whats been going on

Beach time in Forks, WA
Grace, Evan and Baby C

Baby C....what a happy little girl!

This week was our first week back "full time". With the two week recovery time for Evan, we have been home more, and there has been fewer appointments. Evan has recovered well. His cold probably made him feel worse than he actually felt from the surgery, but he powered through it all. Waking him up in the middle of the night for meds was not a fun time for him, but I am thankful that it was only temporary. We saw his ENT last week and he had a clean bill of health. We started up with speech therapy through Doernbecher again, and Early Intervention. His speech pathologist at the hospital was thrilled with the way he sounded, and said that she had never heard anyone sound this good post-op. That gave me some hope. Then his EI teacher said that the sounds he produced on Tuesday brought tears to her eyes. I have noticed in the past week, that his final sounds are coming through more, and he is actually saying more of the pressure sounds in his words, without trying. I know we still have a long way to go, but so far I am happy we did what we did. You never know when you make these choices, if things will turn out. All I can do is keep my faith that Evan will be healed and talk like a normal little boy someday. We are still continuing PT with him. We are currently working on walking up steps alternating feet. We will also try BOTOX one more time on the 20th.

David finished his term on Saturday, with a new one starting on Friday. It is already time to start ordering for graduation, so there is an end in sight. He graduates on Father's day this year.

Grace is interested in reading more and more each day. She will start a reading class at school in a few weeks. She also is getting better and better at riding her bike. She is a lot of fun to watch. We hope to get her into ballet this Fall. She is very interested in dancing. Grace still has quite the imagination, and has become quite the artist, always making some art work for us, and hanging it in various places in the house. She is currently working on making all of her Valentines this year for all of her friends at preschool. She cut out the hearts and everything. Her latest funny saying is "I am so good, I scare myself".

I am keeping the home fires burning. I am trying to get on top of my photo album projects, since I am almost a year behind. We bought a new camera a few weeks ago, so I know I will have so many better pictures this year. I have already captured some great shots. We visited my brother and sister in law and my new niece last weekend. Grace and Evan both took turns holding her. We had a great time visiting. The kids have become really great travelers. Thank goodness for the DVD player in the last half of our trips.

Home Sweet Home

Fun times in the hospital bed!

A week a go today I was anticipating what Wednesday would hold for us. I felt a little anxious, but good about what we were doing for Evan. No matter how you feel about it, it is still stressful. I have been so tired, even though I feel caught up on sleep, I have aches and pains in my shoulder, neck and arms and I have a cold. I guess stress has a way of releasing when the time is right. It is nothing I can't live through, I just don't really want to deal with "me" right now.

Evan is home! We got home on Friday. Evan stayed an extra night, because he was not quite perking up yet, and needed to be able to take medication, drink and eat well before leaving. He was eating enough, but drinking and taking medication was not fun at all for him. His first night was rough, as to be expected. He at one point pulled out his IV accidentally (when we were getting Pjs on), and it took 2X to get it back in. He also couldn't handle one of the meds on his empty stomach, so he threw up all over his fresh clothes. It was a bit of a disaster, along with being in quite a bit of pain. I ended up sleeping in his hospital bed with him because he would just lay on top of me and not want to move. His favorite position is his tummy so he was most comfortable this way.

We were happy with the care we had at Doernbecher. All of the nurses and Dr's were very knowledgeable and kind, especially when Evan was being a grump. He was pretty scared, and asked to go home several times. I am thankful he is 3 1/2 so I could reason with him a little. Not a whole lot, but a little, when it came to drinking enough to go home on Friday. Once we got home though, he really started perking up. I gave him a bath immediately, so we could wash the hospital off of him and gently brush his teeth.

So here we are, recuperating. He will be on pain meds and antibiotics every 6 hours until Friday. He now has a cold that we all have but at least he didn't get it while he was still in the hospital. We will keep you updated on his progress. He has a post operation appointment next week.

Thanks again to all of you who prayed and continue to pray for our family.

Evan's surgery

I just wanted to send out an update and prayer request about Evan. Tomorrow on 1/14/2009, Evan will be having surgery. He will be at Doernbecher. Check in is at Noon. The surgery is expected to last about 2 hours, with one overnight stay. If excessive bleeding occurs, he may have to stay an additional night. Recovery is expected to be about one week. Here is a glimpse of what they will be doing:

Pharynx plasty: In some cases, despite intensive speech therapy, too much air leaks into the nasal cavity via the soft palate. This leads to difficulty pronouncing the letter K (all pressure sounds in Evan’s case) . In such cases, a mucous membrane flap can be made from the rear wall of the throat and stitched to the back of the soft palate (pharynx plasty). This operation often leads to improved speech. Preferably, this procedure is undertaken when the patient is between 2 and 4 years of age. After this surgery, air often times stops leaking through the nose. Additional surgeries are needed for some children.

For those of you who would like to pray for our family, I have some specific prayer requests:
Pray for quick healing for Evan. The 1st night is expected to be very painful for him.
Pray that this is the only surgery Evan will need to help correct his speech.
Pray for Grace to feel loved and secure during this time and to not worry about Evan.
Pray for Daddy and Mommy to have strength, patience and know how to ask for help if needed.