3 Down, Many More To Go

Yesterday we celebrated our 3rd Anniversary in the same city that we were married. We escaped to Vancouver for the weekend, and then yesterday Kyle's mom watched Michael so we could spend the day in Portland. Couldn't have asked for a better day with my sweetheart. The weather was beautiful!

Love you Kyle. Thanks for taking me to Anthropologie, for sharing lunch with me, and for our walk on the waterfront. It really was the best day.

Mr. Glasses

The glasses arrived a few weeks early; so the challenge has begun. Michael's been a trooper. Not a willing one, but a trooper nonetheless. Action shot. The pear was thrown straight at the camera; this kid has an arm.

Here he is knocking on the door to give Nana her flower. Too bad she took to long and he threw it against the door. He throws everything.
Shortly after this photo, the glasses were thrown on the pavement; I'm going to have to get used to the frames getting scratched.

So far Michael is winning the battle of the glasses, but I think I'm gaining ground. I have to keep telling myself that it's only day 2. Michael does not like his glasses and he'll do anything to get them off, but if I can keep both of his hands occupied or held, I can usually keep his glasses on. As soon as he's bored with what's in his hands, or gets sick of me restraining his arms and hands, then he rips the glasses off. He's very fast at ripping them off. It's really hard to get them back on with just one person, especially when that one person is 8 months pregnant, so I went out to my mom's house today, which was helpful. He was easier to keep preoccupied, and I had someone to help put the glasses back on.

He had his tubes put in last week, and I can already tell a big difference. He must be hearing a lot differently now because whenever we are somewhere that has a lot of noise, or loud noise, he sticks his fingers in his ears.

Patience Tested

My patience has officially been tested. By the time this week ends we'll have been to 9 different doctor appointments in ten days. As soon as we walk into a doctors office Michael starts crying and running for the door. We FINALLY were able to get Michael's ear infections to go away, but that was after three rounds of antibiotics in three weeks. Antibiotics=Bad diarrhea (I won't even go there). The doctor had to resort to doing rocephin shots in his legs, which are very, very painful and are done over a three day period. As the nurses and I were holding him down for the shots, he started to bite my arm...hard. The nurse said to me, do you think he'll try to bite me? I said yes, but I'll make sure he doesn't! Then he had so much wax blocking the docs view to his ears that they had to do a water bath in his ears. Well it took three of us to hold him down, and he still won. We had an appointment yesterday with the ENT, and he was able to remove it (still took three of us), without doing the water bath, but still not much better. The weird thing is, he never has wax in his ears that I can see. Tubes will be put in this Friday...hallelujah!

Today things are back to normal. He slept through the night, already took his morning nap, has been in time out twice, and is making a mess of the house. I'm trying to get used to him staring at the wall, and his eyes going crossed. The beginning of June can't come fast enough for his glasses to get here. When we first found out, I cried that he had to get glasses, but now I can't wait for them to finally arrive! I thought about posting a picture of him when his eyes crossed, but I can't bring myself to do it yet.

Sigh of Relief....Sort Of

It has been a hectic 2 days. Exhausting emotionally and physically. On Wednesday night as we were eating dinner, I could hear Kyle telling Michael to snap out of it. He said that Michael was crossing his eyes. I didn't see it happen, but the rest of the evening Michael was his normal self and we didn't notice anything with his eyes. Michael was outside "helping" Kyle fix some things in the garage. He would take the screw drivers, put them in small holes, pick things up and place them somewhere else. Just like he normally does.

Yesterday morning (Thursday) before Kyle went to work, Michael woke up, we fed him breakfast, played with him, etc. Everything was totally normal. Around 8:45 I set Michael down on the couch to watch some PBS kids. I was on the computer next to him, and glanced over at him because he was being unusually quiet. I noticed he was staring at the wall, not the TV. I couldn't get him to snap out of it, and noticed that his left eye was "floating," but mainly it was next to his nose. I could tell that something was wrong with his one eye. I turned the TV off, got a book out that has animals on it which you have to push and they make noises. I started reading it to Michael and noticed his left eye was still turned in, and when he tried to push the animals, he'd miss them by about 4 inches. Weird and scary. Then he got up, and ran into the wall. Scarier. He'd go to pick something up, and he'd miss it every time.

I called Kyle's work and told him to come home. Called my parents who called a Bishop in our stake who's an optometrist. He told us to bring him right in. The tears were in full force at this point. My nephew had a tumor removed when he was Michael's same age, so that was the first thing going through my mind. We took him to the doctor and he was concerned that it was only in one eye. If it was both eyes, it would be of less concern, but the fact that it came on so quickly, and in only one eye, he said we needed to go see a pediatric specialist immediately. He made a few phone calls and told us that in less then 4 and half hours, we had an appointment at Children's Hospital. We ran home and packed our bags. My Dad and Kyle gave both Michael and myself a blessing. Our appointment was at 2:20, we got to Children's at 2:25 (of course we had to wait for another hour). By the time we pulled into Seattle at 2:15 we noticed that his eye was doing a little better, and actually moving, which it hadn't done all morning long. By the time we got into the hospital, it seemed that our baby was cured! However after the hour wait, we noticed that it had come back, and it almost seemed to be in the other eye as well. They ran some tests, and determined that it was in fact in both eyes....good news because that most likely meant that it wasn't happening because of nerve damage. They checked behind his eyes to make sure, and sure enough no nerve damage or signs of trauma. They diagnosed him with Accomodative Esotropia in both eyes, which is a form of strabismus. He also has a slight astigmatism in both eyes. I still haven't had a chance to fully study what that means, but basically his eyes all the sudden aren't aligning. Now that he's getting a little older and focusing more on objects, the problem is manifesting itself. They are surprised it happened so quickly, but they did say it can come on suddenly like this in children.

Michael was not happy about all the eye tests he had to do yesterday. The poor guy didn't get any naps, and he also had to have his eyes dilated. Then we had to put him in a papoose hold and the nurse had to pry his eyes open while the doctor checked them. Safe to say, Michael is scarred for life; however, everyone at Children's is AMAZING. They are the nicest people on the planet, and whenever I go there, I realize we are so blessed and so lucky. So many kids with so many problems. Regardless, it is a happy place because of all the staff and volunteers who make it that way.

It is very difficult for me to look at my baby when his eyes look "lost". It usually brings me to tears, but I know we can fix it with glasses. I'm not sure how in the world we are going to get this little guy of ours to wear glasses. Our doctor here, said that it will take about 10 days of fighting him on it, and then his brain will click that he needs the glasses to see better. It's going to be a hard battle at the beginning, I already know that. I am glad we are catching this early on. The doctor said a lot of times she'll have a parent who comes in and says they've noticed the wandering eyes for about 6 months or so, but didn't think too much of it. The earlier you catch it, the better because their brains work to fix it, and then you don't have the "lazy eye" or "cross eyed" problem.

My Mom and I went around town today and found someone who could order him the glasses we wanted. They are on back order with the manufacturer until the first week in June, so we have to wait a long time before we can get him glasses, which really stinks, but there's nothing we can do. I never thought I'd have an 18 month old who would need to wear glasses. My dad says that if anyone makes fun of him, Michael will bop them on the head. Got that right!

I am so grateful everything is okay. Still hard, but in comparison easy.

Groundbreaking

No, we aren't breaking ground for a new home (although that would be fun), instead we're breaking ground for the new Stake Center in Pasco. Times are changing!

Michael kept himself busy by digging in the dirt. Unfortunately the people around us were also covered in dirt by the time the program was over. Ooops!