I can't believe I haven't posted pics from my children's birthdays this year!  So I'm combining them into one post.  Mitchell turned 16 in April of this year!  I can't believe I have a kid that old!  Anyway, we were out of town for Mitchell's birthday.  But here are a couple of pics that might give you a hint where we spent his birthday.  I'll post more about our trip later.


See that jacket he got it for his birthday, he LOVES that jacket he wears it almost every day, even in the summertime!  Crazy, crazy, kid!



Hunter's birthday was in August.  Just a few days after he got out of the hospital, in fact.  I was so thankful to have him home!  We had a small party for him and he had a great time!


They both had awesome birthdays!  I'm so blessed to be their mom!
 

On the last Tuesday in July, Hunter was put in the hospital. It was supposed to just be overnight, but we ended up being there for 4 days. It started out by going to the doctor for a checkup and they found out his bowels were impacted.  Apparently, they were extremely bad and the doctor had everyone come and feel his tummy.  She wanted to use it as a teaching moment for her staff. 

Now, don't think I hadn't noticed anything was wrong with Hunter.  He's had problems since he was a year or so old.  In fact, we had been to the doctor just two weeks before out of concern for him.  That time we saw a nurse practitioner and she said Hunter's problem was that he was holding it in and didn't want to go.  I told her I didn't think that was it, because he tried to go, but she assured me it was.  She told me to ignore it for a month, and it would get better.

Then when we went back two weeks later, thankfully, we saw a real doctor who understood how bad it was.  She said he had to be admitted to the hospital immediately because his bowels could rupture.  This scared me a lot!  So we went and got Hunter admitted to the hospital (which was 45 minutes from home) and they started different things trying to get him to poop.

One of the things they tried was something called Go-Lightly.  It was like a gallon jug that he was supposed to drink in maybe 8 hours or so.  This worked fine for the first 2 cups maybe, but after that he quit drinking.  The next morning the same nurse practitioner from a few weeks ago came to check on him and wanted to send him home with orders to drink the rest of the jug and he'd be fine.  Now we'd been there for 24 hours and he still hadn't pooped.  So I started arguing with her and telling her that I didn't think he should go home if he hadn't been yet and she said well if you want to stay in the hospital another night you can.  I was livid!  I didn't want to stay in the hospital, do I look crazy? Wait, don't answer that!  I told her I wanted to do whatever was best for my child and made her call the head doctor and check what she wanted.

She came back and said she talked to the doctor and the doctor said to keep him another night and to try something else to get him to poop.  Well, they tried something else that afternoon, and he still hadn't really gone.  When my husband and best friend came later that night, they were really worried about Hunter because while they were there, he became quite listless.  Hunter is usually bouncing off the walls, but that night, I gently slapped his face trying to get him to look at me, and he couldn't even focus on my face.  That really scared me!


My friend, Barb, was so concerned she phoned a nurse friend of hers, and she told us they needed to be doing more to help him, and he might need transferring to a bigger hospital.  Luckily, Barb is quite assertive and she got the head nurse to call his doctor and the doctor was very sweet and came out at like midnight to check on him.  She had them put a tube down his nose in order for him to get the rest of the medicine.  He really hated that!  It took like 3 people to hold him down to get the NG tube down his throat.

Finally they got it down and he figured out how to rest with it on, thankfully.  That plus a molasses/milk concoction helped him finally get to going.  And  boy did he go!  That was a messy night and morning!  I was so blessed to have my older son, Mitchell, helping me with his little brother.  


They were able to take the NG tube out the next evening.  But still wanted to keep him one more night just to make sure he was okay.  Eventually they took the IV out too.  Hunter freaked me out by coming into the bathroom behind me!  I was so used to him being stuck in the bed, that he scared me when he walked in behind me, lol!

We got to go home on Friday afternoon, I was SOOOOOO happy to finally be home again!  So were Hunter and Mitchell!  I want to thank everyone who prayed for us while Hunter was in the hospital!  He still needs to see a specialist, but they're trying to find one that will take his insurance.  I hope they can find one soon!