Daniel's pictures from Stanford - blog 3 of 3

Daniel has been bugging to put these pictures up. These were the pictures we took at our stay in California during chicken pox. I forgot the cord to download them! Kindof a hurried packing!

Child LIfe services saved our sanity! They brought in so many things for him to do! This was covered in black and he scratched it all of to reveal these pretty colors.

Painted a car. Left arm has IV in so it was a mom holding job!

Drank chocolate milk EVERY MEAL! He was in heaven!

Child Life brought these glow in the dark paints. Don't waste you money if you see them in the store! It's more like a gel so it doesn't go on evenly. It was fun and consumed a good hour of our time and they glowed all night long! We taped them to the bathroom door.

Mom & Daniel hanging out.

Waiting for discharge papers. He is IV & plug free! Happy boy!

Haven't posted pictures in a while.........

So here is the catch up for December. Got so consumed with chicken pox I neglected the twin's 6th birthday, Christmas Eve & Christmas!

Daniel got his BYU Cosmo pillow pet.

Notice the birthday crowns made for them, I believe by Nathan.

Sammy's is a Happy Napper. Turns from a dog to a ......

Dog house! Push the door bell and he is snoring!
Christmas Eve dinner. Prime rib before it goes in the oven.....

Prime rib after it comes out. I am going to toot my own horn......it is the best one I have ever made! We had the missionaries over to join in our festivities. It was a lot of fun.

One of our traditions is to put a puzzle together. Of course it has to be a cougar which we are modge podging and hanging in the BYU room!


Ryan got Harry Potter's Hogwarts castle. He was way excited and had it assembled that day!

Daniel

Company

Sammy

Ryan

Bryce

Nathan

Mommy

Do not know where kevin's picture went to. But we had a great, simple, relaxing christmas.

On the Tuesday after christmas we went over to reno and stayed with kevin's parents a few days. The kids got some Christmas money (and the twins birthday money) and it was burning a hole in their pockets! We had fun watching decide what to buy, what was the better deal, etc. We returned thursday and that is when Daniel said is arm hurt and the chicken pox episode started on him. More pictures of that to follow.

13 is unlucky number!!!

So daniel and I have been so enjoying our time home! It was fun to surprise the boyz!

13 is Comptyn's unlucky number today. In fact, it is mine, too! That is how many pox he has this morning. YEP! Another ones got the pox. I have a call into Stanford on whether to continue Daniel's anti-viral medicine. What ever happened to the whole family getting them at once and then being over it? I do know if Daniel gets it again we are back at Stanford.

Daniel update Wednesday

So last night about 7 pm Infectious Disease came thru and told us we were going to go home today! Yes, I started crying! So we are just waiting to hear from the doctors. Daniel was SO excited that he couldn't go to sleep until 10:45!

Daniel's IV port started leaking. He still had his midnight and 8 am Aciclovir infusion. The nurse was really great and said she would talk to the doctor about just starting oral. Sure enough! We didnt' need a new IV so they took it out. We slept last night w/o any interruptions! I had to wake up at 3 am and have him go pee, but other than that we slept GREAT!

We told Kevin, but the boyz dont' know. They still think we are coming home on Friday! Thanks everyone who prayed for Daniel. Thanks Kayla and Christy for being so thoughtful and taking a meal into Kevin and the boyz. It's hard for a dad to become a single parent, and that eased that transition. One less thing for him to have to do.

Daniel Tuesday update

So Doctor Sutherland came in this morning. I was all excited when he asked to see the last chicken pox to surface......I showed him.....he was happy and said we could go home tomorrow. The Infectious Disease woman came in. (dun, dun, dun) She said that Aciclovir has to be given for 21 doses for it to be fully effective. 8 am was dose 13. So Thursday night at midnight will be his last dose and we will go home on Friday as long as something else doesn't happen. So that is good to have a date in mind. Wish it was sooner. Now I have to do laundry again. I only brought clothes for 4 days. :-)

He had 69 chicken pox today. That is great! We are happy for that. The one pox that came up yesterday was a scab this morning. His Prograf level was a little low, so they are adjusting that.

Child Life just came in and brought Daniel a million things to do. Today will be easier on me than yesterday! YAY! She is cleaning the Santa closet, too, and promised to bring him more things tomorrow. We are going to have to rent a UHaul to get home! :-)

Daniel's Monday update

So I was a little discouraged this morning when we found a new pox. Just one and it was actually over the spot where an old one was. After his bath it was 'popped' and so hopefully it will scab over soon. We did count only 97, so we are down 8 from yesterday. That is good. But at this point we are looking at Thursday maybe Friday probably for a release, if all goes well. Dr Wong said she likes to have all the scabs on and then do 1 more day of Aciclovir. I was thinking we would be scabbed by tomorrow, maybe Wednesday, but now we dont' know what is going to happen. Dr Wong is not on call now, it is Dr. Sutherland. So we'll see what his philosphy is tomorrow! Hopefully it's just scabs and go home!

Daniel is more active and definately over the 'not feeling well' part of the pox. He is only hooked up to IV (no vital hook ups) so he can get out of his chair and be tethered to about a six foot cord. He is getting 'bored' and so entertaining have been my main 'job' today. Play games, color with, we are painting after dinner. He is not my just watch TV kid, which would be kindof nice once in a while!

The pox by his bum-hole is totally gone. We have had 2 'happy' BMs today! :-) In fact, one he was singing during. That is a great improvement from screaming and crying and sweating. Not good memories.

Can you tell I forgot my camera cord? I have pictures, but can't post any. Oh well!

So I am going to sneak out to Target or Wal-Mart again after Daniel is asleep tonight and stock up on some more snacks for me (meals are WAY expensive here - $9 for a small salad and soup) and a few new coloring books for Daniel. I finished a GREAT book yesterday - "The Silence of God" by Gale Sears. LOVED it! Continuing President Monson's biography (good book, but if I am at all sleepy I fall asleep) and started "The Count of Monte Cristo" which is really good so far. That is over 500 pages, so I am glad it's good.

Until tomorrow!

Daniel's update Sunday morning

So today is a better day! Last night as Daniel was trying to go to sleep it took about 2 hours as he started itching and itching and itching! Before he was in pain. I don't know which I prefer if I had to pick! At any rate, I have some Gold Bond anti-itch cream for some excema I have. Put that on the spots and THEN asked for permission. :-) We did get the permission to use it and today has been better. He was also suffering from a bunch of poxes right about the underwear line on this lower back. They are very irritated from laying in bed, then scooting up and them rubbing on the sheets. Those were hard to relieve. So he finally fell asleep about 10:45. We had a different night nurse and she was kindof noisy. Didn't get much sleep. Nap today!

Woke up about 6 am and Daniel took a bath. He wet all over during the night, so we needed to get that urine off him. Between IV and his drinking he gets over 3 liters of liquid a day. We counted 105 poxes (yesterday was 127) so we were very happy. No new ones and the most recent one was already drying up.

When Dr Wong came in she was very surprised how many have already scabbed over. She saw about 20 that needed to look better before a release. The sore ones on his back are really bad and we pray they don't get infected. That will delay our progress.

Well off to play a game with the chicken boy, as I call him!
Happy 2012 to all!