Battling Murray!

Welcome to a very close to Fall day. I say close because there some warm elements today, but overall it felt like Fall! Hurray! We finally even heard back from the peds GI Bradley has in Santa Barbara. I had called Monday because Bradley has been off lately. Not sleeping all night, not excited by his food, a whole lot more air in his tummy than usual. Well, for the first time ever, here three days later still no call. Considering we had yet another retching episode where the venting didn't work very well or very fast - this solidified my belief that something was burning and Bradley doesn't want to swallow because it hurts. So I called again, and then I waited....all day.

To pass the time, we made a ghost and Bradley played with his Murray Wiggle doll.  The one that speaks and sings, and is ever patient as my son bounces him off every wall, box, bookshelf, etc.  I like to think of the Murray doll as very Woody-like from Toy Story, just really happy to be played with and with a hard head.  Anyway, by mid-morning it was time to get Bradley down for his nap.  If I waited any longer his nap would have been two minutes before getting him up to get the girls from school.  For some reason, the schools let them go at 1:10 every Thursday, makes for a rough nap schedule for Bradley.

So off we go to his room where we rock a bit.  Bradley CAN put himself to sleep, but his method is to lay down, sit up, be told to lay down, comply, then sit back up and so on and so forth.  It is more time consuming than one would think.  Do I have to teach him this?  Yes, yes I do.  But not today.  Right now, naps are rocked to sleep - it's good for both of us.  He actually naps and I need the happy boy I get when he does nap.  At night, well...time is still of the essence to some extent.  Getting the girls settled and giving up ninety minutes is a little rough right now.  We do it, we just aren't doing it right now when it churns his belly up.  We are getting up a couple times each night every few nights as it is...so we don't want to push that burning esophagus any further than we have to.

So, I said off to his room to rock a bit we went, but I failed to mention that Murray went with us.  No big deal, he bounced on Bradley's belly and chest a bit then lay down against Bradley's chest as my little guy drifted to sleep, still clutching the red man.  (Murray, is the red Wiggle in case you didn't know).   I feel my son drift into a deeper sleep and he still clenches Murray, so I make my move.  We move to the bed; Bradley, Murray and I, and I lay them both down...only Bradley decides to drop Murray and he responds by singing!  Ahhhh!!!   Red Alert!!!!!!!!!  Mission Abort!!!  Mission Abort!!!!!!!  Murray gets grabbed and literally tossed into the other room, cause once he starts singing there's no stopping him.  I turn back to Bradley and he of course is sitting up and staring at me like I've lost my mind.  And he's barely awake so I think he was either wondering why I was throwing Murray out of his room, or just, where is Murray?  Not sure which.  

Regardless, he protests as I just scoop him up, grab his blanket and head back to the chair, this time with the milk cup instead of the Murray doll.  Bradley offered a mild protest, took note of the milk, drank seven ounces of that and dropped off to sleep, dropping the cup as he fell asleep.  Not that I think the cup was going to sing or anything, but considering my run of luck - I pictured a milk flood if the cup bounced off his bed.  Milk cup transferred to safety, Bradley transferred to his bed without incident, and Yuna the Wonder cat transferred from the changing table to the hallway - can never be too careful, she likes to make the doors bounce when she wants out of a room she's locked in.

In the end, Bradley slept for almost two hours before I had to get him up to go get the girls.  And the doctor?  Yeah, he called too...while I was getting the girls.  But, that's all right.  They are starting Bradley on a new med, three times a day to see if we can't gain control of the burning and smooth out his throat.  If this works there should be less air, less retching, less chance of unsewing that Fundoplication wrap...and that would be so much more than ideal.  His first dose went down smooth, lucky us; it smells like bubblegum, so Bradley didn't fight the dose!  May every dose be so lucky!  :-)

Welcome to Day 10 of the "31 for 21"  I was going to add Challenge...but I think today offered enough of it's own bizarre challenges without me encouraging anymore.

Have a great night folks!  Spread Awareness and through Awareness we can learn Acceptance and Acceptance leads to Inclusion and everyone will have a better life!  Wear your blue and yellow colors and tell people why...or settle for Crazy socks, those work well too!!!  :-)