We had a tough week: Pneumonia

Two weeks ago, everyone got sick that was home.

I called home and Holly said they were all sick: Holly, Mark, Luke, and John. Well, everyone but Meg and me got sick. They were all coughing and hacking, having trouble sleeping, blowing their noses. The usual, I figured. Just in the summer instead of the winter.

When I went home for the weekend after fishing, I did like I  usually do and pretend I never get sick. We ate at the same table, drank out of the same cups, lolled around in the bed sleeping in until 6:45 Am or so.

So I went out fishing again, expecting everyone to be better by the time I returned again on Thursday or so. Then Holly took Mark to the clinic on Monday because he did not seem to be getting better.

When I called from the fishing grounds on Monday night, Holly said she’d taken him to the clinic and the diagnosis was not good at all from Dr. Nobel Anderson: pneumonia!. But, that he’d probably be better by Wednesday if the antibiotics worked. So I didn’t think too much of it again, but I could here him coughing in the background. But no one wants pneumonia!

We got home at night and I went in to the room and listened to him. He sounded awful: very short breaths, very rapid, interrupted by extreme coughing and hacking, followed by more restless sleep. Also, he was on the floor instead of in his bunk (well, all three boys were on the floor). When I talked to Holly, she said he did not have the strength to get into his top bunk.

She said he seemed slightly better on Wednesday, so she hadn’t taken him to the clinic. We decided to give it another day. I tried to get him to drink some fluids as he lay in his perch on the couch all day, but he would only take a weak sip from time to time, and ate no food. Holly said he’d lost five pounds by Wednesday. He hadn’t been to the bathroom except a couple times a day, with almost no urine splashing off the walls. That was a joke. I meant no urine production.

Thursday night was a tough night. Long coughing spells, night terrors, and small rapid, shallow breaths. I decided to take him to the clinic first thing on Friday Morning. They checked his O2 saturation right away and put him on Oxygen, as he was down below 90%, and then took a good look at him and decided to start hydrating him with a saline drip that would allow a quick dose of new antibiotics as well. Adam was Mark’s nurse and did a great job, especially in the X-Ray room where Mark almost collapsed from fatigue just trying to stand up in front of the big red X.

Holly, John, and I took turns reading to him throughout the day and by 2 PM on Friday it was obvious he was doing better, but his 02 SAT was still too low. while on 2L/min O2, his O2 SAT was at 96-99%, but whenever we took him off the O2 and let him breathe just room air, his O2 SAT would tank, dropping down to 89-91% within a few minutes. The clinic said he had to go to Juneau. They just did not have the 24 hour care needed to make sure he was okay. Ron Horn came by to see if we needed anything before we left.

They said, that in kids they don’t worry too much about cardiac arrest, it’s respiratory arrest that gets them. Well, I didn’t have anything to argue about, there. I asked if we could take an O2 bottle and an O2 Saturation tester to take home, but they said no, it wasn’t worth the risk, plus it wasn’t policy. Mark had a fun time trying to keep his saturation level up above 96%. In the photo above, you can see his Saturation level is at 97%.

Plus there was a pediatrician in Juneau who was good with this type of thing. The clinic called up the medivac team and we went to Juneau. First we were in the ER for about four hours because they were backed up with patients. The nurse in the ER saw his excellent O2 Sat numbers and immediately took him off the O2. It took about 45 minutes for his O2 SAT to drop, but it did: right back down to 88 at one point.

At about that time, the pediatrician showed up and looked at things and decided to keep him for the night at 2 LPM O2, and changed his antibiotics to two other drugs, and move him upstairs where he’d be monitored. They put us in a negative pressure room that kept all the germs in. And boy did they keep the germs in. I got sicker than a dog in that room—I’ve never been that sick in my life: vomiting, diarrhea, back pain, and I won’t even go into what happened to my prostate! I was so sick I checked myself in the ER and signed up for some meds. Thankfully, I ran into Penny Fossman, and I was able to borrow a vehicle to run some errands (get some meds). Thanks Penny!

The worst moment, for me personally, was in Wal-Mart, when I had to sprint to the bathroom to avoid vomiting on the good folks at the pharmacy.

It was kind of weird to have everyone wearing masks around us. But what could we say? “We really did just brush our teeth!” No. I couldn’t really blame them. In the picture above you can se the ante room where both doors have to be closed before one can be opened again. On the other hand, he did have a cool bed with lots of controls for the middle and each end, plus a handy lit-up button that would reach the nurse without-fail via an intercom. I’m still not quite sure if we just happened to get this negative pressure room, or if it was necessary, but by the second day, the masks weren’t really in use any longer.

Right before the second night started, at around 7 PM, they took him off O2 and let him breathe room air for a while. His O2 SAT dropped from 99% to 95% and leveled off. cool. She said we’d be able to leave in the morning if that kept up through the night.

Holly, Meg, and Holly’s brother John, took the ferry down that night and stayed in this room at the Bartlett House across the street from Bartlett Hospital. In the morning I went there to rest, as I was still sick and my back started to ache whenever I wasn’t lying down. At around noon Mark was discharged from Bartlett and he and Holly went on a Costco run for an hour, then they came back and we all crashed.

We took the Ferry home the next morning. but I was still sick, nausea and weariness.

Thank God Mark is better now. He is not back to his old self yet. He still lies on the couch some of the time, but he’s taking his meds, drinking his fluids, and resting like he’s supposed to. I’m not sure what the next step is. Presumably, he’ll have a full recovery and be sprinting up and down the court dribbling at full speed again someday. Well, that’s the hope.

As soon as Mark’s aunt Dorothy Beeman (Margaret’s sister) heard that Mark was sick, she put together a care package for him with a new shirt, a new hoodie and two boxes of honey-nut cheerios! They were in the mail when we got home and greatly cheered him up! Bless Dorothy for her kind heart!

Thanks to Bonnie Shanrbroich for the bread & jam, Lucinda Boyce for the Geos (they were a great success), and to Serena Badgley for taking care of the younger two boys so Mark could rest. Thanks also to Bob and Margaret who ‘camped’ with the younger two boys for two nights while we were in Juneau.

Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers—Matt, Holly, Mark, Luke, John Caleb, and Meg.

Baptisms in the Lynn Canal

Mark and Naomi were baptized in the Lynn Canal today.

First they answered some questions from Pastor Ron in front of the Church.

And also the congregation answered some questions.

Then we went down to the river to pray… (actually the Lynn Canal). Holly led the singing and people actually sang as they went down to the water right near the large cruise ship dock at the main beach in town that has sand, where we usually have our baptisms.

Naomi was baptized first.

It didn’t seem too cold.

Then it was Mark’s turn.

The Green Family:

The Davis family with Bob and Margaret:

Afterwards, we had a wiener roast on the beach with chips and other fixings.

Our new family picture

Here we are dressed up for Christmas Eve Service. We stayed in Haines, as we’ve been quite busy lately. We got the boy’s tuxedos off Ebay for about $24 each: Ring Bearer tuxes for weddings. I guess we lsot Mark’s tie and I need a white shirt.

When we bought the latest tux, I forgot to find one with tails for Mark, so his has a standard cut jacket and no vest. The idea is that we’ll just hand them down as each boy is done with his and we’ll only ever need to buy one per year.

The pink clothes win!

It’s a girl!

Elizabeth Margaret Davis was born on December 8th, 2012 weighing in at 7 lbs 8 oz. You can see the meconium in the hair still.

The boys were very good the and were in the birth room for the critical moments. Meg, as we are calling her, seems to have inherited my loud voice.

Nice capillary action in the finger tips.

Luke got to cut the cord. But they spend most of the time in the muscle room with the doula Shayna.

The placenta actually had some anomalies with the structure of the blood vessels. Normally the main artery connects directly to the placenta and the sub-arteries branch out from that contact point. But in this one, the arteries are connected to the sack that surrounds the baby instead and branch out from the sack. This can sometimes be a serious condition.

The boys still thought it was cool. I don’t actually know whether this bunch of blood vessels (left) goes to the mother or to the baby, but I do know that the placenta is the interface between the mother and baby (admittedly, I don’t know much about the placenta).

We call her Meg. She is the first of our children born at the new Juneau Family Birth Center—A beautiful facility staffed with wonderful folks.

She sleeps wonderfully and doesn’t seem to have inherited my sinus problems, like J.C. did. Although she did get my turned up nose, and perhaps Holly’s smile.

This is a precious moment below. All that vomiting, all that discomfort, the pain of labor, the swollen feet, the selling of the cabin, the purchase of the mini-van, the move to the new house… was it all worth it? Yes.

You can tell Meg gets her hair from me.

Nana and Grandpa John showed up shortly after the birth from Indiana along with my niece Joy who was in town for the youth basketball tournament.

Joy and I almost immediately went out in search of baby clothes. We found Mommy and Me near the airport and by Alaska Industrial Hardware.

We bought two large bags full of clothes for $80. Half or them were for 0-3 months and the other half for ages 3-6 months. Joy picked out a number of outfits and I picked out anything that was a good deal.

 

Mom and Dad stayed in the basement of this church using pads and sleeping bags we brought from Haines.

There’s a basketball hoop right outside the Cosgrove’s house and Mark spent most of his spare time shooting and doing layups there. There was actually not much traffic there, contrary to the way it looks in the picture.

The boys actually got along really well and were able to share and have a fun time working together on most things

.

Holly spent 2-3 days holed up in the Cosgrove’s upstairs room where we all slept, basking in the glow of maternal love and peace, eating grapefruit and cucumbers and water.

We came home together on the ferry along with my parents.

This rather artistic shot of the final stages of a diaper change show a neat reflection off the bottom side of the table.

Bob and Margaret met us in Haines at the terminal and then we ate a meal that Margaret had made.

Luke was quite a pack-mule, lugging the same diaper bag that all the boys have used, the little yellow and blue one.

Christmas Letter 2009

Here’s a link to our Christmas Letter (pdf) this year, which is actually pretty cool, if I may say so.  We had it done, printed, folded, stamped and put into envelopes (but not licked) before Thanksgiving Day.

Merry Christmas

Windows Live Skydrive: CLICK HERE

Google Docs: Christmas letter 2009

If you want a printable size document to hang on the fridge, that’s too bad, because this one is only large enough to view on the screen.

Actually, send me an email, and I’ll pop you one, if I know you, duh.  Then put us on your list and send us one too.  BAM

This was the first time I used Publisher to produce a document and did not use a template.  I recommend a book to you: The non-designer’s Design book by Robin Williams CLICK HERE!!

Church Choir

Soon & Very Soon.

 

Look at us JUMP!

Here’s a fun video of the boys jumping off the steps at church.

 

 

One of the reasons I like the little point and shoots, is that they often have a video feature.  I just don’t think this moment would be the same without the motion and the audio.  Tell me what you think.

Let’s act REALLY nice.

On Sunday, we had a guest preacher at church, as our normal pastor Ron Horn and the Skagway minister, Randy, were doing a pulpit swap for the weekend to help strengthen the bonds between our churches, since we’re only 13 miles apart as the crow flies, but 400 miles by road.

Ron asked us to invite Randy over for dinner on Sunday night.  So we did.  On the way home in the car, Holly was explaining to the boys that the preacher was coming to our house for dinner that evening when Mark piped up from the back seat, “I have a good idea!”

“What’s that, Mark?” I said,

“I have a really good idea.  Tonight, when the preacher comes to hour house, let’s act REALLY nice while he is there.  Then he’ll think we’re like that all the time!  Isn’t that a good idea?”

Holly and I both laughed.

“Yes, Mark that’s a wonderful idea.” Holly said.

Mazatlan Dump with La Vina

Mazatlan Dump with La Vina (The Vineyard Church) from Matt Davis on Vimeo.

Mazatlán trip (Day 2)

I like the sunrises in Mexico.  We don’t get sunrises or sunsets like that here in Alaska, or in Haines.  This picture was taken with my point and shoot camera from the porch of our hotel room, looking out over the city to the east.  The boys often got up for the sunrise with me. 

Was it actually this pretty to the naked eye?  No.  I underexposed the photo until I got what I liked.  It got more yellow the more I underexposed it.  This shot is straight out of the camera though.  When shooting gradual colors like this it is important to shoot in RAW, as JPEGs tend to do poorly with large swaths of sky in any near homogeneous color.

  Today the plan was to go to Sam’s Club to buy supplies again, then do a dispensa in the morning at a Francesco I Madero, to coincide with the carnival games of the Iowa team who were on their last day in Haines.

Then take a break for lunch and close of the evening with the mobile kitchen and the mobile school at another colonia (neighborhood) at Aztea, where there is still no building.  We took this van in the morning to head out to the church with our supplies after the stop in Sam’s Club.  it’s a nice sturdy van which is much like the 24-7 shuttles the hotels use near major airports. 

Jorge, on the left below in the green shirt was the driver in the morning, but transformed into a multi-talented one man traveling puppet show, guitar player, DJ, sound man, singer, dance leader, PE teacher in the evening.  He is gifted and is a hard worker for the lord.

The Iowa group did the carnival games in the gymnasium, which consisted of multiple throwing games with prizes for the winners and actually greatly resembled our harvest festival, which the local churches in Haines do for the local kids on Halloween.  There was no need for the mobile kitchen at this church because they have a commercial kitchen and lockable storage rooms already. 

Many of the Churches buildings are built like this with a concrete floor, steel superstructure, cement walls, tin roof and upper walls.  Along the sides of the church they keep the furniture (chairs and tables).  A local company builds the girders and brings them to the site and assembles them.

While the Carnival was going on with the kids, Shannon Green, my folks, Jorge, and I were doing the dispensa from the van.  My folks had bible to distribute. 

The dispensa went really well until one lady decided she wanted to get four bags instead of one, because her three daughters were all off working somewhere.  I eventually just took her three tickets and she smiled, then I gave the three bags to three other women who hadn’t gotten any bags, then she went through the roof!  She set down her bag and gave me a barrage of spanish I had no hope of understanding. 

Shannon was in the van giving me the bags one at a time and said to me, I’m glad it’s you out there instead of me!  While she was giving me an earful, someone in line behind her sneaked up behind her and quietly took her bag.  I have to admit, I was actually kind of thankful for that.

I’ll write more about the evening later.  What I really need to do is load up some of the videos I took, as that really gets the color and life a lot more than the pictures and words.