Elementary School Graduate

Well, as of Friday, James is no longer in elementary school. Although he will have a few weeks of summer school, he is officially a 6th grade graduate, and will be starting junior high in the fall. I have no idea where the years have gone. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we dropped him off for his first day of preschool.

To say that his final year of elementary school was a bit crazy is an understatement. He started out with a hybrid schedule where he was in school two days a week, then remote for the rest of the week; then it went fully remote for a while; and they finished off the school year back on a hybrid schedule. It will surely be a year that we won’t forget for a while.

As the school year came to an end, they had one of their “spirit months”. Each school day for the entire month of May had a theme, so get ready for an overabundance of pictures. You don’t mind, do you? Who doesn’t like pictures of James?

 

Monday, May 3rd: Dress Like a Pirate Day

 

Tuesday, May 4th: Star Wars Day (May the 4th Be With You)

 

Wednesday, May 5th: No School

 

Thursday, May 6th: Superhero Day

 

Friday, May 7th: Hat Day

He spiked a high heart rate before school, so he stayed home, but he still participated.

 

Monday, May 10th: Tie Dye Day

 

Tuesday, May 11th: Sports Team Day

 

Wednesday, May 12th: Dress Fancy Day

 

Thursday, May 13th: Kindness Day

James passed out little cards to friends and teachers to tell them that he is thankful for them.

 

Friday, May 14th: College Day

 

Saturday, May 15th: Pajama Day

Stacy made this one up to see if you are paying attention. There isn’t school on Saturday. Weekends are all about relaxing in comfy pajamas.

 

 

Monday, May 17th: Talent Day

 

Tuesday, May 18th: No School

 

Wednesday, May 19th: Western Day

 

Thursday, May 20th: School Spirit Day

 

Friday, May 21st: Athletic Day

He was cheering at a baseball game.

 

Monday, May 24th: Classroom Color Day

 

Tuesday, May 25th: Neon Day

 

Wednesday, May 26th: Disco Day

 

Thursday, May 27th: Meditation Day

Stacy had no idea what to dress him up in for Meditation Day, so he just wore a cerebral palsy shirt.

 

Friday, May 28th: Last Day of School

Here is the obligatory first and last day of school picture collage. Same kid, same blanket, different nurse.

 

 

It’s been quite the emotional month for Stacy. She’s had a few moments where she teared up a bit because her baby is growing up so fast. On the 13th he came home with a shirt from the junior high he will be attending in the fall.

 

 

A few days after that she was putting together end of the year teacher and therapist gifts like she always does, and it hit her again that his time with these teachers and therapists is coming to an end. They’ve all been fantastic. He’ll have new teachers and therapists in junior high.

And then there was the end of the year parade that really did her in. It was kind of like a reverse parade. Instead of the kids marching around outside of the school, the parents drove by the front of the school where the kids cheered and waved from the sidewalk. She unfortunately only got one picture because she was driving.

 

 

I am going to throw this in here because I didn’t know where else to put it. Remember the “Music Man” picture that James’ drew in art class? The one that we suspect someone helped him draw? Well, there was a little bit of an incident. After James brought it home from school, we had it on the floor leaning against the wall while we decided where we were going to put it. Well, Maggie must have had the munchies and started to eat it!

 

 

We’ve had her for seven months and she has never eaten or chewed on anything she wasn’t supposed to. We don’t know why she suddenly decided to chew on James’ poster. Maybe it smelled appetizing? It’s all good though. Stacy patched it back together the best she could, framed it, and hung it up in James’ room.

 

 

And that’s a wrap on elementary school. We want to thank all of the teachers and therapists that have helped him get this far. Not just the ones he’s had these past few years. Every single one of you that has been a part of his elementary school education, all the way back to preschool. You all played a part in getting him to this day:

 

 

 

Respiratory Issue Update

James has been struggling with respiratory issues since November—almost six months—and we may have finally found a solution. Stacy reached out to a girl that I went to school with who is a respiratory therapist to get some advice. She recommended a ventilator and was able to get us one through the company she works for…with the approval of James’ pulmonologist of course.

May 6th was the first night James used the Philips Trilogy 100 ventilator, and he had a good night sleep, which he hadn’t had in quite a while.

 

 

Something changed the following morning, though. After Stacy got him up, went through the usual morning routine, and got him settled in his chair to eat, he spiked a fever and had a high heartrate. This is why he stayed home from school for Hat Day on May 7th.

We have no idea what that was all about, but the following days were much better. Maybe it was just James getting used to something new. Or maybe it was just coincidental and had nothing to do with the ventilator. Who knows, but he’s all good now. The one issue we have is that he sleeps on his belly at night so that his secretions drain out and onto a towel. With the ventilator mask on, his secretions drain into the mask. Not enough that he’ll drown in them, but there’s a fair amount of liquid in the mask in the morning.

 

 

Two Year Spinalversary

 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years already since James got his full spinal fusion to correct his scoliosis. The surgery was the easy part. It was the waiting for his digestive system to wake up so that it could digest his food and provide him with the nutrition he needed before we were able to bring him home that was the hard part. For whatever reason, his digestive system shuts down after a surgery. What was supposed to be one or two weeks recovering in the hospital took a month.

It was a very long month for all of us. James and Stacy were stuck at the hospital, and I went check in on them every day after work, and on weekends. We do think that the surgery was one of the best decisions we made, though.

There is one lingering issue that we’ve been dealing with since the surgery. He has a wound on his tailbone that we need to get taken care of. We had been hoping it would heal on its own, but it hasn’t. We’ve met with a plastic surgeon, and we might be looking into having it surgically closed.

 

 

We’ve Changed

I’ll end this post with a side-by-side picture that Stacy put together. Stacy and I have been working out for a few years now, but the changes in our bodies have been so gradual that we barely noticed. But when she put these two pictures next to each other, holy cow! We’ve changed a lot over the years.