As promised for you gore fans.....

Check up

Today we had a check up for Jack's foot. They unwrapped his foot and it was quite interesting. To some it may have been too much to look at but I am intriqued by medical stuff so I was actually looking forward to seeing what a skin graft looks like. His foot looked pretty raw....worse than it did before but the doctor said that is exactly how it should look and she was very pleased with the way it's healing. So now my routine is that I have to give him a bath every night, clean his foot, put some meds on it along with dressing and then put vitamin E on his head which they call his "donor sight". In the meantime they are ordering him a compression sock to help with swelling and increase the healing process. Our next appointment is in 2 weeks and at that time he will most likely be done with wrapping it altogether......yay!!! For those of you that are curious at to what it looks like, I will be taking some pics tonight after his bath and posting them maybe later this evening or first thing tomorrow.

By the way, a huge thank you to Jack's doctor, Dr. Dunkelman. She was so wonderful and did such a great job caring for our little munchkin!

Home Sweet Home

We are home! Jack's surgery went great! He went in Tuesday morning around 7:30am and was out by 8:30. His doctor said that everything went exactly as planned which was such a relief to me! Jack looked a little scary....he had his whole head wrapped because they took the donor tissue from his scalp and his foot was wrapped as well. Then I spent the whole day on Tuesday keeping him busy. He couldn't get out and play because the doctor wanted him to take it easy which was really hard for a 10 month old! So we are back home! I don't think I could have taken that hospital food one more day. We go back to the doctor on Friday and they will assess his foot and go from there. Most likely they will re-wrap it in a lighter dressing and see us in a week or so. The spot on his head has a sticker on it that will eventually fall off as it heals and his hair grows back...they say between 7-10 days. He is such a little trooper though! Not once did he seem in pain even if he was. Thank you all for your texts, phone calls, and prayers!

The Big Day

So I have to get up way too early to even think about blogging and I won't be back until Wednesday sometime so I wanted to let everyone know how much I appreciate all the heartfelt comments, calls, emails, etc... It means so much to know that so many people are thinking about us and care about us. Jack is such a trooper! I wish I had half his get-go! The biggest struggle I think I am going to have tomorrow is seeing not only Jack's foot wrapped, but his head as well since that's where they will be taking the skin graft from. Not to mention the IV, heartrate monitor, and everything else that they decide to hook him up to. As a mom, this is the absolute last thing that I wanted to be doing on a what should be a beautiful Tuesday. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous and I would much rather be at the park with Jack. I won't be able to really call anyone from my cell phone for most of the day but if anyone would like to text me, I plan to secretly have my phone on vibrate. Again, Jack says "thank you" to everyone! XOXOXO
(949) 279-4006

Quick Update

Just a quick update for those of you that didn't get my texts this morning. Jack's surgery went great! The only thing the doctor said negative was that there was a lot more damaged tissue than she had originally thought and she had to "dig" a little more. (sorry for those that are squeemish) Anyhoo, she said it should still heal up pretty well and that she would see us on Tuesday. He went in at about 8:15am and by 9, the dr. was letting me know the news. It was very quick. The longest part of the whole day was the recovery. Once he woke up he was NOT happy with being hooked up to so many things and I imagine he was really hungry. I spent a good hour trying to soothe him with something other than a bottle and at about 10:30 I was able to feed him. He was happy after that and took a short nap and we were discharged at about 12:30. A very long day since we had been there at 6:30am. Thank you all for your well wishes and prayers!

how many times?

So that is my big question this morning. How many times can I possibly run to the bathroom while trying to get out the door? I am so nervous and yet anxious to get to the hospital and have this done. I need to eat but I can't. It is pouring down rain, I'm all packed up, and just waiting a few more minutes....letting Jack sleep...or maybe avoiding the inevitable?? We have to be there @ 6:30am, Jack goes into surgery @ 8am. If anyone wants to call me, my cell phone is (949) 279-4006. I'll update later.

Ignore my yesterday blog

Sad, angry, pissed, frustrated. Those are all the emotions I have experienced today. Ok, so first of all, our appt with the burn center was today @ 11:15. The minute they take Jack's bandages off, the doctor asked me what I've been doing to treat it so far and I tell her that I've been changing the dressing 3 times a day and not giving him a bath......FYI both are the exact opposite of what I should have done. Then she tells me that Jack has 3rd degree burns....my pediatrician said they were 2ND. She also asked me why I had waited so long to come to the burn center and I give her the whole HMO rundown. Meanwhile, my hubby is sitting next to me steaming. I can almost feel the heat coming off of him wanting to strangle Jack's pediatrician. The end result: Jack needs a skin graph. I go in tomorrow morning and they put him under, clean out the burn, and attach cadaver (Sp?) skin. Then we go in on Tuesday, they put him under, cut a thin layer of skin from his scalp, and graph it onto his foot. Then we spend the night so they can keep an eye on him. I am so overwhelmed right now and don't even know what to feel. See the white? That is 3rd degree and the red is 2nd.
**Update on Doug's mom: She had a CT scan last week and the scan showed that the cancer has grown. Her doctor is also thinking it may have spread to her brain so another CT scan will be done. Things do not look good but she is very stubborn and has surprised us all.

Dr. Dyson rocks!

So I have a new love.....my pediatrician. His office is so amazing and what a great doctor he is! Yesterday we were at the doctors and he referred Jack out to the burn center just to double check and make sure there was nothing they would suggest that I'm not already doing. So, they tell me that they need to contact my HMO to see if they are contracted with the burn center and then get the ok from them.....I gulped at the thought of waiting for that to happen since the last time we waited for our HMO to refer us for something for Doug, it took over a month. Today I got a phone call from my doctor's office telling me that they had talked with my HMO and they weren't currently contracted with any burn facility but they would make an exception and allow me to take Jack to one in Santa Ana (30 min. from my house). Hurray! I couldn't believe it! AND they even made an appt. for him for tomorrow so I didn't have to lift a finger! Anyhoo, I will definately blog about what they say at the burn center tomorrow but that's my update for today. :-)

Update on Jack E. Bear

Today Jack had another doctor's appointment for his foot. My concern other than his foot was that he seemed a little "yellow" lately and I wasn't sure if it has anything to do with his foot via the antibiotics or something else. As a mom, of course, my mind races thinking the worst when it's probably just that he's eating a lot of foods with carrots in them. So his doctor looked at his foot and made a suggestion that he be seen at the burn center so now I've got to deal with my HMO and pray that they are nice. He also had me go to the lab and have his blood drawn to see if the jaundice was anything to worry about. My little trooper didn't even flinch. He sat and got his blood drawn as if nothing was happening. He definately doesn't get that from me because I hate getting my blood drawn! We should know if a few days but meanwhile I am cutting down on his foods with carrots to see if that makes a difference.
On a totally different subject: Kenzie and Haylee came over today....oh, and Jenn of course :-). It was so good to see them! Between our family being super busy and then Kenzie was sick most of last week, I haven't seen the girls in forever! Hard to believe since they live within walking distance. They both looked soooo big!

Viva Las Vegas!

This weekend we drove to Las Vegas for Ryan's hockey tournament. The drive usually takes about 4 hours but by the time we left on Friday, we hit traffic and ended up taking about 6 hours. My car was packed to the max with hockey equipment, luggage, snacks, xbox, playstation, etc....oh and 5 kids! 4 of them were our's and then we took a teamate of Ryan's. The drive was not bad except for the fact that my kids wouldn't stop argueing about who was going to play Guitar Hero next and how long and so forth....that got old REALLY fast! I have only been to Vegas once. About 4 years ago Doug took me there for my bday. This time we were staying at a hotel off the strip called the Red Rock. I was a little apprehensive at first because I had never heard of it before and everyone that I asked had never heard of it as well but Doug insisted we would like it since he had stayed there with AJ's team back in November. So my husband was right. (don't tell him) This hotel was amazing! It has a bowling alley, movie theatre, shops, casino(of course), full spa, I think like 4 swimming pools, and a kids area you can drop them off in! The rooms were amazing as well. We had a suite with an adjoining room for the kids which was prefect! Anyhoo, Ryan's team did great! They lost their first 2 games but won the last two and Ryan's scored a goal in the last game. All the boys played so great which made it so fun to watch....even when they lost.

AJ and Ali's bday was on Sunday so we celebrated by going to a hockey game in the morning, then we treated them to the spa where they got mani/pedi's, and then that night we took them down on the strip to see all the great sites...from our car. The place was packed and with Jack....it just didn't make sense. We DID get out of the car at the Venetian to do some shopping and go to dinner but that was about it. Today we headed back after Ryan's last game and got home around 8:30pm. It was a great weekend but so good to be home! Side note: I kicked butt at the slots!

Jack update: Still changing the dressing on his foot 3 times a day and his doctor started him on an oral antibiotic on Friday. My concern NOW is that his foot is oozing a little and he seems a little yellow in his coloring all over. We've got another doctor's appt. tomorrow morning so I'll update then.

Update

Today I spent the day hating HMO's. As a family of 6, it makes more sense for us to have an HMO until now. Let me explain.......
Last night in the ER they asked me to take Jack to the UCI burn unit in Anaheim first thing today. So, trying to make up for my mommy mishap yesterday, I called bright and early this morning to get him in and to my suprise, and frustration, I found out that he could not be seen until his pediatrician authorized it. So I immediately call his doctor and they suggest to me that I come in and have the doctor look at Jack's foot BUT they don't have an opening until 3pm. Ok, I can wait....I guess. To make a very long story short, I get there at 3, wait until 3:30 to be seen and his doctor tells me that I do not need to go to the burn unit but I need to change the dressing on his foot 3 times a day and he needs an antibiotic cream as well. We go back on Friday and will re-evaluate but the doctor says everything should heal up fine. Jack is the best baby! It was as if nothing was wrong today. He played as usual, crawled all over the house as usual, and smiled and giggled as usual. This kid is amazing! What an overwhelming 24 hours this has been and what a blessing it is to have such a great, go-with-the-flow baby that has made it that much easier!

Lesson Learned #532845

Tonight I learned that no matter what is going on to NEVER lose sight of where your crawler is. I debated on whether or not to blog about this because to be quite honest, I am extremely embarrassed and feel like a horrible mother. Tonight I got into an argument with Ali and got so worked up that I made the terrible mistake of leaving my bathroom for 2 seconds only to hear Jack scream, run in, and see that he had crawled over to the counter, reached up and grabbed the cord to my flat iron which I had turned on to straighten my hair. The flat iron had then fallen off my counter and clamped onto Jack's foot giving him 2nd degrees burns on both sides of his left foot. As you can imagine he was screaming hysterically and nothing could console him. I took one look at his foot and knew I needed to get him to the ER so I called Doug, told him we were leaving for Mission Hospital and off we went. By the time we got to the ER, Jack had calmed down and I was the one hysterical. I felt horrible. I felt like I should have known better and I shouldn't have let Ali get to me like she did. After 2 1/2 hours in the ER, the end result is that, like I said, he has 2nd degree burns on his foot and I was asked to follow up with the burn center in Irvine tomorrow morning. They wrapped his foot pretty well and he is his happy old self again. So, there you go. I am not perfect and this is a huge lesson learned. Believe it or not, I managed to compose myself enough to take some pictures from my phone.

~Girls only~

This weekend Ali and I went to Palm Springs for her cheer competition. We left Saturday afternoon and stayed until late Sunday night. The weather was great and being my very first overnighter without Jack, I did surprisingly well. The girls performed Saturday night and did the best I think I've ever see them do! Didn't drop any stunts and hit all their tumbling which was amazing! Not having Jack with me also gave me the opportunity to talk with a lot of the parents and have some adult time which was SO needed. A bunch of us moms...and one dad, had about 2 hours to kill so we went and had a few drinks which I haven't done in forever! Sunday I surprised Ali with a morning trip to Cabazon which is a HUGE outlet strip. Her goal was to get the $79 True Religions but no such luck. By the time we got there, they had been all picked over. Sunday night the girls performed at 6:20 and then they had awards at 7:30 and they placed 4th out of 8 teams! Yay!!!!! So right after awards we raced home and walked in the door around 10pm. The weather could not have been better and the time with Ali was great. I only wish we could have stayed maybe one more night but oh well....maybe another time. Here are some highlights from the competition.

The things I have to deal with

What greets me in the morning....

AND.......

My kids not getting along

Despite the struggles, life is pretty good!

Will work for food!

Ok, so that's a little dramatic....it's not that bad. I am. however, searching for something to do to help with our household income. I have probably been searching now for about 2 months with no results. It's tough. My ideal job right now would be something along the lines of data inputting or something along those lines that allows me to still be here for my kids but not have to do some marketing scam where I cold call people or buy a air purifier that I have to turn around and sell. I am not a good saleman. I recently got in contact with a company that does errand running for people BUT they do not allow me to have Jack with me on these errands. I also put my resume on monster.com but keep getting emails from them saying that I would make a great dental assistant in the navy. What? So I am a little frustrated.

Rain, hockey and more hockey!

So we got a lot of rain in the last 24 hours which we so need but it was not fun to drive in this morning to Escondido for Ryan's game. There were so many spin outs and accidents on the freeway it was really scary! Ryan's team did not win but Ryan got an assist which was awesome! Doug and AJ left yesterday for Valencia (Magic Mountain) for AJ's games and they lost one, won one yesterday and tied this morning and are playing right now for a seed at states......cross your fingers. Next weekend they will be off to San Jose if they win and Ali and I are headed to Palm Springs for a cheer competition and maybe a little shopping. Everyone seems to be getting past this cold which is good and I'm hoping Jack stays healthy. Doug's mom made it to Arizona after a 12 hour journey that should have taken 5. I think they got a little lost but at least they got there right?

And then there were 6

Today my mother-in-law left after staying with us for 8 days. It was a good visit but I am glad to have my house back. I had previously wrote a huge rundown of our week, but have decided to shorten it after realizing it was a little depressing. In a nutshell we did very little because Doug's mom didn't usually get out of bed until after noon and then was very tired the rest of the day but we did manage to do a little shopping, go to Ali's cheer competition, she got a haircut, had lunch with a friend she hadn't seen in 2 years, and did lots of talking. She also brought a girlfriend with her which was such a blessing because her friend, Marcia made sure she got her meds, ate, helped her get dressed, everything. It was amazing to watch how much Marcia cared for Doug's mom. I don't know what I would have done if she wasn't here.

Anyway, enough about that. My kids are sick. And of all the weeks they could get sick....it's finals week! Ali missed every final she had and AJ managed to tough it out until his last final was done on Thursday at about 10am and then he called me. Ryan has managed to stay somewhat healthy only complaining that he feels like he's getting sick. Doug is currently obsessing about the fact that he "might" get sick and therefore he should just start acting sick now.....this is why men don't give birth right ladies! The only one not complaining and not obsessing is.....can you guess.....my happy boy, Jack. He's currently cutting two more teeth but you'd never know it unless you looked inside his mouth. He just cracks me up! His latest and greatest is that he copies sounds we make and he figured out how to put his hand to his mouth and make a funny sound. Still no real crawling action. He does a lot of that military scooting which is great. Here's a few pictures from our week. Enjoy!