Blood Draw Day

Thank goodness for Emla cream!!!! That stuff is the best stuff ever invented! Ethan had to have his blood drawn again today for his allergy testing due to a lab mess up. The lab incorrectly read the original orders and didn't run the appropriate tests on the blood. When I was notified about this from the nurse at Dr. Maupin's office, she informed me that this lab has made this mistake several times now requiring children to have to have their blood re-drawn. I just thought that was unacceptable. She told me that she had spoken with Troy, the lab manager, about Ethan and she informed him how very upset they were that this had happened. She also suggested that I let Troy know how I felt, too. I intended to do just that.

Knowing how traumatic the last blood draw was for Ethan, and thanks to my wonderful friend, Candy, for recommending it, I called the pediatrician's office and asked that a tube of Emla cream be called in for us. This is a lidocaine type of cream to numb the skin before giving an injection. Knowing he was going to get this cream, Ethan was actually very calm about getting his test. I put the cream on both of his arms before we left for the hospital and they were good and numb by the time we arrived there. The minute we walked into the lab, the girl at the desk recognized us right away. She is the one that drew his blood the last time. We chatted for a minute and I told her why we were there. She said that she will NEVER forget Ethan. :) And I'm quite certain that is because he turns into the Incredible Hulk when it comes to getting his blood drawn. The amount of strength the boy gets is amazing. She had to call in two other people to hold him down the last time just to do it. And that was with Rob and me already holding him, too.

As I was talking to the nice lady about how unhappy I was that we had to do this again, I mentioned to her that I would really like to speak with Troy, the lab manager. I told her about how the nurse had already complained, but I would also like to speak with him personally. In fact, I thought it would be beneficial for him to come and sit in on Ethan's blood draw. When I told her this, she just laughed and said, "Oh, this is going to be good." She called Troy and told him Ethan's name and asked him if it sounded familiar. She smiled and then told him that Ethan's mother was here for the blood draw and that I would like to speak with him personally and that I would also like him to come in and watch Ethan get stuck with a needle. The nice lady hung up the phone and told me that Troy had a 2:00 meeting that he was going have to postpone and that if I was willing to wait a few minutes, then he would be down soon.

Troy walked in and introduced himself to me and gave me his business card and then he introduced himself to Ethan. I explained how upset I was that Ethan's labs had to be re-done. I explained how I understood that mistakes happen, but it was also my understanding that this mistake keeps happening and that is the reason why I requested to speak with him personally. I told him that I felt like when they are handling the blood of children, then every possible step should be taken to make sure that the orders are followed exactly as written. I told him that there are obviously some quality control issues that need to be addressed if children are having to be re-stuck needlessly. He showed me the orders and showed me how easy it is for the mistake to happen, but then went on to say that it doesn't excuse it. I told him that I felt like if he stayed and watched Ethan go through a blood draw, maybe he would then be able to help put some quality control guidelines in place so this won't happen again. He said that he would gladly stay and watch Ethan get his blood drawn.

We went in the little room and I sat in the chair with Ethan in my lap. His heart was beating 90 miles an hour. Troy was doing a wonderful job of engaging him in conversation and asking him questions to try to distract him. Ethan still had to watch, just as I promised him he could, and he did beautifully as the needle was poked in and the many vials of blood were drawn. He never even flinched. Even the nice lady who drew he blood was amazed. We both told him how proud we were of him. She said, "Wow, Ethan! Last time I had to call two people in here to hold you down! You did great this time!!!!!" Ethan was just smiling. He looked at me and said that he wanted me to use that cream on him for his flu shot next year, too. :)

After it was over, Troy talked to Ethan for a minute and told him what a good job he did. He then talked to me and assured me that these issues are going to be dealt with. I let him know how grateful I was for him to take the time to come talk to me and to sit in on the blood draw. He had to leave to go back to that meeting, but he told Ethan that the next time we have to come back to the hospital, he wants us to come down to the lab and he will personally give Ethan a tour of the inside of the lab. Ethan was pretty excited about this.

So, the funny part in all of this is that this was probably the one and only time that Ethan could have screamed and it would have been okay since I had Troy in there watching, but I am really glad that Ethan had such an easy time with the blood draw. I hope we get the results soon!

Poor Ethan!

I am so upset with the lab at the hospital. We have been waiting for the results on Ethan's allergy tests and I spoke with the nurse at the doctor's office today and Ethan has to have the test done all over again. She told me that she just got off the phone with the supervisor at the lab and did some big time complaining to them because this is not the first time that this has happened. The people at the lab are not reading the orders correctly and so the appropriate tests aren't getting done on the blood. These poor kids are having to go through multiple blood draws because of it. Ethan had a very difficult time with the first blood draw and it was traumatic for all of us. Now he has to go through it all over again. We are going to do it on Wednesday. I will have to check him out of school early to take him all the way back to Pensacola just to do this test. After talking to the nurse for a while today, we did talk about Ethan and what the results will mean for him. We do know that his iGe came back very elevated and this means that his asthma is definitely allergy induced and not sickness induced. Now we just have to locate what he is allergic to and that is what this blood test is supposed to find out for us. We have to get to the bottom of these sudden, and sometimes severe, asthma attacks he gets.

I think it is growth spurt time for Emily again. She is starting to have a lot of clumsy spells and many falls. Just in the last three days, she has fallen down at least 10 times by just tripping over her own feet. She even did something this weekend at a restaurant that she hasn't done in over a year. She fell out of a chair. In one instant she will be sitting up at the table eating, and in the next instant she will be on the floor. Luckily, my mommy instincts were working and I reached my hand out and caught her before she fell completely out of the chair. She was so embarrassed, though, that it happened and she sat silently on my lap for a little bit and just sobbed. Tonight she was walking through the living room and just tripped over he own feet and got a little carpet burn on her knee. I'm still trying to figure out how it happened, but that boo-boo has caused her more grief tonight than if she had a huge cut on it.

We have another busy week this week. Tomorrow is Terrific Tuesday at church, which we will be leaving early so the kids can watch Chase's baseball game. Wednesday we will head back to Pensacola for Ethan's blood test. Thursday the kids have a field trip at school and we will go to the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo, and then that evening we have tennis lessons. And Friday is Field Day at school. I'm already exhausted from the week and it is only Monday. :)

Tennis Lessons

Today was a big day for Ethan and Emily. They have been waiting for this day for quite a while. They started tennis lessons today. They have been wanting to take lessons and we got them their own rackets for their 6th birthday. We are always playing tennis in the driveway and they are pretty good at hitting the ball so I felt like they would be ready for lessons now. The coach had them doing different drills before they even started doing anything with their rackets. One thing they did was hold this cone and toss a ball back and forth with their partner and try to catch in in their cone. The coach actually paired Ethan and Emily up together. That was probably NOT the best choice because every time Emily missed catching it, she blamed Ethan's throwing. And if she did catch it, Ethan would say, "That's because I threw it right to you so you could catch it." One thing that was cute, though, was how while they were doing this one of the other kids made a comment about how he didn't know why they were throwing balls into cones. Without skipping a beat with his throwing, he immediately answered, "This is going to help us learn how to hit the ball with our rackets." The coach turned around so fast and said, "ETHAN!! You are ABSOLUTELY right!" I have to admit that that was a pretty proud mommy moment that he was able to figure out the reason behind the drill.

It was pretty adorable watching the kids learn the correct form for their forehand stroke. They all did such a great job. There were a couple of times where Ethan was combining tennis, baseball, and golf all in one sport. It was pretty funny. And Emily, the absolute and total little rule follower wasn't going to do anything or go anywhere unless she was told exactly where she was supposed to be. At one point, the coach forgot to call her name to get in a line, and she just continued to sit along the side of the court, by herself. I saw her sitting there and yelled her name because I thought she might be over there pouting for some reason. But when I called her name, it brought the coach's attention to her and he realized that he forgot to put her in a line and apologized and couldn't believe she was still sitting there where he last put her. Well, she was following the rules and that was where she was told to be until somebody told her anything different. :)

When the lessons were over, the kids were in a great mood and talked about how much fun they had. They will go every Thursday for the next six weeks. The mood changed not long after we got home, though. Emily suddenly had one of her really bad headache episodes this evening very soon after we got home. It was one of her extreme ones where it comes on almost instantly and it makes her lethargic, glassy eyed, and makes her body temperature soar through the roof. She started vomiting and had it coming out her mouth and nose because there was such force behind it. These are the kind that are so hard to handle because they are so sudden. I am just so thankful that we had already gotten home when it happened. She basically passed out on the couch and I wasn't able to wake her up again this evening. She never ate dinner tonight and hasn't had much to drink either. I'll just have to get her up early enough to give her a bath before school tomorrow. The poor thing was just so pitiful tonight.

Spring Break

I can't believe that spring break is over. It went by in a flash. Things seem to stay crazy in our house and the days fly by because of it. Before I knew it, a week went by since I last posted an update. There are a lot of big changes that will be taking place in our lives and we are doing our best to prepare for them. I will discuss more details later, but we are optimistic about things and at peace with our decision.

As planned, we went to Grandma's house every day this week like I usually do, except for Wednesday. That was Rob's scheduled day off from work this week because of their hour cutbacks and so we took advantage of it by taking the kids to go see the Blue Angels fly at the Pensacola NAS. They were doing one of their practice sessions with a meet and greet following. It was an awesome show to see and made for a fun morning. The kids love going to the Naval Museum and we go whenever we can. It is a great place to spend the day and it doesn't cost a thing. You can't beat that! :)

We did have a little scare later in the week with Grandma. I had to call an ambulance for her. She was having symptoms of a stroke. It was scary and she was very frightened. After spending several hours in the ER, we were finally told that the CT scan did show evidence of a recent stroke, but they couldn't determine that it happened from this incident. I had given her a full strength aspirin right away when her symptoms appeared and by the time she got to the ER, they were starting to go away. They said that this may have been a TIA, but the CT did show a recent small stroke and said that the "big one" could still be coming. The doctor said there is no way to know if and when it will happen. He said it could happen that night or it may never happen. Grandma refused to be kept overnight for neurological monitoring and said she preferred to be home. She is still feeling a little off, but let's face it, she is 88 years old. She is pretty hard headed and strong, though. If anybody can fight her way through something, it is her. One thing that is kind of ironic is how earlier that day, before I had to call 911, we were driving down the road and Emily said something that was SUCH a Grandma type of comment. Grandma and I both looked at each other and started laughing. It is always the joke in the family that Emily, me, my dad, and Grandma are all personality clones of each other. When Emily made that comment, I looked at my grandma and said that as long as Emily is alive, Grandma will forever live on. Grandma laughed and said that the exact same words were said of her and her mother many many years ago. We got a big chuckle out of that and then not three hours later I was calling 911 because my grandma's right side of her face was going numb, her right arm and leg were tingling, her face was drooping on one side and she couldn't stand up. It was extremely upsetting. For right now she is still with us and doing okay. That woman has an iron will, and she's not quite ready to give up. She tells me that she is going to hang around long enough to see the kids graduate high school. :)

Well, tomorrow is back to the daily grind. The kids go back to school. I go back to doing my volunteering at the school. And Rob goes back to work. Let's just pray that his job doesn't surprise us with any more cutbacks, or worse yet, layoffs.

Easter

Today is Easter and it has been a busy day. We didn't get much sleep last night because of Ethan's anticipation of the Easter Bunny coming. Considering the fact that I didn't go to bed until midnight, and then Ethan had me up at 2am, again at 3am, and again at 4:15, I just didn't get ANY sleep last night. When he got me up at 4:15, I told him that he wasn't allowed back out of his room until his clock said 6am. My alarm was set for 4:30 anyway because I was going to go out and hide the eggs at that time anyway to be sure and beat the kids before they woke up since they are such early risers. I just ended up not ever going back to bed.

Chase was here with us this morning for Easter and the kids all enjoyed looking through their baskets. They got some 3D sidewalk chalk and they went out right away and started playing with it. We didn't go out to do the egg hunt until after we were dressed and ready for church.

During church, Emily said the funniest thing to me. She was quietly sitting there watching the choir sing. She was just studying them for the longest time. Suddenly, she looks at me and says, "Mama, to be a member of the choir, do you have to wear glasses?" It is a good thing that they were in the middle of a loud song right then because I was laughing so hard I was crying. I think almost every member of the choir is over the age of 60, and yes, it appears that they do all wear glasses. She was just so serious about it when she asked me and I couldn't help but chuckle.

After church we went to dinner at my mom and dad's house and had a nice visit with Grandma and also with Gram, who is in town from Kansas City. The rest of our day was spent at home. The kids took their jeeps on a cruise through the neighborhood. Later, Ethan decided that he wanted to try to climb a tree. He settled on the willow tree between our house and my aunt's house next door. I was actually very impressed with him. He hopped up and grabbed the limb and pulled himself up into the tree without any assistance. That is the first time that he has ever done it without any help. He was so proud of himself. Emily was standing below him when he did it and in her very matter of fact voice she said, "Good, Ethan. Now you can climb Mt. Everest." LOL!!!!! Rob and I got a good chuckle out of that one. Of course she wanted to try and climb the tree, too. She needed LOTS of help from Daddy. She was still proud, too, though.

Wildflowers

Yesterday was the beginning of Spring Break and as promised, we spent the day at Grandma's house. :) While Grandma was taking her daily walk in the driveway, Emily was out picking "wildflowers" (a.k.a. weeds). Ethan was standing FAR AWAY from Emily and right up against my side. He then told me, "Mama, did you know that bees and wasps like to stay around wildflowers? It is because they pollinate them." I told him that I knew that and that is why we have so many beautiful flowers in the world. Then he said, "In PE at school, there are kids who pick the wildflowers on the way back from PE, and I stay FAR away from them!!!" LOL! Of course Ethan stays away from them. He won't risk going anywhere near where there might be a bee or wasp.

Today will be a busy day for us. We will be decorating Easter Eggs, making confetti eggs, and later we are going to the Hannah Montana movie at the theater. Originally it was supposed to be just a mommy/daughter day and a daddy/son day, and just Emily and I were going to see the movie while Daddy and Ethan were going to go to Bass Pro Shop together, but Rob will be busy today working on some things he needs to do and so Ethan will be going with us to the movie. Ethan has warmed up to the idea of the movie now and is okay with going. He isn't the biggest Hannah Montana fan, but now he says that he wants to go, too. I think he just wants to go for the movie theater snacks. :)

Field Trip to the Park

Yesterday the kids had a field trip to the city park to have an Easter egg hunt and a picnic. They walked over from the school. The weather was perfect and they had so much fun. I didn't walk over with them because I had to drive ahead in my car to hide the eggs with some of the other moms. Today is Good Friday and the beginning of their Spring Break. They will be out of school all next week.

We don't have any big plans since I will still be doing my usual job of taking care of my grandma. The kids are disappointed, but hey, that's the real world! We are going to try to take them to watch the Blue Angels practice next week on Wednesday at the NAS, weather permitting, but that is it. Ethan was even telling me this morning how some of his friends at school are going on trips to Disney World, or going to the beach, etc, during Spring Break, and all we're doing is just going to Grandma's. "Yes, and if you're good I'll take you to Blockbuster to rent a movie." :)

Last night out of the blue, Ethan came into my room having a Croup attack. He hasn't had one of these in a very long time!! He had the classic signs of the barking seal like cough and the strider breathing. He is better today and only coughing every once in a while. He is getting a runny nose now and obviously has something going on. I just hope that it doesn't go to his chest or trigger an asthma attack. Say a prayer for him!

Here are some pictures from the field trip yesterday.

Busy weekend and more

Ethan and Emily had a great time this weekend. On Saturday they went to an Easter egg hunt at the church. They really raked in the loot. I was quite shocked to see the kind of stuff that they had in the hunt. It wasn't just eggs filled with goodies. They had big stuffed animals thrown around, toys, games, and eggs everywhere. And considering there wasn't a big turnout of children that showed up, Ethan and Emily REALLY made out big. I told them that I was going to send a note to the Easter Bunny and tell him that he didn't even need to come to our house now because they already had so much stuff. They both just shot me some really dirty looks. :)
On Sunday we went to the early service at church and then they went to Sunday school. They were very excited since it was Palm Sunday. They got to hand out the palm crosses at the beginning of the late service and the thing that they thought was the coolest was when they got to wave the palm leaves at the beginning of the service, too. They left there so excited talking about the cool stuff they got to do. It was just me, Ethan and Emily that went to church. Ethan was a little fidgety in his seat, as usual, but Emily was very attentive. In fact, the thing that impressed me the most was how much she wanted to participate during the singing. She is reading well enough now that she was actually able to follow along in her hymnal and her little voice was singing loud and clear (and out of tune - Ha-ha) and she was so proud of herself. It was very adorable! My main goal with Ethan was to just make sure he didn't do anything to embarrass us by doing any flips off the pews. :) Oh, and Emily also informed me that her church attire is very lacking. Even though the dress code of the early service is casual wear, Emily has now decided that she needs dressier clothes to wear to church. I told her that I'd just keep my eye out for something for her. I make no promises! The child has a closet full of clothes that are perfectly adequate.

We had to take Ethan to his pulmonology appointment today. It was a four month check up. A lot has gone on in the past four months with Ethan and his many illnesses, along with a hospitalization. The doctor was very concerned about Ethan's breathing issues and the suddenness of the attacks. He did a lung function test today and it was good. I expected that, though, because Ethan is doing well right now. He did tell me that he wants to be informed of each time that Ethan has these illnesses. He said that unless it is an emergency situation where we have to get to the ER immediately, he said that we can call his office and they will see us that same day. He does still think that it will be okay to stay here locally for any hospitalizations and have our pediatrician handling the treatment because the stays are usually short ones and it would be much more convenient for us with where we live. He also said that we need to try to head off these attacks as best we can with the Orapred. This is pretty much what our pediatrician has always had us do, too. The only warning we get before Ethan starts to get a severe attack is a cough that starts approximately 12 hours before he has the oxygen sat drop. The doctor said that as soon as we hear that cough in Ethan, give him the Orapred. The doctor also wanted to repeat all of the allergy tests that Ethan had done when he was two years old. That meant going down for some blood work today. It DID NOT go well!!!!!!! You'd think that Ethan would be fine with needles after all of the IV's the kid has had, but the kid FREAKED!!!!! He turned into something like the Incredible Hulk, only turning red instead of green. They finally got the several vials of blood after we lost hearing in our ears from the screams, and we left the building all shaking from the trauma. It will be about two weeks before we get the results back on that. I hated going through it, but I'm really glad we did. I've been wondering about this for a while now.

We've had a very busy few days and it just seems to get busier. The kids have a field trip on Thursday. They will walk to the park and have an Easter egg hunt. They are very excited. I will be going with them, too, so I will have lots of pictures.

Oh, I have one more story to tell that cracked us up today on the way home from Pensacola after Ethan's appointment. We were at a stop light and Emily looked out the window and saw a bus stop sign for the public transportation buses. She said, "Wow! I didn't know those things were real!" We asked her what she was talking about and she told us that she was talking about bus stops. She said, "I looked out my window and saw that sign and thought to myself 'whoa! those things really do exist' and I couldn't believe it." Rob and I laughed so hard. We obviously don't have bus stops like that in our little town and I guess Emily has only read about them in books and seen them in movies. I'm so happy that we were able to give our child the opportunity of seeing a real bus stop today. Her life is so much richer now because of it. :)

April Fools

Today is April Fools Day and the kids were planning to try and trick each other. Ethan had his trick all planned out. Actually, I was quite impressed with his plan and was going to let him try it out on his sister. He was going to switch out the cereal packages in the boxes so she would pour the wrong cereal in her bowl in the morning. But before he could even try out his trick, his daddy got both of them pretty good. When it was time to get up this morning for school, Rob told the kids, "Hey kids!!!! Come quick! There is so much water in the back yard that there are ducks swimming around." You see, we had rain again last night and this morning and it was thundering outside. Both of the kids flew out of bed and came stumbling into the kitchen to look out the big window. Just as they got to it, their daddy yelled, "April Fools!" They both busted out laughing and told him what a good joke that was. And then Ethan suddenly remembered that he wanted to play that cereal joke on Emily and so Rob had to distract her while I helped him change out the cereal packages. We set the boxes back on the counter and I called her into the kitchen so she could eat breakfast. Ethan was standing back and was about ready to bust a gut because he could barely contain his laughter. When Emily went to pour her Cocoa Krispies and saw that it had Special K in it, she just laughed and looked at Ethan who was now on the floor by this point and told him what a good joke that was. And poor Emily is just too much like her mama and not witty enough to come up with a great joke to play on others. She tried to come up with something great, but the best she could do was to play like she was asleep in Ethan's bed this morning. It was totally not funny, but we all laughed anyway. :)

Yesterday evening as I was cleaning out Ethan's backpack, I pulled out this little blue card that was shoved at the very bottom. I had no idea what it was and was totally shocked and amazed as I read it. It said...Classroom Reader of the Month Award! And the award also serves as a free out of uniform pass for one day during the school year for any day the child chooses. I was so proud of Ethan! I called him into the room and asked him about it and he just said, "Oh yeah. I forgot about that." Are you kidding me, Ethan?!?! I asked him when he got it and he said that he didn't remember. And then he said that it was on some Friday. Again I have to say...Are you kidding me?!?! So I asked Emily about it. Well, I think she was just bitter that she didn't get it and so she wasn't talking. I did talk to their teacher today and in Ethan's defense, he just got it this past Friday. She told me that the Reading Fairy was coming in to hand out the award just as they were heading out, dressed in their costumes, about to do their big bug program. So, I guess I forgive Ethan for not telling me that he got Classroom Reader of the Month. :)

And the last thing that I have to talk about is something that Emily told me that really threw me for a loop. It started out by her asking me if I had any friends that didn't have children. I sat there for a while and tried to think of somebody I could name. The few people I named didn't count in her eyes because, as she pointed out to me, they weren't married. I was trying to really get to the bottom of what she was wanting to know, but without digging too deep, though. I finally just told her that not everybody has children. Some people choose to not have children and some people do. And then there are the people that can't have children and need help and some adopt. Of course she knows our own story and how special it is, but I still wasn't quite sure what was the point of all of the questions. We talked for a little while longer about babies and how they are born and then that is when Emily FINALLY got to her real concern. She told me that she didn't know if she ever wanted to have children because she was scared that she would have a preemie. My heart just dropped! I told her that most of the time children are born close to when they are supposed to be born and aren't born as early as she and Ethan. And then I realized something, of course she is scared about having a preemie or a baby with medical problems. Not only do she and her brother both have their own sets of issues, but several of my close friends here have had preemies. Emily knows that some of those preemies are now in heaven and others also have medical issues. Plus, we go to Family Camp where we are surrounded by other children with special needs, some of which were also preemies. I help grant wishes through Magic Moments and many of those children also have special needs. Basically, the kids are exposed to other special needs children on a regular basis. And while I think this is typically a good thing because it teaches compassion and consideration for others. Right now it is causing Emily a little bit of grief. I think it is just a tough thing for a six year old to understand and I hope that as she gets older she will be able to handle it a little better. She has always been a little wise beyond her years. It saddens me that she says she's scared to have children one day because she's afraid to have a preemie. A child shouldn't have to ever worry about that!!!!