Evan's 1st Surgery and Hospital Stay

One of the only time I remember having surgery as a child was when I had my tonsils out at age 8, along with my brother, who was 9. We shared a hospital room and left that same day after surgery.  I could talk and eat just fine. Billy was in much more pain than I. 35 years later, my first born had his first surgery. We have battled tonsillitis, strep throat, and ear infections for the last year. He's had strep throat 7 times in the last 6+ months and each time his tonsils were infected & swollen. Evan has also had numerous ear infections and fluid build up on his ears to the point that he's stopped talking and singing over the last 9 months. He's almost stopped communicating to us or making progress. We decided it was time to take the next step in order to help him feel better and learn better. Hopefully his verbiage skills will improve/come back.

On Monday, he had his tonsils removed, his adenoids removed, tubes put in his ears, and a sleep endoscopy. He was diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea 3 years ago. We have been treating it with over the counter allergy meds in hopes he would improve. Our favorite new surgeon, Dr. Alexander, is a pediatric ENT. He prayed with us before Evan's surgery. Afterwards, he gave us pictures of Evan's throat. The adenoids were taking up 60% of his breathing space & he said the tonsils were much bigger than originally thought (they were 3+ out of 4 scale). Taking out those will give him much more breathing space! He had a bit of floppy tissue, but it wasn't blocking any airways and the doctor said we could deal with it later if we decide to do another sleep study.

I'm really hoping the tubes will help Evan hear and learn better without the fluid or wax build up. He starts his first day of school tomorrow, a week late, but well worth it. He's on soft foods again for this week. We've been careful to avoid any foods that may irritate or cut the back of his throat.

The hospital staff at Greenville Memorial was terrific! I was impressed with all the physicians, nurses, and staff. We stayed overnight in case Evan didn't want to eat or drink.  He ate right away, but did not want to drink anything (and didn't for several days). We pretty much kept trying until he took a few sips or ate some ice chips. He ate lots of food so didn't go hungry at all. He was such a great little patient and only cried when the nurse took the tape off of his arm to his I.V.

Summer 2016 Vacation (Finally!)

I've been taking MBA classes this past year and had signed up for one during the summer. We waited until the class was over at the end of July to take our vacation. Vince's work got slammed so they did not allow him the last week of July, so our vacation was pushed out to August, the last week before school started. We have never had such a late vacation.  We usually go in June or early July. This made for a really long working summer. However, the vacation was wonderful. We went to Gatlinburg in order to save on driving time and all the scary beach stories (sharks, jelly fish, amoebas, etc.).  It was not at all crowded. I was so impressed with the lack of traffic and people. It was very refreshing compared to the bumper to bumper traffic at Thanksgiving time. I had never been to Gatlinburg during the summer so we were able to do a lot of new things this time.

The first evening we arrived we ate at No Way Jose's. It's right downtown Gatlinburg and within walking distance of our hotel. On day one, we had fun at the aquarium (I caught Pikachu on Pokemon Go!). The boys enjoyed running around looking in the fish tanks. We ate at Zaxby's in the Mountain Mall and saw Santa Claus!  He was on vacation, too, but offered to take pictures with the boys. He also left his calling card. That afternoon we drove up to Ober Gatlinburg and did the $0.50 rides and saw the bears. For dinner I made a crockpot vegetable beef soup.

Santa!

Ober Gatlinburg rides.

The second day we drove to Pigeon Forge (quickest time ever with no traffic) and visited the large knife store.  We ate lunch at the Applewood Farmhouse and looked around their stores.  My cousin Amanda was in town for her honeymoon so we met up, and were introduced to her new husband, Will. Shortly afterwards, we saw the Animal Show at the Comedy Barn. The boys liked it, but it was 2 full hours, which was about an hour longer than their tolerance of sitting still. A lady in the audience offered tickets to a magic show in the area. After holding them down for two hours, we turned her down. That evening we walked around the shops in downtown Gatlinburg, and had dinner at one of the local places.

Alex picked out jelly beans as his treat.

 Waiting on the animal show to start.

On day three we went back to Pigeon Forge and shopped around. The Tanger outlets were not crowded at all. For lunch we ate at Paula Deen's new huge restaurant. We got right in and sat down to eat family style. We toured the shops at The Landing and then took the boys on some local rides. They enjoyed the merry go round, train, swings, and ferris wheel. We ate dinner at the condo - garbanzo bean soup in the crock pot!

 Our view from the condo

Day four we ventured back to Pigeon Forge and went to the Rainforest Zoo. It was mostly indoors (and smelled strongly of animals when you first walk in). Since it was 95 degrees outside, we were very thankful for an indoor air-conditioned zoo.  We saw a lot of monkeys and snakes. We shopped at the VF outlet store and then ate at Chick Fil A for lunch. We mostly shopped around town in Gatlinburg the rest of the day. We ordered Mellow Mushroom pizza for dinner.

The fifth day was our last full day. We stayed in Gatlinburg all day and walked from one end to the other. We toured through an old cemetary that had lots of Ogles and Partons in it. A stray dog came slowly out of the trees toward Vince & Alex and then trotted right past them. It looked just like a large wolf, only Vince said it had a collar.  Heebie jeebies! We ate at Dick's Last Resort and all touted hats with insults on them. After shopping around, we got a Ben & Jerry's treat. For dinner, we ate our leftover soups and pizza at the condo.

Finally getting to go swimming!

On the way home from Gatlinburg, we stopped in Cherokee, NC and let the boys ride some rides while we shopped around. We ate lunch at Granny's Kitchen. It was a fun trip and went by way too fast!

I was very happy to sleep in my own bed, as opposed to sharing a room with Evan and Alex. They are cute, but getting woken up by Evan at 2:40am one morning as he flopped into my bed after crawling out of the port a crib, and then at 3:45am another morning by Alex because he wanted to know where the aquarium is, can be exhausting. Here's to a successful trip!