Category Archives: Family
Tubing
Yesterday I took the boys north a little ways to meet up with their cousins and do some snow tubing at a small ski hill. The weather was near perfect, the lines and crowd surprisingly small, and hill fast and fun. I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but the ones I did take are over on the Photos Page.
We also took along my younger son’s little video recorder which he can mount to his bike helmet. While I did have the foresight to charge his camera, I forgot to clear off the memory of the other videos he had taken, so the camera was nearly full before we even started. Here is the one short clip we managed to get before the memory filled.
Toothless
Yesterday our younger son had eight teeth pulled. This is because he will be ten years old in a month and he has lost a total of 4 teeth so far. You can see in the pictures the permanent teeth that have already grown in behind where the baby teeth were. He had taken to calling himself shark boy for a little while.
This kid has been a real trooper about this. Most kids, and adults for that matter, would have been very nervous about the whole ordeal, but he told us the other day that he couldn’t do anything about it, so he wasn’t really worried. When he returned from the dentist he looked a little worn and out of it, but he was still pretty numbed up. He was drooling and bleeding for some time, but didn’t complain at all. He was doing pretty well by dinner time, downing three bowls of soup and a milkshake, and was excited about being able to go to school today, even though we have given him the option to stay home. My wife and I again marveled at how quickly kids bounce back.
Before the procedure the dentist had predicted that the teeth would probably come out fairly easily as the roots of most baby teeth tend to dissolve as the permanent teeth push up from below. This turned out not to be the case.
His dentist called last night to check on how he was doing, which was very nice of her. She commented that she does about five of these multi-extractions a week, but this was by far one of the more difficult extractions she’s had to do. We suspect that with the permanent teeth already grown in behind these baby teeth that it was difficult to see these roots in the x-rays.
Needless to say, the tooth fairy was very generous the boy last night.
Delicious He Was
Nothing quite like a quiet Sunday morning making pancakes with the kids, especially when they’re Star Wars pancakes.
Here are the molds being filled.
Golden!
Cuts like a knife.
Evil Empire on a plate.
Looks just like his actual face when you remove the mask.
Posted from my iPhone.
Setting A Poor Example
In the town where we live, the Kenosha Unified School District (KSUD) offers high school students the choice of choosing which school they want to go to. There are three main high schools in the district, but there are a number of charter schools, that they call Schools of Choice, that offer more focused education opportunities in some subjects, or alternative methods of teaching.
A lot of these schools pride themselves on their focus on technology in the classroom and the advanced science and math curriculums they offer. There’s a Technology Academy with a focus on technology systems in manufacturing, aviation or medical, and another school with a track in communications technology.
To get an idea of what these schools have to offer we have attended several open houses where the school administrator and several instructors give presentations about what the school has to offer as we try and make a decision about what will provide our son the most opportunities and benefits.
Without fail, each of these presentations I have attended has been teeth-grittingly awful. Not the substance of what they’re presenting, but their use of what is some of the most basic presentation technology today is embarrassing. Videos where the audio is out of sync and/or distorted. Presenters who can’t find their way around Powerpoint. Multiple presenters trying to switch between presentations on one laptop and not knowing where anything is or which mouse button to click.
I will admit that because this is the business I am in, I am more sensitive to this sort of un-polished presentation that most. But if you’re going to stand on stage and explain to me how you’re going to prepare my child for a future in a technological world, you should be able to set a better example of how to use the technology in a real world situation.
Recovery
Tomorrow it will be three months since our daughter’s heart surgery, so I think now is a good time to give an update to our young patient’s recovery.
The first week home was pretty uneventful. We were probably a little over-protective of her, but she was completely spoiled by the neighbors and she ended up enjoying showing off her scar to people when they came over to see how she was doing. It wasn’t long before she was asking to go on the swing and ride her brother’s scooter and other things that we could not allow her to do while her sternum was healing.
The Friday after we left the hospital we took her back for a scheduled quick checkup. They weighed her and measured her and took some chest X-rays to make sure everything looked ok, and after a quick going over by her doctor we were told that everything was going exactly as expected and to bring her back in six weeks for a followup.
So for the remainder of June and all of July we went about life pretty much as normal, with the exception that we couldn’t take her swimming due to the risk of infection while her incision healed. But she had plenty of fun running through sprinklers and enjoying other summertime activities. Because we did not know what to expect from her recovery we did not plan a summer vacation, and instead took advantage of many activities close to home. We took the kids to see fireworks while their grandparents were visiting, as well as visiting fairs and other area attractions.
At the end of July she had her six week followup visit with her cardiologist. The news from that visit is that the surgery was a complete success and we can basically go forward as if she never had a heart problem. We will still need to return to the hospital on occasion (next year, and then every 5 or so after that) just as a precaution, but otherwise she is perfectly healthy and happy. Hooray for modern medicine!
Because I really can’t resist, I’ve posted some cute pictures of her from our summer on the Photo Page.
Heart Surgery
Saturday, June 18 – Yesterday our daughter had Open Heart Surgery. She was born with a congenital heart defect called a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD), which is essentially a hole in the ventricular septum dividing the left and right ventricles of the heart.
For the past two and a half years, with trips up to the Milwaukee Children’s Hospital, her doctor has monitored her heart to see if the VSD would close over time on its own. While it did close up somewhat in her first year, for the past year there has been little or no progress and we made the decision to have this corrected sooner rather than later.
While she was in no immediate danger, and has been suffering no apparent side effects, over time the abnormality in her heart would have put excess pressure on her heart and lungs, creating long term health problems for her and most likely shortening her life.
Before her surgery we were informed that there was an additional muscle bundle that had formed on her heart, as it was adapting to make up for the irregularity, that would be removed as well as the fact that she had another small hole in her heart, an Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), which would not have normally required surgery, but which they repaired during this procedure as well.
Yesterday’s surgery has gone very well, although the recovery is a little rough for our little girl. While she was able to have her breathing tube removed before coming out of surgery, she still has a chest tube, catheter, multiple IV’s to provide pain medication and fluids, and monitors hooked up to her to check breathing, heart rate and a myriad of other things beyond my comprehension.
A few hours after surgery she began waking up a little at a time, before falling back to sleep. At one point she became very awake and pulled off her oxygen tube, her forehead monitor and actually rolled over and got up onto her hands and knees. This freaked us out as we weren’t sure how much force we could apply to her to get her rolled back over without hurting her or creating problems with her chest incision. Susan and I were stuck for a few moments, holding her still as she looked like a tangled up marionette with all of her tubes and wires.
The nurses were able to get her resettled and she got a fresh dose of pain meds to get her back to sleep and calmed down, and she has been more or less in a twilight since then, although they have added some soft restraints to her arms to prevent her from pulling anything out.
So far she is recovering very well (or at least, according to the plan, which has included her getting sicker before she starts getting better), and while it has been a long night for her, we are optimistic that some of the IV’s and monitoring can be removed today, and that she will be well enough for her brothers to visit.
She will need to stay in the hospital for at least another three days, and she is expected to have about a six week recovery period before her sternum (which had to be split) is fully healed, but after that she should be fine with no side effects going forward and only a small scar as a reminder.
I have posted some pictures of her on the Photos page. I will be adding to these occasionally during our hospital stay.
UPDATE: Sunday, 9:40am – We have been informed that they will be moving our daughter up to another floor later today as she no longer needs to be in the Intensive Care Unit, and tomorrow she can go home. Happy Father’s Day, indeed! Added photos to thePhoto Page.
UPDATE: Sunday, 10:25pm – Our little girl had a great day. She was awake for much more of the day than the past couple of days, only taking one nap this afternoon. There were a couple of times were she just laid down and rested, but no other naps. She has a lot more energy and personality back. Her cousins visited today and gave her a new toy which the video here shows her thoroughly enjoying. Also added more photos to the Photo Page.
UPDATE: Tuesday, 7:31am – We are finally home after a long last day at the hospital. We were told early Monday that there would be a check of her vital signs around 6:30 and then she would go down for a post-procedure Echocardiogram before being discharged, which they were hoping to do around 9am. Unfortunately they had an emergency case come into the hospital that took the staff away for much of the morning, so we were not finally discharged until 2:30 in the afternoon.
In some ways this last day was one of the roughest for our little girl. She didn’t like one of the medicines she had to take orally, and every time someone would come in the room she would cry “no more medicine” even if they were just there to check vitals or for some other function. Then we had to start removing more tape and other things stuck to her, and this hurt a bit as a lot of the tape had been on her for a few days and her skin can be sensitive.
Having to wait the extra time didn’t help her mood, but the medical team finally got to her to give her a once over and declared her ready to go. Almost exactly 72 hours after leaving surgery, she left the hospital, and we are now all happy to be home. One last batch of photos on the Photo Page.
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Kids Update
Well, we have been having an uneventful but busy spring, and I think an update of what the kids are up to is long overdue. First up is our little girl – the baby of the family.
Yes, you can tell who is king of the hill. Hasn’t taken her long to declare herself Queen of the castle.
The younger boy turned nine this past spring. He’s another one who enjoys clowning around.
And then there is our oldest – the under achiever who was just recently inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. He was pretty proud of this, and hopefully he can maintain his status by keeping his grades up and meeting the ongoing requirements of a minimum hours of service each month. He and the rest of the 7th graders who where invited into the NJHS were inducted at a ceremony at his school one evening. Below is a picture of him as the inductees entered the auditorium, and then a really louse photo of him receiving his certificate up on the stage.
And to celebrate Spring finally arriving we have a little dance number.
✧ ✧ MidWestMyers ✧ ✧ 