Airbags and Guardian Angels

Last Friday, I left work like any other day. Little did I know what was lurking for me only five minutes later. I was on a back country road when I saw a pickup truck pulling an enclosed utility trailer coming to an intersection where he had a stop sign and I didn't. I saw that he was going pretty fast and it seemed to me that he was slowing down a little. So I started to slow up just in case. Then all of a sudden, I was breaking as hard as I could to avoid hitting the guy but my attempts failed. We crashed with pretty intense momentum. Enough to knock his truck on its side. I was knocked around 45 degrees and thankfully camed to a stop against a bank on the side of the road. If it hadn't been for the bank, I think the van would have rolled. But the guy's trailer whipped around and hit the back end of the van. After the dust cleared, all I could do was catch my breath and yell.

I got out of the van and sat on the road. My biggest concern was not for my safety, but for the safety of the baby. As I was sitting on the ground, thankfully I felt the baby move and I knew then that everything was going to be okay with the baby. The ambulance came and loaded me up and took me to the hospital. That was traumatic. Tons on people poking and asking questions. They assessed my wounds in the ER then it was straight to get a CT, then x-rays on my left wrist, right knee, and my chest. Then it was back to the trauma room for a quick ultrasound to check the baby. Everything was negative for broken bones and the ultrasound was perfect. Then it was up to the labor and delivery floor just to monitor the baby for the next 36 hours.

All-in-all, my injuries are minor. My left arm was pretty badly bruised and cut, I had bruises from the seat belt and a nice seat belt burn on my neck, bruises on my left knee, and a pretty bad gash and deep bruising on my right knee. The baby never once should any sign of distress. I'm healing quick well. I'm still pretty sore, and my right knee is giving me problems, but hopefully all that will clear up by the time the baby comes in 6 weeks. We shall see.

I'm grateful for prayers, for blessing, and for airbags. If it hadn't been for those airbags, I'm not sure what the outcome would have been. I know that the Lord watched over me and the baby during the crash to make sure that nothing too terrible would happen to us.

8 Weeks and Counting...

As you can tell from the picture (obviously I'm on the right), I am rather pregnant. That's my sister-in-law, Julie. She's due about two weeks before me. I'm huge!!

Nonetheless, I feel pretty good. I'm uncomfortable sleeping at night, but that comes with the territory. My health is great! This baby is definitely a mover and a shaker. Of course, Tanner was before him, so I guess I'm destined to have active boys. But it's fun that way.

I still have 8 weeks technically to go. My mom thinks that I won't come close to that. I'm expecting this baby to come the week of May 12 since that week is so jammed packed with events that hey, why not throw in a baby to the mix?

Nick is doing well with his school. He just enjoyed his last spring break. Although, for him it wasn't much of a break. He's been frantically applying to as many places as he can so that he can get a job before baby #2 comes.

He took the State of Delaware license test a few weeks ago and completely killed it! He didn't get below a 90% on any of the sections. So now he's license to work in Delaware. After graduation, he'll sit for the national registry and then can work anywhere in the country. He's doing so good in school! I'm really pleased with his progress.

He was pretty much offered a job the other day. He has interned at three different hospitals in the state, but this last one that he's at offered him a position. It's not the highest paying hospital, but it is a job and we're seriously considering it. So we'll see what happens...

Tanner is back to his happy-go-lucky self after his sickness. He got his first haircut last week. He's really growing up to be a big boy now. The sad this is, he's only 9 months. But he's so much fun. He's saying "Dada" now, and he's really starting to jabber. So fun being a mom!!!

Traumatic week for the Surdukowski's

Last Monday, I left for work thinking that everything was a normal day. Half way through the day, I called home to check on Tanner, like I normally do, and my mom says that Tanner is running a fever. Up to that point, it was only up to about 101. By the time I got home, it was 102.7. By 7pm that night, it 103.5 and stayed above 103 throughout the night. Tuesday brought no relief. I called the pediatrician and they wanted him to come in since he had no other symptoms besides a high fever. During the wait for his appointment, his fever got up to 104. By this point I'm starting to worry.

We get to the doctor and they can't seem to figure out why he has such a high fever. So they swab his throat for strep - nothing. They stick a swab up his nose to check for influenza, they put a catheter in so that they could do a urine culture to check for bacteria. Of course he had just pee'd so his little bladder was empty. So they put a clean catch bag on his little business to catch the pee so they could test it. They sent us over to have blood drawn. So he got stuck with a needle in both arms. Then they sent us home to wait for the results. Later that evening, the doctor called and said they wanted to start him on antibiotics. So I run over and pick that up and start him on it. Wednesday, again, brought no relief. This time, Tanner's fever peaked at 105.1. I freaked out. His body was so hot. We got it to come down with a cool bath, but he still was burning up. The nurses said that it could take up to 72 hours for the medicine to finally start working. So, taking their word for it, we endured some more pain. By this time, Tanner had had so many doses of Tylenol to bring the fever down, but nothing was working. We tried to get him to eat something, so he ate some applesauce. After that we tried giving him the medicine and he threw up all over himself and Nick. That was traumatic all in itself seeing your son do that for the first time! We got him cleaned up and braced ourselves for another restless night of cool baths and comfort for Tanner.

Thursday was the worst! His fever got up to 105.7 and again the nurses said that it didn't matter how high his fever got, only how he was reacting. I was ready to take him to the emergency room so they could do something for him. But we put him straight into a cool bath and that brought the fever down a little. Friday we took him back in to see the pediatrician and this time they found white spots on his throat. There was visibly an infection but they we're sure what the cause was or even if that was the only thing that was wrong. This time they gave him a hefty dose of an antibiotic through the form of an injection. By Friday evening his fever had broke. Oh how wonderful that was!!! Saturday, we had to take him back to have more blood drawn so the doctor could see how the antibiotic was working. By Saturday evening, Tanner was in so much pain from his throat hurting and from huge needles being poked into him, that he was very inconsoleable. Thankfully, though, his fever had not returned.

Then yesterday, we got a call from the pediatrician saying that she wanted to give him another round of antibiotic injections because of some of the results from Tanner's latest blood work, she wanted to be sure that virus was being killed. So back to get two more huge shots. However, yesterday was the best day yet. Tanner is on the mend. We're out of the woods, but we have a little way to go before he's all better. But at least we're getting there.

So needless to say, we're all exhausted from worry, little sleep and so forth.

If it's not one thing, it's another!

Just when I thought things were kind of settling down and starting to be a little bit more relaxing, something always has to pop up that needs immediate attention. Such is my life at the moment.

Everything with my pregnancy is going really well. Thankfully my blood pressure is normal so far this time. I'm sleeping just a little bit better these past few days. I'm feeling pretty good all around.

Well, Friday I noticed that I had a little sore in my mouth that I didn't pay too much attention to. As the days have progresses, the pain in my mouth has gotten significantly stronger. I've now discovered that one of my wisdom teeth needs to be pulled. That itself is unsettling to me. I don't like having any kind of work done in my mouth. That probably stems from a childhood of mouth surgeries. Anyhow, I don't have any kind of dental insurance so I called around today to find out about how much it would cost to have this sort of thing done. To my surprise, it actually isn't as much as I was thinking it was going to be. One thing that frightens me just a little is that being that I am 6 1/2 months pregnant, they can't put me to sleep. I'll have to be awake the whole time and experience the whole procedure. But the thing that really has me worried is that I can't even be seen by a dentist for at least a month. I'm not so sure that this pain will hold out for another month. Wisdom teeth...why in the world do we even have them? Life gets so frustrating every once and a while!!

Thrills and Spills

This has been a rather eventful week. Not in the sense that so much has gone on, but that a few things have occurred that have made Nick and I have to rethink education and career plans.

First, the spills. Tanner learned in the course of a week to crawl utilizing both his hands and his legs. He's quite fast now. He literally runs circles around the perimeter of the family room as soon as you put him down. He's fascinated with everything. He also is to the point where he wants to be everywhere I am. In the kitchen in my parent's house, there are two little steps going down into family room. I was in the kitchen getting ready to wash dishes and Tanner was at the step wanting to come up and be with me. So I brought him up and set him behind me so that he could play with the chairs at the table. The next thing I hear is his little hands a feet going as fast as they could across the floor toward the steps. Before I could get to him he had taken a tumble down the steps using his face as a landing cushion. Needless to say he has a nice little bruise on his cheek from hitting the corner of the unfinished step. After a few minutes of holding and sympathy from me, he was good to go. His big thing now is that he's so intrigued by steps that he's trying to climb up them now. He learns way to quickly! Time to get some gates I guess.

Now the, I guess, not-so-thrilling thrills. Nick found out that the last seat for the radiology program he wanted to get into filled up yesterday. So there goes our plans for school this fall. Now we have to seriously sit back and rethink our options with school and a job. Both of which are so wishy-washy, that we don't know what to do. This is the part of life that I really struggle with. Nick wants my opinion of what to do and I haven't the faintest idea. Hopefully we'll figure something out before too long since we have baby #2 is coming to join our little family in the next coming months. This is where prayer and faith come into play. We shall see I guess.

8 months old and growing

I never really realized how fast time does go by until I had a kid. Before kids, I really had nothing to judge my time with, but now that I do have a son, time seems to fly by.

Yes, Tanner is 8 months old now. For this occassion he decided he no longer wanted to be stationary. He's worked hard for a week to learn how to crawl using both his hands a feet. He's a mobile kid now. He's trying his hardest to sit up from a lying down position. He does a lot of crunches. He'll have strong stomach muscles before he gets it. He gets so frustrated because he can't get himself into that ever elusive sitting position. But if you set him up, he'll stay there for an hour and play. He's also started making motor noises and other noises with his mouth. He's become very vocal lately.

Tanner has become quite independent. He never has been a cuddly kid, but now that he's learning to use his body to get what he wants, it's like he doesn't need mommy much anymore. Hopefully baby brother will be more dependent on me...

I just started putting Tanner in 9-12 month clothes. They make him look so much older than he is. That saddens me just a little.

I'm a continually growing mama. My belly is large and round, and baby brother has learned to hit hard. I'm to the point where I have heartburn every day now. Can't go to sleep without my Tums. I'm uncomfortable most of the time now. That's sad because I still have three months to go!

Nick has passed his first few tests in school. He's decided he wants to become a Dosemitrist. He'll have to explain it. He's foregoing school this next year to finish a few extra classes he needs after graduation to get into Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Then it's back to the grind of more school. But in the end it'll be good for us. Busy, busy, busy.

Valentine's Day, Shmalentine's Day

Okay, I have to admit that, in my opinion, Valentine's Day is such a silly holiday. I've never really enjoyed it, and now that I'm married, I think it's even more of a silly holiday. Why do I need a specified day for which my spouse tells me how much he loves me? I hear every day how much my husband loves me, and that's the way it should be. I don't need a day that focuses on men spending too much money on jewelry, flowers, chocolates, and sappy greeting cards just to make their significant others happy with those material things. If you really love that person, you don't need just one day where they can show you how much they love you. Stupid if you ask me. However, I did get my husband a nice card that did say that I was grateful for all that he does in my life. So I do give in just a little bit to this ridiculous tradition.

Now that I have that off my chest...

Tanner started crawling! Look out world! He's still not so good at it, but he is able to scoot his little body around on his knees to get to what he wants. He hasn't quite figured out how to use his arms in conjuction with his legs. He's doing a lot more face plants than anything, but I did notice yesterday that he is getting the hang of moving his arms a little with his legs. I think the fun is just beginning for me and Nick.