Whew... what a weekend

Well, this weekend is definitely one to remember.  As some of you may know, both Ryan and Levi have dealt with quite a bit this weekend and I thought I’d give a little bit more explanation as to what has been happening. 

Late last week, Ryan had noticed some discomfort in his abdomen, which he attributed to indigestion or something similar.  By Thursday night it was continuing to get worse, and nothing he tried seemed to provide relief.  On Friday morning, we decided to visit our local walk in clinic, not only for Ryan, but also for Levi (more about that later).  The Dr. wasn’t sure what was happening either, and sent Ryan home with an antacid, mentioning that if it wasn’t indigestion he would most likely be back with increased symptoms.

Sure enough, by midmorning Ryan had such intense pain that he had to go back to the walk in clinic, where they called him an ambulance to St. Paul’s hospital.  After some blood work and an ultrasound, they determined that the pain he was having was caused by gallstones.  More specifically, there was one gallstone that had become lodged and was preventing bile from passing from the gallbladder.  There were also several more that could be seen on the ultrasound.  Apparently these can be hereditary, which makes sense in Ryan’s case, since it runs in his family.  His gallbladder will need to be removed but this surgery wasn’t able to be performed on Friday, since the surgeon was already gone for the weekend.  He has an appointment tomorrow morning to check a few more things, then hopefully there will be a surgery scheduled for tomorrow.  We’re thankful for a quick response time from the ambulance and for great care from the team at St. Paul’s hospital.  Ryan was seen promptly and diagnosed in a timely manner, and now we’re just praying that the rest of his surgeries and recovery will be just as prompt.    

Now, more on the smaller fellow in my life....

Levi has had a cough for over two weeks now, and we took him to the walk in clinic on Friday with concerns about it interrupting his sleep and the duration of his cough.  The Dr wasn’t able to do much, saying it was just a viral infection and sent us home with a prescription for an inhaler.  We tried using it as prescribed, with not much change.  This morning, we noticed his breathing had gotten more laboured, and we decided to take him to RUH emergency.  There, we were met with prompt service and were very impressed with the care from our nurses and doctor.  The doctor suspected croup, and prescribed two different kinds of inhalers, and an oral steroid.  Since then, it seems like Levi has responded quite well.  He still has a cough that can get pretty scary sometimes, but overall is doing a little better.  

It’s been quite the weekend, with not much rest and too much stress but we’re all getting through it.  We’re very thankful for our healthcare system, and for family and friends who have all contributed to helping these guys get the best care possible. 

We hope to get some more answers in regards to Ryan’s situation tomorrow, and are praying that Levi will continue to get better with the medication as prescribed.  We also hope that this will be the most hospital visits and overall craziness we have in our household for a long time!

It's about time for an update!

I realized the other day that I haven’t provided a new blog post in a long time!  A few people have been asking how Levi is doing, so I thought that now would be a good time to give you a little update. 

Levi is such a little trooper, and we’ve been so proud of how well he’s been doing.  It’s been almost a year since his surgery, and everyone has been very happy with how well it has healed, which has been encouraging to hear.  There is still a very small fistula (hole) in the roof of his mouth, but this opening has actually shrunk quite a bit from a few months ago.  Depending on how the fistula reacts to the development of the tissues on the roof of his mouth, the surgeon may or may not have to perform another small operation to close that up. We have a follow up appointment with his surgeon in June to see how everything is looking.  In the meantime, the fistula doesn’t seem to affect him too much.  It may still decrease his ability to suck efficiently, so we haven’t tried a straw with him, but I don’t think that it’s too serious that he’s missing out on that skill right now.

One of the biggest things that he is dealing with right now is a combination of hearing tests and speech development.  When Levi had his initial lip repair, they also did a small surgery to put tubes in his ears.  Often cleft palate kids have trouble with fluid in their ears, since there is an opening in the palate that shouldn’t be there.  These tubes fell out just last month, which was what we expected.  However, right around the time they fell out he also caught RSV (a respiratory virus) which then developed into a bacterial infection.  It was unfortunate timing, and along with a lot of coughing, there was also a lot of snot.  Yuck.  He was placed on antibiotics, and is perfectly fine now, but since his tubes were no longer in place and there was so much fluid, a lot of it wasn’t able to drain properly.  He had his hearing tested on Wednesday this week, and the audiologist determined that his ability to hear has decreased substantially.  He recommended that Levi go for another surgery to get a second set of tubes.  This will happen in around 6 weeks.  

On one hand, it’s a bit discouraging to know that Levi will have to go for yet another surgery in his short little life, and get put under again.  But on the other hand, it’s very encouraging to know that this is quite a simple surgery and will help not only his hearing but also his speech development.  At this point, because he has had fluid in his ears for quite some time, he hasn’t been able to properly hear sounds or words.  We have had several speech therapy appointments, and have gotten lots of tips on how to work with Levi.  We have noticed some progress over the past little while…  he’s been trying a few new sounds, and definitely understands concepts and instructions.  Despite this, he is still a bit behind where he should be in speech development, and we have a ways to go.  This surgery will help clear up his hearing and hopefully help catch him up in the speech department.  He also can’t hear himself properly, and often is quite loud.  This upcoming surgery will hopefully help with that, too!  

So that’s where we’re at right now!  Thanks to those of you who have been praying for him; we appreciate it.  And thanks for reading!