Our Christmas Wish

It's been our biggest Christmas wish for Grant to come home for Christmas.  Well, our wish is coming true.  The doctors said that he can come home tomorrow morning (Tuesday).  Yeah!!  We are truly excited and so elated that we get to spend Christmas Eve and morning in our own home.  We are so thankful.  We have to be home by 10 am because the home health team is coming to teach us how to give him his antibiotics.  We'll have to administer them through the PICC line (long-term IV) in his arm twice a day for a few weeks.  WOW, we are just thrilled.  Sure love you all, thanks for all the calls and prayers.  Grant is doing great and we are just so happy!

Goin' with the flow

Well, Grant was doing better yesterday and through the night. He's still in the PICU. The doctor came to check up on him and looked at his x-rays and said he was getting a little bit worse, again. Just a bit. So they will put more fluid (TPA) into his chest tube to see if he can drain anymore out of his lung. They were looking at him coming home on Saturday but now it's put back to at least Monday. All in all, he's doing OK, we're going with the flow, we are WELL taken care of between meals and care for the girls! Thanks to all! We love you all and will update you when there's more to tell. Here's a few more pictures of him in the hospital. Happy Holidays!

Grant's stats are on the right of the screen

Trying to be happy

So serious

Chest fluid, it may look yucky but the more the better:)

All tuckered out

Update on Grant

Just a little update on what is going on with our big G man. Since my last post, Grant just wasn't getting better, if anything he was getting worse. So our pediatrician transferred him over the the big hospital at the university here (we were in the smaller hospital). He had his first ride in an ambulance, something that even in my 29 years I still haven't done. Derrel rode with him and I met them at the hospital in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit). And that's where we are right now and will be for a little while. Grant has had quite a few doctors working on him. A great pediatrician, Intensive Care Pediatrician (which happens to be in our ward), awesome residents and even an Infectious Disease Doctor. We've also been blessed with great nurses, too. Last night, they decided it was best if we drain the fluid from the pocket that formed outside of his lung (effusion) and the Intensive Care Doc did that for us. It was great to have a doctor there that could help administer a blessing before the procedure. At the same time, they performed a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to check if the bacteria had entered his spine (meningitis). The spinal tab wasn't clear and we still don't quite know if he has meningitis, but they are treating him as if he does have it. Better to be on the safe side. But for sure he does have Strep Pneumonia. All in all, he is improving, slowly but surely. Hopefully we will get Grant out of the hospital by Christmas so he can spend his first Christmas at home=). If not, we just want him to get well soon! We will get through this, I feel like we've been given similar trials before which makes this one just a little more bearable. Thanks to all who have helped with the girls, meals, thoughts and prayers. They are all so helpful and appreciated.

Right of Passage: Hospital Stay

Literally, our family just LOVES to visit the hospital. Almost every vacation, we have a hospital visit. Instead of site seeing, we visit the hospitals in varying cities across the nation: Rexburg, Provo, Liberty, Baltimore, we've seen it all. This time, it is our privilege to visit the hospital in our hometown. I should have known it was coming since the hospital here just opened up its brand new multimillion dollar section that we hadn't visited yet. It's for sure beautiful, if you can call a hospital beautiful. But in one of it's rooms is where our little Grant is. I brought him to the ER Sunday morning with a 105.2 degree temperature. After a few chest x-rays and some lab work, they quickly diagnosed him with bacterial pneumonia (yamonia-as Lydia calls it) and admitted him into the hospital. We've come to believe it's a right of passage for membership in the Derrel Walker family to stay in the hospital with pneumonia (which I have yet to do). Lydia and Kate both had RSV pneumonia and were hospitalized for 3-5 days, Kate only 3 months old and Lydia was 2. Derrel was in the hospital for almost 2 weeks in CA with horrible pneumonia (they almost took some of this lung out). I guess you could say we're getting used to this, it's not as shocking as it used to be. Here he is in all his chubby glory:

Grant's doing fairly well, I guess he had a pretty serious case of pneumonia. They gave him a heavy dose of antibiotics about 24 hours ago and they say it takes about that long to start really kicking in. I thought that he would be able to go home today but it's probably not going to be that soon, unfortunately. But he is well taken care and and Derrel is staying with him so I can get some much needed sleep. I slept 8 1/2 hours last night with NO interruptions (except the normal alarm clock that is supposed to wake Derrel up for seminary at 5 a.m.) I think I could be a somewhat normal person if I could sleep like that every night. Needless to say, it's been a while since I've had that kind of sleep. Grant is improving

Hospital

I hate to admit that I wish it were me going to the hospital to have a baby (which would be horrible at 32 weeks) but it wasn't me this time. Kate was really getting sick since Sunday. She was wheezing and breathing really fast with a fever. We called her doctor after hours and she said to take her into the ER just to be safe. Derrel and I debated for a few minutes who should go and I decided that I should take it for the team. He is in such a hard time at school right now, it wouldn't be good for him to get behind in his sleep. So at 12:30 in the morning, I went to the hospital with Kate. They gave her a breathing treatment and took a chest x-ray. She has acute bronchitis and the doctor said that it always could be a little of RSV but we didn't want to put an IV in her to do lab work. So we need a little rest and relaxation around here I guess. It just surprises me because the weather has been so nice. But it is all of a sudden really cold and wet. Well, she's doing a little better now. I'm sure she'll be just fine soon enough! She's a tough one and she likes to play with Lydia too much to be sick.

Morning (Afternoon and Evening) Sickness

FYI
For those of you plagued with mourning (I mean morning) sickness like I am- STILL, here's a little article I read that I found a bit interesting about GINGER.

And I'm all ears for anyone with any other ideas. I'm flat OUT and despairate (I mean desperate).

pink stuff vs. white stuff?

So, Kate is now on a different antibiotic than she was for the last 7 days. I guess that the pink stuff was not killing the strain of ear infection she has. Who knew that infections had a color preference? Hmm. I actually recall a time or two when I just wanted to start drinking the stuff myself because it tastes so good;) and now that she is taking another medicine, I can just finish it off, right? (I KNOW you ALL know what I am talking about!) Hopefully a good 10 days of the white stuff will do the trick! The white stuff almost tastes like pina colada, that's yummy, too!

Lydia has made a new friend. There is a family that just moved into our ward from Missouri. They almost look like they could be sisters. I'll have to take a picture and post it to prove how alike they look. They have exact personalities and they like the same things. They can play for hours on end without one fight or argument and they don't get sick of eachother. Now if that's not heaven when you have a 4 year old, I don't know what is. It has been absolutely WONDERFUL!!