Matthew update

Just wanted to share a quick video to show Matthew's progress in speech after only two weeks. This is just a small sampling. The best thing was the morning he ran downstairs (was carried down the stairs) and then straight to the back deck yelling "Play..Play...Play!!!" That was not even a word we had worked on. I love it. Enjoy!

I will be back with more soon, including a post with pictures of all the craft projects I have been doing lately. Life has been extremely busy but, after 2 1/2 weeks, I finally have the leaks in my house fixed and am able to use my own washer and dryer. Hooray for the little things.

PLEASE PRAY!!!!!

Things have been completely chaotic at my house the last week or so. I will get back to writing very soon but until then...please lift Bentley and her parents up in your prayers. She is currently undergoing heart surgery at a tender 9 months of age. Go HERE to read her story and follow the twitter updates as the surgery progresses. Most importantly, pray!!!

Lord Jesus,
We thank you so much for sweet Bentley. The miracle you performed in her life is so evident. Lord, we ask that you guide the human hands that are working on her today. Touch each person in that operating room and give their hands undeniable calmness that can only come from you. Be with Bentley's family, especially her parents. Let them feel your arms around them and give them a sense of peace that is so strong they cannot help but KNOW You are with them. Finally, place a hedge of protection around sweet Bentley. Heal her body Lord Jesus. You are the Great Physician and we thank you for that. I ask that your will be done in this situation. Thank you for all the prayers going out for Bentley today. Bless each person that takes the time to lift this family up in prayer.

In your sweet precious name,
Amen

Not Me Monday

Oh my goodness, I am so thankful for this Not Me Monday. I have so much to get off my chest of things that happened this week, that is, if they actually did happen. I mean, seriously, if these things actually happened, I so would not be telling anyone about them.

If you would like to join this crazy carnival, head over to MckMama's site. It is really great therapy...trust me.

So, this week started out as any other...yeah right!

I did not wind up taking my beautiful 2 year old son to the emergency room, the pediatrician, and the surgeon in a span of 3 days so they could all see that he ripped the stitches in his scrotum. He does not have a gaping hole there. We did not spend $130 in co-pays for each doctor to tell us, "YIKES! That's not good!" (Gee, ya think?) We do not have to continue to deal with this gaping hole as it heals on its own.
We are not 100% THANKFUL TO OUR HEAVENLY FATHER that our beloved son does not have to go back into surgery. Ahhhhhhhh!

On a much lighter note....I did not go to change out the laundry (put the washed clothes into the dryer) only to smell a strong urine odor. I did not discover at the bottom pile of clothes a used dirty diaper that had been washed along with our "clean" clothes. I did not spend a good 15 minutes cleaning out said washing machine because the diaper had completely fallen apart in the washer. There was not diaper particles ALL OVER my "clean" clothes. I did not have to rewash everything again. I AM NOT happy that there was only urine in that diaper. Sheeesh!

I did not fall up the stairs holding my beloved two year old and injure my back, shoulder and elbow. My middle name has not become Grace. I do not have a serious issue falling UP the stairs.

I know there is so much more that I could share, but I am feeling exhausted by all of this honesty (you know, telling you about the things that really did not happen). I think I need to go take a nap.

Oh, one more thing, I did not sleep in until 10:15 this morning on accident. My children were not still sleeping. I did not completely panic because I have so much to do today, including getting my 6 year old on the bus. I am not writing this post instead of doing the things I need to do in hopes of getting somewhere in the top 200 of MckMama's list this time so I have new readers leave me comments. I absolutely do not heart comments from my readers.


Love you all,
Have a blessed day!!!
JESUS CHRIST IS LORD OF ALL!

Macey, this one's for you!

Everyone else, don't forget to enter my contest here.

Wanna see my latest project????

Any ideas what this might be? Leave me a comment with a guess. If you get it right, I will feature your blog on my page and do a mini interview with you. But, you have to leave me a comment with your guess. And, if you do not already follow my blog, click on the link and become a follower.

This is the first "contest" I have done but if I get a lot of response, I will continue. I have some fun stuff to give away, so, "Let the games begin!"

Not Me Monday....IT'S BAAAACKKK!!!!!

I am so very thrilled that everything is back to a sense of "normal" in MckMama's household. In celebration she has restarted "Not Me! Monday". I am so excited...and you should be too.


This is the time where you get to share all the things you "did not do" over the week. It is great therapy and helps remind us that we are all in this "life thing" together.


Enjoy today's post and make sure you check out all the other wonderful Not Me! posts over at MckMama's site.


And....off we go!


This week I most certainly did not allow my darling children to eat red jello in my living room for dessert. One of my children, who shall remain nameless....okay, really it was me (shhhh! don't tell) did not spill red jello on the light beige carpet. It is most certainly not still there several days later. I am much more neurotic than that and would never leave food, especially liquified red jello, on my living room carpet. I sure hope it comes out.



I did not laugh hysterically at my 6 year old daughter when she chose her own outfit for school last week. She absolutely did not put on her baby brothers 18 month size jeans and a 2T jean jacket. She did not look absolutely adorable. And, of course, I did not allow my darling daughter to actually wear that outfit to school. I wish I had taken a picture.



Finally, I did not take my beautiful 2 year old son to the hospital on Wednesday for three different surgeries, thankfully all at once, and then come home and blog about said surgery complete with pictures. The blog did not include the word "testicle". I would never blog about my son's "man parts" so that one day he would be completely embarrassed. Nope, not me! I did not contemplate taking pictures of the swelling, bruising, stitched up lower area to show family and friends. Who in their right mind would do that? ( I seriously did not take those pictures).

Hope you enjoyed all the stuff I did not do, because if I really did do these things, I never would have blogged about it. Let me hear the crazy things you "did not" do this week. It's really great therapy.

UPDATE:
After reading a few of the other posts, I remembered something else I did not do this past week, or so.

At our somewhat formal MOPS Tea and Testimony 2 weeks ago, I did not actually dress up like a girl. Beautiful flowing Spring dress and new 3 in heeled shoes. I was not completely miserable in those shoes and could not understand why I was in so much pain because I had worn the shoes the day before and they were fairly comfortable. I did not finally look at the bottom of my shoes while showing one of the ladies on Steering. (We just decided that the shoes looked like they didn't fit me well) I did not then discover that the shoes were on the wrong feet. Oh yeah! See the pictures so you can see what I saw. I was not completely mortified and did not laugh so hard that tears began pouring out of my eyes. I was definitely not the "comedy relief" for my MOPS table and Steering group. Nope, not me!

Can you see how these shoes just don't look like they fit me right? Hmmmmm! Should have been a clue?!?

This is a view of what I saw (re-enacted for picture purposes). Can you see how half of my foot is hanging off the side of the shoe....no support. I can not tell you how much better my feet felt after switching the shoes to the right feet. What a relief.

Surgery is over....All is well!

The day of surgery was a little different than I was expecting. I had so much peace. I really felt like God had his arms wrapped around me and was breathing peace and strength over me. He was so present. There was never a moment of fear or panic for me.

Here is Matthew in his adorable clown hospital gown. I especially loved the orange grippy socks they gave him. He is so cute. The nurse even gave him a Thomas the Train sticker which made his whole day.

Playing trains with Daddy to pass the time.

I had to get dressed up in a "bunny suit" in order to take Matthew back to the operating room. We felt it was going to be less stressful on him if I took him back and held him while they put him to sleep. I loved all the staff. They were so reasurring and helpful. I walked into the operating room and was overwhelmed with how bright and how cold it was in there. It felt like it dropped 20 degrees from the hallway to the room. Matthew didn't freak out until he saw all the people there with masks on. He couldn't see thier faces and that bothered him. It probably only took him 30 seconds for the gas stuff to work on him. Then, I left and the surgeon got busy. I felt very comfortable that Matthew was in capable earthly hands and that our Heavenly Father ultimately had him in His hands. Unfortunately Matthew had a few complications during the surgery, which I will talk about at the end of this post. He woke up immediately after surgery instead of sleeping some of it off. He cried for a good 1/2 hour (although it seemed longer). The nurse gave him some additional pain medication to calm him down as he really seemed to be in pain. She wound up doing that twice to get his pain under control. He just layed in my arms. I don't think he has ever been that still. It completely broke my heart to see him in so much pain. I was not prepared for that as we had been told by the anesthesiologist that Matthew had been given a spinal to reduce and even eliminate his pain. So the amount of pain he was in suprised me. It seemed like the spinal only affected his legs. He was not able to put weight on them until late that night and the next day he was in so much pain that he couldn't stand at all.
So, basically the surgery was successful as far as we know at this point. Time will really tell. The surgeon was confident that the lump in his eyebrow was in fact a dermoid cyst. Thankfully we got it out because it would continue to grow and eventually affect his sight. It was not attached to his skull and did not have any major blood vessels surrounding it. Yeah!!! I was actually most worried about that part of the surgery.

Matthew's hernia in the lower part of his abdomen was repaired with no problem. Routine!

The right testicle (sorry if this embarrasses anyone) was much higher than the surgeon expected...he has not seen one this high before. It was also smaller then he expected...not sure what effect, if any, this will have. It took him a little time to unkink all the blood vessels and get proper blood flow. Only time will tell if this works. The surgeon really felt that this was something that happened in utero.

He was not able to pull the testicle all the way down, but it is in the sack. It could go back up again but we are praying against this, otherwise he will most likely have to have more surgery.

This part of the surgery was much more invasive. Instead of two to three stitches, he had 12 + glue just on his scrotum. The pediatrician was quite shocked when she saw that on Friday. She could tell that they had to do some pretty invasive work. Poor baby!

It was rough the first couple of days but today Matthew is mostly back to himself. We have to really watch him because he is feeling so much better he tends to over do it and suffers the consequences later.

We feel like we are on the road to recovery and we are getting our little buddy back. Please pray for complete healing for our little guy and that everything would function the way it is supposed to. I am so thankful for Matthew's wonderful surgeon at Children's and feel so blessed to feel the presence of God in such a powerful way when I really needed it.

Up next for Matthew....Wednesday we will set up his speech and physical therapy schedule and goals. Looking forward to all the positive changes that are coming.

Also, please pray for our beautiful daughter. She failed two hearing screenings at the doctor's office. They have referred her to Children's for some more extensive tests as they believe the cause of the hearing loss is nerve damage of some kind since her ears are perfect and she has never had an infection. Matthew will be going through hearing testing as well because of his speech deficiency and because of the fact the hearing loss could definitely be genetic, thanks to me. :)

Lots of fun here at our house.

Matthew hanging out on the couch later that night. He was so out of it and was unable to use his legs. I love these froggy jammies on him. Thanks again "Aunt" Laurie.