I promised in the last post that I would share a picture of James in his Halloween costume, but before we get to the Halloween pics, let me take a few minutes to go over this past week in the life of James. I guess if you really want to see his costume, you can scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post, but please come back up here to catch see what James has been up to, and an important lesson we learned this week.
James Loves Miranda Lambert
On Monday James had a couple of therapies at school, and as usual he was working hard. During some of his therapies they play music videos on a laptop. Stacy and I have been into country music for a while, so they have been playing country music videos. They quickly learned that James has a thing for Miranda Lambert. Case in point, this text message Stacy got from James’ one-on-one nurse:
For those of you that are not into country, Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan are also country singers. It’s hard to hear in the below video, but James is listening to Miranda Lambert while he’s getting his legs worked on. So relaxed.
Here’s another video that the nurse took of James in his stander during therapy on Monday…and listening to Miranda:
Brief Illness
He might have worked a little bit too hard on Monday. Tuesday morning he woke up a little bit stuffy. We didn’t think it was anything to worry about, so we sent him to school. He ended up getting progressively worse during the day, so Stacy picked him up from school early. His breathing was a bit labored, so she put him on oxygen and called palliative care to see if a nurse was available to stop by to assess James. The nurse said that he had good air movement but sounded a little bit diminished on the left side. I left work early, went home to pick up Stacy and James and headed to the pediatrician, who put James on a 10-day round of antibiotics.
Halloween
We kept him home from school on Wednesday but was able to go to school on Thursday so he could show off his Halloween costume to his classmates. Are you ready?
How adorable is he? For the record, I had nothing to do with this. This was all Stacy.
A Lesson Learned
Now I want to take a moment to share a learning experience from this week. After James started having is respiratory issues on Tuesday, Stacy put him on oxygen to keep his sats up. We brought a small tank with us to the pediatrician. That night he was on oxygen when he went to bed, but his sats never got above 92.
Wednesday morning Stacy decided to bump up his oxygen to 2 liters to see if that would boost his sats to the mid- or upper-90s. Nope, they instead went the opposite direction. They dropped down to the mid- and low-80s. The weird thing was that he didn’t seem nearly as bad as he has in the past when he’s had some severe respiratory problems. Stacy took the nasal canula out of James’ nose, and put it into a glass of water. No bubbles. There was a damn leak in the canula somewhere. She grabbed a spare canula, hooked it up, put it into the glass of water and got bubbles. Put the canula on James, and he started breathing better and his sats came back up to a more normal range.
The lesson here: if you ever run into this situation and want to test to make sure the oxygen tank and/or nasal canula is working, put it into a glass of water. If you see bubbles, it’s working; if you don’t then either the tank or the canula isn’t working.
You may have noticed in the Halloween pics above that James was not on oxygen. Thursday he just needed a little boost here and there, but on Friday he was completely off oxygen. This kid is really resilient.
Health Insurance Rant
Before I publish this post, I need to get one thing off my chest. We have open enrollment at work, and there is a sizable increase in health insurance this year. Starting January 1st, health insurance for the three of us will account for a 27% deduction in my paycheck. Over a quarter of my paycheck for insurance. Add federal income tax, state income tax, social security, and whatever else gets taken out, and there is not going to be much left. We’ve been doing okay for the past few years on just my income, but I’m starting to stress a bit about next year when I bring home less money.
I should mention that we have a PPO plan, and we could save a bit of money if we switch to an HMO. The PPO has been good to us, though. We’ve never really had any issues with getting James the care that he needs. I fear that if we switch to an HMO, we’ll have more restrictions, so to me paying more is worth it. But at what point does it stop being worth it?
I hear that Canada has a pretty good healthcare system. Maybe we should think about moving up there. James doesn’t do well with cold weather, so that might not be the best idea. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about getting a second job to offset the increase in health insurance. Yes, I realized how dumb that sounded as I was writing it…get a second job to pay for health insurance. How bad is that when you need to have two jobs to pay for health insurance and be able to provide for your family?
I don’t think I have said it in a while, but thanks to all of you who have donated to James’ medical fund. All of your generosity is greatly appreciated.
