Morgan's tonsil and adnoid surgery

So Morgan had his 14th surgery on Monday, June 11, 2012.  Because of morgan's severe snoring and all of his lung issues, his Pulmo dr. decided it would be best if he had his tonsils and adnoids out to help him breathe better so we had to schedule this surgery.  We got to the hospital very early at 6:30am and because I am such a forgetful mother, I left Morgans bottle in his bed and he came and got in my bed at 2am, so we had to be bumped from the first surgery to the second because he may have drank milk up til 2am. and that would give him enough time to be ok.  So we didn't actually go back til 8:00am.  Once we went back morgan thankfully fell asleep in my arms and slept almost the entire prep.   My hands were going numb from holding him so we tried to lay him on the table and he woke up in a panic state, crying "I don't want to get on the table"  poor baby, he knows what getting on that bed usually consist of and he hates hospital beds now.

 He was suppose to put on his lovely hospital gown but he didn't want to put that on either, so we just let him wait til the last minute.  Here it is we finally got it on.  He looks so cute. This picture was taken actually after his surgery but it serves the purpose of this post.

The nurse came in and gave him some loopy meds and off to surgery he went.  He usually goes kicking and screaming but they gave him an extra dose cause i told them he requires more and i guess it did the trick.  I always get this sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach every time they take my baby boy back to the surgery room.  Something about trusting your most precious possession to complete strangers for them to perform some very invasive procedures without me there to comfort him, just makes me uneasy. But I have alot of faith in Dr and Nurses and God, so I just try to hide my uneasiness and smile and tell him everything will b ok.  We prayed over him before they took him into surgery, which is a common event for us.  So I knew he would be ok.

 

So me and Donnie went to get breakfast and we had just finished eating and they called and said he was already out of surgery and we could come see him.  The whole procedure only took 27 minutes and everything went fine.  When we walked into the room morgan was on the bed and he saw me and started crying in a very raspy voice and it broke my heart.  The nurse said he did great and she asked if he wanted a Popsicle and he said yes a red one. So she brought him that and ice water.  Morgan was unhappy cause he had an IV in his arm and he hates IV's so he complained alot about that.  After about another 30 minutes and after them making sure his red spots on his arm, where he had an allergic reaction to the meds had went away, they told us we were free to go.

Here's my sweet boy on his way home after a very long day.  He was a trooper as usual and after about 2 hrs at home, he was running and playing and wanting to eat everything in our house but he could only have cold stuff and soft foods, so that was a major problem for us.  We are on day 3 post surgery and you would never guess he had just had surgery cause he is running and playing like normal.  I wish I had his high pain tolerance and ability to just deal with major surgery with smiles and playfulness.  I learn alot from this boy and I am so thankful that he bounces back from surgeries so fast.  He sure has had enough to bounce back from.  Hopefully this will be his last surgery ever! Love you Morgan Lee, you are mommies little trooper!

I mourned the loss of "normal" tonight!

As I sit here and type this, I am emotionally and mentally drained.  Please don't take the following content the wrong way, I need to vent and this is the only way i know how, do not judge me till you have walked in my shoes is the line I am pulling out tonight.  Why? you ask, because since 6pm, I have endured alot of torture from my 4 year old son, and I know how absurd that sounds, but it is so true.  We were having a pretty good day overall until I made him come inside and told him we couldn't go walking, and it all went down hill from there.  Of course the evenings are always rough anyways, usually 2 hrs before bedtime he gets whiny and cranky and most times combative, but when I am alone with him, it is like he senses my fear of him and he like a wolf stalking his prey and he uses my fear against me.  It started with him throwing his normal tantrum then it escalated into him throwing his green chair so i took that away from him and put it up, then he found a train and threw it towards me, so he lost that toy also, then it went from there to him kicking and screaming while I tried to calm him down and get him to eat his supper and work on getting him ready for bed. I was bound and determined to get him to bed by 8pm since he has to be up around 5am for surgery in the morning.  There is alot more here, but i am too emotionally drained to even write about it.

I dared to put clothes in the dryer real fast, only to not be able to find him when i came out of the laundry room and walked all through the house and finally saw the patio door was opened and saw him standing on the top of our fence looking over into the neighbors yard at the kids playing in the pool (I am surprised they didn't yell for their parents and have them call the cops cause this little boy is perched high on the fence all by himself)..yeah, that would have been an interesting trip to the ER.  So when I finally got him back in and cooked his dinner and tried to get him to eat it, he kept going into my living room and climbing up on my end table and just to be mean pulled on my blinds trying to tear them up. He has torn up so  many blinds when he is mad it's not even funny, you should see both his rooms.  I kept getting him down and trying to redirect him to eat, but he was having no part of it and just kept going back to tear up the blinds, and in the process of me getting him down, he fell on the floor and hit the back of his head and now has a nice goose egg on it.  I am so worried about him, he is so high risk for injury, just having to physically restrain him and handle him when he is thrashing, kicking, fighting you.  I am so scared I am going to hurt him in the process of trying to just change his diaper or give him a  bath.  He fought me for 20 mts in the shower.  He threw a toy at the glass and almost shattered our shower door, and that was after I fought with him, just to get his diaper and clothes off.   '

Then when I finally got him bathed and out of the shower, he fought me to put his diaper on too, so i just ignored him and left him alone and then i finally found a mickey diaper that he likes and talked him into putting that one on and he let me.  So then we finally get his bottle and get him in the bed, and I am praying that he goes to sleep, cause I already had to break out the clonidine to make sure he went to sleep and of course, as tired as he was, he refused to go to sleep.  So after him getting out and me putting him back in 20 times and me totally exhausted, he said he wanted me to rock him, so i did and he was out cold within 10 mts..ugh, wish I would have started with that first.

So why did I choose, "tonight I mourned the loss of normal" as my topic, because I have been crying and praying for 2 hrs and all the while going through this torture of not being able to control a 4 year old child has hit me hard! It hits me hard most of the times I go through these episodes, but tonight for some reason was when I finally said the things that I have kept bottled up inside, cause I have felt guilty for thinking them and guilty for having these feelings.  I mourn the loss of my ideas of how my life would be when i had my third child cause u see, I had this image conjured up in my head that I would have a little girl and we would go places together and she would be my easy child and I would just enjoy this last precious gift from God.  But then after finally getting pregnant with my baby girl, I lost her at a mere 9 weeks and to say I was devestated would be an understatment and I mourned for her tonight, like i never have before.  Then I got pregnant with morgan and didn't even know it but I embraced it and started early taking my levisin shots. To make a long story shorter, I had morgan at almost 26 wks and I am sure you all know the rest of my story, so I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say he had a long rocky ride of 134 days in the NICU before he came home.

So tonight I mourned my perfect little made up world in my mind, and I was hit with a hard dose of my REALITY!  I am terrified of my son, he scares me to death for many reasons and I can't stand being alone with him because I know it is going to be a full blown out battle just to get him to do the normal things that most parents take for granted.  Simple diaper changes are torture, if he is in one of his moods it usually takes two people just to get him changed.  Going to the store is out of the question for me on most days, cause he usually is so overwhelmed and has a major tantrum in the store, and let's face it, we all know how much we hate being interrupted while we r shopping by an irate toddler..so I try to avoid taking him anywhere.

And let's not forget the simple act of riding in your carseat, something I know most kids hate but usually reside to the fact they will have to do it til mommie says they can get out.  Not this boy, I do not even won't to go into details the torture we go through especially when daddy isn't in the car with us.  Me and my boys just about go crazy because we have to fight with him to keep him in that seat!  I have a car seat that you can tighten up the belt as tight as you want, so when he is in one of his moods and is fighting to get out I put it really tight so he can't get out, but then he litterally almost breaks his ribs and I am scared he is going to rupture his organs from him trying with every fiber of his being to get out of that seat, until I have to loosen it up and then he gets out.  I pop him with the flyswatter also and that usually ends with him shouting in the demonic voice, no mommie, u stop now"..which is kinda funny but not really.  So I mourn my perfect little fairy tale dream that I conjured up about taking my child with me, cause I have panic attacks when we  have to take him in the car with us.

I know that to anyone who reads this post you are going to judge me based on they way this post reads and it seems like I have nothing good to say about Morgan and that it seems he is mistreated and I can't say that I blame you one bit for any negative thoughts that you have.  I feel horrible for my thoughts and for the way I treat Morgan.  I have always been a screamer, always! But I have never had to psychically fight with my other boys, never! They new they could joke with me, but they knew if they ever crossed the line of raising their fist at me or kicking me, that they would pay dearly for that and I put that fear in them for a reason.  A child should never feel comfortable enough to assault their parents, cause when they do, the lines have been blurred and I believe it opens up doors to all kinds of rebellion and disrespect and I have never been one to want that for my boys.

But with morgan, it's different, because he doesn't understand the concepts of all of it.  He doesn't understand much of anything, and this worries me more than anything. So how do you tell a mentally challenged child to stop throwing things at mommy cause that is not nice and you can hurt someone, etc, when they do not conceptualize what that means?  Morgan is so delayed in his cognitive thinking that the lines are blurred not because I want them to be, but because they just are.  I never in a million years envisioned my middle aged years being spent this way.  Don't get me wrong, I love morgan with my whole heart and I am so thankful that he turned out able to walk and talk and stuff, but I can't say that I am thankful that the whole wiring of his brain was messed up because of his early birth and because of all the steriods and morphine that he had to take,  He is truly a one of a kind unique individual and I haven't seen too many 4  year olds like him.  I am overwhelmed by all of this and it just seems like he is getting worse and worse and I feel like a hostage being held against their will.  I wish I could have kept him in my womb longer, I mourn that healthy baby that I so longed for.  I am just still trying to figure out this new life of mine and trying to figure out what works to help him and what doesn't help him, and I have no clue on either, for once in my life I am clueless on how to help my child.

Do you know how hard it is to watch your baby suffer and him lash out and not be able to communicate what he is feeling?  This is by far the hardest road I have ever had to travel and I wish I had my mother here to help me navigate it because I feel so much more lost without her.  I am so sick of hearing people say, well he is fine with me, he just acts like this when you are around...but they all acknowledge that he is hyper and impulsive and talks non stop and his a handful.  Why does he act so bad around me? What do I do that causes this behavior?  I know people say I laugh to much and I am not serious enough, but i did that with my other two and they didn't act like this.  Why does he hate me so much? Why does he like to torture me?  He gets this look in his eyes that say, "lets see how mad we can make mommie tonight"  lol..i say that jokingly but is true.  I have truly never seen anything like it!  Anyways, I am exhausted and am tired of typing, so i am getting off her and going to bed, I have to be up at 5am to get morgan to the hospital by 6am for his 14 surgery and he is not going to be happy camper cause he already told me today that he didn't want to go to the hospital cause he doesn't like shots or IV's and he is not sick anymore.  Breaks my heart, I am praying this will be his last surgery.  Night everyone and be nice with your comments, I just can't take you telling me what I am doing wrong (which is usually not spanking him enough, bahaha) if only yall knew! lol..he gets way too many of those!

My miracle baby turns 4..

From 1lb 5 ozs at birth to 29 pds at 4 years old.  

So my miracle boy has turned 4 years old on May 27, 2012 but we celebrated his bday today June 2, 2012.  It is hard to believe that 4 years have passed since he was born.  I cherish everyday with him and each day is more special than the last because he is truly a miracle from God.  He is wearing his 4th bday shirt proclaiming his miracle status and I love it.  Michelle, who has a micro miracle baby herself, designed this shirt and sent it to Morgan to wear on his special day and I am so appreciative that she did.

 So the party was so much fun..as u can see Morgan had cupcakes instead of cake because the guy that was going to make his fishy cake got sick so i had to grab the cupcakes instead. But Morgan loved the icing off the cc, that's all he eats anyway.  My sweet boy won't eat cake or bread so we gotta give him what he wants.  We also had hot dogs and chips and everyone was already stuffed before the cupcakes oh and I forgot about the ice cream so only the few that were left got to enjoy it.    

Next Morgan opened his presents that we had to hide from him cause he was trying to open them earlier.  As you can see he enjoyed opening presents so much that he had to make sure he had every single item out of the bag and what better way to do that than to go inside the bag and look closely.  This boy cracks me up. He got alot of neat toys and stuff that I hope he will actually play with, since he isn't big into playing with toys anyway.  I got him a slip n slide and they had a blast playing on it!

Next came water time and they had a blast playing with Sis. Rosalinda in the pool. I actually was going to skip the water but she talked me into it and i am glad she did cause they seriously had the best time ever in this little pool.  It was so cute to watch them playing with her.

Finally, they ended a fun filled day with another water activity, the slip n slide morgan got. They had so much fun on this slip n slide, and it brought back alot of memories from my childhood.  Except when i was a kid we just used plastic, we didn't have this fancy stuff.  The adults kept picking the little ones up and sliding them down the slide and Morgan laughed so hard.   He really did have a great bday and I am so happy that it turned out good for him.  He enjoyed playing with all his girl friends.  Poor boy doesn't have many boy friends they are all girls in our church.  LOL!

This is how we ended that day of water fun, me and my baby swinging while he was bundled up in his towel cause he was freezing to death. Poor baby doesn't have much meat on his bones so he is always freezing.  Overall it was a great day and I am so blessed to have my miracle boy here to celebrate another year of him
overcoming his early birth and all the challenges that he has to face.  He inspires me everyday to keep on working with him and to keep advocating for him to get him the help that he needs so that one day there will be no evidence that he was even born weighing 1lb.  It will just be his testimony and what a joyous day that will be when all he has is his story and no one can believe he was ever so small.  Thanks to everyone who came and made his day so special and thanks for loving my little man just like he is and not expecting him to be any different than they way God made him.  I love you Morgan Lee! You will always be an inspiration to me!  Love your Mother and forever advocate!

Guilty..that's what I am feeling today!

I am wrestling a lot today with feelings of guilt about leaving my boys for a week while my hubby and I fly across the world to Hawaii.  I can't sleep good because I am constantly thinking up scenarios of the; "what if's" that go along with most trips I take without my kiddos. You know the, "what if my plane goes down in water and I am devoured by sharks and my kids can't even give me a proper burial, or "what if we don't make it back and my kids are left to live a life without us"  etc..you get the idea..but this is truly bothersome to me because at times i wrestle with the question of "am I being an irresponsible parent for putting myself in a high risk situation where our lives can be taken from our boys" and I have to say at times I think the answer is yes.

Don't get me wrong, I have left my kids to go out of town with my hubby numerous times and thankfully by the grace of God we have always made it back home to them.  But for some reason this major trip of flying on 6 different planes and going across the world (for me anyway) is making me nuts.  6 different planes=6 different possible plane crashes=one stressed and worried momma!  So u ask the question, would i feel better if i took my boys with me and that is a hard one to answer because I would never want my kids lives to be taken and I would gladly give mine fore anyone of them, but having had to go through my life with out my bio dad who passed away when i was only 2, i know first hand the scars that are placed on a child's life when they lose their mother and father at young ages.  My goodness, I buried my mom when i was 36 years old and it was by far the hardest thing i have ever had to do.  And yes, life does go on and we learn to live with the pain of loss and we compensate for our loneliness and our grief turns into acceptance, but I just do not want my boys to ever have to go through life while they are young without me and my input in how they live.  No one could ever love them like i love them, NO ONE!

However, that being said, after I have my neuritic moment, I try to remember that I have to teach my boys by example and if I want them to take risk and live a care free life then I must teach them that sometimes, even when life doesn't go like we plan, we still have to trust that in the end, our life is in the hand's of our Creator.  And really it wouldn't matter if i was sitting at home playing on my computer, if God said my time is up on this earth, then i would die from a heart attack, or lightening bolt strike that came through the computer, etc.  So I freak out and I remember that if i truly believe what i have always taught my boys about life, that I must go and have a good time with my sweet hubby who went out of his way to give me the vacation of a lifetime.  And I will and God willing I will come back home to my sweet angel babies that God blessed me with and then we will go on multiple family vacations together and live our lives to the fullest because that is good, acceptable, and pleasing to God.

P.S.  But since I am a realist I will do my usual check to make sure that my kids are raised by family and kept together in the event that God did call me home..any takers?

LOL

40 and Faboulous

Well I finally found my blog! I forgot that i renamed it The Underwood Family Blog instead of Morgans miracle. Actually my hubby found it for me, I know I am crazy! Anyway, I turned 40 years old on yesterday. I cannot believe i am 40, it just doesn't seem real. Isn't amazing how fast time flies by! It seems like yesterday that i was outside swimming in my pool or at the pool Hall hanging out with friends, and then all of a sudden i am 40. I had a great bday weekend! I decided that i wanted an actual party for my big 40 because i never get a party. So we had my family and friends drop by my house in bossier for cake and ice cream and they actually brought me cards and presents. I was really surprised cause i didn't expect presents. My aunt gave me a picture of my mom when she was in 10th grade and it made me cry, I was overcomed with emotion because I was really wishing she was there with me and for her to give me that picture just made the realization that she was only there in memory and not in personm that much more real. So i cried and then moved on. I know she was looking down from heaven and she was smiling at her baby girl turning the big 40, My favorite memory of my mom was when she was sick in the hospital about a month before she passed away, I was standing at the end of her bed and she had a feeding tube down her nose and she looked at me and uttered the word "angel" I looked around and said, mom what r u talking about and she said "your an angel" I will never forget that memory as long as i can, It was indicitive of the kind of women she was, she always gave people the benefit of the doubt. I miss her so much it hurts, but i know one day i will see her smiling face again and that keeps me going. Anyways, back to my party, my hubby surprised me with the best gift ever, a trip to hawaii in May. I was not expecting that so it was quite a shock! I am so excited! I have been wanting to go to Hawaii since we got married 18 years ago. We used to take timeshare tours and they would always ask where your dream vacation would be, and i would always say, Hawaii, and then i would say, "one day I am going there". Well my dream is finally coming true, now i just have to figure out how i am going to survive 3 flights there and 3 flights back, because I hate to fly and have a severe fear of flying, but i am going to make myself do it!

Then after we finished up with cake and presents we met some friends of ours and our family at Shogun. I was so happy to have everyone with me celebrating my big 40 at Shogun. It was a blast! Then the partying continued at my church on Sunday night. When I drove into the parking lot, they had a sign in my spot that said, "slow, senior crossing' well me being the rebel that i am went and parked in another spot! Then when I got into the church I noticed that everyone was dressed in black as if they were attending a funeral. Then i was informed that i did not dress for the occasion, which was death.lol..yes my people have jokes! They did an awesome job of decorating our kitchen and my cake was off the chain, even though it did have alot of old jokes on it. Overall i have to say, it was an awesome bday weekend and I could get used to having bday parties at my old age.

So as I start a new year of officially on the downhill slope into old age, I have decided to embrace it and start doing things that I am uncomfortable with and forcing my self to enjoy life. We only have one shot in this life and we need to make the most of it and overcome our fears and the things that are holding us back from being happy! My motto is going to be "40 is the new 20"

Update on Morgan and life

So I took Morgan to the ENT Dr. yesterday, June 22, 2011 and I must say it was one of the most interesting Dr visits I have ever had with him. Morgan has never been a good Patient, because of his hyper activity and the fact that he is sick of Dr. it always makes for a very stressful event. I almost hyperventilate at the thought of taking him to the Dr. Within minutes, i always get the "boy, he is one hyper kid, you have got your hands full with him" comment. I am used to that, and totally understand it, but this Dr. shocked me with his comments. So after the grueling 10 minute evaluation, which consisted of me and donnie holding morgan down so the Dr. could exam him and morgan denouncing his displeasure by screaming in a very loud voice, the Dr. finished the exam and then he asked in a blatant voice "so, what is his story, what is wrong with his brain" After the initial shock of his statement wore off, i said..."nothing is wrong with his brain, he was 1pd when he was born and thankfully we had no brain bleeds or anything wrong with his brain, he is just extremely hyper and is like a crack baby due to the meds he was on. Then he asked again, "what is wrong with his brain, does he have Down Syndrome" well that really got me going, and i almost cried, but i held it together and my husband explained the "crack baby" theory to him again. He was actually shocked that Nothing was wrong with his brain. So he told us that Morgan needed tubes in both ears and they would schedule the surgery. The surgery is on July 25th and i can't wait to get those tubes, because i am hoping it will end his ear infection roll he is currently on. Anyways, i left there so upset that this Dr. thought my precious baby had brain damage just because he was very hyper and out of control. I told him he hasn't had a nap and it was 2pm, I'm not sure what he expected.

Anyways, I am over that and am just ready to get the surgery over with. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees how much extra meds the Anesthesiologist has to give morgan to knock him out, maybe then he will see that mogan is a true "crack baby". So after we left the office, morgan was still very fussy, which isn't unusual, but he was crying so bad, and he felt hot, so i checked his temp and of course he was running 103.9 fever. Great! Just left the dr. office and he has to wait til nighttime to get sick. Anyways, i called the ENT back and he put him on Bactrium and Prednizone BID...that is twice a day, i have to get meds down this boy...yall all know he hates meds..luckily, i got it flavored and so far he has taken them ok. YAY!

So today, my hubby and i went to eat at a Buffett, and took morgan with us. Well i went into the bathroom to change his diaper and was shocked to find that his scrotum was swollen. Yuck! Not what you wanna see! So, i called his Urologist and went by to let him look at it. He told us that Morgan may have another hernia or either fluid was building up in there. Either one seemed painful. So we have an ultrasound scheduled on Monday to find out what it is. Praying it is fluid and that he isn't going to have to have another surgery on his groin. When we got home morgan was hysterical and running around throwing fits, and when i changed his diaper he acted like it was hurting him, so i gave him motrin and he settled down. We dropped him off to spend a coupld of nights with his brother, Mack at Verlene's house, so me and Donnie could go to Baton Rouge for his Red Cross meeting in peace. I need a break from this child more than anyone could ever imagine. He is with me constantly and never leaves my side. He is like a tick on a dog..lol..and as we all know..tick bites can hurt. I love this baby boy more than anything, but i have to be honest when i say, If i don't get a break from him every now and then, i will have to check myself in Brentwood. I wish i had a video that followed me around everyday, so people could really understand how stressful a child like morgan is. Of course he is worse for me than anyone else, but i guess that doesn't help me any.

But on that note, I will try and remember that things can always be worse, and I have to count my blessings. In the Dr.'s office today, I met a lady and her 7 year old daughter, and was reminded of that saying. This young girl sat there with her mother, so sweet and cute, and then i noticed her cute embroided bag, and out of it was a long tube that i knew was a cathether. So i struck up a conversation with the mother, (I could do this because donnie had morgan in the stroller, pushing him in the hallway...lol) and I had overheard that she is graduating in December and it appeared to be in nursing, so i asked her about it, and sure enough she will be graduating from Grambling in December in Nursing and she has been going to school for 6 years, just like me. So we were talking and she started telling me about how her daughter was born with only one kidney, and no nerves on her kidney or intestines. She has has 40 surgeries in her short 7 years and has a feeding tube, cath, and had an illostomy. So we were sharing our "horrible kid stories" and i told her about morgan having MRSA in his blood and she told me that her daughter is now in Renal Failure due to contracting MRSA in a Dallas hospital. Talk about one upping me...it was as if, every bad thing that i said about morgan, she had a worse situation with her daughter. It was as if God, sent her to me, to remind me that "while I may have it rough, it could b a lot rougher" The mother has taken on the role of a hero in my mind, because, here she is with a child, who needs a miracle from God, or else probably will not live a long full life, and she is graduating Nursing School. I asked her how she did it and she said, "I just kept on going, and now i am almost thru" WoW! You have no idea how many times, i have said, I can't be a nurse, because i have morgan and he is way to hard to raise and i won't be able to put the effort i need into my nursing..excuse, after excuse as to why i can't do it. Well, i have a different outlook after talking with this lady today. If she can drive an hour everyday for 6 years, with a child as sick as hers, then i can do it too. No more excuses...i just gotta do it! Ok. I am tired of typing now. I am going to start updating my blog more, for me than anyone else cause i want to remember these things, and this is a great outlet for me..to get these feelings off my chest....have a great night everyone!