What We Have Been Up To

What a crazy 2 weeks! It began as so much fun and then went down hill from there. On June 26th we took Kathleen and Mom with us to the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti. It was awesome for Ellie to see the characters in their clothing before the performance and then to have her see the stories of the Book of Mormon come to life. We had rented the upstairs of the home of the owner of the Manti Inn and so we had to walk a block from the temple to where we were sleeping after the performance was over. I would tell EVERYONE to do this! It made the pageant so much more enjoyable! Plus it was nice to be able to brain wash Ellie into telling her that she needed to have her "prince" take her to the Manti Temple to get married. (Its been 7 years since Jake and I were married there and every time I see that temple the rush of the feelings of that day still get to me).

Monday, June 29th, came and with it the start of a scary week. Nathan was scheduled to have his tonsils taken out and his adenoids shaven. What would seem like a relatively simple operation for any normal child would turn into major drama for mine! Nathan had a late surgery and didn't get into the operating room until almost 6:00 p.m. He needed this done because he's been having major problems breathing and so it was the hope of the doctors that this would help Nathan out! The operation itself went fine, but Nathan's little body had a hard time dealing with it. His body didn't know what to do with the extra fluid and it went to his lungs. Because of Nathan's past medical history every operation sends him to the PICU just to be "watched". Its a good thing because 20 minutes after the conclusion of the operation, Nathan's little body stopped breathing and his heart rate dropped into the 20's and 30's on the monitor. He was immediately intubed and left with the ventilator do breathe for him. He spent all of Tuesday letting the machine breathe for him and then the doctors decided to try and take him off the vent Wednesday evening. Nathan had to go back to the operating room to be extubed just in case. He was kept in the PICU until late Thursday afternoon just so the doctors could make sure that Nathan was stable enough to move. We wanted home so badly that Jake and I asked to take Nathan home on Friday morning. I think they did this because Jake and I know how to care for this child just as well as the nurses on the surgical unit.

What a crazy week! Nathan sure likes to keep us on our toes!



The Head Doctor of the PICU put this sign on Nathan's bed because they had such a hard time re intubating him. I even was given a stern lecture for lifting Nathan's little body back to center of the bed when he has slumped over. I was a little upset because this child has been intubated so many times in his life after surgery and they were treating me as if I were a young dumb teenager who had no clue what was going on.






Due to Nathan's heart condition the doctors couldn't keep Nathan quite as sedated as they would have liked. Nathan has such a temper that every time he woke up he tried to pull the breating tube out. If you look on his wrists you'll see that they had to tie both arms down to the bed.








This surgery plus the past 2 cleft surgeries since March have taken a toll on his little body. He is now down to 16 pounds, 7 oz. He is on oxygen all the time for a while to help his body heal by not working quite so hard. What a little trooper!