Praying for Chance

One of our fellow Spina Bifida friends is going in for his eighth (!) surgery tonight.  He underwent his seventh surgery last night to revise his shunt after it had become clogged.  Today they found that the shunt is draining one of his ventricles but not the other so a revision is needed again.  And he is only five months old.  Please pray for Chance and his family!  They have been in and out of the hospital for the past four or five days.  :o(  If you remember, Amanda Kern, Chance's mother, took our pictures when Gabriel was about a month old.  You can check out her blog at www.amandakern.com

Testing complete!!!

Whew!  It has definitely been a busy couple of days!  Wednesday morning, Alex graciously agreed to be our chauffeur as we ventured up to Arnold for Gabriel's battery of spina bifida tests.  We arrived early to check in and had quite an experience with the woman who helped us with all of our paperwork.  She was wonderful!  Alex and I kept joking around as we normally do and we were able to teach her what a comb-over was.  Alex wanted to make Gabriel's hair look like an old man's!  After we made her laugh, she brought us to a completely packed room where we had to sit and wait.  To my surprise, ;) I completely had a case of the giggles!  Maybe it was nerves or just plain old exhaustion; whatever it was it made Gabriel laugh too, and when he is happy, I'm happy.

We were called in for our first round - a renal ultrasound and hip ultrasound.  Alex was on diaper duty while I tried my best to occupy Gabriel's attention and keep him wiggle free.  The tech didn't tell us much about the kidneys and I really wasn't too sure what 'normal' kidneys look like so we just watched as Gabriel's kidneys lit up the screen.  The second ultrasound was for Gabriel's hips.  The tech said that everything looked great which was music to my ears.  With Gabriel being breech in utero and having spina bifida, he is more prone to hip dysplasia.  As of now, his hips look perfect which means I am one happy momma!

The last test of the day was a VCUG.  I was completely mesmerized! Gabriel didn't even flinch as the nurse inserted a catheter.  He smiled and cooed which of course made all of the nurses fall in love.  After the catheter was placed, they pushed a liquid into his bladder that contained a special dye.  Throughout this whole process, the technicians took x-rays to measure how full his bladder got and how much of the liquid he emptied on his own.  I watched as the black balloon on the screen expanded and just as I understood what I was looking at, the nurse said, "He's gonna pee!"  Out came the catheter and we watched.  Nothing.  Nothing. Nothing.  Finally, the nurse poured some warm water and wow!  Full stream :) ahead!  Yippee!!  He peed it all out.  (I know this may not seem like a big deal, but I was incredibly happy!  This is a BIG deal!!)

And finally, the last appointment of the week, was an opthamologist appointment.  Chris and I have been a bit concerned as Gabriel still occasionally crosses his eyes and I have noticed that his left eye sometimes slightly drifts outward.  Well, after Gabriel's shunt was placed, he had some hemorrhaging in his brain between the skull and brain tissue.  The hemorrhage eventually stopped but settled in the very back of Gabriel's brain in the Occipital lobe.  This lobe is responsible for our vision which means Chris and I are always looking out for possible issues relating to this.  Well today, the Doctor confirmed what we were seeing.  Gabriel has a slight stabismus in his left eye--or in our terms, "lazy eye."  So to help strengthen his eyes, we have to patch his right eye for two hours each day.  Given everything that he has been through, we'll take it.

For now, he's our little pirate.  :)  We are so completely blessed!

Almost 4 months!!

Updates & More

Over the weekend, Chris noticed an acorn-sized pocket of fluid around the shunt tubing near Gabriel's collarbone.  Being the nervous parents we are, we decided to take him to Arnold to get it checked out.  We met with Dr. Gegg in the ER and he felt pretty comfortable in his thinking that it was simply a pocket of fluid that Gabriel had pushed down to that area.  Something to monitor, no hospital stay (thank goodness!).

So, this week brings new adventures.  We have a busy day on Wednesday scheduled.  Back up to Arnold we go.  Gabriel is in for a long day as he will have a renal ultrasound, a VCUG, hip x-rays, an appointment with his GI doctor, and an appointment with his orthopedist.  All of these appointments are in preparation for our first spina bifida clinic on Aug. 5.  Thursday we also go to the opthamologist.  Busy.  Busy.  Busy.  :)

We'll keep you posted!

Sleepless in the Bay

So here I am, browsing several of my favorite sites, trying to get my mind back in work mode, and guess who's wide awake?  Mmmhmm....my little munchkin has decided to keep me company.  How can I refuse when I look down at him and am rewarded with a huge, gummy smile?  He completely melts my heart.  I know I will pay for this in a few hours as I drag myself out of bed to feed him...but I can't help the feeling of knowing that this may be a cherished memory when he hits those wonderful teenage years.  So, to the glider we go.  Hopefully the rocking will help make me sleepy too.