7 is Rafe

And now my baby is 7! Every year it gets a little sadder for me to have Rafe grow up. On his special day he was so excited of course. We opened presents really early before Jax had to leave for school. We got him his own cool Xbox controller, which he rarely uses but at least he has his own cool color one now. His older brothers hog the Xbox all the time playing FortNite - the bain of my existence!

And Rafe must be the youngest because we also got him all 5 Transformer movies. He loves them and wants to watch them all over and over. And at one time I would never let my 6-7 yr. old child watch them. Let alone the older boys. But when the older ones have seen them or at least the fun action parts, Rafe would watch too and loved it. So we started "editing" them when we'd watch with him. But man he wants to watch them all the time. So we kinda gave up and he's seen them all, a lot So he was very happy to see those movies.

Then we had grandparents over for cake and ice cream. Rafe said he wanted a flag cake for his b-day. I kept asking if he was sure. And he was and wanted to help make the red stripes. Which he did. Fun stuff.

Rafe blowing out the candles. And then blowing again and again because they were trick candles. We didn't know when we got them and lit them. Kinda funny. Oops. But then Creed helped re-blow them out, and Jax, and Grandma. Everyone had a good laugh at all the re-lighting and blowing. And I can't believe I only took a few pictures of his b-day.

We all adore our Rafe. Pafes, Pafers, hoppy skippy, and Dessert are just some of the nick names we call him. He loves being the youngest and hates being the youngest. With so much going on he is always happy and content to watch his shows/movies and pause them and hop and skip around playing, then resume his show, or rewind and watch a scene over and over a few times. Ugh. He is a good eater and will eat most everything we offer. He has a good memory and loves to remind us of stuff. He hates how his brothers always just want to play Fortnite and hates it as much as I do. He is my little sweetie pie. But, and a big but here, he is also my little grump. He gets mad and man he pouts and is like a little storm cloud. So I ask him to show me happy Rafe. And eventually a switch will go off and he'll be all happy again just as quickly as he got mad. He can get angry and yells where ever we are.

He gets picked on by his brothers and that doesn't make him happy so that's a lot of his temper I'm sure.

His favorite food is Pizza. But he'll eat a PB & J everyday and loves hamburgers too. His favorite dessert is Oreo's and is not much of a candy eater. If he gets any he gives it to his brothers. He has to sit by me everywhere, at church, a movie, dinner out, he always wants to be with me. His brothers are always trying to kiss him or snuggle with him and that's part of this getting picked on and he yells at them. But sometimes he'll let them love on him and it's cute. Sometimes he'll say the funniest things. I can't think of any right now to type, but he's funny. Happy 7th year to Rafe!

Spring Break & Easter

 Well we didn't want to sit home over spring break, so we headed south to St. George. We hurry and booked a condo a few weeks before and drove down on a Thursday night. Bodie and Rafe got car sick on the way down and Rafe through up twice. Luckily in a cup and a garbage can. Then he was fine.

Once we got there for the weekend we did some food shopping, hiked around, swam in the pool and hot tub, drove a little off-road in the red rock/sand, and we hit up a fun zone place and rode speed cars and played arcades, ate out at different restaurants, ate way too much ice cream and played at a fun new park. We really enjoyed the sun, and warmth and being away. The boys loved the condo we stayed at.

And a tiring saga we had to deal with was Bodie. He was getting over a cold so he had a little cough but that was the least of the problems. He was up many many times (10 or something) a night complaining of tummy aches or that he is going to throw up. I think he was confused with what he was feeling. He said the only thing that made him feel better was a hot shower. So 2-3 times a night I would be sitting with him hovered over the toilet or while he stood in the shower. I was so tired the whole time. We got him some Pepto Bismol to help his tummy. It kinda worked. ** after we came home we took him to the Dr. a little while later and discovered he has some kind of acid reflux type stuff that is effecting the lining of his stomach and causes pain and nausea. He had been suffering for several months and it was just getting worse. He's on medicine now, hopefully it helps take care of it. Rafe might have the same issue? We'll see. 

Anyways... back to Easter break.

On Saturday we dyed Easter eggs. That was enjoyed by some and some were being silly and one was in a bad mood. Can you tell in the pictures who was not a happy camper? Ha!

We enjoyed doing the crack while in St. George. Rafe was brave and did it with us this time. Greg doesn't fit so he took pictures.

Easter morning! We had to wake up some of the boys so we could find the baskets and get a move on our morning. There's the boys wandering around looking for eggs and baskets upstairs and downstairs and all over.

Bodie found his in the dryer in the hall. Rafe looked multiple times in the pantry and didn't see his until we gave him some major hints to look again, Jax finally found his in the master bedroom behind a chair, and Creed's was in the upstairs bathroom closet. And then lots of eggs filled with candy were hidden all over. What a great Easter bunny!

All the loot and munching during conference while we packed to head home. I am super sad our camera has every picture blurry. I don't know the setting or it needs to be repaired? 

On our way out of town driving home we stopped at Kolob Canyon, part of Zion's Natl Park. It was so pretty. We did a quick over-look view hike/walk and took some pics on our way back out. We had to keep on the road to make it to Alpine for Easter dinner with Greg's family.

Thumbs up for a great little vacation and the pretty canyon. And I tell ya, talk about an incredible view out our car mirrors!

Jax's health scare!

 So here is Jaxon getting a cat-scan on March 19th. Cool to see his skull, eye sockets, brain, you know, the parts of your son's head you never want to see. And then that cool picture of him without hair. Nice and bald. And then his feet with all the broken capillaries going all the way up his legs too.(Petechiae) - due to his HSP.

Then there's more! Here he is getting an MRI on April 2nd. They found something so they had to give him an IV and go do another one or more of one. The 2nd picture is what they found. DVA (Developmental Venous Anomaly) that dark spot on the upper left of the picture - which is really his right side. 

And then our middle of the night visit to the ER at Primary Children's Hosp. Where he couldn't move his hips and did not want me taking a picture of him in a wheel chair. 

And the last one is a random picture from my phone when we were shopping and he wanted to remember this jacket in case he wanted to come back and buy it.

So I sent an email update to Greg's mom so I just copied and pasted it here to tell the story...

So here's the long/short story...

on 3/18/18 Jax had a sudden sharp headache on the front right part of his head/brain. He was doing his pull-ups before bed and was pushing to do his highest number, 20! and then fell to the floor in pain and came upstairs to tell me. So we called our after hours Dr. to ask what we should do. Over the phone we ruled out stroke and other bad signs of bleeding and they said to bring him in come morning. So we did and they ordered a Cat-scan, so we did that with in 12 hours to look for signs of anything. And it came back normal.

During that week he kept having little flare ups of the head ache. Like when running at gym, or getting upset at his brothers it would start hurting.

And then his hands started to get tingly on and off during the days.

In the meantime we scheduled an MRI, we had that done on 4/2/18  during that they found a Developmental Venous Anomaly. (DVA) The radiologist said he's probably had it since birth and to monitor it throughout his life. He said it didn't look like it was bleeding at all. It's a weird formation of veins clustered in the brain. But, that was in the same spot as the headache - the front right. So we were worried that had caused the pain.

So we get on the long wait schedule to see an neurologist. I made one appointment, then made another for a week earlier at Primary's.

The day after the MRI Jax's arm from the elbow down had broke capillaries all down the arm. I assumed it was from where they put the needle in him and tied it off to stop the bleeding. After we got home from the MRI he took it off and it was still kinda bleeding a bit, so we had to put pressure on it. 

4/3 we went to the first neurologist appt. at Primary's but that was very disappointing. The Dr. didn't know anything or tell us anything, other than he seems healthy, it was probably a migraine and go back to life like normal - oh and said to schedule with the neuro surgeons and follow up in 6mo. w/ another MRI to check his DVA.

But later that week on Fri. 4/6 he noticed he had broken capillaries all down both entire legs! So we were really kinda worried what was going on now! We talked w/ our pediatrician's office again and had a another appt. w/ a different Neurologist on Tuesday. So we were waiting for that.

Sat. morning his feet had double the broken capillaries. So we start searching the internet for what it might be. And found all kinds of things, like leukemia. And it had mentioned sore/painful joints. His lower back was hurting him, his ankle, so we sent him to bed that night. We all took some Melatonin to help us sleep.

But at 1:30am Jax calls us on the monitor (Alexa) and we flew down to his room to see what was wrong. I tell ya my heart was pounding with worry. He was hunched over and teary and scared to death. He was whimpering that his hips hurt so bad and he couldn't move. And what was wrong, is he going to die?! It was sad. So that was the last straw, I packed him up and he and I headed to the ER at 2am. All 3 of us with a pit in our stomach in worry.

And at the ER he did a urine sample to rule out other stuff. But they said he had Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP) that was the joint pain and it can cause the broken capillaries. It will go away on it's own. And just take IB profin. Since we had the next neuro appt. on Tuesday they said to keep that and sent us on our way at 5am.

Jax slept that morning and did his afternoon classes at school and said his hips felt better after medication.

So Tuesday we meet with a much better neurologist. She said the DVA is not related at all. Just a coincidence it's on the same side for the brain. The headache is either a cough headache or exertion headache. Both similar and can be caused by what he was doing when it happened. He probably wasn't breathing properly and it made the blood/oxygen supply to his brain low and caused the sharp pain. The brain itself has no pain receptors, so he was just feeling the outer part where this can happen. She said usually the front left or right. He passed all neuro tests with flying colors.

So Jax just needs to take note if it happens again and carry on like normal. But breathe properly while excising.

No need to worry about the DVA, but if we want piece of mind we can always go and do another MRI to make sure it hasn't grown or anything.

The HSP already appears to be better - it could flare up again? We'll see.

Nobody ever had an answer for the tingly hands/fingers. But that has stopped for now anyways. If it happens again he needs to take note of what he was doing when it happens.

That is our saga of events with him. We are super relieved! For a while thinking the worst wondering what is happening to him, but in the end just a series of things all un-related making it look like something big and scary. PHEW  - all is well now.