We need a batter, not a broken ladder. OH HI DBACKS!

Kyle hasn't been so great these last couple of months.  He's missed more than 6 weeks of school due to a bout of upper respiratory junkyness, for one.  Ultimately, we even had to bring him to Urgent Care due to an ear infection--and Urgent Care typically won't see medically fragile patients at all, but they did that day because I was just that desperate.  (kudos to our urgent care--world class, those folks.)

Today, Kyle saw our favorite orthopedic surgeon.  Unfortunately we learned that Kyle has a 21 degree spinal curvature.  This is bad news.  For now, he'll get a soft TLSO (back brace) in hopes that we can put off back surgery for a few extra years.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that we got to enjoy, again, the holiday decorations at Phoenix Children's Hospital!  Our favorite, hands down, has been the Arizona Diamondbacks Christmas tree.  It's incredibly tall (I'm guessing twenty feet?) and decorated with Dbacks ornaments, paraphenilia, and gear.  Kyle is obsessed with baseball, and the Dbacks, so he spends lots of quality time with this tree--touching it, talking to it--each time we have to go to the hospital.  Today he zoomed right over to the tree, carelessly plowing through a small crowd of folks standing around the area.  Turns out Kyle interrupted a meet and greet with Willie Bloomquist, of the Arizona Diamondbacks.  Kyle is only four years old, so has yet to memorize the Dbacks roster, but as we drove home I emphasized who he just met and he finally "got" it.  Nearly an afterthought, I asked Willie for a photo.  Kyle appears as though he couldn't have been happier if Willie had offered him a light saber (Kyle's other obsession). 

The Dbacks tree, with a little more detail (from a previous visit).

Thanks to the Dbacks organization, and to Mr. Bloomquist, for arranging to meet the kids of PCH and making a little boy's day.

Day 2 in the hospital with Lauren

We brought her to the doc earlier in the week with an awful cough and fever, and she was diagnosed with pneumonia. A couple days later, her breathing was suspicously more intense, so we brought her to the ER and she was admitted with RSV. Her pneumonia diagnosis was based on an x-ray which they thought showed pneumonia at an early stage. But she tested positive for RSV, and that explains her symptoms and reactions better.

So we're here at PCH. Lauren is on a bi-pap machine for breathing, 24x7. We take her off to eat, and to perform extensive chest percussions(CPT) followed by several rounds on the Cough Assist and then deep suction her nose and throat to get the gunk out.

She just had another chest xray, and it looks like a little more fluid is present in her left lung. They suspect that our last round of chest percussions was so effective that it rattled around all the gunk in her lungs and it's begun to settle. So after she naps, we're doing another super-intensive round of chest percussions in hopes that we'll get all that crud ready to come out with the Cough Assist and that she'll really kick this thing fast. That extra fluid in her lung is causing her breathing rate to increase and for her belly to retract (protract? I have no idea anymore) and it's worrisome. So they're fiddling some more with the pressure settings on her bipap and we hope she gets enough rest to make up for all the wakeful time she spent today.

She's a very sick little girl. Please keep her in your prayers.

Based on his own fever and congestion, we assume now that Kyle has RSV, too, not pneumonia like we originally guessed. But so far his breathing is okay and he's managing a little better. Chris is having trouble getting him to eat and drink at home, but that's probably because he's so tired and feels so icky.

We expect that Kyle will worsen and will be admitted to the same hospital over the weekend. You know what they say about twins being double trouble and all.....