Carter's Journey

We are home...

We have finally made it home! Carter did great on the ride home and was EXTREMELY happy to be home! We are all exhausted and ready to get in bed! Thank you all so much for your continued prayers. Good night!

Taking his own picture. :)

The drive home was absolutely gorgeous! It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the trees are changing colors.

Nashville!

Cincinnati Appointments

Overall today was a good day. Carter did great for his tests. He watched Veggie Tales while getting his new feeding tube and did not even realize it was being changed. Carter's contrast study showed a dramatic difference in his intestinal function. Although, his cecum (a pouch that is at the start of the large intestine) is still not functioning, the majority of his small and large intestine is! The image results showed a dramatic difference. So much of a difference I wasn't sure they had Carter's images pulled up. We were thrilled to get theses results. Since some portions of Carter's bowel are still not functioning, we will continue flushing them twice a day for him. They were a little concerned with Carter's weight gain, so they decided to increase his rate and see if they can get him to gain weight more rapidly. They gave us the ok to proceed with Carter's big surgery although they are extremely concerned that it will cause Carter to go back into complete intestinal failure. The surgery has to be performed for Carter to survive, so we will just pray his intestines continue to function. We will go to Johns Hopkins to get their approval for the surgery next month. All together, Carter had great follow-up appointments. We hope to drive the entire way home tomorrow. Thank you all so much for your continued prayers. Keep them coming! As always, to Him be the glory!!!

Watching Veggie Tales while waiting.

Carter was such a big boy, he walked some of the way to his appointments! :)

He played for a little while once we got back to the hotel then passed out!!!

Here are a few pictures of Cincinnati today!

We have made it...

We are very happy that we have made it to Cincinnati. We could not have asked Carter to have behaved any better. We left home yesterday and drove to Kentucky. We finished the drive this morning. Carter's first appointment is in the morning and I hope to update the blog tomorrow night. Thank you all so much for all of your prayers! Here are a few pictures...

Passed out!

Watching his favorite Veggie Tales movie!

He was so happy to get out of the car and to get a pen to color with!

He carried the pen and pad around all afternoon!

Maaa....Please stop taking my picture!

When we got here, we had to go to one of my favorite stores, Meijer's, to pick up some things I forgot to pack. They had a huge wall full of fish and as you can tell Carter was so excited I couldn't even get a picture of him still. :)

Sacked out, hopefully for the night!

Back to Cincinnati...

Do we have to go?! We will be traveling back to Cincinnati for another appointment with Carter's G.I. Doctors on Tuesday. Thankfully, it is just a follow up appointment, although Carter will be having many tests done. He will have a contrast study to see how well his intestines are currently functioning and to make sure there are no strictures (narrowing of the bowel). He will also get a new, much smaller feeding tube while we are there. Yay! The main goal of this appointment is to make sure Carter is healthy enough to proceed with his "BIG" surgery.

Hopefully we will receive the ok from his G.I. team and will travel to Johns Hopkins in October to get the go ahead from his Urologist. We would love to be able to schedule his "BIG" surgery next month. We have to schedule it a few months ahead so that all of the teams involved can coordinate their schedules to be there. I know it sounds crazy for us to be ready to schedule his next surgery, but this is the surgery we have been dreading since birth. We are really ready to put it behind us and mainly put it behind Carter. The "BIG" surgery is the surgery where they will put Carter's bladder inside his body and break his hips and set them in place. The success rate of the surgery goes up if you have it before 3 years of age. Carter is 2, so we would really like to get it done this year. It is an extremely intense surgery and our hospital stay could last up to 3 months.

God has truly blessed Carter with health these past few months. It has felt great to see Carter laughing, smiling and being a normal 2 year old. It's hard to believe he has come so far in just a few months. Just this past March I was not sure that Carter would make it to his 2nd Birthday and now you would never know he has been sick! Our God is absolutely amazing! No words could ever describe how thankful we are that He chose us to be Carter's parents.

Please continue to pray for Carter. Pray he will tolerate the trip well. We have decided to drive instead of fly for the first time. So we will see how it goes. Please pray he gets the ok to move on to the next surgery. Thank you all so much for all of your faithful prayers! To Him be the glory!!!

Beep! Beep!!!

So proud that he is wearing pants! :)

Loving this Fall weather!!!

Helping Mommy in the yard!

Veggie Tales Party!

We had Carter's Birthday party on Labor Day weekend at our house. Of course, he had a Veggie Tales party. We all had a great time! Here are a few pictures!

He was so excited to see everyone!

Brandon's sweet family came all the way from Ohio for Carter's party!

Carter is 2!!!

It is hard to believe Carter is 2 years old today! It seems like he was just born. Carter has been through so much in his short life. You would never know he has had over 30 surgeries and has spent months in the hospital. Carter absolutely loves life! Some of his favorite things are...

Throwing balls (or anything he can find)

Rocking with Mama in the recliner

Running

Dancing to any music he hears

Jumping (stomping his feet :))

Spanking Da-dee

Being a helper by taking things to Da-dee

Wearing shoes (he sometimes takes a nap in his shoes because he throws such a fit if I take them off. I refuse to let him sleep in them at night :))

Barking like our dogs

Climbing onto anything

Opening and shutting our cabinets

Cleaning the floor (he brushes everything away with his hands)

Helping Mommy sweep the floor

Anything with wheels

Slides

Anything that involves water

Giving aww-wee's (he lays his head on my legs and says aww-wee)

ANYTHING that involves Veggie Tales. He would Watch Veggie Tales all day if I would let him.

Carter is still not really talking, although he has started making sounds and his singing has returned :). His vocabulary consist of..

Mama (usually Maaa!)

Dada

Da-dee

I want my Mama

He can sign jump, I love you, more and we are working on thank you and please.

We have had some big changes! We are officially residents of Brandon. We are all moved in, not unpacked, but we are moved in to our new home. We absolutely love it and hope it will be the home Carter comes to visit us at in 30 years. We are extremely excited about our new home, but we are more excited to announce that Carter is now being G fed! He no longer has his GJ tube. A couple of weeks ago I noticed Carter's GJ tube had flipped back into his stomach and was not feeding him directly into his intestines. I took a deep breath and sat back and watched him for a few days. I just knew we were about to make a quick trip to Cincinnati Children's Hospital for a new GJ tube. Much to my surprise, Carter did no worse than he was doing with the GJ tube. He was still only vomitting about two times a day and seems to be tolerating the feedings pretty well.

I called our GI Doctor's in Cincinnatti and we came to the conclusion for me to change his GJ tube out and place a G tube at home. I nervously gathered all of my supplies and changed the tube out. It was uncomfortable for Carter, but he has since done really well. It feels great to announce that he no longer is being J-fed. He is being fed directly into his stomach and doing great! Carter is doing better right now than he has in his entire life! He is really thriving and enjoying life. He has only had one small set back since being home, which was a small infection that he is getting over well. God is so great and has really blessed Carter with health these past few months. He loves our new house and has really started to explore on his own. He is still hooked up to his feeding pump for 16 hours a day, but we hope this will change after our next visit with his GI Doctor's in September. We were scheduled to go to Johns Hopkins this week, but have had some scheduling issues and have had to move our appointment to October.

I know without all of your faithful prayers I would not be able to write blog entries like this. Your prayers have brought Carter through so much this past year and I will always be thankful. Thank you so much for all of your faithful prayers and please keep them coming! As always...To Him be the Glory!!!