Figured I might as well start with the littlest member of the family (Sam was lucky to get in the picture too lol). Love my Maxwell to pieces, but man, he's sure given us a lot of trouble lately! To make an incredibly long story short about Max, since I last blogged:
- We have become best buddies with our ENT doctor at Primary Children's. We've quite possibly given Dr. Grimmer WAY more business than any other family to grace that clinic, between our two boys, in these past two years!
- We've been through two different (and miserably failed) swallow studies in February and June, which showed us that Max has really bad aspiration issues. Like bad enough that he should have had pneumonia and/or sepsis, and be consequently hospitalized. We count our blessings every day that he's avoided that.
- During our June swallow study, they decided the thickened liquid feeds by mouth weren't helping, so he got a feeding tube for all liquids (he still gets to eat anything thicker than pudding texture by mouth). It was definitely a LONG first week weaning him off the bottle, and learning how/when to tube feed.
- Max was seen by a team of three specialists from the ENT, Pulmonolgy, and GI departments. They decided to do an endoscopy and check out the anatomy in his throat, along with a few other diagnostic tests. Everything checked out pretty well, but they found that he has a laryngeal cleft. Essentially, this is an extra valley of space between your voice box and esophagus that shouldn't exist, allowing food/liquids to go down the wrong way. We thought when they filled the space with a gel block that we would see miraculous improvements, that we had our fix it all answer.
- Unfortunately, Max still failed his follow up gel block swallow study, but the doctor wanted to try and close his cleft surgically (aka with stitches) due to the small improvements we noticed before the gel block dissolved. He also wanted Max to have a brain MRI just to make sure that there was no funny business going on in his head (as in brain tumor or a weird malformation).
- Last Friday he went under general anesthesia for his MRI and got a clean bill of health on his brain, thank goodness! And just yesterday afternoon, his doctor went in and closed up the laryngeal cleft. The picture above is of Max enjoying his first post-surgery meal with Daddy. And boy did he enjoy it--he cried when all the food was gone! He's such a big eater, and a boy boy overall (almost 26 pounds and around 32 inches)!
- At the end of this month, we go back for a third (and hopefully final) swallow study to evaluate if closing the laryngeal cleft helped Max out at all. If not, we are probably looking at a more permanent stomach feeding tube, and having to hope that one day he will mature out of his swallow issues. We are definitely crossing our fingers for the best though; that he will show progress and improvement with swallowing liquids. I am looking forward to the day when he can join his daycare friends in drinking from a sippy cup!
Next up is Jayson; I almost feel like I can't call him my little boy anymore! He is going to be THREE at the end of this month, and I am pretty much in shock about it. Jayson definitely says the funniest things lately, and talks like there is no tomorrow. The older he gets, the more his personality shines out. I am finding that he is more like me than I ever realized. I guess I always assumed that because I had boys, they would be little carbon copies of their dad. While this is true in a lot of ways, I think that Jayson might be wired to think more like I do. He loves structure and organization to his days, is really motivated by a goal, and is ridiculously stubborn in doing things "all by myself". However, I will say, he is a lot like his dad in the fact that if thrown into a crowded/noisy room, he would rather observe people than be the center of attention. Oh and they both definitely love cooking. Jayson is like both of us in the sense that he definitely has an aptitude for music. And he is like neither of us in the sense that he seems to have an aptitude for gymnastics. No joke, this kid can already do somersaults, loves to walk the low balance beam at daycare, and frequently jumps from the last four stairs just to scare the heck out of me. So if anyone wants to pay for Jayson to take a gymnastic class once a week after his third birthday, just hit me up now lol. I love this not-so-little man to death, and am looking forward to throwing him a birthday party in the near future (quite hopefully)!
Here's a picture of my two furry children that I snapped recently. Can I just tell you how much I love having Gidgett and Tonka as part of our family? I know my allergies don't love having cats around, and I don't always love to clean the litter box or vacuum every day because of the fur.....but other than that I 100% love having kitties! There is nothing more soothing to me than to just sit down with a cat in your lap and get to pet them. Admittedly, Gidgett doesn't really love her whole body being petted, but Tonka will roll over on his stomach and let me give him a belly rub! Tonka is the cat that will follow you around everywhere, and always tries to sleep on my head at night. Gidgett is the cat that prefers to watch you from afar, but loves to run around and play with you. Sometimes I am surprised that we have only had the cats for six months, because I can't hardly remember life without them standing right by the door when we come home.
And just for kicks you can enjoy this picture I took of Sam and I on our fourth anniversary, back in May. Not a whole lot new between the two of us lately, just mainly trying to stay afloat and take care of the kids. Same old same old :] My only big change (besides getting a haircut in March) was switching work schedules. I used to work 4 10 hour days a week: some morning shifts and some afternoon shifts, but never on a predictable schedule. A chance for me to do 7 on/7 off graveyard in blood bank and hematology opened up, and I thought just for kicks I'd give it a go. There are definitely pros and cons to the scheduling of it, but overall I think it's something I prefer doing. Plus it pays slightly better to work at night, and since we are swimming in Maxwell medical bills, any little bit helps!
So there you have it. We are alive, and always on the go! Stay tuned for more Slaugh family fun in the near future :]
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