Recovery

Nikolas was happy and smiley the day after surgery (Isn't he looking good?!). We were all pleased at how well he recovered. He seems a little sore, especially if you pick him up too quickly, but he's only required Ibuprofen for pain control. We came home yesterday. Yay for short hospital stays!! This surgery was the last thing we needed to do to clear him to become activated on the kidney transplant list. Once the endocrinologist, gastroenterologist and the infectious disease doctor send their notes of clearance, and the urologist sends all her surgical notes to San Antonio, Nikolas could recieve a kidney any day.

Me and my boys at the hospital.

Kim and Conner entertaining each other at the hospital.

Carmendy is getting chubby and cute (not that she wasn't cute before!)

She looks so much like Nikolas in this picture when he was little, just healthier!

I love this picture, thanks Lauren! (She's 10 weeks here)

Conner feeding his baby sister. What a good brother.

Made it through another surgery!

Nikolas had surgery today and made it through again, what a little trooper. I've lost count as to what number surgery this is for him....7 maybe? Although he's been through so many surgeries, I still get anxious every time. It's a hard feeling to describe when you let your baby go knowing that he's going under the knife and all kinds of complications could occur. But, he's doing well and the doctors are anticipating that he will go home tomorrow. Thanks for all the prayers!

8 Weeks Already!!

Carmendy is already 8 weeks old. They say time goes by faster the more kids you have, I'll vouch to that! Here are some recent pictures of our baby girl and some other random pictures.

Conner still loves to hold his sister.

Nikolas loves giving hugs to his brother.

Conner wanted Nikolas to have spikey hair like his so after a bath we attempted to spike Nikolas's hair.

Kim and Conner went for a bike ride together, great Father/son time!

Conner still loves to help me make dinner or treats (we were making Monkey muffins), what a good little helper.

Can you hear me now?

A lot of things have happened since the last post. Monday night we noticed that Nikolas's dialysis catheter had a hole in it and was leaking. We called his doctor who told us to clamp his tube, not to dialyze him that night and report to his office the next morning. We were expecting the worst and started packing for a long hospital stay. Initially when Dr. Simon looked at the tube he was certain that we'd have to take the catheter out and replace it which would mean several weeks of hemodialysis while the new catheter healed and a very long hospital stay. My stomach dropped and I felt sick. Dr. Berry, the other nephrologist, looked at it and suggested we at least try to repair it before jumping straight to surgery given Nikolas's history and all that he's already been through. Luckily, they were able to just cut off some of the tubing and repair the catheter instead of doing surgery to replace it. Nikolas finally caught a break after 2 years!!! (We can actually credit this to all the prayers that all of you are still saying in his behalf and to the fact that my Mom was in the temple the same morning praying for the welfare of our family!) His catheter is much shorter now, which really is a blessing. Less chance of getting it caught or pulled on something.

On the same day that I had to take Nikolas to Austin, Kim had to drive to Houston for a job interview with the Texas State Department of Health Services (thanks Lauren, for watching Conner for us!). His job would be supporting the 7 counties in southern Texas that currently don't have health departments. He would specifically focus on childhood obesity and teenage pregnancy. He felt good about the interview and we should hear whether he has the job some time next week.

Nikolas just got his hearing aids!!! We met with the audiologist yesterday afternoon. He is doing really well with them so far. They gave him a small hearing test to see if he could hear things. I sat in a soundproof booth with Nikolas and the audiologist played a sound on the speakers in the booth. Nikolas looked for the sound almost every time. Yes, he can finally hear something!!!! He has been really good at not taking them off. It's really cool to see him looking around at things in a new light. He might suffer from some whiplash because he turns his head so quickly to see what noise he's hearing. This morning he got really scared when I turned on the blowdryer. I can't imagine how loud that must have sounded to him. Below are some pictures of his new hearing aids.

Nikolas shortly after getting his new hearing aids.

They are really small. We bought some gray covers that will cover the actual aid. The covers connect both aids and then clip to his shirt. So when he does pull them out they will just hang from his shirt.

Another picture of his hearing aids. This picture shows how flat the back of his head is. All those months laying in a hospital bed have taken a toll on his poor head.

Christmas

Nikolas woke up Christmas morning with very cloudy dialysis fluid and what we thought was peritonitis (an infection in his belly)!! Merry Christmas to us. Because of the graduation day fiasco with his catheter, the dialysis clinic had given us some antibiotics. I called his nephrologist and he told me to flush his belly out with medicated dialysis fluid and to take a sample of his fluid to our local lab. He also wanted us to put heparin in the fluid but trying to find somewhere we could get heparin in College Station on Christmas was going to be a challenge. Luckily the hospital here had some Christmas spirit and gave us enough for the weekend (they ususally don't dispense it to outpatients). We moved all our presents into the boys room since Nikolas had to be back in his crib for the treatment.

He spent the rest of Christmas morning in his crib, but at least we were home and didn't have to take him to the hospital in Austin!!!

I did get one picture of my boys in front of the tree on Christmas morning (before we had heard from Nikolas's nephrologist)

Carmendy spent Christmas either in my arms

or in her Christmas present, a swing from one of my MOPS friends.

Nikolas's favorite toy is Rusty, the wrench from Handy Manny. We lost the one we had at the hospital during our last stay, so he got the Handy Manny tools in a tool box and he immediately reached for Rusty. His old friend was back!

Santa left a treasure hunt for Conner to find his big present. The last clue led him to his Mom and Dad's closet and mentioned that there might be a Woset in the closet (from the book "There's a Wocket in my pocket") so when he went to look in the closet, he was a little bit scared and was looking for a Woset. So much so that he didn't even notice the bike that was in there and he even had his hand on it!!! It was hilarious. He finally saw it after some prodding from us and was very excited.

He took it out for a Christmas spin.

When Nikolas was done with his treatment, I was able to get a picture of the boys in their matching Thomas PJs

Conner got some Tinker Toys and the can fits perfectly on Nikolas's head.

After all was said and done, we had a pretty decent Christmas.

It turned out that Nikolas's fluid didn't grow any bacteria and he's doing just fine at home. We did have to make a couple trips to Austin to pick up medications and to visit his surgeon for follow up on his incision. The incision is almost completely healed and we don't have to pack it anymore. Yay! The surgeon said it looked really good.
We also learned that our dog, Cougar, who is staying at Kim's parents house in Utah, had a major injury and a trip to the ER. You can read all about it here if you are interested. Poor Cougar!

Santa

Conner went to his preschool Christmas party where Kim was asked to be Santa. We almost told Conner that Kim was going to be Santa because we were sure that Conner would recognize him and ruin it for all the other kids. Luckily we didn't end up telling him because Conner had no idea that Santa was his Daddy. He was so excited to have Santa at the party.

and even though he looked Kim right in the eyes, he didn't know it was him.

He came home and told me that Santa was at his party and that Daddy missed seeing him because he was in the bathroom!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ, fills your homes this year.

P.S. Whoever was our "secret Santa", thank you so much for your generosity and thoughtfulness. We really appreciate it. We have been so blessed over the past couple of years through the wonderful people around us who are instruments in the hands of God. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Busy, Busy, Busy.....Chaos

What a busy week we had the last week. Leslie's mom came down to help out the family for a few weeks. Thankfully she was here to lend a hand. Thanks Dorothy for the much needed help in our chaotic life. My parents came down for a week to help celebrate some major milestones in our families life. They were also able to experience our chaos, or as we call it our daily life.

My parents flew in and arrived at our house late Tuesday night. The next day they accompanied Leslie, Conner, Carmendy, and Nikolas to a few doctors appointments in Austin. I was left home to study for my last final! Needless to say it was a long day for everyone. Nikolas is doing really well. His belly incision is almost completely healed. His surgeon is extremely pleased. Finally Nikolas does something the doctors actually expect and that he should do!!!

Thursday I took my horrid final exam. This was one of those final exams where I felt like I had not studied at all. The very first question stumped me! I managed to fill in most of the short answer/essay style questions. It only took me the full three hours. I was the last one to turn in my exam. The professor and I had a short conversation about the semester and he congratulated me on finishing. I mentioned that I needed a certain grade, but did not mention I needed at least a B, in the class to graduate. He said that he would not be the one to hold me back. Leslie and I both had anxiety over my grade. She ended up sending my professor an email on my behalf explaining my situation. Thanks to her, I was given a B grade!!!

Friday was graduation. Graduation was to start at 2:00pm. My parents and I made a short trip to Sam's Club with Conner and Nikolas then stopped by Target to look for some Christmas items for the boys. When I took Nikolas out of the shopping cart I heard a loud snap and some clanking. At that very moment I felt some warm solution streaming over my hand. Nikolas's dialysis catheter had gotten caught in the shopping cart and snapped in half. I wisely pinched off his tubing and we managed to put the catheter back together. It was about 1.5 hours away from graduation. I make a quick call just to inform the dialysis clinic what had happened. They said to bring him in ASAP to have the catheter replaced. Hmmmm...well I graduate in an hour. They said to bring him after that. So we went to my graduation and shortly after it is finished I jumped in the car with my parents and Nikolas and drove 2 hours to Austin. It took them 10 or 15 minutes to replace the catheter. We had a nice graduation dinner at A&W/Long John Silver! Not the most ideal way to celebrate graduating, but it will be memorable. I will have to admit this graduation made me a little teary eyed. It was a long and hard 2.5 years mingled with a lot of medical problems. This degree meant something to me, and it was rewarding to finally see the end!!

Saturday was Conner's birthday. Leslie made him an awesome Mickey Mouse cake. We all had fun. That night we went out to a nice Italian restaurant to celebrate my graduation. It was not a kid friendly nice restaurant. Conner's legs hurt, growing pains, and he was really tired from his birthday activities. Well, he wanted to sit on my lap the whole time. I ended up taking my dinner home and eating it.

Sunday, we blessed Carmendy at church. It was a good blessing. She looked very beautiful in her blessing dress that Dorothy made. Enjoy some of the pictures from our chaotic couple of days. I will have to post the blessing pictures later. They are on my dads camera.

Me shortly after being hooded.

Leslie and me in my graduation garb. I could not have survived graduate school were it not for Leslie. Thanks sweetie!!!

A picture of the whole family with me in my graduation garb.

Conner's birthday party. He had a Mickey Mouse party. The kids are eating pizza and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Conner is up doing the Hot Dog Dance.

Conner blowing out his birthday cake with all his little friends closely watching.

The awesome cake Leslie made for Conner's birthday. She says she is not crafty, but she has done two pretty good birthday cakes for Conner. The expectations are being set pretty high with the two cakes.

Nikolas is getting stronger every day. He is getting to the point where he can hold himself up on his hands and knees. This is a huge step for his strength and development.

He also loves to stand. He is getting to the point where we does not want to just sit on your lap, he has to stand on your lap now.

A cute picture of Carmendy snuggling with her Dad. She has gotten so big. She is a great baby and is loved by the whole family.