It’s been 8 months today!

Blake and Derek

Blake and Derek have been at it again. We had some warm days last week so Amy let the boys play in the back yard while she fed the babies. They came back in the house a short time after being outside and told her they found a toy on the other side of the fence. They went back outside after Amy told them they would have to wait before she could help them. Not too long after they went back outside she heard voices in the backyard so she went to see what has going on. Three of the neighbor’s teenagers explained that they had come over to help them get the toy and had also offered cookies to Blake and Derek to convince them to come down off the roof of their shed. You can see from the picture that they must have climbed up on the fence and then climbed on the roof of the shed. It’s a good thing that we have great neighbors.

Unfortunately this isn’t the end of the story. Amy told them they could continue to play outside after their cookie if they stayed in the backyard. She also told them to hurry back. When Amy went to look for them a few minutes later, they were gone. Amy first found Derek in the back yard. He explained that Blake had gone to find someone to help them get the toy that was stuck between the fences. Amy met Blake and another one of our great neighbors walking back toward our house. She lives about five houses down on the end of the block. Blake had convinced her that the toy retrieval was very important and that she should walk back to help him. She too was of course unable to get the toy that was stuck in the approximately 1 inch space between the two fences and told them just as everyone else had all afternoon that they would have to wait for their dad. One of the funniest things about this is it was not even their toy – just a random toy that has probably been there for years.

Brandon

We have had many health care visitors at our house. We have carefully watched many aspects of both Katelyn’s and Brandon’s development. One thing that we have been watching is that Brandon seems to favor his right hand. This is something we might have noticed but not thought much about it. However they pointed out that he had a tendency to make a fist with his left hand and rotate his arm out. They told us it could potentially be a sign of a problem but we should work with him to make sure he uses both hands. As we did we observed that sometimes he would use both hands but he had a very strong preference for his right hand and often he would leave his left hand in a fist.

This last week we had an appointment for Brandon with the ophthalmologist and the neurologist. Brandon’s eyes seem to be doing really well. He will continue to need glasses but so far everything is good. When Amy asked about the future of his eyes the doctor said that most likely he will need to have a stronger prescription as he grows. When Amy asked about long term the doctor seemed super optimistic but wouldn’t speculate. He said that just 15 years ago they wouldn’t have been able to save his vision at all. He can’t even imagine what they will be able to do in another 15 years.

This reminded me of some other interesting information we once got. We once asked about the long-term prognosis for Brandon’s lungs. The doctor said that there was very little long-term problems and that in a couple of years the lungs would completely heal. However she mentioned that they didn’t have much data for what happens after the age of 20. They haven’t been saving babies in this situation long enough to have data past 15-20 years.

When the neurologist looked at Brandon we got a bit of bad news. The bad news is that she was pretty confident that he has a problem. The good news is that she is also pretty confident that it is a mild problem. It could be cerebral palsy that was a result of prematurity or it could be a result of a stroke he had back when he was having problems with a blood clot. Needless to say this information was pretty hard to take.

We won’t really know the effects until we watch Brandon develop. It could be so mild that only a neurologist could detect it or it could turn out to be pretty severe and we would see it manifest itself more as he develops (although it wouldn’t actually be getting worse.) If they can work out the complicated details, when Brandon goes for his operation on April 11th they are going to try and do an MRI at the same time. Although this will make his stay longer, we really hope to get both things taken care of with one sedation rather than going back twice. It is already going to be a hundred times harder to send Brandon off for an operation than it was when he was already in the hospital.

Although we have been already incredibly blessed and things have gone so well we still have to ask for more prayers and blessings.

Despite this depressing possibility both Brandon and Katelyn continue to be more active and social. Several of the doctors and nurses have noticed how much Brandon likes to interact with people. In fact he often is much more happy making noises and smiling at people than he is playing with toys.