School Starts for Gabe!

Back in August Gabe started first grade.  A few changes this year as he is in a different building and not in the same class as Hudsen.  He was ready though! No nerves or fear.

Getting Ready for FIRST Grade

A few days before school started we went to Gabe's school to find out who his teacher would be, meet her, see his classroom and drop off school supplies!  We were all excited for this day!

His teacher Mrs. Larsen

Hospital Fun?

A few pics of the lovely hospital stay in Fort Dodge

Platelets!!! Our favorite thing of all!

Feeling a bit better

Pain meds, anyone?

One of my better meals during his first week.

And some food for Aaron.

Andrew Turned 4

June 21 was the big day.  Andrew said he wanted to spend it boating at Okoboji so that's what we did! It was fun and when we got home Bauer and gma and gpa had come to visit from MN.

ND gma, gpa, auntie Kristi and Sydney were here too!

Lots of special visitors!!

Humboldt County Fair

Aaron's first big outing post-op was a short trip to our local fair.  We spent a few bucks for rides at the creepy carnival,  looked at all the animals, got some good food and visited with friends. That was plenty and Aaron was worn out .

Trying to be "normal"

There is a lot more of our summer health (or lack thereof) to continue.  But to be honest I don't really feel like detailing it much.  I feel like once I get some of this down then I can go back to some normal blogging.  I'll keep the rest of this concise.

I left off at July 13 when my parents arrived.  The next week Aaron stayed in the hospital slowly improving.  Big setback was when he developed 2 abscesses in his abdomen.  This is not uncommon after a ruptured appendix but sucked nonetheless.  He had to have more platelets and a CT guided needle aspiration of the areas.  Then 2 more drains were left in.

He was finally discharged on July 21st, day 14 of his imprisonment hospital stay.  He still had all 3 drains in and was on antibiotics but was good to get home.

Recovery has been very slow and has been hampered by 2 episodes of infection with Clostridium difficile.  He JUST finished a round of antibiotics for it and are praying it doesn't come back again.  If it does I am going to have him see a GI specialist for treatment as it is a difficult organism to kill.

Shortly after Aaron got out of the hospital Gabe came down with a GI infection called "crypto".  Cryptosporidium parvum was in the public pool and he developed vomiting, stomach cramps, decreased appetite and pretty severe diarrhea.  So that was a whole lot of fun to deal with!  He got on the right anti-protozoal medication and improved.

A week after Gabe started treatment I started coming down with symptoms.  Ugh.  Suffice to say I spent a few hours in the ER one day.  A few days later I spent the night in the hospital (August 6) for fluids and electrolyte/vitamin replacement.  I ended up out of work for a full week and only worked very short hours the next week.

Andrew managed to stay healthy throughout it all!

It was a crazy month and made for a long, tough summer.