Sunday, June 23, 2013

Rule #155: It's who you know

The day after Aurora was born a photographer came by the room offering her services for newborn photos. It turns out since I am employed by Intermountain Healthcare, that I could get a CD for free!! Sign me up! I wish I had known that these were going to turn out so cute, or that I would be IN these pictures. I would have brought different clothes and tried to get ready for the day. Regardless, Aurora looks darling in them, and that's all that really matters!

Enjoy the cuteness overload!


 I love this one!





 Yawning pictures are so cute!


 Love!










Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Rule #154: Smaller is better

Graham had a neurosurgery appointment today. It's been a year since his last one, and this time was a LOT harder to get the CT done. Graham was so much younger for all his previous CT scans, easily distracted, and he had fewer opinions back then too. :)

I have been mildly anxious about this scan, not because I thought something would be wrong with his shunt. But because I KNEW he was going to hate every minute of it and I wasn't sure how we were going to help him lay still. Since I'm massively pregnant I didn't want (nor do I know if I would have been allowed) to stay during the scan. But I could hear him through the walls. :( The x-ray tech did a great job trying to get Graham excited and informed, but once we laid him down on the table it was over. Poor kid. I'm sure both she and Alex did everything they could. A CT scan usually only takes 3-5 minutes. It was longer than that, but less than 10. Since this is a children's hospital I'm positive they see this all the time, and know how to manage to get the pictures they need, regardless of the cooperation of the child. He was happy when it was all over, and happily went to go meet with the doctor. He's so quick to recover once he gets what he wants.

Graham's old Neurosurgeon, Dr Kestle, has moved back to Canada. We had to pick a new surgeon for Graham, and I really don't like any of the others that I have worked with, so we decided to give the new guy they hired a try. His name is Dr Bollo. He seems fine, but luckily we won't have to see him very frequently.

The nurse, Kathy, was the friendliest I've ever seen her. Maybe we caught her on a bad day the other 6 times we've seen her. :P

They pulled up the CT scan from today and from last year. Check this out!


Do you see how good that looks?!? Last years is on the right, with today's picture of the left. His brain has nearly recovered all of the lost space!! Something that we were told would never happen. I. am. thrilled. (to say the least)

Let's remind everyone what it looked like two years ago, right after the shunt was placed.  Nov 2011 on the left. May 2011 on the right.

Scroll back up to today's picture......

Amazing, right!?!?!

I asked if this means he will still need his shunt forever. They said yes. He still probably needs it. It is clearly doing it's job. But even if he DIDN'T need it, it wouldn't be worth the risk of another surgery, and all the potential complications that come with it. So, we'll keep it. And really I'm okay with that. As much as I hated the thought of a shunt, we have had a perfect run with it so far, and it's not that bad in the long run.

Do you want to hear even more good news? No more CT scans! Hooray! Just yearly visits with neurology to have a routine follow up. Awesome.

I am so grateful Graham is doing so well. He is smart as a whip and no one ever knows that he had this scary moment in his first year of life. He's such a rock star!