Home from the hospital

Well Christopher and I are finally home from the hospital. I am VERY happy to be home too! The last two days have been a living nightmare for me. Trying to keep Christopher entertained for two days in a crib and sitting on a bed was very difficult. He wasn't allowed to walk around because he had IV's in his arm and foot, and then a heart monitor on his chest. There were a lot of wires and they got very tangled up and it was very frustrating.
When I would put him down in the hospital crib he would cry and flip around and get all tangled up in the cords and wires, and get his IV wrapped around him, pinched off so it wasn't flowing so the alarm was going off, and then he would rip off the heart monitor because he didn't want it on and that would set off alarms. So for two days I literally held him, constantly. Except for diaper changes, which I laid him in the bed for. I slept with him because I could get him to sleep longer if he was in my arms and I could prevent him from flipping around. I have a terrible headache and unfortunately have caught a cold or something similar from being in the hospital with him, but I am very happy to be home. Working on getting Christopher back on a regular sleep schedule again. It's frustrating because the night before he was admitted was the first night that he slept through the night, and I got a decent sleep. I guess it was God just preparing me for the next 2 sleepless nights. (I shouldn't say sleepless, I got 2 hours each night, but not continuous.)
So I bet you are all wondering what went on with my little goober butt.

Christopher caught a common cold from the twins that I watch a few days a week. While he was fighting it off his body had a reaction to the all of the white blood cells being released and his throat started to close up and he basically had a very serious asthma attack. He started having difficulty breathing around 7pm. I just figured that it was like the last time he got sick, and gave him a treatment with his inhaler. Well 3 treatments later, its now almost midnight and he's breathing even worse. I was pretty sure that he was in distress, and he was SCREAMING in pain. It was hard to stomach.
I talked with Davey and told him that I thought he needed to go to the ER and be seen. He thought that it was just like the other time he got sick and to give him another treatment on his inhaler and go to sleep, that he would be fine. He said also that if it would make me happy then to go ahead and go then, but he didn't think it was necessary.
Well I decided to take Christopher in thinking that it was best to be on the safe side, instead of being sorry.
I signed into the ER at 12:10am I told the nurse that he was having difficulty breathing, she glanced at him, wrote a number on his paperwork indicating the seriousness (which she ranked very low) and sent me to billing so that they could get my insurance information. I sat there talking with this STUPID lady who was an IDIOT for about 10 minutes then was told to go wait in the chairs and someone would call me back when they were ready for me.
There were two other people waiting in the chairs, so it shouldn't be long I thought. A few minutes later they called back another patient, and then a few minutes after that a male nurse came out to give a blanket to the other patient in the waiting area because she didn't have much on for clothes, and it was cold. As he was walking away he stopped turned around and came back to me. He listened for a second, his eyes widened and he told me that I needed to come with him immediately.
They brought me and Christopher into a room where they took his pulseox (Oxygen level) and after doing that several times rushed me into a trauma room. They did it a few times because they couldn't believe that it was so low. It was 81 and it should be 100, anything below 80 is very serious, and for such a little guy it should be nothing below 98 . . .
They didn't tell me what was going on, just had me hold him down while they started IV's and breathing treatments, put him on oxygen, hooked up a billion monitors and asked me a ton of questions. When I looked up at the clock again it was almost 1:30am. The room finally settled down, they had him on IV antibiotics and I STILL had no idea what was going on. I asked the Respiratory Therapist what he thought was going on and he told me that they were going to transfer me to another hospital with a pediatric unit and admit him. Well they pumped him full of drugs for another 2 hours trying to get him into stable condition. (I honestly didn't know until afterward that he was in that serious of condition, I found out when they told me "Well he's stable now, so we can now transport.")
They transported him by ambulance to Sierra Vista hospital in San Luis Obispo.
I found out the following morning that they were planning on keeping him there for at least another night, possibly more depending on how he reacted when they started decreasing his breathing medication. He wasn't on a ventilator but they were planning on putting him on one because he wasn't responding well to the medication, and they said that they had to use an obsene amount for his size to get him breathing again at a reasonable rate, however it wasn't good enough.
I spent another night there and we were able to go home today. Because he is unable to be on IV breathing medicine right now (anti-inflamatory medicine for his lungs and airways) I am weening him off of that medicine with an oral medicine.
The doctors used the words "life-threating" when they were describing Christopher's condition to me about how he had come in. He would have died or had serious brain damage done to him if I had not brought him in when I did. That is a really scary thought.
He will be on steroids for life to prevent this from ever happening again. 200,000 children a year are hospitalized for this condition. I had no idea. . . It has to do with him having a peanut allergy and also having excema. They are all related and apparently caused by the same thing. His body reacts as if he has eaten a peanut (or something he is allergic to) when he gets sick. This was just a common cold!!! So it makes it very serious now when he gets sick.
Hopefully the steriod they said, will be good enough to treat him for life so that if he starts having difficulty breathing his inhaler will be able to just take care of what is going on. However if it doesn't and he shows signs of having difficulty breathing again, even after he has had his inhaler its back to the hospital immediately they said.
I have a HUGE gallon size freezer bag of medicine that just for his asthma that I am to carry on me at all times if he has an attack again.
My poor little guy.
Thank you to all who prayed with Davey and me that he would get better. He is much better now. He is still sick, and weak, and unfortunately a side effect of this medicine is irritability so he is not a happy baby.
He is finally eating again, which is a relief and drinking lots of milk, and applejuice.

I had been praying to God before any of this happened that I would be able to grow closer to him. I didn't like the position that I was in with him. I'm kind of annoyed though that it took my son's life on the line to bring me closer to him.

Sippy Cup Diaries- Gold Fish War!!!

I was thinking about creating a seperate blog just for the adventures that the sippy cup children have, but decided against that since they are such a big part of my life, so should be with my regular blog.
Just for reference, the cast of the Sippy Cup diaries are 3 one year olds. Ashley, and Aiden (born Dec 06) and Christopher (born Oct 07)

So today they wanted a snack, which is nothing unusal. They did great and had eaten all of their eggs, so for snack I gave them a bowl of goldfish, to SHARE. (that's a keyword here)
Well at first they were doing great, grabbing fish from the bowl when they wanted some more, but then Christopher took over and started shaking the bowl like crazy, fish went flying everywhere! Ashley didn't like this and kept saying "No no no baby! no baby no!" It was adorable. Christopher had fun flinging the fish everywhere. Aiden took the opportunity since Ashley was no longer able to pay attention to what he was doing to steal her sippy cup. Hahahaha

I'm trying to get the twins to say my name. Everytime my husband comes over they yell "Hi Day!!" (for Hi Dave) but they won't say my name. They are able to identify by pointing where the baby is, mama, tyler, dave etc. But when you say my name they just look at me completely confused. So to try and sum down my name I was trying to get them to call me When-nee However when you ask them who I am they say "Mama" When you ask them where mama is, sometimes they point out the window (for her being byebye) and sometimes they point at me. . . hahaha
As cute as it is that someone is calling me mama, I don't think that I would want Christopher calling someone else mama so I'm trying to get them to say something else.

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch! It was a lot of fun, and we have decided we are going to go again just because we weren't able to do everything we wanted. We went through a hay maze, (which is not for people who dread small tight spaces) we fed the animals, we picked out pumpkins, and we took lots of pictures! I'll work on uploading some.
We are going to go again Monday afternoon. We want to be able to do the hay ride. I know that Christopher will really enjoy that.

Right now I am working on getting Christopher to sleep through the night. He is done breast feeding now. Which is nice because I was really starting to get sore. I'm looking forward to having my body back to myself for a while. Last night was the first night that I didn't let him drink during the night. It was NOT a restful night. I'm hoping that within the next 2 weeks he starts to sleep through the night. I go in when he is upset give him a kiss on the head if I can reach him (I don't pick him up) lay him back down, pat his back and leave. It's just to let him know that I am there, but that he needs to go back to sleep on his own. Unfortunately I can not continue to rock him back to sleep, nurse him back to sleep, or let him sleep with me.
We are going to push this one step forward. No more taking naps with mama. Which is really sad because I LOVE napping with him! But otherwise no one is ever going to be able to watch him if I don't do something about this now. It was fine when he was just an infant, but now that he is progressing into becoming a toddler, I'm going to need my own freedom, and so is he.

I'm not having a good day today. I feel that I really need a friend to talk to, but the ones that I do have, this is something that I'm not very comfortable talking to. I feel like the ones that I have would judge me, or would give me bad advice, or it would change my relationship with that friend. I don't want to tell someone what is going on right now to hear "Oh, I'm sorry." I don't know what I want them to say though. . . I want a friend who's exactly like me, so that I know I can believe in their advice, because its what I would do. However I don't know what to do right now, so I guess it is best to confide in someone else.
This is the most that I feel like talking about the subject. Maybe if you don't know all of the details you can have a more open opinion on what I should do. (I said maybe. . . ?)
There is a thought that is going around in my head, and I can't get it out. (No it's not that I'm going to hurt myself or someone else) This thought is scaring me. If it happens I'll be incredibly hurt, and my family will be torn apart. I've cried over the thought, and I just can't seem to shake it out of my head. It's haunting my dreams. It's what I imagine, every word that is spoken to me reminds me of it. I don't know who I can talk to about it. I'm frustrated and unfocused. I can't think of anything else right now. Just the thought of it has ruined a few of the last days for me. If it continues on, because it is getting worse, I am scared what will happen.

Sippy Cup Diaries

Christopher has turned 1 year old. I'm so proud of my little boy. He is growing up! He walks around, and babbles words. The other day he said "puppy". He can also say "yeah, no, mama, and dada" It's awesome watching his vocabulary slowly expand.
I have been working again, doing daycare for my neighbor and good friend Amanda. I watch her twins while she is at work. It's a lot of fun! (most days) hahaha I have a lot of fun playing with them. Asking them where things are and helping them learn new words! I was thinking about it, and I am watching 3 one year olds. Wow! They will turn 2 in December. I'm excited for that.
I'm also excited for Thanksgiving. We have decided to spend it together (Amanda's family, and my family). It should be a nice get together, with lots of fun stories being passed around, and kids playing in the background.
Last night I put up Halloween lights on my porch and down the railing, I like the way that it looks. :) I'm more excited though to decorate for Christmas. I'm not sure if we are going to be able to get a Christmas tree though, we don't really have the room in our apartment, we need to find a place to set our big chair, and ottoman, and then it can go there.
Well the twins are doing good, and so is Christopher, I'm glad that the 3 of them have each other. Even though they don't always get along, I know its helpful to Christophers development.