Saturday, April 24, 2010

Been A While..

Picking out a movie to watch


Busted playing during nap time


Is it just me, or does he look like he's posing?


Okay, so it's been just a shade under a month since I last updated the blog, but all that means its that we've had plenty going on. Never a dull moment in the Harper household anymore.

If I remember correctly, the last post recounted an episode of Jackman's g-tube button coming out, and yours truly replacing it like one of those dudes from the show ER. Well, it happened again, but this time it was my fault, and I couldn't get it back in.

Jackman was sitting in his high chair, and almost finished with his first feeding of the day. Because of his reflux, he gets pretty miserable toward the end of every feeding, so he doesn't feel well. He was slumped over in the high chair, so I tried to straighten him up. When I did, I heard a faint click under the lip edge of the table top of the high chair, and got a sinking feeling. I quickly took the top of and checked his shirt... it was already soaked. The g-tube button got hung up under the edge of the top, and popped right out, and his breakfast was leaking out all over the place.

I sprang right into action. i was confident I could replace the button because I had done it before, but this time it just wasn't going in. I started to get nervous. I called Lisa, told her to call the hospital, and I was trying to get out of the house.

Lisa met us at Children's. They had to dilate the hole which was horrible to watch, but Jackman took it like a man. I never felt so low in my whole life... to know the reason he was going through that was because of my mistake. But the boy didn't hold it against me, and I think the best thing was that Lisa didn't either. I think she felt more sorry for me than him.

Anyway, in true Jackman fashion, three minutes after the ordeal was over you would have thought he was at his own birthday party. I'm really thankful he has such a good disposition and attitude. It really helps keep me and Lisa from dwelling on the not-so-good things that could so easily bring us down.

Otherwise, the boy is dong pretty good. He's still not eating by mouth yet, but the truth is me and Lisa aren't near as concerned with that as we are his reflux. He has bad reflux now that his esophagus is fully dilated. Also. I don't know exactly what the problem is with his fundoplication, but it something that may have to be repaired later because it's not doing the job it's supposed to. Basically, if you or I lay down after we eat, all our food stays in our stomachs. Well, Jackman's would leak backwards into his esophagus, and make him start throwing up. Jackman even has bad reflux sitting up. It starts when his belly starts filling up. Every time he eats, he gets miserable, and there's a high probability that he will throw up. By throw up, I don't mean normal, baby-style spit up, I mean forceful vomiting. We just really want that part to go away. We can't stand to see him not feel good.

Don't get the wrong idea, the boy spends most of the day, happy and playing, and doing a little sleeping to power up for more play time. He's been learning some new stuff. We figured out he knows how to put on a shirt by himself now, which was a surprise. He can stand up, and king of walk along the edge of the couch... be it slowly, and with some hands ready to catch him. He's also already figured out how to get into the cabinets and the DVD collection. I have a feeling this house is going to look like they test the missiles here in a few months.