A Milestone of Sorts

I know I know it's been too long.We promised we'd post more. We'll do better next time. So often when we talk about the blog and wanting to post on it again we say oh yeah lets do that and then we forget and go on.  When we first started the blog the point of it was to post pictures everyday for our family who didn't live close could see him and watch him grow instead of only every month.  Of course the blog quickly changed to a place for us to vent and give updates on his health and going through the surgeries and it really is an amazing thing for us to come back and read the posts and your comments. It is a beautiful piece of our history that I can't wait to share with David as he gets older and say, "These people loved you before they knew you and prayed for you more than we will ever know." So with all that being said the blog may change now that Hayes Baby #2 is on the way and David is where he is.  Only time will tell I guess.

The real  reason I wanted to write today is something Nicole and I were talking about last night.   We realized that David was 20 months old when he had his last surgery.  In the first 20 months of his life he had 6 open heart surgeries.  This month marks the 21st month since the last one.  We were amazed to think he has been on this side of the surgeries for a longer time than it took to get them done.  I know it may not seem like a big deal to everyone but for us it just hit us.  The first section of David's life was filled with procedures, heart caths, hospital stays, lots of medicine, weighing him every day, calling in to the doctor's to tell them everything that was going on, MRSA, collapsed lungs, no eating, and no pee. It really did feel like those first 20 months took forever.  Maybe it was being a new parent, or the months of being in the same room (seriously for with the exception of his first stay in the Critical Care Unit we stayed in the same room in the same spot. I think we need our own Historical Marker there) but it's all we knew and all we thought we were ever going to know.

With all that being said we now have an active, healthy, funny, sweet, and adorable 3 year old who keeps us busy and loves to snuggle.  He doesn't fully understand what happened to him.  He calls his scar his zipper that the doctors use.  He is still worried of hospitals and doctors.  When we go somewhere he often says, "Momma I no go to doctor." Yet for the most part his life is spent laughing and playing with his toys, dogs, and parents or anyone who will play with him. He loves, loves, loves Toy Story and Disney's Frozen and likes to sing and play and uses his imagination so well already.

We really do feel blessed and lucky to be in the place that we are in with David.  We also know it's not the end.  In the back of our minds somewhere we know that his heart issues could spring up at anytime. Even in the months since his surgery we've had lots of topical MRSA issues, a cath, and one hospital stay for a really bad, sudden case of croup that  got his O2 levels down pretty low.  I think maybe something we learned and try to take advantage of is to just live in the moment and to love with everything we have.  Thanks so much for being on this ride with us through the years and who knows what this space will be used for but we will try to be more active with it to come.

Grace and Peace
Drew