Seattle Children's Hospital

Thanks to everyone's prayers, Ellie has been showing improvement. This morning, the swelling was still about the same as yesterday, but the pain and the infection level had subdued quite a bit. She has been almost back to her normal cheery self (except for when she has to take medicine) and has been eating and drinking okay. She even had lunch (pasta and strawberries), so the doctors put her on an oral antibiotics instead of the IV to see if she could handle it when she went home. She may be coming home tomorrow if she does well tonight and tomorrow morning!

Other than the being sick part, staying a few days at the Children's Hospital hasn't been too bad for Ellie. It is a super nice hospital. They have free massages for the parents, two Starbucks locations, playroom for the children full of toys, craft supplies, movies, and games, and even a swimming pool! Oh, yeah, and did I mention they have free massages for the parents? Ellie gets to watch TV all day, drink juice and eat crackers, color and paint, play with play-dough, and gets undivided attention from mommy and daddy!

Ellie has been having a hard time taking the oral medicine (Tylenol, ibuprofen, and the antibiotics). She's always done really well with that at home, so the pain in her throat (mouth) must be pretty bad if she is refusing the take medicine. But she is so much like her mommy and can tolerate pain really, really well, so it has been a little difficult for the doctors to discern how much pain she is in.

To give you an idea of how well she has been doing, it took the nurse about 2 full minutes to get her IV line in. The whole time, she was whimpering but kept her focus on the movie that was playing on tv but didn't even cry while the nurse kept going at her arm with the needle. It was going in and out back and forth for what seemed like forever to me (the nurse decide to change the vein in the middle and turned the needle 90 degrees while it was still in her arm), and I even started to feel a little sick watching it (and I am pretty good with needles, having donated blood and been certified in drawing blood and everything). But she has been a champ with all the prodding and poking she's been through, and the doctors and the nurses at the hospital are very impressed with her (she has been called "the best patient" a couple times).

To make things easier for us, James has been such an angel. He's been staying in Ellie's room with me during the day since he has to be breastfed. I took a little portable baby swing to Ellie's room, and James just sits there and sleeps all day! Because Ellie's condition involves respiratory problems (she had a cold before developing the abscess), she is in "quarantine." She can't be out of her room and can't have any visitors that are 10 or younger. Alden and Eli hasn't seen her since Monday morning other than during a brief Hangout session before bedtime. They have been behaving really well at Lara's house where they have been staying. We were so blessed to have come to Seattle where we have friends we could rely on. Lara's been taking care of Alden and Eli since Monday, and Alden doesn't even want to come home when I go over to pick him up at night. It's been so great to have her help and to have Al and Eli behave relatively well to make things easier for everyone.

Hopefully Ellie will finally get to come home tomorrow. We can't wait for things to calm down around here. Ha ha.

First Week in Seattle

Our first week in Seattle was pretty uneventful, at least compared to the first day anyway.

Went grocery shopping, went to church, got invited to lunch, started new work, went to the library, went to the mall, canceled credit cards with three different financial institutions, got our cars, took care of sick kids, went to the urgent care at 8pm for mastitis, and put in an application for a rental house.

They didn't all happen in just one day... Not too bad, right? Until we ended up in the Emergency Room today...

The kids have been sick a little bit and have had a little bit of snuffles for a few days. Ellie seemed to be doing the best, and aside from a very little bit of runny nose, she was doing great. On Saturday, she suddenly started to develop a fever during the day. She was acting really weak and was unusually whiny. Joe and I figured we might have to let her sleep in our bed to get her to sleep that night.

Well, it was nothing like other sick nights we have had with Ellie in the past. She refused to go to sleep, and even when she did, she woke up just a few minutes after. She'd fall asleep in my arms, and if I moved her even slightly, she woke right back up and couldn't fall back asleep. Between her, Eli, and James taking turns to be up during the night, I pretty much stayed up all night. Needless to say, the next day was to be the day of rest for us...

Ellie had no appetite and could only eat a few bites of yogurt and some applesauce. We kept her fever in check with Tylenol and ibuprofen. Around dinner time, she was feeling much better and chirpy as usual and even had dinner with the rest of the family.

Less than an hour after bedtime, she woke back up with a fever, and we repeated the first night all over again (of course with Eli and James waking up during the night as well). I was convinced she had a mild case of ear infection and that it would get better soon.

Monday morning, I realized that I had it all wrong. Even when she had an ear infection, she was always so energetic and happy. This time, not so much. She was really weak, lethargic, even, and when she talked, she would shape her mouth funny so that she would sound very strange. When asked where it hurt, she pointed at her cheeks rather than her ears. And she had started to drool. I thought she may have an infection in her saliva gland or something. 

I made an appoint at the pediatricians office that morning, and the pediatrician, Dr. David, told us to go to the Emergency Room at the Seattle Children's Hospital right away to be seen by the ENT doctors there. She was worried that Ellie could have an abscess in her mouth and that it would have to be drained right away.

I dropped Alden and Eli off at a friend's house and drove straight to the ER. Within the first two hours, Ellie was seen by 5-8 different doctors (combination of residents, head ER doctor, supervising doctor, pediatricians, ENT doctor, senior ENT, etc.). They told me initially that she may have to be sedated to drain the abscess and be hospitalized for a few days after that. Then they decided that it would be better to actually treat her with antibiotics first and monitor her closely to see how she did overnight. 

So now... Joe is at the hospital with her tonight while I am typing this at home with the three boys in bed... It is going to be a long night (nights depending on how well she responds to the antibiotics) for all of us. We are hoping for a fast recovery...

Good news is that we think we found a permanent place to stay... I got a call back from the rental house we applied for last Saturday. They would like to rent to us if the background checks come back okay. :) 

Stay tuned for more adventures... It looks like we are going to keep having more. Ha ha.

Enjoying the large selection of movies they had in the ER room.

James is watching too. :) He was very considerate of his sister and slept most of the time so I could hold Ellie the whole time.

By this time, she had been poked, prodded, etc., and was done with doctors and nurses...

You can see the swelling a little in this picture.

Seattle WA

Yes, we are now in Washington state. Joe's new job at Amazon.com corporate office has moved our family of 6 (yes, 6. I'll save that story for later.) to Emerald City, Seattle. The whole interview process was really short, and within three weeks of applying, we knew that we had to leave our home in Lehi, Utah and move to Seattle.

The next three weeks are a blur... between sick kids, sick parents, de-cluttering, packing. etc. Fortunately, we had a lot of help from family, friends, and Amazon's relocation assistance program, and on the morning of Valentine's Day, 2014, we were ready to fly to Seattle.

Our stuff being loaded on the truck

The night before was an adventure. Since our house had been emptied the day before, we had to sleepover at Joe's dad's house in Bountiful. (It took 6 hours to box up everything we own, and another 10+ hours to load everything to the truck.) After hanging out with family, we were headed to bed at 10 pm -- the latest that the kids had gone to bed in a long time. Ellie and Alden fell asleep pretty quickly, but Eli had a difficult time falling asleep because he was free from the bounds of his crib. Between climbing over mommy, daddy, brother, and sister and smothering everyone's sleeping faces with his wet kisses, he was finally asleep just after midnight. Joe and I knew that it was going to be a difficult day with cranky kids, but we really had no idea what was waiting for us that day.

Joe's dad made us breakfast with banana pancakes, eggs, and bacon. We were somehow able to fit everything in our minivan. Three adults (Joe, his dad, and me), 4 kids, 4 check-in bags, 4 carry-on bags, 4 personal items, 4 car seats, and two strollers. After saying goodbye to Joe's dad, we checked everything in and headed towards security.

The first bump of the day started when I discovered that I had packed the bottle of hand sanitizer inside the carry-on bag instead of the check-in bag (it went in the trash can). We were two hours early to our flight, and we were determined to get on the plane early to get everything stowed away and ready to go. 20 minutes before the boarding time, Joe took Alden on a bathroom trip. After they got back, as I headed towards the bathroom with Ellie, they announced early boarding for families with little children (15 minutes early!). I gave up going to the bathroom and we hurried on to board. Imagine our surprise when Joe's boarding pass kept giving us an error and would not let us board the plane! 

Amazon was originally going to book us 6 seats for the flight, and we told them that 4 seats would suffice, since two of our children are under the age of 2. The travel agency had booked us 4 seats in the same row (Alaska instead of Delta since Delta didn't have 4 seats available in the same row) three weeks in advance. However, while reading Alaska Airline's policy online two days ago, we discovered that they didn't let 2 infants sit in the same row. We had to call the airline and eventually had to get separate seats (Joe alone with the baby two rows ahead of me with the older three kids). 

We thought that the problem had been resolved and were very upset that they would not let us board the plane early (especially since we gave up the bathroom trip). They tried scanning the boarding pass several times, overriding the system, and reprinting the passes, and eventually just had to let us on the plane because they couldn't find any problems (or solutions). 

As soon as we got to our seats, I realized that Eli was missing one of his shoes (He has a habit of taking his shoes of when he has to sit for a long time). After attempting to walk back out to find his shoe against the crowd that was filling in the plane for several minutes, I had to give up and ask for help. The flight attendants couldn't find the shoe, and we finally found it when they made an announcement over the PA system after everyone had boarded.

The flight itself was pretty good. Both Eli and Ellie fell asleep, and Al was pretty happy to be able to play his Nintendo DS. Ellie was still asleep when we arrived in Seattle, so we waited until everyone got off the plane to start getting our stuff. The flight crew was nice enough to help carry the baby and some of our bags, so Joe could hold Ellie. While we were getting off the plane, Eli lost his shoe again, and this time, we found it pretty quickly under one of the seats.

We walked towards baggage claim and found some chairs that we could sit and gather all of our belongings. Long story short, I had to change Eli's poopy diaper, Ellie peed through her diaper and on Joe's arm (from missing the bathroom trip before the flight), and it took us three hours to get the rental car and get out of the airport. 

We were all starving because we missed lunch, so we drove to H-Mart on Federal Way to have lunch and to buy groceries for the next week. We hurried and bought some pastries for the kids and ordered some black noodles for Joe and me. While we were waiting for the noodles to come, Al suddenly said, "Mommy, my tongue hurts!" I had checked the labels for the bread before purchasing them, and there were no peanut warnings! Joe went and asked if the bread Al had eaten contained peanuts, and they told him that it had peanut butter! I hurried and pulled out our emergency allergy medicine from the diaper bag and gave him some. I was so upset and went to tell them that my son had a deadly allergy to peanuts that makes his throat swell up. All they could say was that they were sorry and that they would trade me the peanut butter bread with something else! There was no time to argue, because Alden started saying that his throat was now hurting, and his tongue and lips were visibly swollen.

Minutes before Al started having allergic reactions

We hurried and put all the kids back in the cart and into the car and got the noodles in a to-go box, as we looked up the closest urgent care facility and got the Epi-pen ready. We parked our car in the parking lot and gave the medicine some time to work. I nursed the baby in the minivan full of kids and luggage, while Joe attempted to feed the bloated noodles to Eli and Ellie who were obviously hungry and upset that we had to leave before getting a chance to eat. Alden's symptoms started to reside, and he was starting to feel a little better but he insisted on going "home." We gave up shopping (and dinner) and started driving towards Bellevue, where our temporary housing is located.

On our way, we passed up two high speed car accidents, one of them being on the freeway and with car parts strewn across all four lanes (the police weren't even there yet). We had to carefully drive around the car parts. To add to the stress, Alden was still in shock from the allergic reaction and threw up in the back seat. By this point, we were just trying to survive and get home to wash up and pass out. As soon as we turned on to the road that our apartment is on, we heard a rhythmic thump-thump and realized that we had a completely flat tire (probably a result of the accident). We just pushed through and barely made it to the parking garage. I gave everyone a shower while Joe went back and forth to the garage to bring everything upstairs. Then I sent Joe on a quest to find us some food (on foot) while I fed the hungry kids now-super-bloated black noodles. 

After putting kids to bed, Joe and I gulped down some food, took a shower, and attempted to crash on the very squeaky bed while trying to put the baby down for the night. And Joe pulled out a piece of cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory for Valentine's Day! I was too tired to eat anything so I only had a couple of bites, but I'm glad the day at least ended on a good note... 

I should probably add that the next day, I realized my wallet was missing and it probably went missing during all the chaos on the first day. Hopefully all of our bad luck ran out and only good things will happen to us from now on. 

Kids snacking on Doritos

Sunday game time for the boys