Back to school??

Where do I even begin to start my story of how our last week has gone?!  It has definitely been a bit crazy and yet at the same time a bit mellowing as the older three returned to school.  

We spent Labor Day weekend here at home, we took it easy and just decided to enjoy the last few days, and hang out as a family.  We surprised the kids with a trip to Game Stop and allowed them to each pick a game (including Willow) as they had a great deal of buy 2 used items - get 1 free. Plus I had a coupon for the same deal that we could use, so it was great!

The older kids have adjusted to being back in school quite well actually.  We have a good little routine going on in the morning where I off set their wake up times in order to make for a smooth -yell free morning.  Oh is it ever wonderful!! Hopefully things will still go smoothly when little boy West gets here anytime now.  

Willow had a headache all last week, and so we had put a call in to her Neurosurgeons (NS) office just updating them on her in general.... They told us to head straight in on Thursday if she still complained.  Well, she didn't until dinner when I was slowly rocking her side to side in my chair, she yelled at me to stop as it hurt her head.  So I told Jon that is it, I am calling the ped Friday to make an appt. and see if they can rule out any traditional kid type stuff.  Well, that night the kids were playing outside while Jon was away at a meeting with our car (see the precursor set up here??) - when all of a sudden Jonathan runs inside with Willow in his arms saying she fell down and hit her head. :(  

So, sure enough there is a goose egg on her forehead - now any one of my other kids would have gotten ice and been told to sit and chill... Willow got the ice, and we made a few frantic calls and texts to daddy to see what he thought we should do.  Either sit and wait until he gets home to see it or come home and take her to ER.  Well, long story short (at least shorter) - is he came home, later that night we were admitted to Helen Devos and spent the night there.  Her CT still shows no change to her ventricles, which is good - but her NS feels that it doesn't mean she is not feeling pressure.  There are times when the vents don't expand again after being small (or slit like as they are) due to a couple of reasons.  So we could be looking at an intermittent shunt failure (based on the seizure she also had less than a couple of months ago).  Her blood work shows that she is fighting a bacterial infection of sorts, so it could be a minor shunt infection he said.  So we decided to do this the least invasive way possible at this time, as tapping the shunt or doing the nuc. med study pose a lot more risks with vents as tiny as hers... We collected urine and are praying for a UTI... Yup, lets hope it is that, if not, we will have to assume its a minor shunt infection and start antibiotics (why they didn't send us home on any is beyond me but whatever).  But it needs to be a minor infection and not turn major as surgery at this point with her will be a lot higher of a risk for brain damage to take place than at any other surgery she has already had (they all have risks, but with no wiggle room to speak of, it is more likely that brain matter gets nicked/damaged at this point than in the past).  

So, Friday just before dinner we make it home!  Saturday we hang low as I am 36 weeks pregnant and feeling the pinch of these last few weeks!  He is not low enough to think it will be soon, which.... (sigh) well it would be nice now that we are this far if he would come soon.  LOL  We still have no name set in stone, which for us is a bit different than with children past.. But it will all work out in the end. :) 

So, I hope that everyone else had a great back to school week and that the transition went smoothly.