Update on several fronts

It has probably been the longest break between updates. In a way, even that is a blessing: We continue to pray for Timmy's health, strength, and healing, but it is nice to not have to be adding requests every day or week for special prayer. 

Timmy has been enjoying playing in his seat, on his mat and even propped up on his tummy on a pillow. Here he is 'helping' Larissa make bread dough (notice the whisk.)

The latest 'problem' is also a blessing. He has been extra fussy and not sleeping really well for the last week. Aside from helping us sympathize more with a friend working long hours and living on little sleep, we have been unable to point to a cause for the added fussiness (staying up late, waking up early screaming, making lots of noises through the night). Since Jen was bringing two other children to the Dr., she called ahead and go permission for him to be seen - nothing 'wrong,' just baby fussiness. While not enjoyable, we'll take a standard baby problem. 

 

This week also brought the results from Timmy's evaluation by the speech and physical therapist. While mostly just technical language and statistics ('standard deviations from the mean' anyone?) it confirms his eligibility for the early intervention program here. We don't expect to learn much this Thursday, but we will be meeting with a woman who will tell us where we go from here. It sounds like they are stretched thin and may not be able to offer both types of therapy that Timmy qualifies for, but being in the system probably gets us on the waiting list when more staff is available.

Many calls have also gone into looking at Timmy's nutritional needs. Since he doesn't eat on his own, and we have been going 7 months now without adjusting his feeds much at all, we have been wondering what sort of adjustments we should be making to his feeding schedule. Our first appointment was going to be for this Friday, but that was made without the scheduler noticing that Timmy has a G-tube, so a new appointment to be seen in the G-tube clinic was made up in Rochester for June 14th. They will be conducting a swallow study to see if we should start working on introducing foods orally (a step in the early intervention work, too), and then consulting with Drs. about Timmy's nutritional needs and where we head with types and amounts of food from here. It will be a long day, but we are looking forward to it. 

We appreciate your continued prayers. It continues to humble us to be reminded by people that they are praying for Timmy. Sometimes the humbling is amplified when we fail to recognize the person who is telling us they are praying for Timmy (which happened yesterday to Jen with a lady she probably hadn't met before). We are also just tickled to be have front row seats to enjoy seeing God's continued answers to prayer on Timmy's behalf. We hope this blog helps you enjoy the blessings and answers to prayer in a more up front and personal manner.

Thanks!

Still Very Thankful

Every CHD (Congenital Heart Defect) patient has their own unique story. Many have a story of surgeries - some starting right after birth, some with one surgery, some with a string of surgeries stretching out before them. Each has their own struggles: many times feeding issues, breathing issues, growth issues, and the list could go on, and on.

Timmy had his well child visit today and was weighed, measured and stuck (lead test and hemoglobin). He is still very low on his growth curve, and very low on his oxygen saturation, but is doing well. The next scheduled Dr. visit is in 3 months. We are hoping to schedule a visit with a feeding clinic to figure out Timmy's nutritional needs, but really appreciate the relative low number of Dr. appointments at this stage in Timmy's life.

One of the CHD families that we keep up on and pray for just landed back in the PICU with their 15 month old daughter. The cause: a cold. Having had two surgeries and her own unique needs, a cold lands her in the hospital. It never ceases to remind me how blessed we are with Timmy. I know, I would see us as blessed if we had to be in the hospital every month, which really makes me glad for where we are.

Here we are!

Yes, a little surrounded by toys. Yes, with the cannula in because his oxygen has been a little low the last few days. Yes, laying still in his crib to help keep his food in him (he has had some regurgitation issues lately, nothing major, but we try to keep him still after eating to give his tummy a fighting chance) And he has the bandaid from the Drs. office from being stuck. 

God is good and we know we are blessed!

Waiting on evaluation results

We had a physical therapist and a speech therapist to the house today to evaluate Timmy. A huge pile of questions and a lot of 'playing' with Timmy over the course of about a half an hour and they told us we would get their report soon.

What we could figure out is that some of Timmy's abilities surprised them, but we weren't sure if any of the areas were areas of concern just yet or not. They gave us some suggestions on things to work on while we're waiting for the reports to be filed and therapy to start. More tummy time for Timmy, and supported kneeling to start working on leg strength. Just he sort of things we want to hear to keep our home therapy on track and continuing to help him. 

They told us most of their clients don't follow their instructions very well and it requires them to be in homes more often to actually do the therapy with the children. Hopefully, they will find us to be a 'good' client that needs very little attention as it sounds like they have a bit more work than they can keep up with already.

All told, it was nice to hear we are doing some good things, and just as nice to hear some suggestions of things to help Timmy improve. We were also impressed with how the ladies interacted and worked with Timmy while they were here. Not everyone works well with children, but these ladies enjoyed Timmy and were very good with him. They may or may not be the therapists we work with (they might only d his evaluation), but at least it says good things about the group we will be working with.

Just a few pictures and a short video (not sure on the quality)

A good first week of being 1!

The first thing you may notice about this post is the lack of pictures. Timmy is still sleeping this morning, (well, back to sleeping this morning) and there were no new pictures on the camera from the last week. As it stands, we probably have more pictures of Timmy from his first year of life than we have of the first years of the other 8 children put together, so I think we're still OK on that front.

Two weeks ago, we met with a woman from the Chautauqua County Early Intervention Program. They help identify and provide services for children who are at risk of having developmental delays. We went back and forth on calling because life was so hectic there for a while. She took Timmy's information and would pass it along to an agency to set up an evaluation. The evaluation is to see whether Timmy 'qualifies' for services through the Early Intervention Program. At the same time, Timmy's Trisomy 21 diagnosis automatically qualifies him for services. The evaluation is scheduled for this Friday and then we will meet again with the first woman to get things set up in about 3 weeks. The outcome of the evaluation will be that Timmy qualifies, but we also hope to learn how we are doing at stimulating Timmy in regards to speech, motor skills and other abilities. We are told they will provide the appropriate level of services to meet our needs: evaluation to look for delays, then, if needed, information to help with any delays, and then, if necessary, therapy if we do not use the information they give us, or it doesn't work. In general, it sounds like a good system, and we look forward to what the speech and physical therapist share with us on Friday.

Timmy is doing well - continuing to move, make more sounds, grab at things, pass toys between his hands, roll over, all on top of bringing joy and many smiles into our home. We are blessed!

In other 'milestones' - yesterday was the first time Jen and I have both been away from Timmy for more than a short, 20 minute span since arriving home. We went and perused items up for auction at a local moving business that has closed, had dinner at a restaurant (We don't go to sit down restaurants very often, and there was some sticker shock, but we enjoyed the dinner), and got some shopping done. Over 5 hours out of the house without any kids - and we spent it without talking about Timmy or the other kids. :)

Hopefully, I'll put up some pictures later this week and have an update on Timmy's evaluation. Thanks for your interest, concern, and prayers for Timmy. We are grateful for each of you.