Sorry I have been MIA!

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I have come here many times to post an update and then had something happen and not get to it.

David had his stitches taken out last Thursday. Dave took the day off from work and took him to Boston. I spent the day watching our friends Adam and Sarah's daughter... I am loving having a sweet baby to dote on all day a few days a week... part of the reason I have not been around!!
Anyway, while in Boston Dave called me to let me know that they thought that David either had a small seizure or almost passed out while they were taking the stitches out... after some initial panic and some observation they decided that it was not a seizure and that he must have just gotten light headed and was maybe starting to pass out. He was fine a few minutes later after having a sip of ginger ale and a cold cloth on his face.

The same day they were in Boston, Ben had his allergy testing. So I packed up the baby.. ok.. I will admit here... I am sooo out of practice at planning an outing with a 3 month old!!! But we headed to the allergists office and after all was said and done, it has been determined that Ben has a severe latex allergy.... not fish as originally thought. We are thinking now that the food may have been handled with latex gloves. They tested him for every kind of sea food known to man and nothing showed up... but the latex reaction was severe. We will have to be very careful with him and carry an epi pen at all times because you can never tell where latex will be. For instance, he has been getting hives every time he plays x-box with his brothers... at first I thought it was just because he gets worked up playing, but after looking at the controllers, the buttons are made out of rubber. So no x-box right now... I am on the hunt for controllers that don't have rubber buttons. Poor kid...

Lets see... what else around here?? David had pneumonia 2 weeks to the day after is surgery. I should have known from past experience that every single time this kid has ever been intubated, he gets pneumonia exactly 2 weeks later... you could set the clock by it. But it's been 4 years since his last surgery and I completely forgot about it until he walked in the door after school and I could hear him wheezing from the doorway before I could even see him!! I put him right on the nebulizer and called the Doctor. Luckily we caught it early so the antibiotics and steroids did their job quickly.

Easter Sunday David came inside from being out in the yard... (remember he had just had his stitches out 3 days before) He shows up with a big spot of blood on his leg so I, being the calm mom that I am, freak out and after looking at his leg realize rather quickly that he has opened up the suture lines on the lowest z-plasty! The lines are gaping open and it is looking like it need to be stitched up. I call Shriners who as always were wonderful... the Dr. recommended that we try to get him to our on call pediatrician to have them look at it hoping to save us a trip to Boston on Easter Sunday. I won't go into a "on-call" pediatrician rant right now... but the guy was basically an idiot who told me that it wasn't an emergency, asked me why I was bothering him, and told me to put a band aid on it and see his regular Doctor on Monday. The things I said to him were not pretty and I will spare you all the gory details... but lets just say I think he undertands now that I mean business!!
I ended up taking him to the local ER and the Doctors there were great... they called Boston and consulted with the Shriners docs. and together they came up with a plan that everyone was happy with. The Local Docs. were not comfortable doing anything more than steri-stripping the wound closed and bandaging it. The Shriners Docs. were ok with this and I was to bring him to Boston on Monday for them to decide what to do. Everyone was happy and we got to go home and have a yummy Easter Dinner instead of driving to Boston.
Monday morning Ben had his follow-up at the allergist to go over an emergency plan for him at 9am, so we went to that and then I drove home, picked up Jake, David, and Caroline who had no school for a professional development day and headed to Boston. 8 hours later we were back home, with the incision examined, glued, taped, and bandaged.
A funny story about the day before I sign off for today.... while we were in the exam room and they were trying to decide how to handle David's leg, Caroline was asking questions about what they were going to do, the nurse looked at her and said " Don't worry, we will get your brothers leg all fixed up" She looked back at her and said " Yeah, he was a bad boy because he was jumping on the trampoline and thats why his leg was bleeding!" WHAT??!?! This was news to me!! Nobody bothered to share that little tidbit with me before we headed to Boston.... So, Thanks Caroline for making me look CLUELESS!!! sigh....

In between all of that medical stuff... Aric pulled a muscle in his stomach weight lifting and we thought he had a hernia, and now I have poison ivy all over my ankles from doing yard work in clogs with no socks.
So that' life around here in a nutshell... or maybe its not nutshell... maybe its a dump truck...
Thanks for reading....
~Vicki