ISIS trials and starting Preschool

Benson had his third injection in the ISIS trials. We drove up as a family and spent the night in St Louis. Jon took Benson in and once he is off to sleep he comes back to the hotel and we all arrive back at the hospital long before Benson is awake. The procedure takes only about twenty minutes but he has to lie flat for one hour. So they have him asleep for most of that hour. He has to stay at the hospital, for six hours after the injection. This is purely for study purposes. They do vitals, blood, etc every couple of hours. After six hours he can go back to the hotel and then we go back to the hospital in the morning for another exam at 24 hours post injection. That exam is a part of the study as well.

After our morning appointment, we went to the zoo to see the new polar bear. He is two years old and already around 800 pounds. They think he will get to be close to the 1500 lb max that polar bears can reach. That is a big bear! Although, I felt really bad for this bear because St Louis is really hot. Polar Bears like the cold. I just can't imagine he liked being there.

Randomly, I think the favorite part of the zoo was the misting fan.

A week after the injection, we had to go back to St Louis for more appointments, but just for a day trip. Jon did not get FMLA time off for these so it was just me going. I arranged for a friend to watch Vanessa and Brigham. And then I prayed really hard that Annabelle wouldn't scream the whole drive. I made several trips to Wal Mart, trying to find a new speaker for the van for Benson to watch a movie. I also found a little crib music playing thing for Annabelle. I spent $50 on these things just hoping we would all make it without screaming and cursing too much ;)

The drive went way better than I feared. I think I would even call it a success. There were some tears but nothing too crazy. And, I made it home around 10pm, literally just ten minutes before a HUGE thunderstorm and torrential rain.

There is another little girl in the study that is on the same schedule we are. So they are always right before us for procedures and we are always there the same day. She is a very smart, very sweet little girl. Benson finally opened up to her more and started playing and talking. It made my heart happy to see him making friends.

School started while we were in St Louis. I decided to have Benson do preschool at the Early Childhood Center because they will provide OT and PT during preschool. He is only going two days a week and he is getting an hour of both OT and PT. It's working great so far. His teacher would like for him to attend more often but I don't know if I can swing it with school. It gets kind of crazy hauling the kids around that much. And Brigham seems unable to cope with the car time and being rushed from here to there. This week there was more than usual going on and I feel like he spent more time kicking and screaming on the floor than normal.

Benson's teacher asked us to fill out this worksheet for the kids. I asked Benson each question and these were his answers. The last one went more like this:

Me: "Benson, what makes you special?"

Benson: "Huh? I don't know."

Vanessa: "Benson, I really like your chair."

Benson: "OH! Ya. My chair. And {should shrug} well, I'm just awesome."

Perfect. Yes, you are.