Luke turns 1

Using this blog as originally intended, for happy times and more annoying pictures of my kids! Poor Lukey. I have to send these pics to family and friends because the only people who got to come to the impromptu party were two of the neighbor girls and Emma Critelli (whom somehow has been at every first birthday party of my children?) We even wrapped up this old toy of Travis/Eva/Jack's and gave it to him for a present! Good thing Paige and Allison brought him a new toy. You can also see that we were having pajama day at our house, so he's in his jammies for his first birthday. I know Eva had a new outfit for sure for her big #1! I also started the "naked cake eating" tradition because Eva had such a cute outfit on. Luke really didn't need to take his jammies off, but it's tradition now.





What do I do with this?

He shoveled it in so fast and so completely that not one crumb fell on the floor.

It was like he was a cartoon character just pushing the food through. He ate more cake than anyone there.... well, except for Eva.

Still shoveling......

This is cute little Travis on his first. He and Eva both pretty much just played with their cake and smeared it around on their faces and threw it on the floor. I've never seen a kid actually INHALE their cake.

Cute little Eva on her first.

Travis being nice and cautios about the flame on the candle.

Eva and Travis just watched the candle. Luke wanted to grab it.

So, I was holding him out of the flame because we've had enough ER trips for awhile and he got mad.

Luke.

Travis -always the "silly boy."

Eva.

Luke is definitely the most aggressive of the children so far. Here he is attacking Travis while they are wearing their matching outfits I got them. Lame, I know. But, I hate shopping so it's just easier to buy two of one thing.

It's like we have a little puppy at our house that attacks you because you can't even safely sit on the floor at our house or Luke will get you!

Not lovin' Santa.

Travis wasn't really lovin' Santa either, but this Santa is awesome!

Eva with Santa, now that we can leave the house a bit with her easier medicine.

Travis Dynamite

Merry Christmas to us!

Above: Move over Napolean, here comes Travis. The beginning 30 seconds shows his best moves. He is dancing to a song we call "Ben's favorite song" because it was played to them by my friend Jess' son.

Pics for the kindergartners!!!

This is how weird Eva's sickness was. This was Friday morning in this short window of time when she felt absolutely perfect and played outside and watched the garbage truck with Travis. I didn't get any pictures of how bad she looked. She was bright red and puffy all over and hotter than hot and just miserable.


Still playing horsies and watching her garden grow.

Eva looked like an ADD kid when we got home... just bouncing off the walls. She had set up a running track of blankets on the tile floor that she was going to run on and then jump on the bed and bounce onto Travis' bed (a matress on the floor so he can be close to Eva.) I had been at the hospital enough for a weekend, so we created her this "gym" instead to get some of her energy out. Every time I leave a kid in a room I think "am I going to have to go to the hospital or the ER again? Please no!"

The lady who owned the horse, Gloria, feels just so bad for Eva. I want her to know that Eva is doing terrific now that we switched medicines and LOVES the ice cream playdough maker that she sent her.

Eva doing homework. I even made her hot chocolate to drink while she did homework and she still said that Miss Geiselhart is a much better teacher than I am.

UPDATE:

Eva is doing much better. Looks completely normal. And, the one good thing to come out of all this is that we had to switch meds and only have to do ONE medicine 2x/day!!!!! It's just so easy!!!! 5pm and 5am and it only takes 30 minutes and there's no pump and priming tubes and pushing every 30 seconds. Love it! 2 more weeks to go. I think I'll survive! We also just realize how lucky we are after hanging out at a children's hospital. I just couldn't wait to leave because I felt so bad for the other parents as my kid is skipping in the halls. There was a set of grandparents that slept in the family room the entire time we were there until their 2 month old grandson died on Monday morning. Very sad stuff. Eva and I said lots of prayers for all those crying babies we heard.

Staying until Monday

Well, we will be in the hospital until Monday. The cultures to see if the PICC line is infected take 48 hours to get back, plus there is a major blizzard here. She looks terrific. I'm sick of "working" because she keeps making me do therapy on her. Boredom is what we're trying to avoid now. It sure is nice to have someone else do her meds. And, Chris can't get back here because of the blizzard so he is home cleaning the house and getting projects done that he NEVER has time for. Don't call or text him unless it's words of encouragement to keep working!

Officially, they think that Eva had a kind of "serum sickness." Rare, of course. She was just fine until she got probably a virus, but possibly and infection popped up. Then the combination of those two things caused this "serum sickness." It wasn't an allergy because she never would have made it 2 weeks on the medicine if it was an allergy. So, she'd have been fine with the virus alone or fine with the meds alone, but not the combination. She just looks so much better though. I taught her what "cut the cheese" means and she thinks that is just hilarious. I don't remember ever just sitting and watch an entire movie with Eva because we all know I can't sit still at home. However, I've now watched High School Muscial 1 (AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!) and Enchanted (2.5 stars.)

Thanks for your words or encouragement and prayers for Eva.

Eva in the hospital again

Well, I was going to write and update about how horrible our luck is and that Eva is just doing horrible and that this is just horrible. However, I am sitting in a family room at the hospital using a computer and there is a family in here whose baby was born in October and will not make it. Very, very, very sad. I guess this is not SO horrible comparatively.

Eva has been having a fever/rash on and of since Wed. We went to the ER Thursday morning, they thought it was just a virus. It was very up and down, one minute she'd look horrible and scary, bright red, swollen cheeks/face/ears/skin. Then, she'd look perfect with no rash and no fever and running around. This morning, it would just not switch back to the "good" side, so we were admitted. They think it is a drug reaction at this point. We are at Meritcare children's hospital this time (should've come here in the first place, but when you're flying in an ambulance, ten more minutes seems like an eternity.) They are switching her meds, hopefully going home on something LESS often. They changed her PICC dressing yesterday and a layer of skin pretty much came off with the dressing. Eva was very calm, agreeable, sweet, etc when we were at Innovis. She's no longer "buying what we're selling" and is very aggressive and argumentative with anything we are going to do. Meritcare is at least a children's hospital, so they are much better at using lidocaine for pokes and bubbles and games to help her. The pediatrician has been great and the neurosurgeon has been involved with all of this and infectious disease is involved. The nuerosurgeon is really the one who knows what she needs to be getting because he was the one that saw what this would looked like initially. THe pediatrician and myself more than anyone were ready to just quit everything and call it good. The neuro guy is very concerned, not about menigitis anymore, but about a bug that gets in there and hangs out and infects the bone of the scalp in cases like this. Infectious disease people agreed. Our friend, Jeff Braaflat, is the pharmacist getting her meds for her here at the hospital, so that makes me feel safe also.

Keep the prayers coming! Don't plan on getting any Christmas presents from me because this morning was my planned shopping day. Nope. Looks like we wil be staying until Sunday or Monday while they watch what this drug does.

Travis says "we need to go on a long vacation. One in a long car ride. I think we should go on a vacation to Chuck and Sue's" (friends who live in the cities.) I agree, but maybe drop the kids off at Chuck and Sue's and go to Mexico???? Ha!

No school for Eva until 2009

Well, Eva is not going back to school this year of 2008. He said, "She can go next Monday if you really have to get back to work. But, if it was my kid, I'd keep them home until after Christmas break." He said that by Jan, she should be 98% healed, and she'd only be to about 25% or something before that.... plus a nurse would have to give her the meds at school and that takes an hour and a half. Plus, she has at least 2 appts a week with home health and doctors....so she'll be staying home. The IV meds need to continue for 4 weeks total, so until after Christmas. Any longer than that and he says the risks outweigh the preventative benefits at that point. No gym or recess for 6 months. She won't need to wear a helmet. (I might make her anyways for my sanity?)

We've changed the med time to 10am, 4pm, 10pm and 4am. I can then return to work part-time and Chris will take some time off as well. I just can't let anyone else do the meds. I would be a crazy, worrying mess. I have some great friends that are going to help me get the boys to daycare so that I can do the meds in the morning and do some "home-work" with Eva and get to work. We have also had wonderful, wonderful people supply us with meals. I didn't think we needed this, but it sure has made this event bearable instead of only stressful. It has given us much more pleasant evenings together as a family. Not to mention all the gifts to keep Eva from her boredom death-bed. She can now have visitors and go out to places very carefully with us. Oh yeah, and the doctor was ridiculously nice. Just the best. Even took her staples out himself. He was with us for 45 minutes explaining everything. I think I may have jumped the gun on blasting him so badly.

An insurance guy had to come and get a statement today. Whew. Not fun re-living that story word for word. At least I have to try a bit to see that horrible picture in my head instead of every time I close my eyes.


Eva's kindergarten class wants to know what she's doing at home. She made this garden that a friend of mine sent her. She does arts and crafts and homework. She watches videos while she gets her medicine or we read books. She values her brothers more than even to provide her with entertainment because Chris and I are not funny according to her.

We play lots of "Guess Who" and she plays a new video game hand-held thing, both of which were great gifts. We made this Gingerbread house... which Eva has eaten 50% of the roof off. She also went out in the snow with her dad and crawled around. I even caught her making a snow angel and holding her broken head up out of the snow!

Miss G said the kindergartners would like to see the staples. There they are. They came out today. It really, really, really hurt. They did not just "fall" out like I've seen on new-knees. They were stuck and bled a lot. It was quite the screaming and crying, even for 30 minutes afterwards.

Eva doing better

So, there is only one baby that could handle being ignored as much as he's been ignored: Lukey. He just sits around and eats markers and pulls bulbs off the Christmas tree. There was also a planned gradual weaning for Lukey after Thanksgiving, it just happened very abruptly. So, he's pretty mad about that, but takes his sweet ol' time morning and night.

Eva and mommy doing the meds. How sweet is she? The meds take 1.5 hours at 6am, noon, 6pm and midnight. (Hence the no sleeping) Did I mention how I never thought I'd be using the blog that Sue taught me to use for anything but fun, family pictures? How wrong was I!

Although she looks so good, we still really can't have visitors. Of course, she really wants some certain neighbor girls to come do arts and crafts with her..... and her best friend came and visited..... and she wants her teacher to come (she's actually counting the days!). But, her doctor had said NO VISITORS. If I get sick, I can't do the meds. I was ready to go back to work for a few hours a day after Chris got home and then I realized if I get sick, we are SOL. Eva obviously can't get sick. The meds take so long and sleep really isn't happening, so visitors just aren't an option until after that doctor visit. Sorry if I don't answer phone calls. We were taken to a hospital OUTSIDE of our network, so it's been non-stop phone calls regarding that situation.

Everyone has been so great and so supportive. Thank you, thank you. All the phone calls and e-mails just make us feel so cared for. They really mean more than you could know. Eva has enough to do to get her through months of staying home! Grandma Tree has been great and stayed with us Sunday-Tuesday and using her vacation days, so we really appreciate that as well. We really won't know anything new until Monday after the Dr. visit.

Eva is very "grown-up" right now. It's a little weird and I miss my 5 year old. I kind of realize that it's from the medication thing. She is very helpful and telling me when to clamp and when to flush, etc, etc. I'm hoping when we're done with all this, silly, goofy, ridiculous Eva will come back because this serious Eva is just kind of....sad.

Eva decorated the tree yesterday...with her left hand and apparently in one spot?

Travis and Grandma Tree decorated the house for Eva when she came home.

When Chris walked in the house on Friday night to get us some stuff, this is what Eva had been playing before we left for Thanksgiving: an entire table of horses.

Eva probably hasn't had us stare at her this much since she was an itt-bitty infant sleeping. She just kept saying "that's OK, I don't mind."

Coloring and looking better.

Very sad and bummed and hurting after the PICC line placement.

So sad after that PICC line with dad.

Uncle Nolan brought his dog and threw the ball for him outside so Eva could watch. She liked it lots.

This is how Eva spent most of the time in the hospital because she couldn't lay on her right side because her bump hurt.

On Saturday night, Travis came to visit. Eva was starting to get her funny back and being silly. Travis had once told me that I should make a sign on his door that said "Welcome Travis Hanson. From Bossy Eva." Eva thought it'd be funny if she wrote that on her board.

This is her crazy, bloody hair. I debated putting the stapled head and the bloody coat on the blog, but I thought kids might want to look at it and that's a little scary.

Although I have my moments, I'm pretty much to the grateful point of this whole ordeal. It's a nice place to be getting to in this mental roller coaster. I'm a very, very ,very lucky mommy/ wife/ daughter/ sister/ friend/ co-worker to have such wonderful people around me. I'm very grateful for my family and I am truly blessed......no matter how accident prone we are.

SHORT- SYNOPSIS

OK, not so in need of therapuetic writing. I'll give a synopsis.

Eva was riding horse (being led around) on Friday at 2pm. She and another girl were bucked off. Other girl was fine, Eva went by ambulance to Fargo. She has 9 staples in her the back of her head and a skull fracture. She never had loss of consciousness, but doesn't remember all parts. Her neuro assessments have always been clear. CT scan showed no brain abnormalities and there are no fragments of bone that they can see that have affected the inner layer of head/brain. The fracture is kind of like taking an aluminum can and denting it. The current big risk is of meningitis. A PICC (peripheral intravenous central catheter) line was placed, a minor surgery that took 40 minutes longer than expected and almost caused me to jump over the side of the 6 story railing. So, that will remain in her arm and we will administer IV antibiotics 4x/ day that take about 60 minutes to administer. I will not be able to go to work because I'll have to do this. I don't trust my husband, but maybe I'll get to that point. She will not be going to school for at least a week when we return to the neurosurgeon (whom was much, much kinder today if you read the past blog). The fracture will take 6 months to heal, it is not a surgical situation as it wouldn't do much good. She will be on limited activity (no gym, recess, etc) until that is fully healed. She will be at an increased risk of seizures for her entire life (<1%) because of the irritation to her cortex. It is Sunday, and we are going home later this afternoon when a nurse will come out and teach us how to do the meds.

She is not supposed to have visitors at least until after we see the doctor next week and then we will talk about lifting restrictions. Some have asked what to send Eva. Inappropriate gifts would be as follows: A pony, an ATV, stilts, etc. (come on, I can't be sad forever!) Appropriate gifts: movies and arts/crafts. Eva was doing so much better last evening, laughing and joking and telling Chris he's not funny. She's a little "blue" again today after the PICC line placement and her arm really hurts. I can't believe this is the same kid that screams like a crazy person when you cut her toenails and used to cry because she was scared of garbage and bugs outside. She did say that she's still going to cry when we cut her toenails though. She has been tougher than I would be, not even scared of taking a shower or coming her hair and asking to see her staples.

Thanks for all your well wishes. We all love Eva and I appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Mommy.

Poor Eva

Poor Eva. She's still the sweetest thing ever. She woke up feeling pretty good and went down for her CT scan. SHe says "this is the thing that hurt the leastest." Then she had some visitors and then her head really started to hurt and she started to look horrible. I started to get very mad and scared that her brain was swelling or something and started yelling that I was going to pick her up and carry her down and chase the Neuro guy in the ICU until he told me what was going on (this was noon, the scan was at 8am.) So, he finally came up and in his wonderful "I don't have any social skills so I became a neurosurgeon" method, he told us what was going on.

No brain swelling, everything inside looks fine. There are not fragments of bone that have perforated the brain lining or anything. So, I'm asking him if she should where a helmet and he then starts telling me that the biggest risk is for meningitis. Since she had a laceration into the skull and blood, that is the biggest risk. He's talking that she needs to be on antibiotics..... OK, I'm figuring oral. Then I ask if she should go to school. He say "not until you see me." He's still not explaining any of this... when I'll see him, why we need to be so careful, what we are trying to avoid...... finally he yells at me "this little girl fell hard enough to crack her skull and she has a brain injury. This is a very serious condition." Well thank you ass hole, you could've told me that in the first place. If you tell me I need to drink poison to make my little girl better, I'll do it. But, I'm not a mind reader.

So, she needs to stay home and be closely watched for fever and seizures and signs of infection until we see him (yeah right!!!! Until we see a DIFFERENT neurosurgeon). She really shouldn't be walking anywhere alone in case she would have a seizure and fall until she's more healed. And the great thing, he's yelling all of this in his loud, Boston accent IN FRONT OF Eva. So, all she hears is "no school for two weeks" and starts crying as soon as he leaves. The saddest part is that she has to have a pic line placed and we have to give her IV anti-biotics for that time. So, we tell her about that and they come in to do it and the nurse anesthetist comes in and I say "Oh, it's this kind of sedation? She just ate 1.5 hours ago." The whole thing is cancelled, poor Eva cried for an hour about it.

So, Eva is just so sad. It's so unfair. She has this whole body to fall on and she falls on her head. She could've broken her leg and this would all be less scary. However, I know it could've been worse. Those are the wonderful images that will haunt me. The real, scary image of seeing her fall just morphs into the stuff we've seen on movies when you close your eyes. Grey's Anatomy has made this entire experience much worse. Eva's really not talking much, she's just so sad. She turned down chocolate for the first time ever and I then proceded to ask her 100 questions to make sure her head injury wasn't get worse. She's just so sad. My brother Nolan went through this last year with an infection after an ACL repair. It was horrible to watch him go through it, but watching a 5 year old is even worse.

A SAD, SAD POST

Well, the Hanson holiday curses strikes again. Holiday 2004: Travis' cleft news. Holiday 2006: miscarriage. Holiday 2007: amubulance ride after having Luke. Holiday 2008: Eva fractures her skull after a horse bucks her off.

The kids were just so good at Thanksgiving. We barely heard from them as we grown-ups chatted and played games. So, the next day we told Eva and Travis that they could do something fun because they were so good. Travis wanted to go combining. Eva wanted to go horse riding at a friend of my parent's house. She'd been out there before riding horse and LOVED it.

So, Grandpa Gerry takes Travis, Chris and I take Eva. On the way out there I think to myself "I would just love to make her wear a helmet if we would have one with. But, we don't and it's probably better because I'm just being over protective." We get the horse out and I just haven't been around horses for so long and I'm just thinking what a chicken I am. Eva wants the saddle on so that she can hold on. They put it on and she and another girl ride. They walk away and I think "I really want to walk beside her and hold onto her." But, I know she's done this before. Last time they just walked around and around for at least 30 minutes. Well, they are about 50' away and the horse kind of spooks. Eva says she hung on that time and Memory (the girl leading the horse) kind of straightens them out and then the horse kicks up it's rear legs and the two girls go flying about 7' off the ground (it was a tall horse) and land. THe other girl stands up and starts crying. Eva is lying crumpled on the ground.

We run as fast as we can over there and she is now crying and crying and there is blood everywhere. She's got a big open cut on the back of her head. Memory is a RN in the ICU and Gloria (the lady's whose horse it was) used to be an EMT with my mom. So, we decide that the cut is not bad enough to call the ambulance and that we'll drive and get stiches.... I just keep yelling "what do I do? What do I do?" I think that Gloria was actually close to as scared as I was and really didn't know what to do either. So, we're applying pressure and there's blood everywhere. So, we get in the van and start driving.

Then the reality kicks in. I start to think of all the billions of things that we should've thought of initally. She fell from 7' in the air and landed on the ground hard enough to put a huge gash in her head. (We don't think the horse stepped on her.) She could have a neck or back injury, she probably has a brain/ head injury, she could have a collapsed lung, she could have internal bleeding, etc, etc. Now, I'm freakin' out. We call 911 and meet and ambulance and I can't pull it together and I can't believe that I carried her in a cradle position with her neck and back hyperflexed and are her pupils responding and can she move her feet and is her abdomen filling with blood. It was just the scariest and it scares me even re-writing. Chris holds it together until he gets in the van to follow us to the hospital, doing this again for the second time in 11 months. I feel better with the paramedics doing something, Chris now is crying and crying and not knowing what's going on and driving 95 mph to the hospital. It's the longest drive ever and she's just so scared and I'm crying and it was like a nightmare. I just kept asking her questions and questions to see if she could remember or knew what was going on.

They do a CT scan of the neck and head after all other things are ruled out. Neck was clear. Skull has a compression fracture that is 2mm displaced. She showed no signs of brain injury or bleeding in the CT scan or by evaluation. She lost consciousness for a very brief period. She doesn't really remember falling or the van or ambulance ride, although she was alert and responding for that. THe neurosurgeon didn't think that surgery would be helpful at all and he wouldn't do it. He said they could immediately transfer her to the cities, but he was quite sure that they would make the same call. She has 9 staples in the back of her head.

We are staying in the hospital overnight tonight (Friday), CT scan 8am tomorrow morning, and then possible discharge tomorrow afternoon or one more night of observation. The nuerosurgeon said that some of those skull fracture fragments irritated the cortex of the brain and now she will be at increased risk of seizures (<1%) for the rest of her life. He said it could happen 5-10 years down the road. He said that if she was an adult, they would put her on an anti-seizure med preventatively, but they don't do that with kids because of the side effects.

Eva is just such a sweet girl. SHe's just so sweet. She said it wasn't the horse's fault. She wanted to know how the other girl is. She cried and cried in the van "I WANT MY GRANDMA." It was just so scary. She says "hospitals are no fun." Then she says "This is the worstest day ever." Chris and I then start to talk about how scary it was and I say "I think it was my scariest day ever, but you're OK. So, I think when the baby in my tummy died was my saddest day." She sits for a good minute or two and says "this day was the scariest, but it was much worse when the baby died." I love my sweet girl.

I was very scared about Travis's thing when we found out and his birth was very scary for me. But, this was just as scary. This tops the list for Chris. He is very shaken up about it. I think the "might have been" thing really scares us. She could've been stepped on or landed and broke her neck........ I think I should've just walked with her or listened to my gut. She's still got a scary series of scans and x-rays to make sure nothing is happening in there and I'll be watching her like a hawk for any sign of a seizure. She won't we able to participate in gym or run or do anything that she might fall down doing. So, please pray for our sweet girl. Just sit after reading this and say a prayer for her. She is very brave and has done such a great job. She will just be laying low for awhile.

Get out the bubble wrap for my kids now. I want to build a bubble and never let them cut out and just keep them safe in there. I never want them to ride in a vehicle again for fear of an auto accident. It just could've ended so badly. You all can do whatever you want, but I know now that we really do have the worst luck. Two kids fell off, one walked away. We have the broken skull and while I wouldn't wish that on anyone, I just keep wondering "why us?" Although, Chris and I keep saying, "Do we have really bad luck or really good luck?" Although we've had many horrible, scary things happen, we've always been OK. That seems maybe like we have some good luck. The angels were helping Eva today. I'll be a little crazy for awhile. That was awful. Trauma for sure to our darling baby girl and to the both of us. We just sat and stared at her and kissed her non-stop for about 8 hours in the ER. We'd kind of apologize to her and she just kept saying "it's OK." She liked it. She really started crying when they talked about the stiches and then I started crying and the doctor said "Eva, you have to try not to cry because that just makes mommies cry." She stopped and just looked at me instead. Sad, scary. Please, please, please pray her scan is OK tomorrow.

Erika

Lukey/mommy

Hanson family vacation to Mall of America

As Chris says "The Buckhouses finally slipped one through the genetic gene pool." Luke above, mommy below.

election coverage

Our awesome daycare lady, Sheila, taught the kids all about voting and who the candidates are and such. Eva had a vote at school as well and Obama won at daycare and school. Travis thought the names were funny....

Halloween

Happy Halloween!!!!!

This is a pretty baby, isn't she...... I mean HE.

The kids with Grandpa Gerry.... I mean Uncle Nolan. He comes in dressed in this costume and I say "look who's here kids?" Eva yells "GRANDPA GERRY!!" HA! Nolan said that when people ask him what he is for Halloween he'll just say "grandpa Gerry."

Butterfly and Spiderman

Off to trick-or-treat. The kids really wanted mom to do it this year. I said "YES," hoping to get out of a cold one in years to come. My big mistake was taking Lukey and the dog as well, thinking we'd just have a nice stroll while Eva and Travis knocked on doors. Well, Travis was very scared. There were some really scary houses! Once I dropped off Lukey, then I could hold his hand and he was fine.... as long as the houses were "plain."

This is Uncle Adam. I guess when you have a sister and brother that look very, very similar such as Adam and myself, you get a baby that looks like the Uncle's kid!