I sorted through Jaxon’s baby toys yesterday so that he was left with just a few big toys. The one’s he uses contructively and the one’s that he doesn’t just use to practice his aim on Dude.

Well since Tim got his new bike Jaxon has been obsessed with all things automotive. He couldn’t have cared less about Tim’s green bike but this red bike has inspired him to new levels of excitement.

He did this all by himself. The wheel is a computer thing that Tim rarely uses and has been handed off as a “Jaxon toy” for some time now. He didn’t touch it until the bike obsession took hold.

And the potty? Well we bought that when Jaxon was just a bit over 12 months old. Almost a year now and the most he’s ever done with it is pour his drinks in it. He has never sat on it. Until now.

So we’ve all heard of “drink driving”…what would you call this?? Shit Driving?

We’ve had another storm go through this afternoon. It’s all to do with the hot and humid days we get and the cold air that comes through later in the day. It happens every summer and it’s one of the things that made us stay back in 2004 when we were really home sick for Melbourne.

So we’d just given Jaxon his bath, and he’s all dressed in his PJ’s. I’m looking longingly out the window at the lightening (sometimes all we get is lightening) because I want to go and get some photo’s of it.

So we did.

We threw everything in the car and went. The problem with this is that it was pitch black as well. And Jaxon wanted to get out and play. So one of us has to play with him and keep him happy (lest the locals think we’re trying to kill him out there on that hill) and the other gets to take photo’s.

The problem with this is that Jaxon (and Tim) is happier if it’s me who does the playing and that means that I miss out on the show.

So we decided tonight that we probably should just get a babysitter for storm nights ; )

This first one is Tim’s good catch. If you don’t know how hard it is to get photo’s of lightening that could strike at any time or at any random place in the sky…you should try it. So two in one go is like…wow. This one was out on the hill we went to.  The next three were taken by me (though we’re fighting over who might have got the first of the three) were taken from our front step. It looks like it might be day time, but trust me when I say that when the lightening wasn’t striking…it was black as black.

(our friends Nicole and Duncan)

http://www.vimeo.com/2678750

The video is obviously just a short taste of the fire works, which went for about half an hour. The first bit is with me filming, the second with Tim. At about 40 seconds you can hear Jaxon and I going “Oh Wow” and then he starts yelling at the fire works…go go go go!!

All of these photo’s were taken with no flash.

Jaxon had his first birthday ever. But he didn’t eat a single bite of my cake.

Dude and Jaxon are the best of friends…for now.

Last Easter Jaxon didn’t get chocolate. This year he got to appreciate it even more.

Jaxon and I went to Darwin to visit his Grandma and Great Grandma.

Jaxon and his Grandma Robyn.

We trialed a great dane from great dane rescue. He was great, all for the tail whipping Jaxon’s face all the time. Hank went to a better home.

Jaxon’s Grandpa Ted and Grandma Anne came to visit twice!

They left their fat chihuahua Spok with us for two months while they travelled.

He made himself right at home.

Jaxon learnt the fine art of scaring the shit out of Mum and Dad.

This time honoured craft, get’s practiced a LOT.

We moved from our old house in to a much nicer house. And lost Oscar.

The new house is much cooler. Spider’s aside.

Jaxon’s great uncle Joe and Aunt Widdy came to visit. They’re expecting their first baby in 2009!

Dad grew a moe.

Jaxon finally had his MRI and CT Scans. He was a little trooper!

We found out Jaxon has 12 bones in his neck. Nothing can be done and despite the fact that people might think this was a bad thing, we feel like it is the best news ever. We are extremely happy with these results.

Grandma Robyn came to stay with us through this time. She got Daddy to come to the pool with us and now he loves it!

Tim left the house on this bike one day.

And returned on this one. I am yet to blog about this, but it’s coming I promise!

Nanny and Poppy “dropped in” on us for Christmas. We had ahh, Christmas in December. It was lovely.

Then we had the real deal.

Jaxon and Dude had their first major run in (under his eye). Now, they’re not so close any more.

And Jaxon got his first taste of fire works!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

This was using no flash and only the lights from the tree.We were trying to do something like this here but ti didn’t really work because Jaxon’s not the sit and pose kind of toddler. Maybe next year.

We took Jaxon to see the reindeer last week while Santa had a coffee.

The only way we could convince him to go and pat them was to tell him they were “just big puppy dogs”

Now you have to wait and see how we got Jaxon to sit on Santa’s lap!

We just got sent the disc with all of Jaxon’s MRI and CT scan’s on them. I’ve spent hours and hours sorting through them (401 images) so that they’re in order so you had better watch it and you had better like it!!

A lot of people are saying that they don’t really know what they’re looking at. The reality is that Tim and I don’t really know what we’re looking at but we do know what we’re meant to be looking at. I’ll try to explain it with still shots of what you’re looking at.

These one’s here are the MRI. They have taken a body shot of Jaxon every 2mm’s from his back right to his front. Through these one’s you get to see his lungs, his brain, his muscles and most of his organs.

Through these one’s they have taken a body slice shot from his head right down to his waist every 2mm. You get to see through his head and then in to his neck. The circle on the bottom is through the center of his spine. There are two categories here, the other has the white line along the bottom. On those one’s I assume that they’re looking at the nerves running through the spine to see where and how Jaxon’s arm is damaged and if the neck is in danger of pinching nerves or paralyzing him. You see as they move down through his chest where you see his lungs which are black with white veins running through them. Another thing that was noted the other day was that his right lung is much smaller than his left, you can clearly see his lungs in these. You see the kidney’s and if you’re clued in on them you see his intestines.

These one’s here is Jaxon being built from his left side to his right side. You see it starts at his arm where you only get to see his shoulder. Then it moves through his arm and in to his chest. In the shot above you can see his lungs and the start of the bone structure of his spine.

These one’s are the CT scan. They show bones and cartilage. I think everyone gets these. These show why Jaxon’s neck is on an angle and also why nothing can really be done about it. When it comes down to it these is just one mass of bone that it is one way or another connected to another.

This one here shows clearly how his right side is underdeveloped. I think it’s his shoulder bone, that you can see is much smaller and shorter on one said than it is on the other.

There are also two lot’s of photo’s where a white halo is moving away or in to the photo. If you look closely, you’ll see that it’s the oxygen tube down his throat having it’s photo taken. Or, Jaxon was blowing bubbles.

I have been trying to write about this for a while but it’s sort of just become a non issue now that the day has been and gone. So I’ll just write about it quickly. I think I can do that!?

We stayed in a hotel because we had a 7am check in with a 7 hour fast. We thought it would be better but we were very very wrong. We really should have known because Jaxon wont sleep anywhere but his cot. So that’s exactly what he did. Or didn’t do. He finally gave up the ghost at 2am. The hotel was hot and it was a raining muggy night with air conditioning that barely worked. So we had a window open and at 3.30am a very loud and obnoxious bird woke Jaxon up again. That was the end of any hope of sleep we had. We left for the hospital early and decided to kill some time in peak hour traffic. Joy.

I can not praise the hospital enough for the day that we had. We really thought it was going to be awful for Jaxon but they had a great big play room with ride in cars and home corner’s and play stations. For the 20 minutes that we waited Jaxon test drove each and every one of the 7 little cars they had.

For me I think the worst thing was having to sign a form that said “I “the parent” am aware of all of the risks involved with this procedure” You know, like your child might die in the next two hours because of what we’re doing but since you signed this form, we got our asses covered. I’ve had to sign that same form I think 6 times now. It’s just a form, but it’s not just a form if you know what I mean?

The nurses were wonderful. But I don’t think either of them appreciated that when asked if Jaxon had any metal objects on his clothes that we both said “no, but we need to remove his penis ring” They just didn’t get it. But we just had to be making light of it all really or we would have gone mad!

Then came the hardest bit. I had to accompany Jaxon in to the MRI machine. We laid him down on the HUGE adult sized table with his head on a big plastic O ring and they put a teeny tiny gas mask over his mouth. Man. He was screaming at me and pleading with me. Mum, you’re meant to keep me safe is the look in a child’s eyes when something like that is being forced upon them. And he’s right. And that’s all I wanted to do. But the logical section of my brain made me hold his arms and legs down so he couldn’t rip the mask off. The logical part of my brain said it had to be done. Even though deep inside all I wanted to do was grab Jaxon and run. His eyes glazed over and his screams turned in to murmur’s as his eyes (intently looking to me for help) glazed over. Then he went limp and his eyes closed.

Have you ever put a dog to sleep?? That’s what kept running through my head as I left my silent son laying on a table with people who had made me sign his life away to them.That is the best way to describe to you what it’s like to “put your son to sleep” Even when I left the room and saw my Mum and Tim sitting there, the sympathy in their eyes for me having to do that was exactly the same as if I had just left the room at the vets without my long time family pet.

I stayed cool, calm and collected for all of two seconds once I’d left the room. I fell to pieces in Tims arms. I thought I had it all under control right up until I saw Tim and then I lost it. Nothing a bottle of coke and a great big chunk of vanilla slice wont fix.

The wait was 2.5 hours but it didn’t really seem that long. I think the hardest thing about all of this has been the actual wait. Once it was all starting to happen and once we knew we were one step closer to finding out some real answer’s (which we got today, will post later) we just felt relief.

So they came and got us and took us to the recovery room. Jaxon was snug as a bug in a rug laying on a bed with his little heart monitor going. He was still out like a light and looked ever so precious and fragile so the nurses spoke to us for a little. One was a student nurse and she was getting told (get this!) that I was a “darling mother” because she’d told me not to touch him or pick him up and I didn’t. A lot of mother’s just rush in and ignore what the nurses say even though they say it because doing that scares the child when they wake up.

When he finally woke up he snuggled in my arms, he drank 200 mil of milk (he normally has 20 mil, he was HUNGRY!) and a tub of pears and something else which has just totally slipped my mind (a bottle of apple juice). Let’s just say he ate like a normal 22 month old would eat on a normal day in a single sitting! Except that meant he ate four times what he would normally eat!

So we went home and Jaxon doesn’t remember a single thing. He’s never going to remember these things which is a real blessing. The fast was easy, but having him look in my eyes for me to protect him was really hard, because that’s exactly what mother’s do and thats exactly what I wanted to do. So I am very glad that in 10 years he wont know this happened. He doesn’t even know it happened now.

These photo’s are. 1 and 2 are him in the recovery room. That little red mask is the gas mask. And then the one in my arms is when he just woke up and I got to hold him. You can sort of see the blue bandage that is holding his drip in his arm.  The nurse was kind of funny. She said to me when he woke up “If you’re strong enough you can cuddle him back to his room” and I was thinking “Lady, I could hold him for a week if I had to”

We got the results today so I will post them here tomorrow.