Caden’s Page

Our baby boy Josiah has arrived and with plenty of excitement tonight. All praise honor and glory to God for this beautiful baby boy. Josiah was born at 8:24 PM via c-section and he came in at 8 lbs 10 ozs and 20 1/2 inches. As you can see he has arrived in grand Osborne style with the head full of black hair. He is a beautiful little big baby. 😉 Okay, I know I said that once already.

Josiah is currently in the level II nursery. He was elevated to level II about an hour after birth when his respirations remained at about 80 bpm. They like for newborns to breath between 40 and 60 times per minute. He was also having a hard time with his O2 saturation levels that were hanging in the low 90s without oxygen.

As of about 1AM Josiah was sill on oxygen. The pediatrician felt that there was a need to go ahead an start IV fluids and precautionary antibiotics in the event his breathing problems were related to an infection. His blood work showed a white count in the normal range but on the upper end. His chest x-ray was normal and his heart sounds great.  PRAISE GOD!  Can I get an Amen?

2:30am

The nurses were not able to get an IV in so they consulted the neonatal specialist. The neonatal lady stopped by about 30 minutes ago to get permission to put a central line in through his umbilical veins. There really wasn’t much of a choice on our part. Even though he is on room air now, his respirations are still not where the pediatrician wanted to see them before she would allow him to go to the breast and they still needed IV access to anyway to give the antibiotics. They had already tried sticking him in every limb plus his head with no success. As of this moment they have successfully placed the central line and can start fluids and antibiotics. The most discouraging thing for us about this central line is that they will require him to be off of it for 12 hours before he can go to the breast. That does not add up for me, but I will sort it our with them in the morning. How will he get nutrition and hydration during those 12 hours of he is not allowed to eat and he no longer has the line. Anyway… Sherry and I wanted so much to get him to breastfeed and now that window off opportunity in the first hour(s) has once again been taken away. Now it looks like he will be nearly 24 hours old before he gets to eat if he can get off the central line first thing in the AM.

Sherry and I

Mommy is doing much better physically than emotionally. I have not been much help emotionally. I think I may have cried more than her tonight. Sherry has not been able to hold her baby boy Josiah yet and will not be able to for a while due to the central lines. This one little thing has hurt me to see more than just about anything else. We have both had some pretty emotional moments this evening as you might imagine. The events leading up to the delivery will make for a whole story in itself.

The delivery went good for Sherry physically, but there was a scare when Josiah came out. It was a cross between what I felt when Caden was born and somewhat similar to what Pastor Josh described in his sermon last week. Josiah was fairly discolored and not crying for a while and the nurse and respiratory therapist were frantically working on him to get him to breathing for what seemed like minutes. He did finally give a couple of good cries that comforted Sherry and me.

Sherry has had one other little point of aggravation tonight. After finally learning that there was no chance that Josiah would be allowed to be breastfed tonight she has just been given a breast pump. The aggravating part has to do with hospital procedure. They will only issued her attachments for pumping on one side at a time. The pump will do both sides and they have the kits, but they won’t issue her another hose and bottle kit. It is the exact same model of pump she used when Caden was born.

We are so thankful to God for giving us this healthy little boy. I say healthy because most of what is going on now is precautionary. There has been some rabbit trails suggested by the neonatal unit who want to rule out DiGeorge. They have suggested checking Josiah’s calcium level for abnormalities because that is a very common presentation of Di George. I asked what would be next if the calcium was a little off. Would it be an electrocardiogram or a swallow study that follows? I ended up telling them to cut to the chase and pull blood work for a genetics test to look for the 22q11.2 deletion. Let’s just say that this subject hit a BIG nerve with me. If I could get my hands around Satan’s neck right now, I am sure I could make him squeal like a pig. I guess if I want to be brutally honest with myself, Satan probably won a few points against me tonight.

Prayer Request

Please pray for the following:

– Rapid healing for Sherry
– Blood test results that show a clean bill of health for Josiah
– A compassionate staff
– Peace of mind and rest for Sherry
– Peace of mind for Riley and Caden

AS Riley and Caden left the hospital with Ms. Audra our super awesome sitter this evening, I told Riley and Caden that they would get to meet their baby brother in the morning. I was anticipating a first picture to be with all three boys together. You know, the “My Three Sons” theme. It might be a couple of days before I get that picture now. In the meantime here are a couple more pictures for you. You can click on any of them for larger copies.

Is that an okay way to say that our newest addition to the family seems to be comfortable where he is for right now?  Sherry had an OB-GYN appointment today and showed no signs of labor.  The c-section is planned for next Monday 8/13 at 10am unless little JJ decides to get some fresh air a little sooner.

Caden was taken into the doctor today to get an antibiotic.  Sherry, Caden, and I have been fighting some nasal congestion crud that we think we picked up at the water park on the 28th of July.  Sherry and I have been battling this bug with OTC drugs, but our OTC options for Caden are fairly limited.  Our super resilient Riley boy has not had the first sniffle, Praise God.

Please keep Sherry and the baby (JJ) in your prayers as we move closer to a delivery date.  Please pray for a delivery without complications.  I also want to ask you to pray for a couple of kids this week that have touched our hearts and impacted our family greatly.  Please lift up the names Levi and Callie to the Lord and ask for Him to show his healing power through these children this week.  The families of both children also need wisdom, discernment, and strength as they face medical giants.  Please pray that they receive a peace that passes all understanding.

Before I get into the details about today’s OB visit, I want to give a little history of the past few weeks. Sherry reminded me after the last post that I had not blogged about the big move. That big move being that Caden (Big Boy Caden) is now sharing a room with Big Boy Riley. We moved these guys in together on 7/14. This was the first weekend after the baby shower. The picture is of Caden during his first night of asleep in his crib in his new room that he shares with Riley. It is a new room for both of them since Riley’s old room was being converted into the new nursery. Caden’s old room will now become the new office/guest room. (Just add air mattress) Right now we are working on the behavior issues associated with them sharing a room. Caden is very funny and Riley has not been able to restrain himself from getting engaged into bedtime fun of laughing, talking, and even jumping on the beds. In the meantime, we are letting Riley start his night off in our bed or on the floor in the baby’s room until Caden goes to sleep. I had a little talk with a much more experienced dad this weekend at the GFI National Conference in Chicago who confirmed that our current way of dealing with this situation is probably best. More on the conference in a minute.

Baby Update

The fetal echo cardiogram was the non-event that we hoped for and expected today. As you can see we did get some pretty cool pictures out of it. That is a foot by his left eye if you can’t tell. The final word was that there are no signs of heart defects, the baby’s bladder and stomach look great, there is a healthy amount of amniotic fluid around the baby, and so on. Baby O is showing absolutely no signs of Di George or anything else for that matter. PRAISE GOD! He is currently measuring an estimated 6 lbs 3 onces with Sherry being 35 weeks and 2 days into this pregnancy.

The last picture shown here on the right is of this little guy’s hair. The ultrasound technicians pointed out the amount of hair on his head. Sherry could actually see it swishing around in the amniotic fluid. I still don’t see it, but maybe some of you can. Sherry did have an exam and is showing no signs of progressing toward labor.

GFI Conference

I spent part of the last week in Chicago…well it was actually Naperville, IL. That is like telling someone you went to Charleston verses Goose Creek, SC. Everyone knows where Chicago, IL is, but not as many know where Naperville it located. Anyway, that was the location of the GFI (Growing Families International) 2007 National Conference. Sherry had to stay home because…well…read above. She is 35 weeks pregnant. She did want to be there and boy did she really miss a big one. It was literally the largest one I have attended yet in terms of attendance and information. There are a bunch of things happening in the GFI ministry and I have a been involved in some of the online changes. A new web site called GrowingKids.org was launched during the conference. I have been involved in the development of this site and I am extremely excited about all that is going on in the GFI ministry. You should stay tuned to GrowingKids.org web site to keep up with the things that are happening in GFI. Gary and Anne Marie answered the bi retirement question during the conference and added a ton of material to support that answer.

For me, even though I did assist Mr. Ezzo in presenting a couple of workshops, I must say that the most moving part of the conference for me came in the first few minutes after registration and just a few minutes after the last general session ended. I am sorry Gary, I loved the workshops and I am more excited than ever, but I hope you will understand. Please just read on since I have not had a chance to share this with you.

It was only minutes after arriving at the conference while having some refreshments that I turned to see a pair of familiar faces. Chills running all over my body, jumped to go an greet some dear friends that I had not seen in a couple of years. Eric and Karen Olyejar were there with Rich and Julie Young the night they opened Caden’s chest back up just a few hours after his heart surgery at six days old. Our family had disbursed from the hospital several hours after Caden had been stabilized in the PCICU. We were all alone when the cardiologist came out and told us that they weren’t sure Caden would make it through the night. They had done all they could do for him. Eric, Karen, Rich, and Julie came to our rescue and mopped us up out of the puddle of tears we found ourselves in that night. Eric and Karen attended the Growing Kids God’s Way class along with us and many other couples in the month leading up to Caden’s birth. Rich and Julie led the class and were the first people I called after calling our family. Eric was a resident at MUSC back then. He and Karen moved their family to Arizona as a result of taking a job out there when Caden was about six months old. I had not seen them since they left Charleston and had no clue they were coming to Chicago.

The minutes following the conference left me in tears as I bid a farewell to Eric and Karen. It was just a few minutes later that I was approached by a young mom who wanted to talk web site stuff. I felt something odd as she approached me and began to introduce herself, but I did not know what the feeling was all about until a few sentences into our conversation. The feeling is much like what I have experienced in the past when I knew it was the presence of the Holy Spirit. As we began to talk, this young mom brushed past a few little tidbits of information that jumped out at me and nearly took me off my feet. I am paraphrasing, but she said something like, “we have struggled with the issues surrounding our 3 1/2 year old son’s diagnosis of Di George. He was on a feeding tube until he was 2 1/2…” I was nearly speechless, but I was able to get out a response something like, “I have a 2 1/2 year old who has been diagnosed with 22q11.2. He is still tube fed, had four heart defects at birth, did not walk until after his second birthday…” She looked as if she was going to pass out and then she burst into tears at about the same time I did. Her husband was only a few feet away and noticed both of us crying and came to see what had his wife so upset. Then we were all a pile of emotions as we shared with each other what little we could before our departure. I believe every single hair on my body was standing straight up. I had chill bumps on top of chill bumps. I am not sharing their names because I have not asked if it will be okay to do so.

We exchanged contact information and have been in contact via email already since my arrival home yesterday. I shared this with Sherry over the phone about meeting these guys and she cried. I was reading their contact information from my notebook while on the plane and cried again. It was an incredible experience to meet a like-minded family who understands so well what we have been through over the past 2 1/2 years.

The trip home was also VERY eventful in its own way. I will share at a later time how an eight week old baby got me a first class upgrade all the way back to Charleston.

God Bless!!!

First things first. Happy Birthday Nana!!! This picture was taken on July 1st. (click the picture for a larger image) Nana’s birthday was this past Sunday.

ENT Update

We took Caden in for an ENT follow up yesterday. We are now at three weeks post surgery. The ENT took a look at the surgery site in the back of Caden’s mouth and also checked to make sure the ear tubes were still in place from over a year ago. All looked fine. The discussion moved pretty quickly into a head scratching session for us and the ENT doctor as far as swallowing is concerned. “Caden hasn’t read the 22q11.2 swallowing chapter in the medical books.” I believe that is what the doctor said in response to one of my comments about how doctors assured us when Caden was born that he would be swallowing by his first birthday and the feeding tube would no longer be needed. This ENT was not on the scene until about a year after Caden’s birth.

The end result of the ENT visit was this. We don’t know anything new other than the fact that the surgery location is healing as expected. There have been no drastic outward signs of swallowing or speech improvement. Caden’s speech is at least as good as it was before the surgery and maybe even a little louder. The speech will require some therapy to capitalize on the work done during the surgery. The swallowing will require a MBS (modified barium swallow) to gage improvements. The ENT confirmed again that he injected botox into Caden’s saliva glands and his UES (upper esophagus sphincter). We are waiting on the nasal saliva drainage to decrease as the botox continues to take effect. The doc said that it can take a few weeks so we should not be concerned about there being little improvement in that area. I keep reminding myself that what we see is not what we place our faith in. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) AND “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9:23) AND most of all, when the doctors run out of answers, it is all going to be just fine because…“It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in man.” (Psalm 118:8)

Baby Update

All is well with Sherry and the baby. Sherry is at approximately 34 1/2 weeks along now. Sherry’s next OB appointment is Monday the 23rd. That will be the day of the fetal echo cardiogram. Her appointments will be weekly until the baby is born.

One Last Note

In the midst of the business of the past couple of weeks, the Lord called home one of my favorite little ladies of all time. My Aunt Dollie went on to be with the Lord on July 4th. She was my Papa’s older sister. She was there with my mom, my sister and me when Papa died just a few months after Caden was born. I took an trip up to Clinton, SC on Friday evening July 6th to pay my respects to her children and sister Aunt Mattie. She has always been a light in my life. She was a sweet little lady who loved the Lord. I spent some of my summer days with her and her late husband during my childhood.

The picture was taken at a little family gathering in July 2005.

Caden is doing great after two weeks of recovery. We are scheduled to visit the ENT doctor for a follow up on Monday afternoon. Caden did go through several days with some pretty nasty congestion. He got a fever one night late last week but it was easily knocked out with OTC medication. Caden was already on a broad antibiotic after the sphincterplasty and the pediatrician did not see a need to treat the fever and congestion with another antibiotic. We did spend several nights up all night monitoring Caden right after discahrge. Praise God he has been sleeping sound for about a week now with no need for additional monitoring.

Caden seems to be much more vocal since the surgery. That is about the extent of outward changes as a result of the surgery. We will not know the full affect of the surgery on swallowing until we get another MBS (Modified Barium Swallow). That will likely be scheduled in the coming weeks.

Baby Update

Sherry and the baby are both doing great. Sherry will be 34 weeks into the pregnancy in a few days. We are seeing and feeling lots of movement. All OB appointments have been great. Sherry’s belly is growing as expected, the baby’s heart rate is great, and Sherry’s weight gain has been within norms.

We had a baby shower this past weekend. It may be the first one in history where more men showed up than women. That was actually by design. I needed some help taking down wallpaper and painting. That was exactly what I got. Trace, Brian, Gary, and Chad all come to my rescue. Chad even came back the next day to help me finish up. It was great.

We have done two hospital tours in the last three nights. We don’t know if Sherry will deliver at Roper downtown or at Roper St. Francis. There are a couple of factors in that decision. One is the construction at St. Francis in the labor and delivery area, but it is more likely to be affected by the location of the doctor at the time of delivery. Right now we are looking at a planned C-section on August 13th. That may change after they get some measurement of the baby on July 23rd. The doctors are finally going to get their fetal echo cardiogram. The echo is purely procedural for the OB practice. There are no reasons for this to be done other than there being a prior pregnancy with multiple heart defects. Please pray that the echo will show the doctors what we already know, the baby’s heart is in perfect form as God designed it and fully functional.

Thank you again for your prayers. Please read the previous post that details a few personal thank you notes that I wanted to share with you.  Please keep in mind that the Thanks To All post was written over a week ago.

I received a ton of emails and calls from friends in the past few days. Please forgive us for not responding if you have not yet heard from Sherry or me. It has been a busy week to say the least and it is not all the way over. Caden has required some close monitoring due to some cold like symptoms. We suspect this is where the 104 degree fever came from Friday morning. Caden has been on a pretty broad antibiotic since Friday, but has not yet completely shaken the congestion. I am writing this email as I take my shift to monitor Caden to make sure he does not require any suctioning. I will pass the torch to Sherry in a few hours. Anyway, that is enough of excuses for not responding to you all.

Our friends Brian and Elisa have been an awesome blessing to our family this past week. Riley spent two days with them and loved it. Several of my buddies and Sherry’s friends have called and/or emailed to offer whatever help we need. Pastor Phil’s wife Sherry has continued to remind us that she and the staff of Seacoast Summerville are there to help us in any way we need. Our next door neighbor Tom cut our grass this past week. Our friend Rich met us and walked in from the parking lot with us back on Wednesday morning as he came to visit his dad for the 79th day straight. His dad has been in the ICU since a surgery three month ago. Rich is an elder at Seacoast and he and his wife coordinate the GFI parenting ministry for all of Seacoast. Rich took time to pray with us before we checked Caden into surgery last Wednesday. Our friend Rusty who is a doctor at MUSC stopped by to reassure us that we were in his prayers. He has followed Caden’s progress this past week and emailed us several times with ongoing encouragement. My friend Trace has keep close tabs on us too. Trace is a lunch buddy and a fellow super geek. The prayer warriors from the Seacoast healing prayer team and many others from around the country have been on their knees for us since long before our arrival at the hospital. I have received several emails from folks reminding us that they are actively praying for Caden and our family. I am most thankful for the earnest prayer support for our family from all.

Our friend Zoe has been in constant contact with us since before the surgery making sure our needs were met. Zoe is a fellow member of a small group study on healing prayer that Sherry and I have been participating in for about six months now.

The efforts of Zoe, Rich, the Gollatz family, and my friend Trace are all great examples how the small group philosophy at Seacoast Church is supposed to work. We have been in parenting classes or small groups studies with all of these folks. They have all stood at our side along with family and many other friends when times have been tough.

Thank you all so much for praying for Caden, our family, and the others I have asked you to pray for this past week. I knew as I cried out for someone to call the doctor last Wednesday in the recovery room that, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7. I also knew that there were many praying for us at that very moment. It is so comforting to know that others are standing in the gap for you when the enemy strikes.

I elaborated on how much our support system has meant to us in a post over on The Land of Ozz.

We arrived home at about 11:30 am this morning.  Caden is doing great.  He has had no fever for almost 36 hours.  He was so happy to get out of that hospital.  He wiggled his feet and swayed in his head back and forth all the way home.  He went straight for the Geo-Trax train when he came through the door.  He is playing with grandma, grandpa, and Riley.   I am off to bed to play a little catch up on my sleep.

Not only do we remain in the hospital, but we were moved to a very familiar place in the Children’s Hospital. We are back in 7C, the pediatric cardiology unit. It was about mid-night last night when the charge nurse over on 8D came and asked me if I would be willing to move to 7C. We were in a room that see needed for a sick kid that I think was in the ER at the time. I really did not want to move in the middle of the night, but Caden was doing great and I remembered what it was like to sit in the ER for 10 hours waiting for a room to become available. I agreed to move. I only asked that we not have to put Caden on telemetry just because we were moving to a cardiac ward. They agreed and we moved to 7C at about 2AM Friday morning. I carried Caden while the nurse rolled his bed. Caden barely woke up during the whole ordeal. He was back to sleep within minutes.

At about 4AM Caden woke up crying. I jumped up to check on him and noticed his heart rate was pretty high. It was about 170 bpm. He runs about 115 when he is sleeping and about 130 when awake. When I reached in to comfort him I could tell he was hot as a firecracker. The nurse assistant checked his temperature under the arm and it was only reading about 102. I ahve a pretty good feel for his temperature and told them I thought he was hotter than that. The went ahead and took it again but did it rectal this time. It was 104.3 rectal. It had been four hours since his last dose of Tylenol with Codeine so they administered another dose. They ordered some blood work to see if there was an infection having to do with the surgery. It took about an hour for the fever to drop back down below the 100.5 threshold that tends to make the doctors nervous. Caden didn’t sleep much more throughout the morning. The residents that came in about 6AM ordered some more blood tests. This required a new poke for Caden since they could not get anymore out of the IV port that was still in from the surgery and had been used a few hours earlier to draw blood.

It was about noon when we were informed that we would need to move back to 8D. The 7C unit was full and they ahd a kid ready to move up from the PCICU. Caden had shown no signs of fever prior to the move to 7C so the cardiologist were not exactly happy with having a kid up here with a fever that was not related to a cardiac issue. We were waiting to hear from Caden’s doctor to see if there was any chance we would get to go home after all. We asked the nurse to hold off the move until we heard from Caden’s ENT doctor. She agreed to do her best to hold off the move as long as possible.

It was early afternoon by the time Caden’s ENT got free to come talk to us. He told us he wanted to keep Caden until we saw a 24 hour period with Caden’s temperature below 100.5. Sherry and I were really ready to get out of the hospital and felt that we could manage a fever at home. While Caden’s ENT understood our frustration and trusted our ability to care for Caden at home, he could not be certain that the fever was unrelated to the surgery that happened less than 48 hours earlier. He reminded us of how dangerous some blood infections could be for cardiac patients and told us he would rather keep Caden here until that was ruled out. While I was not thrilled at staying in the hospital, I agreed not to press the discharge any further. Sherry was more resistant than me about staying, but agreed as well.

The good news is that the cardiologists decided to discharge a different kid on 7C and that freed up a bed for the kiddo who was going to be moving up from the PCICU. That meant we got to stay put in out current location and avoided being moved to our third room in a 24 hour period.

I went home and took about a four hour nap. Sherry’s mom and dad decided to come in from Atlanta after hearing how things went over night. They arrived at about 3pm and took Riley to the park and then went to visit Caden and take Sherry some dinner. I came back to relieve Sherry for the night at about 8PM.

Caden did pretty well throughout the day. He played, laughed, and took the tube feeds just like he normally would at home. His temperature has remained below 100.5. He has had a few spells of cold sweats and there has been an increase in secretions today. We are suctioning Caden completely different as a result of the surgery and we are requiring him to work a little harder to clear the stuff from his throat.

Caden did not go to sleep until almost midnight tonight. I let him join me in watching a little bit of Facing the Giants after Sherry left since he was so wide awake. He lost interest and I finally just paused the movie and turned off all the lights to try and force him to get settled. It took a could of hours, but it finally worked. I finished the movie later using a headset to keep from waking up Caden.

The movie helped to remind me to stop looking at the circumstances. Sherry and I had a talk before she left. We discussed whether this surgery was the right thing to do. We agreed it was the right thing to do and that the questions were more than likely tricks of the devil trying to distract us from seeing what God is doing. Caden has had almost nothing come out of his nose since Wednesday afternoon. That is after two years of seeing almost everything come out his nose. I am not exaggerating either. This kid has poured out nearly 100% of his saliva through his nose in the past 2 1/2 years, even when teething. This tells us that there was a significant change in Caden’s anatomy between the back of his throat and his nasal passage.

Even though we are not excited about being in the hospital, I am sure this situation is not a surprise to God. I think Pastor Greg said something to that affect during his recent sermon on why we must suffer as Christians. I shared a little of this with Caden’s nurse last night before we got moved to 7C.   She shared with me about the loss of her husband to cancer. I told her that I believed that Christians see so much suffering simply because they are a threat to selfish and cruel ways of this world.

Please continue to lift our little boy up in your prayers.  We thank you all for your support.

It was my call to stay in the hospital with Caden over night even though we technically could have gone home with him tonight. The bleeding has all but stopped and Caden has met all of the doctor’s criteria for discharge. That said, the doctor was okay if we wanted to wait until the morning to go home. The main reason I wanted to stay here tonight is because I am still not over the events of last night with all of the bleeding. I was also concerned about the late hour for the discharge. Caden and Riley would have not been able to get into bed until after 10pm. Chances were very high that we would not have been able to get the medications from the pharmacy tonight so we would have had to make it to morning without anything more than OTC medications.

I also wanted to watch Caden for another 12 hours or so with the O2 monitor. His saturations have been hanging in the mid to upper 90’s without oxygen all day. Even so, by the time I got back to his room tonight, his heart rate was up by about 30 beats per minute as compared to last night and his sats were down in the low 90’s. The elevated heart rate generally means he is uncomfortable. Even though he got some pain medicine (Tylenol w/codeine) at about 7pm, he did not go to sleep until almost 9pm. His sats and heart rate did finally settled down after he went to sleep. We have told the nurse to pull the trigger on the discharge papers at 9am tomorrow morning. That will give Sherry and Riley and chance to get a good night’s sleep before collecting Caden and me. Hopefully I can knock down some uninterrupted sleep later in the morning.

Caden did get to have a some fun today.  Sherry took him down to the atrium.  Caden got to see his former EI (early interventionist) who now works full time for MUSC.  Caden has been in pretty good spirits today and has played a good bit.  He has shown very few signs of pain and has only been getting Tylenol with Codeine every 4-6 hours for pain since leaving recovery yesterday.

Prayer Requests

I did find the father of the little girl who had surgery yesterday. The dad told me that his little girl has been diagnosed with a very rare genetic disorder. Much more rare than 22q11.2. While talking to this dad, one of our old PCICU friends walked into the waiting room. Both of these dads are in law enforcement in the upstate and even shared some mutual acquaintances. It was a great opportunity for the dad of this newborn to hear from two of us dads who have been in his shoes that there is hope for these little kids who seem to be hanging by a thread. It sounds like the this little girl is facing some very similar heath issues as Caden. I prayed with this dad and gave him our contact information. I will also tell my sister to pass the word back through her friends that we are serious about helping in anyway needed.  Please continue to pray for the Patterson family.

Praise Report

It was great to talk to the father of Caden’s little friend from back in 2004. His daughter is the little girl I wrote about frequently right after Caden was born. She was born a few days before Caden and she got VERY sick at one point. Here is a little snip of what I wrote about her back in November 2004.

“Caden’s little friend that I mention every so often is the only child in the PCICU who has been there longer than Caden. I talked to her parents at length last night and it looks like she may get to transfer to her own room in a few days. Praise the Lord. I was kidding with her parents a little last night. I told them that Caden is following their daughter’s every move so they had better get moving. She was born three days before Caden. She had her surgery three days before Caden. Who knows, maybe Caden will go up to 7C three days after her. That would be great wouldn’t it?”

This little friend of Caden ended up being discharged just over a week prior to Caden back in 2004. We have run into this family every time they have been back at MUSC for a surgery. This should be their last trip after completing the three separate surgeries required to repair a left hypo plastic heart. By the way, that is about as serious of a heart defect as they come. The surgeon basically ends up converting the heart into a two chamber heart to save the child’s life. She had her third surgery last Thursday and is already in her own room and doing great. Praise God!