MRSA!?!

I came across these pictures a while back and I wanted to post this mostly for journaling reasons so I don't forget. So bear with me. In the short 5 years of traekon's life he has already had MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) twice! For those of you who have no clue what that is it's a super mutated staff infection. The first time he got it we lived in thatcher and he was only 2 years old. Todd's brother was living with us at the time and ended up getting it somehow. At that same time Traekon had an open wound on his foot. It ended up getting really infected so I took him to the doctor and they tested it. Sure enough it was MRSA. They put him on an antibiotic(at the time there was only a few antibiotics for this infection cause it was so rare) and it got better. Well about a month later he kept complaining about his leg hurting right in his groin area. I thought maybe he had pulled a muscle somehow cause I couldn't see anything. Then one morning he woke up with a ping pong sized ball on his leg. I took him in and they immediately sent me to the ER where they hospitalized him. The very next morning they took him into surgery. They ended up opening his leg, drained the puse, and left his leg open so that they could drain it every morning and scrub it out. OUCH!! It was the hardest week of my life and his. Containing a two year old in a hospital with an iv in his arm for an entire week is not fun. Needless to say he got lots of new fun toys, and many rides on his iv cart around the hospital. After coming home I swore that we would never do that again! Boy was I wrong!




The next MRSA experience went a little different. It was just about a year ago. I'll start from the beginning. The day I brought Ashton home from the hospital(In my defense keep in mind that i have c-sections so I'm a little out of it at this time!) Todd took traekon to the park to ride his bike. He was just learning how to ride without his training wheels so my brilliant husband decided to let him go down the drainage, which looks alot like a sidewalk, but with alot of trash and germs, and who knows what else. Of course he crashes(men don't think sometimes!) Luckily, or so we thought, he ended up with a few bruises and a strawberry on his elbow. I didn't think much of the strawberry, but now looking back I should have scrubbed the heck out of that thing. Remember new baby, sore body, not walking very well! So about a month later sure enough Traekon has this nasty infection on his elbow which I swear just showed up one day. So I took him in and told the pediatrician "he has MRSA on in his elbow". The lady would not believe me and I couldn't convince her otherwise. She sent me home unwillingly with an antibiotic that I knew was not going to work and for my sake took a swab of his elbow. HA two days later she called me back apologizing telling me to bring him in immediately. Wouldn't you know...MRSA! They gave him a shot of the right antibiotics and a perscription. It started clearing up and eventually went away. So this was probably May. I thought for sure I was home free. Not in this story though. August rolls around and Traekon's in the bath. He reaches up to wash his hair and holy cow he has a bump a size of a marble under his arm. AH CRAP! Is all I can say. I take him in and tell them his history and that I know that it's MRSA and that the last time this happened he was in the hospital for a week. Can you guess what happens next....Yep they don't believe me! Doctors should always go with a mothers intuition. But nope they send me to get blood work done on him, and just to be safe send me to a pediatric oncologist. So then I start doubting myself and thinking maybe it is cancer. Talk about being a nervous wreck. Well we meet with the oncologist and he has no clue what it is. I tell him about his past so he puts Traekon on another dose of the MRSA antibiotic and tells me to keep him posted. While all of this is happening Traekon has NO health insurance, because it expired and no one likes to tell me these things so we are paying for all of this out of pocket, ugh! Anyway I take the perscription in to get it filled and because it's so new I fork out...1,000.00 big ones. Talk about a headache! To boot, the antibiotics didn't even work. The lump is now the size of a golf ball. I call to get an appointment with the oncologist and he's out of town. I finally get an appointment with his pediatrician who then refers me to a pediatric surgeon. By the time we get in to see him the bump is no longer a bump, but an actual town with it's own zip code. It was HUGE! Traekon couldn't even put his arm down. I'm completely livid with all doctors because all along i've told them what it is and what they need to do. But does anyone listen to little ol' me...nope! The surgeon takes one look and says "wow why didn't you come in sooner" I could have ripped his sorry little eyes out but he was acutally a good doctor so I didn't. He books an appointment right away. This time around was a little better cause they didn't hospitalize him. So that was a bonus. All they did this time was cut a little slit, drained the puse, and stuffed it with gauze. We had to pull about an inch of gauze each day until it was gone. Gross! Now a year later all is well and now everytime he gets a cut, scrap, or any open wound whatsoever, we scrub it like crazy with hibiclens. Hopefully the MRSA stories are a thing of the past! Oh and we got back on insurance before the surgery, thank goodness!

This is surgery day... Can you believe the size of that thing! Traekon was such a trooper cause he never complained about it even when he couldn't put his arm down.

After surgery with gauze hanging out.

A. ATTACHED OR SINGLE? Attached to Todd, Traekon, Kenzi, and Ashton
B. BEST FRIEND? Todd
C. CAKE OR PIE? Cake...Chocolate cake!
D. DAY OF CHOICE? I should say sunday, but I have to be honest and say Friday
E. ESSENTIAL ITEMS? air conditioning, DVD players in the car for long trips, a Car( i went a week without one while it was in the shop...not fun!)
F. FAVORITE COLORS? Red, Black, Teal
G. GUMMY BEARS OR WORMS? Worms
H. HOMETOWN? Pima, Arizona
I. INDULGENCE? Shopping and eating good food
J. JANUARY OR JULY? Definitely July, lake time baby!
K. Kids? Traekon 5, Kenzi 3, Ashton 1
L. LIFE ISN'T COMPLETE WITHOUT? My Hubby and my kids
M. MARRIAGE DATE? March 1, 2002
N. NUMBER OF BROTHERS AND SISTERS? 2 brothers--Marc and Robert, 4 sisters--Leilani, malia, kanani, and Lehua. I'm the baby:)
O. ORANGES OR APPLES? both
P. PHOBIAS OR FEARS? Fear of losing a child or my spouse. The dentist, cancer, scorpions
Q. QUOTE? "All the great things in life aren't things"
R. REASON TO SMILE? 8:00pm Betime!
S. SUPERMAN OR WONDER WOMAN? Hmm, neither...maybe jason bourne:)
T. TAG 5 PEOPLE Pay attention! Any 5 who have time!
U. UNKNOWN FACT ABOUT ME: I HATE hanging up clothes
IV. VEGETABLES? Peas, corn, brocoli, asparagus, carrots, green beans...There's to many good ones!
W. WORST HABIT? Forgetting my phone when I leave my house. My hubby hates that!
X. X-RAY OR ULTRASOUND? Ultrasound. It has a much happier reason:)
Y. YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Too many to mention, I hate seafood though, blah!
Z. ZODIAC SIGN? Scorpio? Is that what that means?!

Nap Time

With all this working out, I'm totally beat! Todd took Traekon with him to run some errands and ashton was down for a nap so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to lay down with kenzi and take a nap. Well I fell asleep with kenzi playing on the bed. I woke up 10 minutes later(probably longer but it felt really short) and couldn't find kenzi anywhere. I started to panic just a little cause i left the front door unlocked(bad, bad, bad). In pima thats probably okay, but not so much here. Anyway, I searched everywhere. No Kenzi. I started heading back to my room and the office and found this between my bed and the door. She was out like a light!

Nose stuffer

Traekon had asked if he could sleep on kenzi's floor which I let him do sometimes for fun, but this night they were exceptionally rowdy. So I told them if I heard them playing and messing around that he would have to go back to his own room. They readily agreed, so I tucked them in and headed to the living room to watch tv with todd. The little stinkers very quietly snuck into the bathroom and were getting toilet paper and then running back into kenzi's room. About 20 minutes into the show traekon comes out and says "mom there's something stuck in my nose." and me thinking it's just a booger tell him to get a tissue blow his nose and go back to bed! So he proceeds to blow his nose and keeps telling me that something is stuck. Very impatiently I tell him to blow harder. Finally after a couple minutes of blowing I tell him to let me see. He runs over and i look up his nose and sure enough I see something way up there. I can't help but start laughing, todd grabs a flashlight and I head for my tweezers( probably very unsafe, but what else was I supposed to do). So we lay him down, shine the light, and grab whatever is shoved up his nostril. Out comes this huge(okay not huge but about the size of a jelly bean) rolled up ball of toilet paper sooked with snot! Those of you who know traekon know that he has this fetish for rolling things, even worms (long story). I can't stop laughing as I'm lecturing him on how we are not supposed to shove things up our nostrils. He's 5 you'd think he'd know, but I guess not. Anyway it made for a good laugh! Kids!!!

No more FLAB!

I did it people...I joined a gym! After my arizona/mexico trip i decided that enough was enough. The body fat had to go! Needless to say spending time with my stick figure sisters didn't help much. So the day after I got home me and Nicole(a buddy of mine here in alb.) marched our booties to all the gyms near us and joined one. We ended up joining defined fitness cause it was the cheapest and they have free daycare. The very next morning we got up and went to the spin class at 5:45. Wow thats early!!!!! I thought I was going to pass out after about 20 minutes and nicole swore she was going to puke, so the next day we decided to try the 9:00 class that rotates step aerobics, salsa, and some other class that we get our heart rate up and sweat alot(I don't know how else to explain it!) We loved it, but that meant we had to take the children. We've been doing great until yesterday ashton woke up with....
you guessed it pink eye! He had to have gotten it at the daycare. Bummer! I sacrificed my childs health for the sake of losing weight. Am I a horrible mother? So now I'm really leery about the daycare, but what else can I do?! I guess get my ghetto booty back up at 5:45. AHH decisions, decisions! LAME i know!

Vacation in arizona/rocky point

About two weeks ago we headed to Arizona to visit my fam and spend some time in Rocky point. Before heading to Rocky point we spent some time with the cousins in arizona. We sure do love our cousins there! Traekon absolutely adores all his fun boy cousins in the gila valley and is constantly telling me he misses them and wants to live by them. He also asks when they are coming to visit him(hint, hint)! While there my absolutely best girlfriend was also there (I won't mention names cause she hates the whole blogging seen!) She let us ride her horses, which I haven't done since uh.... yep high school! It was so much fun and the kids loved every second of it! The kids play hard when we are in arizona, resulting in grumpy tired kids at night, but it's well worth it!

The boys with there mohawks like ashton's

Ashton crashing after a long day of playing!

After a week in thatcher/pima we headed to cholla bay (puerto penasco) with todd's family and the Hines (family friends). The Hines own a little cabin that sits right on the bay so when the tide comes in the water is right off the back porch. It's super neat and alot of fun! We spent a couple of days there just relaxing on the beach. Kanani kept ashton for me and in return we took bradyn with us. Talk about a good trade! I never saw traekon and bradyn unless they were hungry. I didn't think they would let us back across the border with my two mexican looking boys! Bradyn already has a great tan...so imagine what he looks like after 4 days in the sun! Luckily we made it home safe and sound. What a great little vacation to start the summer out right!