Sick Update

As you can see Austin is now fine. The only thing that remains is a cough every now and again. We still do not have any firm answers for what he really had. The Dr said if it happens again then they will put him on preventative meds. But for now we are being optimistic in our hopes that it will never happen again.......And I did not stage this picture. He did it all on his own. He loves the horse. Too CUTE!

Sick

It started out like this. A little guy with a cold and a cough. I should have known something was wrong because even when he is not feeling well he does not sit still. I actually thought it was cute and took a picture. I thought is was just another cold.
It ended up like this. A little guy in the hospital because he could not breath.
So all day Thursday Austin was not feeling well. He was really clingy and had a bad cough and was weasing. Around 4pm I called my Mom and put Austin on the phone to see what she thought of his wease. She said it did not sound good. I ignored her because, it was just a cold. Then at bed time I decided to call the "advice nurse". Her advice, "go to the emergency room immediately". So I found someone to watch Ben (luckily 95% of Brian's family live within 3 minutes of us) and called Brian who was still working at a client's office in SF and went to the ER. On the drive to the hospital I thought to myself.....Am I overreacting? When we arrived they quickly put us in a room and a DR came. Wow, I thought, this is the first time I have not had to wait......that should have been a clue. Well After hours in the ER, breathing treatments, steroids and x-rays. It was determined he has Restricted Airway Disease. WHAT IS THAT???? Well, it's exactly like asthma but it is not chronic......YET. He did have a cold that turned into bronchitis. And that caused his lungs go on lock down. They said this could happen every time he gets a cold or never again.

His oxygen levels were still too low so we got to stay the night. The Dr. thought we could go home in the morning......after a few minor setbacks we got to leave at 5pm the next day. Austin HATED it. He was so sick of people touching, pulling and holding him down that he would scream when a nurse or DR came near him. We are all home now doing breathing treatments every 4 hours around the clock (I feel like I have a newborn again). With DRs appointment's every other day. I am hoping to get more answers about what this really is on Monday. Is this Asthma and they are just hesitant to call it that? Why?

Preschool

Benjamin's first day of preschool was last week. He was so excited. He got dressed up in his new first day of school shirt and grabbed his snack and was ready to go.
When ever the camera comes out Austin strikes a pose.
When we got to school he got his name tag, which he was very excited about. Then he sat down and completely ignored us. He would not even look up to say goodbye. I thought I would be thrilled when he finally started some school but as I was driving away I was a little sad. I can't believe he is old enough to be in school.

Oakland Zoo

A couple of weeks ago Brian had the whole week off. Most of the week was spent painting and replacing all of the ugly, generic light fixtures in our place. But one day we got to go to the zoo.
We saw all of the major zoo animals. Elephants, lions, monkeys. We even almost go to feed the giraffe some leaves. But the zoo keeper got to us first......

Austin enjoyed climbing around on the frogs


The Oakland zoo is a little sad when we compare it to the Omaha zoo (oddly enough there is a GREAT zoo in Omaha). But Ben does not remember it and Austin has never seen it so they think Oakland is great.

Yummy

The other day Austin and Ben were dong a little coloring. Austin LOVES to color, but this time he decided to lick the marker. He looked so funny with purple lips and tongue that I had to take a picture.
And because he has recently decided he loves getting his picture taken he kept putting the marker in his mouth for more picture. He is such a ham!!

Rockin

Benjamin discovered the drum set in my parents garage the other day. He is quite a natural. It is amazing how he can pick up the drum sticks for the first time and know how to hit everything.
He does not appear to have any rhythm yet, but he looked really cool doing it.