Landon's recovery, Day 1, Part 2

Landon is still doing very well with his recovery. His morphine has been reduced, his breathing tube was switched out for a slower flow one that will help him be able to eat better, and his oxygen flow is all the way down to 1 liter per minute! He has eaten three times today!! We were very excited about that! That is the first step we need to take for him to be released. The two main stipulations for him to be released are for him to eat and gain weight. For lack of a better saying, it's baby steps. The total amount he had was 30 mls, which is 1 ounce. However, with the first 15, he probably spit out 5 of them. So his total intake has probably been 25 mls. That doesn't sound like much, but that is a lot for our little guy!

We are expecting the chest tube to come out tomorrow, which will really improve his pain level, which will also mean reducing his morphine even more. We aren't sure if anything else will be removed tomorrow, so we will see what happens.

We had a few more visitors today, Kurt and Becky Cohen stopped briefly this afternoon, with gift cards in hand from people at school, and Mike and Kelly came tonight. Thank you again to everyone who has sent prayers and support! We can't say enough how blessed we feel through all of this!

You can see how groggy he looks here! He is being burped after having the last of his milk!

Landon's first day of recovery

Landon is doing very well today!! He has been receiving medication to help control his pain. He has had one thing removed so far and that is the blood flow sensor that was on his forehead. He has a breathing tube in his nose and his oxygen started at 6 liters per minute and has now been brought all the way down to 3 liters per minute! He is maintaining his pulse ox very well and the goal is to wean him off of that today. He should also have his catheter removed today! His cry is starting to sound more like him too, so that is great!

He had some moments of alertness during the night, but has slept most of the morning. He is awake now because we moved to our own room!! We had been sharing a room and it was a tight squeeze, so when we got the news that room opened up, we took it!

As I type this up, he is getting some food!! This is the first opportunity he has had to eat since he ate on Wednesday at 11:30 am! He seems very happy to have some real food instead of sugar and protein through a tube that he can't even taste.

While I was out to take a shower, Child Life came by and delivered a fleece tie blanket for him. It was made by a 3rd grade class in Middleton! We feel so lucky to have such generosity around us!

I'm sure I will have more to update everyone later as well! Keep praying that he continues down this road of improvement!

These are from when he was still in Monroe, but Aunt Megan and Michael visited last night.

Grandma and Grandpa Bausman are here now!

Landon's surgery

Landon's surgery went very well!! We are absolutely ecstatic and have gotten great news! He handled the surgery very well. We were told that he absolutely needed the surgery to repair the narrowing. As far as the holes in his ventricles, they are not concerned. They should close as he grows and be fine.

He came back from surgery without the breathing tube, which is great! We were very happy to not have to see him intubated. We were told that he did not bleed a lot and that he has been crying and his cry sounds good. We are waiting to see him, but caught a glimpse of him on our way out of the room. It felt so good to see him for that very brief moment.

We don't know an exact timeline for going home, but it should be next week sometime. The doctor said he needs to learn how to be a baby and eat well and gain weight before he can be released.

Today we had a very cool experience offered to us. We were able to go "shopping" for him for Christmas. Everything was complimentary, but when he is only four days old, much of what was offered was inappropriate for him. We passed on much of it so it was available for other kids. Even though he is only four days old, we really thought it would be nice to have pictures of him with Christmas gifts. One of the gifts we didn't have wrapped and gave it to him immediately. Nick chose a reindeer for him because it has his eyes.

I will continue to give updates as we know more and will include pictures every time. We love him so much and really appreciate all of the prayers that everyone has sent. We really can't thank everyone enough for all of the support we have been getting!

We hadn't had a picture taken of the three of us, so we had the nurse take one last night.

This morning we were able to cover him with his blanket. 

That was the first time he was able to have it.

Landon with his new reindeer.

He was very alert this morning.

Landon pictures

Here are some pictures of our Landon. He has been a real trooper!

Tonight at the hospital

At the hospital in Monroe

 Snuggling with Daddy in the blanket Aunt Kelly made.

We brought it with us to Madison and now we snuggle with it until he can again.

Landon's surgery

Hi everyone! Yesterday afternoon Landon was brought to UW Children's Hospital because of a defect in his aorta. He has a narrowing that is a concern for circulation. He also has two holes in between his ventricles, that are less of a concern, but the combination of the two problems can be pretty severe. The plan that several cardiologists have come up with is to repair the narrowing with surgery tomorrow. Landon has been on a medication to help increase that part of his aorta to help blood flow to the lower portion of his body. It has worked, but they don't want to just rely on that and see if that has done the trick. They are thinking that the holes will repair themselves as he grows.

This morning he had ultrasounds done of his head and abdomen, which is standard procedure to make sure that everything else looks good. They also serve as baselines for them to check and make sure that nothing happened after surgery.

The surgery will be done tomorrow afternoon. We are very pleased to hear that because originally we were told that he wouldn't have surgery until early next week. They are planning to go in through his side to do the repair. This is ideal because if they go through the front there can be many more complications and a longer recovery time.

He has been doing great and handling everyone bothering him very well. I think he is handling it better than me! He is so amazing and we feel very blessed to have him and can't wait to be able to bring him home. We are able to hold him despite all of his wires and lines, but it's very difficult to not snuggle him close to me. Nick and I truly appreciate all the support we are receiving from family and friends. We are able to stay here at the hospital. There is a bed in Landon's room and we also are provided a sleep room. Last night we split shifts so that we both could get some decent sleep. We will probably continue that.

Please continue to send out some prayers for our precious little guy. He is very brave and very strong, but we need all the help we can get. Below is an amazing picture that Megan was able to get on Monday night at not even 24 hours old. He has very long legs, long feet and long fingers!

Final Blog for MEIT

This past year and a half has been an interesting time for me. I have learned an incredible amount throughout all the courses.

After going back to the beginning of the blog, I found it very interesting, and humorous, what I said at the beginning of the program! Below is from my very first blog:

     "As a business teacher, I am hoping to get many things from this program. I use technology in my classes everyday, but would like to improve assignments and increase opportunities for students to learn. I have wanted to incorporate tools like Moodle or edmodo and have not had the chance to learn about the programs and their capabilities. If there is a way that I can minimize paper use in my classroom, I would like to do it.
I teach in a small school district and we continually have problems with technology and server space. I am excited to learn more about google docs and tools that can be used to eliminate space used on our server at school. I would also like to become a resource for other teachers in my district who are wishing to improve their technology skills or wishing to incorporate more technology into their classrooms and lessons."

I was able to achieve some of my goals. I have been able to incorporate a lot of new technologies into my classroom since beginning this program. One of the first things I did was incorporate Google docs. It has been very successful. The students have adapted well to it and have embraced the advantages to using them. Incoporating Google docs has allowed me to cut down on the amount of paper being used in my classroom, as well as saving room on our district servers. Rather than printing their homework, students have been able to share their document with me. I have not incorporated Moodle or edmodo, but have been able to incorporate My Big Campus, which is very similar. It has also assisted me in being able to minimize the amount of paper used in my classroom. Another of my goals for the program was to become a resource for other teachers in my district. I have been able to achieve that goal as well. When other teachers began incorporating Google docs into their classes, I was able to answer many questions they had.

This program has introduced me to so many more tools than I thought could ever be available to me for free! I have been able to greatly improve my classroom with these tools. I also have been introduced to the concept of flipping a classroom, which has peaked my interest greatly. So much so, that I have worked on flipping one of my classes. Since I will be taking some leave this coming school year, this will be very beneficial to me and to my substitute teacher. My goal is to have another course flipped by the time I am taking my leave. Without this program, I never would have been given the opportunity to flip even one of my classes.

Overall, I am very happy with everything I have learned in the program. It has had a huge impact on my and my classroom. When I was thinking about getting my Master's degree, I didn't want to get it in something that I couldn't apply to my classroom. I am so happy that I chose this program. It has been so relevant to me and helped me become a better teacher.

My Final Six Weeks of MEIT, CEdO 599

The last six weeks have been very interesting for me as I have completed my project for my MEIT program. I had a slow start on my project as I was finishing the school year and track season.Once I made it through those, I was able to get going on my project.

After some initial guidance from Louis, I knew what I needed to do. My original proposal was to flip four of my classes to non-traditional instruction and incorporate more Web 2.0 tools. After talking with Louis, he made me realize that perhaps my original proposal was a bit too ambitious. So, I changed my proposal from four classes to one class, Introduction to Business.

Over the course of a semester, I cover seven chapters in our book, as well as a unit not provided by the text book. I decided to have six of the nine presentations ready for the beginning of the school year and four of the screencasts that are needed. I plan to use our social network platform that corresponds with our security system, My Big Campus. MBC allows me to upload documents, online presentations, and screencasts to be used in the class. It also allows me to create a "Bundle," which includes everything the student needs for the course in one convenient location.

As I thought I was nearing the end of my project, I learned of the Bundles, which is new to MBC. This added a bit of time to my project that I wasn't expecting, but actually is a great addition to the site. I spent more time on MBC than planned, setting up my Bundle and organizing it so it looked how I wanted it to.

I am very excited about implementing this project into my classroom! By flipping my classroom, I will have more time to incorporate more real-life projects and valuable assignments. My final project can be found within my portfolio.