Big Day for our Family

I made a choice when Hunter was in the hospital to use this experience to help others.  I think we are given challenges in our lives for a purpose.  I know how I have personally grown from the life that we now live, but I also want to use it to help make a change in others.

A couple of months back I was asked to speak to a group of first year med students at UofA's Phoenix campus. They just ended their cardio-pulmonary-renal block and the title of the session was "The Impact of Heart Disease on Parents and Families".

I have been preparing our story and really contemplating the message that I wanted to deliver.  Congenital Hear Defects (CHD) have forever altered the course of our lives.  We also have some very real experiences with and exposure to physicians and hospitals.

This morning finally came and it was time to deliver our story.  All of my boys were in tow.  Corben found one of the student's laps to sit on and flirted with multiple other girls.  Hunter crawled around everywhere and even climbed the stairs in the lecture hall (his first time climbing stairs!).  Steve provided his perspective at the end and also answered questions during the Q&A with me.

I spoke from my heart and truly wanted to get the message across that while they will be learning the clinical side of their patients' care, the families and even patients themselves have real lives and real memories that make up their personal side.  I encouraged them to remember that and to allow themselves to get to know the patients and families on a real level and use them as members of the team in the care plan.  I know when we were valued as members of Hunter's team, we had so much more trust and respect for the doctors than when we were not valued.

I made a video to introduce our story that we showed at the beginning.  I wanted to share it here.  Enjoy :)

Best big brother

This morning Corben is being so helpful with Hunter. He fetched a spoon that H ejected from the highchair, without being asked.

Then he hopped up next to me and took over feeding. A huge mess was made but both of them thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was the sweetest thing I've seen. Corben was very diligent about making sure Hunter had enough breakfast.

Big Victory in Small Movement

Hunter is now crawling.  To many this is a chance to think "Uh oh.....now the fun really begins.  Now I have to chase around an on the move infant"  But not me.  To me, this is a huge, great, happy, exciting thing.

Hunter was on bypass for 70 minutes.  He had a seizure.  He was in cardiac arrest.  He received 3 minutes of CPR.  Each of these things INDIVIDUALLY could have caused issues for Hunter.  He had all of them, in the same day, at 5 weeks old when his brain was still developing.  Sure, the MRI showed no brain injury, but that didn't mean he was/is safe from developmental delays.

I am a worrier.  I think of the worst case scenario to attempt to prepare myself for the path that may be ahead.  I am always concerned with Hunter's development.  He has hit all of his milestones on the average or maybe TINY bit late level.  He can roll, sit up, has completely age appropriate fine motor skills, but I still was worried about his gross motor skills. The doctor told me on average babies crawl around 8-9 months.  Corben crawled at 5.5 months. I know to not compare but he's my only reference point.  Hunter turns 9 months at the end of this week and sees the doctor on the 15th.  I am so incredibly proud and excited that I get to tell her that he is now CRAWLING!

Of course, I wasn't here for it.  I teach ballet 3 hours a week this year.... that is literally the only time I spend away from my kids.  We had a big competition/convention all weekend and I was gone pretty much all of Friday and Saturday.  Friday afternoon.....Hunter took his first crawls.  SO happy Steve recorded it.

He was going after Corben.  I love that C was his target.  The two of them are so sweet together.

Ever since then, he has been on the move.  He found the toy area while following Corben around.  He even is starting to pull up on things.

 I know what is in store for me.  A year and a half ago I was redirecting my 6 month old C from getting into everything.  I am so excited to be doing it now with Hunter.  I am so proud of him and he is super proud of himself.

Super excited he found the puzzles

Life changes when they become mobile.  To me, this is a very welcome change.  I am pretty confident that he will walk in the nearish future and won't have any problems with that.  I will continue to look for red flags of any mental development delays/issues.  I pray he doesn't have any, but I can't know for sure.  I want to be right on top of it and getting him the help he needs.

But for now I am going to just sit back and smile.  My boy has come a long way.... plus, let's face it... he's HUGE so he has a lot of weight to pull!