I've sliced my stomach open

My mornings worth of phone calls are paying off. Already had one apology and an email so willing to back down a little and passively wait for some more positive outcomes.


Zack's daddy has been working from home. It isn't out of choice but it's quite odd as I have to ignore the fact that he is in the house and remember he's at work, otherwise I find myself wondering in with Zack and plonking him on his knee. 


Oh the reason for the home working. Well a week ago Dan had a small mountain bike accident. He impaled himself on the handle bar of his bike and slit his stomach open. I can hear the ewwwwwghhhhs already, you're lucky, I could show you all photographic evidence of his injury.


He phoned me from the ambulance, "Hi, I've had a slight accident." 


Me. "What kind of accident, are you okay?" 


"Well, I'm in an ambulance"


"An ambulance......oh God, what have you done?"


"I've sliced my stomach open. I'm okay though, they are just going to take me in to get it checked out."


"Oh no, which hospital?"


"Rochdale." 


"Rochdale. Oh God."


I don't know which was worse the injury or the thought of travelling down the M60.


Seems the toning down of the incident didn't stop with Dan. His two friends that were with him calmly told me he was fine and in good spirits. Then I got to the hospital to find Dan in A and E waiting to be taken down to theatre where they would cut him open to check for any internal damage. 


Fortunately he suffered no rupture to any internal organs and no damage to his bowel, which was partly coming out of his five inch wound. They stitched him all back up again and he spent five days in Rochdale hospital. The first two of which he was on Morphine and completely out of his head. I know this to be true as he called me at 7.15 am on Sunday to see how I was and then couldn't remember doing so a day later. Oh and he also spent that day phoning round suppliers for a protective body suit. Nothing like some hard hitting pain killers to give you that joie de vivre when chasing important biking equipment.


Granny and Grandad Gould where away on holiday and thankfully they didn't phone as I would have to have done by best fib to save them endless worry whilst on their jollies.


Nanny and Grandad Price had to come to the rescue and looked after the Pants whilst I went to visit Dan each evening. By the end of it they had worked out Zack's little whinge times and took no notice of them as they were quite short lived. In fact, I lived five days as a single parent and Zack was the best behaved little boy. Ever. No difficult bedtimes, slept right through and a good boy in the day. Thankfully all was good at home.


So now the patient is here. Apparently whilst I popped out yesterday a nurse appeared to take out his staples from his stomach. No appointment. No warning. There she was, complete with staple snippers. I asked if it was okay, he said it wasn't bad but didn't like being caught unawares. He said he needed to prepare. He had Zack, needed to change out of his pyjama top,  and have a pee. He told her she'd have to wait a second. I hope she didn't get all that information too. All I could picture was some woman sat downstairs with large metal cutters patiently waiting whilst Dan was running round upstairs like Goldie Hawn, simultaneously changing pyjama top and peeing.


Aaaaah it's just like Carry on Doctor round these here parts.

HAlarious

I fear that Zack may explode from laughter. I don't know what was up with him today but everything was HAlarious. 


Revolving doors where daddy works. HAlarious.
Playtime in his little room. So HAlarious.
Combing his hair after bath time. Yep. HAlarious.


Even me. Me. Extremely funny, so was the word ready and showing him his comb. Here take a look at the Pants in his Little Room.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Do you know what is not so HAlarious, the NHS. I spent the morning chasing and emailing for appointments and equipment, the details of which I won't bore you with but needless to say a lot of things had not been done and it just isn't right. As a parent looking after a child with special needs it is hard enough the last thing you need is a few extra hours thrown in to chase people who are not doing there jobs. Okay, so it may not be that important to them but in our world it is top of the list, so come on, we know you have a busy job but please at least do what you were asked to do. Rant completed.

True happiness is the pants and his garden swing

Then came what shall be known as car doorgate.

So Zack went to hospital for his appointment with the neurologist about his epilepsy. We hadn't seen a few of the familiar doctors and nurses for a while (which is a good thing as it means Zack is behaving himself) but this meant we had a good half hour of, oh my he's shot up, look at the hair, look at the hair, it's crazy.


Even his neurologist commented on his hair, oh and most importantly how good Zack's posture was. Yet another professional stating that his posture had improved. More proud mummy moments. 


We discussed that he is now only on his Vigabatrin and that he has been on it for six months and we were concerned that it might start affecting or damaging his peripheral vision. Since Zack's eyesight has much improved we don't want to take the chance of making things worse. So a new plan was agreed that we would wean him off the Vigabtrin. If his seizures go up, that is, he starts having more than his usually, barely there 3 - 5 a day, then we introduce a drug called Lamotrigine, which has less side-effects.


We are now in the process of weaning him off his Vigabtrin over a course of two months. I can't see him being medication free but you never know, stranger things have happened. It was also suggested to us that we could cross over the medications, take him off his old one and introduce the new one at the same time. But how will we know if he really needs it if we don't give him a chance to be medication free?


I guess here we are again in unknown territory and only time will tell. At least we got lots of very happy with Zack and things are good for him and very pleased, so that's nice. Oh his paediatric consultant came and said hello and gave us a thumbs up (I think this means good and well done from him). 


All in all a very good day. Then came what shall be known as car doorgate.


Oh my god. I have injured my child. Yes I am mortified. 


Thought I would pop out to Tesco with the Pants to get a few bits. Surprise, surprise no parent and child places left, (well there's only eight and for God's sake most of the people that shop there have kids so come on, by the way I would never have said that, six years ago, I would be cursing those parent and child spaces).


So we park in a normal spot and it's a tight squeeze, and it starts lashing down with rain, I go to get Zack out of his car seat and out of the tiny gap between the car and the door, when he drops his head forward and, whack, he bangs it on the car door. 


Ten second delay then desperate screaming from Zack. You know you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach and you feel sick, magnify that by at least a 100. I get back in the drivers side with Zack who now has tears running down his face and take a look. Oh God, there is blood, he has gashed his eye. Oh God, his eye is swelling up. I am no longer a good mummy. Five minutes later Zack has stopped crying is back in his car seat and we are going home.


A call to Dan equals me in blind panic. Do you think he needs to go to A and E? Will his eye ever go down? What do I do? 


Two hours later Zack is laughing in his little room. His eye has gone down. He just has a scratch. It only bled a couple of dots mopped up with a tissue paper. Today it's almost healed. Okay, slight over-reaction. I still feel like I let him down. He still loves me. Dan still reminds me he fell down the stairs with him. Oh yeah I recall, may be I'm not so bad after all. 


Lesson learnt, when getting a child with special needs out of a car seat be super, super careful with their head. Just because they have good posture and head control doesn't mean you can get cocky.

He did his tongue out smile

Zack and I went to play school on Monday. It's the one run by the vision specialist team so includes lots of toys for visual stimulation. I took Zack into the room and sat on the floor with him, he was fascinated by the whole room and his eyes went really wide, soaking in all the good stuff.


One of the teachers brought over a long orange tube, which was quite heavy but is good for children to use for body awareness. When you turn it on it vibrates. Zack had his hands on it and the teacher switched it on, well, he loved it. He did his tongue out smile (that means oh I really like this), big eyes, the whole shabang. 


This is what we mean:


Vibrating Snake


Oooh only £12.99 might get him one of them. He'll probably be board of it by Thursday.


Overall conclusion of the day was how amazed everyone was that his posture has improved, his head control is much better and his vision is even better than the last time. 


Well done Pants a successful play group. However at the end I did catch him giving the Skunk eye to a little boy of about the same age, hmmm, maybe he thought it was too much competition for the ladies, the flirt.

So long illness

Dare I type this? Three days. Three whole vomit free, Zack back to his usual self days. Brilliant. 


We are almost back to normal. Okay he is on his third lot of antibiotics to combat a supposed chest infection but he has been the smiliest, happiest little boy in the world.  


Feel like we have been in limbo for a bit but glad he is getting better. As for Dan, well he has had man flu for a couple of days, but that managed to disappear when he went off for a few hours on Tuesday with his trusty steed.


So now back to plans for the weekend, fun stuff to do in the diary and plans for the Pants and his baptism. 


So long illness, lets hope we don't see you for a while.

I honestly thought I was going to see his stomach fly out of his mouth.

I am writing this in the relative safety of the lounge. I say safety as it seems being within 12 inches of Zack will result in being coated in regurgitated milk. 


It all started on Friday morning when Zack's tube got blocked. It took me a good twenty minutes of pushing and pulling water back and two with a syringe to unblock it. After that the scamp puked.  Later that night he switched it up a gear and threw up continuously eight times. I honestly thought I was going to see his stomach fly out of his mouth. Zack had become a very poorly boy.


By the morning he wasn't looking so good and was breathing quite rapidly so I put a call in to the local hospital as we have Open Access to the ward. The sister I spoke to didn't recognise the name (in my mind that's a good thing, shows Zack is, in the main, well) anyway after explaining we are in the book, she told me to bring him in. We did. We waited. A doctor who looked about twelve (when did they get so young) came over to ask all the usual questions, then examined Zack. She tried to look into his mouth but he wouldn't really open it and just gagged a lot. She sounded so surprised when she said she couldn't get a look at his throat. Errrrm yes he has cerebral palsy and can't open his mouth very well. As for the gag reflex, good that isn't it, considering when he was born doctors thought he didn't have one!


One chest x-ray later and five impatient visits to the nurses station by moi, I told them I wanted to take him home. I knew his x-ray was fine and his chest was clear which was my main concern. However the Pants had an ear infection and possible stomach bug. I eventually got us out of there with a bottle of antibiotics. 


Four days later, the antibiotics haven't worked and Zack is still puking and not keeping much food down. A visit to our GP showed that he still had an ear infection and we were given new antibiotics to try. She reassured me not to worry too much about his food as long as we keep him hydrated that will be fine. I am not reassured. Zack has now developed a dry cough. He coughs so much that he vomits whatever is in his stomach. How long will this illness go on? 


Tonight the coughing seems to be easing so I am hoping the antibiotics are working. Have also dosed him up with Calpol and got a bit more food down him. I can handle most things with Zack but I hate it when he is sick. I am not good when he is sick it makes me worry, a lot. Dan is not worried. Dan is more worried that Zack's teeth still aren't there and that he might get some strange looking fangs. Funny how men think differently to women. 


Here's hoping we have a vomit free day tomorrow.