Pumpkin Patch

Last night we made out way to the Church Pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. We had tried a couple other night but it seemed that every time we tried it would rain that evening. Last night the rain held off long enough for us to get there and have a little fun picking out the perfect pumpkins.
Garet has a great time picking out his pumpkin. He just thought it was to cool to bang on the pumpkins like a drum. They all made different sounds when he hit them.

Daddy thought it would be fun to set Garet on top of the pumpkins. I was not sure at first but he loved it and actually thought it was funny. By the time we got home it was to late to carve them. So that is our goal for tonight. I am going to attempt to bake the pumpkin seeds so we can have a taste treat when we are all finished.

Garet is getting so bid

Just thought I would show some cute pics to everyone. The above picture is from a night when we were up at a local resturant listening to Black Cleek Risen (A Band that we have become good friends with over the past couple of years). Garet was styling in Katies sun glasses.

The other two pictures are right before bed time. Garet likes to chill on the couch with mommy and daddy while we try to whind down before bed. The past couple of night that has not been as easy to do. He has learned to scoot al around so he does not want to sit in one place for any lenth of time.

we will be back with more picts and I am trying to figure out how to put video up as well. We have some funny ones to show you all.

Home Again YEAH!!

Yeah we are home again. Yesterday Garet got to come home around 2 in the afternoon. His cough is still pretty bad but all the test that would indicate that anything else was going wrong with his heart have came back negative so there was no reason for us to stay at the hospital. There final observation was that it was a case of broncialitis (I am sure this is spelt wrong). So they have added 2 more meds to his list for the next couple of days. H e is still on the breathing treatments as well, but now it is only when he starts to get really stuffed up. He was so excited to be home and back with his all his toys and be able to move around again. While he was in a good mood for a little while we took some pics of him in his car his Uncle Pete restored for him.

The last time we tried to take pics in this car we had to hold him up and someone had to be in the pics with him. This time he can sit up all on his own.

He can even make it go backwards. We were joking that his car was broke since it could only go in reverse. I think it will be a while before he learns how to peddle to make it go forward.

He had so much fun sitting in it and pushing himself backwards little bits at a time. Well again thank you so much to everyone who is keeping us in there prayers. It really makes a difference and helps us keep our moods up while we were sitting in the hospital only being able to see outside threw a window. Hopefully the rest of the cold and flu season will be a lot less dramatic. I would love to be able to just post happy pictures on here for a while.

Long last week and weekend

This is the first chance that I have had to sit down at a computer (My lunch break at work)and let everyone know what has been going on this past week. Last week on Monday Garet got all of his 6 month shot, flu shot and got a weight check so they could ship his synagis shot. (A vaccine given to preemie babies and babies with special illness to prevent RSV during the flu season) The pharmacy was suppose to have already shipped this last week but for some reason wanted to do a weight check before sending it out. He did fine getting all of his shots and him and daddy went back home. Then on Wed he started to get a little bit of a cough. We did not think much of it until Wed night we were working the church pumpkin patch. Garet had had his normal bottle and about 30 minutes later got sick all over. At that point his cough seemed to start to get worse. So back to the Dr Garet and Daddy went on Thursday to have a listened to his cough and check him out just in case. They said that is was most likely just a little cold or a small reaction to his shots and that they could not hear anything worried them. So home they went again. Friday Garet went to his Mimi's house under the precaution that he might not be feeling so well. I called them a couple time during the day and Mimi said that he had gotten sick again with his formula. So I decided to call Dr Fricker in Gainesville and get his opinion on what was going on. He said that if he was having an issue keeping his formula down and was having any dificulty breathing that he would like to see him later that Afternoon. So I got off work early and went to pick him up with plans to go to Gainesville for a check up. On my way home Dr Fricker called and said since his normal Pediatrician had just seem him the day before that it might be wise for us to stop and see her before driving all the way out to Gainesville. So that is what we did. As soon as we walked in and she listened to him she said that she thought he had RSV. So they started did a breathing treatment in the office and sent us home with breathing treatments every 3 hours for what we thought would be for 5 days. They stopped formula and put him to a clear juice/pedialite diet. The breathing treatment every 3 hours seemed to help a little. But only about 30 minutes after the treatment he sounded just as bad as before. We made it almost threw Saturday doing what we had been told to do. But when it got to Saturday evening about 7 he was really having a hard time breathing and was just not a happy boy at all. Matt and I then made the decision that since the symptoms for RSV are the same as if something is going wrong with his heart that we were going to take him in. Since his dr had not done the test to confirm RSV we did not want to go on the chance that that was what was wrong. We decided we were going to take him to Gainesville to have a chest x-ray and ECO just to make sure that it was not something more serious. We called Dr Fricker and off to Gainesville we went. We sat in the back of the emergency room until about 3 in the morning when they finally had a room open up in the PICU and up we went to the all to familiar 10th floor. Once we got him settled and got a couple hours of sleep the test started. They tested for RSV (came back negative), they tested for multiple kinds of flu (All came back negative) The did an ECO( looks the same as the last clinic visit) they even put in a IV to make sure if something were to happen that they had easy access to giving him med. Poor baby they could not get an IV in his arms and they did not want to put one in his foot because he would most likely pull it out. So they put it is his head.
That is why in all these pictures he has a cool dinosaur head band to keep him from messing with his IV. Any way test after test and nothing is coming back telling us what it might be.So they have pretty much decided that it is a bad case of bronchialitis (baby bronchitis) and since this is making such a flem build up that his formula was making it even thicker and he was unalbe to keep it down. So we thought that they were going to send us home yesterday with his breathing treatments and additional meds to help him get threw it. Then one of the dr in the PICU decided the wheezing and crackling sounded a little like it could be allergies or Asama as well. So in order to rule these out that would have to give him a 5 day round of Steroids to see if they could get the cough to go away. They were also concerned that since he has only been able to hold down fruit drinks and that he is not getting his formula that he may start to loose some weight if they did not get the cough taken care of there in the next couple of days. So instead of going home we are still in the PICU for a couple more days. This is just fine with me, I would rather be safe and have him monitored then to go home and have to come back in a couple days because it is not getting better.

Above is Garet sucking on a bagel Sunday morning. He had been in a some what of an ok mood Sunday and Part of Yesterday until he decided that he had had enough of just sitting in bed and watching tv. So last night he was not such a happy boy. So now they have done one round of the steroids and they have done 2 doses of the meds that are suppose to help if he has some sort of flue that they were unable to test for. He should be getting another dose of steroids today. Last night he was able to start keeping a little bit of formula down so we are working on that slowly. We are just praying that one of the meds that they are giving him will get rid of this nasty cough and will get him back home soon.

Yesterday was a mommy and Garet day in the PICU and today I had to go back to work so today is a Daddy and Garet day in the PICU. Yesterday they were talking about moving us down to the 4th floor (Pediatrics) but he will have to have a room of his own down there and they do not come very easy. Hopefully today they will listen to him and we will be able to go home and ride the rest of it out at the house. It is so scary that this is only the first month of cold and flu season and we have already had to make a trip back to Gainesville. This is just a big reminder to us that if we are going anywhere we are going to have to be careful if anyone is sick to just stay home. This is hard when you hang out with family a lot and a lot of cold and flu do not show up until after that person has already been contagious for a day or so. Big reminder to everyone WASH YOUR HANDS ALL THE TIME!!!!!! This is so important. We we still hope to be able to get out and visit everyone but if for some reason you are not feeling well or even have a small cold please do not be upset if we show up and decide to leave. We love to visit family and friend but we do not want to send any more time in Gainesville then we have to. Thank you for all the prayer that have been continuing to come our way and We play that everyone has a healthy cold and flu season. I will be back when we have some more updates. Have a great day to all.

Doctors update

On the 1st of October we had another clinic visit over at Shands and it went very well. He is still growing in both weight and length, and this is very good. He got to see all his normal friends there and each time they are so happy to see how well he is doing. They did the EKG and ECO and dr Fricker said that is looks like everything is still continuing to improve at a very slow rate. The big news was that he will no longer have to be seen in the transplant clinic. They are going to start seeing him in the Cardiomyopathy clinic. This is very exciting. They are not going to take him off the transplant list but they feel he is doing well enough that the transplant teem is no longer the team that needs to see him. We got to meet the fellow dr that is in charge of the Cardiomyopathy clinic and she seems really nice and Garet really seemed to take right to her. Dr Fricker is still going to be the main guy over top of everything going on with Garet but we are going to be making the transition out of the transplant area. Again we are still leaving the door open in case we do have to go back to that area but hopefully that will not happen.

Matts doctors visit last week went pretty good as well. The Cardiologist listed to his heart and did an EKG and said from that he did not see anything abnormal. He goes back this week to have an ECO and and a treadmill stress test and see how is heart is looking and reacting to different work loads. So far so good in that area. We will have a little bit more info after his appointment on Thursday.

We have been learning that no matter what we do everything in our lives is in Gods hands and he will help us threw anything he sends our way. It is very hard some times to just let go and have that strong faith, but we are trying as hard as we can.

Garet is now sitting up all on his own and we are working on crawling. The crawling right now is more like putting his head on the floor and lifting his butty in the air. I know one day he will put it all together and we will not be able to stop him. That is what happened with sitting up. One day we had to be right next to him all the time if he was sitting up and then the next day he was doing it all by himself. It is so hard to believe that he is now 6 months old. I am going to try to get outside this coming weekend and take some pictures of him so I can post some up to date pics on this site. The weather is starting to get cooler so we can get out and do some pictures by the river or something.

Well until next time. I hope you are all having a great week.