Brisan and Parker Stults | Living with Niemann-Pick Type C

Jennifer stayed the night with Brisan while I went home to gather the heard (dogs). Looks like his incisions started bleeding sometime this morning. They applied some pressure bandages to them.

This morning they were not for sure they were going to allow us to go home today but they just came in and said we could leave. Well of course after taking the pressure bandages off there still was some bleeding. I think we will get to go home tonight. They feel fine since we are local that if an issue arises that we could come back ( I had to giggle at that one!)

Here he is very happy 🙂

So far so good for today for Mr. Brisan. Pretty similar story to Parker’s surgery but today went very smooth per Dr. St. Peter. Brisan had his port-a-cath put in just like Parker did exactly two weeks ago today (April 7, 2010).

The morning started off well. He was such a trooper when they had to stick him for his IV to give him his DDVAP & blood platelets.

Brisan is currently resting and has really been asleep the whole time since post operation recovery. He had a small nose bleed after surgery when one of the nurses went to suction his nose out with all that snot! He moved and it got him!

Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts.  We are hoping that this makes the anxiety and a piece of our life slightly better with the infusions.

Easter was a pretty good day. Me and Jennifer went to church because we were apart of the 11 am service. The message was on Hope. At the beginning of the sermon they had put a picture up of us while one of the ladies from the drama team acted out our monologue about our story. She did a wonderful job and it was surreal to be hearing our story. I hope that it was able to make an impact.

The boys were at Gma's & Gpa's house while we attended church. Typically we go Saturday evening. We had a good lunch followed by hunting for the wabbit! Below is a video from the Easter Egg hunt we had in their back yard. The boys did a pretty good job “wondering” around! HA I think they had fun.

(In case you can't view this video on your email version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrhfcmcCEWQ)

Well crime scene intact partially… We were up most of the wee hours of the morning with Brisan the “Flinstone Cat” not wanting to sleep and roaming between our bedroom and his. Around 6 am Parker comes up to my side of the bed and not thinking much of it Jennifer goes Parker is bleeding!

Took him in our bedroom and I can not recall the last time he literally had blood from head to toe on his body. All down both legs and arms including his face. The first go around it took about 30-45 minutes to get a clot to stick. During that time Parker turned into Rambo and tried to break loose. Can't blame him but it is frustrating since your trying to get him to calm down so you can apply pressure to his nose.

We put him in our bed and I proceeded to get ready for work. As soon as I was going to leave he blew a big sneeze. Must have been as powerful as the winds in Kansas City this morning! The 2nd gold rush started (minus the gold). That was talking another 30 minutes to try to stop it. At that point we just called the ambulance to head down to Children's Mercy Hospital. There they gave him DDVAP and checked out his hemoglobin. It was low. He is doing OK now after a long morning and early afternoon.

There has to be a way to help this out some way.

Today I took Brisan to his Pre Admissions Testing appointment. I was pleased to see that all of the kinks had been worked out from Parker’s surgery last week. While we were there Brisan was talking a lot. Over about the past month Brisan has really not been talking unless he is mad about the TV or if he wants a cookie. So it was really good to see.

Speaking of Parker. Parker is doing well. He is wanting to move around more and more everyday. The only problem is that he does still have sutures in his stomach and he is still really sore. Try explaining that to Parker. He does not understand that he can not run around and fall on his port. We do have some concerns however about how he is walking. He is dragging his feet and turning both of them out really bad. We will see about more PT in the next few weeks if it does not get better.

Another big thing is we are trying to get the boys a Home Health nurse to come out a couple times a week for both Brisan and Parker. That would also open a bunch of doors for us to get the boys home OT and PT. Having that at home will also help us with the things that we are having major issues with, the stairs, feeding, bathing, teeth brushing, falling, speech, aggression just to mention a few. The more the help we can get to keep with going the better in our opinion.

Just a quick update on Mr. Parker! We were able to come home Thursday evening. The doctors felt comfortable because he wasn't bleeding which was a main concern before surgery. Parker is very sore and  uncomfortable. It took him about a day to realize that he just can't get up and run around like before because his tummy hurts.

The last few nights have been rough because he wanted to toss and turn but he couldn't. We found a solution yesterday mid morning. Thanks to papa, he has bought the boys each a recliner of their own over the last few years. Now which one belongs to who is hard to decide at this point but it came in very handy!  Parker enjoyed just sitting their with the bottom leg support propped up while he watched his cartoons! Pretty cute! He just needed a remote!

Here is what his tummy looks like with the G-Tube and port-a-cath. Underneath his right breast you see a bump. That is where the port-a-cath location is where they can give injections or take blood. We won't access the port probably for 3-4 weeks. Up by his neck that is where the part of the catheter is located. The below picture gives you a better idea how it looks inside of him. The biggest risk with this is infection. As Jennifer stated a few days ago it was a hard decision to make but we feel it is the right one if they are going to be getting infusions every week. They already are nervous when they do the infusions already. It really is the sticking point of the process that gets them. Heck I'm an adult and I hate that feeling.

Brisan and Duncan are doing good. They are at gma's and papa's house. We're set to pick them up today. Can't wait to see them but this will be interesting since Parker can't really move around right now. Duncan probably will want to come jump on his belly! Brisan will get his port-a-cath on April 7th.

We thank you all for your prayers! It truly is each one of you that lifts us up to the Lord that we're able to get through challenging times.