The Cutest Family

In the words of Robert Hunter from the Grateful Dead, in his lyrics for Truckin’ – “…what a long strange trip it’s been.”

Some of you may recall some of the colorful events that took place in our family shortly after Joshua was born, nearly two years ago at the end of July.  About a week after he was born, Jacob, Nicole, and I were playing outside in the POURING rain (this was that big storm that flooded a lot of homes in this area – view here).  After playing in the gutters and street we went into the backyard and started jumping on the tramp.  Needing to show them how cool their dad is, I had them get off for a little bit while I did some showing off for them… but, instead they saw me cry (luckily the rain covered it up though).

To shorten this story, I’ll skip over how Jill almost left me out there to die a cold, lonely death (but I recommend you read the full account here – as told by me in an email I sent to my family shortly thereafter), and just mention that I broke my ankle.  Two weeks after that I went in for surgery for a plate and screws (it was recommended that I go to T.O.S.H., to which they weren’t able to get me in any sooner).  I was instructed not to put any weight on my foot for 8 weeks (6 after the surgery), so I wasn’t much help at home with the baby or much of anything else (or at least that was my excuse).

If that wasn’t exciting enough, around 6 weeks after Joshua was born (about 3 weeks after my surgery), Jill had an IUD put in.  That evening she was complaining quite a bit about pain, which when she called, they told her it would go away.  The next day it was much worse and so she went in to the doctors where they did an ultrasound, which come to find out it had pierced through the lining of her Uterus… she was in surgery that night.

Again, to shorten the story, we both recovered, but it was definitely quite an eventful time in our lives (and as you all know now; yep, apparently she can still have babies – even on birth control!).

My ankle was still hurting me quite a bit, so a few weeks before Logan was born I scheduled surgery to have the plate and screws removed from my ankle.  I thought I would try to be safe this time with having a newborn and get any surgeries out of the way.  It was done and everything was great and my ankle feels MUCH better now with it out (these are the screws and plate from my ankle.  I was a bit upset they cleaned them off).

So anyway, you might be asking yourselves why I am bringing up events from nearly two years ago.  Well, apparently come to find out, we have a tradition in our family with trampolines, broken bones, surgery, doctors, and hospitals that coincides with newborns (there is a reason it’s been soooo long since we’ve blogged – but not that we’ve been that great at it lately anyway).

I guess it was Jacob’s turn this time.  Five weeks ago from tomorrow we had another trampoline accident, but this time at my parent’s house.  Jacob fell off the tramp and came down on his leg in a twisting motion and broke his femur (ours is in the ground… but of course it had to happen at my parent’s, where theirs is not).  I think I was crying worse than he was.  I felt so bad.  When I broke my ankle it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt – I can’t even fathom what this must have felt like.  It killed me.  I knew it was broken when I saw how his leg was twisted behind him, but just not how bad it really was.

He was in a lot of pain and didn’t even want me to move him.  I told him I had to take him to the doctor’s so they could take a picture of his leg and also so they could put a cast on so his leg wouldn’t move and hurt.  He hates going to the doctor’s because of shots, so I kept assuring him that he wouldn’t get any shots.  Jill and the kids stayed at my parents while I took him to Altaview Hospital.  Once we got there even the doctor assured him there wouldn’t be any shots; but when we go the results back from the x-ray, we were wrong about the shots.

(This is Jacob’s leg in a cast, one week after the accident)

They told us we needed to go to Primary Children’s for surgery and to see a specialist there.  Because of the pain, we decided to have him taken by ambulance.  When the paramedics got there they got ready to give Jacob an IV so they could give him some morphine, and one of them said to him, “there’s going to be a little poke in your arm so we can give you some medicine.”  As soon as they said that, Jacob looked at me and I just died inside.  I was balling like a baby and was telling him that I was so sorry, but that it was to help him feel better.

Jill arrived there shortly before we left.  I went in the ambulance with Jacob and she drove down.  Around 11:00 p.m. that evening he went into surgery where they realigned his femur (they actually don’t cut the skin, it’s all external, but they say it’s considered surgery).  Afterwards he wouldn’t stop screaming, despite the drugs.  They ended up giving him valium, and even more than his body weight calls for in both the morphine and valium.  Finally a little later he started to calm down and so Jill left to get the kids and head home.

Apparently some people will have muscle spasms after a break and they can be quite painful as it hits the bones together.  That night at the hospital, about every half hour Jacob would wake up screaming and would cry out “daddy, I told you not to move me” (before we went to the hospital he would tell me not to move him and get upset when I did).  After a bunch of times of this happening, and me telling him that I wasn’t, he started to realize it wasn’t me; and then he would wake up screaming and crying saying, “daddy, I told you to hold my leg” (so it wouldn’t move).  I ended up sleeping in a chair next to his bed holding his cast the rest of the night (he would still wake up and get mad at me for not holding it when they hit).  It was pretty sad.

The next day Jill came back and they let us leave home.  After the next two days of being home, Jacob pretty much stayed in one spot on the floor and never moved.  I tried moving him the next day (against his will), but he ended up screaming in pain, so I decide to wait until the next day.  The following day, Wednesday (the break was on Sunday), I finally made Jacob get into the wheelchair and move for the first time.  He wasn’t too happy about it, but eventually gave in (I guess he had no other choice as he can’t run away from me anymore).

Above, on the left, is him in the wheelchair for the first time.  As you can see, he definitely isn’t a happy camper, but I can’t blame him.  Little by little as the days slowly went by (let me remind you that we now have 3 baby’s – Logan, a 3-week old; Joshua, a 21-month old; and now Jacob), just as the primary song goes, his frown has been turned upside down.  For about the first two weeks, he was still waking up at night screaming with muscle spasms (and only the first few days in the daytime), but now things are pretty good and he’s recently just started to try and walk with his walker (in the right – we’ve also upgraded his torn shorts that were held together with safety pins to shorts that use Velcro, thanks to Jill’s sewing skills).

Well, I wish that was the end, but there is still more.  This tradition of hospitals, etc. also includes multiple people in our family…

About a week or so after Jacob broke his leg, it was Logan’s turn.  He was crying pretty badly one day and wouldn’t stop.  When he cried, it was the kind of hurt cry where you knew something was wrong.  Around noon Jill took him to the doctor’s and they said that he was okay.  Jill also had them look at her throat, as it had started hurting her the previous day.  She was diagnosed with strep, but they assured her that babies can’t have strep (we were aware of this beforehand).  They gave her antibiotics and sent her home (we’re guessing it was picked up at Primary’s when we took Jacob in for his follow up).

Logan’s crying didn’t stop and around 6:00 p.m. or so he started to fever, and shortly after it ended up jumping up near to 102 which is high for a baby – 100.4 is the high mark in an infant.  I ended up just taking him straight to Primary Children’s, as a doctor would just send me there anyway.

When I got there, the emergency room was packed!  This was right when the Swine Flu was at about its peak in the media here in Utah (and almost every single person there was… well, never mind. I don’t want to sound rude, but let’s just say there were some deaths that occurred in Mexico from this flu that intensified the panic).  Anyway, it was packed and there were people down the halls and outside the door (the next day the nurse even apologized about it, saying that it was full of people who thought they had the swine flu).  Luckily, after about 10-15 minutes they got us and led us to another waiting room that we had all to ourselves.

Eventually they got us in… and I still don’t know which one hurt me worse, Jacob’s or Logan’s visit.

It was horrible.  A baby that young should have to poked and hurt that much, but on the other hand, I’m grateful for the technology we have.  I stayed in there while they did the catheter, got his boogers, and took his blood, etc.  It was terrible when they tried taking his blood, and then when the nurse was bending back Logan’s hand and starting to flick and hit his wrist, I wasn’t sure if I should cry, runaway, or deck the guy (don’t worry, I wouldn’t have thought that if it were a lady – the “decking” part); and it’s not like it’s a clean poke, but the blood gets all over his hand and arm.  The way that Logan was screaming was killing me.

After they were done and I was able to hold him and get him to stop crying, the doctor came in and told us that his white blood cell count was high, which suggests an infection, and so she wanted to go ahead and do a spinal tap on him.  There was no way I would have been able to make it through that, and maybe I’m a terrible dad, but I had to leave the room while they did it.

Let’s just say it wasn’t much fun that night.

After the spinal tap they started him on antibiotics in the case that it was a bacterial infection.  After that we waited in that room for them to get us a room to sleep in, as they wanted to keep him there for 24-48 hours.

Logan and I waited in the room for over 4 hours (if you recall, it was crowded that night).  They had rooms available, but not the nurses to tend to the patients (I guess there’s a patient to nurse ratio they can’t go over). Finally after 3:00 a.m. and hearing the same story over and over, that it shouldn’t be long, I decided I would tell them that we were going to go home (I really wouldn’t have, but knew that by doing so we would get a room and I could try and get some sleep).  The nurse came in, and then later came the doctor.  Finally after seeing that she couldn’t persuade me otherwise (the doctor), she said she’ll see what she can do.  Five minutes later the nurse came in and took us to our room (don’t worry, I did confess my sin to Logan’s new nurse ).

The next day Jill came and took over my spot.  Later that day we got some of Logan’s blood test results back.  It was strep! They wanted to continue to monitor him for 36 hours from the time they gave him the antibiotics to ensure it didn’t develop into something else.  So that night Jill stayed there with him and then the next day she was able to come home.

Pretty much within hours of receiving the antibiotics Logan started doing better and his fever went down.  Now he’s just a normal, sleeping, pooping, and eating baby (And by the way, it’s only been in the last few weeks that he’s started to come alive… as far as baby’s are concerned; nothing to do with the strep).

Anyway, yes indeed; what a long strange trip it’s been. It’s been challenging, but there has been a lot of good that has come through it that will have an everlasting effect on us.  It may sound strange, but this has brought me and Jacob even closer together; as well as it seems that from that night with Logan my love and concern for him has grown deeper; and Nicole! What an angel she has been!  She has helped us so much it would have been much more difficult without her, and she’s just barely six years old; and of course there’s Joshua.  He’s just always cute no matter what he does, even when he’s a little devil (and trust me, he can be a devil!).

It’s the challenges, struggles, and sacrifices that give life it’s worth and meaning.  If there were never a cost, it would never be worth a thing.

Well, to wrap up – when we went in the following week after Jacob’s accident for an x-ray and follow-up, they said everything looked great and we can plan on coming back in 5 weeks to get the cast off (a total of 6).  We were ecstatic about that.  We were worried that they would have to realign the bone again, which would have put it back further.  As bad as the x-ray looks, they say that as an adult you won’t even be able to tell that there was a break (the body is amazing!).

Now Jacob has become quite the expert in his wheelchair, but he still has yet to outperform me in wheelies.  He also has become pretty good at crawling as well.  When we’re outside, he gets around in his “Pink Car”, as he calls it, which he’ll use for playing and for when we go on walks.

Also, in other Glazier news, Nicole has finally lost that loose tooth.  I don’t know what it is about the fairytale creatures (Santa’s reindeer, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc.), but whenever they come to visit our house they make a mess.  I’ll let Jill tell you that one (I’ve written enough for a year’s time), but next time the Tooth Fairy comes to our house, I’m going to swat it like a little bug!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention the moral of this story.  Everyone tells us it’s time to get rid of the tramp, but I just keep telling them we need to quit having babies.  I’m pretty sure that will do the trick!

Posted by Tyson on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at 7:41 pm.