Drakes
Please pray for the Drakes! Amy called me late this afternoon from the hospital. Amy was involved in a car crash this afternoon with her two boys in the back seat. I had asked you to pray for the Drakes last week because Amy (pregnant with twins) had been put on modified bed rest. She had been hospitalized a couple times prior to this week due to pre-term labor. She has been given modified bed rest and has been doing about as good as a mother can do with two children under the age of five in the house. She has only been going out to drop off and pick up her boys from people who have been helping her watch them while she rests. She had just picked them up today when her car was struck from the rear. Amy is reporting that everyone is doing fine. The twins are showing good heart rates and movement. The crash did trigger contractions and she has been admitted to the hospital for observation. I am pretty sure the Drakes are in the same boat as us with no family in the immediate area. Sherry took them dinner to the hospital tonight while I made contact with our church to make sure the Drake’s small group knows what is going on with them. Sherry said Pastor Phil was on his way into the hospital when she was departing. The Drakes need to know that God is there with tonight. It is way too easy to fall victim to fear in time like this. Please ask God to make his presence known to them tonight. Please ask for God’s protection over this family tonight. Please thank God for his protection over this family already today as no one was seriously injured.
Caden
We have a date for the botox treatment to fix Caden’s swallowing problems. The treatment will be performed at MUSC on August 3, 2005. Caden will be hospitalized for a short time due to the fact that they will need to put him under general anesthesia. In adults this procedure would be done as an outpatient appointment. Small children are not able to sit still for it to be performed safely. They will want to monitor Caden for a day or two after coming off of the drugs used in the anesthesia. Caden should show a response to the botox within a couple of days.
Caden has also been scheduled for a MBS (Modified Barium Swallow) on July 29 and then again approximately two weeks after the botox treatment. I actually received a package from MUSC this past week with a CD containing copies of the video files captured during Caden’s three previous MBS screenings. I requested this to send to The Center for Pediatric Feeding & Swallowing Disorders in New Jersey. There is a specialty clinic in NJ to help kids like Caden learn to swallow even though he has never taken anything by mouth. The clinic in NJ will just be on board to support Caden’s primary speech and occupational therapists who are already working with Caden at MUSC and through BabyNet .
Caden continues to improve with his motor skills. He is trying to sit up, but still requires some assistance. Sherry has witnessed him rolling over again recently.
We have been very blessed with caregivers for the next few days. Sherry and I will be attending the Growing Families International (GFI) National Leadership & Alumni Conference being held here in Charleston this weekend. Sherry has not only been able to get care for our boys during the daytime, but she has been able to find help over night for watching Caden on Thursday, Friday and Saturday so that we can both get sleep each night. Riley is not that hard to find a sitter for, but there are still not very many people that we can leave Caden with. The list of people who we consider to be suitable and capable of watching Caden is much longer than the list of those who are comfortable watching him. A BIG thanks goes out to Sherry’s parents, Stephanie and Gerald, and Aunt Addie.
One Year Ago Today
This date 7/13 marks a one year ago that we were first alerted of problems with Sherry’s pregnancy. I attended Sherry’s OB/GYN appointment as usual. They did an ultrasound and found some things that called for a referral to MUSC for a Level II ultrasound. They did not tell us much that day other than the things they were seeing could be interpreted as soft indicators for DOWNS Syndrome. Little did I know that this was the beginning of the most difficult and rewarding year of my life.
I left Sherry with tears in both of our eyes later that afternoon as I departed on a flight to California. I would be gone for tens days as the leader of one of the largest teams ever dispatched from the project that I work on. My team was tasked with one of the most complex installations that any of us had been exposed to in recent years especially considering most of the team had little to no experience on the computer security equipment that we were installing. We successfully installed and configured this equipment to communicate between nine different military installations across southern California and Arizona in a ten day period. It was very difficult to stay focused during that task. I did not tell anyone on my team what was going on during that visit. It was not my first life changing event while working a high pressure job.
The folks back at MUSC were pressuring Sherry to go on in for the Level II ultrasound. We were both glad that Sherry waited for me to return. It was during that visit to MUSC on July 29, 2004 when Caden’s heart defect was very accurately diagnosed.
I can remember it like it was yesterday. We left the room where an echocardiogram had just been performed to verify the Level II diagnosis. I was in shock and did not make it to the elevator before completely breaking down both emotionally and physically. The nurse who was escorting us to the elevator immediately took us into the closest room she could find vacant. It took me a little while to get myself gathered back up. There have been quite a few more of those moments in the past year and some in the past couple of months. I thank God for my experiences in this past year. I have grown in ways that I would have never known without the circumstances we have faced with Caden. Caden’s life has probably touched more people’s lives in one year than most of us will affect in a fifty years.