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July 11/07 - Trips, Transformers, and Flintstones

6/12/2011

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Trips, Tranformers, and Flintstones 
Category: Life

Over the past month, things have been quite busy around here.  Rebecca and 
the kids went on a day trip to the African Lion Safari (I missed out, as the 
so-called fast track from work had yet to materialize).  It was a hot day, but 
the park has air-conditioned buses, so they had a cool visit.  The kids even 
went for an elephant ride, which they greatly enjoyed.  We are still hoping to 
get down to the zoo in Toronto, but that will have to wait until at least next 
week, when I'm finally off work.

Speaking  of the heat, Darrel has been making the most of his ever 
expanding arsenal of water guns.  His favourite target is my father, who has 
almost as fun being blasted by him as Darrel does doing it!    Darrel got me 
pretty good the other night, as he was waiting in the darkness with his 
super-soaker when I got back from the store.  I never heard or seen it coming, 
but the gleeful sounds easily gave away who my attacker was.   I would have 
loved to have returned his water assault, but the central line factor rules
that  out.

On this past weekend, I took Darrel and Kira to see the new Tranformers 
movie.  Darrel is quite the fan, having a collection of probably 30 or more of 
them scattered around the house.  Since many of the characters have been 
modified (or are completely new) in the film, he figures I should go pick up 
some more.  Although the movie was amazing, I was still surprised that the kids 
managed to sit through all of it.  If you include all the commercials and 
previews, we were sitting in there for almost three hours.  After we got out,
we had to go to Burger King to get the tie-in Tranformer toys in the kids
meals.   It was a rather expensive afternoon, but well worth it.

Though I don't like to continually bring it up with the kids, Lauren needed 
a reminder of the situation.  She was wondering how Darrel would make out once 
he started back at school in September.  I had to tell her once more that he 
would never be returning to class.  You can imagine how this played out, but it 
unfortunately a conversation that had to happen. 

While officially nothing has changed medically, I've noticed that his skin 
tone seems to be slowly turning to more of a yellow colour.   It could be just 
the differences in lighting,  just me looking for any signs of change, or 
actually occuring, but it's only a matter of time before it happens either way. 
It's really hard to say, as I am usually doing my best not to think too much 
about it, but the reality can not always be easily over-looked.  His pain
levels have continued to remain at a low level.  His two daily doses of
morphine, along with the occasional hot-pack seem to be doing the trick for
now.

On Monday, Darrel gave us quite the scare.  I had recently bought I new 
bottle of Flintstone vitamins for the kids.  They have been always told to take 
just one a day, and have always done so.  When Rebecca was moving a few things 
around on the counter,  she noticed that the bottle felt very light.  Of the 60 
that were there on Saturday morning, only 11 remained (all of them the one 
flavour Darrel doesn't like...the orange ones)!!  Apparently he figured that it 
would be okay to have extra...like 40 EXTRA, as they tasted like yummy candy.  
We immediately called the hospital to get his stomach pumped.  With his liver 
being compromised, and only one kidney left, we figured that this could have 
very dire consequences for him.  After consulting with the Poison Control
Centre at Sick Kids, it was decided that action wouldn't be necessary.  Since
he taken them over a span of a few days (and we couldn't get a straight answer
on how many he had swallowed Monday morning), it was assumed that the pills
would have already most likely been absorbed into his system.   The things we
wanted to do to him....but couldn't!!  Lucky for him that I had purchased the
"Complete" vitamins, not the "Extra Iron" ones, or other steps would have been
necessary.   While there are no immediate signs of a reaction, it is almost a
certainty he caused further damage to his internal organs that don't need any
more pressure put on them.  After all that he has been through, to think he
almost overdosed himself on Flintstones is just unbelievable.

As I said earlier, my leave from work starts next week.  Hopefully we can 
spend the time doing fun family things for the rest of the summer.  Everything 
will depend on how Darrel is doing, and the weather on any given day.  Thanks 
again for reading
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    The majority of all these entries were written by Darrel's father, Stephen.  For those that are not, efforts have been made to give proper credit where it is due.

    The bulk of the posts are in the June 2011 Archives Section, as that is when I transferred them over to this site.  Category Tags should allow you to find entries easier.

    I've tried to correct spacing issues on many of the entries, as most of the older ones have been copied from different sites I've used in the past. I apologize if some have been overlooked.

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