Short and Sweet

No, this post is not neccesarily going to be short and sweet - but I discovered why I never keep up with my blog. I formulate this awesome, inspiring, detailed, and full of pictures blog post in my head and when I realize how much time it would take to type it and post it, I decide to do it another day. So from now on, my goal is to remind myself that I can keep it "Short and sweet"!

A few weekends ago, Casey and I had a blast visiting family in Spartanburg! It helped me feel a little more "back-to-normal". At that point, we were struggling through Christopher's "recovery" but had no idea he would be having surgery again. We had a photo session (the one we won on facebook) with Gena Murphy, a fantastic children's photographer! I was SO happy with the boys' outfits (if you know me very well, you know how matchy-matchy I like to be and how hard I find it to be with 2 boys!). We were SO happy with the pictures too :) So I may be posting more of them here from time to time.

The Tuesday after our fantastic weekend, Casey took Christopher to the surgeon (we had been seeing him almost weekly since the first surgery for testing to see why he wasn't getting better). He called me at work to tell me the bad news - surgery again in 1 week. Those poor little girls in my classroom - I asked them through tears to please put their violins down and go with me down the hall and they were so caring and sweet. I pretty much cried the whole day. "AGAIN? my family has to endure this AGAIN?" Luckily my school is filled with loving and caring people that helped me make it through the day (and sweet students too).

Same week - Thursday - Christopher ate 3 ounces. 3 ounces! all day! Then he threw up the last 2! It was a different color from all of the other throw up we had seen so we went to the ER. The triage nurse and the resident didn't really take it too seriously although they did give him an IV and fluids. I thought, "well maybe I am just being a crazy mom after everything we went through before," but when the pediatrician came in, he listened to every word I said, agreed with me, and called our surgeon. The rest of the story - we were admitted, got a room at 5 am, I went to work to tie up some loose ends, surgery all afternoon, PICU at 6 pm.

I'm not really going to get too detailed here, but the surgeon's first words were, "it was worse off than we thought". His intestines had separated at the site of the original intussuception. No wonder he wasn't getting better! Surgery went very well though. He prepared us for 1) a longer recovery than planned and 2) the possibility of future surgeries depending on where scar tissue develops. We've been in the hospital ever since - 10th day today! I cannot even express enough thanks for the kindness of our church, friends, and family through this! We had people sit by our side during surgery, bring us meals continuously for several days, visit and pray with us, and leave daily messages of encouragement on facebook (yes, that is way more powerful than you think!). Michael has been well taken care of by my parents too (ask them how potty training went). I have truly learned how to depend on others through this situation ~ I can't always be strong and do everything myself!

Well, that's the short version on the last few weeks. We spent 3 weeks in the hospital, 4 weeks at home, and now another week+ in the hospital. What a crazy year this has been. Through it all I have learned that I am blessed, blessed, blessed beyond measure.

Stacy <>< Wiley