Life Imitating...Er...Life?

I figured it would be fun. I thought that Canon would love it.

That's what I get for thinking I know my kids.

Our ward does a "Fun in the Sun" activity once a week. The first week, we went to the fire department.

Gavin and Laney were enthralled.

They listened to a guy explain what everything did.

They even watched him put on his gear.

Canon? Not a big fan.

Gavin went so far as to try some on 

and test out how the hoses work.

Canon? He didn't think it was all that exciting....

but I am just guessing on this.

The kids waited with baited breath...

I think the guy was showing them their axes. They must have been very big...or scary.

Gavin was the star pupil so the fireman let Gavin climb into the fire engine...

and turn on the siren.

Laney drove a little, 

but mostly she was still concerned about the axes.

Know who wasn't concerned about the sharp weapons? This kid.

They dressed up in little fire uniforms.

Know who didn't care about the uniforms? Penny. 

She cried by my side just about the whole time. I thought she was being ornery.

But I think she had a premonition. 

(OK..I really really don't think that...I really think she was just being a little stinker.)

Not even a week later Penny was running around the upstairs and she runs straight into the corner of the wall. 

She falls on her bum and starts to cry. Now, mind you, Penny has this thing where if she gets hurt sometimes she will pass out. It sucks, but we are...for the most part...used to it. Well, I could tell that she was going to pass out so I blew in her face, which forces her to take a breath and most of the time it works. It didn't work. Which is no big deal. Normally when she passes out it is only for a minute. Well the minute passed and she didn't wake up..then another minute...then I called Blake in a panic who was right around the corner. It took him a minute to get home and she still was out. Her face was kind of pale and around her mouth is blueish. Blake pulled into the driveway and I told him we needed to call 911. He calls 911, and is talking to the person on the other end all the while Penny is still out. We hear the sirens coming down the road. At this point she has been passed out about 8 minutes or so. We know they are coming for us. Then right as they pull up to our house...Penny opens her eyes. They take a look at her and check her vitals as we stand in our front yard. They tell us that her vitals are normal and to watch her for an hour to make sure she doesn't projectile vomit or can't walk. We watch her....and she is just fine. 

Only the bruise on her forehead shows that she is a little worse for wear.

Not me though....I had a full fledged crying attack.

Then I realized that we have experienced a mile stone.

911 call? check.

Sickies

So begins our file for child protective services.

Canon is a tough little kid. Always has been. 

Because he is tough he looks quite frequently like we beat him.

Bruise on the forehead...just matches the one by his eye. 

His bruises came days before he was to go into surgery.

They had to patch a hole in Canon's ear drum.

The hole was from previously having tubes in his ears and the hole didn't heal closed. The hole in his drum took up 40% of his ear drum.

They were able to go in through his ear canal, however, they had to take a skin graft from the back of his ear so he still ended up with stitches. 

Two to be exact.

I expected a long recovery. But...Canon is tough so Canon's recovery was all of a day.

By the next morning he was acting like himself but with the inability to listen...

Later in the day I heard Canon crying down stairs. 

Instantly I thought "Ah Crap! He hurt his ear."

Nope. 

Ran into a wall.

I texted Blake this picture with the caption

Wound of the day

Canon's ear seemed to be healing and then what do you know...he popped a stitch.

So I played make shift doctor and bandaged him up.

No swimming or water in his ear till July. 

It is going to be an interesting summer.

Only thing less interesting is waking up to this in the morning.

Scary movie? Native American Reenactment?

Nope.

Bloody nose with tear streaks.

She fought her nose and her nose won.

Speaking of winning....

Guess who had an ulcer?

True dat.

I am 34 and my body thinks its 90.

Now for some gory scope pictures:

Your welcome. 

I ended up with an ulcer and Blake has Eosinophilic esophagitis and Barretts.

With our stomach issues combined....

......um.....

I got nothing.

Long and Painful

Starting a blog post with "So...I went to the ER..." seems odd. 

But, it's all I got.

About a week ago I went to the doctor because I had had a headache for a week. Not a bad headache, just constant.

Then randomly one afternoon when I was making the kids lunch I started to pass out.

The doctor said that it was most likely a migraine and that everyone's migraines are different. He told me to take a Loritab and that should make it go away.

That night I took the medicine and then went to bed. Then at about 3 in the morning I was awakened by these horrible pains in my chest. The doctor told me that when people get migraines that their intestines can slow way down, so I just figured that I had some acid reflux or indigestion going on. I was able to fall asleep after a bit but I made another appointment that morning just in case. But by afternoon my chest pains had gone away so I canceled the appointment. Then later on that night my chest pains came back. They started out fairly mild, but uncomfortable, so we made another appointment to go into the doctor. 

When we were at the doctor, waiting to go back, my chest pains got worse. It seems silly to think back on it, but it was by far the worse pain I have ever felt. I remember thinking very clearly, that I thought that I was going to die. My chest felt like someone was squeezing my insides and my left arm felt as though someone had tied a band around it and had cut off circulation. It hurt so bad.

They got me back into one of the rooms and had me lay down and wait for the doctor to come in. While I was waiting my, finger tips started to tingle and my lips went numb. The doctor rushed in and took my blood pressure, pulse and made sure I was getting enough oxygen. All the while I was freaking out.

The doctor said that he didn't think that I was having a heart attack but wasn't sure what the problem was and that I should go to the ER. 

Blake drove me to the ER. 

(I will just say this: If you ever want to get a room quick at the ER just tell them that you are having chest pains.) 

When I got back to my room they inserted an IV, checked my blood pressure, gave me an EKG, drew blood, and checked my oxygen levels all within a few minutes. 

Then my nurse gave me Morphine and an anti nausea medicine. After a few minutes my chest pains were still pretty intense, so they gave me IV Ibuprofen, another painkiller and something else. 

Whatever was in that concoction knocked me out.

 They woke me up to do some chest X-rays and had me drink something that numbed my esophagus and intestines as it was going down. 

After a couple of hours they came back and told me that they weren't really sure what it was, but thought it was a spasming esophagus.

They gave me a prescription to have an ultrasound done on my stomach just to make sure it wasn't my gal bladder, kidneys, or liver. 

All checked out OK. 

Funny thing is, when we called my Dad to tell him what was going on he said that when he was in his 20's that he has an esophagus spasm and thought he was having a heart attack. Seems like that information may have been useful before hand.

I still don't feel 100%. A lot of the time my chest is still tight, I just trying to live with it. 

It is helpful to know that it is nothing with my heart, so that makes me sleep a little easier. I do have an appointment with a GI specialist to see if there is something wrong with my insides, but until then I am just going to live with it. 

Lucky for me, I have kids that keep me updated:

From Canon, Sorry you are sick mom. I hope you feel better

Mozzy is sleeping in the clothes. Penny is praying. Penny is wiping the furniture.

and I always have endless entertainment.

And when it comes down to it....

I am just glad I am not this guy.

Or have this haircut.

True Story

Some days, Canon's only redeeming quality is his cute little face. 

His face may be the reason I have not had a pack of wolves adopt him.

It is not that he is down right naughty...although sometimes...er...a lot of times...he is. 

It is that he just doesn't care.

Not in a bad way. 

Just enough to make a mother crazy.

When told that he is going to have some kind of punishment, he normally asks what the punishment is going to be so that he can weigh the pros and cons.

And by weigh...I mean that he could care less about what he is going to loose, how long he is going to have to stand in time out, how many stars will get taken away...

In other words he does what he wants anyways.

I try to be reasonable with the consequences he receives because of his actions.

It doesn't always work.

The other day he took some scissors and cut Laney's shirt because, as he said "He didn't think Laney would tell on him."

What kind of logical consequence is suppose to go with cutting someones clothes?!

Take away scissor time? Did that. Technically I think he wasn't supposed to be using scissors when he cut Laney's shirt. 

In other words that didn't work.

So I did what any normal mom would do....

I took away his clothes.

I said that if he was going to ruin someone else's clothes than he couldn't have clothes.

I know...I know...I am grasping at straws here...

but it seemed to have worked for now. 

Although if you ask him why he can't use scissors he will most likely tell you some nonsense like "because I cut a Pokemon card."

So...yeah...it probably didn't work.

Although it seems that his clothes don't really fit him anyways...

What I would really like to blame it on is his hearing..and not poor parenting.

The doctors say that he hears fine in the upper register, but doesn't hear well in the lower register. 

Which doesn't really explain his not listening, because I am sure that my shrill high pitched yelling voice he hears just fine.

I have got papers to prove it.

His ear surgery is set for May. They say it should take 6 weeks until he is completely healed. 

Thankfully he is a tough little kid.

Tough in spirit,

and tough to mother.

That is, until he says funny things. 

Then I forget that 5 minutes ago I wanted to strangle him because he didn't want to get dressed.

Say What?!

Going to the doctor is nothing new for us. When you have four kids it seems that at any given moment one of them will be injured, sick, bleeding, coughing, broken, vomiting and more. 

It seems to be a rarity that we make it to the doctor strictly for a well child check. 

Perhaps it was my patting myself on the back, for scheduling the well child check on time, that caused the shift in the universe. 

The universe felt the need to reverse the shift.

During Canon's check with Dr. Bean she asked if Canon was eating, hearing and seeing alright. I said that he has problems with listening but I wasn't sure how much of that is "not being able to hear" and how much of it is "selective hearing." The doctor laughed and said that it was probably selective hearing....

Then she looked into Canon's ears and gasped.

Literally gasped.

Then told me that Canon has holes in his ear drums.

The gist is:

When Canon's tubes came out of his ears the holes did not close up. They sent us up to Primary Children's Hospital to see an E.N.T.

The E.N.T said that we will have to come back in March and then they will do a hearing test and schedule his surgery, one ear at a time. 

Canon, when I ask if he is listening to me, likes to say "I have holes in my ears." 

Looks like he is catching on fast, taking it in stride...and quite the jokester.