This and That

Michael is doing fabulously in school this year. He has not had ONE problem so far, which is huge for him. He works very hard to get through each day, and other than sometimes forgetting his planner or homework, he's doing great. We've struggled a bit in the mornings but we've switched some things around and that seems to be going better so far. We haven't heard from his mother since Mother's Day when she calledh him. She is pregnant and has either gotten remarried or is planning to. She is living in Texas and I seriously doubt that Michael will ever see her or his half-brother again. Such a sad thing because they love one another very much. He loves to sit and read to his sister or play with her, it's great to watch them!

Hanna is growing quickly, she'll be 2 in just a few short months. It's hard for me to believe! She had to go to the doctor last week because she has a sinus infection and she's gained not quite a pound in 3 months. I'm a bit concerned but we just keep plugging along. I've been giving her Instant Breakfast as her chocolate milk to give her a few extra vitamins etc. She eats well for the most part as long as she does sneak in a "nack" first.

My neice, Kayle who is soon to be 12 is recovering from the H1n1 flu. She was out of school all last week. My brother and my mom are both sick and it sounds as though maybe Mel is getting sick too. We are staying away from them because I don't want the kids, especially Hanna with her already weak immune system to get that crap.

Doug is struggling with anxiety, and maybe some PTSD symptoms of getting sick and going to the hospital. He's having some insomnia and with that waking me up to tell me he's not sleeping. We've got to get something worked out because we are both exhausted and I still have to get up and get the kids going and get to work and he has to drive to work. It's kind of frustrating because then I get to feel like a jerk for not supporting him because I'm so tired and getting woke up in the middle of the night 100 times for him to tell me he's not sleeping isn't so cool. If he really needed me to get up that's one thing, it's a whole other thing when that's not what's going on. We will plug through this though, for better or worse. They are working on getting his cpap straightened out and maybe switching him to a bipap, hopefully that will help too. I think it will lessen his anxiety.

September's been a long, long month!

I thought when September started it was going to be a good month. We planned a camping trip for Labor Day weekend with my family who was going to be archery hunting on Little Mountain South of Rock Springs. We went and bought a tent so we could have our own because we had borrowed my parents the last time. Went and bought our camping supplies and were pretty excited to go! Saturday we headed out and met everyone at my parents house and then headed to Little Mountain. When we got to where we were camping, Mel got really shaky and realized her blood sugar was low. We got her all settled down and set up camp. We all hung out all afternoon and that evening I noticed Doug seemed a little flighty. We went to bed that night and I would wake up and he was wide awake. He said that when he would go to sleep his head would pound really bad. He woke me up once to listen to 2 elk fighting and bugling, it was very cool. The next morning I noticed he was acting more oddly. He was not really acknowledging him when people were talking to him. I'd have to really get his attention. Doug's a social guy so this was not normal behavior for him. Later on he said he wasn't feeling well. I took Hanna on a ride on the 4-wheeler and she went to sleep, so I came back and he walked over and told me we had to leave. The way he said it was very weird. Not the normal way he would speak to me. I started packing stuff up and I admit I was pissed off. I thought that if he were that sick then he should have told me. So I noticed him talking to my mom and he was acting weird, so I went over there and asked him what was going on. He was acting very bizarrely at that point. We went in my mom's trailer to talk and she left. Hanna was asleep on the bed and he said that I needed to give her some juice or she wasn't going to wake up. I kept asking him what he was talking about. He kept talking about everyone needing to be baptised right then because no one was going to get off the mountain. I was seriously freaking out and started screaming at him to tell me wtf was going on! I finally called my mom in and she could tell I was freaking out. Kay heard me screaming at him and sent the kids on the 4-wheeler. I went out of the trailer and was freaking out, crying hysterically. Doug came out and Troy wanted to know what was going on. I told him and he was trying to talk to Doug who was delirious. We got him in Troy's truck with the child locks on because I didn't know what he was going to do. We then took him the ER in Rock Springs. He continued to get more agitated on the way down the mountain, flicked my brother in the back of the head a couple of times, until i told him to stop, but said the reason he was doing it was because he "felt a little tough." We got to the ER and I went in, he came in and started being loud and security came out. They tried to walk him down the hall and Doug hit the security guard in the nose with his elbow. He pulled his tazer and was going to taze him but Troy stepped in front of him...what an awesome brother I have. I was completely hysterical at that point. They took Doug into a room and called the police, they ended up completely restraining him because he was so combative. Later they completely sedated him and paralyzed him, meaning they had to intubate him. After doing a CT Scan, they sent him by life flight to SLC. In between all of that happening, Troy and Kay left, met my mom and sister who had all the kids, they took their kids, Ashlee, and Michael with them and mom and Mel brought Hanna. Then my dad who had worked that day at FMC came, took Mel with him and Mom and I went to SLC while Dad and Mel went back to pack up the campers etc. I drove from RS to the valley, which I should not have done, I was far too upset. My mom ended up driving from there to Evanston and then to SLC. We got the U where they'd taken Doug. I have to say the air team was fabulous. The guy in charge gave me his cell number and I called about an hour and a half after they got there and he told me how he'd done. He said that the flight had gone well. We got to the MICU around 10:30ish, they wouldn't let me in the room. We stayed in the waiting room until 4:30 a.m. with a few updates from Doctors and nurses. They did an MRI that night and tried to do a spinal tap, which they'd also tried in RS, but were unsuccessful. We finally went to the motel to sleep a bit, we were both so exhausted. I called around 8 and the new nurse on said Doug had been asking for me. No one had called and said he was awake. I was very upset. We got back to the hospital within about 45 min. They had him on respiratory precautions because they didn't know what was going on with him. He was more coherent but still very paranoid. He would freak out if I left the room because he thought I wouldn't come back. He also was afraid to go to sleep because he was afraid he wouldn't wake up. They did a spinal tap using floroscopy. They initially thought that he had a virus that had caused an infection in his brain. At one time he had 9 bags of IV fluids going into 3 seperate IV's. They were all antivirals and antibiotics. He spent 3 days in the MICU then moved to the floor on the 3rd day where he spent one more night. In the end they decided he had altitude sickness because we'd gone a couple thousand feet higher and he didn't have his CPAP. He was also dehydrated and had a couple of beers, making that worse. It was the scariest week of my life. I have so much anxiety almost all the time now. I actually cancelled a trip to NC for work because I don't feel like I can leave the kids with him, not that I don't trust him, but that nagging question of what if it happens again is there in the back of my mind. It's been 2 weeks since this happened and I'm crying as I write this. I know it affects Doug too, he doesn't sleep as well and said he still wakes up thinking he's not breathing. I know it'll be a long haul for the emotional side of things to heal. We have the best supportive families that there are though, so we'll keep workin!