We finally saw Celine Dion!!!

I realize that this may sound ridiculous but it finally came! February 22nd 2009 finally came and my sister Michelle and I finally got to see Celine Dion! I've told the story but it's a fun one so I'll tell it again... Mason was staying at his 2nd home (the hospital) and I was talking on the phone with Michelle. It was the first week in October 2007 ~ The TV was on in the background while we visited and as we were talking there was a commercial advertising Celine Dion coming November 21st!

Michelle immediately got online and bought us tickets to go to the sold out show! In order to buy the $150.00 tickets (that is the per ticket price) she had to join 'Team Celine!' No joke!! That membership came for the bargain annual fee of $50! She called me back to tell me she had bought the tickets for the two of us, but there was something I should know... the November 21st we were looking forward to was in 2008! Just over 13 months away! That's when it got funny.

We made paper chains to count down, we'd text how many more days it was until Celine, we've been looking forward to this for a LONG time! Well, November 21st came and if you've read my previous posts you will know that Celine got sick and postponed the long awaited show to Sunday February 22nd, 2009. Only 3 more months added to the already 13 we've waited. Can you say "LAME!" We were devastated and our husbands made fun of us for being as devastated and disappointed as we were.


Finally it came! It was all we had hoped for and more!! Sadly our 'team Celine' membership has lapsed since she bought us the tickets, but we both made it!! It was close for me with my surgery this time and if you remember last time Michelle was extremely sick and wouldn't have made it anyway, but we finally got to see her! It was so worth the wait too! She is quirky and endearing! I loved every second of it and was sad when it ended. I never would have considered myself a big Celine Dion enthusiast years ago but this journey to see Celine has transformed me into a life-long fan!

We weren't sure if we'd get away with taking our cameras so neither one of us even tried to take our big camera or Michelle's HD video camera, but here is a taste and sampling of what we saw...

(For optimal viewing, pause the music at the bottom of my blog!)

Hospital Again?!?!

On Monday (our vacation day) we had a pretty normal day to start. On Friday I had an emergency surgery done so I've been taking it pretty easy this weekend. Spen and Ethan took care of me all Saturday so they went to Sundance to ski for a few hours. Mase hasn't been sleeping so well but he napped like a champ that day. Ezra's birth mother came to visit today. We were having such a great time visiting that I didn't really notice how long Mase had been asleep. Spen and Ethan got home and visited with us.

I finally realized Mase had been sleeping for 4 hours! I decided to wake him up or he'd never go back to sleep tonight! That's when it all started. He wouldn't wake up. Not only would he not wake up, he wouldn't respond or react to anything I did. You can imagine how terrifying it would be to know your child was alive only by finding a pulse. He was breathing so shallow I couldn't tell he was breathing at all. We rushed him to his Dr. By the time we got to his office it had been about 45 minutes or so and he was a little less scary but still unresponsive. He was admitted with the diagnosis of a coma. Great.

After a full work up it was determined that he was in a medication induced coma. For some unknown reason his body stopped metabolizing his seizure med and the level had built up in his system with an obvious/ scary side effect. A normal therapeutic level for Mason is between 25-35. His came back at 65.

He's been pretty sedated and distant for the past 3 days but is starting to act more and more like our Mason. It is our 4th day here and we are sitting awaiting the news from the lab. Hopefully we get to go home to see the other 3 boys.
...
We ended up staying for 5 days this time. He had one seizure and we left with no real answers, just another thing to watch closely. He still has his pneumonia from the last hospital stay a few weeks ago, but it's slowly getting better! At least this time we got some smiles from the Masey Moose!

There were quite a few times when I couldn't get him to stop screaming at me. I was worn out and tired a lot more than usual since I was recovering from surgery while being there with Mason. When we'd get past the point of no return for him the ONLY thing that would put an immediate smile on his face was to call his 'Reg'. My mom. She talked and sang to him and he ate it right up! It was fun to see how happy hearing his grandma made him.. (here's a picture of him 'talking' to Reg.)

Mason Update!

Once again I've had a lot of people asking me how Mason is doing... I really wish I had a good answer for that question! The only thing I can come up with is that he seems stable and he's happy. We repeated his X-rays this week and they really don't show much of a change. He's not worse, but he's just going to take a LONG time to get better! He's out of school for a while. He's just too fragile to expose to much of anything still.

The other thing that we are trying to figure out are his seizures. He just keeps having them! They are called break through seizures. That just means that they are seizures that aren't normal for Mason to have and he is having despite the seizure meds they have him on. He's not having the full body seizures anymore, they are just more subtle.

He still has a long way to go to be back to normal. We see or talk to his Dr. on the phone everyday still. He will get better. At least the pneumonia part!

Thank you for all of your prayers and emails. It really is amazing to know how many people care about our Mason and about our family...

Ezra's 4 month pictures!!

I know that it's not uncommon to think that time is passing way too fast when you have a baby, but seriously? He's already 4 months old??!! For his 4 month check up he weighed 17 pounds and is 27.5 inches long! He's just growing up so fast!

I can't even tell you how happy I am that his eyes have stayed blue! I would love them any color, but I LOVE Spencer's bright blue eyes and always hoped that one of our kids would get them. This was a bit more unconventional than originally planned, but it works just the same for me!

I am so glad that his 'Ezra shirt' still fits him for one of his monthly pictures! My cousin gave it to him at his baby shower and I think it is soooo darling!

My favorite thing about taking monthly pictures with the same toy is that you can see how much they are changing and they start to play with it! Ez is really in a sucking on things phase and I got a bunch of pictures of him sucking on his 'Rocco' bear.

I had to put a picture with all my sweet boys! They are so excited to all finally be together again! I love how much they adore each other.

Mason's week

I've had a lot of people asking me about what is going on with Mason and so I've decided to post what this past week had in store for him.... I've taken a lot of the emotional stress out of it and tried not to make it as scary as it was, but Mase was pretty sick this past week. Here's what happened..

Friday January 23rd:

I got a phone call from Mason's school letting me know that Mason was having a hard time breathing and they were concerned. I promptly took him and screaming Ez to the Dr. to be checked and to make sure that there wasn't something serious to worry about going on. Ez had an angry ear infection, and she sent Mason to have a DFA and sputum culture (RSV panal) -- (negative) and a chest X-ray (minor to moderate Broncheolitis).
We came home after those fun hours at the hospital and Mason promptly spiked a 105 temp. We did all we could to break it, including quite a few chilly baths! He whined and screamed ALL night. We got his fever as low as 102 at one point in the night, but I finally called his Dr. at 6:00 a.m. after watching the clock all night and we decided we'd better admit him to see what was going on.


Saturday January 24th:

Mason was admitted to the hospital with the diagnosis of high fevers and dehydration. He had all of the standard labs and cultures done which came back positive for a bacterial blood infection (strep pneumocaucas). He was started on a few IV antibiotics to help. His fever was hovering around 103 despite any attempts to lower it. We were hoping that he would run an extended course of IV antibiotics, possibly come home with a PICC line for that and he'd be OK. By night time he still was whining and screaming and they started him on morphine for the extreme pain. He was (and I was) finally able to sort of rest for about 2 hours.


Sunday January 25th:

Mason woke up trying to scream, but he couldn't breathe at 3 a.m. They called in the respiratory team to evaluate him, but he couldn't find clear breath sounds in his right side. His left side was very coarse. They took another X-ray and his right lung was so full of pneumonia you couldn't see any good lung on the picture. It was collapsed. He still had the fever that wouldn't go away, but at least now they knew that the source of the bacterial blood infection was from the bacterial pneumonia he had. Things were not looking good for Mason. This was the first time since NICU days that I wasn't sure if he could recover from this one. The entire day the RT would come in every hour and a half to do CPT, deep suction, and breathing treatments. We were also covered in cool wet towels at this point to try and lower his body temp.
I had held Mase all but a few hours up until my parents and Spencer came. Things started to look up a little by Sunday night, but only because of the diligent treatments of his RT. I was told that he would most likely develop a plural effusion and could potentially need a drain put in to get rid of the pooling fluid in his lung. We waited until after the 5:00 p.m. X-ray for them to tell us that we would not be sending him in the helicopter, yet...


Monday January 26th:

We still had our same RT who I am convinced saved Mason's life, (thank heavens!) He continued with his treatments and Mason's fever finally broke around noon. I finally stopped crying today and things were getting more managable. He was still so sick, but finally could rest without the fever. I was even able to get out of the bed with him and let him really relax! His labs weren't a whole lot better and the consolidated pneumonia was still pretty horrilbe. We were also able to see the plural effusion on the X-ray today. It was still too small to drain, no helicopter ride yet again! His fever would come back as soon as we let the treatment go too long. The morphine also would help him sleep. He was still on a large amount of oxygen too. He did sleep tonight though.


Tuesday January 27th:

Finally the labs started improving. Fevers kept coming back still. He's still getting regular RT treatments and still in isolation, but things are looking like they will get better. While my sister was with me, we were playing with Mase and we noticed that his eyes were tracking wierd and that they would twitch when he would look a certain way. It was scaring me, but the resident didn't think it was a big deal, it was!!
Tonight just as he started to fall asleep though he began to have full body seizures. This is not a normal thing for Mason and was a pretty big deal. They treated him after 25 minutes and when that didn't help gave him a 2nd dose. He finally stopped the full body seizure after close to an hour. His seizure then turned into a more non-responsive type seizure that he would come in and out of. This lasted for the next hour and a half-ish. He finally slept, I didn't!


Wednesday January 28th:

Pneumonia slightly improving. Today it became the secondary reason he was in the hospital. He is still being treated and watched closely for it, but it's officially under control. (Other than the building fluid I suppose.) He seized again during his afternoon nap, but it was short. Then he had another big, long, won't stop even with the max treatment seizure at bedtime.
This had the doctors scrambling for a cause. Brain abscess, and meningitis were the words and ideas that they decided were most likely. After the seizure was controlled he was sent for an emergency head CT with contrast to rule out these diagnoses. They did, thank goodness, but now we were back to not knowing what was going on. He finally slept well when we could leave him alone.


Thursday January 29th:

Today was the best Mason has looked or sounded all week. His pneumonia is still pretty bad, but he was able to have periods without his oxygen today! Big news!!! He seized again when he napped, which sent me running down to the pediatric clinics to try to find the pediatric neurologist. She ended up calling his attending Dr.'s and they decided to give him large doses of seizure medication to try and prevent more break through seizures from happening. He was completely snowed and high on the meds they gave him. He didn't, however, seize when he went to bed tonight.


Friday January 30th:

His labs and X-ray actually looked OK today. Finally. He was acting like Mase today. Finally! The Dr. wanted to keep him for his nap to be sure that he wouldn't seize again. His eyes have done the crazy wierd thing everytime before he has seized and they were doing it again, but when he napped he didn't seize. It was great! Maybe the meds suppressed it from going full blown! He had to get his IV meds all taken care of and we finally left for home tonight where he did not seize when I put him to bed!!


Saturday January 31st:

Home is great! It's hard to still have to maintain all of the treatments they were doing in the hospital by myself here though. He did have another seizure during his nap which sent me back to the hospital for more testing. They sent us home to await our results. When his Dr. called he was getting ready for bed, but he felt like the tests were OK. But then, he did it again. By the time I got his Dr. back on the phone it was over and Mase was asleep so when he suggested re-admitting for monitering I decided it wasn't the best thing for Mase. We'll just have to watch him here again I suppose. At least he is off his oxygen! I've been checking his vitals to tell his Dr. when we talk, but he's been great. We go back for follow up X-rays and labs on Monday. I'm hoping that we keep recovering!

Things I love about Ethan

A note to Ethan...

Happy Birthday my sweet EThan angel. You are growing up so fast I can hardly believe it. You are such a little grown up in so many ways. In some ways it's unfair that you had to grow up so fast with the challenges there have been in our family, but you have been so mature about everything. You are still so innocent and sweet in a lot of ways though. There are still a few words that you say incorrectly that I will never correct and I'll miss them when they are gone!

There are so many things that I love about you, I think I'll just start to list them until I get dragged away with something I have to do. I could go on and on. Here are a few reasons I adore you in every way...

1. I love how you always compliment me.

2. I love that you love your brothers and always help take care of them.

3. I love when you really laugh -- for real, not the fake one as much!!

4. I love our conversations.

5. I think you are the most handsome boy around.

6. You remember everything! It's constantly amazing me.

7. You are so determined. You can do anything you want to do.

8. You are very stubborn. You won't do anything you don't want to do!

9. You are very mature and grown-up for your age. You have had to deal with a lot more than most kids your age and you have handled it extremely well.

10. You pick out the best jewelry to surprise me!

11. I love going on dates with you.

12. I love playing games with you - even when the rules change as the game goes on!

13. I love going on trips with you.

14. I miss you when you are away at school or playing with a friend!

15. I love the way you come in my bed in the morning and wrap your arm around my head to cuddle yourself back to sleep.

16. I love having sleep-overs with you, even though you kick a lot!

17. I love visiting about how our sleep was every morning.

18. I love when you are watching a movie and something strikes you funny. It's the cutest thing ever.

19. I love (mostly) how you think water will fix anything. You are always doing something in your sink. It drives me crazy, but it's darling how much you love it!~

20. I love watching you ski. I'm so proud of you.

21. I love going to Lake Powell with just the two of us. It's my favorite Mom and Ethan time in the whole world~!

22. I love how you take care of me and anyone in the family if we get hurt. You rush to our aid with your Dr. kit. (and a cotton ball of water to fix it!)

23. I love checking in on you every night to see what position I will catch you in this time! You are the funniest sleeper!

24. I mostly love when you become the one in charge and decide everything we have to do and where we have to go! You are so determined and serious!

25. I love that you have an amazing sense of direction. You pay attention to everything and always know where we are. It's especially funny when we are going somewhere that we go a lot and dad drives. He sometimes takes a different route and you always think he is lost!!

26. I love that you call your Grampy and ask him to take you on lunch dates almost weekly. And that you hand me the phone to 'verify' the information. (sometimes I get false information so the 'verify' is important!)

27. I love listening to you say your prayers. You always think of a friend or someone that you should pray for.

28. I love how much you love your Grandma Pete. She was your best friend for a long time. Most kids don't get to have such a great relationship with their great-grandma!

29. You get so excited over the cutest things.

30. You are becoming such a great reader!

31. You are so loving and sweet.

32. You get your feelings hurt, and it embarrases you.

33. I love watching you play and roll around with Mason. It makes me so happy that you don't even see that he is different and you love him and play with him like you would any kid.

34. I love that you teach others about Mason and explain things like they are normal.

35. I love that you were so excited and involved with our adoption of Ezra.

36. I love everything about you, but mostly I love that I know how much you absolutely love me and your family!

37. I think I love that you do what you want to do! You never do something just because someone else tells you too. If you don't want to you'll say so. (I'm hoping this trait carries on into high school!)

38. I love how forgiving you are.

39. I love how you get excited for Mason to be resurected and so he'll be perfect like you. You never give up hope for him and it's inspiring to me. You think that every year on his birthday -- "this is it. This is the year Mason is going to be able to walk on his birthday, I just know it.." You have so much hope.

40. You are a super smarty pants.

41. You say the funniest things.

42. You are the coolest kid!

43. You LOVE little kids and it's so great how you have NEVER been the kid to act out against your younger sibling in a mean way. You just keep asking me when we are going to get another baby! You're not done yet I guess!

44. It's funny (and I hate it) how you can't just use a little soap or shampoo, you use the ENTIRE bottle. EVERYTIME! It's like the morning, you can always count on it.

45. I love that you are an avid tooth brusher! You do not want to get cavities and you never forget to brush!

46. I love that you still say words like 'renember' and 'grav'. It reminds me that you are still just a kid.

47. I love that you are a daredevil! You are cautious to be sure you're safe, but that's it! You are fearless to try new things. If your nervous to do it -- I love the giggle that comes as you are about to attempt it!

48. I kind of love that you have a strong opinion about what you want to wear. It's not so fun when the bus is here and you change your mind over and over!

49. I love that you refer to any older person that you like as "Grandma" or "Grandpa." Even the nurses you like at the hospital.

50. I mostly love your hugs and your kisses everytime you leave or I leave. PLEASE never stop doing that!

I could go on and on and on, but I have mommy things I have to to. Happy Birthday my baby doll~

Funny Kids

I have the funniest boys!! All of the boys except Ezra have been sick for the past few days. We've had a very hard time sleeping. Last night I put Vapo Rub on Ethan's chest to help him breathe through the night (I'm grasping!) and he didn't really like it. When I went to check on him later this is what I found - (those are wipeys he found to wipe it all off!)