the amazing adventures of carson and kellen: 5 weeks, already

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

5 weeks, already

Well, we've almost made it those LONG, 5 weeks without hearing Carson's sweet voice. YAY! He has really accommodated well and although, I'm sure there were many thoughts/ideas that we didn't get to hear, he still was able to share a lot through gestures and mouthing words. I'm so very thankful for his resilience and amazing attitude! We head back this Thursday for surgery on Friday, Oct 23rd (not sure the time yet). They will be doing a bronchoscopy (to look at his airway) and removing the stent (what prevents him from making noise & what is holding his airway open while the grafts heal). This should only take about 30 minutes. While, they will be able to see the grafts, which were placed last month, we won't fully know the success of the reconstructive surgery until October 30th when the stent will have been out for a week and Carson has another bronchoscopy. My mom and Kellen will be coming with us for this first trip. Carson will stay overnight after the surgery but then we should be headed back home on Saturday.

I am so incredibly thankful for all of you, family and friends, that have prayed along with us. I continue to learn a lot about trusting God and embracing EACH moment as it comes. My mom called this morning with the news that one of my brother's friends passed away yesterday. None of us are promised tomorrow, so it is so important we find joy in the moments, keep our minds focused on the positives and try to make each day count. Carson is SO good at this...just this morning, as I was getting ready to start some medications for these upcoming surgeries, I was explaining to Carson that we would be starting these medications, one of which is drops that go in his trach and then I have to plug his trach (with my finger) to make him cough, forcing the medicine up above his trach to the graft sites. There is a prayer request in and of itself. We have to do it 30x total (3x for 10 days). Two down, 28 to go. Carson hates it! One, because it makes him cough (sometimes throw up), two, when I plug his trach, it is scary because he can't breathe, and three, it just isn't fun! Anyways...I told him we would be going back to Cincinnati this week for surgery, staying at the Ronald McDonald House, etc. And after it all, he said, 'Oh yea, they have lots of bikes there and a Thomas!' He was talking about the Ronald McDonald House. Always looking on the bright side! I continue to work on finding the positives in all this crud he has to go through...I could learn a thing or two from him : ) Life was never promised to be easy, in fact, sometimes the suffering makes the fun that much sweeter and thank goodness we have other people to walk through the hard stuff with us! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

For those of you that didn't know, we had a small hiccup in the plans. After Kellen had finally been fever free for about a week, Carson was spared the fever : ), through some major work in keeping the two separated from each other. Keeping them separated was the hardest part! We then hit a bump in the road for Carson...We made an unplanned trip back to Cincinnati the beginning of October because the incision above Carson's trach swelled up. I'm not sure anyone actually knew WHAT happened or WHY but they opened the incision and packed it for 24 hours. That must have done the trick because it is healing well now. It wasn't infected which was good. And the surgeons said it wouldn't effect anything that had already been done or they were planning to do. Praise the Lord! Carson was in the hospital for two nights. He was poked and prodded, put through some unpleasant stuff but he handled it all in stride (like he usually does). Hopefully that was the only hiccup!

Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again, Rejoice! Philippians 4:4