Time flies

What a year so far! Our apologies for such a lengthy time between posts.
Henry is doing fantastic! He transitioned to the Preschool room at daycare and has been learning a lot! Henry can resight his ABCs and is currently working on counting to 20. His other goal is potty training.
Over the weekend we took apart the crib and made it to a toddler bed. Thoughts prayers and positive thoughts that this transition goes well. He did pretty good night one.

Since May, Henry has been battling tonsillitis on and off. We finally got a referral back to ENT. However, they are being cautious and want to wait until his tonsils flare up again before making the decision to remove them. Since there is a concern with bleeding, the doctors are more cautious about this procedure than they were with the ear tubes last year (which, by the way, still look great)

On top of the tonsillitis we have been trying to get Henry to the cath lab. Because of all the illnesses, the cath lab kept getting pushed back. Finally after the last cardiology visit a couple of weeks ago, along with some xrays and blood work, the cath lab has been postponed until the Spring. They will be doing measurements for the next open heart surgery, the Fontan. Oh and about that blood work. Remember us talking about BNP levels? Henry’s got as high as 77,000. The results from the last test was at 348. The lowest it has ever been recorded 😊

Henry will not be followed after he turns 3 by TARC. He will be aged out of the tiny-k program. Because he is doing so well, he will most likely not be picked up by the area school program.

Henry helped choose his Halloween costume this year. His daycare will be visiting the pumpkin patch this Friday. Last year he was unable to attend due to appointments at Children’s Mercy.

Saturday we will be walking the Topeka Heart Walk. Henry and his other local area heart buddies had their picture taken for the occasion. If you are free, we would love for you to join is. The walk starts at 10am at Washburn University. It is free, but donations are welcome.

As we get closer to the next surgery, we will post more! Thank you everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Happy TWO Years!

Happy New Year, everyone, and Happy 2nd Birthday, Henry!

The past two months have been quick and exhausting for all of us. As I look back, I see that we failed to give an update after Henry's ear tube surgery. Needless to say, it went well - we were home in time for lunch that day. Back at school the next day, Henry promptly caught a bug of some kind and wound up coming home and only going to day care on Veteran's Day that week. It's likely he was battling the croup, or something like it. It was probably about two weeks before he was back to acting like his normal self - but his ears were definitely not the issue!

For the next several weeks, from Thanksgiving through mid-December, we were all passing around the same bug, which eventually settled into bronchitis for Paige and I. Luckily, other than a nagging cough, Henry's been doing just fine - although he clearly needs to learn how to spit! We think that the Synagist shot has helped him, as we know RSV is one of the bugs that has passed through his classroom, and would explain why Paige and I had it a little rougher than he did.

Just before Thanksgiving, Henry sat through his best haircut yet, and was rewarded with a surprise introduction to Baby Jay! 

A couple of weeks before Christmas, we did take Henry to meet one of Santa's helpers, but he wasn't quite sure what he thought about that. 

Henry had a wonderful and busy Christmas weekend, getting to open presents four different times. Luckily, unwrapping presents is one of the key life skills Henry was taught at school! 

His great-uncle Dave came out to stay with us over the holiday. The last time he was out here, Henry was on a ventilator, so it was nice for them to finally get to properly meet. He also brought Henry some very thoughtful gifts from his great-aunt Chrissy, including her old friend, Magilla the Gorilla.

New Year's was pretty quiet around here, as I think Paige and I were finally wearing out. We had a fun day out, just the three of us for Henry's birthday, including a hot fudge brownie with ice cream. Hopefully everyone is doing well next weekend for Henry's birthday party. 

With two long holiday weekends back-to-back, we have spent more actual interactive time with Henry than we had in a long time, and he continues to amaze us. He is learning so much so quickly right now, and he is starting to use words and sentences almost overnight. This weekend he showed he can copy our words ("cookie" was the word of the day), so it's probably time for us to start paying closer attention to what we are saying! It is clear we are entering our third year, as we have noticed a bit more stubbornness and some minor tantrums. So far, Henry is clearly winning, as we are having a really hard time disciplining him with a straight face once he smiles back at us!

The trials of 2015 feel like so long ago now. Looking back, it is probably for the best that Paige and I were first-time parents. It is hard to imagine going through all of that, now that we have actually seen his personality. We don't yet know what challenges await us in 2017. We may have a better idea in a couple of months about when his Fontan surgery will be. That is going to be a completely different experience, but having seen how well he is growing and how strong he is now, I know we will be ready.

Ear Tubes :-(

Well unfortunately, Henry's chronic ear infection flared up again a couple of weeks ago. It was actually the day after our doctor's visits on the 24th. As much as it pained us to do, we called the ENT at Children's Mercy to schedule ear tube surgery.

Surgery is first thing Monday morning, just before 8:00 am. The procedure itself shouldn't take even half an hour, but because he is a toddler, he will need to be on general anesthesia. Because of his heart condition, this means we will be at CMH, under the care of the cardiac anesthesia team. We met with one of their nurses practitioners on Friday, and it helped us to understand what they do and what they prepare for. Henry has generally done well under anesthesia before, and our cardiologist thinks he'll do just fine. That meeting on Friday did help us feel better. All goes fine, and we will be home Monday, maybe even by lunch!

On a happier note, Henry had a good Halloween! The little man dressed up as a doctor, and had fun at his day care's trunk or treat as well as our neighborhood parade.

As winter is coming, so too is flu season. Henry will be receiving the Synagist shot (RSV) again this year. Henry will be in daycare this year during cold and flu season, but we will still likely start pulling back on some of the activities we have been doing. All three of us have gotten our flu shots, and we would love to encourage all of you to do the same!

Heading into Fall

Our apologies for being quiet for so long. The time has certainly flown by in the Caudle household! Looking back at our last post, it's hard to believe how much has changed in only four months; Henry continues to grow and amaze us! 

In July, we switched daycare centers. In his new daycare, Henry was put in a room with mostly older kids (his age, up to about 2 and a half), and he is picking up on a lot of things! One of the things they do at daycare is brush their teeth after every meal. Within a few days, Henry was grabbing his toothbrush at home in the morning wanting to brush his own teeth! His babbling also greatly increased within a couple of weeks. TARC's Tiny-K program continues to follow Henry and they have been very pleased with his progress. We have received marks of "significant improvement" with each visit recently. We wrote a new ISP for Henry in July, as he met all of his goals from the previous year!

Henry's g-tube site healed very quickly and easily, for which we are very grateful. He is eating quite well at daycare, from what we hear, although we seem to struggle to get him to eat anything other than cheese, bread, french fries and chicken nuggets. He does also like pork (and bacon), bananas, and ranch - sometimes all together! He does eat a good variety of food at daycare, but that is probably just to show off to all his friends!

Once the weather started improving, and all of our allergies became a little more bearable, we started spending more time outside. Henry was mesmerized by the balloons at Huff n' Puff, and laughed when the hippo wiggled her ears. We have taken many trips to Gage Park, and Henry enjoys riding and waving at the train, and riding the carousel. Swings were a lot of fun for a while, but we absolutely love slides. It doesn't matter if it's the two-foot slide in the play area at the mall, or an eight-foot metal slide, they are all amazing. He could probably spend hours just running around to go back down the slide.

This month, we have visited Children's Mercy twice, visiting four different medical clinics. The first visit was to ENT. Henry battled some chronic ear infections through May and June, and the ENT doctor in Topeka kept pushing ear tubes. Even though it's a simple procedure, Henry's would have to be done up at CMH, since he would have to be put under general anesthesia. So far, we are in a wait-and-see mode: kids get ear infections, and under two is a little quick to put in tubes, so we'll see if he gets more infections where he would benefit from going through that procedure.

Our next visit was with a follow up with the development and behavioral clinic. Henry had a blast showing off his skills and playing games with a couple of young ladies while we talked with the doctor on all that Henry was doing. 
Overall, they feel his language and motor development are right on par for his age, and they think his cognitive abilities are above average! We are learning this as we can see him learn how to climb on the playground by watching what the other kids are doing.

Yesterday we had one of our last follow ups with the Special Care clinic. They typically follow kids like Henry until they are about two. We may have another visit with her in the spring though, if for no other reason than to show him off!

Our final visit this month was with cardiology. Overall, our cardiologist is very pleased with how well Henry has done over the past year and a half since his Glenn procedure. Even though it was late in the day, and he had not had a nap, Henry did very well with his EKG and echo. He fussed a bit during the echo when they had him tilt his head back so they could take a look at the Glenn area (where his second surgery was done). She said he still shows some narrowing, but given how well he looks and is acting, she isn't overly concerned and would like to see him in 3-4 months to take a look at it again. 

We did discuss a little about Henry's third surgery, the Fontan procedure. Their main priority is to make sure he is big enough, at least 30 pounds, otherwise we may run into the issue of him needing to redo/do another open heart surgery. He currently isn't the size requirement, but since he's already pushing 27 pounds, he could easily be there for a possible surgery around this time next year. They typically like the kids to be at least three years old, but since they won't do the surgery in the winter, she thought that might be ok for Henry. The doctor was going to discuss with the surgeons, and we will discuss this more at our next appointment in February.

So please forgive us as these updates have been farther and farther apart. We know Henry is not a normal child, but we have enjoyed a perfectly normal, wonderful summer.

Summer Fun

Well it has been quite a busy couple of months for us, with a lot of exciting changes!

Mother's Day weekend was a difficult one again. Instead of being in the ICU, I spent all weekend holding and taking care of a very sick Henry. On the next Monday, he was finally diagnosed with hand, foot, and mouth disease, as well as a double ear infection. We had been warned that viruses would be rough on him, and the doctors weren't wrong on that. He was very tired, and ran a pretty good fever for several days, and it took over a week for him to get back to his normal self, but he was never so bad that he needed to be hospitalized. Since then, Henry has battled an ear infection off and on. Hopefully, the last round of treatment we just finished will do the trick.

Henry has been enjoying his time at daycare. 
In the summer, they get to have "Splash Days" on Fridays, which are his favorite! A few weeks ago, they did school pictures at daycare, and Henry is such a ham!






On June 2nd, I arrived at daycare to pick up Henry and his teacher put him down and said, "Show mommy what you've been doing today!" It was the first time I saw Henry walking on his own! I started bawling and called Jason on our way home. Over the last three weeks, he has gotten faster and faster; additional baby gates have been installed. He is pretty proud of himself too. The TARC Tiny-K program informed us that Henry has met all of the goals we made for him last year. We will be writing up a new plan for items to work on.

Our last exciting news came this week. At Thursday's special care clinic visit, we removed Henry's G-tube! Not only had he achieved his weight gain goal for the past two months, he nearly tripled it! Henry has been healing well, and we are hopeful we will not need surgery to close it up.

Thank you everyone for your continued support, thoughts and prayers.

April Showers

Our appologies for the length in break between posts. Don't worry, it has not been because Henry hasn't done well, as it has been the opposite.

Henry had his first cardiology appointment for 2016 on Monday. We went five months in between appointments, almost as long as his early childhood stay. He had an EKG as well as an echo. There is still some mild tricuspid regurgitation, and his heart function looks good. We were told to come back in six months!

On Wednesday Henry had his feeding clinic visit. This was originally booked back in January when Henry was barely eating table foods and his majority calorie intake was his formula. We had switched over to pediasure in late January. Henry just amazed the group who watched him! He was reviewed over by his Special Care doctor, a development phyiscologist, OT, and a dietician. We got nothing but praised with his progress and were told he really doesn't need extra help with feeds. We are to transition to whole milk and see if Henry continues to grow. If so, drum roll please...we can get the gtube removed! We are so excited by this (though slightly disappointed they wouldn't remove it today)

Henry has had a few colds this season, but none has landed us in the hospital. We are extremely grateful for that.

He isn't walking by himself yet, but is an excellent cruiser, loves pushing his walker, will walk with assurance of hand holding or just with one of our fingers, he just won't do it on his own.

OT has come up with some therapy for Henry to help build up his breathing, as he still does most with the belly rather than using his upper chest. Hopefully with this it will help with his walking, improve his babbling, and also help him to be more productive when he coughs.

And now for some pictures!

Henry at Special Care

Easter 2016 

Having cake on daddy's birthday

We are so thankful for all his progress! We continue to appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers.

A Season of Firsts

We apologize for not updating the blog for a while. The past six weeks have been quite hectic and stressful - but exciting. Henry experienced so many milestones this holiday season it has been hard for us to keep up!

Henry got to meet some of his new relatives at his first Thanksgiving! It was a long day for him - but only one wardrobe change! We had really only packed to go to doctors visits before, so packing for an afternoon outing was a new concept. It seems we are destined to forever forget spit rags.

The three of us greeted the season by all coming down with a cold, right after Thanksgiving. Henry had gotten some sniffles before, but this was the first cold that really had us worried that it could get worse, mainly because of how hard it hit me! Luckily, it was nothing more than a head cold and never settled into Henry's chest, so we got to avoid breathing treatments - and the hospital. In fact, on the first weekend in December, we celebrated the fact that Henry had spent more nights at home than in the hospital! We look back now at those five and a half months, and the details get harder and harder to remember, fading like a bad dream. He is doing so well that we have officially signed off from home health care! It will be somewhat scary not getting frequent checkups, but everyone agreed Henry is doing well enough that the regular visits are no longer necessary.

With it being cold and flu season, we have been advised to keep Henry out of public places, and to wait until spring before thinking about putting him in daycare. Although we didn't take him out much anyway, it has given us some serious cabin fever. Thankfully, we were given the okay to visit family during the holidays, as long as everyone was healthy.

Christmas weekend was long, exhausting, and wonderful. We visited Paige's family in Tonganoxie on Christmas Eve, the first Christmas for Henry and his cousin, Gunner. 

Christmas morning was relaxing and comfy in our pajamas. The plan was to let Henry sleep as long as he wanted - but Paige was too excited and just had to get us all up! We spent the afternoon at my aunt and uncle's in Topeka. Henry's second cousins were there - four little girls between the ages of two and four. These were the first little kids Henry has ever met - close to his size, but walking, talking, and playing with him - and he had a ball! Saturday, we saw the rest of my family and how much his other second cousins were growing.

Throughout December, Henry has continued to grow bigger and stronger. He has learned that when we lay him down (to change a diaper, for example) he can actually turn himself over and crawl away. What fun! Not content to just be mobile, he enjoys pulling himself up on any and everything. He is now sidling along the couch between Paige and I. His first independent steps are coming very soon!

And then, as if that wasn't enough excitement, our little boy turned one. We had a small gathering of friends and family to help us celebrate, and although Henry was not very impressed with his cupcake, he had a wonderful day. I am sure that he is expecting yet another party and more wrapping paper this coming weekend.

And after all, why not. Today marks the first anniversary of Henry's Norwood procedure. A year ago, Paige and I were so stunned that he decided to show up three weeks early, we didn't have much time to think about the magnitude of what was happening or to think about where we were heading. Considering what was going on, that's probably for the best. If we had stopped to think about what was to come, I don't think either of us would have dreamed to be in a better place than we are now. The first six months were a roller coaster, with some serious drops, but these past six have been like a rocket. 

Happy Holidays! Happy New Year! Happy Birthday, Henry! We cannot wait to see what this next year will bring!