Update on Sam - He's cracking me up!

Today has been quite a struggle for Sam and I.  But this post has a happy ending, so bear with me.

Sam has had to endure many visits from Dr's and Nurses that have been making him drink yucky medicine and putting sometimes stinging drops in his eyes.  But the one that topped it off was today I had to hold him on my lap while the nurses and techs worked on getting a feeding tube inside his nose and down into his stomach.  The problem is that Sam would not condone that.  While we could hold him down, we could NOT make him swallow which is one of the simple little actions that allow the nurse to continue pushing the feeding tube down the right tunnel.  He wouldn't drink anything which would include swallowing.  We tried the other nose. and after about 15-20 minutes of this battle with this kid, we gave up.  Afterwards, he slept like a baby, he was completely exhausted.  (So was I)

We moved him away from Morphine and he is now on a scheduled dosage of Oxycodone taken orally.  He hates the taste of it.  He also has extreme pain when urinating.  He has slept all day and now at 10:30pm is awake and alert and watching Stuart Little.  He went to the bathroom about 30 minutes ago and I was pleased with the perceived reduced pain level by correlating pain with decibel level of his screams.

Tonight we watched the ending of Toy Story 3, and he cracked me up a couple times.  He said "Immodest!"  I was facing away from the TV and was tickling his leg which he loves.  At first I didn't understand what he said, nor why.  I said "Immodest?"  He responded, "Yeah, the barbie was wearing some sexy thing".  She was wearing a bikini getting some sun.  At least the kid has some morals huh?  

Another moment of laughing, was after his most recent dose of Oxycodone, he cried out "Drink! Chocolate Milk!".  So I gave him some and he took a couple swallows of it.  I asked him to have more and he shook his index finger side to side and said, 'Not too much Dad'.  I had a heart to heart with him about all the visitors that keep visiting him (even though he's normally so incoherent when they get here), and how he can show love back to them by doing his part to get strong again.  And that meant he had to get some chocolate milk or something in his stomach.  He agreed that he needed to show his thanks by accepting drinks more bravely even though they may not feel good going in his very sore mouth.  He took several swallows of that chocolate milk people!  And he did it for you!

Here is his little sign saying I Love you!  Tonight before deciding to watch Stuart Little we did some channel surfing where he was in complete control by voice activate me switching to the next channel by him saying "uh-huh" or "uh-uh"  After doing the complete round of channels (10 of which were baseball), he decided to just rewatch Stuart Little.

His visitors of the day included: Grandpa Low, Grandma Gridley and Aunt Elayna, and Aunt Michele.  He was practically unconscious for most of it, so sorry folks if he isn't the most responsive patient to visit.  He'll be a much better boy to visit after a couple of days and the pain is less severe.

He's getting spoiled rotten by everyone who visits him, from hospital staff and family who come by.  Let's just say he won't have a short supply of toys or things to play with for quite some time.  He sure is a loved little kid.