Wednesday, October 22, 2014

cut finger, stitches....

8 kids and no stitches, that's 14+ years of children and no stitches!  Until yesterday that is....  Mr. K was (supposedly) taking his nap downstairs, I was sitting on the couch feeding Miss A before her nap, the other kids were all in the kitchen cleaning up after lunch when I heard the cry.  It quickly turned into the sort of cry/scream that I knew could not be ignored.  Something was wrong.  He was hurt...

The scene I walked in on was not at all what I expected.  I had thought maybe he had hit his head on the bunk bed or something.  Instead I found a little boy in the middle of the floor surrounded by his big brother's back pack (and everything that had been in the back pack) and blood all over his hands.  Among the contents of the backpack on the floor I spotted a blood covered (open) pocket-knife. I quickly grabbed him and took him to the laundry room and to discover which hand/finger was hurt and applied pressure with a clean rag before taking him upstairs (where first aid supplies are kept) with the intent of cleaning and bandaging.  One quick look (once upstairs) told me that I could not handle this on my own, despite my desire to avoid the ER.

I'm so thankful to all of my kids who flew into action as I cared for their little brother.  One brought me the first aid kit (before we realized it was not needed).  Miss J thought through the situation enough to know that Mr. K would want a toy car and put it in my bag.  She also packed snacks and water bottles.  Mr. R had very willingly taken Miss A from me at my first realization of a problem and continued to care for her and get the two of them (he and her) ready to go to the ER with us.  Mr. M investigated the mess downstairs and recruited Mr. S and Miss J to help with clean up.  He also helped get Mr. K ready to go (pants, shoes, socks etc).  He also helped me get Mr. K situated in his car seat and then took over applying pressure to the wound while I drove to the ER.  Miss E held my phone so that I could listen/talk to the advice nurse while caring for Mr. K and moving around to get myself ready to leave.  She then held down the fort while I was gone so that I did not have to take all 8 kids to the ER.  I think we were out the door in 15 minutes or so.

Once we got to the ER Mr. R continued to care of Miss A (who was asleep by this time).  I'm thankful he thought to bring his mini tablet and got it going in the car and waiting room for Mr. K.  Once Mr. K was comforted by this and the car that Miss J had packed he quickly fell asleep (remember, he was supposed to be napping when all of this started).  A friend who is an ICU nurse at that hospital came by to check on us.

We were finally called back where a PA inspected the wound (which was still slowly bleeding over an hour later).  Yep, stitches were needed.  How would I like to approach this with him?  How would he handle this?  He and I moved over to the bed to cuddle.  Hooray, the hospital had (good) wifi!  I let him pick a netfilx movie to watch on my iPad (which Miss J had packed for us).  While he did react when getting a shot to numb the finger and again for the pressure of getting the stitches he did very well overall.  His reaction was more of the verbal sort, but he did lay very still in my arms.

One nurse offered him a popsicle during the procedure and he was very content to sit and lick it while we finished bandaging it and doing paperwork.

He had a rough evening and has often cried out today that his finger hurts.  When asked if knives are toys or if he should be touching them his eyes get big and he says "NO!".  I'm thankful that this painful lesson was not more painful or damaging.  I'm thankful that my kids all worked together in this small emergency.  No one panicked and we got things taken care of in an orderly manner.

I'm thankful that not only do I keep our "Sunday" bag packed with snacks, activities, diapers, wipes etc that I could have grabbed in a pinch, but that I'd also already packed up our errand day bag for the evening prayer meeting.  All the kids had to do was add a couple of things like the toy car and iPad and we were ready to head to the ER.

*I'm an independent Consultant for Thirty-One gifts.  If you're interested in this or other bags feel free to contact me for more information.


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Ear (burst eardrum) update

I've been thinking it was about time time to post an update on Mr. S's burst eardrum.  Its been quite a while since it happened.  Early testing showed the expected hearing loss because of the hole in the ear drum.  It needed time to heal before anything could be done (if indeed we would need to do anything, there was a good chance it would heal just fine on its own).  Because of the move it took us a while to get more followup here.  Testing last month showed minimal hearing loss (but he was now in the "normal" range).  It was decided that 2 months of natural remedies to clear up remaining fluid would be tried before moving on to steroids or surgery.  The doctor recommended a nettie pot.

Unfortunately a cold last week lead to an ear infection.  I'm thankful we purchased an otoscope after the last episode, one look and it was obvious the ear was infected.  It came on even more suddenly than last time which lead to a late night battle with Tricare to get a referral to an ER to avoid another burst ear drum (since by that time at night there were no Urgent Care facilities open).  It was so hard to watch him rapidly getting worse and be stuck on the phone battling for what we knew he needed.  Eventually Daddy just took him in while I continued on the phone.  I'm thankful for the (3rd) lady I talked to that understood the situation and the need to be seen ASAP.  Between her and her supervisor they were eventually able to put the needed referral in.

 The antibiotics are doing their job and his ear is recovering.  We will need to head into the ENT sooner than later to find out how much this has set back his healing.  I'm in the process of trying to get that appointment scheduled....

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Num, num, num...

Besides a "k" sound for "kitty," "nu, nu, nu" (her version of "num, num" asking for food) is Miss A's favorite word.  She loves to eat, and we are happy to feed her.  She's discovered that one great thing about big brothers and sisters is that they often love to share.  Miss E introduced her to chocolate chip cookies yesterday.

Today after lunch she watched very carefully as Miss E passed out cookies to all of the other kids.  I was watching her closely to see if she was going to ask.  Sure enough, once everyone else had one she sweetly said "nu, nu" which earned her a small piece of a cookie.

*After running a couple of quick errands with only 3 kids we're enjoying this cool rainy day at home. I think the weather is telling us to enjoy a quiet afternoon of cuddling, reading and maybe some games.  Ah, I love fall!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Why so little blogging?

You may have noticed that my posts  are becoming few and far between.  If you are like my mom, you've figured out that we're super busy these days and I just have not had much time to write out posts.  I decided to make a point to blog about my day today.  It reflects many of my days, just different appointments/meetings/activities.  Same crazy busy days though.

This morning someone forgot something.  So I needed to run it to them.  Big kids that stayed behind did breakfast clean up and worked on AWANA verses until I got home.  Then we did school for a while.

Next up?  Hair cuts!  The boys were looking a bit fuzzy.  I did 2 haircuts and supervised 2 more.

A couple of little girls were needing baths.  Rub-a-dub-dub time for them to scrub while bigs cleaned up after lunch.

Nap time for littles gives us a bit of quiet time for reading a biography to bigs/middles.  We love to read out loud.

Off to our Azure drop.  We've committed to helping our drop coordinator with set up, passing out the bulk splits, and helping to get boxes out to cars for those that need the help.  This is such a great opportunity for the kids to serve and to learn some of the ins and outs of something like this.  It's not as easy as just taking boxes off of a truck!  We sure enjoy getting to see our friends and meeting new people.
Look at all of those boxes of food!  The kids had fun helping to unload the truck.
Dividing up the bulk splits.  Most of the kids helped with this as well.

Whew!  Time to sit down to a quick dinner (that was cooking in the crock pot all day) as a family.  Then its on too...
Daddy coaching Miss E and her event partner for Science Olympiad while I take care of littles, put away food and work on a Vanilla Bean Cake.

Well, that was my day....and that is why I'm not blogging much.  Everyday seems to be a bit like this one was. :)

Monday, October 6, 2014

Braces!

Mr. R is officially our first in braces!  This week-end he got to enjoy some of his favorite foods and drinks before they would be off limits for nearly a year and a half.

I took this picture just before walking into the office.

Now with the braces on; he hasn't even made it out of the seat yet.
We are thankful for an office that is not only great at what they do, but also provide a kind, gentle, Christian environment.  We know this orthodontist from last time we were stationed here; we attended church with his family.

Loosing teeth right and left!

We're in a fun season in our home right now.  It seems that ALL of our kids (OK, maybe not Mr. K and Miss C) are either teething or loosing teeth right now.  Some are doing both.  The other night Mr. S pulled his own tooth, and in the morning I was greeted by Mr. M who had just pulled his own tooth as well.  A few weeks ago Miss J had a front tooth that was loose, and had been for a long time, but just wasn't wanting to come out.  She let Mr. M work on it.

Big brother to the rescue!  He got it out for her!

Stay tuned for some more big news about teeth...