Saturday, October 24, 2009

Gavin Owens

We are asking everyone to keep Gavin and his family in their thoughts and prayers this weekend.  Gavin's parents have had to make some very tough decisions this week regarding Gavin and no parent should ever have to go through having to make these decisions for their child.  Please visit Gavin and his family at the link below and, if you have a moment, leave them a message to let them know you are thinking of them.

www.gavinowens.com

 

Sam appears to be getting over his pneumonia and we have all been feeling much better the last few days.  Still some lingering coughs and runny noses, but we will take those over the miserable flu that we dealt with.  I promise, new pictures are coming soon.

Monday, October 19, 2009

H1N1 Nightmare

This all started 10 days ago when Ryan came down with a fever about an hour after the last of our guests left.  Like dominoes, almost everyone that was at our house that day has fallen ill.  Because H1N1 testing is so expensive, everyone except Ryan is a "suspected" case, but Ryan got tested because of Sam, even though it was really too late to do anything about it by that point.  Ryan was positive for the H1N1 flu virus, so there is little doubt that the rest of the "suspected" cases are really not all that suspicious.

Fast forward 10 days.  Sam never really got that sick.  Deb and I have been toying with illness off and on, everything seemed to be going in the right direction.  There has been a lot of talk about the H1N1 virus and how it is so dangerous because it appears to be having a huge impact on peoples lungs and there have been a high number of cases of "post H1N1 pneumonia" in children.  It seems to be particularily dangerous as it is hard to fight off.

As of tonight, Sam and one of the other children that was at our house 10 days ago have come down with pneumonia.  Another is is the ER as I am writing this.  We caught Sam's really early but we wil need to watch him carefully to make sure that things don't change for the worse.  From what we are hearing, when it changes for the worst it changes fast.  For someone like Sam who has already been through so much this is just not what he needs right now.

Sam is sleeping peacefully now, pumped full of IV antibiotics, hopefully the morning will bring lungs that sound the same or better - not worse.  Tomorrow I will update again, and include the story of the worst ER visit imaginable.  Stay Tuned.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Lack of Updates

We intended to get a post done shortly after Ryan's party, but we have had a few things go on that have just sucked up our time.

First the company that hosts our website upgraded the software we use for our journal and guestbook.  That inadvertently caused several hours of work to get the past entries back.  They have been restored, but I still need to go through the old journal entries and upload all of the pictures again.

On top of that we have been dealing with illness after illness in our house since Ryan's party.  We started with colds, but last Saturday Ryan developed a fever, sore throat, cough, etc...   Fortunately we no longer have to worry about having Sam and Ryan vaccinated for the H1N1 flu virus because we have been dealing with the real virus all week.  Ryan was affected the worst.  He seems to be doing better.  Sam and Jason have had mild symptoms that have come and gone and come and gone throughout the week.  We are keeping a close eye on Sam to make sure he does not develop pneumonia.

Once we are all feeling better and we get the pictures loaded back to the journal we will get some new pictures and updates about Sam and what he has been up to.  For now this short update is all we can provide as my nice warm bed is calling me, where I plan to be for at least the next 10 hours.