A picture is worth a thousand words

Just a new picture of Gunner!

Hope you can fill in the blanks.

Tubes are in!

Well, we were up at the crack of dawn this morning, and made it to the hospital for check in by 6:30. Gunner wasn't feeling particularly social, but at least he wasn't being nasty. They did all the vitals and showed him too his room, where they had us strip him down to the skivies and put a (too short) hospital gown on him. He got a kick out of it. And of course Mommy got pictures out of it. Yes, horsey girl went with us to the hospital.
Since Gunner was the youngest he got to go first! At 8:00 am on the dot a nurse came to get him and we walked with him down the hallway. We had to stay in the waiting room as he continued on. He was a little troubled when we stopped at the waiting room and he realized we weren't going all the way with him. I do believe it was much harder for me than for him though. I held the tears in until he was out of sight. I also got the "It's only tubes" from his dad. And in all honesty by the time I got my self under control the doctor was coming in to tell us he was all done. He talked with us for about 5 minutes then left. After he left I pulled out my cell phone and it said 8:16. Pretty fast stuff.
They wheeled him back by us about 5 mintues later and we followed him back to his room where the drama began. The anestiologist told us when they go under in a bad mood or upset they usually come out that way also. He must have been pissed when they put him under. He was crying and yelling at Gary and I to get away from him and to get out of his room. The nurse was the only one allowed to stay with him. He said his throat and his ears hurt. He allowed me to stand by his bed when the nurse went to get him juice and tylenol and then I was promtly told to "get out you mean mommy". After about 10 minutes he decided all he wanted was for me to hold him. We got his pj's back on and then about 10 minutes after that we were able to leave. We literally we out of there before 9:00 am. Gunner cried most of the way to Grandmy's house. He had me pull over twice since he thought he was going to throw up. Nothing more than a few dry heaves and a couple of spits on his part for good measure. When we got to Grandmy's I sat in the recliner with him and started to rock him. Within 2 minutes he was out.
I called around 1:15 and he is pretty much back to himself and is outside wandering around with Grandmy watching Grandpy work on their addition.

Here is a bonus picture of our ER visit. I didn't get any good bloody shots of it before we went to the hospital.

Just a random update

Last week went by pretty fast, almost as fast as the weekend! Gunner saw the ENT on Wednesday and he is getting tubes in his ears on this Wednesday (Sept. 24th) FINALLY!! Now I was never one to want tubes in his ears, but when we average 6 ear infections in an 8 month time frame, something has to give.

Uncle Tim was discharged from the hospital on Friday. He is staying with his parents in Kent City since his brother still lives at home and can be there to keep him company and help take care of him. Sounds like the home health nurses will be there pretty frequently and then this week he sees a plastic surgeon, since he will need a skin graft. They have all kinds of things in the works, but all the details, I'm not sure of.

"Uncle" Dale was in town to visit on Friday and brought Gunner a kick butt cowboy hat he picked up in Kansas. I must say my little man makes that hat look good! I think we are back to being a cowboy (again) for Halloween now that we have the new hat. We were thinking soldier, but Gunner is obsessed with the guns, and shooting people so we have vetoed that one especially since he will wear his outfit to preschool.

Saturday night we made a trip to the ER. Nothing major. Gunner was walking towards the little beater s10 pick up Gary drives around on the weekends carrying his booster seat so he could go with Gary. It was just about dark and Gunner tripped on a rut in the yard from the cement truck and fell. He cut just below his elbow pretty badly. We were in route to Nana's house and Gunner wanted to keep going. When we got to Nana's we cleaned it up as best we could and Gunner told us he hit it on "Little Red" (the truck) Well what he hit was a rust hole that cut his arm. Gary even went so far as to take a toothbrush and scrub the cut under the faucet (my poor baby was so tough!) but we were unable to get all the pieces out. I thought the cut was bad enough to warrant a stitch or two possibly. Long story short, at the ER they were able to remove the rest of the debris and just butterflied it up well with some material we are not supposed to get wet for a week. Keep a 4 year olds arm dry for a week? What are they nuts? We are trying anyways.

This week is tubes and possibly a birthday party for my grandmother on saturday! I also think Gary is taking Friday off again- lucky guy. Too bad he has to spend his days off working so hard.

Uncle Tim

So Tuesday night started out ok, and got really bad, really fast. My sister Rachel got a phone call around 6pm telling her that her husband Tim had fallen at work and broken his ankle. Tim works construction and has been working in the Flint area lately. Rachel had just spoken with him around 5 and he was fine then. I headed home thinking, that sucks, but not much else. When we finally got all the details, they were terrifying. Tim fell alright, from the 8th floor of the building they were working on. He was throwing some large pieces of pipe out of the window into a scrap pile below. The piece he threw had an elbow on it and caught his shirt and threw him off balance and he went out the window with the pipe and landed on the pile of scrap metal. Amazingly enough and by God's grace he is alive and has relatively minor injuries considering how far he fell. The rescue crew took him to Hurley Medical Center and they are doing the best they can for him right now. Tim as of right now has a broken femur a demolished ankle (on the same side) broken ribs, possible broken arm and cuts and bruises on his face. As I writing this he is headed in for his second surgery on his ankle.

We have been doing our best to help Rachel get him transferred to Spectrum. Hurley is in a bad area and is a filthy hospital. Everyone that has been there to visit has been appalled at the condition of the floors, bathrooms and Tim's room. Hurley is not a major trauma center they are way out of thier league. We have talked to surgeons who work for Spectrum and they have urged us to do what we can to get Tim transferred as soon as possible. We have also been told the first mistake made by Hurley is not to have airlifted him immediately to Spectrum. The guy fell 8 stories, admit it, you are way out of your league and not equipped to handle this Hurley! If not Spectrum he should have been sent to Uof M. Somewhere where he could have gotten better trauma care immediately. Now part of the problem is that Tim was conscious through it all, talking, yelling, screaming in pain. No one could believe he wasn't hurt worse. They might have chalked it up to a miracle and thought they could handle it. Or maybe they were misinformed like the inital report in the paper stating he only fell 4 stories and landed on a platform of some sort. Either way we want him out of that damn place now.
The biggest obstacle in moving him is that we are told he isn't stable. Why isn't he stable you ask? Wednesday morning (yup over 12 hours later) they did a cat scan of his head and neck. And as of last night they still did not have the results, so they can't tell if he has neck injuries so therefor he is not "stable" and can't be moved. And my sister was told that it is normal for it to take that long to get results back. Guess we better hope he isn't bleeding internally anywhere huh? The fact that it took all freaking day and still no results of a cat scan is prime example of why we want him moved! The guy fell over 8 stories and they didn't think to do a cat scan of his head and neck till the next morning? What the hell- I am no medical student but even I can make the connection as to why he should have been scanned from one end to the other immediately!
So here I am waiting for more word on what is happening and what is going to happen. Tuesday night was really hard for me. Call me emmotional, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that he was alive. I keep seeing this image of him falling over and over in my head and all I can think about is what must have gone through his mind, the pain, the fear. And then we come back to God, thank you Lord for sparing his life. Thank you for granting my sister and nephew the miracle of not having to say goodbye. By all means, we should be attending a funeral not making trips to the hospital to visit him. It is utterly amazing the things God can do. Thanks for this one Lord.

Preschool

Well first off, we had a very uneventful Labor Day weekend. I got to go shopping at the outlet mall on Saturday for school clothes for Gunner and had a great time. Gary and Gunner spent the day together and somehow made it ok without me. The only thing that stands out about the whole weekend was that I spent most of it making peach jam and freezing peaches. Gunner was exceptionally "great" help, but we got through it alright. We had an extra day in our weekend was about all that the holiday weekend amounted to for us. Unless you count worrying about what the hell happened to Gunners face as important. On Thursday the 28th of August, Gunner got all of his innoculations at the doctors office. One of them swelled up and got really red and on Saturday his face broke out with what we thought were cold sores. I was absolutely furious. I had no idea where he got a cold sore from and it really pissed me off. We spent the weekend applying abbreva and carmex and hounding him to keep his hands off his face. One of the sores got better and one got worse.
On Wednesday morning we got up and got ready for preschool! Gunner was pretty excited since his friend Paige would be going this year. We both went along to drop him off and I must admit, I handled it much better this year. The only time I cried was after Paige started to cry alligator tears and then I couldn't help it. I felt a little apprehensive about the sores on his face but after all they were looking better so it should be fine, Right?- Wrong!

Daddy gave him big hugs and kisses goodbye (I did too, but no one but myself knows how to operate a camera) and we were off to work and Gunner and Paige were on their own. Last year Gunner ran down the hall screaming after us, this year he did fine.

Nana picked Gunner up and then proceeded to call me around 1:30 and wanted me to know that the sores on his face were much worse and seemed to be spreading up his cheeks! Fabulous- now I know for positive they aren't cold sores and we just exposed the whole preschool to... IMPETIGO! Yup, I'm the mom responsible! So after our visit to the doctor and an oral antibiotic and a cream- Gunner is on his way to being healed up. I must say I am greatly relieved that it wasn't cold sores- since those would end up terrorizing us forever. Gunner stayed home with his Daddy on Thursday since the doctor didn't want the kids at daycare exposed any more than they already had been. Today his face look much better and he was off to school again!

I can't believe how grown up he has gotten in the last year. Every day he amazes me more, now if I could just get him to listen and follow directions. Before I know it another year will have passed and he will be getting on a school bus heading off to kindergarden. I am so not ready for that one! Hopefully this year drags on...and on... and on...