Jaxon's Surgery Story

Today was the big day. Jax had same day surgery to take out his adenoids. As you know we decided against the tonsillectomy at this time. After today I am so glad!
This morning we got to the OC hospital at 8:30 (I let Jax stay up until 11 to get him to sleep in longer this morning and thank goodness it worked!)
Here is our private room, which we did all pre and post-op cares in (minus the recovery room time)

Playing in the wagon before surgery:


Me and my boys:



Tristan did a great job at entertaining Jax and keeping his mind off of "Chocolate milk" and "Cheerios"...





B took this of me in the room waiting for the nurse to come get Jax- wish I would've smiled!


That's better!


Amy, Jax's admitting nurse checking his O2 sat:


Brian- doesn't look like he was quite awake here...


This is when I started crying! Look at my poor unsuspecting baby! This was his OR nurse, Linda:


I can still remember the sickening feeling of watching the door close- boo-hoo....

We went to the grill to get some breakfast to pass the few minutes and ease the anxiety...

But I wanted to eat upstairs as I didn't feel right being "that far" away -



Waiting for Jax to return....




George, Jax's Anesthetist came to check in (after the doc- but I was so preoccupied that I totally forgot to take her picture!) and update us on his recovery status. He was doing really well but was fussy and combative. The doc came in just before to tell us that it went well, that Jax's adenoids were really "full" and that his ears looked great with no fluid behind them so that was a good sign. She even brought us the tube that she removed from the ear canal as it had fallen out a couple of weeks ago and was lodged in ear wax in the canal.I should post a pic of it as it was so tiny! She did say that his tonsils were pretty enlarged and that she really had to work to get around them. Hope I don't regret not taking them out today....


While we waited for Jax, guess what Brian had to watch.... Yep, that is football (Oh, brother!).

Tristan being goofy and waiting for Jax:





Here comes Jax with his recovery room nurse. He was NOT HAPPY!


Before you say I am a bad Mom for taking pics when he was miserable,lol, it was Tristan who had the camera:


Poor guy!

He was so wild and trying to take his IV out and just flailing his arms and legs and wearing himself out, that the nurse ended up giving him some Morphine and then he got a nice nap:

While he napped on Dad, I "played" trying to keep Tristan entertained-lol-


Sweet Dreams little buddy!



Shortly after, he woke up and we watched Curious George in his bed:



Here are the boys with Grace, Jax's last nurse of the day- she is so sweet!

Last one!

After that big day we came home and Jax got sick all over the kitchen, but has been eating and acting a little more like himself every since...
Thanks for the prayers and positive thoughts!! It went well but we are very glad it's behind us!

Sanford "Imagine"

What a weekend we've had. Friday after work we headed up to Sioux Falls for the "Sanford Imagine" festival- Basically a HUGE company picnic for all of the Sanford Health and Affiliates employees and their families. Friday night we went to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse (VERY fun, by the way! I really encourage you to try it if it's in your area at all!) where I ran into one of the other diabetes educators from the Sanford base in Sioux Falls. "Did you hear the news today?" She asked me. Then she told me "We are curing type 1!" Read about that here:
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080607/NEWS/806070324/1001
If you watch the clip to the right of the article, you can see a little clip about type 1 as well as an interview with Tina, Dean and Bennett (Ben) who are friends of mine from OC.

Anyway, that was some exciting news. It was all over the papers the next morning. I couldn't help but feel like God DOES have a plan for us being so far away from Washington, as I still get so homesick and often think about it. I am going to do everything in my power to somehow be involved in this. I don't know when or how right now, but mark my words I would work for free if it meant I could be a part of finding a cure for type 1 diabetes! (:

Anyway, the next day we went out for breakfast and did some shopping (found the boys shirts & khakis and Brian black pants for Jodi's wedding on the 28th). Also found some adorable brown sequinned flip-flops for me (well, not for the wedding but what did you expect with me in a mall? lol!). Then it was back to the hotel and onto the shuttle to the festival. When we got there I felt so proud to be a part of Sanford. It was definitely a day to take pride in your company! (:
I was going to take a pic of the boys with the Imagine sign in the background- and a nice older man offered to take it so I could be in the pic too- unfortunately the Imagine sign was cut out. Oh well. Oh and I didn't get my hair butched-lol- I just had a headband in and a bun too as it was so hot and needed to keep it off of my shoulders and back. (: You can see that it is darker again- and it will stay that way- No more bleaching for me.




A sculpture of Denny Sanford and his Grandchildren titled "For the Love of Children"

There were carnival games for all- and of course like everything else- they were free and unlimited so the boys have a ton of prizes!

There were at least 10 blow-up games (obstacles courses, bouncy castles, boats, etc) which I couldn't get Jax away from-lol


Also a HUGE carnival and an acrobat type of circus:


We ended up walking over to Buffalo Wild Wings about 3 to get out of the heat and get a meal without waiting for an hour in line (REALLY long food lines but at least they had free water and pop on every corner!) On the way back we found some cow planters at Canary stadium.

Tristan took this pic (I cropped it a bit) while I was in the outhouse-lol

Sitting on the event deck at the stadium waiting for Aly & AJ, Sheryl Crow, and Rascal Flatts...


More waiting and cooling off with water...


The concerts were AMAZING!! Rascal Flatts was definitely the best as they are one of our favorite groups. They waited until dark and came out in an explosion of fireworks- it was SO COOL! Wish I had the camera ready for that! There were 35,000 people there so the pics are far away and not the best- but the stage was amazing! It was HUGE! And they had these enormous screens with really cool images projected on them- it was the coolest thing! They are truly awesome entertainers!





Tristan had to get a sweatshirt as it got COLD and Brian didn't think we needed sweatshirts- I had mine on Jax and we ended up buying one for Tristan. He was pretty thrilled with that!














Rascal Flatts finished with "Life is a Highway", their remake of the original by Tommy Cochran (which was actually my class song!, which is also the song from Cars. Finally, a spectacular Fireworks show lit the way as we walked to the shuttle. It was amazing!!!