Thankful for the gift of time - Surgery rescheduled

As I mentioned in my last post, Liam has been under the weather for over a week, coughing and then running a fever this past weekend, so I made the call into the surgeons office per protocol this morning...Because of his respiratory issues, they do not want to risk anything, so surgery is postponed until the 16th.  Liam and I went downtown to the hospital to get a virus panel done on him, so they could know for sure how long to postpone.  Thankfully, all the results came back negative, so that's good news! Praise God!  Now we just have to be hermits another 2 weeks (which is fine by me!) and keep him healthy until then. Today wasn't exactly the plan we were hoping, but we trust God's timing...And honestly, I am a little relieved and thankful for the gift of more time.

Liam has been such a trooper!  He really has an amazing attitude, taking everything in stride.  Here is a picture of him before his nose swab, and during lol.  In case you need to explain to your child how this is done....dealing with an older child now, I know it's super helpful for me if I can find pictures or videos that show him what a certain procedure is. 

We enjoyed watching the "Trainscape" at the hospital, it really is quite the display of electric trains!  We didn't get a chance to stop by during his cath, so we visited today.  It was actually nice to get out of the house for a bit, even if just to go for a test. 

We hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's Eve tonight!  You all bless us so much, and we thank you for all the prayers, texts and messages - really means a lot to us and Liam.

8 Years Later

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!  We had a great time with all our family here--the kids had a blast and my house is a disaster, so I guess it was successful! 

As I am looking back over the years and gearing up for the start of 2019, I am reminded of just how FAR we have come.  Wow!  God is so so good, all the time.  He is so faithful!  Today is actually the "surgi-versary of Liam's 3rd open heart surgery, exactly 8 years ago....

It has been encouraging to read back through that last surgery and see how relatively smooth it went though!  I know it will be a tough road, but my heart is encouraged tonight.  I am so thankful I have our experience documented.  The Lord has been stirring many projects in my heart related to this journey of ours, so I am excited to see where that all leads as well. 

A couple weeks ago, we followed up with our ENT at Medical City, and saw this crazy bus outside, LOL.  Unfortunately, that was all we saw of the boys! They were visiting several local hospitals that day I heard. 

 

Liam is a little under the weather right now, which reallllly stinks =(  Please keep him in your prayers...I know God will direct our steps as we plan our way this week, and I trust His timing of everything.  Thanks for joining us on this journey!  We are thankful for you - many blessings for a wonderful New Year's Eve and Day this week!

Such a time as this...

So it's been awhile since I last posted, but I am due for an update post!  Most of you probably follow me on Facebook and know Liam recently had a heart cath procedure this past week.  This was due in response to his last cardiology visit which captured some higher pressures on his echo.  We were hopeful that these pressures were not consistent and that the heart cath might be able to balloon or stint some areas to relieve it.  However, the findings were that Liam's conduit and valve show severe calcification and stenosis, increasing the risk to any interventions by cath, and further indicating that now is the time to do his (hopefully) final heart surgery to get in a larger conduit to last into adulthood.

While obviously this news was hard to hear, we have been extremely blessed to have had virtually no interventions needed since his last surgery in December of 2010 - 8 years is a great sign to us that his next surgery can last even longer, and that any future interventions will be able to be made by cath and not surgery.  Huge praise!

Dr. V is looking over the cath results and meeting with the surgeon early next week to figure out the game plan and then scheduling will be calling us with dates after that.  So we should have a surgery date by next week! Eeek.  This is a whole new ball game with an older child (and now younger siblings at home), so I plan on doing some blog posts with how I am preparing our family and Liam for his upcoming surgery.  Just being in the hospital overnight for the cath was very different than our previous stays, because Liam is now much older and we also have our other children at home to care for as well.  God was so gracious during this recent cath, and has given Dustin and I much wisdom on how to proceed in preparing for surgery.

We appreciate your prayers for this upcoming surgery and will keep updates coming on here.  We love you all!

Weeds and Wildflowers

Back to my annual posting on the blog! LOL It has been way too long friends.  SO much and then not really a lot have been going on around here.  This past year has been a year of growth in all directions, steadily plodding forward day by day.  The kids are growing at rapid speed physically and emotionally which has me digging deep and looking up DAILY (sometimes every minute!) for strength!  It is a unique season of sowing seeds and harvesting all at the same time.

This morning I was reading in Hosea about God's faithfulness.  The contrast between His constant desire and love for us to look to Him alone for all of our needs, and our human waywardness to desire wordly ways to fill those needs is a constant source of struggle for the Israelites, and I find it also true in my own life.  God remains the same: longsuffering with us, faithful, true, holy, redemptive and above all, loving.  Even in our transgressions against Him and His character, He chooses to offer us reconciliation. 

These weeds of our flesh can become a beautiful bouquet when we let the Master pick us, prune us and re-plant us in His beauty and set us apart into a display of His splendor and glory.  I am ever so thankful He does this when I call out to Him.  This idea of turning chaos into beauty and order is His specialty.  I took this picture of the the bouquet my kids picked for me...we like to call it our wildflower bouquet - illustrating again that weeds can be beautiful in the right setting and in the right hands!

Just some tidbits of thoughts and ponderings today.  God has been leading me into a new season of work.  One which does satisfy my longings to create my art, but in a way that I am a bit unfamiliar with.  It also involve some financial risk, so I am trying to trust Him and follow, but it is difficult!  Trusting in who God is and who I am in Him is critical for me to be able to step forward. 

And since it's been sooo long - here are some brief updates for our family!

• Momma's got a new ride!  Yes, that's right, we squeezed 3 kiddos into the back of a Camry for a long time, but as they get bigger, we needed to adjust our transportation method!  SO I am now in the #minivanclub.  I actually LOVE it and not sure why there is stigma around such awesomeness!  It's the greatest thing in my world since Mac n cheese! Ha!
• Liam is doing great health wise, and all other wise.  He just got braces last week...Where is my little boy....gosh he is growing up fast!  We had his biannual cardio check up a couple weeks ago and there remains no change on the echocardiogram, wooohooo!  This is good news for us.  I believe his pressure remain in the 40/50 range, which is stable for him.  We do however, need to go get him a MRI of the heart as a baseline for future visits, to be sure the right side of the heart looks good and is not growing (meaning overworking or enlarging).  They are unable to accurately see this aspect of his heart on the echo.  We have this scheduled for May 7th.  He will be doing this unsedated, which we think will be fine, but challenging for him to be calm and still.  We would covet your prayers for him for this test! 
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• Noah is doing great as well.  He is FULL of life and energy, headstrong, confident and detail oriented (a.k.a. takes everything apart and curious about EVERY.THING).  I call him my "passionate" child!  He is a joy, and growing into such a smart and funny young boy.  Parenting him seems to still be a bit of a challenge at this age, but he is teaching me to grow in that.  It's never a dull day around here!  
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• Adeline is just the sweetest, but can get a little bossy with her brothers!  And they let her! Haha.  She is very motherly and loving with them, already showing empathy towards her brothers's meltdowns and frustrations by patting them on the back and trying to hug them during those moments.  She is STILL napping 2x a day which is a WIN in my book!  She is generally content and happy as long as she has something to munch on....definitely my best eater so far! Ha!  She is also in 94% for height, so she is growing quickly!  She is pure sweetness at 16 months old.
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•  Dustin and I are doing well also, still plugging along on our fixer upper home, doing various projects here and there.  Maybe someday I'll post some before and afters! Other than that, we are not growing like weeds, and have turned into fabulous adults, LOL! Just kidding, we are just not as exciting as the kids.

Hopefully I'll be able to update more frequently here!  Thanks for stopping by!