Round 2 @ the hospital

So Saturday I started noticing that Masaru's incision was looking a little red. So I kept an eye on it. When I touched the red parts it was hard and I knew that wasn't good. I tried not to panic though and kept watching it. This is it on Saturday.
The next day Masaru wasn't feeling good and didn't come to church with us. His incision looked worse and so I rang the doctor. They told me the chances of it being infected was 1% and it should be fine, but to put a mark around it and let them know if he spiked a fever.
Well it was hard to know if he'd spiked a fever cause he was on meds that would've been keeping any fever under control you know. So I drew a circle around it and we went to church.
When we came back I felt it and it felt like the hardness was spreading and it was getting worse. Everyone said to just wait till Monday though. We talked to a few people and they all recommended to wait. So Dru thought we should wait.
I wasn't ok with that though man so I told Dru to take a picture and then I showed him the comparison of the two pictures from yesterday to today and said I think it's totally infected.

We waited though and kept taking his temperature and keeping an eye on him.
By 11pm his temp wasn't bad, just hovering around 100-101 and I told Dru that I'm taking him to the ER as I think it's infected and I don't care what everyone says.
So away we went.

They took us in and it took the Doctor about 1 min to realize that it was, indeed, infected and he needed antibiotics straight away and said we'd be staying the night in the hospital. I was sad. I was hoping they could just give him meds and send us home.
Not so. They wanted to keep an eye on it until the morning and then see if they'd need to take him back into the OR and puncture his infection and drain all the yuck out and let it heal with antibiotics.
I was really hoping that they wouldn't have to do that.
So we went upstairs and stayed the night, with masaru being poked again, and giving hard drugs, again and hooked up to all the machines again. So sad.
Don't get me wrong man, I'm super grateful for a way for him to get better, I truly am, hence the reason I took him in, but it just sucks you know. That's all.
So I had to figure out what to do with the kids and told Dru we wouldn't be home.
Nat took the kids after school and Dru brought Emiko to the hospital to be with us for the day.


She played on the ipad and played with some animal toys and coloured in pictures.
She was perfect, like so perfect. I didn't have to talk to her once about behaving herself. She was so good. I was so proud of her.
She even played with her animal toys while I took a nap and Masaru watched TV.
What a great girl.

Here's one of her pictures.

Dru had brought in some food for us which was so great. I didn't know what I was going to do for food. It was nice to have something to eat while I was there.

When they came in the morning they told us that they'd be operating on him and that at 11am he'd been taken in to be worked on.
So away we went again down to the prep room to be talked to by everyone about how we were feeling and what was about to happen.
They basically put a hole in his infected area, drained it and packed it with this stuff that has to be pulled out every day, a little at a time while the wound heals from the inside out.
Then we went back upstairs and waited while Masaru recovered well enough for us to go home.
They ended up letting us go home around 7pm which was nice. One of the nurses was thinking we might have to stay another night. Thank goodness we didn't have to. It's no fun living at the hospital.
They sent us home with instructions and medication. He did well last night and slept fine.
He's at school today but I wouldn't be surprised if he came home. So far so good though and it's 11:30am. We'll see how he does. Poor kid. When will it end?

Here's a picture that Yuki drew of Jane Goodall.
Yuki and Takeshi did great with Nat and our mates the Rutter's took Takeshi to soccer practice which was really good of them. I'd totally forgotten about soccer. So I'm glad they'd remembered. I'm sure Takeshi had remembered as well. He loves soccer and his coach Tim.
So now we're in recovery mode and teaching Masaru how to swallow pills. Last night it was a bit of a disaster but this morning it went better.
Fingers crossed we don't have to go to the hospital for a long time and his body can heal properly.
2016 is turning out to be a really rough year for Masaru and I feel bad for him. He's such a trooper man. I'm so proud of how he's done with all of it. He's not a big talker but he's been telling me how he's feeling which is so important and I'll keep trying to get it out of him.
So there's the latest Masaru update.

Easter 2016

So Friday we got started with the Easter fun. That Monday we'd had an evening talking about the Saviour and what he did for us over the Easter weekend. We always want our kids to know what this holiday is truly about and to appreciate it with all their hearts.

In true Wright tradition, I got my mothers Easter Egg recipe and made her Easter eggs with the kids.

Here's Masaru helping out.
The other kids helped out as well with the other parts of the process.

Here's the marshmallow part of the eggs. We decided to do strawberry and banana flavour.

Here's the finished result. Not too good. The chocolate was too hot and melted part of them and then we waited for it to cool down and did our best. Oh well. I'm sure every year I'll do better and better.
The chocolate wasn't that great. So I need to find better chocolate. They tasted ok, just not the best.

Emiko drew us a picture though, and that helped a ton.
Takeshi also did Easter notes to us that were super cute. He said he cried a little when writing Masaru's note because he just wants him to be better. I feel his pain man. Takeshi has a very tender heart and I love it. For all his crazy he's sensitive too. So thanks to Takeshi for his sweet notes and spirit over Easter and for thinking of us.

Then Saturday rolled around and amongst the cleaning that was going on I managed to be able to make my mothers Hot Cross Bun recipe. So, so yummy. I made the hole in the bag a little big and so the crosses were huge, but that's ok, as they tasted SO GOOD. So I felt a little redeemed from the Egg disaster.

Since our back yard is so huge we thought it was only fair that we invite some mates around and do an Easter egg hunt. It was pretty cute. We just got everyone to hide them then find them.
Next year I'll try to organize it a little better.
The sun was out and so we were really lucky.

Look at this sweet shot I got of Emiko running to find her eggs. Cool aye.




We then all hung out and ate and talked for a couple of hours together. It was really  nice and reminded me of how I need to gather friends together to just hang out. We don't need flash furniture or anything crazy, just a few chairs some food and mates to have a good time.
It was a lot of fun.
Later on the night we also sat around and watched some video's of the Saviour's life and what happened at the end of it.
It was a good discussion with the kids and we showed them what was going on and answered all their questions.

Easter Sunday we totally slept in as Dru's alarm didn't go off. So we were completely late for church by a good hour. So that sucks.
The girls picked out their best dresses though and Takeshi picked out his best outfit, and then the girls picked out my best dress to wear and Dru was looking pretty dapper himself in his pressed suit and we all made it to church to worship.
I taught a lesson to the girls about Christ. It was really nice.

We got home and had friends over for dinner, Boe and Shannon and their girls. We spent a few hours together hanging out, relaxing and eating. It was really nice. We really miss having those guys as our neighbours man. It was good to be with them and always easy. Dru really likes Boe too, so that helps a ton. Boe's a talker and so that suit's Dru right down to the ground, plus they talk plumbing and construction together as well as mtb. It works out great.

Once they left, Shannon had a paper to do for school, we headed over to our neighbours house to meet a few of their family. Jessica had invited us over and so we went for a little while and met the family. Her sister in law is from Samoa and it was her 50th birthday. You wouldn't know it though, she looks amazing. It was nice to meet more of Jessica's family and to be able to hang out.

Pretty fun Easter weekend.

I'm grateful to Jesus Christ and for His sacrifice for me. I love Him.

Masaru's surgery

So Masaru went into hospital 10:30am on Tuesday.
He was suppose to go in Friday but a little girl who was suppose to get operated on ate food before she was scheduled to go in and so they couldn't work on her and had to bump her to the next day, which was friday. So Masaru, who was meant to be on Friday, was bumped to Tuesday.
It's spring break this week and so that was fine. It just meant less time for him to recover before school started again, which is a bit of a bummer.
Dru's meeting was canceled and so that meant he could come into the hospital with us, which was so great.
I had three different mates watching the other three kids. Nat watched Emiko all day, Rhonda watched Takeshi all day and Nydia watched Yuki all day. I dropped them off around 10am and Dru didn't pick up the kids till around 7:30pm. Bless those girls hearts for helping our family out so much. Good friends are worth their weight in gold.
With the other kids in good environments I was relaxed going in with Masaru and could focus on him.


They got him all needled up and ready for action. It went better than the ER where they just stab you. This time the nurse put a numbing on first so he didn't feel it going into his veins. Thank goodness.
They gave him his Ronald McDonald hat and had a chat to us about what was going to happen.
We actually had around 5 different people talk to us about what was going to happen and answer questions etc. It was a little much, but rather too many people than not enough I'd say.
The surgeon came in to talk to us.
Turns out she played rugby back in the day and we had a conversation about that. She said no rugby for Masaru for 2 weeks!!!
I think she was a little apprehensive to talk to me as I railed on someone in her office a few weeks ago about not taking Masaru out of school.
I apologized for how I spoke and she explain why her schedule is so crazy. I think we came to a nice understanding.
They told us it'd be around 90 mins and told Masaru how he'd be put to sleep and wouldn't feel anything. He felt pretty good about that.
I went to the waiting room and waited about 3 hours for him. I started getting worried and then they called us in to tell us what went down.
It was a little more complicated than just the appendix.

She gave us pictures and explained the following to us.
This top picture is of this stuff that coats your intestines etc as a protective layer. She called it omentum I think. Well because of the abscess it was pushed up to his abs and got stuck up there. So she had to detach that from sticking up there like that first of all.

Then she moved onto his appendix and found a whole lot of crazy stuff going on from the rupture. She has the appendix on the right but all that stuff on the left shouldn't be there.

So here is a better picture of all the gunk that shouldn't be there and his appendix on the right hand side there. She said it was a mass of omentum as well as other crap from the rupture as well as the abscess. Crazy right? So she had to remove all of that. So instead of doing a 12mm cut in his belly button they had to increase it to more like a 80mm cut in order to pull all of that stuff out.

Here she is stapling it so there's no gaping hole.

Here she is putting all that gunk into a plastic bag to pull out.

Then she discovered an angry lump ontop of his bladder. This lump comes from when he was in utero and is part of the connection from your tummy to the umbilical cord. When he had the abscess it got upset and inflamed and hasn't gone back down all the way. She called it a cyst.

So they filled his bladder up to see if it was hurting his bladder or causing any damage. She also called in the pediatric surgeon who deals with bladder stuff and got a second opinion about what she should do about that.
They decided to leave it in there and do an ultrasound at the end of May to see what it's doing. She didn't want to have to repair the bladder as well and have him try to recover from that.
She said if he experiences excessive peeing and a burning while he pees then to call her and they'll have to figure something out.
If this cyst doesn't behave itself then in June they'll remove it and Masaru will have to go in for yet another surgery to get rid of that. Poor guy. So let's hope that cyst just calms down and gets lost.

Here's his poor little bellybutton scar. Better than a huge cut though right?
So things weren't as cut and dry as we thought they'd be. But I'm glad we got in there and figured out what was going on and got rid of some crazy things in there you know.
Again can I just say how grateful I am to people who are awesome. Thanks to Dr Biller for being an amazing woman with sweet skills to help my son. I gave her a hug. I was just so grateful.

Dru was able to be there when he woke up and when the surgeon wanted to chat. I'm glad he was able to be there.
We then went in to be with Masaru once they brought him back to recovery. He slept for a while and slowly woke up. He woke up in a bunch of pain though, so they gave him some pain meds and let him sleep for a little longer while we sat there and watched him.

He eventually woke up and we had a chat to him. He seemed in good spirits, considering.
They evaluated him and then said it was alright for him to go upstairs to the kids part of the hospital.

When we first went in they said if it goes well he may be able to just go home, but after all of this they wanted him to stay the night for sure, which was fine, as we'd planned for that.
Dru went back to work and I stayed with Masaru.

See kiwi sitting with him? He loves that kiwi.
I was ready this time and brought everything I needed for night staying comfort!!
We got movies for Masaru and he ate jelly (jello) and ice cream and popsicles. Later on into the night he ordered mac and cheese and tomato soup but didn't touch it. What a waste, but at least he tried I guess.
Dru came back and we grabbed some dinner and hung out with Masaru. Then Dru left to get the kids and I got settled for staying the night.
Jobecka gave me this book to read last hospital stay and so I started it this time.

It kept me busy for the whole time while Masaru watched movies and got himself rested so he could recover. I also knitted a little as well.
The night stay was just as you'd imagine a night stay to be in the hospital. Pretty suckie. With the noise of the machines and that crap couch you sleep on I was pretty tired the next day. But I'm glad I get to stay the night with him that's for sure.
He ate some cereal and watched more movies.
I had figured we'd be home by lunch time, but not so. We didn't leave the hospital until 5pm because they wanted to monitor him more.
We had a nurse practitioner come in and talk to us and say that they wanted him to walk around a couple of times and eat lunch and then they'd assess leaving.
Dr. Biller showed up around 2pm to talk to us about her feelings about him going home and said it'd be ok.
Masaru ended up falling asleep and so we let him sleep as long as he wanted and figured we'd leave once he woke up.
The nurses were nice and I ate at the cafeteria 3 times. It's a rip off man, but I didn't wanna leave Masaru and so I think they know they have you by the neck.
It was nice to leave and to take Masaru home.
We kept him up on his meds all night and day. It meant me getting up twice in the night to give him his pain meds.
It helped him to feel better though.
Today he woke up and has only had meds once. His appetite is small but he seems to be in good spirits so that good.
Although today he cried cause he was in so much pain. Poor kid!!
So we'll keep an eye on him and give him pain meds when he asks for them. He's walking around like an old man because it hurts and I think he's gonna be a little slow for a while.
I figured he'd bounce back so fast and it's not the case. I don't know what my problem is man, I guess I think he's superman?
But after having a talk with the surgeon and thinking about things I need to understand just how much his body is trying to heal such a major thing and that he'll need time to heal.
I guess I don't like seeing him hurt and just want a speedy recovery so I can think that everything is back to normal you know.
It's nice he doesn't have anything sticking out of him though and he can move around better.
So he's relaxing and eating what he wants. He may get outt've doing Saturday chores tomorrow as well the lucky thing. Anyone wanna come do my Saturday chores?
Anyway that's the low down with Masaru. I'm glad he's ok.

Digger rides

Excuse the talking. I'd just met our mates stepdad and brother for the first time and was chatting to them and to Keith our mate.
Here's Masaru having a go.




Here's Yuki having a turn.



Here's Keith taking them for a ride in the bucket. He moved the rocks in our front yard and will be bringing dirt to us to use in our yard. He's in construction and Dru's hitting him up for things. Always nice to know people with big trucks, rocks, dirt and machines right?



We love Keith and he's really good with the kids. His wife is a good mate too. I'm glad we're mates with them.

Takeshi

It was 'dress in what you'd like to be when you grow up' day at school on Friday. So this is what Takeshi's class dressed like.
My kids only remembered 10 mins before school started and so dressed in sports gear. Takeshi dressed as a soccer player, as well as Yuki and Masaru dressed as a rugby player.


Silly faces.

Some of Takeshi's art work.



'This guy is kicking the ball'
Pretty cute.

Then here's a random bat pictures. I'm not sure what this was about.

Then Takeshi lost his second tooth yesterday. It was super easy to pull out man. It was just sitting there waiting to be pulled.



The tooth fairy came this morning when he was still sleeping and snuck some money in. But Takeshi had forgotten that he'd saved his 'other' money from the other tooth in the bottom of the box so thought the tooth fairy brought him $3 instead of just $1 and is now way stoked. I tried to steer him to the truth but this is all based on lies anyway and so now we're all in a pickle.
Oh well. When the tooth fairy comes again and just brings $1 he'll be gutted.
Live and learn baby.

St Patrick's Day

Here's a video of the trap Takeshi made for the Leprechaun. Pretty cute I'd say. Yuki made one too, upstairs in her room.

He visited.



The note he left.

The note he left Yuki.



We all woke up and wore as much green as we could find for good luck.
Here's Emiko all dressed up fancy. So cute man.

I mtb'ed that day in my bright green knee socks and a green top. It was nice.
I made a chicken irish stew for dinner. Chicken and dumplings. I thought it was great. The kids didn't know about those dumplings in the stew man hahahaha Those are the best part man!! I couldn't believe they didn't like it.
Anyway I thought it turned out great.
We had a really nice day.

Youth Activity

So this past Wednesday the youth met at Walmart for a 'Where's Waldo or (Wally in NZ) activity.
So we had 6 adults dress in a disguise and wander around Walmart while the kids got into pairs and set off to see if they could find them.

It was pretty fun man.

I think they all dressed up really well.



This is our bishop. He was dressed the craziest. I hardly recognized him.



Here they all are.

We got some ice cream at the MacDonalds and called it a night.
It was a fun idea and a great combined activity. I can see us doing it again next year as well. And as an added bonus we got to do some shopping while the kids ran around !!!!