It has been an exciting couple of weeks around here. First of all, Caden is doing great. I will get right to the good stuff. Caden busted out into a full blown crawl late last week. Sherry saw him take off across the living room for the first time on Friday. Her mom and dad were in town on Saturday morning and got to see him do it a few more times. I was finally able to catch it on video after church on Sunday. This is an adorable video and really shows Caden’s mobility and how much his personality is just blossoming. Watch closely for a few big smiles as he crawls across the room. Sherry says that Caden is now racing through toddler phase and he is loving it.
Click HERE to see the video that lasts 1 minute and 8 seconds. It is 24 MB and will take a pretty fast connection to view it.
Sherry is getting a daily workout trying to keep up with this little guy. She is well prepared for the task now that she has lost well over 25 pounds in the past several motnhs. The big secret is a combination of working out at Curves a few times per week as well as maintaining a very healthy diet that she loves.
There have been a couple of big appointments for Caden since my last post. For one Caden has started back with feeding therapy. Caden is loving the idea of eating. He chews on his cheese puffs and loves his chocolate pudding. He will sit in his highchair and mimic us by making chewing motions while watching the rest of our family have dinner. Caden’s desire to eat will not be the factor in hanging up the feeding tube when the time comes.
Caden also had a cardiology appointment last week. Everything went fine for the most part. The puzzling thing is that the cardiologist sent Caden home on a 24 hour heart monitor. We were told by the cardiologist that Caden experienced more heart blocks during the time when he wore the heart monitor at home after the PCICU visit at the end of March. They did say that the episodes detected at home were first-degree heart blocks which are much less serious than the higher level heart blocks that Caden experienced after the heart catheter. Caden has been hospitalized once since he was last on a home heart monitor. During that hospitalization, Caden was in the emergency room and cardiology was notified that he had been admitted. They did not take the opportunity to inform us about the results from the last heart monitor or to put Caden on telemetry during that visit. That really tells us that the heart blocks were not that big of a deal after all.
Another big change for Caden is the fact that his car seat has been turned around facing foward. He loves it. He has been over 20 lbs for several months and the physical therapist have no problems with his head control. He is as strong as an ox.
The thing around the house in recent weeks had to do with our air conditioning system. It had been broken since the middle of March. We went through five technicians and over ten separate visits by those men to finally get it repaired. It took three visits by one technician alone on Saturday to finally nail down the problem which was a strainer in a three inch piece of copper tubing in the attic. Thank God for A/C. While I spent many summers in South Carolina as a child without A/C, I am now fully spoiled. Plus, back then I lived in the upstate where it was a little cooler. Well, maybe not. I remember one period of about two weeks in the mid 1980’s when it did not get below 95 degrees all night long.
Anyway, I want to thank you all for checking in on Caden and the rest of our family. Your prayers are greatly appreciated. God has been so good to our family. I pray that you can experience God’s blessings in your family as well.
Local News: There are ongoing Biblical based parenting classes offered in the local Charleston, SC area. Check out the GFI Charleston web site for more information. New classes were added to the schedule today!