No Town Pool

Okay, so maybe Phil and I were a little too optimistic. 

We took Adam to the pool. See, we have a beautiful outdoor pool in town complete with kiddie pool, fountains, water slide, skate park, tennis, basketball, playground and of course a snack stand.

Last summer, Adam was unable to walk and we would go to the pool. He had a trach and the mick-key button, but the kiddie pool is sloped and we would sit in about an inch of water and play with toys while Matt would swim away and play with kids in the other pool. I don't work in the summer, so the pool was relatively empty- we would have Adam's nurse with us. People would look at us, but once you look at Adam, you would see that he has a hole in his neck, and realize why he had a nurse. Also, it wasn't that crowded. We rarely went on the weekends.

Well, yesterday was the first nice day in June so Phil and I sent the nurse home early and we drove to the pool. 

It was a disaster. 

Adam's hole in his neck is almost closed, but it's not totally. He has a band-aid covering it up and a few splashes is okay, but not full on dunking of the neck and face. We thought (I know- nuts that we are) that Adam would stay in the shallow part and he would play with his toys. We couldn't be more wrong. He wanted to run under the fountain and throw himself under water. 

I should also say, that we got plenty of stares, because we were the only parents who had our kid wearing an spf  50 shirt (mostly to hide his stomach tube), a life vest and an inner tube. I'm surprised Adam could even walk with all the gear. Also to an outsider (who can't see the band-aid on his neck) we looked like ridiculously overprotective parents. I mean, I would not let him go past his knees, Phil was holding Adam's back part of his vest and I was kneeling in the water no more than inches from him.  

It was so stressful for us, and Adam. He had no idea why were weren't letting him under the fountain and became a normal 2 year old who wanted to be independent.  

We left and I'm sure the parents were talking about us afterwards. Oh, well. 

If his hole closes totally by August, we'll go back. Otherwise we will take Matt for a swim in the evenings. We can put tegaderm over the trach hole and he can now go in sand. (he was never able to with a tracheotomy and we have not let him in sand yet.) We are hoping he will be terrified of the ocean next week and stay on the beach. 

Based on his past experiences, there's not a whole lot that kid is scared of.