One whole week confined to a small hospital room = A heck of a lot of activities

As miserable as it was, in a weird way it was kind of nice.  We got to just hang.  No house construction, no boat work, no house cleaning, no work.......just played with the little man.  We did really miss Kya though.  Ryker asked about here all the time.  She wasn't able to come visit because he was in a quaranteened area of the hospital.

The gifts just kept coming.....

I wish I had gotten a picture of him in his hospital clothes.  Here he is in the pants, but after the first couple days he didn't want to wear shirts so I didn't get him with his tie back yellow shirt.  The whole outfit was sweet!

Ryker Cam

Ryker Cam

Ryker Cam - very artsy I'd say

Ryker Cam

Ryker Cam

Ryker Cam

Ryker Cam

A little hide and seek

I think you need to find a smaller partner to hide with you Ryker.  Kara totally gave you away!

Ryker Cam

Cat in the Hat game: Seth going for the "under the trick-a-ma-stick with the fan between your knees."

There's that "big smile" I've been trying to get him to stop doing.

Headed to town, on a bus, until as usual they crashed into a deer, or maybe it was a porcupine this time.  Should I be concerned that everytime Ryker is driving something; truck, forklift, backhoe, motorcycle, street sweeper, just to name a few of his favorite vehicles, he crashes.  He always hits some sort of animal or building.  Sometimes it is just a curb, but that one is totally realistic because he rides around with his dad a lot :)

We played a lot of "I spy" out his window

Best toy in the hospital: the bed

Ryker Cam

So Ryker is under the impression that I can actually play the guitar.  He even requests songs.  I can also make up sweet songs about just about anything.  He likes to pick 5 things and have me sing a song about those five things....that part I am good at, but anyone that knows me, knows I can't actually play the guitar.  Right now in his eye's though, I'm awesome!  I'm thinking that if I want to keep the charade going, I will need to start lessons now.  Then by the time he is old enough to catch on, I'll be able to play a few easy songs and by the time he's old enough to know better, I will be as good as he remembers.   

Thank you Uncle Ty and Nikki.  He still has his balloons and more than a month later, they are still floating.

Morning stretches

Squeezing playdough though a shaped hole never gets old....oh to be 2 again...

Lovin' the playdough necklace. He had no idea I could make such awesome jewelry.  Just wait until we pull out the polished agates and hot glue buddy.  You are going to see your mom create masterpieces!

Thanks Lacy, Megan, and Sara! 

Styrofoam, you are no match for Ryker.  Even in his sleep, he can break you!

Finally busting out of this sh*tbox!  We had so much stuff to get to the car and Ryker would not let me take it out and come back for him.  I asked him numerous times if I could just take a load and then come back for him and the rest of the stuff.  Every time, I got a big fat NO before I even finished my sentence.  His suggestion was to take him and a load and he would wait in the car while I came back for the next load.  Hhmmm...he would rather wait in the car by himself than wait in this room he's spent any entire week in.  I guess I would probably have felt the same.  I had the nurse find us a wagon and we made the two trips together.  

Thanks to everyone that came to visit, to Grandma Katha for taking care of Kya, to everyone that sent care packages and gifts, to Seth's crew for all the work they did in his absence, allowing him to jump off in Ketchikan to fly home and getting the boat safely to Sitka, and to my Mom and sister who dropped everything and showed up immediately to help out....Ryker, you owe your grandma a trip to Ireland someday. 

Gimme that cereal!

Peek a boo

The new boat is equipped with a sweet changing table - good forethought Fred Wahl.

It is also great for naps.  This was during the time that Ryker was so sick and the first antibiotic was not doing anything to make him feel better.  We went to the boat because Seth had to do about a 5 minute task.  Ryker was enjoying being on the boat so we hung out for a while.  Then he fell asleep in the tophouse bunk for about 4 hours.  We didn't want to wake him and the boat was so nice and new and clean (unlike our little house right now, completely cluttered with toddler toys and baby stuff) that we hung out on it for about 5 hours.  It also has a sweet stereo system and a view that can only be beaten when the boat is in motion.  We even got pizza and had dinner there. 

Still sleeping...zzzzzzzzz....

Kya's turn for a nap

Now we are playing in the new house because there is a ton of room to run around when the weather is bad.

Ryker Cam

Kya looks a little worried about Ryker screaming "say cheese" each time he takes a picture

Ryker picked this Fun Factory playdough machine out with a gift card that he got from Children's Hospital the first time he had to go to the emergency room.  He loves it.  While we were in the emergency room a lady came in that was doing a research study. I'm all about helping in the for research sake, but I wasn't really in the mood and didn't want to put Ryker through anything.  We listened to her even though my instincts were just to send her back out the door.  She just needed to take some measurements, so I asked Ryker if he wanted to do it.  I figured he'd say no since he hated it when anyone came in even just to talk to us.  I must have sold it too well because without hesitation, he said he wanted to do it.  I asked him if he wanted her to measure some parts of his body to help other kids.  Then I told him he would get a gift card to buy something at Target.  I figured the gift card is what sold him until a few days later when he kept telling people how a lady measured him and he helped some other kids.  Can he really draw a straight line between that lady measuring him and it helping other kids?  We explained it to him, but it just seems so abstract to understand.  I guess he just believes what we say.  Even though I'm glad we participated, I still felt a little like we were pimping our kid out as a lab rat, during a vulnerable time for him, for a $10 gift card. 

Anyway, as we were walking into Target the next day, I asked Seth "What are you going to do if he picks out a $100 toy."  "Buy it," he responded.  His gift card was only worth $10, and he gripped that thing all the way home from the hospital and throughout the next mornning.  He had been through so much that Seth wasn't about to tell him no, no matter what toy he picked.  Oddly, of all the toys there, he picked one within the price range and that was age appropriate.  And wow, has he gotten good use out of it!  He loves that thing.

While Ryker was sick, Kya went to daycare sometimes and to Grandma Katha's because he needed so much attention.  He talked about how much he missed her all the time.  He wanted a picture of her.  He carried it around for a day, then taped it to his wall when he went to bed.  When they would see each other for brief periods, it was obvious that she missed him too.

Tiger?  Where?

Oh, me.  Sure, I knew that.

So Seth's mom brought the kids these tiger hats, but she didn't know what size so she got 3.  I had Seth convinced that she got one for him too and that he was going to have to wear it to BEHS football games this fall.  I finally told him the truth, but I still think he should wear it.

Ryker has to show Kya how to use all his old toys.  I hate to tell you buddy, but she's got it down.  This isn't rocket science you know.

First tandem trip to the mailbox.

We had to bust out the jumper a couple months ago

"Check out these abs."

Birthday party at daycare

The Crew

Ryker is not yelling in every picture.  We've determined that this is his "big smile."  When I ask him to do his little smile though, he refuses stating that he likes to smile big.  I'm sure all our pictures will be like this for a few months.

Fish egg toast compliments of chef Dad

Peek a boo

Kya hanging while we work on our new house

Putting the little man to work. No we do not make him wear a helmet to vacuum.  He was riding his bike and didn't want to take it off.

Snuggled up

I have yet to comb either of my children's hair.  I think Kya's is looking pretty good on it's own.

You can't keep a good man down...

We made it home from the hospital and Ryker is feeling good.  He is on oral antibiotics 3 times a day for the next week and needs to be monitored for certain things like his breathing, see his regular doctor in a week and go back to Children's Hospital in about a month to see the pulmonary doctor and the Ear, Nose, and Throat team.  They will do another chest xray at that time and most likely a broncoscopy where they take a look in his airway and lung, and possibly pull some stuff out of his lung.  

Basically this whole ordeal started the end of January.  He had been coughing like crazy and we thought it was the tail end of a cold he had.  We took him to the doctor and they agreed.  About a month ago, he came down with a fever.  I assumed it was a virus and would run its course.  On the fourth day, I took him to the doctor where they confirmed it was probably just a virus and would run it's course.  That afternoon, I tried to take him back to the doctor because he was much worse, but they closed early due to the snow so I took him to the emergency room.  They drew his blood and determined it was caused by bacteria so they put him on an antibiotic for 5 days.  This did nothing to make him feel better.  I called the doctor's office a couple times and talked to the nurse who said that it might take a while for the antibiotic to kick in.  On day 4 of the antibiotic I took him back to the doctor.  A chest xray revealed what they thought was pneumonia so they extended his antibiotic another 3 days.  I took him back to the doctor 2 days later and they did another Xray and sent us to Children's because the xray showed a large circular mass and he thought it might be something much worse than pneumonia.  By the time we went to the Children's emergency room, he had been having constant fevers for about 10 days and not eating.  They gave him an IV antibiotic and sent us home with a 10 day supply of a different antibiotic.  This one seemed to work and he was feeling much better within days.  He didn't start eating for about a week, but with all the Tylenol, Ibuprophin, and antibiotics we had pumped into him over that last few weeks, I don't think I would have had much of an appetite either.  The day after his last dose of his antibiotic, his fever was back.  I took him to his regular doctor and he again sent us to Children's Emergency room.  Now his xray looked like a big circle with fluid in the bottom half.  They admitted us to the hospital.  I will spare you all the scary details that I was first confronted with because they turned out to not be the case with him.  He recieved IV antibiotics for 6 days as they worked to determine what was going on.  Most likely, he aspirated something into his lungs back in January and it caused this big abscess in his lungs and also developed into pneumonia.  The pneumonia was cured with the second dose of antibiotics, but then he got RSV, a resiratory virus that is going around.  That was more than likely the reason he got a fever the second time, because his fever broke after 4 days and they confirmed the RSV with a nasal swab.  It was horrible timing because he had just finished his antibiotic so everyone was alarmed and thought the pneumonia was causing the fever.  Now that they had all the pieces in place, they just needed to work on a plan for the abscess.  They wanted to do a broncoscopy and look around in his lung for the peanut pieces, but he wasn't healthy enougth because of the RSV.  They have to put him under and they would be working in is airway, which was already swollen and irritated, plus he about coughs up is lung when he coughs.  They did a bunch of pulmonary therapy with him hoping to break some of the crud up in the abscess so he could cough it up, but the xray we had on the day we were released showed that it hasn't budged from the day we were admitted.  They are hopeful that the oral antibiotics he is on now will get rid of the remaining bacteria and hopefully he can make some progress getting some of the crud out of the abscess on his own so when they go in they will only be looking for the initial cause (foreign body, probably peanut) and not clearing a bunch of other stuff out of his lung.  If all goes well and they think his lung is clear at that time, the abscess should start to shink on it's own and we will have an Xray in 3 months and again in 6 months to be sure that it is gone.  Athough tissue in the lung has most likely been damaged, it should only leave a little scar tissue if anything after the abscess shrinks and we are told there shouldn't be any lasting damage.  Let's hope they are right.

Apparently Seth's claim of having oversized lung capacity is acutally true and has been passed on to his son, because they were amazed that he is breathing as well as he is with that thing in there.  It is big and numerous med students came to check him out because it is not something they see very often.  All the doctors were wonderful and very knowledgeable.  I'm very thankful that they were/are willing to sacrifice so much of themselves to get through medical school and become the best of the best.  I can't imagine dedicating so much of myself to my career and I have nothing but respect for them.  I knew he was in good hands and the only thing that worried me was how they kept using words like "impressive" and "amazing" to describe his Xray.  The context was that it was rare and he should not be doing as well as he was and it gave me no comfort. 

The other thing that I learned is that the fact that Ryker hung out in the womb for an extra 2 weeks, helped him immensely.  His lungs were fully developed and then some.  I'm so glad I wasn't induced early due to my own discomfort and that I had a doctor that hung in there with me and didn't urge me to induce.  I truly believe that everything happens for a reason.  You just don't always find out what that reason was.  With this one, now we know.

Ryker, you have been the biggest trooper throughout this whole ordeal.  You've told me when you are scared, sad, and mad, but you've continuted to trust me through the process, something I will never understand.  Believe me, you're not nearly as mad at me as I am at myself.  You've stayed still while searching for veins, you've never spit out your medicine even after your dad gave you the bad kind that made you puke.  (I'm glad that was Seth and not me, because you still talk about it.  That and the bad milk he gave you because he had snuck medicine into it.)  How a two year old is supposed to understand why we would confine him to a hospital room for a week, stick needles in his arm a foot repeatedly, stick tubes up your nose, and put disgusting medicine in his mouth for over a month is beyond me.  I kept wondering when you would finally wonder why I kept taking you in for these horrible experiences and when you would stop believing that it was all to make you feel better, since you normally came out feeling worse with a few more holes in you.  It wasn't until the very last IV that you had had enough and finally screamed, "Mama why you let these ladies hurt me."  Believe me buddy, I would rather have cut off my own arm.  I knew you were a tough little cookie, but after seeing how you handled everything you've had to tolorate, I am amazed by your strength and it was noted by many doctors and nurses along the way as well.

I wanted to get this up so everyone knew where we were at this point, but I will have FUN posts to come, including some sweet hospital pics compliments of the Ryker cam!

Ryker's Pneumonia Battle

Thanks to everyone for the calls and kind words. Sorry we are not able to return all your calls as we are very busy focusing on Ryker right now. We are very lucky to have Children's Hospital so close by and we know he is getting the best care possible. I wish there was a way to speed up the process though as he is very irritated with not feeling well for so long and he is horribly annoyed that he can't leave his room. He's been stuck in here since Thursday night. For those of you that don't know, I'll give you the short version because thing change everyday. At this point, we think the pneumonia he's been fighting for months may have been caused by aspirating a foriegn body into his lungs. This has also created an abscess in his lungs and the last xray showed that the fluid level was not going down. At some point they need to do a broncoscopy and take a look around for the foreign object, most likely pieces of a peanut, and remove it. He's doing fine but really wants to get out of here. As much as I hurt for him right now, it is easy to keep things in perspective around here as there are much sicker kids than him here. As bad as our luck has been these last couple months, I actually feel very lucky to have a normally happy, healthy, smart little man. Feel better buddy. There is a lot of sand you need to haul at home.