Update on yesterday

When I last posted, Connie was sleeping peacefully. Wouldn't you know we just reinstated the tough love thing at night about 5 days ago and had to ruin our progress? He woke up at 4:30am and I was afraid he might still be sick or feeling ill so I sat in his chair in his room thinking he'd fall right back to sleep and I'd sneak back to my bed. 1/2 hour later, he finally shut his eyes. As soon as I tucked myself in my bed, he was crying and already out of bed! I was so exhausted I just laid with him and he fell asleep about 1/2 hour later. So he was up for a total of an hour, but didn't vomit again. Today he's acted completely normal. Since it didn't even last 24 hours, I'm assuming it was just some weird reaction to the shot he got on Thursday afternoon. Thank you for thinking of him and praying extra hard that this didn't send us down that path, the one that all heart moms know we could be back on at any time.

Also, I have to share a big milestone. Mary Kathleen scored her first soccer goal today. She kicked the tying goal in what was the closest game the Assumption Pre-K girls have had to date. It was a genuine goal too, not just one the goalie happened to let through. Once she scored, she became a totally different little player. She must have gained a great deal of confidence with that shot because she took off and went after that ball with a new sense about her. It was so fun to watch. You'd have thought she won a gold medal or something the way we carried on. Of course, all the parents do that on our team since it is so rare that we actually score!

Tonight we've made s'mores outside and told stories and read books in the tent in the backyard. The plan is for the girls and Greg to stay the night out there while Connie and I remain in the comfort of our own beds. We shall see how long they all last!

It's not flutter, but...

...Connie is not right. Conway got his H1N1 shot yesterday around 5pm. Today at about 3pm he started getting whiny and following me around and asking to be held. I asked if he wanted to snuggle and so we laid down for a while on his bed. He seemed really tired (he woke from his nap around 2:20 so not sure why he would be so tired) and his eyes kept drooping shut but he couldn't get comfortable. He coughed a few times like he might get sick to his stomach. I felt his chest and it seemed like his heart was beating rather fast so I went to grab the stethescope. His resting HR was almost 130! I just knew he was back in atrial flutter like he had been this summer so I went to get the phone to call the card before they left for the weekend and he vomited all over his bed. I checked his temp and it was 97.5 so I thought it absolutely had to be his heart. This is exactly what happens to him when he is in flutter, only this time he was paler and even more listless. Kelly told us to come in so we could interrogate the pacemaker and see if he was. He vomited again on the way to St. John's, turned white as a ghost and fell asleep. I kept waking him up thinking that if he fell asleep he'd go unconscious or something. When we got there, she did an ekg first and faxed it to Dr. Bromberg who was somewhere else doing an ablation. He read it and said it looked good but wanted the interrogation. She hooked him up and got his atrial EGM and Dr. Bromberg pulled that up from where he was and said that he was in Normal Sinus Rhythm.

So. . .that leaves us with either 1) he caught a stomach bug while at the Take Care Clinic waiting for his H1N1 shot-unlikely since everyone there was just there for the shot, no sick people waiting in line, or 2) he's having a reaction to the vaccine. What's scary to me is not that he's vomiting, but that his heart rate is so high and staying so high while resting. Kelly told us that from the people and nurses she's talked to about the vax, if someone has a reaction, it generally presents within 24 hours and lasts between 24-48 hours. She said if he's not better by Sunday to call our pediatrician.

As we left the office he seemed to be doing fine and asked for a sucker and ate it before we even got buckled in the car seat. We decided not to sit in traffic all the way back out west so we went to meet Daddy and the girls at Cece's swim practice, which was just winding up. By the time we got there, he was being a wild man and silly and acted just fine. We decided to eat something down south before coming all the way back home and he ate and drank and was silly as could be in the restaurant. He downed 1.5 glasses of chocolate milk and by the end of the meal, he looked a little green again. He made one burp that sounded like there was more behind it so we promptly left the restaurant and headed home. I covered him with bibs and towels hoping to avoid the inevitable, disgusting mess that was bound to occur on the way. Instead of getting sick, he fell asleep and has been sleeping ever since. Please say a prayer that whatever was going on with him is over and on it's way out the door! We are so thankful it wasn't his heart and are just hoping that his heart rate can stay down. I checked it a minute ago and it was around 100 so that sounds a lot better to me!

Happy Halloween!

Connie was a very good trick or treater this year. We brought the wagon, but he did quite a bit of walking himself, which was both good for him and for us to see. He was a dragon, but he didn't care for the wings so he looked more like a dinosaur. Oh well. For some reason, he thought it was okay to reach into the candy bowls himself and to try to go into people's houses. After a few houses, he learned to just hold out his monster candy bucket-which became too heavy for him rather quickly. He told everyone "Happy Halloween" but it came out more like "Happyween." He also would tell everyone he was a dragon and roar in a scary voice. It made everyone laugh. His sisters got candy from the firefighters and saw the big truck, but he was already in his pajamas so he missed it. I got to see lots of my former students and parents, including one who moved away but still comes back to the old neighborhood to trick or treat. When we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, he loaded up on candy and then was completely delerious! He was so tired (up about an hour after bedtime) and yet so full of sugar that he was literally running in circles but almost falling constantly. It was funny to watch. He fell asleep on the way home and slept all night long in his big boy bed.
The kids with their cousins

A close-up of the scary dragon

Cece (Vampire), Mary Kathleen (Ladybug Ballerina) and Connie (Dragon)

Connie digging into his haul