Work Notice & Brayden's surgery

After we got back from our cruise, it was hard getting back into daily life.  I've been really stressed out lately.  Work was picking up and it was just getting to be too much so I decided I needed to go ahead and turn in my notice...again.  I really do enjoy working with house plans and getting to help design new plans, but I have definitely noticed the toll it takes on my life as well as my parenting.  Even only working my own hours, it was still just too stressful.  I would find myself just always making Kaitlyn go play by herself or watch a show so I could work and especially with a third baby coming, I just need to step away...for good.  I told Shea they needed to hire a new replacement and that is scary b/c they will no longer need me at all anymore.  The bad thing about AutoCAD as well as codes and construction is it is like computers.  It is always changing, so by me stepping away and not working for even 5+ years, it will have changed so much that I will be pretty useless.  So I most likely won't ever do much with it again.  So that makes me sad, but if we were financially able for me to never have to work again then I would be just fine with that! haha!  So even though I know it is the right thing to do, I was sad.

Towards the end of the month there was a lot more stress b/c Brayden had to be hospitalized.  One afternoon I was sitting in a chair and Brayden walks over to me and falls right before he reaches me and busts his lip on the side of the chair.  He immediately starts hysterically crying due to his lip and that is when I notice that he had also been chewing on a little tip of a crayon.  During his crying, he also starts choking on the bits of crayon.  He starts coughing and throws up twice.  It's mostly just saliva and there is bits of crayon in the throw up.  After about 10 minutes he is fine and not bothered by anything.  It was his nap time so I go ahead and put him down for his nap as usual.  Justin comes home and we all eat dinner.  Brayden eats a full meal and I'm still going about normal life, except I notice that Brayden has this constant wheezing sound now when he breathes.  But other than that he is happy and fine!  Finally Justin and I decide we should just go ahead and get it checked out.  We were planning on going to Urgent Care, but they were all shut down early b/c it happened to be one of the rare NC snow/sleet days.  Roads were fine, but you know how that goes.  So we stop at the CMC Steele Creek ER.  They run x-rays and tests and determine that they can't do anything.  He has to go to Levine Children's hospital.  By this time it is already past 10:00 and I am so annoyed.  They try to make us go by ambulance, but I refuse.  Now before you think I'm a horrible parent, remember that he is breathing perfectly and eating and everything!  Just making a wheezing sound.  So I figure that extra 5 minutes by ambulance is not worth the additional money we would have to pay.  So we drive ourselves.  Once we get to Levine they run more test and more x-rays...just to keep on charging us more and more money.  They never find anything on the X-rays so the surgeon comes in and says that he is pretty confident there is something in the airways, it is just not showing up.  But unfortunately the only way to know is to get in there and check it out.  So Brayden is prepped for surgery.  They wheel us up to the surgical floor and try to get an IV in him but are unsuccessful and finally end up putting it in his foot!  It was so horrible watching him suffer through that.  They end up making us leave to the waiting area.  Since Brayden had eaten sooner than is allowed for general anesthesia, they had to pump out his stomach.  Poor Baby!  Then he was put to sleep and they started the bronchoscopy.  I didn't get to see anything, but the doctor came in after to tell us it went well.  They did find a crayon particle and it had already started irritating his tracheal tube.  They gave us some pictures they took while they were in there.  You can see the crayon particle  under the bubble in the circled picture.  Then they showed the healthy clear side, and then the side that is all irritated after they removed the crayon. 

They said it is lucky that we did bring him in soon, b/c most of the risk of things like this comes from infections and complications from the foreign object being stuck in the trachea.  Once the doctor came in, Justin went ahead and took Kaitlyn home since it was about 2:00AM.  I have to keep waiting until Brayden wakes up from the general anesthesia, and then we go to a waiting room where he is monitored for another hour.  At about 4:00AM we are finally sent to a room.  Brayden is put on Morphine and sleeps until about 8:00AM.  I am like a zombie at this point, but it is so cute when Brayden wakes up.  He had his head facing me and immediately sits up looking away getting upset, but then turns around and sees me and his face lights up!  It was so sweet.  He hates being hooked up to all the tubes and stuff and keeps trying to rip them out.  The nurse had delivered him a full Pancake, bacon and egg breakfast.  He eats his entire plate of eggs and 3 pancakes!  I guess after having his stomach completely emptied, poor little guy was starving!  Finally that afternoon he gets discharged and we all go home.  He still makes a weird breathing sound for the next couple days so I get worried that they didn't get it all, but it eventually went away and now he is perfect!   

Not a very good quality pic, but I only had my iPod.  This is right after he came out of surgery and was asleep from the morphine while we are in the Monitoring room.  So sweet!