Cheap Summertime Entertainment

With Zeke all casted up, our summertime fun has been kind of stymied.  We haven't done a lot that involves water.  So no pool, no sprinkler, no water guns.  We did do bubbles a couple of times.  It also means Zeke can't ride his bike, play on our playground, dig in the rocks, or swing on the swings.  (All things the kids do constantly.)  We've also tried to stick to a somewhat structured morning with an art and building time, a writing time, a puzzle and board game time, and a math time.  The big kids are reading in the afternoon and doing a few pages of phonics but they also usually read before bed.  Too much free time ends up with my kids fighting constantly or the kids just hanging out not really playing anything.  I think we've come up with a good balance of 30 minutes of an activity and then free time before lunch and most of the afternoon.  The big kids have pushed Zeke in the stroller in the street.  They've played traffic cop, with Zeke giving them directions as they ride their bikes.  I taught them out to play Kick the Can (but with a whistle instead of a can).  That lasted maybe ten minutes.  They've learned how to play War with math flash cards.  They've made roads and shapes with sidewalk chalk.  We used cornstarch to make our own sidewalk chalk paint.  They've played hockey in the street with bouncy balls.  They've played soccer and t-ball.  They pilfered all of the greeting cards out of our summer writing supplies and jammed the neighbor's mailboxes with notes.  The big kids have patiently obliged Zeke's whims and drawn him whatever picture he wanted at art time since his own drawing ability is pretty limited right now.  Conleigh's come in several times with purple stained fingers from stealing mulberries off our neighbor's tree.

And we've still got lots to do.  I picked up a giant game of jacks at Target that has 2 inch rubber jacks so I think even Zeke will be able to pick them up.  We've still got a couple of new board games to try out.  I haven't yet showed the big kids how to create sticker stories, where you use stickers for the main parts of your story and then draw in the background and fill in your words.  I'm hoping we can make an aluminum foil river in our backyard without dousing Zeke's arm.  We haven't touched our watercolor paints yet or the precut tissue paper squares that I found at Michaels' on clearance.  The garden is just starting to produce; we just had green beans out of it yesterday.  We hit the Omaha zoo when we were there a few weeks back but we haven't done the Lincoln Children's Zoo yet.  And I'm hoping once Zeke gets his casts off to have a big old "No More Casts" water party with friends.

The summer reading program at the library had the kids make robots as one of the activities in their reading logs.  Conleigh's is named Lucy.  And Zeke's is a shark.

The kids seriously thought this was so funny.  Conleigh was pretending to be Kenson and Kenson was pretending to be Kenson.  The clothespin earrings are a nice touch, don't you think?  Look how Conleigh is standing.  She just did that all on her own, because apparently that's how boys stand.

Tie Dye

While Zeke and the grown ups were at Mayo, Kenson and Conleigh were at Grandma's.  They worked on one of their 4-H projects, tie dyed t-shirts.  They ended up making 2 shirts each plus 2 shirts for Zeke.  Grandma even helped Conleigh sew on 26 sequins.  She was brave and held the fabric while Conleigh poked the needle through it.  And she made a shark applique for Zeke.  He may or may not have slept with the shirt under his pillow last night.  

This photo completely cracks me up.   It is just says so much about the three of them.
Zeke is grinning like it hurts.
Kenson is striking a pose and being his laid back self.
Conleigh is mad about something and sulking.
(Not that she is always sulking.  Just that she wears her feelings on her sleeve.)

Tegaderm Schmegaderm

Zeke's skin grafting may turn out to be the most difficult part of this whole toe to finger transfer.  They used a 1 1/2 by 4 inch section of skin on his upper thigh to cover the sides of his new finger.  They describe it as shaving up this section of skin.  It sounds kind of awful.  To be honest, it also looks pretty awful.  They apply a clear dressing of Tegaderm which allows the blood to not scab but sit just under the dressing and be reabsorbed back into the skin graft area.  This means that there is a pretty bloody mess on Zeke's thigh. I'd take a picture but it is not something anyone wants to see. Without being too graphic, the blood can start leaking around the edges of the dressing so we were instructed to put more Tegaderm on the edges prior to this happening in order to reinforce the dressing.  The dressing has to stay on until July 1.  Then we are to take it off and if the skin has started to heal, it should look a bit like a sunburn.

It just looks brutal though.  It also has completely worn me out today.  It started leaking yesterday.  I reinforced it with some giant sheets of Tegaderm that the hospital sent us home with.  (Which I could have cut into smaller pieces but I didn't know that at the time.)  It leaked some more.  I added more Tegaderm.  By noon today it was clear that I probably shouldn't have reinforced the dressing but should have just changed it instead.  Regardless, I was fast running out of Tegaderm.  I spent most the my afternoon trying to figure out what to do.  Tegaderm is available through medical supply stores but it is about $20 fora  4 inch by 4 inch patch and not covered by insurance.  The actually dressing kept looking worse and worse which in turn made Zeke anxious because he could see the blood and because he was worried about us having to take off the sticky dressing.

In the end, we ended up at our local hospital where a nurse changed the dressing.  It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  I really thought it was going to stick something terrible, which it didn't.  I was also really concerned about it being a huge mess of blood when it was removed which it wasn't.  Seeing the nurse change the dressing gave me a lot more courage about dealing with it which was good because we only had that dressing on for a few hours before it started lifting off the skin and coming loose.  So I ended up taking the new dressing off and reapplying an entirely new Tegaderm.  Mayo is supposed to be sending us more and the hospital sent us home with a bit so hopefully we will not run out again.  The graft site is also supposed to drain more during the first two days and then let up.  So I'm hoping that holds true.  Seriously, this silly sticky dressing has stressed me out!

New Casts and Skin Grafts

The old casts are off and the skin grafting is done.  Zeke is now sporting a new cast on his hand and a walking boot on his foot.  It was a long day, with a 6:15 am report time but we were out of the hospital around 5, in time for supper and Cherry Berry yogurt.  The skin graft site is pretty gnarly looking and we are in charge of keeping it from "leaking" which makes me feel highly unqualified.  But he will be able to take the dressing off in a week and I can do anything for a week.  Right?

Sleeping at the hotel-can you guess what animal Dr. Moran created for his new cast?

Rochester Round 2

Today was an odd day.  USA played Portugal in the World Cup so we had D's soccer boys over.  We only ended up with like 5 boys plus a couple we are friends with who stopped by to show off their new babies.  But Kenson and Conleigh are already at Grandma's in anticipation of us leaving tomorrow for Rochester for another appointment for Zeke.  So it was strangely quiet.  No big kids and not a huge horde high school boys.  We actually had leftovers of everything.  (Chicken burritos, watermelon, and brownies...all left over.  That never happens.)

Anyhoo-big kids are off to Grandma's for a few days and the rest of us will depart tomorrow for Zeke's skin grafting procedure on Tuesday.  The surgeons did not have enough skin to cover the sides of Zeke's new finger so on Tuesday, they will shave a small portion of skin off of his thigh and use that to cover the sides of the finger.   That means they will do that procedure and then recast his hand yet again. If we have understood everything correctly, they will remove the cast on his foot and he will get something less castlike, hopefully something that is removable.  If he gets that off, then perhaps we'll be able to wrap up his arm and let him be a bit more adventurous in terms of water play.  We are then hopeful that he will just need one more appointment, a few weeks from this one and will then be cast free.

The procedure on Tuesday will require general anesthesia but is an out patient procedure.  The anesthesia seems less scary the more times we have had to have Zeke do it but it still is a bit unnerving to me.  It's always a bit hard to send your little guy off with the anesthesia team.  We'd still appreciate your prayers for a successful procedure and no issues with the anesthesia.

Of Birthdays and Boogers

For birthdays, we let our kids have 3 birthday wishes instead of a ton of presents.  They wish for things like specific cakes, having friends over, a specific toy, or eating at a certain restaurant.  It's not uncommon for my kids to talk about what they are going to wish for months in advance, dreaming about the possibilities.

This morning, the conversation started like it usually does, with Kenson saying "For my birthday, I'm having..."  But then I heard "For my birthday, I'm having a cake with boogers on it."  Then some giggles and "No, I'm not.  But if I wanted to I could."  This was followed by the ever encouraging Zeke chanting, "Do it!"  Do it!  Do it!"

I'm just glad to know that he still thinks I am capable of all things, including putting boogers on a cake.

Zeke Update and Shrine Weekend

Zeke's a bit past the two week point after his surgery.  Whenever we're out and about, we almost always have someone ask us how he's doing.  The answer is terrific.  A few other parents of kids who have had extensive hand/foot surgeries said he would be up in no time but I was a little unsure.  I think he only took the heavy hitting narcotic pain killer maybe twice once we got home, then he took a couple doses of regular strength children's Tylenol, and after that, he hasn't taken anything.  He's had no complaints of pain at all and is walking around like normal.  So far we haven't had too many complaints regarding being in a cast either. He was pretty demanding today, wanting one of the big kids to push him in a stroller and he just doesn't get why the grown ups won't let him swing but in general, that has not been the case.  We actually could have returned to Mayo last Thursday to have the skin grafting done but we had plans we couldn't change for the weekend.  Unfortunately, Dr. Moran is out of the office this week so we will not be able to get in until June 24.  Kind of a bummer since that's ten extra days in a cast but there was just no way to get around it. Trust me-I tried.  My biggest worries have actually been related to infection since there is just minimal dressing around his toes.  We've been covering the toes with a sock but it just seems so vulnerable.  Also on Thursday night, he broke his cast on his foot.  As in a large 3-4 inch square section on the bottom just broke off.  So Friday morning we were scurrying around to get it recasted before the weekend because...

This weekend we were actually off to the Shrine All Star Soccer game.  Hard to believe that we did that only two weeks after surgery.  D was asked to be an assistant coach and since Zeke is a Shriner's patient, he was the honorary captain.  (They always ask a couple of Shrine patients to be honorary captains.)  Zeke helped with practice, walked in the parade, and helped on the sidelines during the game.

Big kids waiting for the Papio Days parade to start

All the folks from our town-#1 is our regular season goalie, Matt, then there's D and Zeke

Getting a trophy and medal for being honorary captain

Zeke with the whole Shrine South team

If you don't know about Shriner's, we would be the first to tell you that they have a great mission:  to help kids get access to free medical care.  As part of this mission, the Shrine chapters in Nebraska host both a football and soccer all star game as part of their fundraising.  This fundraising then supports the various Shrine hospitals around the U.S. and also helps off set the costs associated with the local Shriner programs like costs to transport patients to the hospitals and children's events for the kids serviced by the Shriner hospitals (like trick or treating at Halloween).  Zeke's care has all been provided free of charge by Shriner's Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.  His actual surgery was too complicated for the Minneapolis hospital so it was done at the Mayo Clinic since that is where his surgeon normally practices but the actual billing is supposed to go through Shriner's.  We did have to pay for his MRI which was a pre surgery procedure done at our local children's hospital.  Shriner's does bill insurance but after that, they bear the full financial weight for any procedures.  Depending on the hospital, Shriner's specializes in different types of care.  Some specialize in helping kids with orthopedic issues including prosthetics.  Others do burn care.  Others work on cleft lip and palettes.  They want no child turned away for medical care simply because a child's family can't pay for the services.

We ended up spending the whole weekend in Omaha and hitting the zoo and aquarium on Sunday.  Considering that my kids have had a wild last few weeks (Minnesota trip and surgery, late night VBS,  late night t ball game, plus the Shrine weekend) they did great.  We only did the rainforest, the butterflies, the aquarium and lunch but that was plenty.  So nice to be home though.  With D gone on Thursday and Friday nights, it gave the big kids and I a chance to decorate the dining room for Father's Day.  We didn't do anything to spectacular but the kids had fun blowing up balloons, making the banner, and hanging streamers from the door.

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