Having been in the hospital with the husb since last Saturday night, I haven't been able to post these pictures yet. (He's still feeling pretty sick, by the way. Keep praying please.) We had Easter on Saturday evening (before all of the excitement started) at Jon's parents house. We ate the ham and Alyssa Kate hunted her eggs. Then we celebrated Jon's mom's birthday which was that Friday. Here are a few pictures.

Posted in: Easter, niece, the fam on Monday, March 31, 2008 at at 11:55 PM 1 comments    

Yay! After two more nights at the hospital, we are back home! We ended up not risking it and staying one extra night to make sure he didn't get sick once they took him off of his medicines. He'd also been pretty nauseous and didn't want to go home while still feeling sick. They ended up having to relocate his IV about 6 times while we were there because it kept coming out of the vein (yuck and yikes!). We were able to come home this morning. His back hurts still (and probably will for a few weeks) but he has pain meds for that. His arms are bothering him from all of the IVs. They are bruised and swollen and he said they're itchy. He's been eating like a monster since he hasn't really eaten well all week, so that's good. I've been busy all day doing laundry since I didn't get to do it last weekend. (FYI: Two weeks of laundry (one of which he spent mostly in the same clothes) for us = NINE loads) It's good to be back home. Here's hoping the next time we're in a hospital is for the birth of our future children.

So in the past eight days, one or both of us had:

12 People Visit
11 TV Show Episodes Watched Online
10 Different Nurses
9 Kinds of Medicine
8 Days Where At Least Part of the Day Was at the Hospital
7 IV Locations
6 Nights in the Hospital
5 Medical Doctors
4 Cafeteria Meals
3 Medical Procedures
2 ER visits
1 Late Night Ambulance Ride

I didn't get many pictures this time. Here are the three I took.

Posted in: hospital visit, husb on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at at 9:43 PM 2 comments    

Here are the past few days, as represented by the e-mails I've sent out to friends. I would have posted sooner, but for some reason the internet at the hospital won't let me into blogger. My father-in-law sent me home to take a shower, because we all know I needed it. I'm about to go back up there and hopefully the next post will say "We're home!"

I sent this e-mail to the girls in my Bible Study on Monday night/Tuesday morning:

Hey girls! It's 1:30am and I just got back from picking up another prescription for the husb. He woke up around 11:00 tonight with a pretty bad headache and feeling nauseous again. He took another round of the pain medicine, but threw it up. Around 12:00 he asked me to call the doctor to find out what to do. The doctor said he would call in a prescription, but asked me to where. This guy is a moron. I told him the Walgreens in Benton is 24 hours, but I didn't know if the pharmacy was. He asked what the phone number was (!) and told me he'd call back. When he called back he said the pharmacy wouldn't open until 7:30am and it'd be ready then. When I told Jon, he said he can't throw up all night so I called the one on Bowman and it was 24 hour. So I called the doctor back, gave him the phone number, and told him to call it in. I picked it up and he just took it a few minutes ago. The doctor said that if he's not well by the morning, he may have to go back in and get ANOTHER blood patch. Please please pray that we don't have to do this and that God heals him overnight of the nausea, headache, and backache. I know most of you won't see this until morning/afternoon but pray as soon as you get it, please.
Good news is that I picked up some half price Cadbury Creme Eggs while I was at the Walgreens, and that I made possibly the best cheesecake ever tonight for the potluck tomorrow (tonight). Hopefully I'll be there!
Love you girls!
Ashley

My sister-in-law, Candice, sent this one out later Tuesday morning:

The story really does continue! Ashley took Jon back to the ER this morning around 5am because he had another bad headache and was still sick. They started an IV and are giving him fluids and pain medicine. The ER doctor tentatively told them it may not be another spinal headache in need of a patch but might just be dehydration so I guess they will try to rehydrate him and see how it goes. Continue to pray for them and we will keep you updated!

Candice

Then I sent this one out this Wednesday morning:

We have decided to mostly cut off the neurologist that has been working with Jon the whole time. (The one who recommended the lumbar puncture and just keeps pushing drugs.) Jon's mom stayed overnight last night and let me go home. While she was here, that doctor came by and just kept wanting to try new medicines. His mom realized, after talking to the doctor and Jon, that she may have actually figured this whole thing out. They've been trying a bunch of medicines while he's been here and some make him sick and some don't. She realized that one of the ones making him sick was one of the ones he's also been taking at home. This doctor had prescribed it for him back in December and he had started taking it when he got a migraine. It was at this point that he started having the constant migraine from January through March. So this whole thing may simply be related to a medicine he's not reacting well with.
When the doctor who's been treating him here at the hospital comes this morning, I'm going to be asking get a recommendation for another doctor so we can get another opinion/idea of what to do. If she doesn't have one, I also have 4 doctors that the girls at Bible study recommended last night.
He has finished all three of the medicine regiments he was going to be taking to try to get rid of the headache that brought us here yesterday morning, so hopefully the doctor will be in sometime this morning to talk with us and we can quickly get a new neurologist's opinion. (The neurologist came in a few minutes ago and said we can do the regiment again with a slightly higher dosage. That will last until someone else can come in and give an idea.) We're still in 5009 at St. Vincent. Feel free to visit. I finally remembered to bring the laptop and they have internet in the rooms, so I'll be checking e-mail throughout the day. If you just want to call, my cell phone number is 515-8412. Thank you so much for all of your prayers. This will be over soon. We love all of y'all!
Ashley (and Jon too... telepathically)

And this one Wednesday night:

Alright. Here we go. When the regular doctor (who has been treating him since we've been here) came in this afternoon, we told her that we wanted to get another neurologist. She said that only four neurologists even come to St. Vincent for consults. One was our moron, two were "useless" according to her, and there was one other who was only available on Wednesday and Thursday. So we were lucky with that. She came in to talk to us and I told her all of the information. After I told her that we thought that some of the medicines might be a large cause of the problems, she said that we can take him off of all of them and see what happens. She also said that another medicine he had been taking for another problem could also be contributing to the headaches, so he's going to stop taking that too, and just stick with the medicine that he takes when the headache comes. The medicines that had been potentially causing it were ones he was taking every day to prevent the migraines. Didn't do such a great job, eh?
The regular doctor talked to the radiologist who had done the original blood patch and they decided it might do better the second time. They have scheduled a second blood patch for tomorrow morning. They are having him lie flat and increasing his saline intake in his IV to increase the chances that this blood patch will go well. I'm guessing they will be doing the same immediately afterward also. The problems after the lumbar puncture and blood patch may have come from not enough fluids. He was supposed to drink a LOT afterward, but you can't drink a lot when you're asleep from the medicines. Hopefully the IV will help with that problem. We are not going to leave, though, until we're sure that he's completely better after the blood patch, since they don't sell IV machines at Walgreen's.
Keep up the prayers! Thanks again. And thanks to those of you who have come to visit and bring things. We love you guys!
Ashley

Then this morning...
Hello friends! We just got back from Jon having the second blood patch. They are making him lie COMPLETELY still and flat for the next four hours. They even came in with a backboard to transfer him from the bed that they took him downstairs on back onto the bed in the room so he wouldn't lift his neck or bend his back. I'm not sure when the doctor will be coming in, so we won't know yet if we're going to go home today. My guess is going to be no. We will definitely be gone by tomorrow morning. I'll e-mail again after we hear from the doctor about what we're going to do.
Thanks,
Ashley

And this afternoon...
Sorry to be bothering you guys so much, but I figure some of you want to keep informed. Both the new neurologist and the hospital doctor that has been taking care of him stopped in at the same time a few minutes ago. They talked to each other for a minute and decided they were going to cut back on the demoral and phenergen (sp?) that he has been taking for the headache and nausea to see what kind of headache he has now that the blood patch has been done. He has been taking them every 3 hours since Tuesday and it will be less often now. He's been asleep since we got back from the blood patch so I don't know how his head is feeling. They did say that we will be staying overnight and that we can probably leave in the morning. Just one more night! Jon's dad is here right now and sending me home to take a shower and eat lunch. I'll be back up here in a couple of hours and let y'all know if anything is any different. Sunday Schoolers: feel free to come by. I'm enjoying the visitors since he's sleeping most of the time. Talk to y'all soon. Thanks for praying.
Ashley

Posted in: hospital visit, husb on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at at 1:51 PM 3 comments    

You might want to grab a snack. This is a long one.

Friday, March 21st: See here

Saturday, March 22nd:
Afternoon: Jon got up and took medicine for his back pain several times.
5:00pm: I went to eat Easter dinner with Jon's family
8:00pm: I came back home and he was sleeping.
9:00pm: Jon got up and took a shower
9:20pm: Jon came in and told me to call the medical exchange to get hold of his doctor because he had the worst headache he's ever had. (This had been a potential side effect of the lumbar puncture. It was a spinal headache rather than a migraine.)
9:40pm: Called the medical exchange again after not hearing back from the doctor.
9:50pm: Called Candice, Jon's sister, who is a nurse. She said go to the hospital.
9:55pm: Called Jon's parents because Jon couldn't make it down the stairs alone and I sure the heck couldn't carry him.
10:10pm: Jon's parents showed up and we decided to call an ambulance instead.
10:20pm: The ambulance got stuck at the closed gate to our apartment and then when they went through scraped the side of their vehicle. Oops.
10:45pm: Arrived at the emergency room and was taken immediately to a room.
11:30pm: A doctor finally came in and examined him for all random things such as a stroke, not listening to me trying to tell him what we know the problem is.

Sunday, March 23rd:
12:30am: Jon FINALLY got some medicine to help the headache. It didn't really help.
12:30am-2:00am: Hospital tried to page Jon's neurologist at least 5 times, the one who didn't ever call back earlier, and he still didn't call back. Meanwhile, Jon still wasn't feeling much better.
3:00am: We were told that no anesthesiologists would be available to do a blood patch, the procedure needed to get rid of the headache, until Monday morning. What?! He also finally got something that started to help the pain around this time.
4:00am: The hospital finally got hold of a doctor who would admit him.
4:45am: He got the only open room in the hospital. In oncology. We were welcomed by my good friend, Touchdown Jesus:

5:15am: I went back to our apartment to take a really quick shower and grab some stuff for two nights.
6:15am: I got back to the hospital.
6:30am: I curled up on a kind of wide chair with another chair pulled up to it to try to sleep.
10:00am: Jon woke up so I woke up. Or more accurately, sat up, since I wasn't very much asleep.
10:15am: Jon's mom called to check on us. She asked if that chair folded out into a bed and I told her I hadn't thought about it. It did.
10:30am: I had a muffin and milk from the best room in the hospital: the Nourishment Room. This is a wonderful place (entered only by entering a secert code on the keypad) on the oncology floor with free food and drinks whenever you want them. I partook often. That muffin and milk were one of those meals that feel like it's the best thing you've ever eaten since it's been so long since you ate.
Throughout the day: The paramedics had put his IV in a weird place and any time he moved his arm from being straight by his side, the alarm went off because it wasn't flowing right and I had to reset it. (After 4-5 times of the nurses having to come in to reset it, I asked them to show me how and I'm really glad they did.)
1:00pm: I got a to-go cup of soup from the cafeteria. It was alright.
1:30pm: Jon's family showed up to visit and brought real food!
5:00pm: Jon's family left and he finally got some medicine that actually put him to sleep. He'd had enough to put a horse to sleep but it hadn't worked yet.
6:00pm: I watched the awesome movie of my childhood Flight of the Navigator on tv.
10:30: My hair was completely disgusting but I hadn't brought anything to wash it with, so I used this horrific stuff:

My head itched, my hair was completely dried out, it smelled bad, and I was pretty sure all of my hair was all going to fall out in my sleep.
11:00pm: I turned off the tv to go to sleep. This chair bed thing was basically the most uncomfortable, slightly U shaped thing I've ever had to try to sleep on. Also, Jon, who hadn't set off the IV alarm in 6 hours of sleeping, started moving some different way and setting it off every few minutes.
11:30pm: The tech nurse came in for the 7,000th time in the day to take his blood pressure and temperature. I woke him up enough to get him to lay with his arm out. When she grabbed it to put on the arm band, he jerked away, almost punched her and snuggled himself back under the sheets. It was really funny. Then I kind of held him down and she got it.
All night long: He moved very frequently, setting off the alarm which I had to sit up and reset every time.

Monday, March 24th:
9:00am: Hair? Still in my head! I went to ask the nurse (who wasn't as cordial as all of the other nurses we'd dealt with) if they knew when his blood patch would be this morning. She told us it hadn't been scheduled yet. What?!
9:30am: They came in to pick him up to take him to get the blood patch. Wait. What?!
9:45am: Blood patch happens. From what I understand (Kristen, you can probably correct me on this...) they took some of his blood and inserted it into the place they had done the lumbar puncture on Friday because spinal fluid was leaking and causing the horrible headache that took us to the hospital.
11:30am: Jon was feeling better and his headache was almost completely gone finally. He watched tv and ate this initially unrecognizable and pretty disgusting looking meat product:

1:00pm: The doctor finally came in to see us and told him that as soon as he got up and walked around without getting sick, we could go home.
2:15pm: I went to ask the nurse when the doctor was coming back and she said "Oh. You can go. Let me fill out the paperwork." Moron.
3:00pm: They said the transport service (i.e. Guy Pushing a Wheelchair) was on its way up.
3:30pm: Guy Pushing a Wheelchair showed up.
4:00pm: After stopping at Chick-Fil-A for some lunch for Jon, we made it back home. His back still really hurt, so he took some medicine and went to sleep.

Other points:
Things I'm Most Glad I Remembered to Bring: My huge warm blanket and pajama pants
Most Important Thing I Forgot: Face cleaner
Thing I Didn't Think I'd Need But I Did: Shampoo
Number of Awesome Nurses We Had: 3 (1 ER and 2 oncology)
Number of Not Awesome Nurses We Had: 1
Number of Times I Went Into The Nourishment Room: About 10
Number of Funny Signs I Saw: 3 (Actually more, but I didn't have my camera when I saw them.)

Time Spent at the Hospital: 40 Hours and 30 Minutes
Number of Previous Neurologists Fired By the Sumners Family: 1

Posted in: funny things, hospital visit, husb on Monday, March 24, 2008 at at 8:13 PM 2 comments    

Posted in: Easter, Jack on Saturday, March 22, 2008 at at 7:50 PM 1 comments    

Jon has had migraines his whole life, but they have been really bad for the past two months. He has been missing a lot of work and is miserable. He has tried several different medicines and didn't really experience any relief. He had an MRI a few weeks ago which showed nothing, so tomorrow (Friday) morning he is getting lumbar puncture/spinal tap around 8:00am. We will be at the hospital for 4-6 hours afterwards for recovery. He then has to come home and lay completely still for 24 hours then extremely little activity for at least 48 hours after that.
Prayer needs: He's planning on asking for only local instead of general anesthesia because he has always been very nauseous for hours afterward being put under. Please pray that they'll let him do this, as well as that he'll be able to handle the pain. (He's a tough guy!) Pray that he'll recover quickly and that the doctor will be able to use the information to figure out what's wrong with him. He will go back to the doctor next Friday to find out the results. Thanks everyone! Love you guys!

Update (1:00am Friday night/Saturday morning): We came home at 2:00pm today and he's been resting. The only pain he's having is in his back, you know, because of the big needle. He has medicine that has been taking care of that. He had a headache and was nauseous at the hospital, but all of that has gone away and he has been able to eat some and take a shower tonight. Thanks for the prayers!

Posted in: hospital visit, husb on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at at 11:18 PM 1 comments    

First of all, something I made for you:

Today D and I celebrated St. Patrick's Day in our own fun way.

Posted in: creativity, D Man, St. Patrick's Day on Monday, March 17, 2008 at at 10:40 PM 3 comments    

Well, like I said yesterday, I went with Candice (sister-in-law), Alyssa Kate (niece), and our AWESOME friend Alisa and her adorable son Greyson to a field of daffodils that bloom every year near here to 1) help take pictures of two hyper two year olds and 2) try out my new camera. Here are a few of the pictures I got.

Posted in: Creation, niece on Sunday, March 16, 2008 at at 11:23 PM 1 comments    

I received two small gifts of money at the end of this week and it finished up the $900 I needed for my camera! (Actually, I had $890, but close enough!)

So I took my envelope of money...

Which I loved so much...

And first went to Staples...

To get the MUCH cheaper memory card...

Then headed to Bedford (a local chain)...

I went back to Staples to get a bag for the camera and headed out to try the guy out. (All of the rest of the pictures are taken by the new camera.)

Posted in: camera, Creation, Jack on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at at 10:10 PM 2 comments