Oh boy

My sweet darling angel hit a boy at school today. He was playing superheroes and the other boy was the bad guy. This whole superhero thing is getting out of control.

It's weird because his teacher told us at the beginning of the year it wouldn't surprise her if there was some kind of physical altercation at some point between Seamus and this boy. This little boy was not in the class last year so he didn't know that Seamus was the "Alpha Male" and everybody followed his lead. Seamus wasn't used to sharing the spotlight. I was appalled when the teacher told us this.

When we told her all the girls loved Seamus last year, she said "Well, maybe the 2 year olds.." Again, I was annoyed. My little boy is perfect and charming so of course, the girls would still love him. Well, my charming little toddler has turned into a rough, tough boy always on full speed. It's no surprise the girls in their princess costumes and nail polish want nothing to do with him anymore. Okay, Miss Anne, you know your stuff.

Here are some pictures as promised...

I haven't posted pix in a long time so here are some of the highlights from Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's (notice the hats and the "dudes").

Home Again

Seamus was discharged on Saturday afternoon with a PICC line to finish the antibiotics for his pneumonia and a treatment plan for the GI issues, which still seems a little uncertain.

They were shocked that in less than 24 hours between the colonoscopy, when he was clear, and the CT scan, he had gotten all blocked up again. He has colitis, which is inflammation of his intestinal tract, that is making his constipation worse, and then the constipation is causing more inflammation. It's like the chicken and the egg. They are treating the colitis with anti-inflammatory drugs but so far, he is still in pain and not pooping very much. We also have to give him a steroid suppository every day for the rectal ulcers which is pure torture for him. It breaks my heart to hear him beg us each day not to do it. Finally, he has H. Pylori, which causes peptic ulcers, but he has it in his intestines. The treatment is pretty heavy duty so they want to wait until the pneumonia treatment is done. So basically, the pneumonia is the only thing that is really under control.

Tomorrow, Seamus starts pre-school again. It's only a couple hours a day, 3 days a week so we are hoping he can handle it. He's really looking forward to it and we would hate to have to pull him out.

Here are some pictures of our latest vacation in Williamsburg and VA Beach. I'm so glad we could fit it in before he went into the hospital.

Update from the hospital

Well, it finally caught up with him. All these months of home clean outs that never fully cleaned him out has left Seamus almost totally blocked and back in the hospital. It never fails, every July he ends up in the hospital. For those who don't frequent hospitals, that is the worst month to be in one. All the new doctors start and there is lots of confusion. Last year, we had a nightmare hospitalization but this year, it's been okay so far.

At first, we got quite a scare because when I called Seamus' GI doc and he heard Seamus sobbing in the background, he said "That is not the Seamus I know. Get to the closest hospital and get an x-ray now." When they looked at the x-ray, we were told he had a full obstruction and needed surgery but that hospital didn't have a peds surgeon so we were going to be transferred to Hopkins, which is our normal hospital. They wanted us to go in an ambulance because if he "coded out", they could help him. That was pretty hard to hear but after waiting 4 hours for them to come, we decided we'd risk it and drive the 40 minute drive ourselves.

When they looked at the x-ray here, they said it wasn't completely blocked and no surgery was needed. This has happened to us on numerous occasions. I really think they need to have better classes on reading x-rays in medical school because no one seems to agree on what they are looking at. Seamus was put on the full blown Go-lytely treatment to break it up. He's doing well, just hanging out watching Toy Story over and over and over, pooping, lots of pooping and charming all the nurses.

Prior to all this, we had a nice holiday weekend. On Friday, we went to the University Town Center for a picnic lunch and Seamus ran through the fountains with lots of new friends. Then we came home and made brownies topped with bright blue frosting, four kinds of sprinkles and jellybeans to get ready for Uncle Rick's visit.

Seamus and Uncle Rick spent lots of time playing football, tennis, the Wii ... I think Uncle Rick had a hard time keeping up. On Saturday, we started at our town's Fourth of July celebration and then headed over to our pool. It would have been a really nice day if Seamus hadn't woken up at 11:00 PM crying in pain, begging us to turn off his feeding tube.

Hopefully, we won't be here too much longer but Seamus has said he will not go home until we get the Toy Story DVD.

Los Angeles Trip

We had a great time although you knew we wouldn't get through this trip without a visit to the ER (more on that later).

Seamus seemed to be doing better a few days leading up to the trip but as we were waiting to board the plane in Baltimore, he vomited all over the Food Court. So we quickly got him changed and onto the plane where things went very smoothly. He loves to fly and was such a good boy during the 7 hour trip. After landing in LA and getting our rental car, we weren't on the road more than 10 minutes when he vomited again, huge amounts all over the car and rented car seat. We thought we were in serious trouble then.

We took it easy that night and got ready to go to Disney the next morning. During breakfast in our very nice hotel room, Seamus let loose with the puking again. He said he felt good so we continued with our plans. Disney ended up being great. The weather was a little cloudy and low 70's which kept local people away but was great for us. We didn't stand in line more than 15 minutes for any ride and Seamus got to meet and hug almost all the Disney gang: Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Winnie, Tigger, and Chip N Dale. He was thrilled but still talks about how we missed Donald.

That night we headed up to LA where my conference was. We were all exhausted from jet lag and all day at Disney so we just wanted to go to bed. Ha ha, not in the plans. James got us each a bottle of beer for dinner and then realized we didn't have a bottle opener. He decided to use his car keys and ended up slicing his finger open across the base of his finger nail. The blood did not stop gushing so we called the hotel doc who thought he might have sliced his artery. We had to go to the ER immediately. By now, it was 8:30, or 11:30 by our internal clocks, and Seamus still hadn't eaten dinner. We all packed up and went to the ER. It ended up okay, not the artery but James needed stitches and 14 shots in his pinkie finger so they could tear his nail off. Yuck! After leaving there and getting his prescription filled, it was midnight, or 3 AM to us.

The rest of the trip was a little less stressful. We went Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier, spent time with some long lost friends and James and Seamus hit Griffith Park and the Zoo. It was fun but I'm glad to be home.

Here are some pix of our great time:

Just cause...

I haven't posted any pictures in awhile.