Thanksgiving

This is Aunt K sitting at the table. Doesn't she look thrilled?


Here's our turkey. I stuffed it with herbs, carrots, onions and celery this year. Don't worry, we still had stuffing.


Here Dave, Uncle B, Aunt K's shoulder and S3 are sitting at the table ready to eat.


View the glory of stuffing, mashed potatoes and green beans.


S2 kept trying to hide from the camera, but I caught him!


Ugh! Too much to eat, must lie down.


S1 enjoying some Guitar Hero before the gluttony.

Frankenstein's Monster Part 3

Alright, here we go with the rest of the pictures. It turns out I had to turn off pop ups or it causes problems.


Here S3 is with his Aunt Jen in the room we would be in for the next four days. We just got transferred in there, so this is Saturday, so he's still not feeling so hot.


But as you can tell from this photo on Sunday morning he is feeling lots better. He did not want to stay in the crib and watch TV. Plus because of the time change he got up at like 5 am!


Sunday morning here after they took off his bandages so that his stitches could start to dry out. They usually take the drain out too at this point but he was still draining alot so they decided to leave it in until Tuesday. So, since he really isn't that swollen yet, you can still see where the drain goes across his forehead.


The new view from above. What a nice little round head he now has. I am going to add a picture of before next to this one so you can see the difference.


Here's the before and for those of you who had never noticed how pointy his head was before, you are probably wondering how you ever could have missed it! Part of the reason I let S3's hair grow out long was to cover the protruding forehead.

Frankenstein's Monster Part 1

This is what s3 looked like with his head shaved and before he got drugged up for surgery. Here he's already to go in his gown and getting a mini physical to make sure he's fit for surgery.


Here S3 is on his way into the OR. He spit some of his Veriset out onto me, but it worked well enough that he would let me put him down and let the doctor wheel him away. Here you see he has already collected one animal - a cute little circus lion from the nurses at the OR.


This is how he was when we saw him. They put this mesh type hat over his head to keep him from pulling off the bandages. The problem was that they don't ever take it off so by the time it came off Sunday morning, it smelt pretty bad from him throwing up a few times and getting stuff on it. At least it was only juice type stuff that he'd thrown up.


Here he is in the "cage", at least that's what his crib looked like to me!


This is the room where I slept the night S3 was in the PICU. They only have five of these closet type rooms for parents. There is a rocking chair in the corner by the door, you just don't see it.


Here we are the day after surgery, he still looks pretty good, just really tired out.


Later on Friday in the PICU. You can see a bunch of the stuff he's connected to. They had a central line (in his neck/collarbone area), arterial line, IV line in his foot, monitoring electrodes on his chest and a catheter you know where. During the surgery they also had a monitor on his heart to alert them to any aortic embolisms.


This is how S3 liked to sleep during his time at the hospital, clutching as many stuffed animals as he could and then covering his face with them. At one point he not only had the dog and the lion, but also a smaller puppy in there too. He wouldn't settle down until he had them all.

Frankenstein's Monster Part 2

Finally on Monday morning S3 woke up with his eyes swollen shut. He took it pretty well since I had PBS on so it was at least a familiar sound. The bottle of milk didn't hurt either!


He loved to nap and would often get turned around in the crib and slept on his stuffed animals. The only problem is that when he would wake up, because his head was so swollen, he'd have divets that were patterned like the animal he had been sleeping on. It was pretty funny.



His night nurse on Halloween Eve. She was a hoot.


Tuesday morning he awoke with swollen eyes, but they didn't last for as long, even though they were more discolored. It looks like I gave him a bad eyeshadow job!


Here's me with my doctor! Just pretend that I am thinner okay?


Here S3 is enjoying the party. That cookie was really the only solid thing he'd voluntarily eaten since the surgery and not thrown up.


Here S3 is at home with his big brother S2. You should have seen the two of them running around-and they still haven't stopped. So much for the surgery slowing him down any!