First of all, thanks so much to all of our friends and family for your prayers and support this past week! We feel so blessed to have such a great support system surrounding us, especially considering the relatively short time we have lived in Mill Valley. So for those of you who didn't hear, or only heard part, here's the scoop:
Noah got a cold (he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth so I am actually surprised this doesn't happen more often!)He started having a runny nose on Monday morning, and by the time he woke up from his nap Monday afternoon he was having trouble breathing. Steve and I got him through the night by using his nebulizer (breathing machine) and holding him most the night. We took him to the doctor first thing Tuesday morning where they gave him a steroid shot to try to keep the cold from getting worse and another breathing treatment. He seemed to improve a bit and when we took him back to the doctor that afternoon the doctor said we would just keep an eye on him and we made a follow up apt. for the next day. We put Noah to bed Tuesday night and he woke up around 9pm really having trouble breathing. Not wanting to risk anything, we took him to the emergency room (thank you Jason and Emily Hew for watching Grace so we could both go to the hospital!) and after watching him for a few hours (including another steroid shot and several more breathing treatments) they decided to admit him. Long story short, over the next few days we had several scary episodes, and lots of doctors in and out. Mainly, we knew that if we could get him over the cold he would be able to breathe fine, but we really wanted to get to the bottom of the problem so that this doesn't keep reoccurring. The doctors concluded that something about his airway is not quite right, and for whatever reason (possibilities include scarring from being intabated during heart surgery, acid reflux, laryngomalacia- "floppy" esophagus)when he gets sick the combination of the swelling from the cold and whatever else is going on is just too much and he has trouble breathing. So we have him on a preventative does of inhaled steroids twice a day through the cold season, and we will be doing a bronchoscopy in about a month so they can look down his esophagus and see what is going on. They already did a brief scope looking down as far as his vocal chords, and didn't see anything (good news!) but they think there may be something farther down that they could see with the bronchoscopy. Unless there is anything huge such as a lot of scarring, we wouldn't do anything except for wait for him to grow, and as his esophagus gets bigger hopefully the issues will go away. A lot more answers should be coming soon, but for now Noah is getting over his cold and definitely back to his normal goofy self. We flew to Phoenix today for Thanksgiving and a routine Echo cardiogram (which is good we had scheduled since some of the medicine he was on for his breathing can stress the heart). I will post briefly to let everyone know how the echo goes. Thanks again for all your prayers, I really don't know of any baby Noah's age who has had as many people pray for him as Noah has. I can't wait to see what God has planned for his life!
At this point Noah was not able to eat, breathe without the ventilator, his bowels were not working, and his heart had just been fixed.
He has suffered no complications from any of his health issues, he does not even have to be on blood pressure meds (as most with his condition do.)
Our church had a fall festival today, and the kids and I went while Steve was at work. They had a blast! Between the jumpers, the arts and crafts, the facepainting and the prizes it was a kids dream come true! I can't believe how big Noah is getting looking at these pictures! We had one traumatic moment when the Doggie Jumper deflated while Grace was jumping in it..she keeps asking who pushed the doggie...but she seems to have come out of it unscathed. :) Overall, fun was had by all.
So this past week has been absolutely crazy! I worked two overnight shifts (8pm-5am) followed by a 8-12pm shift on Wed. Then, Thursday and Friday Steve had his seminars for the PhD program, and I had class as well. Whew! I am so glad that week is over! Next week looks pretty busy, but hopefully will include more sleep than last! Steve was in his seminar on Friday night, so I took the kiddos trick-or-treating myself (I know- I am pretty proud of myself.) The two busy bees and me headed down to a shopping center called Strawberry village where all the storekeepers open their doors and hand out candy. It was a blast! The best part was it was mostly covered by awnings (it was pouring rain) and I didn't have to worry about the candy being safe or not (not to mention the neighborhood!) Grace got the hang of it very quickly, and soon was running from store to store saying "Trick-or-treat...tanks....trick or treat....tanks..." as she hoarded her treasured candy in her bee "purse." (The only way I could get her to carry a bag.) Also, she is the first bee I know of to insist on wearing pink rainboots with giraffes on them because "mama...du wear rainboots when its raining...not my crocs..." (accompanied by an exasperated sigh and roll of the eyes.) Noah was happy to play with the candy wrappers and smile at people. On an unrelated note he is now standing up and saying "bye" as well as "mama". He says "dada" but still doesn't know what it means...but I tell ya, if he is mad or wants something, he DEFINITLY knows what "mama" means. Also, we had some family pics taken by the amazing Rachel, so make sure and check out rachelblackwellphotography.com/hallam to see them. Let me know if you want me to order any, she is giving us a steal on prices!
In other news...(I know...its been a while since I updated) I have the best husband ever. I have really been wanting this awesome camera lens for some time now, and had truly resigned myself to waiting a year or so to get it. He sold his bike and bought me the lens because he said "I knew you would get much more enjoyment out of the lens than I do out of my bike." It's like the story of the Christmas shoes, except I think he loves me more than I love him because I don't know if I would sell the lens to buy him a surf board! Unfortunately, because my bike was chained to his, after he sold it, two nights later my bike was stolen. :( Not that I rode it that much, but I definitly could have sold it to get him a new bike, or riden it in the future. Mainly it's just creepy that someone was right in front of our apartment (the bike was hanging up) which is not that easy to get to. I think thats all for now, I have to get back to writing papers...hopefully life will slow down a bit soon!
