September 27th - Week 28

Well, our day today started out a little later than normal.  Kayla's appointment wasn't until 10:15AM.  We are used to the 8:15AM appointments.  I like getting there earlier because then we get done earlier and the day doesn't seem quite as long.  But, oh well.  We dropped off Benson at another friend's house (thank you!) and drove over to Boise.  Kayla got checked in and accessed, and unfortunately, our usual spot was taken!  I was afraid that would happen with us starting so late.  The nurse, Penny, told me that she fought off 3 people to try to save our spot, but alas, it got taken when she wasn't looking.  

So, we had to find new spot: a little table and chairs in the other chemo room.  We usually spend a lot of time at the little table and chairs in the main room, but "our spot" is the back corner with a bed and TV, which comes in handy when I need to rest for a little bit or when Kayla wants to watch a movie.  It was going to be a long day. . . 

We met with Marnie, and Kayla did great - taking big breaths when she needed to and everything. :)  I asked Marnie about all the kids getting flu shots. . . we all have to get them this year.  I will take the other kids to their pediatrician, but I was wondering about Kayla.  Marnie mentioned that when Kayla gets her next MRI (which is scheduled for October 19th) she will try to orchestrate it so that Kayla can just get her flu shot while she is under anesthesia .  Sounds good to me!  That's one less thing to juggle. :)  

After all that, we went back to our little table and did flashcards, played bingo, colored, ate lunch. . . the usual stuff.  I did my best to stay comfortable on that hard little chair.  Kayla was a little tired at the beginning, but she perked up and actually had a really fun day.  Miss Jenn came in and gave her a fun project to work on - coloring a coffee filter with markers, then painting it with water and gluing it to an outline of an apple to hang on the window for a stained glass effect.  She worked on that for a little bit and Jenn sang apple songs with her (to her).  

It was a really nice day, so we went outside and blew bubbles and played catch with a ball.  For a little while we had Jenn, and nurse Heather outside playing jump rope with Kayla and being really silly.  I was sitting uncomfortably on a metal bench laughing and thinking I should grab my camera. . . sorry. 

Kayla finally opened up to Jenn as she began asking her all sorts of questions.  It was fun to hear Kayla's answers.  She drew with sidewalk chalk and then had a bubble blowing war with a new child life lady, Chelsea.  I was surprised that Kayla opened up to her, too.  In fact, Kayla didn't even want me outside.  So, I had a few minutes to go inside, find a little bit more comfortable chair and relax  for a few minutes before it was time to go.  

I did get a few silly pictures of Kayla right at the end:

We left and got home at about 5PM.  After eating a quick dinner, Bryson took Nathan and Lily to Nathan's scout pack meeting and I got tired Benson and Kayla to bed.  

UNFORTUNATELY, I could not get Kayla to take her zofran!  Ugh!  I am just waiting for her to wake up throwing up.  Hopefully, it will happen before I go to bed and not in the middle of the night.  She told me she would take it when she threw up.  Normally, she needs it when we get home, and also in the middle of the night or in the morning if she makes it that long.  We'll see how tonight goes.  Benson was being difficult to get to bed, so by the time I went to check on Kayla, she had fallen asleep without taking it.  

The good thing is that we made it through her 4 weeks of chemo and now she has 2 "off" weeks, where she just goes in to get her blood counts checked.  So, I am free to have the baby any time!  I am hoping for sooner rather than later. . . I did go to the doctor yesterday and am dilated to a 4 now.  I feel like a ticking time bomb. . . 

September 20th - Week 27

Well, we had quite an exciting day last Thursday!  It started out in the normal way, getting Nathan and Lily off on the bus to school, hopping in the car and heading to the clinic (leaving Benson sleeping-Bryson took him to another friend's once he was up).

Kayla got checked in, port accessed and we met with Dr. Meeker . . . all with no problems.  I did ask Dr. Meeker for a larger prescription for the pill form of zofran.  Since Kayla took it so well last week and we talked about taking it again, I think that will be a successful route to go.  Hooray!  Anyway, I only had a small sample prescription of the pills, so the nurse called in a regular prescription for us.  

We had fun in the chemo suite.  Kayla got some fun projects to do.  She made a sand art giraffe.

And she painted with watercolors. . . 

We also watched Tangled, wrote Thank You cards, ate lunch, meanwhile. . . working out some logistics. . . 

All of nurses and staff at the clinic were wearing their blue and orange BSU Broco attire.  It was the big BSU vs. BYU game that night.  So, I was talking to Jenn, the child life specialist.   I told Jenn that Bryson and I had both gone to BYU.  We weren't going to the game and we didn't get the TV station to even watch it. She left and then came back a little bit later telling me that the clinic had 5 extra tickets to the game that night because a family had cancelled on them.  (For every home game, they take a certain number of patients and their families to the BSU games.  They usually ask the older kids about it, so they never had talked to Kayla.)  

So, my first thought was, "Do we have to bring the kids?"  Ha ha!  The game didn't start until 7PM and it was a school night.  I knew Kayla would totally not be up to it and their was no way I would bring Benson.  I knew Nathan would LOVE to go because he had been bugging me for a week about watching the game or signing up with a TV service so we could get the game, etc.  Lily, I wasn't sure about.  I could see her going either way, staying home with a fun babysitter, or going to the game.  

I told Jenn we could for sure use 3 tickets, but wasn't sure about Lily.  She said that we might as well take one for Lily in case she wanted to go.  With one extra ticket, I asked her if we could invite a friend.  Nathan's best friend, Nathan, is a complete football fanatic and is obsessed with the Broncos (even though his parents are BYU alumni. . . :).  Jenn told me yes, we could have all 5 tickets.  She then got all of the kids t-shirt sizes and brought me some Bronco t-shirts for each of them.  She also told me that we would meet at the clinic at 6PM and they would shuttle us over to the game (so we don't have to worry about parking - nice!), we would get food vouchers for concessions at the game.  It sounded great to me!  

So, when Kayla was done, we went home.  She did really well and I got her to take a half of a zofran pill (yay!).  It did take some time and convincing, but I am so glad that she took it.  I picked up our wonderful baby-sittier at 5PM and we were off to the game!

So, here are the two Nathan's. . . just a little excited for the game.

And adding Lily in there, too.  They are wearing their little Bronco Bunch t-shirts that I got at the clinic.  Sigh.  Lily was rooting for BSU, too, because her teacher at school is a huge fan.  

When we got to the clinic, we loaded onto a shuttle bus that was all decked out in blue and orange, along with everyone else on the bus.  Bryson and I were the only ones in our BYU t-shirts.  Everyone was still very nice to us. ;) 

We got to the stadium and were met by a guy who led us in through a private entrance.  We were told that we could use the players bathrooms (and the guy in charge of our group would take the kids when they needed to go).  

We had our own little set of bleachers to sit on right down in front of one of the end zones.  They were very good seats. 

And, Bryson caught a t-shirt!  

You can see how close we were. . . 

Nathan and Nathan, enjoying the game.  (Our Nathan does not like posing for pictures, if you haven't figured that out by now).

Me and Bryson.  I have to say I handled the game very well at over 8 months pregnant.  I brought a pillow to sit on, but was standing for much of the game.

It was difficult keeping these boys in their seats.

Lily was done by halftime.  This is where she spent the second half of the game. :)

They also gave us food vouchers to go and get some concessions.  Talk about full service!  Too bad BYU didn't win the game!!!!!!!

Afterwards, we got to do down onto the field and the kids got autographs from a few of the BSU players and ran around on the field.

We then rode the shuttle back the clinic and drove home.

It was a fun once in a lifetime night (especially since we got home around midnight on a school night!).  The kids did great getting up and off to school without too much complaining (I think they were too tired to complain!).  

Kayla woke up around 4:30AM.  She sat straight up and said, "I NEED ANOTHER PILL!" and then ran to the bathroom to throw up.  I went downstairs and got her another half of zofran pill.  It took a half an hour to convince her to take it. . . sigh.  But, she did and I got a little more sleep before it was time to get the kids up for school.  I was pretty much dead on the couch all morning unable to move.  Luckily, Kayla and Benson had a fun time riding bikes in the backyard together, giving me a little chance to rest.  :)  

September 19th - Dr. Lee

Today Kayla had an appointment with Dr. Lee, her ophthalmologist.  She has follow-up appointments every 2 months right now.

At first, Kayla was very shy for the guy nurse.  He must get that a lot, so he went and got a woman nurse. :)  Kayla did a lot better for her.  Normally, Kayla looks at the letters on a screen and then points to what letter it is on a little card that she is holding, but today, she actually said the letter!  Wow.  That was great.  She did everything she was asked to (well, I did mention to her that we could get some ice cream afterwards if she cooperated).

Dr. Lee then came in and examined her eyes.  She decided not to dilate her eyes today, but wait until her next appointment in two months.  Kayla's right eye has remained very stable at 20/30.  That is great and Dr. Lee was very pleased with that.  Her left eye is the same, too.  Dr. Lee was 2 to 3 feet away from Kayla and waved her hand.  She told Kayla to wave her hand whenever she saw her hand waving.  Kayla did great and saw all of the hand waving, but that is about the extent of the vision in her left eye.

I am unable to notice that Kayla can only see out of one eye.  She does great compensating for it.  She knows and writes her letters very well and has no problem coloring, or looking at books.  I am super grateful for that!

Physical Therapy

I just realized that I totally forgot to add this into my last post about last week's visit.

While we were at the clinic for Kayla's treatment, Dr. Hansen's nurse came in and asked me if the physical therapist had come yet.  I told her no.  She told me that if the therapist didn't come today, she would come next week.  Yay!  I was thrilled about that.  It meant no extra appointment for us to make and go to!

The physical therapist did come in that day.  She was very nice and Kayla was (surprisingly) very cooperative and did everything that she was asked to do.  I'm not sure what her name was, so I'll just call her the therapist.  The therapist did an evaluation on Kayla and told me that she is a very strong girl (. . . yeah, I know that. :)  They rate strength on a scale from 0-5.  Kayla was 5 everywhere except her ankles.  They were just a little bit weaker.  So, she gave us 5 simple exercises to do each day to help Kayla to strengthen her ankles.  They are very simple and should be easy to do.

So, each day, usually when all the kids are home, we all do the exercises together and they think it is fun.  Even Benson gets in on it. :)  I don't know if the therapist will be coming back to check on Kayla every once in a while or what, but I was soooooooooo grateful that she came to us while we were at the clinic.  I am not going to worry about getting Kayla in to do physical therapy now. :)

September 13th - Week 26

We had another early morning today of getting Nathan and Lily onto the bus and then getting in the car to go to the clinic to be there by 8:15AM.  We got there, Kayla got accessed and checked in with no problem and  then we met with Marnie.  I told her about our experience last Friday when it took Kayla all day to drink her juice with zofran.  Marnie mentioned (like she has before) about the possibility of using a zofran patch.  Unfortunately, Kayla is too little for it, but Marnie said that she would talk to the pharmacist about possibly adjusting the dose by folding the patch over and taping it down.  Anyway, we'll see.  That would be very nice. . .

Kayla and I were in for a LONG day.  We had an hour of fluids, over an hour of chemo, two hours of post fluids and then an hour of pentamadine.  Luckily we secured our favorite spot in the chemo suite since we were there so early.  We colored, played games, watched part of Toy Story 3, did some preschool activities, and ate lunch.  It was a super nice day, so we did a little bit outside on the patio area-some of the preschool stuff and we ate lunch outside.

When Miss Stephanie came to ask Kayla if she wanted to have some music time, Kayla said no.  I think it was because Stephanie had another girl with her, kind of shadowing her.  I am pretty sure that is why Kayla said no.  After lunch, though, and watching a couple of other kids do music, she changed her mind.  In fact, Stephanie was busy with another child, but her helper, Irene, said she could come and do music with Kayla and Kayla said okay.  Wow.

So, Kayla and Irene played songs on the guitar and xylophone.  Kayla didn't even want me outside with them, so I walked around the hallway a little bit tried to be comfortable.

After they were done with music, Kayla wanted to do craft, so we tracked down Miss Jenn and got some paper dolls to color and cut out.  A little bit later, Jenn came back and Kayla went outside with her to draw with sidewalk chalk and blow bubbles.  We were close to the end and I was getting kind of tired, so I took that opportunity to lie down on the bed and rest for a few minutes before the drive home.

And we were done with another week.

Now, it took all night to get Kayla to drink half of her tiny cup of grape juice that I put zofran in.  She was so tired that she finally just fell asleep.  I knew she was not going to make it until morning before she started throwing up.  And I was right.  At 2:30AM, Kayla came in our bedroom needing to throw up.  Now, for as much as she throws up, I have to say that she ALWAYS makes it to the toilet.  I am very blessed that way. :)

Well, I wasn't quite sure what to give Kayla.  I asked her if she wanted grape juice. . . but then I didn't really want to sit with her all night trying to get her to drink it.  So, I told her that I had a little pill, kind of like a smartie that would help her to feel better and not throw up.  She perked up at the mention of the word "Smartie."  She said, "I like smarties!"  I told her that I wasn't sure what it tasted like, but I thought it was a little minty.  She said, "I like mint!"  Okay, great!  So, I went downstairs and got one of the zofran pills, cut it in half and brought it up to her.  She had some water, so I told her to put the pill in her mouth and then drink some water and it would disappear.  Well, she did it!  But then she said it was gross and took it out of her mouth.  It was ALMOST gone.  I then talked her into doing that one more time.  AND SHE DID!  She put it back in her mouth and took a drink of water and told me that it was gone!  YAY!!  I was so excited.  Now we could both sleep for the rest of the night. :)  She did great.  The next morning, I told her that she might start to feel sick again and that she might need to take the little pill again.  And she said. . . OKAY!  (Not excited like that, but more like . . . okay. . . if I have to. . .)  I was just excited that she was willing to do it again.  This may be a HUGE breakthrough. . . if she keeps it up.  Kayla was actually fine fore the whole day and never needed anything else.

And just to keep you updated.  I had gone to my doctor the day before.  I was just over 36 weeks, dialated to almost a 3 and 80 percent effaced.  That was more than I was expecting.  If we can make it through these next two weeks of chemo, then I'll be ready for the baby to come so I can have her two off weeks to recover before we start back into Kayla's next round of chemo.

September 6th - Week 25

We are starting our next cycle of chemo:  4 weeks on 2 weeks off.  I think I mentioned after her last visit, I sure hope Kayla can stay on track this month, because I will most likely have the baby sometime during her 2 off weeks, which would be great timing! 

Kayla (and pretty much all of us) has been fighting  a cold, but luckily, it has not really gotten bad and she is getting over it.  I was a little worried that it might affect her treatment, but we met with Marnie and she told us that they will sometimes hold off treatment for illness, but not usually for colds.  Kayla has had a little bit of a sore throat and has been coughing a little and sneezing a little.  Nothing too bad, but every time she coughs or sneezes or complains of a sore throat it starts to stress me out!  The biggest concern for her is if she has a fever, which she hasn't.  Knock on wood. 

So, Thursday's treatment was a pretty normal day.  We left at 7:30AM, right after Nathan and Lily got on the bus for school, Kayla and I headed out.  Benson was still sleeping, so Bryson took him to another great friend's house to play for the day after he woke up and had breakfast.  That is very helpful to me on days when we have to be there early.  

Kayla did great with getting accessed and doing all of the check in stuff.  Although, I still can't get her to stand on the scale alone.  I have to get weighed holding her, and then get weighed alone so we can figure out her weight.  When we can get past that, it will be a huge milestone.  I was hoping we could be past it by now though, because it's getting harder to pick her up with my 8 month pregnant self.  

As I mentioned earlier, we met with Marnie, the nurse practioner.  I told her how I had met with Dr. Hanson and talked to him about physical therapy and that he was going to check into it.  Marnie did say, but could not guarantee anything, that a possibility would be to have a physical therapist from St. Luke's come over and do therapy with her while we are there at the clinic for treatment.  Now, that is something I could handle!    Get two things done at once.  That would be an ideal situation, but I don't know how likely it is to happen. 

We had a good day in the chemo suite. . . Kayla and I played the fishing game and then Rummikub until Miss Stephanie walked in and then Kayla was totally done with our game and ready for music time.   

The clowns came to visit and put another Nemo sticker on her IV bag, but I didn't take a picture of that this time.  They also gave her a pretty bracelet and a beanie baby.

It was such a nice cool day that we went outside to eat lunch on the patio area.

So, we played games, had music time, ate lunch, did some preschool stuff, took some walks around the hallways and then did a little craft project for Miss Jenn.  She had the kids write their names on a piece of paper and then glue little torn scraps of paper to their name.  We worked on this right at the end of the day and Kayla was getting pretty tired by then, so I helped her finish and she wouldn't look up and smile for a picture.

Another special thing she got was this beautiful quilt.  I guess September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month and each September the Craft Warehouse donates quilts to all of the kids here at MSTI (Mountain States Tumor Institute).  They were hanging on the walls all around the hallway, so we walked around and Kayla picked one she liked to take home.  She loves it.

She especially loves the back of the quilt. :)

And that was pretty much our day.  We were home by about 2:30PM which wasn't bad at all.  I am usually pretty tired by the time we get home, even though Thursdays are a break for me compared to every other day. :)

I was very thrilled that Kayla drank her "chocolate milk" (with zofran in it) in less than a 1/2 hour that night.  Yay!  I was less than thrilled when she woke up at 6AM throwing up and I got her a small, very small, cup of "grape juice" and she wouldn't drink any of it.  I was trying to get her to drink something with zofran in it all day long.  She just would not do it.  She even told me that she would rather lie on the couch feeling sick than drink grape juice and feel good.  What?  Crazy girl.  She was throwing up off and on all day and lying on the couch sleeping on and off.  The later in the day it got, the more she started throwing up, which then started to wear on me because I did not want her getting dehydrated and have to take her in to the hospital.  FINALLY, at about 7PM, Bryson was able to get her to drink it.  And she's been fine ever since.  Stubborn girl . ;)

Our Month of August

So, part of the purpose of this blog is to take the place of our family blog temporarily.  I have not been very good at all at keeping up with other events besides Kayla's weekly appointments.   So, I am going to try to update a month a time with just some highlights of what our family has done.  We have been have fun times despite everything else going on. ;)

On the 3rd of August, Bryson and I celebrated our 11th anniversary!  We went miniature golfing and had a lot of fun.  I won. . . just like I did the last time we played.  . . . just over 11 years ago. ;)

 It's not very often that I get a picture with all of the kids (and Bryson).  They always have a lot of fun jumping on the trampoline together!

My younger sister, Lori, left on a mission for our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).  She will serve in the Nevada Reno Mission for 18 months.  I am so excited for her!  I am the oldest of 5 girls in my family (Lori is #4).  She is the first one in our family to serve a mission and I know that we will be blessed because of her commitment to share the gospel.

As I mentioned in my last post, Bryson's grandma passed away a couple of weeks ago and we were able to go down to Salt Lake for her funeral.  We will miss Grandma Tate, but we know that she is in a much better place now with people that she loves.  

Here is Benson with Pa and Grammy. 

We spent one morning at BYU bowling with my sister-in-law, Christy and a few of her kiddos.  As you can see, Lily enjoyed it!

Nathan did a pretty good job, too. :)

Kayla and Benson even took turns rolling the ball down the lane.

I don't know how this happened. . . we were all a little out of practice.  I thought I had a good excuse with my center of gravity being very much altered.  But, hey, I pulled off a tie with Bryson anyway! 

 Nathan is playing flag football right now.  This was his first official game, last Saturday.  He is playing center and is really enjoying it.

On Monday, the kids had their first day of school.  Nathan is a big 3rd grader this year!  When I showed him this picture, he said "Oh, I didn't know I looked like that. . . . cool."  He is such a character. 

Lily is so excited for 1st grade.  She gets to have her same teacher from last year because her teacher moved from kindergarten to 1st grade.  We love her and are so excited for this upcoming year!

 And that is about it.  We are ending the month with colds, unfortunately.  On the second day of school, Nathan, Lily, and I all woke up with sore throats.  I have been miserable and unable to breathe through my nose, and even Kayla has complained of a sore throat.  Augh!  I hope that we can fight this off before it gets too bad!  

August 28th - Weeks 23 & 24

So, Kayla had an appointment scheduled for the 23rd of August for a blood count check, but we found out the Friday before (the 17th) that Bryson's grandma had passed away that morning.  The funeral would be in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, the 22nd of August.  I was really glad that this happened to be an off week for Kayla because it was not a big deal to just reschedule her appointment.  The plan was to go in on the 22nd and check her blood counts.  If they were good, then we wouldn't have to come in the following week.  So, I just rescheduled her appointment for the following week, Tuesday, August 28th.  I was also glad about rescheduling because we got an appointment with Dr. Hansen, her actual doctor.

Yesterday, the 28th, was her appointment.  It always feels a little strange going on a short day.  We don't go into the chemo suite except to say hi to the nurses in there.  Anyway, we got her checked in, weighed, blood pressure, etc. and then her port accessed, which she is a pro at now.  Then we met with Dr. Hansen's nurse for a little bit before he came in.

I like to check in with Dr. Hansen when we can to run past him everything the other doctors or Marnie have told me.  I just trust his opinion more than anyone else's, I guess.  So, I asked him about starting physical therapy for Kayla's ankles.  He told me that he's check with some physical therapists to see what they thought.  If it would be helpful then, that would be great.  It wouldn't hurt, but if it isn't going to help, I'd like to avoid another weekly appointment.  The Vincristine has a side effect that weakens the ankles.  If Kayla gets to a point where she is having a really hard time walking, then he would probably stop using that drug as a part of her chemo regimen.  Strength in the ankles comes back once you are done with the drug, but Kayla has such a long time to go with it, I hope she can hold on to her strength.  She is doing fine with walking and running and playing, but sometimes trips and falls.  Which, that is hard for me to tell if it is from weaker ankles because she has always been my accident prone child who can fall flat on her face without any good reason at all. ;)

Dr. Hansen had also been researching Pentamidine a little bit.  Kayla gets that once a month through IV to prevent a certain kind of pneumonia.  He told me that when he was in Ohio, he was on a team researching if it is more effective given twice month rather than once a month.  Giving it to her twice a month would mean more time at the clinic and more times that it would probably be given with Zofran, which has a rare chance of some major heart problem side effects.  He isn't for sure yet on what he thinks is best, but he told me that he would look into that more and make a decision.

So, that was pretty much our visit.  I guess she will have another MRI coming up in October.  And I was looking at the calendar realizing that if she stays on schedule for the next 4 weeks, she will have the first 2 weeks of October off--which will be when I have my baby.  That would be GREAT timing. :)  

August 16th- Week 22

Today was Kayla's weekly chemo.  I dropped off Nathan, Lily and Benson at yet another friends' house (THANK  YOU!) and drove to Boise.  We had a pretty typical day, checking in, weight, blood pressure, temperature, and then down to the lab for accessing her port.  Kayla did great sniffing her chapstick and sucking her Dum Dum sucker to mask the smell and taste of the whole process.

We talked to Marnie, and Kayla did great taking deep breaths as she was examined.  There was nothing too exciting to talk about.  Kayla looks great and is doing great.

So, we were off to the chemo suite and on our way through a very long day.  She had an hour of fluids, then just the carboplatin today (which takes an hour), two hours of post hydration and then an hour of pentamidine (the antibiotic she gets once a month since she won't take it orally).

We colored, watched Snow White, did a little music with Miss Stephanie, ate lunch, colored, watched the rest of Snow White, played games, and colored.  I did finally lie down with her on the bed and rest a little bit, too.  For just laying around, it's an exhausting day!

She was very tired when we left and slept all the way home.  I gave her zofran in a little bit of root beer, hoping she would drink that.  But, even after asking for root beer, she didn't want to drink any.  She then asked for orange juice, so I got orange juice with zofran ready for her and she drank a little of that, but it was a huge ordeal to get her to drink the whole thing.  After an hour and a half, she had finally drunk all of her OJ (which was really a very small amount).  She'll need some more in the morning, so I hope it doesn't take all day to drink like it has the past couple of Fridays.  Whenever I ask Kayla if she'd rather drink her OJ or throw up, she chooses throw up.  That doesn't help much.

The next two weeks are short weeks, though!  Just blood count checks.  Yay!

More Time With Doctors

So, yesterday morning I had an appointment with my doctor.  Everything is great with the pregnancy and baby.  I am just over 32 weeks now and starting to countdown.  

My doctor asked if there was anything that they could do to help out with Kayla's situation.  I kind of jokingly said that it would be great if I could have the baby on a Friday so I could have the most time to recover before going to Kayla's treatment, since they are on Thursdays.  He was totally fine with that and said that if things are happening, I could definitely be induced on a Friday if that would help.  We'll see.  I am hoping I'll naturally go a little early since Benson was 9 days early.  

After lunch I was planning on taking the kids swimming.  Then Nathan came walking into the kitchen with blood on his hands saying, "Mommy, I'm bleeding."  He was pretty calm about it at first.  He told me that a weight fell on his head.  I grabbed some wet paper towels and found where the blood was coming from.  Right on the crown of his head.  It was bleeding pretty bad for a couple of minutes and then stopped pretty quickly.  I got the story from him. . . the kids had made a fort using my weights to hold the blankets in place. Well, of course, one of the blankets got pulled and a 15 lb weight rolled off of the desk and hit Nathan's head and then landed right on his hand on the ground.  So, along with his head, his last three fingers on his left hand hurt pretty badly.  

Great.  I was wondering if I should take him into the urgent care or something.  I put ice on his head and hand and thought that yeah, we should probably go in.  So, then things got a little chaotic because it was right at lunch time, so I knew I had to feed the kids and find someone to come over, or somewhere to take them. I still don't feel comfortable leaving Kayla at someone's house, so I tried all of my babysitters.  I already knew that one was sick.  Two were out of town and one was already watching her siblings.  Bummer.  So, then I was thinking of where I could take them.  I called a couple people that I thought I'd be okay leaving Kayla with, but no answer.  Other friends I knew were gone, on bedrest, or had sick kids, and I was feeling a little desperate.  

I finally called one friend and decided that I would just leave Lily and Benson.  She was home and able and a total lifesaver!  I took Nathan and Kayla to the urgent care and they got him right in.  There was a huge line in front of us, but I guess a head injury takes precedence. :)  Nathan didn't appear to have a concussion, but they needed to check out his fingers, too.  So, the nurse took us back to the procedure room and cleaned up his wound.  The doctor came in and looked at it and decided that a little glue would do the trick.  The laceration wasn't big enough to need a staple (hooray for that!).  So, she glued his cut together and then we waited for the x-ray guy to come back from lunch.  

When he got back, he took us back and took x-rays of Nathan's hand.  I thought it was funny that he recognized me from a few months ago when Benson was in getting chest x-rays when he had bronchiolitis.  

After the x-rays we went back to our room and waited for the results.  The doctor came in and told us that Nathan's fingers were not broken, just very bruised.  Also, no football practice for 2 days, at least, no haircut (which I was planning on doing that very morning but didn't get to it, ugh), no shower for 2 days, and to be looking for signs of concussion in the first 24 hours.  

Nathan was quite the trooper.  He was a little worried that cleaning his cut hurt, but he did fabulous and he said that it didn't really hurt.  I took this picture and when I told him that I would post it on facebook, he actually gave me a little smile. :)   He doesn't normally like to be in or smile for pictures.

So, that was that.  He was totally fine when we got home.  He was happy that he couldn't really use his fingers and that meant that he couldn't practice the piano.  

He slept fine last night and he was fine today-not even a headache.  His fingers are still a little sore, but they should heal quickly.  

So after that long day and all the kids are in bed. . . Lily came in to my room and handed me her spacer.  She had a tooth pulled a couple of years ago and they put a spacer in.  She told me that it fell out.  It looked kind of mangled, too.  Great.  So, now we get to go to the dentist.   Never a dull moment around here!