Ch-ch-ch-changes

So, Jackson is finally better. He still has a wet sounding cough, but he's back to eating and playing normally. He's been saying, "Go for it!" all week. Not sure where that came from. Got his next appointment scheduled with the ENT for July, so we'll see where we end up then.

Some bad news from the week: Both J's primary special ed teacher and his adaptive phy ed teacher are leaving. He loves both of them so much, especially Mr. S. I've met the new spec ed teacher, but don't know who's going to replace Mr. S. It's a good thing J doesn't really understand what's going on. J's swimming is up in the air now. I don't know if the new adaptive phy ed teacher will continue that or not next year.

Object du Jour: A box of flashcards of nouns and verbs that J loves pouring over. I cleaned out a closet today and he's so happy to be reunited with his cards!

"The ambulance scared you."

Soooo. It's been a long week. On Monday, Jameson and I decided to head to the mall. The boys needed some t-shirts for summer, Daddy needed socks and I wanted some new Old Navy "Slip Slops" as J2 calls them. We shopped, played, ate lunch and headed home around noon. What I didn't know was that my phone was "blowin' up yo" in my purse.

We got home and I checked my Facebook page. There was a message from my friend Cathy saying, "Where are you? There's been an incident at school and they ambulanced J to Children's." My heart starting racing and the phone rang and it was the ER doctor from the hospital telling me I needed to get there right away. Randy was in a meeting in Green Bay and his phone was off, so no one could get ahold of him.

Raced to the ER, of course everyone in front of me was doing 2 mph (or maybe it just felt like it). Left my car in the valet lane and found the admitting nurse. She took me back to J's room and he wasn't there. The ER doc and ENT met me and explained that he had gone for a chest x-ray. A few minutes later, J came back, carried by his most wonderful classroom teacher and she filled me in on what happened.

At lunch, J was eating his Pringles sticks and he choked on one. They tried everything they could to get it out, but his voice was getting raspier and he was having trouble breathing. The principal made the decision to call 911.

The ER called J's regular ENT tp come down to check him out. Dr. R wanted to take J up to surgery to do a bronchoscopy to make sure there was nothing in his lungs that could cause all sorts of issues like pneumonia. They had J prepped and ready to go pretty quickly. J was still wheezing and barky coughing.

He was in surgery about 30 minutes and Dr. R came out and told me that J's airway is very swollen. He felt that J was on the verge of a croup episode, so his airway was probably mildly irritated and the pretzel stick made his airway react violently. Dr. R decided to keep J overnight for observation and put him on a 3 day course of steroids to keep his airway calm. He wants see J back in a month and repeat the bronch to see what J's airway looks like when his healthy. If there are any issues at that time we'll decide what to do then.

Wow. I hope I never, ever get a phone call(s) like that again! J was such a trooper. The IV made him horribly angry, but he took everything else in stride. I can't thank the wonderful staff at his school enough for taking such good care of him and treating him as their own. I made them all cake pop bouquets as a thank you, but that can't begin to express how thankful I am.

Poor J keeps talking about the ambulance and how it "scared you." His teacher went with him in the ambulance and she said he kept telling her, "Jackson and Mrs. W go for a ride?" I'm so relieved she went with him and he didn't have to go alone. She said he didn't cry at all until he saw me in the ER. Isn't that what we all do? We don't cry until we see our Mamas, because then we know we're taken care of and it's going to be OK.

Object du Jour: MG. The floor staff gave Jackson a pillow pet, which I think is a hamster, bear or odd looking cat. Jackson was having none of it and kept tossing it on the floor. Daddy's first order of business when he arrived at the "hobstible" was to fetch MG from my car. Seeing MG put the first smile on J's face I had seen our whole time at the hospital.

Monkey George

Is this not the sweetest picture? Monkey George goes everywhere we go. He rides to school with us in the morning and waits for J in the car until it's time to come home. MG plugged J's ears at the Syttende Mai parade on Sunday to keep the noise out. I don't know what we'd do without MG.

GI and Allergy last week. Jackson passed the "baked in dairy" challenge and can now have foods with dairy baked in them. Still no raw dairy yet, but we'll do a challenge for that in August and see where we end up.

GI went pretty well. His weight is down a bit, but they aren't unhappy with it. He got his MIC-key replaced with a new AMT button. The speech therapist thought J's breathing was too noisy, so we were sent to have a lateral head x-ray done to see if there is anything causing a problem. Nope, everything is clear. Just one more thing to add to the day.

Object du Jour: MG.