Monday, April 20, 2009
Not so Good Friday
Aliza and her medical issues always seem to pop up on a holiday or the day of an event. So why would Good Friday be any different... The day was going too smooth. The kids and I were out for a walk, we ran into neighbors and they walked back with us to the house and played in the backyard. All was fine and the kids were playing really well. I noticed Aliza had gone inside. She likely had to go to the bathroom or wanted a snack, so I did not get alarmed. Within a few minutes she came outside and declared that she had taken her medicine! She was very confident about this and made the state almost as if to say, 'mommy, I told you so!" Earlier in the day when I had given to her the daily heart medicine that she takes, she told me that she was supposed to get it two times... not just one time, which I had given her. I explained to her that sometimes she gets her medicine in a small syringe which requires her to take it two times, but on this day I gave it to her in a bigger syringe, which is large enough to hold a full dose. She was insistant that I was wrong and obviously was having trouble understand my explaination. Needless to say, we moved on and went outside to play... fast forward to her coming outside to tell me she had just taken her medicine. I knew immediately what she had done and why she had done it. She felt that she did not get her full dose and was sure that she was going to take a full dose. I went inside with her and told her to show me how she took her medicine and how much she took. She told me she took 2. She was able to open the child-proof bottle and she poured the medicine into a teaspoon measuring spoon, not the dosing syringe. The measuring spoon holds 10mLs of medicine and she took 2 spoonfulls. She is prescribed to take 2mLs, 2 times per day. I calculated the amount of medicine left in the bottle, compared to the amount of medicine she should have left in the bottle since its last refill. There were about 21mLs unaccounted for. We called the Cardiologist on-call and went in to the ER. On the way to the ER she became tired and started falling asleep. I panicked as I was not sure if this was because of the medicine or because she often falls asleep in the car. Inside I was a wreck! As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, she said, "I am in big trouble aren't I?" At this point tears filled my eyes because all I could think of her making it through this, not how I was going to punish her. I realized how devasting this moment could be for our family. Once there her blood pressure had dropped significantly and they put her in a room and started her on IV's right away. She was quite a trooper through the whole event and once there we knew that she was going to be fine. Unfortunately it took a moment like this for us to realize that she could open a child proof bottle, but all those hours of Occupational Therapy have been beneficial... she proved her fine motor skills are pretty good! This definetely impacted her, she would not even consider taking medicine that was not given to her by an adult! There were no aftereffects of the overdose and we all went home within 6 hours of observation. Thankfully she took a medicine with relatively mild overdose effects! Lesson Learned: Don't underestimate Aliza and medicince kept on the top shelf of the fridge door and childproof top is not safe enough!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Our Spring Break Adventure
I originally created this blog as a journal for my kids of all the funny and challenging adventures of our journey together. Over the past few weeks we have been on quite a journey!
Trevor had a stomach virus, his first ever, which put him out of commission for a week. Thankfully, he is better and no one else got sick. I did not know that I would need to teach him how to throw up... he would get sick, and not let it out of his mouth until eventually it was coming out of his nose! Gross! Finally, he got the hang of it and this also seemed to cure him of his love for medicine. He now knows that being sick is not fun and he is not asking for medicine every time he sees a bottle of Tylenol.
In the meantime, the girls are healthy and well. Aliza is a doing great with her new heart medicine. We also have found a new tool to help her sleep and to soothe her. It is called a weighted blanket. Right now we only have a small lap pad, but our full blanket is on order. She really loves the feel of her blanket and is very calmed by the pressure and input she receives by having it on her. She is finally sleeping through the night and seems to be able to tolerate a full day of school much better. The combination of the new heart medicine and the weighted blanket have really given us all some relief. Even Alizas behavior has been better and the school is reporting that she is better able to focus and recall her academic skills. We are thrilled! She is making great progress thanks to great teachers and their willingness to think outside the box.
Tom had his spring break recently. We decided that we needed to take care of some of the drainage issues in our backyard and spring break was the perfect time to do it. So we planned out a new patio and Tom asked some guys from work for help, and the new patio was started...And as most things go with us, there were a few wrenches thrown into the plan. Okay, there were tons of wrench thrown into the plan and even a few pipes. Our backyard quickly became a mud pit, and looked as though we were planning for a pool, not a patio. Actually, a pool may be easier to create at this point. After a few days of muddy children and dogs coming into house and the prospects not getting any better due to all of the rain, we decided to run away from our problems and take a short vacation. We took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Poconos. This was the most impressive and full filled family adventure that totally took away our stress about our backyard. We could have cared less that buckets of rain were coming down, or that a contractor delivering crushed stone (which we did not need since we were not even close to having a base for our patio) knocked down the cable, telephone and power lines to our house because he did not put the bed of his truck down before pulling out of our driveway, or that we were in a traffic jam that took us 4.5 hours to go 13 miles to get get away from it all! This place was fantastic, and all of our frustration prior to our day of fun was well worth it. And in the grand scheme of things, we were together and healthy and well. We could have been in the accident that caused the road to close, or we could have been home when the power lines came down, or we could have been in many other devastating situations. Instead, we were inconvenienced for a bit, we cant go in our backyard, and we will have to spend a little bit more money than we had anticipated. Tom feels terrible about the situation in our backyard, but I give him credit for attempting to fix our backyard drainage problem and I am proud of him for being able to do the work that he did accomplish.
While at Great Wolf Lodge we learned a lot about our kids. Aliza is a dare-devil. She loved the big water slides which were like roller coasters. I was so thrilled to see her face and hear her screeches as we went so fast down the water slides. It was quite a climb to get to the top of the slides and she never complained about all the steps! Great physical therapy! Trevor was Mr. Independent. It was hard for him to stay with us because there was so much to do and see. He did not want to be held back by someone walking too slow and never wanted to take a rest. We had a hard time getting him to leave, even after a full day of water slides and swimming, he was still wanting to go, go, go! And then there was Ella. She was a bit too young for all the water slides, but we still sent her down one, by herself... that was the last time she was going down a slide. By the end of the day, she was comfortable in the wave pool and loved the fountains of water, and dancing in the fountains. She is definitely not a risk taker like her siblings, and is less of an adventurer than they are. She likes to sit back and watch others before getting involved. One of the best parts of parenting is watching their personalities develop and encouraging them to challenge themselves. I love when we have these special family times and unfortunately they are becoming fewer and fewer as our lives get busier. This overnight trip was a great opportunity to remind us of the great fun we have with our kids! We can't wait to go back!
Trevor had a stomach virus, his first ever, which put him out of commission for a week. Thankfully, he is better and no one else got sick. I did not know that I would need to teach him how to throw up... he would get sick, and not let it out of his mouth until eventually it was coming out of his nose! Gross! Finally, he got the hang of it and this also seemed to cure him of his love for medicine. He now knows that being sick is not fun and he is not asking for medicine every time he sees a bottle of Tylenol.
In the meantime, the girls are healthy and well. Aliza is a doing great with her new heart medicine. We also have found a new tool to help her sleep and to soothe her. It is called a weighted blanket. Right now we only have a small lap pad, but our full blanket is on order. She really loves the feel of her blanket and is very calmed by the pressure and input she receives by having it on her. She is finally sleeping through the night and seems to be able to tolerate a full day of school much better. The combination of the new heart medicine and the weighted blanket have really given us all some relief. Even Alizas behavior has been better and the school is reporting that she is better able to focus and recall her academic skills. We are thrilled! She is making great progress thanks to great teachers and their willingness to think outside the box.
Tom had his spring break recently. We decided that we needed to take care of some of the drainage issues in our backyard and spring break was the perfect time to do it. So we planned out a new patio and Tom asked some guys from work for help, and the new patio was started...And as most things go with us, there were a few wrenches thrown into the plan. Okay, there were tons of wrench thrown into the plan and even a few pipes. Our backyard quickly became a mud pit, and looked as though we were planning for a pool, not a patio. Actually, a pool may be easier to create at this point. After a few days of muddy children and dogs coming into house and the prospects not getting any better due to all of the rain, we decided to run away from our problems and take a short vacation. We took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Poconos. This was the most impressive and full filled family adventure that totally took away our stress about our backyard. We could have cared less that buckets of rain were coming down, or that a contractor delivering crushed stone (which we did not need since we were not even close to having a base for our patio) knocked down the cable, telephone and power lines to our house because he did not put the bed of his truck down before pulling out of our driveway, or that we were in a traffic jam that took us 4.5 hours to go 13 miles to get get away from it all! This place was fantastic, and all of our frustration prior to our day of fun was well worth it. And in the grand scheme of things, we were together and healthy and well. We could have been in the accident that caused the road to close, or we could have been home when the power lines came down, or we could have been in many other devastating situations. Instead, we were inconvenienced for a bit, we cant go in our backyard, and we will have to spend a little bit more money than we had anticipated. Tom feels terrible about the situation in our backyard, but I give him credit for attempting to fix our backyard drainage problem and I am proud of him for being able to do the work that he did accomplish.
While at Great Wolf Lodge we learned a lot about our kids. Aliza is a dare-devil. She loved the big water slides which were like roller coasters. I was so thrilled to see her face and hear her screeches as we went so fast down the water slides. It was quite a climb to get to the top of the slides and she never complained about all the steps! Great physical therapy! Trevor was Mr. Independent. It was hard for him to stay with us because there was so much to do and see. He did not want to be held back by someone walking too slow and never wanted to take a rest. We had a hard time getting him to leave, even after a full day of water slides and swimming, he was still wanting to go, go, go! And then there was Ella. She was a bit too young for all the water slides, but we still sent her down one, by herself... that was the last time she was going down a slide. By the end of the day, she was comfortable in the wave pool and loved the fountains of water, and dancing in the fountains. She is definitely not a risk taker like her siblings, and is less of an adventurer than they are. She likes to sit back and watch others before getting involved. One of the best parts of parenting is watching their personalities develop and encouraging them to challenge themselves. I love when we have these special family times and unfortunately they are becoming fewer and fewer as our lives get busier. This overnight trip was a great opportunity to remind us of the great fun we have with our kids! We can't wait to go back!
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