When life gives you lemons....

Make Lemonade!    

Ok, yes I know its a cheesy saying but that how I've felt the last month. The last 3 weeks have gone by in such a blur. We have been so busy between appointments, Nick and I getting sick and starting a new meal and workout plan. So here goes,

The first week of January consisted of multiple appointments for just about everyone, except for Marley the dog. Nick and I both had orthopedic doctor appointments. Nick's was for his elbow that had been bothering him for many weeks and min was for the ever present carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrists. We figured that Nick would be getting a cortisone shot in his elbow, but what was up in the air was how they were going to fix mine. We were correct and Nick did get a cortisone shot in his elbow and so far that has made the pain better. My appointment went like this.... I got shots about 7 or 8 years ago and they lasted me this long. I could get the shots again or do surgery. Shots had the least amount of recovery time and cost less. If I did the surgery he couldn't do both wrists at the same time so I was looking at being off of work for about 6-8 weeks. Not something I could afford to do at this time, so..... cortisone shots it was... so far they have worked great. I'm not dropping things and I can actually grip things. Then the next Tuesday night Nick was complaining about his knee and I made him go to the walk in clinic. Well, that turned into another Orthopedic doctor visit the next day. This one may be a little more tricky. The current theory is that he has a meniscus tear. They gave him a cortisone shot, but if it doesn't get better in the next week he may need to have surgery. That is not something that he's looking forward to at all. We are hoping the cortisone works, but surgery is in the back of our minds.

Colton had another ear infection. (If you are counting, this is #2). He has finished his antibiotics for that and seems to be doing well. On the 6th, we had another scan of his head for the cranial remodeling helmet. We were pleasantly surprised that he no longer has to wear the helmet!  So happy!  He will have a final scan of his head on February 3rd just to make sure that nothing has moved and we are still in good shape, haha. Then on the 7th we went to Indianapolis for Vent Clinic. Colton had such an air leak around his trash that we were getting alarms on the vent saying that the air it was putting in wasn't coming back out. So Colton got a new trach! We didn't put it in until Monday evening and then noticed that the air that was going in was way too much! We had to decrease his vent settings even further. He is on such low settings that if he were in the hospital we would try to take the ventilator away, unfortunately Colton does not like to breath on his own so for now we are stuck on very low settings. We don't have to go back to vent clinic for 3 months!

On the 14th we had our neurology appointment and she says everything looks great. She thinks Colton is progressing wonderfully. She did pull up his MRI for us to look at and she says that she thinks he has moderate Lissencephaly. She also said that doesn't have any bearing on how he's going to do in the future. She has seen kids that have a worse looking MRI that do a lot and then she's seen kids that have a better looking MRI that do a lot less than Colton does. Best part of the appointment? We don't have to go back for a year!  Yeah for cutting down on the appointments and travel!

As I mentioned above, Nick and I have both been sick. We seemed to have gotten it about a day apart and I got it worse than Nick did. I ended up going to the Walk-in Clinic and was diagnosed with a Sinus infection and was put on antibiotics. So far, Colton hasn't seemed to have gotten what we had, for which we are very grateful.

Here are a couple of new photos of Colton!  Thank goodness he is getting his hair cut on Friday!

When we were in Indy on the 7th, we ate a The Cheesecake Factory and let Colton have a piece of hard bread....

I mentioned starting a new meal and work out plan.  Nick and I started doing 21 day Fix on Monday. It's a program by Beachboy that teaches you portion control and gets you moving. We have a meal plan for the week (that took 5 hours to put together) and a workout for each day. So far, so good. we are both sore but not hungry!  We took before pictures so when we are done, maybe I'll post them! Hope everyone has a good week!  

Colton is 1 year old!!!

Wow, time really flies. I can't believe we have a 1 year old in the house. Colton is getting so big and has come a long way in a year. The picture on the left is when he was just born and the one on the right is his one year picture. He has changed soo much!

At his 1 year appointment on December 8th, he weighed 20 pounds 4 ounces and was 32 inches long. A lot has happened over the last month and a half. I mentioned in the last post that Colton had spiked a fever and we were going back to the doctor. Well, he still had his ear infections so we got a different antibiotic and they finally went away. 

Thanksgiving was a good time with my side of the family. We were able to get together and eat some great food and place a very bad game (Cards against Humanity). Here are pictures of Colton in his 1st Thanksgiving outfit...

 

Nick and I were able to do some Black Friday shopping thanks to my parents and Kirsten, our night nurse, volunteering to work that night. We were able to get 99% of our shopping done by doing that. 

Next up was Colton's 1st birthday party!  We had a blast and he had a great time too! Here are some pictures from his party. The cakes were done by a nursing friend's daughter. She did a fantastic job!

Colton's Smash Cake

Big People's Cake

Here is a video that was taken of us singing Happy Birthday to Colton. He was doing a fantastic job sitting up in his special tomato!

Colton was blessed with a ton of gifts for his birthday! We want to thank everyone who was able to make it to share in his special day. We appreciate it so much and he had a great time seeing lots of new people! If you check out my Facebook page, we made a video of Colton's first year and it is posted for everyone to see. 

We took Colton to see Santa Claus at Jefferson Pointe this year. The Santa was wonderful with him and knew just how to hold him. Colton is so in awe of his beard!

After we saw Santa we went and watched the Christmas tree that is synchronized to music. It was a neat show. 

Colton got to have two Christmases this year. On Christmas Day we went to Nick's side of the family to do some present opening and brunch eating. Here are some pictures of Colton opening gifts. 

He loved pulling the wrapping paper off the presents. He was pretty tired after all the opening though. He got a lot of new toys and a few books to read. 

Then we had Christmas with my side of the family the next day at our house. He got a ton more presents, including a new iPad holder! This will allow him to start working on some fine motor skills with his hands and be able to choose between things and eventually talk to us through an app. He also got a lot of new clothes that he needed since he is now in 18month clothes! 

Colton and his new iPad holder

Now on to the other stuff. Colton has has a a few appointments in the last month and a half. On December 4th we got another scan of his head to see where we are with the helmet process. He has made some progress, especially in the back of his head. We have another scan on January 6th. We are secretly hoping that we are done with it soon. We went to the eye doctor again and he was able to tell us that he thinks Colton can see (which we already knew). Colton still does not track with his eyes. We got back to vent clinic on January 7th. We are thinking there may be more changes in store for us then. 

He continues to do well and make progress in PT and OT. We are now getting to go to the pool every other week, which Colton thoroughly enjoys! Here are some newer pictures at the pool. 

 

He is now pulling our feet up to our mouth and trying to stick it in. Colton has also discovered that if he pulls on his helmet, he can make his head go where he wants it to go. He trades things between hands and if he puts something somewhere, he remembers where it is and gets it later. 

Lastly, I can finally announce that there is a big change coming to our household. I am changing jobs. I have taken a position with Dr. Smith, the pediatric surgeon. I will get to assist in surgery and see patients in the office and many more things. I am excited about the opportunity and chance to learn some new things!  I won't start until April as I have to give a 90 day notice at my current job. I am sad to leave Parkview, but I need a change. 

I am not sure how posting is going to occur from now on as Colton is a year old. I am going to try to keep up with every month to 2 months as things occur. They may not be as long of posts, but I can guarantee there will be pictures!