January Homeschool

We got ukuleles for Christmas from Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Jim.  They kids have been really excited to start learning the chords and have already learned several!  This is going to be fun!

After being away with Nolan in the hospital, Livi was missing me, so we went on a lunch date together to Casa Mexicana.  I always love opportunities to spend some one on one time with our kids.  They are such amazing humans.

Nolan got this awesome Lego, Fawkes, from Grandma as a get well present.  He was so proud to finish it and it turned out so  cool!

When Nolan got his drain removed, we kept some of the fluid to make a slide and we looked at it under the microscope.  

Our Quill focus this month is Poetry.  Livi chose this super cool poem combo to illustrate in a poster.

Our book for this month was, "The One and Only Bob."  It is the story about how a little former stray bands together with his friends to save the animals from a humane society.  Our Dart program suggested we make some blankets for the animals at our local shelter, so we made 34 fleece tie blankets over the month of January.  The moms did most of the cutting, and the kids did most of the tying.  

We read a book called, "Fold Me a Poem" and tired our hand at some different origami designs.

 We gave the kids a budget of $60 and the wish list for the Humane Society.  They worked together to spend their money wisely, to get some supplies to donate along with our blankets.

Very Sick Boy

Nolan had not been feeling well for many days, with a fever but no other symptoms.  It started when we were in Eau Claire, taking care of my mom after surgery.  It really bothered me that he was feeling so ill, especially since we had just recovered from being sick and had not been around anyone to speak of since.  No sore throat, no stuffy nose, no tummy ache to speak of...just consistent fevers of 101-102.  

On Day 4 of this, I took him in to the Urgent Care center at Sacred Heart Hospital, since we were still in Eau Claire.  They tested him for strep, RSV, covid, and influena, but all were negative.  I asked about mono and appendicitis, but she didn't feel additional testing was warranted at this time and to follow up with our pediatrician when we got home.

The next day, he began vomiting.  I messaged our doctor's office right away, but the nurse said to wait to come in since he was just evaluated the day before.  

Then came the diarrhea and a feeling of "fullness" in his lower abdomen, but no pain.  I messaged the doctor again, and this time they set us up with an appointment to see Dr. Corujo the next morning.  This was now Day 8.  When Dr. Slette saw us on the schedule, she moved us to her schedule and was very concerned with his presentation.  She ran a whole pile of lab work after the exam, including a very tough blood draw and a chest x-ray.  

Within an hour of getting home, we got the lab results back and his white blood cells were over 24,000.  Normal is usually less than half that.  Obviously he had an infection and Dr. Slette believed it to be an atypical presentation of appendicitis.  She told us that we needed to go to the ER right away to get a CT to confirm the diagnosis.  Eric and I have heard less than good things about the hospital here in Rhinelander, so with Dr. Slette's recommendation, we headed down to the Wausau Aspirus Hospital to get the imaging needed to rule out appendicitis.  

Despite Dr. Slette having called ahead and flagging our file, "stat," we still waited in the waiting room for almost two hours.  Our poor kiddo was exhausted, and fell asleep in the waiting room chair.  When we were finally called back, it was to a make shift temporary "room" in the ambulance garage.  There was only a chair - no bed, and a giant sewer grate in the floor.  

It took his nurses many tries to get his IV started.  His veins were just so small in his poor dehydrated body.  I felt so bad and so helpless.  Next was his CT, which was just awful for him.  He cried in pain when they sent the dye through his IV.  The good news was that the CT definitively showed the problem. Nolan had a ruptured appendix.

The surgeon on call came by and admitted him, and filled us in on his plan of care.  Because the appendix had already ruptured, there was no longer a rush to get him to surgery.  The infection was contained in a rather large, but sealed off, abscess.  We would start IV antibiotics immediately and have a drain placed the next morning to start to get the infection out of his body.  

We were understandably nervous about Nolan's first time under anesthesia, but my fears lessened tremendously when I got to pre-op and saw the familiar face of the anesthesiologist who had helped me during my kidney stone surgery a few years prior.  He stood out so much to me at that time, as someone who was exceptionally kind, competent, and thoughtful, that I felt at ease knowing he was going to be caring for Nolan throughout the procedure.  Everything went according to plan and in a little less than an hour, we were called to the recovery room to sit with our buddy as he was waking up.

The next many days were a waiting game...waiting for his WBC count to come down, indicating that his infection was getting under control, waiting to regain an appetite, waiting for the fever to come down, waiting for the diarrhea to stop.  Nolan remained a cheerful and positive patient, enchanting his carers with his extra special "Nolan-charm," and pushing the unlimited popsicle quota to the max.  He scared one of his nurses over night, having a grape popsicle before bed, making his mouth look purple like he wasn't oxygenating properly, when she came to check his vitals. Some hospital volunteers also made him a blanket and a sweet Beanie Baby bear with a sleeping back, that he aptly named "Popsicle."
He watched a lot of TV, played on his tablet, and got very annoyed about the frequency of Froot Loop commercials after enduring a blissful ad-free childhood due to streaming apps.  I stayed with him day and night, but Eric went back and forth each day - mostly to save money on hotel rooms.  Olivia and Simon were safely home with Grandma.  

After 5 days, Nolan started looking and acting like himself again.  He ordered a hamburger for lunch and enjoyed it thoroughly.  He was laughing and seemed to have some energy again.  His WBC was back to the normal range.  His drain and IV antibiotics had done the trick and now it was time to head home to switch to oral antibiotics and await the next steps of his care.  

He arrived home, healthier but exhausted, and it felt so good to sleep in our own beds!  His buddies made him a sweet care package which brighted his mood, but we still had to contend with caring for his drain and watching him very carefully.  The idea of his drain sickened him and he was adament about not wanting to look at it.  I was apprehensive about the care of it too - feeling like so much was at stake and not wanting to do anything to make his road any harder than it had to be.  

When I called the hospital the next day to set up follow-up care for his drain and future surgery, I found out that the discharge was handled incorrectly, and that Marshfield Hospital did not take our insurance.  I was then directed to call our insurance company to find out what options were available to us for a pediatric general surgeon.  I spent an hour and a half on the phone with the representative who informed me that there were no pediatric general surgeons in the entire state of Wisconsin who took our insurance.  Feeling defeated, drained, and overwhelmed, I called Dr. Slette's office, and her nurse, Megan, worked tirelessly to get things set properly in motion.  She called in some favors to have a physician remove the drain in the pediatric office and stayed on the line with me to make the call to the UW Health system in Madison to get his care transfer to the specialists there.  We were so appreciative of her and her advocacy.  It was so scary to be home with a sick 10 year old and not know what the next steps were.  She helped us get on to the right track and alleviate so much of the fear and anxiety.

 

Our next step was a trip down to American Family Children's Hospital in Madison to meet Dr. Charles Leys, the doctor who would perform the surgery on the remainder of Nolan's appendix.  We got there in enough time to be able to take Nolan out to Cafe Hollander for lunch.  Nolan thought it was the best lunch ever!  Afterward, we met with Dr. Leys who made the plan to get the appendix out laparoscopically in March, once the inflammation and infection were surely gone.  Nolan would be able to resume normal activities until then, and with his drain out and antibiotics done, he was feeling well.  

There were so many twists and turns along this journey, and it was so scary to have such a sick child.  We never expected something like this would happen to us, but we are so thankful that this is a temporary inconvenience - not a big scary diagnosis or a lifelong problem to cope with.  We know that with the proper time, Nolan will be back to his normal, awesome self, and for that, we are so thankful.