I've been kind of slow at posting this video of Eric... It was taken on April 12th - it was the first good video we have of him walking!
Sorry it is sideways... I tried to fix it but something happened.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The last 6.5 months...
Just a glimpse into our lives during the past 6.5 months... (long post sorry)
We moved from Madison to my parents and it took 4 days, we wanted to do it in 3 but it did not happen... I suppose I was being a little ambitious due to the fact we had a 6 month old child.
Life was going pretty well when we first moved... My mom was making trips to visit her mom who was in the hospital 3 hours away, but was moved to a care center shortly after we moved. While in the care center they turned down her oxygen and did not monitor her percentage - basically if it were not for her roommate we are pretty sure she would have died that day. Due to the oxygen deprivation, Grandma was transferred to the hospital again. After a week or two there they were ready to transfer her to the same care center... This all was happening while my mom was in the ER with my little brother who ended up having Pneumonia. We ended up having her transferred to a care center in a city that was closer - the care center where we live would not take her because they did not have a private room. The private room was needed because of a very contagious infection she picked up during her stay at the first care center. So she was 1.5 hours away, instead of 3.
During this my little sister had 2 or 3 seizures (I can't remember I know it was at least 2) in which we made trips to the ER.
After a week or two in the care center, my grandmother passed away about a month after we moved (on October 15). My older sister and her family came as well as my older brother (so my whole family was together which was, the house was crowded!
In November, Valerie had another seizure, Dennis got pneumonia again and Valerie was put in the hospital for the week of Thanksgiving. Daniel and I went to visit his family and Eric fell off the high chair and we ended up going to the ER. Everything was fine with Eric. My little sister got out of the hospital and we had Thanksgiving with my family on Saturday since they ate the hospital's version of Thanksgiving.
December started out great. However, our computer died on Dec. 11 and then the next day on the way home from taking Valerie to the Neurologist, Val went to the ER and ended up getting put in the hospital. Valerie was transferred on Dec 13th to a hospital about 2 hours away, she had some kind of respiratory issues - still not sure exactly what was going on. She was a very sick little girl, it was hard to go see her 'hooked up to half the hospital' as Daniel put it. We were sure she would be released just after Christmas, so I put a makeshift Christmas together for our family, my dad, brother and older brother. It was more work than I care to remember. A few days later when the Pulmonologist was ready to release her she started having seizures almost constantly. On New Year's Eve, she was transferred to the hospital that is 3 hours away, where they put her into an induced coma in hopes to get her to stop having seizures. She took about 2 weeks to wake up mostly and then they let her come home. The coma medicine is not quite out of her system so one of her seizure medicine doses is almost tripled until her body starts metabolizing it - the drug they used for the coma inhibits the metabolizing of the seizure medicine.
During this time, Dennis got pneumonia again and ended up getting a feeding tube put in the first part of January. Also, the computer repair place here could not fix or recover out data so on one trip to visit Val we dropped our computer off at my uncle's (he and his son both work with computers and fix them) so he could look at it.
Shortly after Valerie came home, a puppy came to join our family. The puppy loves Eric and will let him do pretty much anything to him without reacting.
In February Daniel and I went to visit his family and picked up our computer and the data on the way out - we got it all back which was SO exciting.
My sister and her family came to visit in March the week before Eric's birthday. We stayed up with them until 1 or 2 am so I got behind on my sleep. After they left Eric got sick (with the sleep deprived parents) and we had to take him to Urgent care as he had a fever of 102.5,. He was put on an antibiotic. Valerie has had to go to the ER a couple of times because she is still not doing 100%, lately she has been having 'episodes' each day where her oxygen saturation drops and we have to work to keep it above 90% for at least an hour.
Also during this time I think I had a mild case of postpartum depression. I never actually went to the doctor because I didn't want to have to pay the outrageous cost of a doctor visit, and I could actually function... but I feel like I have not done a very good job at being a friend and keeping in contact with everyone. I can honestly feel a HUGE difference now and realize that I should have gotten help, but hind sight is 20/20. This feels a little unpersonalized but I want to apologize for being disconnected in the past 5 months.
And if you're wondering how Daniel's thesis is coming, let's just say it's doing pretty well considering.
We moved from Madison to my parents and it took 4 days, we wanted to do it in 3 but it did not happen... I suppose I was being a little ambitious due to the fact we had a 6 month old child.
Life was going pretty well when we first moved... My mom was making trips to visit her mom who was in the hospital 3 hours away, but was moved to a care center shortly after we moved. While in the care center they turned down her oxygen and did not monitor her percentage - basically if it were not for her roommate we are pretty sure she would have died that day. Due to the oxygen deprivation, Grandma was transferred to the hospital again. After a week or two there they were ready to transfer her to the same care center... This all was happening while my mom was in the ER with my little brother who ended up having Pneumonia. We ended up having her transferred to a care center in a city that was closer - the care center where we live would not take her because they did not have a private room. The private room was needed because of a very contagious infection she picked up during her stay at the first care center. So she was 1.5 hours away, instead of 3.
During this my little sister had 2 or 3 seizures (I can't remember I know it was at least 2) in which we made trips to the ER.
After a week or two in the care center, my grandmother passed away about a month after we moved (on October 15). My older sister and her family came as well as my older brother (so my whole family was together which was, the house was crowded!
In November, Valerie had another seizure, Dennis got pneumonia again and Valerie was put in the hospital for the week of Thanksgiving. Daniel and I went to visit his family and Eric fell off the high chair and we ended up going to the ER. Everything was fine with Eric. My little sister got out of the hospital and we had Thanksgiving with my family on Saturday since they ate the hospital's version of Thanksgiving.
December started out great. However, our computer died on Dec. 11 and then the next day on the way home from taking Valerie to the Neurologist, Val went to the ER and ended up getting put in the hospital. Valerie was transferred on Dec 13th to a hospital about 2 hours away, she had some kind of respiratory issues - still not sure exactly what was going on. She was a very sick little girl, it was hard to go see her 'hooked up to half the hospital' as Daniel put it. We were sure she would be released just after Christmas, so I put a makeshift Christmas together for our family, my dad, brother and older brother. It was more work than I care to remember. A few days later when the Pulmonologist was ready to release her she started having seizures almost constantly. On New Year's Eve, she was transferred to the hospital that is 3 hours away, where they put her into an induced coma in hopes to get her to stop having seizures. She took about 2 weeks to wake up mostly and then they let her come home. The coma medicine is not quite out of her system so one of her seizure medicine doses is almost tripled until her body starts metabolizing it - the drug they used for the coma inhibits the metabolizing of the seizure medicine.
During this time, Dennis got pneumonia again and ended up getting a feeding tube put in the first part of January. Also, the computer repair place here could not fix or recover out data so on one trip to visit Val we dropped our computer off at my uncle's (he and his son both work with computers and fix them) so he could look at it.
Shortly after Valerie came home, a puppy came to join our family. The puppy loves Eric and will let him do pretty much anything to him without reacting.
In February Daniel and I went to visit his family and picked up our computer and the data on the way out - we got it all back which was SO exciting.
My sister and her family came to visit in March the week before Eric's birthday. We stayed up with them until 1 or 2 am so I got behind on my sleep. After they left Eric got sick (with the sleep deprived parents) and we had to take him to Urgent care as he had a fever of 102.5,. He was put on an antibiotic. Valerie has had to go to the ER a couple of times because she is still not doing 100%, lately she has been having 'episodes' each day where her oxygen saturation drops and we have to work to keep it above 90% for at least an hour.
Also during this time I think I had a mild case of postpartum depression. I never actually went to the doctor because I didn't want to have to pay the outrageous cost of a doctor visit, and I could actually function... but I feel like I have not done a very good job at being a friend and keeping in contact with everyone. I can honestly feel a HUGE difference now and realize that I should have gotten help, but hind sight is 20/20. This feels a little unpersonalized but I want to apologize for being disconnected in the past 5 months.
And if you're wondering how Daniel's thesis is coming, let's just say it's doing pretty well considering.
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