Difficult Times

It has taken me a while to get to this but it's for good reason.  Merrick has had his second heart surgery inside of a year's time.  The toll that it has taken on him and the rest of us has been great.  He has been very good throughout the whole ordeal.  I'll sum it up as quickly and precisely as I can.

He went in on Sept. 28th very early in the morning to Primary Children's Medical Center.  We met with Doctors and the surgeon and got him ready.  Sadly there isn't much preparation for the parents in this situation, you have to just deal with it.  After meeting with the surgeon Andrea and I felt a little more comfortable with the surgery.

This surgery wasn't the most ideal for Merrick, but time and circumstances dictated our options.  Our options were one, The Ross procedure.  This is where they remove the deformed aortic heart valve and replace it with his own pulmonary heart valve.  Then the pulmonary valve is replaced by an artificial or mechanical valve.  Merrick actually had the option of a pig valve or a human valve.  In the end the surgeon saw fit to use the pig valve to replace the relocated pulmonary valve.

The surgery lasted from about 7:30am until 3 or 4 pm I can't really remember.  We had a nurse that would come out every hour and give us an update.  When she came out and said that they had made the first incision into the chest your heart begins to sink.  It becomes "too real" at that point.  It becomes "real" when you follow him and the anesthesiologist back to the surgery room and then you have to leave him in their hands.  We have done this before but it's never easy and it doesn't get easier.  We have also done it before when the kids got tubes in the ears and when Gavin got his tonsils out.  Those trips are absolutely nothing like this kind of trip, not even comparable.  Sadly we won the prize for longest stay in the O.R. waiting room that day.  It turns out that the only prize for winning is the coinciding bill.

(He had 3 chest tubes and pace maker wires pull just moments earlier.)

The bill of course is a necessary evil.  The wonderful people at PCMC need to get paid and I shouldn't complain too much because they did provide us with tremendous service.  I had to take the week off to take care of Merrick while he was in the hospital.  Surprisingly we brought him home a day earlier than last time.  He came home that Saturday (Oct 2).  He had essentially twice as much work done on his heart but he was released a day earlier this go around.  This was such a blessing.  He has been home now for a week and a half resting.  Really all he does is play video games and watches movies.  There are time we have to grab him and sit him down because he wants to run and jump around like normal.  We have to convince him that he is still sick and needs to take it easy.  Not an easy task, he's a very stubborn 3 year old.  Just when things seemed like they would get back to normal they didn't.

I went back to work on Monday but I didn't feel quite right.  Tuesday was worse and Wednesday was hell.  I couldn't make in on Thursday and Friday I went to the Dr's.  I had come down with pneumonia.  This was not a good time to come down with pneumonia.  I have been dizzy for days now.  I have had two painful shots of antibiotic and I'm on another daily dose also.  I should be getting better but I just don't feel like I am.  Andrea has also been stricken with a severe migraine that just doesn't want to go away. She seems to be recovering from that now but its been a slow recovery for her.  Eventually our luck has got to change.

Thank you to all who sent us well wishes and kept us in your thoughts and prayers.  We really appreicate the extra strength that we get from you.

Merrick getting in some bp

I took this on my phone yesterday as we were playing. I was only going to do a toss or two but he just kept hitting everything I threw.  He is hitting real baseballs using an aluminum bat that's 27 inches.  That's only slightly shorter than he is and it's not as light as you might think.

Catching Up

 Just trying to catch up on some events and stuff. 

So I've been overly proud of Merrick here lately.  At only 40 months old (just shy of 3.5yrs) he has learned to ride his bike without training wheels.  He can start on his own, break and stop.  Not bad for a kid who should be far behind his peers given his setbacks.

 Here's one of Merrick fielding a ground ball and throwing it back.  I'm using a real aluminum bat and a real baseball here, none of that soft stuff for this kid.  He really loves baseball. I'm not sure what happened to the sound on this but it was too hard to hold the camera and hit him a grounder to bother with doing it over.

We took them to Boondocks to play some mini golf.  By the third hole Merrick had lost his ball in the pasture next to the course.  He did hit it pretty far though.  Gavin was sinking puts all night.  They loved it.  We also played some video games for awhile and the boys really loved that.

I finally got to take the Gavman out shooting.  He had so much fun.  He actually hit a balloon on his second shot.  I could not ask for a better son.  He really loved the paintball marker too.  I let him shoot that one by himself and he got a kick out of that. 

Just when I'm puffed up and proud of my boys, I walk into the boys room and see this going on.  Appalling, just appalling. They did not get this behavior from me. 

Hopefully between the guns and their dancing the boys will be able to scare off any would be suitors of Sophia.  "My precious..."

My family means the world to me, in fact, they are my world.  Without them I have nothing, with them I have all that I need.