Saturday April 14th, The Bandage

Ingram’s day started a little earlier than I think we were planning on. Beau (our dog) ran into our room and jumped into Ingram’s “little bed” and woke him up. You see, Ingram’s bedroom is upstairs and we didn’t feel comfortable with him being upstairs while he’s still a little unsteady on his feet. It’s very easy for him to get off balance for now and we decided to move a small mattress to our floor. Apparently that mattress is the first place that a dog would run to if he wasn’t sleeping in his crate like he is supposed to. I have a feeling that after I fell asleep during the movie, Beau was taken upstairs to have a slumber party in Lindsey’s bed for the first time. We started coloring and playing right away and then managed to get breakfast ready. The girls had soccer practice so they were off to the soccer fields and we stayed home and watched Cars again; I can’t count how many times we’ve watched this movie in the last two weeks. We watched Cars 2 at least 15 times in the hospital; that little stinker would watch it over and over again when he was awake. We played outside and thought about going on a wagon ride but Ingram told me he didn’t like the bumps so we decided to draw instead. Before his nap, we put Ingram in the bathtub and got his bandage good and wet. Yep, you know what’s coming next; it was time to remove the bandage. Lindsey was at home and was not happy at all with us. She couldn’t believe we were making Ingram cry and she was screaming at us to quit torturing him. Lindsey and Madison are both super sensitive when it comes to their little brother. They don’t want anyone to hurt him, and Ingram was definitely not a happy camper with Craig pulling off his bandage. I’m not sure which hurt more, the pulling off of the bandage or the knowing that someone is messing with my “boo-boo.” We finally got the bandage off and it looks great; they used stiches to close it so it resembles a train track running about six inches long on the center of his head with a reverse mowahawk haircut. They only shaved a strip on the very back middle part of his head and the rest of his hair back there was “styled” with some super hair gel that has been keeping it off his surgery site. Once all that was done, he was tired and ready for his nap. Once he woke up, it was back to coloring pictures and watching cartoons. I hope you’re seeing a pattern emerging with the things we have been doing. He has a new obsession with coloring and drawing now and it’s great. We have stacks and stacks of pictures that he’s coloring and drawing and he even tells us when he makes them for someone specific. He’s starting to learn to write some letters too and the first one other than his “I” for Ingram is a “D” for daddy and I have to admit I’m quite jealous of Daddy. Maybe I’ll have to teach him how to make an “M” for mommy tomorrow when we’re drawing. We had a fun night and had pizza and all watched another move. Ingram threw up tonight (he had thrown up a small amount yesterday morning too but I didn’t think anything about it), but this time it was a substantial amount and we both were quite concerned. We have a list of things to call the doctor for and vomiting is on the list. I was reading the list over and it also talked about fever so I took Ingram’s temperature just to make sure. Wouldn’t you know his temperature was the same one that they said to call St. Jude for so I get nervous and go to the other room to make the call. I talked to the nurse at St. Jude and told her everything and that Ingram was acting normal and that we really didn’t think it was anything to be worried about. She said she was sure I was right and said she was just going to run it by the doctor and for me to hold on for a second. She comes back to the line and says that the doctor is going to call us in a few minutes; we hung up and I gave the phone to Craig because I’d rather him talk to the doctor than me. When the phone rang, Craig went into the other room and shut the door and started talking with the doctor. I went into the kitchen and started cleaning up our dinner dishes just in case we needed to take a quick trip to the hospital. With being brand new patients of St. Jude and everything we’ve been through these past 15 days, I really didn’t know what to expect. I know that the part of his brain that held the tumor also houses the “vomit spot” in our brains. I think we both had the thought that the tumor might have grown back and was already hitting that spot and making him throw up again. Craig finally came out of the office after what seemed like an eternity and the first thing he said was “Man that was a really nice doctor.” I was trying to see if he was being sarcastic or not and he started explaining what all the doctor said and that we were right to call in just to check and told us more things to look for. The bottom line is that right now, he has no reason to be concerned because a tumor couldn’t grow that fast and Ingram had been acting fine up until he vomited and was acting fine afterwards also. Ingram is now fast asleep after Beau helps with reading a book, singing Jesus Loves Me, and saying prayers. This is another one of those recurring events; Beau has to lay in Ingram’s bed, cover him with kisses, and be there to read, sing, and pray before Ingram will close his eyes and go to sleep. What can I say, I’m pretty much going to do whatever Ingram wants for a while and I feel good about it. Most of the time, the girls and Craig are in there too so I guess it’s as Craig said to me the other day. It was something along the lines of “Loosen up and let’s make the most of what we can, while we can.” What would I do without a husband who sees the greater picture when I get caught up in the details of what I think needs to be done.