A Hospital Free Year (in brief review)

There are numerous factors that have led to me not posting for almost a year now - but one of the main ones is huge. After spending over 50 nights in the hospital in 2008, the Lord gave us a reprieve in 2009 - not a single night spent in the hospital!

There were a few procedures, scans, etc, but nothing that required Samuel being admitted. This way a wonderful break, for which we are extremely thankful! Not having so many events and issues that 'required' prayer from others (I know that's a bizarre phrase for a pastor to write) I guess we sensed less urgency to get on the web and update the blog. In some ways - that's been a really good thing.

Overall our Samuel's health is well. He gets an occasional cold which is a little more involved than with our other kids, but all things considered he is doing quite well. His primary 'issues' are not currently medical, but developmental. We are looking into the Cochlear Implant, though initial reports are not altogether positive that a Cochlear might work for Samuel. We've discovered that he doesn't have an auditory nerve on the left side, no semi-circular canals on either (they aid in balance), and a lot of stuff that's out of place or missing on the right side. So, the doctor isn't positive yet as to whether or not he wants to proceed with an implant.

Samuel spends most of his time on the floor - navigating all over the place. His therapists have been working hard with him to get him to crawl and spend time sitting up and hopefully, eventually, walking. While Samuel is not always a big fan of his therapists (they do make him work after all!), we sure are - they're able to get him to do stuff we didn't think he'd be able to do.

While he is still entirely G-tube fed, we have begun preparing him for a swallow study. Turns out he loves babyfood (at least the bananas) and seems to be handling very small amounts just fine - swallowing without incident! Pretty exciting!

Our boy is growing and developing at his own rate - we find ourselves celebrating 'small things'; things that for Samuel are huge! Like swallowing and getting in a crawling position. He turns 2 in four weeks! Crazy how fast those two years have gone AND yet how much has happened in those brief two years. I guess that's just how it goes.

I will try to get some videos posted here soon so that you can cheer him on with us and give thanks to our faithful God for his good provision.

Thank you for checking in.

Pressing on.