Prepared?

8 years ago I wasn't prepared for .............. for what was about to happen to our family, the next day. I could have never been prepared for how devastated we would be and how fast our lives would spin in a tailspin. How can one be?? I was so clueless! Our family would NEVER be the same. I was prepared to bring my sweet baby boy into this world happy, healthy, SAFE!! IF only........ I had a crystal ball.

I stare at this picture more then I care to admit ~ This is the last picture I have with my baby boy healthy n safe and I can't even see him. But I know he's in there with everything working like it's suppose to... all his fingers n toes are wiggling, he's sucking his thumb, his brain is functioning, he's moving and kicking around in that small area (he's moving more in there then he ever will out in the BIG world). I was so excited and happy I couldn't wait to see my bundle of joy.

This is MY day that I set aside for myself! The day before Danny's birthday is My day to get it all out! To grieve for all the lost dreams that I had for my son and family. Everything that was taken away... in an instant it was ALL GONE. And once the damage was done there was NOTHING I could do to get it back or make it better! Today is the day where I can be ANGRY!! Angry that this happened, angry how it playing out, angry there is a world out there that my son will NEVER participate in, angry that he has to go through life in fear and pain, angry I will NEVER hear him say "I love you Mom"!! Angry that Avrianna will not have a "normal" relationship with her brother, angry that she has to worry about her brother more then she should!! Angry that I have to keep in the back of mind....is today the day? The day where I will see his baby blue eyes looking back at me for the last time. Angry that I have to keep this fear bottled up inside me EVERYDAY!! Today I pop the cork and let myself be sad. I GET to be SAD!!

Don't get me wrong I LOVE my son more then words can express and I would give anything for him. But I just wish he has what every parent dreams for their child .......... DREAMS! The dreams that he doesn't know exists :( I need to let it all out to be able to start a new, wipe the slate clean, a "new year's resolution in a way.

I did EVERYTHING right! So WHY!?! Where's the logic? Where's innocence? Where's the life I dreamed for my SON!!

This picture is the first I have of Danny, out in the Big Hard Cruel world! Fighting the ultimate fight~ one that no infant should ~ there was NOTHING I could do but hope n pray. This is Total helplessness! This Lil boy you see here will never be the same as he is forever broken. He was brought into this world and taken away injured and never fully repaired..... As you see the brain can NOT be fixed.

This picture has such raw emotions for me.............You can't even imagine! I am reaching out touching my precious Lil boy with only my finger tips wondering if that will be the last time he will ever feel my touch. Does he feel me? Does he know I'm there? Does he know I'm sorry? Sorry just doesn't seem to fit but that's all I could say, is sorry ~ Sorry my precious boy you may not make it through the night .........sorry you will never have what I wanted for you, sorry I will never know who you truly were. Amazing how all that can run through your mind in a matter of moments. How does one ever recover after something like this? Do they??

I wasn't able to hold him, talk to him, Kiss him, let him know Mommy loves him. All I was able to due was Just touch him with my finger tips....Will he continue to fight? Why would he, I'm sure he was scared, cold, and all he knows is pain. He isn't even breathing on his own, will he ever breathe? Then you sit and wait and wait it's so quiet, it's so alone, it's so helpless. I remember after getting the grim prognosis just crying out "OH my sweet boy".

After the dust settles you just want to scream WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!?! As it's goes by like a flash but will leave a lasting impression you just can't shake. I am forever scar'd. How terrible is that, on the day of your sons birth and even though he's here.....there is nothing nice to say? Traumatizing !!! Guilt!!! I too am broken :(

I look back at his 8 years of life and the Lil Man he's become. It's all at a very hard and painful cost, over n over n over again he's overcame diversity and medical prognosis'. We've fought the fight and we'll keep on fighting! I was trying to figure out how many times he has had surgeries (I should have kept better track of them) but I think this last one was 37. AMAZING!! What a road it's been and I'm grateful and thankful I am able to walk the road with him. I've learned so much from him and I've met some pretty amazing people along the way.

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Tomorrow I will celebrate your birth, your life, your accomplishments, our New Dreams!

Danny ~ You ARE AMAZING Lil Man and my hero....I LOVE You and will ALWAYS be there for you Danny ~ Mommy

I know you know different.....I just wish you didn't have too You are my Inspiration!!

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So now onto some updating ~

Danny's new wheels :0) We got it yesterday, just in time for his Birthday! He's only sat in it for a few minutes and I've had it in the house for less then a day, BUT this chair (so far) seems to be IT! All the little bells in whistles that Danny needs, but in a fun and functioning version. It's got everything plus it folds (somewhat) and is light weight! Not to mention the awesome color, heehe.

It's a Convaid Rodeo Tilt n recline :)
Thanks to Peter from Walking and Wheeling (Danny's Private PT) for setting us up with this sweet new ride :) I hope to put many miles on it

Yesterday Danny also got his staples taken out. The incision looks good. The area around it is alil angry as I believe he is reacting to the ointment we were putting on it. So we've changed to a cream in hopes that will help. He heals so well....I just wish his system would bounce back as fast. He continues to dance a fine line but we are able to control him at home. We still are making strides to recovery but it's 2 steps ahead and 1 back....but it's still forward :)

We did some labs on Danny at the clinic and all of them have chilled out and are reasonably back to "normal". We were able to discontinue the TPN and Danny has been tolerating his formula at full strength now we just have to work back up to his usual routines. That might take awhile but we will be working towards it each in every day.

I've been every busy working at the school with all the holiday festivities going on. Tomorrow is Avrianna's last day before winter break. I know she's excited about that as they are having alil pizza party and then no school for a week. Too bad we have no snow yet for the kids to play in over break :( It's going to be a brown Christmas over here. I am officially done with buying gifts and even the wrapping so let the Holidays BEGIN!! I do have to say I was sweating it a bit as I'm usually done long before this so I'm relieved to know I was able to finish WITH some time to spare.

Dan is busy building another laundry in Oshkosh on top of finishing his certification for Firefighting. He is hoping to have the laundry up and running near the beginning of February, but we'll have to see. My garages are FULL of laundry equipment, but don't worry I still have a parking stall inside :) And you guys say I'm the crazy one......I beg to differ, LOL. So he's not to disappointed that there is no snow from him to remove throughout the day.

I'm sad that our lifestyle just won't be fair for us to adopt. A few month back Dan and I had looked into the process again, but with the recent events around here that helped refresh me with previous events ...it's just not fair to our family to add to our craziness. Nor even fair to a child that we would add to our family with all the hospitalizations that I'm pulled away for. It wouldn't be so difficult if we weren't inpatient so much but we are so unfortunately we are not going to pursue adoption now. See it as selfishness or selflessness as with this one I'm not so sure which way of the spectrum it lies. Our lifestyle isn't easy....but it's US!

Thanks for stopping by to check on us! You are my saving grace, my outlet. If it wasn't for you guys and the support I get I would be even more crazier then I already am, heehee

Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday

Lori

7th Annual Christmas n Birthday Party

Wow does time fly....it seems as if we'd just had Danny's 6th birthday party, so how did the 7th sneak up on us. Saturday Dec. 11 we held our annual Birthday party/ Christmas party for all of Danny's "Special" friends and their families. Danny's Birthday isn't till the 23rd but I like to throw his party in the beginning of the month so it's not so close to Christmas.
Here's Danny waiting patiently for our surprise guest to his party. Danny was in charge of letting me know when he saw the vehicle driving up the driveway. They MADE IT!! All the way from Scott City, MO

Mattman is HERE! And what a peanut he is. I can't tell you how happy we were to have Matt and his Mom n Dad here. What an amazing family! I've been following Matt via his Caring Bridge site for years. We've attempted to go down to visit them in MO but always had to cancel due to an illness. How wonderful that they were able to come up to us.

Avrianna enjoyed Mattman also :)

Matt and his Mom, Heather

Luckily they were able to come the day before and hang out with us before the party began. It was wonderful to sit around and chat with them.

Here is the first attempt at Danny's birthday cake..........the bottom part of the cake came out of the pan while the top stayed in, UGH! So more cake needed to be made.

The finished Cake.....

Our special guest from The North Pole once again made time in his busy schedule to come to the party as well. We LOVE you SANTA!

Santa had gifts for all the kids that were at the party :)

Really Santa I was good this year...........LOL

Our Friend ~ ELI

Our Friend ~ RYAN

Our Friend ~ MATT

Our Friend ~ JACOB

Our Friend ~ GRIFFIN

Jacob and Ryan were SO EXCITED to see Santa ~ I thought Jacob was going to jump right out of his chair, LOL.

Avrianna hanging out with Mattman ~

Avrianna n Danny with Matt's Daddy Kevin behind them.Danny and his "girls" (nurses) Aleana and Gail ~ Yes Santa they were good this year :)

My sister and her family ~ The Dedering's

Three of the boys hanging out chit chatting amongst themselves ~ Danny, Matt, & GriffinJacob telling Matt a few pointers ~

The party animals ~
The Eakins ~ The whole 2010 crew ~

Too Much Partying ~ They must rest and Chill out :) You really have to watch these two, the apples didn't fall too far from the trees so these two can really cause some trouble when they get together.

Once again and unfortunately there was bad weather the passed through ~ Welcome Blizzard Aiden. Because of the weather (and\or illness) there was about 20 people that didn't come to the party, so needless to say we had alot of food and cake left over because we made 2 hams and smoke a turkey along with all the fixings, for our guests. Despite the weather we still had about 35 people that did brave the terrible conditions.

The night before the party the weather was only predicting about 3-6" in our area.....well when all was said in done we got about 10" and 40mph winds. Not a good combo....especially when your out of state guests need to get home. If I would have known they weather was going to get as bad as it did I would have told them to stay home.

The snow was dropping about 1" a hour. It was pretty to see but the amount of work that was needed to remove it all wasn't pretty. Thankfully I didn't have to go out n shovel. There were

areas that reports 4 foot drifts. YIKES!

Danny's crazy nurse showed up for work (on time) the next morning.....now that is dedication for you :)

Sporting our new 3E T-shirts.

I was a great time ..... it's always is! In leau of gifts for Danny I asked that they bring gifts and/or food to be donated to the Local Domestic shelter The Harbor House again this year. We got a whole grey storage bin tub full of stuff that I dropped off on Monday. THANKS everyone for helping to make some else's Christmas alil brighter.

Thanks for stopping by to check on us. I will update again tomorrow on other things that have been going on with us. Just wanted to get Danny's party on here cuz I'm already behind. Please sign post a comment we LOVE to hear from you too.

Happ Holiday's

Lori

THANKFUL

How Thankful I am that I had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with wonderful friends n family! I had a great time and now all I can say is ~ FAT N SASSY :)
Thanks to our TURKEY ~I think we had the best turkey ANYWHERE! One smoked n one deep fried ~ does it get any better people? AMAZING!!!I am so thankful I was smart enough to start the Christmas decorating process ahead of the game this year. I even got Mr Gunner into the festivities :) The inside of the house is complete. With how bad this flare up is effecting me I wouldn't have been able to do ANY decorating if I waited. Smart cookie I am :)

I wasn't able to put my MS flare up at bay with oral meds so I had to go in for 3 days of IV treatment. Once again I prove to be a "challenge" for IV access (I know where Lil Man gets his veins from).

Unfortunately after the 2nd day the IV crashed, sigh ...... so 35 minutes later they were able get one in on the other forearm. I look awful!! The comment of me possibly looking into getting a more permanent site was brought up (possibly a port ~ IV access site placed just under the skin in my chest that is threaded into the veins already) because with my already crappy veins the meds that I take for these relapses just destroy them even more. GREAT :(

With the week of oral meds before and the 3 day of IV I still have gotten NO relief, if anything I am continually spiralling downward. My legs are weak and heavy, this headache NEEDS to go away, I am losing strength in my arms, I have a constant tremor/shake that is just irritating to say the least, my vision is fussy, my mouth is numb and I'm finding hard to swallow things, the pain has started to set in the last few days, and I'm feel very discombobulated. FRUSTRATION! I am going into see my Osteopathic Dr tomorrow for a tweaking and I'm going to be calling the Neurologist so she's up with my lack of response to the recovery meds. I'm not sure where this path is going to take me, but here we go ..........................

I've made the difficult decision to NOT go on our family get away to Florida over the Christmas break. I LOVE going down there, but it's alot of work. I just want to BE part of the holidays as much as I can so we are going to hang out at home in our jammies by the fireplace and enjoy each other. Sacrifices/Change has to be made and this trip seemed to be most logical.

Avrianna and I went to go get our hair cut ..... my hair cut for her worked but it needed to be "helped" out alil. Here's my Lil girl looking all grown up

She's loving the care for it and getting the swim cap on is MUCH easier now tooSo I decided to copy her and get my hair cut very short too :)

Guess I'm trying to look pretty with all these bruises ..... you kind of feel not so attractive with them all over. As I USUALLY have them in at least 7 areas (behind the flab in my upper arms, my upper thighs, my love handles, and my belly) due to this is where I have to give myself daily injections for the regular MS medicine. And NOW on my forearms, sigh :(. I guess it would be a good idea to have a port just for that, not as many bruises.

My latest INK .... touched up and finalized :) I'm so HAPPY with it and proud to show case it off.

My family emblem .... 4 hearts together to make one BIG "O" = orange peace heart (MS symbol for me), pink '02 heart (Avrianna's birthstone color), blue '01 heart (our wedding month color), and blue '03 handicap heart (Danny's birthstone color).

All over the Blue Rose with the statement Cry later.........Smile now

On Avrianna's side ~ I had her footprint that we took at her delivery by a Cala Lily over her flower the Marigold done up in water colors (for my lil fish)

On Danny's side ~ His footprint by a Cala Lily over his flower the Daffodil/Narcissus done up in dalmatian colors (for my lil fireman).

Some people don't get why I do tattoo's (including my husband) but it's my thing. Maybe it's because it a pain that I CAN CONTROL, I don't know that reasons why but ~ I LOVE them :) Especially this one as it has so much meaning to me!

Dan and I went out on a DATE NITE the day after Thanksgiving ~ we went to see The Judd's The Last Encore Tour. What a wonderful evening! First we went out to eat (like I needed more awesome food after the BIG turkey dinner) to Red Lobster, and then to the concert. The music and atmosphere was just what I needed. Thanks Hon! What an inspirational story these two have ~ an not to mention how Beautiful they are ~

We had GREAT seats we were 9 rows from the end of the stage on the floor ~ Plus the two seats in front of us were open so it was CLEAR viewing.

The planning for Danny's Birthday party is coming along wonderfully. We've decided to do it as a Spongebob theme.... the Cake pan came last week :) I even contacted a reporter to the local newspaper (who's done articles on us before) to see if they'd like to do a story about Danny and his friends who've all been "Touched By Danny's Life" :) We'll see how that goes and I'll keep you posted. It looks as if we are going to have close to 30 kids here (10 in chairs, 2 ambulatory, and their siblings) to hang out with us and Santa (shhhhhhh). I can't wait!! We are asking that the families bring new wrapped gifts and/or food to donated to the local domestic abuse shelter in Danny's honor for the Holidays. Danny Loves to get cards and Happy mail so if you'd like to send him Birthday Wishes send them to:

Danny Osero

2686 Towerview Dr

Neenah, WI 54956
I'm just amazed at the positive impacted that my Lil Man has on people and the people we've met along the way..... What a Journey, THANKS for the coming along on the ride! I've got some of the BEST, ClOSEST, AMAZING, LOVING, SUPPORTING friends one could ever hope for ~ but the interesting part is 95% I haven't personally met. All because they've been "Touched By Danny's Life". I wouldn't be the mother or person I need to be without YOU GUYS! I LOVE YOU ~ and I'm so blessed that our journeys have crossed paths.