July 16, 2011 - 133 Days Old

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I have a lot of news to share.

Aiden is still in the hospital. He had another little setback last week. He picked up a virus and has really been struggling to breathe. He has been wheezing and coughing a lot and had a pretty miserable week. He has been improving a bit over the last couple of days, but he is still having a hard time breathing. When his breathing was at its worst, he didn't want to eat much, so it was very frustrating. He still got plenty of food through his GI tube, but nursing wasn't going very well. Fortunately, now that he is feeling better, the nursing is going better too. The doctors wanted to put a camera down his esophagus yesterday to make sure everything looked OK. They had to anesthetize him for the test, so we were nervous about it. He did really well and everything went perfectly. They took a biopsy of his esophagus to run a few tests, but the doctor said everything looked great. When I came home from Price this week, I stopped to see Aiden. The occupational therapist was there doing exercises with him. After all he has been through over the past week, I was surprised to see him looking so good. It seems like he grows so much every time I see him.I just wish he could outgrow his respiratory issues and be a healthy little guy for a change.

We have decided not to move to Price after all. We are just going to sell our house there as soon as it's finished. We were really excited for the new house, but the move never really felt right. We feel like I need to just stay in Lehi until I finish my degree. USU-Eastern (formerly CEU) doesn't offer the degree program I want, so I would have had to do a lot of commuting and only go to school on a very part-time basis if we moved. By staying here, we will also be closer to a large hospital in case Aiden has problems after he comes home. When it was all said and done, there were more good reasons not to move than reasons to move. So, I guess that means I'm looking for a job. It would be great to find something in the computer field since that's what I'm studying, but I'm open to any good opportunity that will still allow me to go to school. Any ideas or recommendations would be appreciated. Oh, and by the way, I speak Mongolian, so that should help me find something pretty quickly. :-) I'm still building houses with my dad for the moment, but I need to find something before Winter hits, so please let me know if you hear of any good opportunities in the next couple of months.

I'm singing in church tomorrow morning. I haven't sung in this ward before, so I hope it goes well. It has been a while since I have done any singing at all (other than karaoke :-)), so I'm a little out of practice. I'm looking forward to it, though.

Well, I've already used two emoticons and it's getting late, so I had better quit while I'm behind. I'll write again soon.

June 5, 2011 - 92 Days Old

This week has been a busy one. I was out of town for most of the week, so I didn't have time to post to the blog. Things have been going really well with Aiden this week. He is still making good progress. He was struggling with the lower flow rate on his cannula, so they increased it to 5 liters again and held him there all week last week. Yesterday, they turned him down to 4 liters again and so far he is doing well with that. The doctors don't plan on decreasing it any more for a while. That means that he won't be able to start trying to nurse for a while, but that's OK. The worst thing for him would be to push him too quickly and have him relapse because he isn't ready to be pushed that hard.

When I came back from Price on Friday night, I stopped by the hospital. Aiden's nurse, Becky, was holding Aiden and doing exercises with him to help him increase his neck, arm and leg strength. When I got there, she gave him to me and let me do the exercises with him. It was so fun. Now that he is a little older, he is able to interact with us a lot more. I had a great time. After the exercises, I bathed him and got him ready for bed.

Yesterday was Aiden's three-month birthday. There are three long-termers in the NICU now, and Aiden is the oldest. Every time he turns another month older, the nurses make a scrapbook page for him with his picture on it, wishing him a happy birthday. When we were over there today, they brought in his 3-month birthday scrapbook page. They moved him into a room within the NICU a couple of weeks ago, so when we are there, we can close the door and have some privacy. It is so nice and much quieter than when he was in the main area. He was in a room for about a week prior to his big setback, but while he was so sick, he had to be out in the main NICU area. We feel so blessed that he is doing so well now.

Wednesday was my birthday, but since I was in Price on Wednesday, we decided to wait until Saturday to celebrate. We visited Aiden in the morning and in the afternoon, we took the kids up to Mt. Timpanogos Park up Provo Canyon and played around. We played frisbee and catch, wrestled a little bit, and played tag. Later, we went to The Happy Sumo to eat. I had such a great time and it was an awesome birthday.