The Kids in Pigeon Forge

Playing putt-putt in Pigeon Forge

Kelsey, Adam, Cody, Brett, Breanna

We Survived Our First Vacation!!

Adam hanging out in the arcade

Cody riding go-karts with Matt

Cody at the pool

Adam at the pool

Brett, Cody and Breanna at WonderWorks

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We made it to Pigeon Forge safely on Thursday. The four of us stayed in NanNan Barbara and PopPop Bob's camper. Uncle Bobby, Aunt Shannon, Breanna and Brett were in their camper to the right of us. And, Uncle Danny (NanNan Barbara's brother from NJ), Aunt Jan and Kelsey were in their motorhome to the left of us. We did a lot of running and a little resting. Adam did well and we all had a good time! Matt, Adam and I got back home today. Cody decided to stay and come home with Uncle Bobby on Wednesday. We should have a quiet house for the next few days!

Mid-Week Follow-Up

Resting after therapy

Adam's OT evaluation on Tuesday went well. He automatically qualifies for occupational therapy due to his feeding issues. The plan is for them to work with him on taking some things by mouth and to work with him on different gross-motor items. This service will start in a couple of weeks and he will see his therapist, Natalie (who also works with me in the school system), once a week.
This morning, Adam started his one-hour play therapy sessions with Dana (through Easter Seals). He enjoyed playing in the floor and sitting up with her. He will also have play therapy once a week. After both of these visits, Adam was pretty worn out and went straight to sleep!

Now, to continue our busy week..... we are leaving first thing in the morning (when Matt gets home from working night shift) for our first vacation as a family of four! We are meeting Matt's family in Pigeon Forge for a long weekend. We will be back on Sunday!

Monday.... the start of a busy week

Today has been non-stop. We were at Baptist at 8:30 this morning with Adam for a few different appointments. He had to get an x-ray first (the surgeon wanted to check on his gut to make sure all looks the way it should). From there, we were supposed to go to surgery clinic. Dr. Petty was tied up with an emergency, so they went ahead and drew Adam's blood for his weekly labs. Adam had a 10:00 appointment with Heather for a physical therapy evaluation. All went well with that, he is on track with his adjusted age. He will go back in August to be evaluated again to be sure he is still on track. After PT, we headed back over to Baptist to see Dr. Petty. Adam is doing good. Starting this week, he will get a little bit longer break from his TPN (IV nutrition) in order for it to run 16 hours a day.... yeah!

Nana and Papaw brought Cody back to the house this afternoon, so he and Matt could go get their hair cut. We also had to go register Cody for Fall C-Ball tonight.

Adam has his occupational therapy evaluation with Toni tomorrow and he will start play therapy with Dana on Wednesday.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to everyone! This morning we went to preaching at Sophia Baptist Church (the church where I grew up and where Matt & I got married) to surprise Papaw for Father's Day.... Nana didn't tell him that we were coming to church. This was Adam's first visit and very emotional for all of us. Preacher Bill had us stand up and introduced Adam to everyone. It was a good morning. After church, we met Granny and Uncle Jeff for lunch at Main Street Steakhouse in Randleman. Matt had not been there before, and he enjoyed it. After lunch, Nana let Matt and I take a nap while she watched Cody and Adam..... that was absolutely the best part of the day!

Tonight, Cody is spending the night with Nana and Papaw because Adam has a busy morning tomorrow at Baptist.

Happy (Almost) Birthday, Caitlyn!

Sheriff Cody

Sheriff Adam

Today we all went to Caitlyn's 5th birthday party at Misty Grove Stables in Concord. (Her actual birthday is next week.) Cody rode a horse, played with bubbles, ate pizza and had some delicious home-made ice cream cake! Lots of fun for Cody today and Adam enjoyed watching!

Adam is 7-months old today!!

Look how big I am now as I sleep in my bouncy seat!

Adam's week so far....

Doing better today!

As stated before, Adam did well throughout the weekend. Well, on Monday afternoon he started running a fever........ around 100 degrees to start. He also seemed to be in a little pain. By 5:00, it was up to 102 degrees. We have an agreement with the hospital that Adam will go to the hospital anytime he has a fever of 101+, due to the risk of infection in his Broviac line. Of course, I was freaking out at this point since he had just had surgery. I called the hospital and paged the surgeon on call to let them know what was going on and waited. NanNan Barbara took Cody to his ball game, Matt came home from work. We finally got a call back from the hospital around 7:00. The doctor on call (didn't know him) said that it was very rare to get an infection in a line less than 48 hours after surgery, so he suggested that we give Adam some Tylenol and monitor his temperature. By Tuesday morning, his temperature was back down to 99.3 and he seemed to feel a lot better. And, he has been fine ever since.

C-Ball Tournament

Tournament Trophy

Team Trophy

Well, Cody's C-Ball team went the entire regular season and did not win a single game (they played really hard though and improved a ton over the season). The booster's club decided to have a single elimination C-Ball tournament to officially end the season. Monday was the first night of the tournament (Matt and I missed the game... more on that to come in my update on Adam). NanNan Barbara took Cody to the game, and.......... they WON! So, the team played again on Tuesday night in a very eventful game (the other team's coach was kicked out of the game). Cody's team WON, again!! Tonight was our third night of C-Ball this week and their last game of the season. They lost tonight, but finished up with a runner-up trophy in the silver division. Cody has his first 2 trophies..... now, we have to find some where to put them!

Adam's first trip to Nana & Papaw's...

Adam, Tanner (nephew), and Cody

After Adam was discharged from the hospital, he and I decided we would go spend in the night in Asheboro with Nana and Papaw. (This allowed Matt to get some sleep since he had to work today.) My sister, Amy (Cody calls her Mamie, so you will see that I refer to her as that at times), and her family were also there for the night. As you can see from the pictures, Adam is doing good since his surgery. He hasn't been as fussy as I was expecting him to be.

Today, we all (minus my brother, Jeff) attended the Cox Family Reunion (my dad's mother's side of the family)..... more family there than we even knew we had! After the reunion, it was time for a visit from Granny back at Nana and Papaw's house. Now, we are back at home trying to get some much needed rest.

Hospital Pictures

Recovering after surgery.

Waiting on the surgeon in the OR... cute hospital gown.

Night before surgery in his hospital room.

Adam is Out of Recovery

Adam is out of surgery and recovery. He is sleeping, back in his hospital room in the Day Hospital. As of right now, we will be going home some time this afternoon.

The surgery went well and lasted a little over an hour. They took the line out of his leg. His new Broviac is in the right side of his chest. It travels to the vein in the right side of his neck and back down through his chest. They took him off of the ventilator when the surgery was complete. He is not on any pain medication right now. Hopefully, it will stay that way. We are waiting on them to tell us when he can start eating again. And, we'll use the new Broviac line for the first time tonight when we hook his TPN up at 9:00.

Surgery is underway

Adam did well last night in the hospital and was in a good mood this morning. We are in the waiting room now. They just called to tell us that he went to 'sleep' without any problems and that Dr. Turner is starting the procedure now. We're not sure exactly how long this surgery will last, probably around one hour.

Another Night at Baptist...

I'll try to upload some recent pictures at some point, but I wanted to go ahead and update everyone on Adam's current situation.

This afternoon while Matt was flushing Adam's Broviac line with saline (as we do twice every day), the line popped and broke. We packed and piled everyone in to the car and headed to Baptist. We waited in the ER for about three hours until they admitted Adam to the Day Hospital. Matt and I are spending the night with Adam. Cody went home with Nana and Papaw.

Adam will be having surgery in the morning to remove the broken line in his leg and to implant another Broviac line. This new one will probably have to go in his chest since he has already had one in each leg. Adam's usual surgeon is out of town, so Dr. Turner will be doing Adam's surgery tomorrow. Please pray that all goes well. Good night, need to get some rest before in the morning.

Good News

We had a busy weekend, but fun. Nana and Papaw came over Saturday morning to watch Cody play ball. Cody played very well. Then, we all went to the Kimberly-Clark United Way Cruise-In at the Richard Childress Racing Museum (Matt was already there with his Mustang, they all "cruised" there from Kimberly-Clark). On Sunday, Adam was able to enjoy his own baby shower. It was originally scheduled for December, but was cancelled with his early arrival being postponed until after he got out of the hospital. After the baby shower, we went out to eat to celebrate NanNan Barbara's birthday.

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Tuesday was a busy day as well. Cody spent the morning with his friend, Nicholas, and they went to Bounce U in Winston. Adam spent his morning at the Surgery Clinic with Dr. Petty and staff. Everyone was pleased with his progress. Adam weighed 16 pounds when he was weighed on Sunday night and his continuous feedings are up to 24 cc's per hour (which is about halfway to full feeds). So, on Tuesday, Dr. Petty determined that based on Adam's weight gain, he could start getting less calories and would be able to be off of the TPN for 6 hours a day now (up from 4 hours). He now only has one line (feeding tube) from 3-9pm each night!! We were hoping for an 8-hour break, but we'll take a 6-hour break and hope for an 8-12 hour break to come next. Dr. Petty also told us that thanks to the fish oil (based on Adam's bloodwork and the progress that he has made with his feedings), he thinks Adam's liver damage has been reversed and he looks to be out of the woods for any future liver damage! At his next appointment, Adam will have a chest x-ray to make sure his Broviac line is still in the right place and an abdominal x-ray.

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Tuesday night, we went to part of Brett's soccer game and Cody had a ballgame. And, Cody is supposed to have two more make-up games this week, Thursday and Friday night (unless the rain postpones them again). If they get to play, this should be the last week of ballgames.