December 2008

Well its been a while and a lot has happened! Zachary has had a few more surgeries since my last update including having his hernia repaired and a circumcision yesterday. He is recovering well from that. We are anxiously awaiting Christmas time! It is such a great time of the year and we are so thankful that we have such a close family to spend it with! Zachary now weighs nearly 15 pounds!!! He is so big and just smiling all the time! He loves to spend time in his Johnny Jumper and excersaucer. He is one growing boy! He will be continuing with early intervention and therapy as the new year comes. We have set a goal for him to be sitting on his own by the time his birthday comes around! Thank you all for continuing to check up on us! Love to all during this holiday season and remember to keep CHRIST in Christmas this year!

October 29, 2008

Hello everyone! Zachary has been having some exciting days lately! Everyday he seems to be stronger and progressing! At his last doctors visit he weighed 13 pounds!!! Also, they took his measurements and based it on an 8 month old. His length and height were in the 21% range which is great! I'm sure its no surprise to anyone that his head is in the 80% range!! Ha Ha! That's a Stafford for ya! Also, he is eating peas and carrots and really enjoys them! YUCK! He enjoys sitting up and is gaining a lot of strength in his neck! We are so excited that he is doing so well! We love you all! God Bless!

October 7, 2008

Hello there! Zachary is doing so great! His last doctors check up went wonderful and the latest surgery has seemed to be a good one for him! He weighs 12 pounds 3 ounces now and the doctor still says that he would like to see him bigger. He is now eating rice cereal twice a day and making more of a mess than ever! He has truly been so wonderful lately and we are so thankful! Praise God for saving our little boy! We love you all!

What a time!!

Well we have been in TN for 5 weeks now and have been admitted to the hospital 4 times! whew! This last time, we were in the hospital for 12 days because Zachary had another infection in his CSF. For that time, they put in some external shunts to drain the fluid while he fought the infection.

We are home now and he will be on IV antibiotics for the next three weeks. I get to play nurse for a little while! ;) We are confident that these shunts will last us for a while! Please continue to pray for that!

On a happier note, Zachary is starting to smile more often and not just because of gas anymore!! :) I will hopefully be able to update with happier news in the future!

Another surgery...

As you know, Zachary went into surgery last weekend to have his shunt revised. Against my better judgement, I went ahead and took him home on the doctors orders. Yesterday morning after a feeding, Zachary started to choke and I called 911 to take him to the hospital. When they assessed him, they told me I had waited too long to bring him into the hospital and that his shunt was not working properly and he needed immediate surgery. They took him into surgery yesterday afternoon and he did beautifully! I can definitely tell a difference this time. One of the signs that the shunt isn't working properly is that his eyes will look downward consistently. Now after the surgery, I can see his beautiful eyes and he just looks so much healthier. He now has two shunts. One on the left, and one on the right. We are so thankful that the Lord can speak wisdom into us and next time, I'm not going to ingnore it. Thank you all for your continued prayers for Zachary and his health!

Long time coming....

Well as you can see it has been a tremendously long time since we have posted on here! There has been a lot going on since little Zachary came home! First off, we have finally gotten home to Tennessee and are in the process of buying our first home! Also, after being home for a week, I measured Zachary's head circumference and it was up 2.5 cm in one week. They told me to keep a close eye on that and that it shouldn't be more than 2 a week. Well, I thought I was being over paranoid so I went ahead and took him to the E.R. at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital to get him checked out. Turns out my motherly instinct was right on! They took him into surgery the very next morning to fix his shunt cause it had malfunctioned! He recovered beautifully but is still having some pain. He is getting so big! He now weighs 10 pounds 2 ounces! Camden has been such a wonderful big brother! He is constantly on passy duty if Zachary starts to get upset! He says he loves being a big brother! We are truly blessed and are happy we can start to move forward with our lives as a family! Love to all!

Going home!