when hide and seek goes wrong

this is what happens when a game of hide and seek goes wrong. you end up in the local emergency department for the long haul, with scheduled surgery for the following day. gah.

it allllll started at the wake after baby willows funeral yesterday. joseph and some of mel and aitu's girls and their cousins were playing a game of hide or something like that (let's be honest, we don't really know) when we were about to leave to go home. in fact, we had even made it to the car and then couldn't find him. maddie went back in to look and then came outside yelling that joseph had hurt himself and i needed to come back in.

oh my gosh. hurt himself he had, his left middle finger had been crushed in a door and had a cut down one side by the nail and the nail had been completely ripped out of the bed and was hanging off the edge like 5mm above where it should have been and there was so. much. blood. it was horrendous. i tried to run it under some water to get a better look but that only made him scream more (not at all surprising, it was a mess!) making it very quickly apparent that this was needing a hospital run and definitely not something we could help with. he was in sooooo much pain and wailed the entire way there. i felt so helpless and just did my best to get him there as fast as we could.

the hospital staff were absolutely incredible. he was seen within minutes and given a pain block needle straight into his finger, which stopped all of the feeling. i really felt for him though as he has quite bad anxiety and the needle didn't help with that. he was screaming and trying to push everyone away, but was so happy when it took hold and he was pain free. his face was hilarious, he held his hand up in the air and was looking at it with amazement like he couldn't believe it. we had x-rays and confirmed that the tip of his finger was broken. he kept saying to me over and over why did this happen to me?! i just did my best as a mum, reminding him he was very lucky to keep is finger - as it could have ended differently and very badly, with him not having a finger!

it was so hard for me as a mum though to watch him. i was so emotional from being at a funeral already and kept crying while we waited and when he got upset. and he was so so upset and couldn't calm down, especially when they needed to give him a second block needle to ensure that the first one wouldn't wear off first. i am certain they heard him through the entire department! the dr actually spoke to me and suggested that i may need to have him assessed formally for anxiety and possible autism. they said his reactions put across that it's a possibility. it was no surprise to me as we have always thought it was a possibility but we have never had him diagnosed as his issues don't actually affect his day to life. he's smart, bright, has a lot of friends (although he does like his own company!) but just needs a little help regulating his emotions sometimes. we will think and pray on it and see what we decide to do. but even knowing someone else can see it is comforting. i always wondered if i was "that" mum that was diagnosing her kid. 

as you can see he was far from impressed, especially when he ended up vomiting all over himself  when he needed to go to the bathroom, right before they said we could go home. i was not in any way surprised, he had had so much going on, along with the pain and the pain meds... it was horrendous! the sweet nurse that was looking after us very quickly cleaned him up and gave him two of their childrens gowns, one back to front and one the right way around to ensure maximum coverage haha. just to make matters worse though, we finally made it home and got him in the shower to wash the day away and his hand started bleeding through the bandages again... another trip back to emergency to get it under control and then home again, ready to report to the hospital in the morning for his surgery.

the hospital staff were so wonderful. we got checked in and given a bed in the childrens ward where we spoke to the doctor and completed all the paperwork prior to being prepped for surgery. we did get a bit of a giggle out of it too, when the nurse accidentally wrote removal of left middle finger and left off the word nail. we definitely want to keep the finger! 

the surgeon came and spoke to us beforehand too (i still can't get over the fact a he has had plastic surgery on his finger!!) saying that they would be removing the nail and checking underneath to ensure there was no more damage they couldn't see, then repairing the nail bed and reattaching the nail. it wasn't a long surgery but it feels like forever when it's your child!

i must admit too, it was much nicer having a more grown up child this time around than our experience with having his teeth removed! he calmly lay in the bed, playing the switch while i read a book, occasionally talking to me or asking a question. even though he had to fast too, not once did he complain about being hungry either, considering how focused he normally is on food!

everything went perfectly according to plan and we were able to go home a few hours later after he had been checked by the nurse again.

i am so so proud of him. he coped so well with everything he had thrown at him and although grumpy came out of it no problems at all.

so now i just have to put up with that grumpy face and his giant record breaking rude finger for the nect few weeks. he's been referred to a place in joondalup for continued care, so fingers crossed there are no further issues and it heals well. and most of all, that it's our last trip to emergency for a while. although with my two boys - it's unlikely!

 

a memory from st john of god

today doug went to make some deliveries on our family's behalf to those who cared for his mother during the months she battled her way through endless doctor's and hospital appointments, radiation and chemotherapy.

we called the receptionist of her wonderful doctor and found out what bubbly he liked and bought a really nice bottle for him, then bought her a beautiful bunch of flowers, as well as one for her general practitioner who had been by her side the entire time - and is still dougs preferred dr. she is so wonderful. they were all so very happy to see him and said such kind words about his mother. both of the women shed a few tears which was incredibly touching. we are so grateful for these amazing people who gave her not only medical advice, but so much comfort during the darkest times, with their kind words and love that they offered. i know there are often who speak badly of drs and their service, but we were truly blessed with the very best. 

doug also bought me this beautiful cross to keep as a memory. his mother was cared for in st. john of god hospital - a catholic hospital and the day she passed away, our bishop had brought his young daughter to the hospital with him. she had become a bit fidgety and the two of us had gone for a walk to the hospital gift shop where i saw it. i loved it so much and it seemed a beautiful piece to have in memory of his mum and the hospital that cared for her. he agreed and went back for it while he was there. i will always treasure it.

extended hospital stay

it's been a hard few weeks with everything going on with doug's mum. she is sick and not getting better. she was admitted to hospital because it got to the point where she just couldn't eat... which it turns out was from a tumour that is effectively blocking any food from reaching her stomach. any thing she eats pushes at it, which has in turn cause some internal bleeding a she is not receiving any sustenance. they have fitted her with a tube and are feeding her directly to her stomach by that is obviously not going to work long term. she has had to give up work and that's what upsets her the most. she loves to be busy and loves her job, so that was one of the hardest things for her, but she is simply not strong enough anymore.

 her specialist met with douglas and i and gave us the options and there is not a lot. he has decided (with her permission) to do radiation in an attempt to shrink the tumor and enable her to start eating again. this will be for a few days kin a row and then a break, for a few weeks in a row. i don't know what the answer is, but i do know that her doctor has been incredible. he is so compassionate and takes as much time with us as we need, regardless of where he needs to be and who might be waiting for him. he is truly a wonderful man. this is all so overwhelming and i have to admit, it got to the point where i asked him point blank how long we will have with her. obviously that's an impossible thing to work out, but he said we might have 6 months, we might have more... we just need to make the most of every minute with her and look after her as best as we can.

and enjoy our visits to the hospital like this dude... in the sun lounges outside from oli's room...

and these guys who decided to have a nap on grandma's bed while we visited. it's obviously comfortable enough haha.

oh how i wish there was more we could do. but we just have to go with the options we have. we love her and don't want to let her go... but we need to also be realistic and brace ourselves for whenever that day may come.

a hospital birthday

my beautiful mother-in-law oliveta is in hospital for her birthday this year. she has stomach cancer and has really been struggling of late. after being unwell for quite sometime and being brave as she always is and saying she was fine, she was unable to eat properly and the dr's admitted her to do tests and see how she really is. i know she feels really lonely in the hospital and misses the kids a lot, so i made her a cake and we all went in to sit with her and enjoy some time together.

she looked so much happier when we left and i know that although she is tired, she loved having the kids around her making noise and cheering her up. we are so lucky to have her close and are enjoying every minute we can with her.

*************************************

the recipe for this cake is an epic one from our close friend keryn and because this is her favourite cake and i know it will always be one we keep in the family, here's the recipe for future reference:

keryn's banana cake

125g butter

1 cup white sugar

3 ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp milk

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

2 eggs

directions:

preheat oven to 160 degrees fan forced

cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

add in eggs one by one and beat until well combined

mash bananas and vanilla essence and add to butter mixture

mix baking soda into milk then add to mixture

add sifted self raising flour

pour into cake tin

bake for 45 mins until cake tester comes out clean or cake bounces back

ice with cream cheese icing

new years eve in the hospital

doug's dad has been sick for a really time. he's had a form of cancer called mutiple myeloma, which affects his bone marrow. he was initially diagnosed back in 2012 and after treatments was cleared for a few years until he relapsed in august of 2016. the doctors have been trying their hardest to help, including trying multiple drugs that could have made a difference, but just last week they gave him the news that there was nothing else they could do to help him. he's always been such a private person, that i felt it wasn't appropriate to be sharing his sickness here and have just carried it with me, but seeing as this could well be the end, i want it to be here in my journal, for my children and our family to read one day.

we had been asked to a party at a friends house for new years eve, but when we got the news that stephen would be transferred to the palliative room at the hospital on new years eve, i had a really strong impression that that was where we needed to be. we rounded the kids up, packed snacks and picked up pizza on the way to have with our sparkling grape juice. we even packed some games and some party poppers to make sure the party would be rocking. haha.

steve was so happy to see us. he smiled, laughed and joked with the kids... and even insisted that i take this shot of him with his "alcohol" at the best party he'd ever been to. he was a crack up. after some photos with the kids and all of us he was pretty tired and drifted off, so we snuck out a little before midnight.

so blessed to be able to make beautiful memories with this great man. ❤

slow and steady

at 4am this morning, baby alex's drip port was removed as it too (like the first one) was starting to fail and leak. not to worry, all his antibiotics can be administered orally from now on.

hearing test today... he passed. hooray. we are one step closer to going home. fingers crossed it happens tomorrow. i am starting to go a little stir crazy being stuck here for so long. never mind, slow and steady wins the race. this baby is well worth the waiting. 

out to the ward ♥

sunday has brought a wonderful blessing, baby alex was considered well enough to leave the nursery and come out onto the ward and share my room with me! hooray!

madeline and joseph had come for a visit with daddy and his parents, so when i was called into the nursery to feed baby, it was a wonderful surprise for us to be able to take him with us when we went back to the room. there were squeals and complete joy from madeline and big smiles from joseph as we brought him in to meet his siblings for the first time. 

it was absolutely love at first sight and these two are so pleased to have baby to cuddle and love to their hearts content. madeline is dying to play mum and i am sure she will be an amazing help to me.

big sister having her first cuddles ♥

alex my love, you are doing amazingly. i am sure we will be home before too long ♥

getting better...

still on the drip, but out of the oxygen crib!

baby woke up at 2:30am this morning and started sucking at nothing, obviously realising that food is missing... (when the drip in his hand stopped taking fluid and they had to do one into his other hand, he were without food for a little while, which explains why he got hungry)

the night nurse came and found me and asked if they could give him formula. i said of course if you really need to. however when i walked in there a few minutes later and she had been attending to one of the other babes, she said, let’s try him on the breast and he sucked happily for 40 mins, and didn’t seem too distressed afterwards. 

back into the crib he went. he had another feed at 530... and your breathing was finally down to 55 (normal range is 40-60). a blood test showed he has an infection of some description, with the infection marker at 46, which shouldn’t be above 3. thankfully as a precaution, when his breathing was accelerated they had already started him on antibiotics which they will now continue. 

maddie and joseph came to see baby through the nursery door and m was so happy she bounced up and down, then cried the whole way home because she couldn’t hold him. after feeding well throughout the day and this evening they took away his crib and put you in a regular cot! hooray!

baby was given this adorable mini quilt (pictured above), which all babies in the midland hospital special nursery receive, made by a wonderful group of volunteers. it is adorable and has been placed above the crib to block out the lights and is now keeping him warm in his cot. he's already doing so well and i am feeling very positive. it's hard not too when the nurses are so lovely and keep me so well updated on his progress. if i have to be still in the hospital, it's a very nice place to be. ♥

special care nursery

for a bit more of an explanation, baby alexander ended up in special care because he was "breathing up." a baby should be taking anywhere between 45-60 breaths per minute... alex was doing 93!! obviously this was a strain on him and he was sent to the nursery to be monitored until they could get it under control. it's likely to have happened because of the speed of his delivery, which may have left fluid in his lungs. the nurses say this is the most likely reason.

they are feeding him with a sucrose drip installed in one hand (which was swapped to the other after a few hours as the vein in his hand was collapsing, he's now got a giant bruise where it was), as his breathing sped up following him breastfeeding yesterday, so he'll get his feeds that way for now until his breathing slows a bit. they are also treating him as though he has an infection, as it's likely he has one, also from the fluid. blood tests (my poor baby now has multiple heel pricks in both heels) will show further.

but here is my sweet boy in his closed in crib. he was lying on his stomach for most of his first 24 hours, to ease the effort required to take breaths. he's very alert and looks around a lot while he is awake. i've been in to see him a lot, but the heat (a constant temperature of 27 degrees) is making me so sleepy and i can't stay in there for too long at a time.

above all else, he is doing really well. i know things will be fine, it's just a matter of time until he'll be out and in our arms. ♥

baby alexander james kendall

well, he is here! baby alexander james kendall arrived in a rush this afternoon, at 1:47pm, weighing 3550g (7lb, 8oz). he is the sweetest little babe and i am obsessed already! he has dark blue eyes and a little tuft of red hair at the back of his head... another redhead to add to our little clan! he looks very similar to madeline as a baby - and is basically a carbon copy of his daddy!

i was induced yet again, when i reached 41weeks+3days (the longest they allow you to go overdue here in wa) at midland hospital. the midwife broke my water at 12 noon and we waited. an hour passed and towards the end i was having small contractions (which i could feel), but nothing really huge enough to show well on the machine that measures them, so the midwife said she assumed the dr would ask them to start the drip which triggers them. thankfully when she arrived at the end of the hour to check in, she said she'd asked her superior and i was given permission to go another hour and see where i was at once that was over.

well... that was when the action began. i started to feel really unwell and went into the bathroom, cried for a bit to doug and then came back to the bed. then boom, it all happened at once. huge contractions began... i was fully dilated and had to start pushing. i know now, my full labour period was a very brief 17 minutes, which left all the midwives in complete shock... and my baby in the special care nursery! :(

my poor student midwife ash couldn't do anything more than watch as midwives ran about... no one expected it to happen so quickly, so much so in fact that the midwife (sam) who was looking after me had gone to have her lunch break while nothing was happening, left me with another midwife (georgia) and walked in just in time to catch the baby. my entire labour and delivery happened within that half hour period. nuts!

baby had a brief feed a while after he was born, then doug had a very short hold but his breathing began to speed up and he was taken off to the nursery to be assessed. i was feeling positive, but eventually hours later had a little cry when it was all apparent that i would not only not be taking him home the following day, but that i wouldn't even be taking him to my room. it's looking to be a long few days ahead.

this pic we snapped prior to being moved to special care is so dear to me, baby alex looks exactly like his daddy as a baby. so so cute!

being assessed in special care by the lovely midwives. they were all so amazing and reassuring. i'm so grateful we were in a good place to be cared for so well.

a broken arm

let's play a little game of "guess which one of my children broke their arm today."

if you guessed joseph, there is no prize, you would of course be correct. doug and i left the kids at his parents house this morning while we attended a wedding (yes, another one!) and came home to joseph crying and lying very still on the lunge, unable to lift his left arm. he and madeline had been playing on the trampoline and at some stage she pushed him and off he went, backwards, landing on his arm. he kept complaining of pain, and wouldn't wiggle his fingers, so after a few minutes i decided a trip to the local emergency department might be in order.

after a reasonable (but not unbearable) wait, we finally saw the nurse, had x-rays... and sure enough, mum intuition was right and it was indeed broken. because of where it is broken, it is difficult to cast (and probably not worth doing) so he is now in a spongy sling with his arm held at a 90 degree angle until it is healed.

sigh. boys will be boys. thank goodness it wasn't anything worse! fingers crossed it doesn't take too long to heal!

emergency dental

being a parent is hard at the best of times... but sometimes you get an itty bitty taste of what it is like for those who live with ill children and constant hospital visits... mine was yesterday. in february (while madeline and i were in america and joseph was staying with my parents) joseph had a fall and landed on his mouth. he received a trauma to his two front teeth and mum and dad took him to the local hospital, who in turn sent him to princess margaret hospital in perth. it was pretty serious and they had originally had thought they would have to remove them then, but everything was looking good. at two follow up appointments all was still well, but the dentist showed me what to look for, as there was still a risk of infection.

thursday afternoon, joseph got a carrot from the fridge and bit it on the side, instead of with his front teeth. alarm bells rang, i checked his gums... and found an abscess above one of his front teeth, with a second fast developing. a quick call to the dentist confirmed what we already feared, they would have to come out via emergency dental surgery - and off to the hospital emergency department we went. the drs checked him out, the hospital dentist was called - and we were asked to come back the following morning with a referral to present to dental at 8am, to ensure the teeth were removed asap. on top of this, he would have to be fasting, with no idea of when it could be done!

the next morning arrives, his infection had already doubled in size (overnight!!!!) and off we raced to pmh. because he was not in a life threatening situation, we had to wait until all scheduled appointments had been seen, so it was past 1pm before we even saw the dentist. they said it was not as serious as it was made out to be, but that they certainly needed to be removed... and normally he would have been added to a waiting list (with a current wait time of a month!) but as he was already there, had already been fasting for 18 hours and was quite distressed, they would tack him onto the end of the scheduled surgeries for the day and we would just have to wait. in all honesty, i would have happily waited until midnight, without a complaint, as i was just so happy they were going to do it that day and not make him wait. i actually can't even imagine how bad the infection would have been in a month if it had spread that much overnight!

we were moved up to the ward, where we sat with all the other children awaiting surgery and waited and waited and waited as each of them went through... eventually as it hit after hours, they closed down all the theatres except for one, and the children started to go through one by one, instead of a few at a once. finally there were two of us... then just joseph, the final (because he was added!) surgery for the day. he was beyond done by then, even though he had truly been amazing, it was 7pm, we'd been fasting for more than 24 hours (with just 3 cups of apple juice for him that entire time!)... and the surgeon arrived. 7:15, we went into surgery and i held my brave little boy as they put him to sleep and then wheeled him in. 10 minutes later, the dr came out to tell me it was all done (such a simple procedure that the paperwork takes longer than actually pulling the teeth!) all had gone well, his teeth were out, the infection flushed and he was in recovery. 

another 15 minutes later i was called through, he was awake and sitting groggily on the lap of one of the nurses, but quickly held his arms up for me. he was given a icy pole, which he eagerly ate, plus some more juice... and then we were wheeled back to the ward. after a few more checks, blood pressure, walking unassisted and having the port in his hand removed, it was finally time for us to go home (around 8:30pm). 

he was asleep before we even made it home and the next morning woke up like nothing had ever happened! came barreling into our room singing away and got his toys out and proceeded to play with them and then ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast. it never, ever ceases to amaze me how quickly children bounce back!

i feel so beyond lucky living in this amazing country... where we walked into a hospital, were seen and attended to that day, and walked out without a bill. we are blessed beyond measure and i know that we have someone watching over us! ♥