Are You Tired of Pictures Yet?

Bath time!

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Brothers

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Anthony

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Presents

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More presents & cards

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Cake

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Eating cake while surrounded by lots of his stuff 

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Riley & Anthony enjoying Zeke's cake

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The Child Life Specialist bringing Zeke a birthday present,

SpongeBob dominoes

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One of the nurses doing a sand art project with Zeke

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And the night was made complete with a phone call from Grandma Lori to wish Zeke a happy birthday.

: )



Zeke Says

This morning at 3am, two nurses came into the room to give Zeke his medicine, check his vitals and turn him in his bed. He had been sleeping soundly, but of course, by the time they were done, he was wide awake. He looked around and said, "Hey. Today is Sunday. It's my birthday. Hey! Where's my cake and all my presents?!" It took a lot of convincing to settle him back down but he never did go back to sleep.
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As I'm typing this, I hear Zeke singing quietly to himself in the background. He's singing "Happy Birthday to me, Happy birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear Zeke, Happy Birthday to me" -over and over and over again!
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When one of the nurses came in today, he started telling her a bit about himself. He told her, "Today is my birthday. I'm 8. Then I'll be 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Hey, I'm almost 15. When I'm 15, I can drive.  I'm gonna drive a purple van. I'll have two keys because I'm having a purple car too. And eleven dollars."

Pictures from Sat/Sun

Happy Birthday Zeke!!!

For the second time in his short life, I've scheduled surgery over Zeke's birthday. Last time it didn't faze him at all and the hospital made him feel really special on his birthday. They're living up to expectations this time too. In the middle of the night while Zeke was sleeping, his nurse made little signs and posted them up in his room.
Last surgery, Zeke hardly knew what month it was, let alone what day. This time, when they woke him up at 3am this morning for meds and to be turned, he said, "Today is Sunday. It's my birthday! Hey, where's all my presents and my cake?"
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So my first text to Steve this morning was to tell him to stop at Target and pick up something for Zeke!

Saturday

Again tired, tired, tired. All the kids are here in St Paul and it's wearing me out. Pictures posted tomorrow.

Things Zeke now has out of/off of his body: epidural, cathydr, foley, blood pressure cuff, oxygen checker thingy that glowed like a little red flashlight on his finger, and all the stick-on little monitors to measure stuff like heart rate and breathing. Today he's been peeing in a little plastic urinal and now only has to have his vitals checked once every shift (8 hours) instead of every hour. Hopefully that means we'll both be getting a lot more sleep tonight. No real issues with pain yet either.
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Yesterday one of my friends from grade school stopped by after work. It was so fun to sit and chat for a while. She just moved to the cities a few months ago so it was a great suprise to find her working at the hospital here. Hopefully I'll get to see her again before we leave on Monday.

PS: It's Zeke's 8th birthday tomorrow!

More Pictures

Hanging out watching tv

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Taking a ride in the wheelchair on Thursday

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Enjoying the balloons and flowers from Grandpa Mike & Grandma Glenda

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Dr fixing the temporary bar between Zeke's soft casts

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My drug of choice.

I splurged last night.

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Time for a chocolate chip cookie

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The only chair in the room turns into a "bed"

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This is what I slept on

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Very sleepy but still eating pizza for lunch

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Visits today from lots of nurses, a pathologist, a child life specialist, one of the surgeons, the doctor who does the epidural and the chaplin. Epidural will be turned off in the morning and Zeke will go entirely on oral and IV medications. If it goes well, they'll take the epidural out tomorrow afternoon.

It's Friday!

Last night (Thurs), I spent the night with Zeke while Steve took the baby back to the hotel. The night went well, although Zeke did have some pain/spasms for a half hour or so around 7pm. He was scheduled to have more medication around 7:30pm but by the time he could have it the pain seems to be gone. I really believe the epidural helps enormously. I slept as well as expected on the chair/bed with nurses coming in every so often to ask questions of Zeke and make sure he could move his toes and feel them.

Zeke's been watching a lot of SpongeBob but is now enjoying Diego. I've got some more pictures but won't be able to post them until I have access to my own computer again. It's at the hotel but I may ask Steve to bring it with him when he comes over later today.

Zeke is trying to wait patiently for his visitors today. Grandma Connie and Grandma Sandy are bringing the other kids to visit for the weekend. It'll be a bit of chaos but fun too. They're leaving Brookings sometime after school so they won't be here until tonight.

The highlight of Zeke's day yesterday was flowers and balloons from Grandpa Mike and Grandma Glenda. I had to convince him to leave the flower vase on the table instead with him in his bed!