Turn of Events

It has been a LONG 24 hours to say the least. I believe it was around this time yesterday that we felt that things were fine, we blogged, and had some fun stuff ahead of us for today. Last night just after we ate dinner, Cdc had another episode. He'd had a few of them since Thursday, but we were still not super concerned about them until last night.

He had his fourth or fifth episode, and we decided they must need attention. We still felt rather calm about it, but we finally took him to the ER, he had lots of tests and a chest x-ray done. They found nothing wrong, and we came home after 5 hours at the ER. We went to bed.

This morning I awoke quite quickly as I noticed Cdc's body (which was laying next to mine) was getting clammy. He was having another spell. But this time he was very aware but still lethargic. It lasted something like 4 minutes as we kept blowing in his face to get him to take breaths. I cannot express the terror that overtook my whole being as we fought to get him to keep breathing. I brought him straight back to the ER at 7am. They hooked him all up again and decided to just monitor him. Lucky (in a strange way) for us, he had another episode around 9:30am. This time I felt relieved as I merely had to call down the hall to the nurses for help. This time they got to see what was happening and I felt assurance that there was physical help for my baby right there.

Now it's 5pm and I can hardly recall what has happened all day. They've taken lots of Cdc's blood, monitored him, done a CT scan, and given him medications. They still don't know what's wrong. They think it's some sort of seizures. He's exhausted from everything and has been totally lethargic all day. They're going to do an EEG sometime, but since he's okay for now he's not on the emergency list....so we're likely waiting until tomorrow. But my baby is breathing and his heart is beating, so that's okay with me.

I hardly know what to write because I think I'm still running on adrenaline. Pmc has dealt with all the nitty-gritties of getting the stuff we need, and getting people to take care of Cpc. I find it nearly impossible to leave Cdc's hospital room. But I knew I had to come write some things down, and make some information available to family. I am so grateful for this hospital. It was just opened earlier this year, the Golisano Upstate Children's Hospital. There are family rooms where we can get on the computer to blog, and get food, and relax. There is even a special entrance to come up to the PICU, which is where we were transferred to from the ER. There are fantastic doctors and nurses. I feel like I have everything I need to deal with this, especially the emotional side of it. I better let Pmc post some more of the details, because I just have to get back to Cdc's room.

Awful, Beautiful Life

On Monday we took the opportunity as a family to go and see the top prospect in minor league baseball pitch for the Syracuse Chiefs. Stephen Strasburg was fun to watch, but it was more fun to just go see some baseball with the family. Cdc was pretty chill, and Cpc was his usual self - couldn't sit still. Even with a snow cone to help him, he spent most of his time with Mom or Dad down on the concourse (luckily they had some blow-up carnival toys for the kids, he LOVED that), which was kind of a nightmare because they sold standing-room tickets. That's the frenzy that a Strasburg start creates. His last one was last night - we didn't go. He'll be in the Majors, pitching against the Pirates the first week of June. Go Bucs!

Cpc is loving life as a (nearly) 2-year-old. As we have educated ourselves about the basics of Sensory Processing Disorder and the various ways of dealing with it, we have noticed a real change in him - which means changes for the rest of us too! He reaps so many tangible benefits when we plan and implement some structured activities with one clear motivation: tickle Cpc's senses. Water balloons are a new favorite - the cold and slippery feeling of balloons full of water, and the sudden splash when it hits the ground, throwing cool-misty spray all over his bare toes! The unofficial arrival of summer here in Syracuse has been much-needed for us (although we could definitely do with cooler nights to eliminate some of the hot-air build-up in our house!). We've pulled out all the water toys and going to the playground is now the first part of our bedtime routine. We are so grateful for the elementary school playground within a mile of our house! We've also implemented a Sunday picnic and evening walk to help us get Cpc out doing some physical activity while still trying to keep the Sabbath Day Holy. Unfortunately, the increase in outside play has come with a little collateral damage - the bumps, bruises, and scrapes are definitely reaching high levels around here.

Our late spring flowers bloomed a couple of weeks ago, adding a little bit of fleeting brightness to our front yard.

Cdc has been such a great sport as we've been adjusting to the extra attention Cpc needs. Cdc is still as patient and mellow as ever. He is becoming very curious about his surroundings, and has gained enough control over his hands to put them in his mouth all day long. He is very good at holding his sucker in most of the time....and still won't take anything other than a Soothie. He loves sitting in the swing, activity stations, and the johnny jump-up. He can even play with some of the toys too. I adore how he relishes experiences. He really takes the time to enjoy the stage he's in, as though he knows the next stage will come in it's own good time. I'm grateful that he still enjoys cuddling.

Can you believe this stud I married? What an awesome Father he is!

Pmc finally sold his old bike, which meant that he could finally go buy his new one, which matches the one we got me a couple weeks ago! We're so excited to have these awesome pieces of equipment. We're enjoying some good exercise and cheap transportation.

Pmc spent the last two weeks job-hunting for something he'd at least enjoy doing this summer, but it looks like this week he's going to have to find more of a tide-over job. It's been nice having him around for some extra time, and Cpc has become particularly attached to having daddy around. He's always asking for daddy now, and has also taken off even more with his words.

I adore being a mother. It is by far harder than anything else I've done in life, but at the same time I enjoy it more than anything else I've done in life. This past week my college courses (the ones that SU allows me to take for free since Pmc is a teaching assistant) started. As I started doing the readings and completing assignments, I found myself wrapped up in my passion for learning. It enveloped me and I felt so at home. But then after a couple days I realized it was taking a toll on our family. My heart nearly broke as I realized I'd never prayed about whether I should take the classes, and wondered if maybe it was just not the right thing for us right now. So I prayed, and then we discussed it. We realized that no matter how good a deal the classes are or how much I love it, it was not something our family could afford (timewise) to do right now. I've heard other mothers talk about how it hit them at some point what freedoms they gave up when they had kids. I've always felt like I didn't give up all that much because I'd always wanted to be a mom. But, it hit me this time. I'm no longer free to go dive into a new subject anytime I want and satisfy my thirst for knowledge. That's really hard. I am very grateful I am a mom though, and I know it's a choice I made, and I would never trade it back. But I have determined to be a little better and seeking intellect even if I can't take classes right now! I am grateful we live in an age where information is so easily accessible, and I am determined to take advantage of it as best I can!

Journaling

We've been really good for a while now at getting updates on the blog regularly (even if it does turn into once a month), but in doing the updates with pictures I often forget to write some of the little occurrences of our day. I keep thinking I need to better at that, but then I get distracted and forget about it. Well, we had a bit of a whirlwind evening that I wanted to record, so maybe it will get me on the right track to more journaling amidst our digital scrap-booking here!

It started at about 3pm when Pmc and I decided that it was time to finish the rearranging rooms project (aka moving our desk into the living room and turning our office into the tv room because the upstairs has become UNBEARABLY hot) we started last night. We spent about about 1/2 hour sweating our guts out trying to get our love-seat down the stairs (it's a serious task when a furniture-mover like pmc takes that long to figure that out), and then another 1/2 hour moving all the little stuff. Just as we were finishing Cdc woke up from his nap and I went in to get him. After about 45 seconds we realized he was going pale, limp, his eyes were sunken and he was barely breathing. As we desperately tried to keep him awake and get him to breathe better, we tried to keep our heads on straight and think what we should do about it. At first I told Pmc to call 911, but then felt like we should say a prayer first. So we did, and immediately Pmc suggested that I try feeding him. As I began feeding him the color came back into his face, and he started breathing well. We decided to just call the doctor's office and get a recommendation. So as we waited on the phone for the secretary to get a nurse, and the nurse to talk to the doctor, Cdc slowly improved. However, the nurse told us we should go to the ER.

So we decided that it would have to wait until Cdc finished eating, since it was clearly helping. By the time I finished feeding him he was back to his normal self. As we talked through things, it became pretty clear to us that he had been pretty severely dehydrated (from the exceeding heat we've been having, being outside in the sun that morning for playgroup, and I hadn't been drinking as much water as I should have to accommodate for the heat). But since the doctor's office had told us to go the ER, we decided we better check in with them again. Well, as I got on the phone with them, our neighbor came over to ask about arrangements for going to our Learning Circle tonight. Then a nurse I have never met before got on the phone and lectured me about how I was wasting possibly critical time and why wasn't I in the car on the way to the ER, and my son could have had a seizure. She didn't even listen to my concern for 1/2 a second. I started bawling as thoughts of how I must be a terrible mother rushed through my head. My sweet neighbor left as I told her I'd call her when we figured it out.

We said a prayer and decided to have Pmc give Cdc a blessing. I knew in my gut that we were right, that we knew our son, and that he was fine....that I needed to relax, get out of the heat and drink lots of water. So did Pmc. Going to the ER would definitely be the LAST thing to help us. I totally believe that doctors are experts and can see things that we can't, and that we need their expertise. But I also know my son, and have a mother's instincts - and any doctor or nurse that doesn't listen to the parents concerns and carefully consider them when giving recommendations is totally missing the point. I don't know whether it was the nurse on a high horse, or if she was just following what the doctor said. But I'm terrified of Cdc's 4 month checkup next week now. I hope it turns out to be the nurse, 'cause I don't really want to go through the finding a new doctor thing.

Anyway, when we wrapped up the blessing and discussion of what to do we realized that Pmc was supposed to be on his way to pick up the missionaries for dinner, and that I had forgotten in the midst of everything to make hot dog buns for dinner. So now Pmc had to run by the grocery store on the way to pick up the missionaries and I needed to get everything ready for them.

Somehow we managed to have dinner ready by 5pm, ate, had a great spiritual lesson on knowing our neighbors, and Pmc took the missionaries to their next appointment by 6. Then it was clean-up, get in touch with neighbor, finish the rest of the rearrangement, and give Cdc a little extra attention.

Then I was off to Learning Circle (where I finally got to process everything that happened with Cdc), while Pmc took care of the boys. I had a great time and returned to a kid who hadn't been able to go to sleep because they couldn't find his water bottle. Turns out you need a pair of mom eyes to notice where the toddler hid his water bottle in the yard!

Wow, the evening was a little traumatic, but I am now extremely grateful for two things. I am grateful for things on the schedule that keep you going even when scary things happen. I needed that to help me process the terrifying feeling of my child going limp and lifeless in my arms. I never want to experience that again! I also needed it to help me remain firm in my confidence that I know my child and what he needs. I am also very grateful for the priesthood POWER in my home. Because of the POWER of the priesthood I was able to feel the spirit confirm my instincts that my child was okay. I know that using professionals are important and that they are here for our benefit and that we need to use them. But I believe in the POWER of a Mother who relies on the spirit and her instincts to help her make good decisions for her family.

And to go a little further on that topic, I wish I had always trusted my instincts so much, and I am grateful that I have not ignored them completely. Pmc and I have always felt that something wasn't quite right as far as Cpc and sleep are concerned. We have prayed for guidance often, and we have come across many things that have mostly fit, but nothing that fit all-the-way. Until now. We are having Cpc evaluated on Wednesday for Sensory Processing Disorder. But we're already pretty darn sure that's what we've been facing for 2 years. Not only because every single symptom fits, but also because the suggestions we've been given for it are working like a magic pill. I will go into it in a little more detail after his evaluation, but we'll just say this: Spending an hour at the playground EVERY SINGLE NIGHT before bed is slightly inconvenient, but also WAY FUN, and TOTALLY BETTER than spending 3 hours EVERY SINGLE NIGHT fighting a 2-year-old to go to bed.

I absolutely love my three boys. I am so very grateful that they ARE my life. Trials and all, I am living my dream life, and I couldn't ask for more!

P.S. from PMC:

That whole episode with Cdc may not have been explained as well as possible since Atec wrote it late at night, so I thought I'd share my opinions, perspective, and thoughts. I knew Atec wrote the post last night but I read it for the first time just now, and it think it sounds a little more precarious than I felt like it ever was.

Cdc woke up from his nap like she said. She was sitting with him on the love seat in the room with the AC as I was putting the last few things into place. I looked at the two of them on the couch and noticed that Cdc was looking pale. As I told Atec, she stood up and blew in his face to see how his response was - I think she was noticing at the same time that something was off with him. She held him out and bounced him a little bit, and as she did that his eyes were slightly rolling back - not rolling back in a way that would cause panic. It certainly caused concern, but not panic for me - any of you parents should know exactly the difference between concern and panic for your child. Anyway, that's when she told me to call 911. As I picked up the phone, I felt like she should try feeding him, to get some energy and nutrients into him and see if his response would increase. He took to nursing really quickly and easily, and immediately his color was returning, and his body lost its limpness. That's when we decided to say a prayer, and as we did we really felt like he was going to be just fine; that whatever had caused this weakness was going to be remedied by us.

I think now would be a good time to note that this past Sunday in Elder's Quorum, I taught the Teachings for Our Time lesson on Elder Oaks' talk from April Conference - "Healing the Sick." I feel like that was a tender mercy; one of the things Elder Oaks talks about in the talk is the balance between utilizing healthcare and medicine with using faith and the priesthood. My immediate familiarity with the inspired message from conference helped me in my time of need. We turned to the God through prayer, and then we made a phone call to the pediatrician to try to get some idea of what might have caused this type of reaction from Cdc. Unfortunately, the doctor was seeing patients and unavailable; so we were left with nurses who have considerably less training and experience, which invariably produces the response of ' you should take him to the ER to get an assessment' - code words for 'we don't have an answer, but we don't want to be held responsible if something were to go terribly wrong, so we're going to tell you to go to the ER just to cover ourselves.' I am grateful for the healthcare system, but it's not without problems. As Atec noted, the nurses just didn't really listen to her. Part of the trouble is that every time I've visited the ER as an adult, the doctors there have given a reaction like 'So why are you here?' I'm sick of nurses sending everyone to the ER, and I get the feeling the doctors are annoyed by it as well But it's not going to keep me from going to the ER when I recognize the need for urgent care.

I guess to boil it all down, kids sometimes act funny. Sometimes what's normal and fine for one child is totally out of the norm for another. Cdc is our little tender heart. Cpc is high energy-high sensation. He's our Monkey. Cdc is our little bear. He's usually relaxed anyway, so to get lethargic isn't exceptionally different from his normal demeanor. If Cpc were to display the same symptoms that Cdc did yesterday, we would have been panicked I think because it's so not him. But we know our child. We'll keep a close eye on him.

I'm including this picture of him, which I took between the two phone calls to the nurses. Hopefully if you were concerned while reading this post, you can see a little bit of why our concerns were eased. We're grateful to be on the Lord's side.

Niagara Falls

We had a blast when my mom was here. We took her to Palmyra, she took care of the kids while I did Baptisms at the temple for my very own ancestors (some of hers too of course!). Pmc finished his finals. Then we went to Niagara Falls. Boy howdy is that a fantastic place. My mom got a nice big suite that we all stayed in. It was fun to be in Canada for the first time too. We had an awesome view from our suite. We went swimming. We ate. We relaxed. Then we came home and sadly bid farewell to my mom. We were so glad she came! And for the pictures too! Sadly that's the extend of the details. I knew I should have written out the details even if we didn't have the pictures yet!

OH, and will someone PLEASE help my mom learn how to use her digital SLR? She can usually take pretty good pictures, but sometimes they're fuzzy, and half the time she can't figure out how to change the settings when she needs to!

New Words

In honor of Cpc we will be making up words to describe what the end of April, and May have been like for us. Let's just say it's been Mayprilish (adjective meaning full of figurative rain and flowers simultaneously). I think we've all had Mayprilish times before, including times other than Maypril.

First, some rain. So like I said, Cpc's sleep issues have resurfaced, with a definite vengeance. The doctor has not been a ton of help so far, but we did discover that he's had Giardia. Go figure. So he's on meds for that now. We've come up with plans for dealing with it in a way that neither of us gets totally worn out. When we're worn out we are in Giardiac Arrest (noun meaning state of exhaustion induced by Giardia-inhibited sleep patterns). As you can tell we're both suffering from a dire need for some laughter, so we'll induce it any way we can.

Next on the docket is a flower: Cdc's laughter, which definitely provides us with some smiles. All you have to do is look at him and he giggles, well it's more like a gaggle (you know, half laugh, half giggle?). If you go so far as to tickle him you get a hearty croup-sounding cough-laugh - a caugh! (homonym of calf). Wow, we're making Dr. Suess proud, which brings us back to the sleep book that we got from the library that Cpc loves!

Both kids are enjoying the library lately, and I've been trying to walk or bike to it regularly since it's only a mile away. We've made it once so far. Yup, I'm really really good at that. I believe in improving liberacy in children everywhere, starting with my own. (Liberacy - literacy in libraries). Not enough kids go to libraries anymore. The world needs better liberacy. Oh, that reminds me that we got me a new bike. Pmc got home from work the other day and saw that I was exhausted and sent me on my own to go pick up the one we had chosen (but hadn't been able to purchase and bring home because it won't fit in the car with both carseats!) We really want to sell Pmc's old bike so that we can buy him a new bike (that matches mine) too, but nobody has bought it yet (though we have had some mildewers (people with mild interest, moderate commitment, no follow-through). No one likes a mildewer!

Today, we realized that we have been in Syracuse for nine months, and the plan now is to be done by January (8 months away!) which means we're more than half-way home. Today, we're going to make a thorough list of all our 'stuff' and decide which of it is important enough to take home with us. Then, if there's things we don't plan to take, we may sell them this summer if possible, since summer is an infinitely better time for a moving sale than the week after Christmas!

As soon as we get pictures from my mom we'll post about her trip here to visit, and our little jog to Niagara Falls.