Our Trips to the Hospitals!

As if the whole choking episode wasn't enough this month, we had to include two trips to the hospital just to keep life entertaining. We scheduled Halle's tonsillectomy months ago because she had HUGE tonsils and was having a very difficult time breathing. So the day after her last dance performance, we headed to the hospital to have them removed.

Here she is before surgery as happy as can be. The staff gave her the doll, which I thought was pretty cool. Of course, she had already brought some "friends" along so when it came time to go into surgery, she had to pick just one to accompany her. (It was one of the bears. Thanks Grandma!)

She wanted to get a shot of the cool socks that they gave her!She had a great nurse. Her only hope for the whole adventure was to ride out in a wheelchair like Braden did. Her dreams came true. Unfortunately, she had a bad reactions to her pain meds, so here she is drugged up on both pain meds and benadryl. I am not sure if she remembers much of the ride.Just as I remember coming home to LOTS of presents when I was four and had my tonsils out, she was lucky enough to score big in the present department!! She had an amazing recovery. She slept the first day, but after that, she was climbing the walls. She colored and played her new yahtzee game and watched movies, and colored some more. She played Barbies and on the computer and colored some more. I had a hard time getting her to take it easy. She attended a birthday party 4 days later and went to church the next day! She is doing really well less than 2 weeks later. She will sometimes say that her throat hurts, but other than that she feels good. Just wait til you hear her talk, she sounds VERY different! So that was hospital trip #1. Tonight we had hospital trip #2. While Rod and I were getting ready for his company party, Halle and Parker were eating dinner. They were sitting up to our counter on barstools. I heard Halle screaming for me and so I walked out to the living room to find Parker walking to find me and crying. His back and head were covered in blood! Head wounds are always so scary, so needless to say, Rod and I skipped our Christmas Party and headed to the hospital. The bleeding finally stopped, but the injury was hard to see. They ordered a CT scan, so we did a lot of waiting. During our 2+ hours stay at the hospital, Parker received 2 staples to his head and a normal CT report. We were very relieved it wasn't worse.
I just had to show you the back of his shirt. It really was a lot of bleeding. I wonder why head wounds bleed so much?!? Poor Wesley at home was going to pass out when we asked him to clean it up off the floor and counters etc.!
So this is the after shot following his bath. It looks much better. Hopefully, that will be our last trip to the hospital for a while. All things considered, they both handled it all really well. Parker had a melt down when they numbed the wound and right when they first started the CT scan, but it only took him a little while to calm down. It really is hard to watch our children go through painful events. I am extremely thankful, at this time of year especially, to one Father in particular who watched His Son suffer for us!! I can only imagine how hard that must have been!