We got all the kids up early on Monday to get ready for a road trip. “Trip-in-a-trip” to the girls. The first thing we had to do is de-mold our candy. It didn’t taste great, it was kind of like super rubbery jello. It was more fun just to play with them! Next time, we will just make more chocolate ones!

The drive to the Grand Canyon should take about 3hrs and 45minutes from our house. Put four kids in the car and add all the potty stops, medical breaks, food runs, and other pauses, we made it in 5 hours!
Brendan didn’t want to sit for a picture!

Cousins!

We entered at the east side, by the historic watchtower.

We did the rim drive and found several neat lookouts along the way.

There were several hard stops for traffic jams due to people trying to photograph huge elk grazing by the road! We did not add to the chaos, we had to settle for “elk butt” shot as we drove by.

No trip to the Grand Canyon is complete without an ice cream cone.

Brendan did not want a lick.

We got a hotel in Williams, AZ for the night! The boys were so excited about the adjoining rooms with the cousins. They had a picnic dinner.

The boys loved the heat/air controllers.

Trevor gave Brendan a detailed education about how it worked. What he said was totally nonsense, but it sounded authoritative. 🙂

Indoor saltwater pool!

Even Brendan got to go “in the pool”. He wanted to dive right in and swim with his cousins. When his trach is out, he is going to be a little water boy.

He says a hotel owl says, “Hoo hoo! Swimming pool! Hoo hoo! Swimming pool!”

Each bed had four poofy pillows, so the boys made an “owl nest”.

Breakfast in bed!

Breakfast for Brendan is a little different.

In the morning, we took all of the kids to the Deer Farm. I think Kayla was the most excited about it.

The boys liked the deer, except that they kept coming up and were trying to chew on shirts, shoelaces and bottoms of shorts. It made Trevor a bit nervous.

The deer like having pictures taken.

Kayla kissed a camel!!!

Kayla led deer parades!

Group shot, with deer

We took the scenic route home and drove through Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona. We stopped at “The Teal M” for a potty stop, but didn’t make any more stops. We had to get Brendan home in time to see his pediatrician. He had another cyst on his nose that grew huge and painful and I wanted him to be seen. Turns out, the doctor believes it to be the same MRSA infection that Trevor had, which I expected all along. That means Brendan actually had it first. Brendan is on the Bactrim now, and the whole family, including company, has an ointment that we all have to put in our nostrils to try to make sure we are not carriers.
The doctor lanced and drained Brendan’s nose to send for cultures. He was not a happy guy. But today, it is already looking much much better.

Something else EPIC happened today. The medical company picked up the ventilator. Bye-bye vent!!

Something else EPIC happened today. The hospital called and said that they had a cancellation in their clinic for Brendan’s aero-digestive specialists appointment.
Instead of having to wait until July 20th as originally scheduled, they will now see him on Monday June 15th!
This will be the pulmonologist, ENT, and GI doctor all meeting together to determine Brendan’s needs for procedures to get his trach out.
He will now be scheduled for his bronchoscopy for July 21st. (tentatively)

I called again and finally got the results of the sleep study. The results said “normal capped trach patterns, approval to decannulate”.

He may need additional work like removal of tonsils before the final steps, but at least it is moving now.

Whew! I feel like I have to read this again just to process all of this information myself.

Wrapping up with something cute, Brendan had speech therapy today. The last 10 minutes of a session, the therapist usually brings a toy to reward Brendan for participating. Today, she brought a firetruck set of building blocks made by Best-Lok. Trevor comes up to the table and says, “Are these knock-off Legos?”
I was pretty embarrassed but we all had a good laugh. I can’t really place where he got that idea. I am raising a Lego snob!