Jess's Surgery

Sorry it took so long to post about her surgery. Everything went fine. If anybody has had their tonsils out recently you know what it is like but if no one has don't let anyone tell you that is it is just a simple procedure and they will up and running in a couple of days. You have to worry about bleeding and accidently pulling the scabs off the throat for at least ten days. You can't eat anything but soft foods for ten days, and especially for the first few days have to keep drinking fluids, Jessie's size four oz every hour to keep her hydrated and her fever down or they have to go back to the hospital for an IV. Try explaining to a three year old, a stubborn one at that, that you have to drink even though it hurts and you have to take the yucky pain meds to make it stop hurting. Oh and they also don't tell you until right before just when they are starting to feel better, the pain comes back and this time in your ears because the nerve is connected to the throat so your ears and throat hurt as the scabs fall off. Nothing makes a mom feel useless and like a not good mom like when your child is in pain and you can't make it go away. I couldn't even bribe her. She is finally doing better. She still has a few bad times but they are getting fewer. The worst thing is I just got her to sleep through the night a few months ago and now she is falling back into the pattern again of waking up and she wants her binky again which I just about had her weaned from now that she was sleeping through the night. Now I have to start all over hopefully not taking another three and a half years to do so. The surgery was quick and she did really well except that they wouldn't let us be with her until she was back in her room and when we got there they said she was emotional from the anethestic, it had nothing to do with the fact that she woke up in a strange place with strangers and we were no where around. that made me a little angry. Once I got to hold her she calmed down and when we took her home three hours later she was in pretty good spirits because she wasn't feeling any pain at the moment. I think she ate more that day than she had in a week. I hope this makes sense and is not jumbled, I am not used to no sleep again and Jessie is trying to hurry me up so I have to write this quickly but I wanted to let everyone know how it went.

Jess surgery date

Jessie's surgery date is Dec 1. She was so funny at the doctor's office telling everyone that she is Cinderella and a princess and making sure that they didn't forget that she was to get a sucker and sticker when she was through. The doctor told her that they needed to get the monsters out of her petite princess's throat. She was a little surprised by her size but most are when they realize how old she actually is especially when she speaks because she talks very grownup for her age but looks like a two year old. Any way when we went to set up the surgery date she told the nurse her name was Cinderella and I told her that they needed her real name or they would be confused so she huffed and said " fine. My name is Jessie". Unless she freezes at the hospital, she will be very interesting while we wait for the surgery to start.

halloween

Here are some pics of the kids' Halloween costumes. Jessie was Cinderella, which is currently her favorite thing, and Brandon was, of course, a wildland firefighter. The one of her alone was to show her Cinderella shoes. We went to the mall for trick or treating and then we went to Chris' new house for dinner and brought GG to see his house and see the kids' costumes. This year the kids made us dress up too. Mom was a witch, dad and Scott were firefighters and I was Red Riding Hood. The picture of Brandon with the wild hair is from when his school had "Crazy Hair Day" and that's how he wore his hair for school that day.

Alphabet song

Jessie was singing the alphabet song the other day and when she got to the lmnop part she sang "a lemon and a pea". Brandon informed her that was wrong that it was lmnop and she said " I know that is what I said a lemon and a pea." After arguing about it for a few minutes Brandon finally gave up and told me " I give up she is impossible."

Jessie's turn

Now Jessie is going to have to have surgery. She keeps getting strep throat, she'll be off the antibiotics for a few days and then it comes back. She is on the third round of antibiotics and the doctor is setting her up with an ENT to have her tonsils taken out. At least that can be done here in Pueblo so we won't have to keep going up to Springs. Brandon is taking it harder than she is. He started crying and said he didn't want her to have surgery because she might die. Of course he was also very tired at the time and he is feeling the stress of all the problems we have been having. I wish I was better at keeping things away from him but he is way too perceptive and he worries too much for a kid his age. Jessie takes everything in stride and unless it hits her later, she isn't worried and is just happy that she can have popsicles after. I guess I should be happy that nothing catastrophic has happened and we are still making it so far but they say God only gives you as much as you can handle and I think he has forgotten to check up on how we are doing because I am not sure how much more I can take this year.

surgery update

The first few days after the surgery Brandon was doing well with only a little pain if he tried to do too much. He had a slight fever after the surgery but it went away and there was no other sign of infection and we had to keep reminding him to keep calm. It is amazing how such a little incision and still cause a lot of pain if you move wrong. Any way on Monday we sent him to school and he didn't even want any tylenol or anything for pain and he was fine. About 10:30 while we were on our way to the grocery store the school called. They said Brandon was complaining that his incision was hurting and they took his temp because they had already sent several students home sick that morning and he was running a slight fever so we had to bring him home. Now when I got him home and took his temp it was only 99 and I figured it was because he was hurting. Other wise he was feeling fine but the school policy is you can't send the child back to school for 24 hours after the fever is gone so we knew he would be out Tuesday for sure. On the way to get Brandon, Jessie started looking like she wasn't feeling good and she was running a fever also. So on Tuesday, Brandon was acting fine except for a runny nose and a cough and a slight fever, and we had to take Jessie to the doctor because she was complaining of a sore throat and strep has been going around. She was confirmed with strep. The doctor said Brandon just has some virus and it would just have to run it's course. Scott then made me a doctor's appointment because my throat was hurting and I suspected that I had strep also ( which I do). By Wednesday, Brandon was finally feeling lousy enough that I wasn't regretting keeping him home and his fever spiked and we were all just feeling lousy. Poor Scott was the only one not sick. Brandon's nurse from the surgeon called to see how he was doing and she said that sometimes it happens that if a child has a virus that is in incubation that sometimes the surgery sets it off and the kid gets really sick right after the surgery which is what seems to have happened to him. Anyway everyone is feeling better now and we were able to have mom's birthday party on Saturday and enjoy it and Brandon will be going back to school tomorrow and hopefully won't pick up something else. Yesterday was the first day Brandon was off of surgery restrictions and he felt really good and ran everywhere. I don't think he walked anywhere.
On a brighter note here are a few cute things the kids said and did. When you ask Jessie why she is so cute she says it is because everyone loves her. And if I am getting on her about something she tells me "now mom, mind your manners". The other night I went to check on them because they were having trouble sleeping and Brandon was leaning over her bed singing to her and stroking her hair. I told him he was such a good big brother and he said "I know". Last night I was trying to get them to sleep and they kept talking and laughing and Brandon said that there were just too many jokes in their heads and they had to get them out before they could fall asleep.

Brandon's Surgery

Brandon had his surgery yesterday. We had to get up at 4 am and be up in Springs by six. We did okay until we got to the hospital and then couldn't find where to go and there wasn't anybody on duty at the front desk. A flight nurse happened by and showed us where to go. It was a good thing we took into account for getting lost and left enough time. Once we were checked in, Scott's brother-in-law Louie and the assistant pastor at his church, who had driven up, came into the room and said a prayer for Brandon. After they left we sat around the room for a little while and watched tv until it was time for the surgery. The surgery was scheduled for 7:30 and they came and got him right on time. They only allowed one parent in the operating room so Scott went in with Brandon until he was asleep, which took like five minutes, and then he was back in the room to wait with me. They told us the surgery was going to take about an hour because the doctor thought there were two small hernias. Scott had taken off to go find some food and he hadn't even gotten back to the room yet when the doctor came in and said they were done. It had only been maybe a half hour. He said there was only one hernia after all, just a lot of fat pushed through. The hole itself was probably only maybe a few centimeters big. So I went to recovery before Scott even got back to the room. The nurse said that Brandon would probably sleep for awhile because they gave him twice the amount of anethesia since they thought he would be in longer, but Brandon started coming around when he heard my voice. At first he was okay and was drinking some juice but then he started getting sick. They gave him some medicine for the pain and nausea but he just wasn't tolerating anything well. Since his vitals were good we left recovery and they took us back to the room where Scott was waiting. There we tried to get him to hold some liquid down. He was just so tired and had so much anethesia in him, plus running a slight fever, that he just felt crummy. He wanted to go home but we knew he would be so miserable riding home for an hour when he was feeling so sick. They finally gave him some different medicine that they use as a last resort because it causes the patient to fall asleep but that is what he needed. Brandon was afraid that if he fell asleep they would do more surgery. The meds kicked in quickly and he went to sleep. The problem was that as he slept his oxygen stats kept dropping below 87 which would set off the alarms and a nurse would call and see if we needed something. I spent an hour watching the monitor and waking him up enough to take deep breaths to keep his stats up until he woke up enough to stay awake. Besides the kink in my neck from looking up at the monitor, it worked wonders. Once we got him to stay awake and get dressed, he said he felt much better and he was acting more like himself. The nurses had given him a blanket and a bear to make him feel safer and he told the nurse he was going to give his bear to Jessie when he got home so the nurse gave him another one to give to her so he could keep his. Once we hit the car, he immediately wanted to go get food. Amazing because an hour ago he couldn't even stand eating a popsicle and now he was starving. He ate two fruit bars on the way home and half of a chicken sandwich when we got home. Jessie was so happy to have him home she couldn't stop watching him and mothering him. Then they both took naps. Jessie woke up at 5:30 when she realized brother was gone and made mom put in Shrek to watch because there wasn't anything good on tv that early so she was pretty tired too. He was still feeling a little bad last night with a low grade fever but this morning the fever was gone and he is just stiff and sore. The incision is only about 3/4 to a half of an inch long and covered with steri strips. The fun part is going to be keeping him calm and only doing quiet activities for a week. The surgeon told me good luck with that. He has to avoid gym and recess for a week and he is worried that he will get into trouble with the teachers for not taking gym. We keep telling him we have a note from the doctor so they won't be mad. All in all it went as well as it could have and at least it is all over and hopefully we will never have to do something like that again. I am so proud of him. He was so brave and strong through the whole thing. The nurses said they wish all their patients were like him, he never cried or anything, he just did what they told him to. Thank you for all the prayers. They were greatly appreciated.