Just a Band-Aid!

I will post more later, but I just had to post the good news.  :)  Yesterday Drake got the pins pulled from his arm, and all he has is a band-aid!  Originally they thought they would put him in another splint for 2 more weeks, but the doctor said so much new bone has grown that he doesn't think it's necessary.  So we are super excited.  :)  I'll post some pics later.

New pics and an update on Drake-man

First of all, Drake has really adapted well to having this giant splint on his arm.  He doesn't seem to be in any discomfort, so that is so reassuring.  He had another x-ray this past Monday, and the doctor said everything looked good. (Well, from what he could tell anyways.  It took me and 2 different people to hold him down for the x-ray.  When we were done and I walked out through the waiting room, everyone gave me that 'pity' look because they could all hear him screaming during the x-rays...ugh)  Here is a picture of the little man and his big ol' splint...

We have another x-ray this coming Monday to check on things again.  Hoping it's uneventful this time.  :)

Also, I finally got some new pics of Mia!  Here are a few of them...

There are a bunch more, you can view them on my photo blog here if you'd like.  :)  Thanks again for checking in on us!

Doing Well :)

Just a quick update to say that Drake is doing well! 

The day we got home, he fell asleep on the couch for 3 hours!  Neither of my kids ever fall asleep anywhere but their beds.  But the poor little guy was so exhausted from the surgery and from only sleeping about 6-1/2 hours the night before that he just crashed on the couch.  Later on we put him in his high chair for dinner around 6:45, and he fell asleep before we even got his plate on his tray!  So we put him in his room, and he didn't wake up until 7:30 the next morning.  He was wiped out!

After catching up on his sleep, he has been doing great.  We haven't even had to give him pain meds since noon yesterday.  He doesn't seem to be in any discomfort, which is a great thing this soon after surgery.

That's it for now, hopefully next time I'll have some pics to post.  :)

We're back :)

Well, he made it out of surgery last night at about 6:00, so we ended up staying the night so they could monitor him.  THE ONLY thing he wanted to do (and I mean ONLY) is watch Toy Story.  I'm not kidding when I say he watched it at least 7 times in the hospital.  As soon as it would end, we had to restart it.  He didn't end up going to bed until I think 11:30 last night because it took him quite a while to come out of anesthesia, and when he did, he was super crabby, poor little guy.  I will say, though, the experience with him was so much better than with Mia.

For both of Mia's surgeries, she had to be given whatever they give them to calm down before surgery.  Of course, it only worked mildly.  For her first surgery, I think we were in the recovery room for 3 hours because she was thrashing and writhing so badly.  The second wasn't much better, although I know it was shorter than 3 hours.  We were still in there quite a while, though, because she refused to drink anything.  She is one tough cookie.

Drake, as soon as we walked into the room where we waited to be called back (and we had to be there TWO hours early!), he was so excited because there was a Toy Story race track thing and cars for him to play with.  That seriously occupied him for a solid hour.  And keep in mind he hadn't eaten all day!  After an hour he got a little antsy, so of course we put his movie on for him, and he was good to go.  In recovery, he was pretty upset and cried pretty hard for probably 15 minutes or so, but he was asking for water to drink, and shortly thereafter we got him to eat some Teddy Grahams and applesauce (I think 2 packs of each!  Ha!).  It was such a different experience with him.  He was pretty uncomfortable through the night, though, so none of us slept well.  We are definitely looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight.  He actually fell asleep in his high chair tonight without even eating dinner.  Poor guy, he is wiped out.


These are crummy b/c they're from my camera phone, but here he is playing with the cars while waiting for surgery...

and watching Toy Story - with, of course, his hat and his dodo :)

They did put the 2 pins in his arm.  His blue cast is off, but his arm is wrapped up so big in a splint that his shirts won't fit over it.  We are going to have to buy him some little kid t-shirts while he has this splint on.  Right now, the doc is thinking 3 weeks in this splint with the pins.  If all goes as planned, they will pull the pins in 3 weeks and possibly put him in another splint to protect his elbow while it continues to heal.  The biggest thing for us now is to watch for infection since the pins stick out through his skin.  Fortunately we can't see them, we just have to watch for fever, blue fingers, unusual fussiness, you know.

So that's the scoop for now.  We'll get another x-ray Monday to make sure it still looks good, but the doctor anticipates everything will be fine.

Mia had a great time at my mom's - she was upset to come home, I think!  She loved all the one-on-one attention - what child wouldn't?!  She's already making plans to go back soon.  :)

Thanks again for checking in on us and for all your sweet emails and prayers - they mean so much to us.  :)

Surgery today...

Well, Drake's arm is looking a little better than Friday, but not good enough to avoid surgery.  It is scheduled for 5pm today, we have to be at the hospital at 3.  The hardest part at the moment is that we can't feed him all day!  He got to eat breakfast, but we are just having to distract him so he doesn't realize he's probably STARVING!  I dropped Mia off at my mom's so I didn't have to feed her in front of him.  Also, the doc wants us to stay overnight since the surgery is so late in the day.  He wants to be able to watch him and make sure he has normal usage in his fingers and such since there are a bunch of nerves in the arm - they need to make sure the pins aren't where they're not supposed to be.  Brock and I will stay the night with him in the hospital, and Mia is staying at my mom's.

Now Mia thinks this is a vacation.  When we told her, she was like, "Poor Drake.  But guys!  Guys!  You know I love staying overnight at other people's houses!  I'm going to go pack my suitcase all by myself!"  And then she runs off.  Oh she is hilarious.

One other quick funny about her - Brock went golfing yesterday, and Mia saw him getting ready.  Here was their conversation:
Mia:  Dad, why are you wearing a work shirt today?  It's the weekend.
Brock:  I know, but I'm going golfing today.
Mia:  Well, I want to go golfing, too!
Brock:  Maybe when you're bigger you can come golfing with us.
Mia:  I am big!  I mean, look at my size!  I'm a good sized kid!

Hahahaha! It's so funny to hear her little 3-1/2 year old, pint-sized voice say such funny things with the inflection to go along with them.

Anyways, we'll keep you posted.  The worst part is putting them under.  Obviously Mia's been through two one-hour surgeries, and it is no fun.  And waking up was the worst for her.  I think we'll both feel a lot better once he's out of surgery.  I'll post an update when I get a chance, thanks for checking in on us.  :)

Update on Drake

We had an appointment with the doctor this morning, and unfortunately he did not have good news for Drake.  It appears that the bone has shifted from Monday, and we are most likely looking at surgery early (Monday/Tuesday) next week.  He wanted to wait the weekend and do another x-ray on Monday morning to be sure, but if it looks any worse than today, he is thinking surgery would be scheduled most likely Monday afternoon.  He is thinking there is a 75% chance that surgery will happen.  It is definitely disappointing news.  This is a little graphic, so if you have a weak stomach, you might want to skip this part... but they would basically go in through his skin with pins to pull the bone back together.  The pins would stick out of his arm and it would all be wrapped in a splint (similar to what they gave him in the ER).  After 3-4 weeks, they would pull the pins out with pliers in the office.  I know, it sound so terrible.  I could tell the doctor was really disappointed that this looks like the direction Drake's arm is heading.  Fortunately, if the bone heals properly from this, we aren't looking at long term problems.  But if it doesn't get fixed, he could have long term issues.  To be honest, as bad as the pin-pulling sounds, I would rather that than pins buried in his bone the rest of his life.  The first time the doctor talked about pins, that's what I originally had in mind.  Either way, it is obviously not what we were hoping for.  So we are just praying for the 25% chance that his little arm would heal this weekend and he doesn't have to go through all that.  I absolutely hated the two times Mia has had to go under for surgery, and I can't even think about Drake having to go through that as well.

On a happier note, Drake has become so attached to his hat and his pacifier (yes, we have lost the pacifier battle since the broken arm.  It's all he wants...).  He wears his hat and sucks his pacifier ALL day long and even while sleeping.  The only time he removes them is when he eats - ha!  When I sit him in his highchair, he takes his hat off and his pacifier out.  As soon as he's finished eating, the hat goes back on and so does the pacifier.  And as soon as he's out of the bath and his hair is dry at night, the hat goes back on and he goes to bed with it.  This is what we hear all day - "Dodo...hat.  Dodo...hat" (he calls his pacifier a dodo, I have no idea why).  Anyways, it's cute and slightly pathetic to see him with his little cast, baseball cap, and pacifier. :)  Here are some pics...

A rare moment with his hat in his hand instead of on his head

Mia wanting to be like Drake with the hat...

So sad...

He sets his goods on the counter while lunch is being served...

If anyone knows how to wash a little hat, let me know!  I know they make those forms for adult hats, but I don't know about kids.  The way this is looking, we will need to be doing some hat washing soon.  I am going to need a backup hat for when I'm rotating them through the wash.  :)

Oh how could this happen again?!

If you've followed our blog at all, you know last year Mia was stepped on at preschool by her teacher and broke her leg.  She was in a cast for 6 weeks.  I kept thinking I'd never seen such a little one in a cast.  Well, now we have another broken bone.  :( 

We were staying at our friends the Claycombs in Fort Wayne this weekend, so we brought the pack and play for Drake to sleep in.  He wasn't wanting to go to bed and climbed out in the dark.  He was crying all night long, and I just thought it was because we were in a new place and that he had gone to bed too late.  Well, sometime in the middle of the night, he was crying and saying "Ow! Ow!" - I finally realized he might have hurt himself when he fell out of the pack and play.  Sure enough, when it got light enough to see, I could tell right above his elbow was swollen.  I knew instantly he had broken it.  We had to bring him to the ER in Fort Wayne where they confirmed his broken bone and put him in a splint until we could get him in a cast.

So this afternoon we took him to the orthopedic doctor (fortunately/unfortunately we knew of a good one from Mia's ordeal!), and he has a little blue cast.  It's so sad.  I will say, though, that he did much better getting it on than Mia!  Right now we are looking at 3-4 weeks in the cast if the bones stay aligned inside.  If they shift, we may be looking at surgery to put pins in to pull the bone back together.  I'm not even going there mentally right now, though.  I am praying that everything stays straight inside the cast and that it will be off in a few weeks.  We have an appointment Friday morning for an x-ray to make sure everything is still looking good.

Unfortunately (and understandably) Drake has been super clingy lately, and today I threw out my back trying to carry him around (you have to hold him carefully so you don't pick him up under the armpit of his broken arm!).  So I am kind of down for the count, the next few days should be interesting.  I have such a great husband - he made dinner for us all tonight and got both the kids down for bed.  Love him.  :)

Although we definitely had an unfortunate event during our trip up to FW, we had a great time visiting with the Claycombs!  We went to the zoo on Saturday, which Mia loved.  She got to ride a pony, and it was the highlight of her day.  :)

One bit of exciting news is that Brock took a new position at work - he took a job in field sales and will be working from home, so we will be seeing him a lot more!  We are all very excited.  I know there will be a transition time while the kids get used to having to leave him alone during the day, but I know it will work out great.  He will be travelling to Chicago 1-2 days a week, so that will be good that he still gets to go out and about.  :)

Anyways, here are some pictures...

Before 'the incident' - painting in his high chair :)

Mia doing her dot paints

Poor baby, in his splint and sling from the ER...

Daddy doesn't like this picture, but I do  :)

Here is his little blue cast from today...

Here are a few pics from Miss Jodi of Mia on the pony at the zoo...

Like I said, we'll know more Friday.  We'll keep you posted.  :)