Thursday, February 25, 2010

False Alarm

Well sort of. I took Randy to the ER Saturday fearing he was having a shunt malfunction. According to the Hydrocephalus Association, the symptoms of a shunt malfunction are:
In infants, signs include a full and tense fontanel (soft spot), bulging of the scalp veins and swelling or redness along the shunt tract. Also watch for symptoms like unusual vomiting, irritability, sleepiness and decreased interest in eating. Children and adults may experience headaches, vomiting, irritability and tiredness. In the event of an abrupt malfunction, a child may develop symptoms very rapidly, in a matter of hours or days. Without treatment, coma, and even death, may result.
Randy had been refusing his bottle, crying at night and eating very little for about 8 days. I kept going back and forth as whether to call the neurosurgeon. Saturday evening he threw up some. I wiped him off and kept playing with him. Then he threw up again; forcefully. That made up my mind.
I took him to one of the satellite ER's of the hospital where he gets his neuro care, not our local children's. He was seen pretty quickly; but we had to wait on them to call in someone to do a CT scan (I guess they are "on call" after hours). They also did an x-ray of his shunt.
The ER doc called the neuro on call at the main hospital, and he looked at the scans. All looked good with his shunt and ventricles, but he had a lot of fluid behind both ears. Also, his tubes look as if they are no longer in the ear canal. The ER doc sent us home with antibiotics and instructions to follow up with ENT.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Monday, February 15, 2010

That's Love

Valentine's Day has me thinking about love and the people who love my children. Since this is Randy's blog, I thought I would post about a couple who are very important to him; his godparents.
When I had my daughter 16 years ago, I don't think I had a true understanding of the role of godparents. My daughters godparents love her dearly; but when I asked them, I only thought of the fact they would be a "special" auntie. But with Randy, I put a LOT of thought into it. I'm not sure if it was the difference between being a 20 something mom then and a 30 something mom now; or if it was the difference between having a healthy child at birth and a very sick child at birth. I know it was a big decision that I put a lot of thought into.

I considered a few people. I considered my brother and sister in law. They love him very much and I'm sure they would have been honored. I considered my girlfriend who is a single mom of one son. She is smart and takes her job as a parent very seriously. In the end I chose my brother and sister in law. Although the others had good qualities, his godparents have ALL the qualities: they love him, they are smart, they will put work into raising him (if need be), they are young, and they will be starting their own family soon.
Asking them was really emotional; they were newlyweds. And I really needed them to understand what a big commitment this is. I had Randy at 36. He has an "older" mom (and daddy is older than mommy). For most godparents their "commitment" ends at age 18; I'm not sure that this will be the case for Randy. I'm not sure if they will have to be responsible for him the rest of their lives. They understand this and are up for the challenge. Now that's love.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Words, words everywhere

Randy is talking! When he had his speech evaluation in December, I could barely think of 5 words that he used. Now it seems as if he is adding a new word every week. Now he's not holding conversations, but he is definitely using his words. What is even better than the quantity of words he has is that he uses them correctly. He currently says:

mama-me
ma-his sister
dada-dad
mu-babysitter
up
down
hi
here
tan u-thank you
uh oh
shoofy-shoo fly
nigh nigh-night night
pee a boo-peek a boo
stop
no
bye bye-good bye
buuuuy by-good bye and get out of my face
all done
paa cake-patty cake
yay

So proud of my little boy!