Morning of day 4

Quick update on our 24 day Challenge, we both can tell we have more energy thanks to SPARK :)  As an added bonus, we've lost a total of 5 lbs (3 for Tim and 2 for me)  Happy Saturday all ! 
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Patience

Having patience is not one of my best attributes.   I drive fast, walk fast and complete tasks at work as fast as I can.  I always feel the need to hurry and get where I'm going, no time to drive a little slower and look at the scenery.
I know without a doubt that my patience has been tested big over the last several years, but evidentially I have failed to learn the lesson so the testing continues......

...........waiting for almost 3 yrs to find Reed and work through the obstacles to bring him home
...........waiting through appointment after appointment and surgery after surgery
...........waiting for months to get speech therapy approved and scheduled through the school system
...........waiting for insurance to approve additional surgery, and now that pre cert has been denied,
...........waiting for the appeal process.

As I type this post I realize that my biggest lesson in these things is to do exactly what I have failed to do-  SLOW DOWN.  I should enjoy these days because even though we may spend them waiting for things to happen, they pass by was too fast and each one should be lived in the moment.

Stopping to smell the roses,

Special friends

Reed is enjoying kindergarten, he loves learning and can hardly wait to show us each afternoon every paper he colored, every letter written and every word read for the day.  It is such a good feeling to see the joy on his face when he accomplishes something new.
We have however had a few hard days, kids making fun of him and asking why his nose and mouth look "so funny".  He got in trouble one day for "not keeping his hands to himself" when a couple of boys were pointing and making fun of him on the playground.   He talks alot about missing his friends from preschool, especially one little boy that he loved to play with, "T".
One Saturday we ran into the preschool director and Reed cried when she gave him a big hug.  Since that day, he has been talking about his friend T and how wants to see him.  We didn't have a phone number or address for T so Reed wrote a letter letting him know that he misses him and that he would love to see him, stuck a stamp on it and dropped it at the church to be mailed .   Well, last night guess who called!!!  Reed was soooo excited that he answered the phone sobbing saying "I miss you buddy".  I spoke with T's mom after the boys talked and they are buying a house in the same school district and T will soon be coming to school with Reed and could even end up in the same class.
We're going to set up a play date after they get settled in from the move. Don't you just love it when you get a clear glimpse of God's work?!  Reed prayed for T when he got off the phone and still had a smile on his face when he fell asleep.......thank you Father for putting a smile on my baby's face.

8/22/12 first day of school, all smiles

Exciting news!

This year has been especially hard.  Reed had a major surgery and now he struggles with sleep apnea.....that means Dad and Mom are also going without sleep.  We are up most of the night checking on and repositioning him to help him breathe better.  The nightly routine is wearing on us and I've been thinking alot about our overall health and what we can do to feel better and make the most of each day.  I refuse to just let each day pass by sitting on the couch, so I bought a treadmill  and started walking.  The walking turned into running so now I'm thinking I should be feeling great!  NOT....even though I am off the couch and exercising, I still feel exhausted by the time I get off work @ 5:00 and want to just put on the comfy pants and go back to the couch.  Uh, no way.

I have been hearing exciting stories about AdvoCare products and the wonderful chance to trim down, have more energy and feel better overall. We are sooo stoked to become AdvoCare distributors and start our journey to getting in shape and having more energy so we can keep up with one energetic 5 year old boy!

If you'd like information about AdvoCare products or the business opportunity, leave a comment, visit the site or give us a call.  We'd love to have you join us in this exciting journey.  Tim and I have placed our first order and we'll share our results as we go :-)

(Click on the link below)
                                                                   AdvoCare

Denied

Well, the insurance company has denied approval for nasal surgery.  Reed is still struggling to breathe at night and we are very concerned.  The reason for denial is that their studies show sleep apnea is not improved through surgery.  I do feel it is more complicated than that since Reed's septum is pushed to one side and the turbinate is large.  Both of these factors make it impossible for him to get enough air during sleep......praying and believing God will help us work it out, I've cried all I can cry!!

Medical update

Reed has been having difficulty breathing since the p-flap surgery in May.
We've been back to the plastic surgeon and to an ENT.  Right now we have 2 separate issues that are causing nasal airway obstruction.  His ports are small and Dr K wants to go back in and open them up- the tricky part is opening enough to improve the airway without losing the purpose of the flap.  He also has a deviated septum and turbinate blocking one nostril.
We have a sleep study scheduled for tomorrow night to see how bad his sleep apnea is at this point, and to give us something to compare before and after the next surgery.

God is good and He has a great plan for Reed.  Oh what a story he will tell someday!!
One bump at a time, we will keep traveling down this road and learning as we go :)

Singing in the rain =)

A+

I definately give us a big A+ for this project!  We worked hard on building an outdoor bar for our patio and we are so proud of what we came up with.......

We picked out a beautiful slate tile to cover the back, it is so beautiful when the water hits it all the natural colors come out- green, red, gold, grey- looks amazing.

By accident, I discovered we could cut 2" strips of the slate and stagger it to look like brick work.  We had planned on buying a stone tile for the front and was able to save a bundle by cutting the slate and making our own pattern for the front (0.75 per sq ft instead of 3.98!!)  Here's the result of lots and lots of cuts with a wet saw (I made the cuts while Tim laid the tile)

Oh,  we also built another pergola to extend our patio space!  We started out with a small pergola covering 1/2 the patio and we made it twice the size.  Never have built anything like this before and Tim and I did it all on our own (with help from his nephew lifting the heavy boards!)

The part over the bar is the original pergola, we added to the existing structure and now our entire patio is covered 
Next project......?  We'll come up with something :))

Graduation

Reed is a preschool graduate!  So proud of him!!

Doing well =)

After 6 nights in the hospital, we were so glad to get home.  Reed has done well this week.  Sleeping is improving, he wakes up less often but the snoring is just something he will probably always do.
Wednesday was our follow-up appointment and Dr K told us to come back in 6 months. 
We are going to start back with speech therapy soon and can't wait to see the results!

Day 4-5 post op

I'm not sharing all of this because I just love sharing every little detail of our lives.....I'm sharing because 1) I hope it can help another parent with a similar situation and 2) because I will never remember all of this if I don't record it somewhere.
Reed has thrush from the antibiotics.  No wonder these last 2 days have been a painful teary struggle for him. Finally this afternoon he broke down and ate an entire bowl of chicken noodle soup. He kept saying something was in his throat and when he would describe it I knew something was going on. I looked at his tongue and immediately knew what it was. The nurse confirmed and started him on Nystatin.
Nights are tough right now and I'm praying it's just because things are still swollen.  During the night he has been waking up coughing and crying every 45-60 minutes and last night he had a horrible sweat drenched night terror.  He clenched on to me and let out the most frantic cry for about half an hour.
When he finally came out of it, he did not want me to put him down.
Dr K came by today and did not like what he heard so we're staying another night or two to see if his breathing improves.

Important things for us to remember:
Always discuss and give as much detail as we can with Reed days ahead of any procedure and allow him plenty of time to ask questions and get as comfortable as he can with it and know what to expect.  Reed is very detailed oriented and I've found that it has helped in some situations to explain in detail what is going on.  This exact thing happened with the blood pressure cuff, he was terrified. Screaming fit, hiding behind me and pulling away terrified.  I took the time to explain to him exactly what the cuff is doing when it squeezes his arm, showed him what blood veins look like, explained that the heart is pumping the blood through the body....the whole bit worked. He is no longer terrified when he sees a BP cuff!!
Insist that he is with us as soon as he is brought out of anesthesia.  I explained to everyone that Reed is very anxious and is terrified when he wakes from being put under.  Just knowing that they put him back under TWICE to try and get him to calm down breaks my heart.  If I had just been close maybe I could have helped calm him and prevent that from happening.  Another thing that helped contribute to his delirium was the arm restraints (no-nos).  We don't know if he was restrained in the orphanage, but he can not stand to be held down so those things definately added to his anger and fear.

Day 2

We are still in the unit waiting for a room to open up and today was a little better than yesterday. 
With the help of one very creative nurse, Reed had about 4 or 5 spoonfuls of a chocolate milkshake  (we were able to sneak them in after she brought a Wii to our room and let him race dad for a bit)
We've seen lots of sick little ones here and it really makes you wish you could do something to make them all better :(
It's a little after midnight now and I'm in my monitor obsessing watching mode. Every other second I have to look up to see what his numbers are.  We've been moved to another unit today and the nurse hasn't figured out yet that I let every beep and every drop in his oxygen level drive me crazy. It's staying around 96 but it does dip down to 90, 91 when he gets deep in sleep.
Tim and I have been a pretty good team, we take turns sleeping for 2 hours at a time so each of us gets about 4 hrs a night. 
Oh! I just realized it's Mother's Day!!! Happy Mother's Day to my mom, who is an amazing lady with a heart of gold......and Happy Mother's Day to ME, a mom who has been blessed with the most perfect, loving, tender hearted and brave little soul.  I love you Reed Hammond, you are my sunshine!

Day 1

Reed slept most of the day and night thanks to pain meds every 2-3 hrs. Mom and dad slept in shifts 4 hr each :). Doc checked in and said we need to stay in the unit another night since he's still on oxygen. Praying he can tolerate some liquids by mouth today but he has been a trooper. Can't wait for my little man to feel like himself again!

Update:

Today turned out to be a pretty good day.  He's still not drinking anything, but he gave us a big smile when we were able to unhook all the monitors and go downstairs long enough to visit with Elmo.  He even had his picture made with Elmo, what a nice suprise that was!! 

Still taking pain meds but not as often.  Praying tomorrow he can start drinking liquids and work our way into some soft foods in the next couple of days.  48 hours with nothing to eat or drink is making Mama nervous!!!

Surgery day

Surgery went well, waking up not so much.  They had to put him under twice in the recovery room as an attempt level out his vitals and help his delirium.  "Emergence delirium" = restless or irritable wake up,   Reed always has a horrible time coming out of anesthesia.  Today was the worst yet.  He spent 2.5 hrs in recovery before calming enough to go to the unit.  Around 5 pm he finally woke up enough to empty his bladder.  He is resting well on pain meds now and his oxygen levels are holding steady so the nurse is hoping tomorrow we can move to the floor.

4 AM

We made a last minute decision to drive to Nashville and spend the night since we have to be at the hospital at 6.  Our first choice for hotel was booked, so we stayed at one of those older name hotels that are known for cheap rates.  I discovered last night that I'm borderline germaphobe.  The room had that smell of deodorizer and the carpet had visible vaccum marks.....but I could just feel the germs crawling around.  I kept shoes on my feet anytime they touched the floor and slept (for 2 whole hours) on top of the covers in my clothes to avoid the bed bugs.  Don't say it, I know!
Thanks so much for all the prayers for Reed.  Please pray this morning that surgery goes well, he wakes with fear and anxiety removed and that there are no complications. The next few months are going to be a challenge but we're backed by the most wonderful God, family and friends.  We love you!!

Here we go again

Reed is scheduled for p-flap surgery (pharyngeal) on Thursday of this week.  I have been a basket case all week and saw this picture today that put put a smile on my face..........  nothing we will ever endure will be too much for Him, God's got this!  Have a blessed week everyone

Growing pains

Reed is growing so fast he gets cramps in his feet and legs at night. I do whatever I can to ease his pain.....rub his feet and legs, put him in a warm bath, give him some advil and reassure him that he will feel better soon. In 9 months he has grown 2 1/4".

Last night I was up till after 2 am. Just one of those nights that I couldn't clear my mind long enough to fall asleep. I was thinking about how life has growing pains. Things that can cause pain or scars but the important thing is that we grow from them. God doesn't expect us to be perfect, we will always have certain feelings throughout our life because we are human. As we mature they may be less frequent..... but we will always have human feelings. Our reaction to those feelings will determine our healing time and help us to grow through life's pains.

Rain

Hard rain, wind and so much water on the road that I can't see the lines......so, I sit on the side of the road in my dark car (blogging on my iphone) while I wait for the storm to pass.
Wow, this makes me think about the storms of life and how sometimes they are so strong that we can't seem to find our way. Instead of struggling through the storm, fighting the darkness, wind and rain; what if we give God total control of the situation and trust that the storm will come to an end. How much sooner would the storm pass?

So tonight I pray that I can give Him all my anxiety and concerns that I have for Reed's next surgery. I pray we make the right decision about which surgeon and facility to use, and which procedure to go with. *Sigh* It's not easy but I have to stop the needless worry.

"It's arrogant to worry when God knows what He's doing. He has a plan for you"
from A Time To Love by Barbara Cameron

Do It Yourself-ers

After hibernating all winter we're usually ready for a new project around the house. This is still a work in progress, but here's what we have done so far.....

Before:

After:


We still have alot to do; paint, backsplash and replace the sink and faucet but I'm pleased with the way the cabints turned out! If you're feeling up to the task we used Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations in Expresso :)

If not us

This mom's cry for help leaves me heartbroken. What a heavy burden to know this is our world and it is up to us to do something. As adults, we have a responsibility to the children in this world. It does not matter what country we call home or what skin tone we were born with, children of the WORLD are ALL God's children. Each and every one is just as deserving of love, compassion, nurturing, understanding, support, encouragement and teaching. Deserving of hope and a chance for a better life. Maybe you don't feel the call to adopt or have the means to sponsor or donate, but can you at least PRAY for the precious children......God's children that need us NOW. (click here) If not us, then who??

I want what I want

Have you ever thought you wanted something and that was all you could think about? As a kid, was there ever that one big item you wanted for Christmas that just never came? Maybe your parents didn't have the money, maybe it was a hot item and the stores completely sold out, or maybe it was something your parents knew wasn't good for you.

I think our Father God works in this way. As our Father, He is not always going to give us everything we want or ask for. He knows what is best for us, and he desires for us to trust Him and to grow in our walk and increase our faith each day.

Last year I was struggling with wanting different things out of life and I found that it is true where you place your thoughts, your heart will be. If you're spending too much time thinking about something you really want, you tend to forget about all the wonderful and amazing things God has placed in your life.

It's almost kinda funny how He can carefully place events in our path that help move our feet when we're stuck. Does it make it any easier to let go? No, but we can find so much peace knowing He loves us, He understands our pain, and He is looking out for our best interest at all times.

If you are struggling with something and it's just not happening or your prayers have not been answered, don't give up. God hears your cries and He has a great plan for you. His plans are not always revealed when we are in the middle of the struggle because there's no doubt we would try to change our path if we could see every speed bump and pot hole up ahead.
When we reel it in and put our focus on the blessings in our life today and not what we hope for someday, He can reveal things in a new light.

Keep trusting, keep praying and keep the faith!

Fun day!

We had such a fun day just hanging out together, we even got a little crafty and made Valentine bugs :)