Tales From the Waiting Room (and other stories)

Quarantined

Except we were allowed free to go to the dr. yesterday. We thought we'd beaten this...this "thing" that's had us in its clutches on and off for a couple of weeks, but yesterday morning when several of them woke up with fevers and sounding like a seal begging for its sardine, I realized it was Time. Time to call and talk the dr's office into fitting us all in. 

After a back and forth on the phone with the receptionist speaking with various nurses to see if they could fit in 8 children, and in between me making phonecalls to cancel Abigail's physical therapy session and all of their piano/voice lessons, we got it all straightened out. Believe it or not, Brett was actually able to accompany me to the dr, but we did drive separately because his flight left out and the dr's office is kind of by the airport. So that was a big help, because they were able to split up the children in different rooms and they like to have a parent in each room. Turns out we needed three rooms but they were all next to each other. 

The waiting room had toys. Toys for young children. But since everyone wasn't well, it's about all their brains could handle anyway. Nate and Jud played teacher. Abigail felt too sick to even join in. 

There was a man in the waiting room who kept wanting to give the children a toy that he'd found out in the parking lot (we saw it on the way in). Politeness didn't work, and when he actually came and sat right next to them and asked them to show him how to play the game, Brett told him to go back and sit where he had been before or he'd have to get security to help him leave. 

This kind of thing happens frequently and I'll never get used to it. Now that our non-ambulatory children have grown up we tend to be a little less noticeable so it doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to. The children take it in stride, but it never ceases to freak me out. We've had some odd stuff happen. Remind me to tell you the story about the woman in the Hobby Lobby parking lot who clawed at my window and screamed at me because I wouldn't let her buy things for my children. She followed me out from the checkout line, yelling the whole time about how she was just trying to be nice, then tried to grab the door as we were piling in and I was yelling to the kids "LOCK THE DOORS!  NOW!"  Oh, Amy would remember, she had just gotten her permit and was the driver so the woman was trying to get the driver's door open. 

Well, I guess I just did tell you the story. 

But, I digress.  

We spent the better part of 3 hours total, which included lots of breathing treatments for the children to test their lung capacity. I'm guessing.

Abigail wore her sweater with the long arms (it's her favorite). Although when she was younger I'd always alter her clothes to prevent "sleeve flop" (I imagine things like getting her sleeve caught in a car door and the car driving away, or some other misfortune that only mothers imagine), now that she's older I let her choose if she wants her sleeves altered. Usually she does not. This can result in amusing incidents, such as after the nurse took her temperature (102.8) the nurse said "Now I have to take your blood pressure." Abigail pushed up one of her pant legs. The nurse said "Are you chilled?" Abbi said no. The nurse said "Can you just take one of your arms out of your sweater so I can take your blood pressure?" 

Abigail:  I don't have any.

Nurse (not really comprehending): I just need you to take one of your arms out for just a couple minutes.

Abigail: Can you just take it on my leg?

Nurse: We take blood pressures on arms.

Abigail: I don't have any.

Nurse: (looking at me) She doesn't?

Me: (having let the conversation go on this far for two reasons:  #1-- Abigail needs to learn to speak up for herself which she doesn't like to do but needs to. #2-- I find it amusing) No, she doesn't have any, she just needs the smaller pressure cuff and you can take it on her leg. 

Finally, all was said, done. Gideon needed breathing treatments at home twice a day, and since I'm still not feeling the greatest (yes, I'm that dull, and knew I'd never remember all the steps), and the nurse was trying to explain the machine and how to put the medicine in So I took a video of her demonstration with my iPhone. Handy things!  

 

Should I say, "Thank goodness for insurance"?  I think I will.

 And you can see how pleased Gideon is to do his treatments. At least he's cooperative.

Our goats don't vacation just because we're sick, and we had another kid born. We're keeping her in the house until it warms up a bit outside. Gideon feels much better this morning, so wanted to feed her. 

Yes, that's a diaper she's wearing. I've cleaned up enough animal (and human) excrement in my day. She's very sweet and makes a nice house pet for awhile. 

 

And Isaiah wanted to see "if it was still cold out" today. It is.

Stay warm, everyone!

Dropping Temps & All Hallow's Eve

For a family that doesn't formally celebrate Halloween, we seem to get our share of the All Hallow's Eve that trickles in through different channels. Nathanael carved a jack-o-lantern, that used to be a lovely unblemished pumpkin, which would have looked nice on my porch. Perhaps with a stalk of corn behind it. 

For some people, that's not good enough. Poor Jack, both crying and puking. As if one isn't bad enough.

I guess the top of his head is off, too. And he appears to have two mouths. 

So that means autumn is officially here. It's been mostly mild, so imagine my shock when I was driving the kids to their horseback riding lessons the other night, and saw this displayed on the bank's time & temperature sign. Although it had been cooling off, I knew they weren't dressed warmly enough for *this.*

Imagine my relief when I saw that it was a programming mistake.

But more about the riding lessons later. Some of our other children have been accepted into the program, which means more photos for you!

Last Saturday, Brett practiced shooting with the children who have passed their hunting certification class.

Nate sighted down his prey with a .22...

Which was unfortunately, inedible.

Judson's .22 firepower required hearing protection, however.

As did Josh's, with his .40

Mercy shows us how to cover your ears when you don't have hands.

Abigail figured things out for herself and was an amazing shot.

 

She had the targets swinging. For size comparison, the smallest target is the size of a quarter. Five yards away. 

And, put to rest that day were several bales of hay. RIP.

 

For Brett, the day was filled with teaching his children safety and control. For the children, they learned to wait patiently for their turn. For me, the day represented freedom, with a small break for photo-taking and delivering lunch. WORTH IT, all around.

Back to the riding lessons. Susannah qualified because of her IEP through the schools. They are working with her on an individual basis and have different things they do for someone with behavioral issues as opposed to physical issues. When I see them doing lessons with her, I am reminded all over again how they tailor the lessons to each individual child, and also ensure they work well in the group. When I wrote down all the issues that Susannah had and why she was getting special services at the school despite her intelligence, the woman who ran the program knew me well enough by then (because of working with my older girls and their physical disabilities) and put a hand on my arm and said "We can help her." It was all I could do not to sob, so I just said "That would be nice."

Anyway, she is quite happy and when she tries to demand things of her handlers, I am impressed with how easily and quietly they tell her no in a very nice sort of way. Here, they distract her with "picture exchange" in which she decides that the card they gave her goes in a pattern, to make a whole picture.

 If she gets it right, she gets to trot on her horse (which she loves). 

She got it right.

Sorry for the blur, but...the horse was trotting in very low light, and I didn't bring my tripod. 

Oh and the picture she had to complete in the right order?  Yes, another reminder of the Eve of the Hallows. Hey, maybe she'll be an orthopedist.

And then, they all had to learn to work together as a group. Yes, this group belongs to me. Isaiah was accepted into the program because of his ongoing vision problems (born with cataracts, several surgeries). Gideon, because at age 3, the dr. wanted to give him an autism spectrum diagnosis and send him for testing, but I knew my boys (him being the 7th birth boy) and knew that his non-speech was due to just not having anything to object to instead of not being able to. Sure enough, a few months later, he began speaking in sentences, never having made the transition from one word to two, etc. Even now, he won't speak to people he doesn't know. Only recently, much to the delight of his Sunday School teacher, did he start speaking to her. 

 

So while it's a little bit sobering to think that five of the 8 children still at home qualify for special services, I get beyond that quickly and am simply grateful that there are those who donate their time and abilities on behalf of special children everywhere. It's difficult work,pays little, but gives huge dividends to those who stick with it.

At least, I'm told.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and....Happy Halloween. 

It *is* the title of my blog, you know...

So what could be more interesting than a waiting room of the dentist office today? I've decided to split the groups up into just four each, therefore only spending half a day at the dentist each time. Here were today's Lucky Four, with their free treat bags in hand (mouth), ready to leave. Ahh, but not so quick. Two need to go back for sealants and Judson needs to go back for a little patch job from the Spool Incident of a few weeks ago. We actually had over a $200 credit on our account, which was rather other-worldly. Turns out our automatic bill-pay sent out a check the same day we got an actual bill, so Brett just paid it (forgetting that he'd added the dentist to auto-pay). 

I plan to blackmail Josh at some point with a photo of him with a bib on. 

It's a little discouraging though, because a year or more ago he would have been embarrassed by me taking any photo of him, much less this one. He's either maturing or doesn't care. Perhaps it's the same thing.

Oh, and that heat wave?  That for some reason is worse in KC than anywhere else in the midwest? Here's what it said on my dash when we got in after the dentist office visit.

 

Nonetheless, I must get me and everyone ready for VBS this evening (I have the preschool class) and needed the caffeine necessary to make that happen.  But I got home and sunk into a chair (upon retrospect, a mistake).

 It didn't exactly happen that way, but one of the kids took pity upon me and brought me a nice cuppa.

  
 

Now to stay awake until my little 3's and 4's year old class is all safely tucked into their parents' car at the end of the night. 9:00 p.m, thou wilt arrive soon enough. 

My Muse...

Really is, apparently, the waiting room. Or in yesterday's case, the Emergency Room. Needed something to jolt me back into blogging, though I make no promises of future posts. 

Brett's out of town, of which I am now convinced that he strategically plans business trips in advance of any emergency here. Still trying to figure out how he does it.

The boys went up to the barn to do chores, so far the day is going as normally as...well, any day here, which is not saying much. Then Josh comes in and unintentionally does a really great Brian Regan impression: 

Bike Ramp

Except instead of a bike accident, it was a spool accident. Try explaining that to medical personnel. 

 

Some wonderful folk donated these to our goats (goats love to climb and any way to keep them entertained keeps their minds off destroying the fence). So we picked up several spools on our trailer and that made one of the chores the next day to roll them into the pastures and lay them over on their sides. Yeah, we all know there's a "but" coming. 

Judson thought it would be fun to get it into the pasture via the log roll method, that was officially Not Authorized by Mom. This didn't work as well as he thought it would, nor as well as any guy over age 30 thinks it might. At least his brothers brought him back in the 'gator rather than making him crawl back. 

As his head was completely covered in blood, I wasn't even sure if there was a face left, so I had him say something before removing his hands from his face.  Okay, so he could talk and was conscious. Those are good things. I went to grab my purse and phone and instructed his brothers to put him in the back seat of the car. I frantically called a friend to be sure of where the nearest Urgent Care place was. It's over a half hour away but off we went--only to find out they didn't open until noon 

But the regular office was open, and two nurses were busily taking his vitals, looking at his injuries, and exchanging troubling glances with each other. One especially deep head wound (down to the skull) that they thought might have had brain matter spilling out, was in fact merely embedded grayish gravel from the gravel driveway he'd skidded on (with his head. And face. And ear.)  So an intact brain was also a good sign. But to keep me from any type of relief, one of the nurses put her hand on my arm, looked into my eyes and said "If you have insurance, go to Children's Mercy Hospital, downtown." We do indeed have insurance on all of our children, contrary to what may seem to others as haphazard parenting skills on our part, and when the ambulance arrived a few minutes later they asked if I wanted to ride up front or follow in my own vehicle. I had the presence of mind to know that no matter what the outcome, it's always best to have one's own transportation available. 

Although it would have been cool to ride up front in the ambulance, if you think about it. I mean, not when your injured child is in the back--just in general. 

But I followed. It took longer than I thought to get there and I started thinking about how I had my iPhone with me...it takes photos...

 Maybe it was a combination of relief and poor parenting skills, but I took the picture. Relief that even after a 45 minute drive to the Unopened Urgent Care unit and his vital signs were still normal and he still knew his name, relief that he was now being cared for by professionals, and bad parenting because there will be those who judge me for taking a photo. They may bypass the judge and jury and find me guilty as charged. 

One thing about arriving via ambulance is that you get seen immediately. Moms moved to let me in the front of the check-in line, once they heard me telling the receptionist (who was suspicious that I was rushing into the ER of a children's hospital with no child) that my son had just arrived by ambulance and I didn't know if he was going to be okay. I am thankful to the mom who insisted to all the others that I be let up front as there was quite a line. Thankful because obviously she wasn't there for fun either, and must have had a sick or injured child that she was frightened about, but saw that I was more so. My weak "Oh no, that's okay but thank you" was met with a firm, "You WILL go to the front."   

By the time I'd checked him in (which went quite fast but still took a few minutes), they told me what room he was in. I went back and the first thing the triage nurse said to me was, "Does he really have 13 siblings?"  I said that he did. She looked relieved, as it was apparent she thought he was "losing it" mentally. I know the feeling, sometimes I can't believe it myself. About the number of children, that is. Oh, and that I'm losing it mentally. But that's nothing new. 

They sent in a number of specialists, each more special than the former. By this time, they had given Judson enough pain medication to be comfortable, yet also to be annoyed by the number of examinations he was having. So he turned on the t.v. and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, whilst holding his face flaps together with a cloth.

 

And here are the medical professionals, trying in vain for the third time to clean the deep head wound. They were great, don't get me wrong. It was just a difficult wound that refused to be washed out.

 And yes, those are disposable diapers under his head, much to Judson's dismay. He asked twice if they couldn't use towels instead, but they assured him that diapers held more liquid. 

After all possible cleansing was done, and a novacaine-like substance was injected into many parts of his face and head, he was ready for stitching. 

It took over an hour to put in all the stitches. I held his hand and the nurse asked me twice if I was okay with watching the procedure, as (she said) they'd lost a lot of parents at this point. "Lost" as in, fainted. But it didn't bother me, I just thought about how very much the stitching looked like baiting a hook with a worm (yeah...recently I'd taken the children all fishing and spent the entire time untangling lines and putting worms and crickets on hooks).  I either have a sadistic or a medical side to my personality. I've yet to figure it out. Feel free to leave comments should you have an opinion. I will merely disregard those that I find distasteful.

Today, Judson feels okay. I occasionally ask him subtle questions that test his mental accuity, such as "So! Do you feel like you're going crazy?" He gets motrin every 4 hours, and seems to be doing well with it, all things considered. He is secretly pleased that his brothers have to milk the goats for the next few days while he watches various DVD's of his choosing. We refer to him as "Massive Headwound Harry" now. The cultural reference is lost on him, yet others of my era will understand. Forgive the inevitable yet short ad at the beginning of this "free" video. 

Today he's doing better. So much so, that we went up to the offending spool and I asked him if I could take his picture with it. He acquiesced and I asked him to smile. He said he was smiling as much as his face would allow. Poor lad.

 So all is well enough. The tomato plants got planted today, the tire gardens were watered, school and the chores were done. I spoke with a sympathetic friend on the phone for awhile. 

Thanks to all who prayed and asked how he is doing.