Apr
9
2008
Julie
Thanks for your patience in waiting for this post. Joshua’s surgery began at 8:30 am on Tuesday and was scheduled to last about 3 1/2 hours. Right at 6 hours later he was finally wheeled into post op recovery. Yes, I was on the verge of losing it after such a long wait. Jason and the nursing staff were wonderful at helping to distract and calm me. One of the nurses in the O.R. wrapped Joshua’ s Curious George in a matching cast (see photos below), I cried it was so sweet! The surgeon reported that there were some unexpected and complicated issues with his index finger once it was separated from his thumb. Joshua did not potty like the nursing staff needed him to and he threw up every little bit of fluid he took in in the first couple of hours in post op. (Our first experience with vomiting as parents) It was decided that he should be transported (across a parking lot) from the day surgery center to the Children’s hospital for overnight fluids and observation. We got settled in around 7:30pm and with a lot of coaxing on our part and a lot of crying on Joshua’s he finally went pee-pee. This continued quite often all night long, praise God the vomiting did not. He woke up around 3:30am and was crying because he was so hungry. The doctor’s orders were for a clear liquid diet until he saw Joshua again in the morning. It was difficult to tell him that ice chips, juice, and jell-o, were his only choices. He does not like jell-o at all, but he ate 2 cups of the stuff during his overnight stay. The surgeon came in early Wed. morning and gave us the o.k. to go home if Joshua was able to keep down his breakfast. He ate eggs, pancakes, and Cheerios and kept them down just fine! At 11:00 this morning we headed home. Joshua has done very well!! He is already asking when he can take his cast off. I can sense it is going to be a long 6 weeks for him! He ate a good lunch today, had a long nap after his dose of Tylenol with Codine, played with some of his birthday presents, and enjoyed how much Playhouse Disney his parents allowed him to watch. He continues to amaze us with the strength he shows in difficult situations and we are so blessed with the trust he has in us to care for him.
We felt your prayers and we love all of you for lifting us up!!
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Apr
7
2008
Julie
Sunday afternoon we had a wonderful birthday party for Joshua at his grandma’s house. The weather was fairly cool and drizzly when we woke up that morning, but an hour before party time, the sun came out and it warmed up, to provide us with a perfect afternoon for an outside party. Most of our family and many of our friends were there to celebrate this very special occasion with us. Joshua only had a couple of mini melt downs and overall had great fun. Thanks to all who attended for helping to make this a very memorable event for our family!
Joshua will be having surgery tomorrow morning. Please pray and we will post how he is doing as soon as we can.
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Apr
5
2008
Julie
Last Saturday we headed out on our first family vacation to Surfside Beach SC. Sunday morning we woke up to a very gray, very windy, and very cold day. The high was 52 degrees, not exactly ideal beach weather. That evening Joshua got to spend a few minutes running on the beach for the first time. He was shouting over and over "We’re at the beach, we’re at the beach". We all put our hands in the freezing cold ocean for just a moment. The waves were very strong and the weather reported rip tide warnings for the first part of the week. We spent most of Sunday playing with a punch ball and suction cup dart guns in the hotel room. After a discussion about how none of us really wanted 4 more days of that, we checked out several different weather outlooks for the week, and based on the reports, we decided to come home Monday. Instead of a beach vacation, we spent some great family time together at home and around our area. One evening we went to the mall to play mini golf, another day we spent most of the morning at a local park. Wednesday evening we had our family portrait taken and Thursday evening we went out to eat with Grandma and some friends to celebrate Jason’s 40th birthday. Not the vacation we had planned for but a nice break from our normal routines anyway.
I will post again soon with pictures from Joshua’s birthday party that will be held tomorrow, and please be sure to check in on Wednesday as well for updates on how he is doing after his surgery. He is having reconstructive surgery on his left hand on Tuesday morning at 7:45 am. We are to be at the surgery center at 6:00 am. The procedure will last approx. 3 hours and will require some skin grafting from his groin area to fill in the cleft in his hand. Following surgery, which is scheduled for out patient, he will be in a full arm cast for about 6 weeks. Please pray for him to be brave, for his body to tolerate the anesthesia, for the doctor to be very skilled in his work, for Joshua to recover quickly, and for his Ma Ma to not fall to pieces once he has gone into surgery. 
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Apr
1
2008
Julie
We enjoyed a very nice Easter season with Joshua. This is the way he tells the story of Easter. "Jesus fell down and died, they put him in the cave and closed it up with a big rock. After 3 days the rock was rolled away and Jesus was alive! A cute moment happened when he was looking at Easter books at Ms. Jenny’s house and he called out to me, "Ma Ma, I found Jesus!" I commented to my friend how great it will be to hear him say those words again when he has made a life changing decision to become a follower of Christ.
On Palm Sunday Joshua participated in his first Easter Egg hunt at our church. He enjoyed opening the plastic eggs to see all the treats inside. He also found one of the golden eggs and received a gift card to Brusters as his prize. On Easter Sunday he got a basket with some goodies from his Ma Ma and Ba Ba. It was mostly items to take to the beach; bubbles, a kite, sand toys, and a nap mat for sleeping on in the hotel room. We had breakfast with Grandma at her church and enjoyed the Easter service there with most of the Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. During the service there was a puppet performance for the children and a presentation of gift books for each child afterwards. The whole family commented about how sweet it was that Joshua was the only child to say "thank you" for the book and he said it loud enough for most of the congregation to hear. The kids hunted for eggs (some hard boiled and some empty plastic ones) at Grandma’s before eating lunch. Joshua ran around and started putting several in his basket, then he picked one up and shock it. He opened it up and realized that there was nothing inside so he dropped it on the ground. Then he started shaking the ones in his basket and each time he came across an empty one, he put it back on the ground. I was bent over laughing so hard as I watched him. I finally composed myself enough to explain that it was fun to find where the eggs were hiding even if there was no candy inside them. He was fine with that and had a good time with his cousins.
It was a wonderful day and we thank the Lord for His gifts to us, His son and ours.
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