Update

Ricky at the Mingei
Originally uploaded by Beckerbuns

Hi everyone! I'm happy to report that Ricky has been doing much better since his course of IVs followed by oral antibiotics in July. He did develop a sinus infection this week, but it seems to be clearing up with the help of oral antibiotics.

Earlier this month, Ricky went to bipolar camp and had a great time. This time, he even tried the rock-climbing wall, zip line, and ropes course -- which he'd been afraid to do in previous years! Everyone at the camp had so many great things to say about him -- it was quite gratifying.

Ricky and his brother both started school this week and are settling back into the routine and doing well. Ricky is now in seventh grade (!) and has one period of elective (ceramics), a period of PE, and the rest of the day in the special day class. He loves every minute of it -- go figure! Can you believe he'll be 13 in November? A teenager!

I'm doing okay as a single mom. The kids don't seem to mind it, even though I spend part of every day running around like the proverbial chicken. Misty is having her first overnight visit with her dad this weekend, and she seemed excited about it. Guess we will see how it goes!

Thank you all for your continued support!

Ricky's first day of school

Ricky on the first day of school
Originally uploaded by Beckerbuns

Today was the boys' first day of school and everything is going fine so far! Ricky has the same teacher in the same SDC class that he started in the spring, and the same kids are in there, so there were no surprises. I have high hopes for him this year! His first elective is ceramics and he will be in PE as well (this is something new that he started right near the end of the last school year). Yay Ricky!

vacation

Ricky on the beach in San Diego
Originally uploaded by Beckerbuns

Ricky, as it turned out, was on IV antibiotics at home for three weeks followed by two weeks of a very powerful oral antibiotic, Rifampin, which threw his bipolar disorder out of whack. So I had to up some of his Seroquel (bipolar med) to even him out.

At the end of July we went to San Diego with Dave's family. We went to the beach a few times and also to Sea World on two different days, and it was a great time. We really needed the time away after Ricky being sick and the other thing that is going on...

This is the first time I have posted this here -- Dave and I are getting divorced. He moved out on August 9. The kids and I are doing all right. Misty had her first visit with him today, just a few hours, and did fine. Somehow we'll make it on our own. We have a lot of support from my mom and from friends.

Making use of the port for the first time!

Ricky's port, accessed
Originally uploaded by Beckerbuns

Ricky went downhill fast this week, from a bad cough to a pneumonia in his lower left lung in just two days. The hospital had no available beds, and he has a medi-port, so he got to start on IV antibiotics at home today. So far it is going great! He has to sleep on the couch in the evening because the gravity infusion can't go uphill to his Ikea loft bed, but he is taking it all in stride.

I am so proud of him. :)

Update

Ricky is still doing great in every way. He is thriving in school and looking forward to a fun summer. He will be going to summer school for one month, bipolar camp for 3 days in August, and we have two family vacations coming up as well. Ricky hasn’t grown taller in a long time, so he is being seen regularly by an endocrinologist. His lungs are doing great and his bipolar disorder is stable.

Andrew and Misty are also doing well. Misty will be 2 this summer. Andrew is in gifted programs at school and is doing great. I am working still only part time for the city library, though I am now also an eBay power seller. This has been a fun adventure for me! I am also almost done with online medical transcription training.

Our big news is that Ricky’s stepdad, Dave, will be laid off in August due to budget cuts. He is currently job searching nationwide, and we are unsure of where we will end up. We are nervous but hopeful! (He is a pediatric nurse manager; so if anyone has any job leads we’d appreciate that too.)

Misty and Ricky

Me and my brother 2
Originally uploaded by Beckerbuns

I know I haven't posted in a while, so I wanted to drop this picture from this week on here and just say that Ricky is doing great. He's thriving in middle school, and even started attending PE classes last week (and is doing great!).

We are so proud of Ricky and the progress he has made in managing his bipolar disorder. He's an amazing kid!

Also, you can now get to this blog by going here: http://blog.cfboy.com and visit Ricky's page (which I'll admit needs to be updated) at http://www.cfboy.com.

Thanks for dropping by!

hospital update

Just wanted to let everyone know that Ricky came home from the hospital, after 14 days, on March 2, as expected. He has been doing great since he came home on March 2, and on Thursday March 6 he did have his Medi-Port put in. It all went well, and the only delay/problem was waiting for the okay to go home (it was outpatient surgery). The incision sites are healing nicely.

He’s back at his new school and doing very well! As always, we appreciate the mail, and the get well cards while he was in were great!

Thanks to everyone for your support and good wishes.

that's my boy!

My favorite picture of Ricky EVER. 03-11-08
Originally uploaded by Beckerbuns

I took this at the playground yesterday, in the waning daylight. His hair was staticky from the slide, he was happy to be out for a walk (he asks me every day if we can go for a walk) and it was a purely happy moment.

Thank you for all of your cards and good wishes. I really appreciate it. Ricky is doing great. His mood has been way better this week. And the great news is that he’s coming home on Sunday! He had spirometry (breathing function test) this morning and everything was way better — 30% better! The port didn’t happen on this stay because the surgery schedule was packed with more urgent procedures. Looks like we will be back next week or sometime shortly thereafter for the surgery. It’s generally a fairly quick procedure and he’d go home the same day. Ricky’s been having some dizziness still, and they’ve been unable to figure out why, so we’ll follow up on that with his doctors on an outpatient basis.

Guess that’s it for now. Thanks again for the cards and all!

Hi everyone! Sorry I have not sent an update sooner. In my heart I was waiting for Ricky to turn the corner and start doing better, and he finally did. Thursday, I think it was, Ricky finally got off of oxygen. Rather than weaning him off of it, which they couldn’t do because he refused to the nasal canula and was instead on a mask, he went cold turkey at bedtime and never looked back. At first he was still a little dizzy when he stood up and/or tried to walk around, so I was pushing him around in a wheelchair, but gradually he started moving more and now we have taken walks around the floor, gone to the playroom, and also gone downstairs to the cafeteria to get snacks with his cafeteria pass. I am so proud of him! He does complain about his legs aching when he walks, but that will get better. A physical therapist and an occupational therapist have been helping him exercise too, so he won’t be so sore.



He was also on isolation pending his sputum culture results, but luckily they turned out just fine. He’s culturing normal staph aureus (non-resistant) so he is free to go outside of his room and people don’t have to wear masks/gloves/gowns when they are in the room. After he blew two peripheral IVs (through no fault of his own… One of them a nurse accidentally pulled out when she was changing the tape, and anther one infiltrated on its own), on Tuesday it was decided that he’d get a PICC line, which is a vein catheter that is more invasive and goes almost to the heart. The nurse got it to midline (somewhere between peripheral and PICC area) and then it was stopped because of scar tissue from past placements (this happened the last two hospitalizations as well). So he was taken to fluoroscopy where they managed to sneak it up to PICC area. Yay! Meanwhile, though, the resident and attending doctors decided with the medical team that it would be best for Ricky to get a port-a-cath put in. Basically it’s a more permanent line that goes directly into the major vein near the heart, by way of the upper chest. It rests under the skin and is accessed through a silicone skin after piercing the person’s skin. A person can continue to swim and bathe as usual when they have a port, and it lasts for years. It’s a sort of a surgical procedure to put it in, sometimes done under conscious sedation and local anesthesia, but with kids they like to put them to sleep for it.

After the child life person came to explain the procedure to him, Ricky was okay with it and not as anxious as he first was. Whew! Right now he is just anxious about the general anesthesia. I will admit that Dave and I are too, since he has a history of being combative after waking up from anesthesia. The port surgery will most likely occur Wednesday or Thursday. I hope they tell us soon, because I’ll need to make arrangements to change my work schedule if it’s on Thursday.

Okay… That is it for now… I’m going to take Ricky and Misty to the hospital playroom for a while! :) Looks like around another week for Ricky in the hospital. I’ll send another update as soon as there is more news! :)