A Little Boost of Oxygen

James had been doing so well since he had his adenoids and tonsils removed in April, but this past Wednesday Stacy had to put him on some oxygen because he was a bit congested and having a hard time breathing. After about 4 hours of being on oxygen, he was doing much better and no longer needed it. No idea what that was about. Maybe he was just testing mommy to make sure she remembered how to help him breathe better?

Tub Dipper

One of the things that Stacy struggles with, other than James’ various medical issues, is bathing him. You wouldn’t think that the simple act of bathing your child would be tough, but when he’s almost three years old, weighs 33 pounds, and doesn’t have the ability to grasp on to you, it’s tough. Think about lifting 30+ pounds of dead weight in and out of the bathtub. It’s hard on your back.

Over the years, we’ve used various chairs, starting with this one that we bought from Babies R Us:

He quickly outgrew that one and we were able to get a bigger chair in August of 2010 through Illinois Early Intervention:

I don’t remember the exact reasoning, but Early Intervention got us another bath chair in May of 2011:

All three of the above chairs had the same problem. They all sat on the floor of the bathtub, which meant that Stacy had to completely bend over the get James in and out of the tub. Remember that he’s over thirty pounds now…and he’s only going to get bigger as he gets older. While there was nothing wrong with the chairs, Stacy was on a hunt to find a way to get James in and out of the bathtub without putting so much strain on her back.

She came across the Shower Buddy Tub Dipper  that she thought might make bath time a little bit easier, so we dipped into James’ medical fund to buy one. As you can see in the videos below, the Tub Dipper rests on top of the bathtub and has a lever to lower James into the bathtub.

As Stacy mentioned in the second video, one of the issues with the Tub Dipper is that because of gravity, his “boy parts” got wedged a little bit in the piece that covers the groin area. Overall, it seems to work well. We’ll just have to putting our thinking caps on to see if we can come up with a way to keep James from sliding down so his parts don’t get smushed.

If you’ve made a donation to James’ medical fund, thank you. It’s because of you, that we can buy stuff like the Tub Dipper to make his life (and our lives) easier. And we’re quickly finding out that anything medical related is more expensive that you think it will be. The Tub Dipper, which seems like a pretty simple contraption, was $399.00. If you’re interested in donating to James’ medical / van fund, here’s the link:

https://www.indiegogo.com/p/135849?a=760336

Stacy on the Radio?

A local radio station caught wind about the fundraiser we’re currently running and did a phone interview with Stacy on Friday. They hope to air it sometime next week. We’re not sure exactly how they found out about the fundraiser, but this is pretty cool. I remember when I was younger, if something came on the radio that I wanted to record, I would record it on cassette tape. We don’t have a tape recorder anymore so I don’t know if we will be able to record it. There has to be some way to do it digitally, right? Maybe we can record it using our cell phones? If we can get it recorded, I’ll be sure to share it with you all.

I’ll leave you with a random pic of me and James: