of pain. He just laid around and watched Scooby Doo, Signing Time, and Young and the Restless. :-). He finally took a 20 minute nap and then he sat strait up and started screaming again. I rocked him to sleep around 9 last night and didn't move until about 11.

Then again, we woke up off and on all night and he is still crying. He did sleep in to 7:15AM this morning which is the latest so far. Since today is Saturday, we were blessed with lots of visitors which helped me out with my saneness. First came my niece Aspen who stayed for a couple of hours. Then Carson's babysitter (second mom) Kelley came over and she was so sad to see him. He was real miserable and kept gagging because he couldn't swallow. Then my friend Casey stopped by and stayed for a couple of hours as well. My mom brought Carson a used but new to him TV. The one in his room is so old that there aren't any jacks to plug in a VCR/DVD player into. So the one we got is a VCR combo and I have a DVD player. This way he can watch all of Coltan and Cody's Disney movies on VCR and I don't have to go out and buy all those movies on DVD's.

Then the last visitor of the night was my most exciting visit. It was Rachel from Love for 9. We have talked, texted, and blogged for about the last 4 months and we finally got to meet. She knew I was having a terrible day yesterday and volunteered to come by then but my mom and step dad were already on their way so I told her to wait until today so we could have more time together. Since Casey surprised me it ended up being all three of us but I still had a great time. It was so nice to just sit and visit and Carson only had a few meltdowns. Rachel is going to try to stop by tomorrow with her daughter after she picks her up from Melana's dad's house. So I'm hoping she does and I will get lots of pictures of the two cuties. Carson was able to sign a little for Rachel and did say a few words in Spanish. He even gave her his great big smiles and I know he likes her because he even tickled her a couple of times.

Anyways I just wanted everyone to know that Carson is still hanging in there and I did get over my cold so even though I'm very sleep deprived, at least I can function a little better. I actually counted and for the last 4 nights, I have had 12 hours of sleep total.

Belated Halloween Pictures

Well I know these are long overdue but here is my cute little Porkchop for Halloween. Since he was admitted into the hospital to have surgery, I couldn't think of a better thing to be than a Doctor. He had just about every employee come over to tell us how adorable he looked. I couldn't agree more! My mother went to Build a Bear and decided to buy Carson this bear with scrubs to go with his outfit.

Dr. Carson was paged to an emergency. He didn't have time to pose, he is off saving patients.

Were still here, but everyone is sick...

I'm not feeling that great right now but I wanted everyone to know that for the most part, Carson is doing okay.

Charlie and I must have picked up something from the hospital because we are both sick. We have real bad colds. So now the key is to figure out how to prevent Carson from getting it as well.
Carson hasn't had ONE nap since last Thursday(before surgery). He is real clingy and it is almost like he is scared to fall asleep. I hope this is temporary. I have had to rock him to sleep or Charlie gets him to fall asleep on him, and he is in our bed every night. He has waken up in the middle of the night and he is crying. So Charlie and I have to comfort him and then we can usually get him to lay back down as long as we don't move. He is on Loratab (pain med), Amoxicillian, and we took him off of Zyrtec and put him on another one that also causes drowsiness but nothing will stop him. He is bouncing off the walls but not like when he is just full of energy. I'm giving him the pain med every 4 hours right now because when he gets to around 3 hours, he tells me his throat is hurting. So I can't wean him off of that yet. He has been waking up at 5:30-6:00AM every morning and is on the go til around 8 or 9 at night. I'm doing all I can to keep up but now I'm feeling even worse with this cold. He hasn't eaten very much. He will eat Jello and has had some applesauce but wouldn't eat mashed potatoes, meat loaf, noodles, yogurt, or pudding. So this hasn't been very easy. I feel bad for him because every time I turn around I'm giving him more medicines. Between his eye drops, ear drops, inhaler, and oral meds, I believe he is taking 12 different things and some of them are repeated 2 and 3 times a day. So this crazy schedule is enough for me to be forced to be on my toes at all times.

Thank goodness for signing time videos. He has been watching a lot of those videos, and he also likes Scooby Doo and Flintstones. So we have tried to hang out in my bed or the couch and watch these videos. We played with play dough, cars, colored, and my mother bought him an etch and sketch and he loves that. It has been real good with helping him draw circles and write the letter X. We are working on those two in OT. So with all the activities above, he has really been working on his motor skills so Nancy should be proud since today would have been our regular day with her. That is about all of the excitement going on in our house.

Charlie went back to work Monday but he is getting off a few hours early and so far has spent every night at my house. I do feel like we have turned into an old married couple. I have done a lot of cooking an thankfully we have enough to have leftovers for the next few nights. I made a big batch of Chicken and dumplings, BBQ Brisket, chicken salad, 2 pans of meat loaf, peach cobbler, and about 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies, I've been laughing and telling everyone that after I get Carson okay, I will be blogging about crash diets and starving to lose weight. Oh well. Gotta have some fun while I'm home bound. We have also rented a couple of movies to watch. Anyone seen any good movies lately let me know. This is my new life until Nov 14th.

I did get to get out yesterday for about 15 minutes to vote. Everyone was talking about how long the lines were so I was kinda looking forward to that so I could just hang out and not be inside of my house. Well I showed up and was in and out and back home within 15 minutes. Oh well, maybe next time.

Anyways, I still have some pics of Carson from Halloween in his costume and some cute ones from OT and a few of the boys at soccer and of course Carson in the hospital. So when I feel a little better, I will be posting.

Thanks to all of you for you phone calls, e-mails and comments. It is nice to have so many wonderful people in our lives. We really appreciate you taking the time to think of us. The phone calls have been wonderful because I'm actually talking to someone who is an adult. I have tried talking to the TV a couple of times, but just not very fulfilling. So all of you talkers, keep the calls coming. Your helping me stay sane. :-)

WERE HOME

I guess the hospital has done a terrible job transferring phone calls to me. So with that said, I have finally had a few minutes to jump on my blog and let you know that we were discharged and Carson is home. He did such a great job and mommy is so proud.

First off, the surgery was suppose to be at 3:25 and we didn't get to go down until 5:30. Surgery took about an hour and half and then he was out. It lasted so much shorter than we ever thought. Dr Nicklaus came down and said everything went very well and that she didn't see anything wrong with his anatomy. So with that being said, his swallowing issues are for a different reason. She also said that his vocal cords did look a little swollen and she didn't have any rhyme or reason for that. When he came into recovery they were able to take his breathing tube out then but they did have to give him a breathing treatment. When he finally started coming around they let us in to see him. He was crying hysterically and was so scared. It literally took us two + hours to finally calm him down.

After we settled in his room (which was probably close to 10:00PM), Charlie and I just pretty much rocked him. He finally drank some apple juice and even ate some jello. I was pretty impressed with that. They finally took him off his O2 and IV around midnight. I finally got him to sleep and rocked him until about 3:30AM when Charlie woke up and took over. He stayed asleep until about 7:15. We didn't get him to eat anything but he did drink some more apple juice for us.

The Resident Dr came by around 10 or so and said since he is doing so well and his lungs were sounding great, we could be discharged today if we wanted. So I didn't give that a second thought. We got packed up and got him home and I have been loving on him ever since. As long as we keep his Loritab in him, he seems to be doing fine. He did however stay awake ALL day and didn't go to sleep until around 8:00PM. I don't know if he is having a fear of us leaving him or what. He has been extra clingy but after all he has been through, I don't mind at all.

Anyways, that is it for now. I will post some pictures of Carson tomorrow when I get the time.

I do want to tell every one of you that I'm so thankful for all of the thoughts, prayers, phone call, and comments you all have left. I knew he would be okay with so many thinking of him. Look at what all of your prayers did? It got Carson home a lot sooner than we ever dreamed of. Thanks again!