Eating Progress

We had another follow-up with the surgeon scheduled for Friday, so that gave us a few days to try lots of foods before the bands possibly went back on.  He was skeptical each time but enjoyed lots of delicious food.  The first treat was Savannah's homemade chocolate chip cookies.  The fresh gooey cookies from the oven seemed to hit the spot!

The pie was a bit trickier and didn't go down very well the first time.  Later in the week, it was also delicious for him to enjoy.

Preston took no part in the zoom cooking dinner meal kit provided by Sonic in lieu of attending the conference out of town.  Dave and I certainly enjoyed it though. :)  Then came Friday. . . back to the doctor for another follow-up and possible band insertion.  BUT, we were thrilled that Dr. Morgan left the bands off for another week.  Hallelujah!  His mouth opening was at 29mm today, with 35 being the low end of the normal range.  Great progress!  Preston was given the go-ahead to try soft meats in small bites.  And guess what his first meal choice was . . . Chick fil A!!!  He has been asking for a CFA sandwich since this all started so what an exciting night for us all to enjoy it together!

Now we have another week to enjoy real foods as the jaw continues to loosen day by day.  Eating is SO much easier now, but still not back to normal.  

Freedom from the Bands

Preston had another follow-up with the surgeon today . . and we were thrilled that he removed the bands from his mouth!!!  It was quite interesting though because even with the bands removed his jaw was still frozen shut.  The doctor gave it some time and then came back to check and still no movement.  So, instead of putting bigger looser bands back onto the arch bars, he decided to leave the bands off for a few days to give the jaw time to loosen up (all of which he assured us was normal). 

Preston was cleared to try some soft foods, spaghettios as suggested by the doctor.  He asked about CFA, but Dr. Morgan laughed, nope, not quite time for that just yet.  Either way, we were eager to try "real food" for dinner.

I warmed up a bowl of his favorite spaghettios, without meatballs, and we all sat down to dinner.  The baby spoon was out and it was tricky business getting that food in when the jaw was still frozen.  He even said "mom, we shouldn't have tried this today.  I just can't do it."  I ignored the slurping of sauce and let him continue to try while we ate.  The next thing I knew, he had literally finished the entire bowl!  We were all so proud and thankful he can finally eat something other than liquids through a straw.

This is totally random, but I love to see my kids take baby steps to independence.  Today Preston used the self check out at Lowe's all by himself with his own visa debit card from Christmas.  It was another big step for this little guy today!

 

Major Improvement!!

With each passing day, this kid is bouncing back!!!  Not only is his smile physically bigger (less painful to smile and laugh) but his spirit is almost back to normal too.  His extreme uncomfortableness is less and less as he has adjusted to the device in his mouth and he is able to eat more now that he can use a baby spoon for pudding and applesauce. He's back to joking with his sister, on-camera zoom at school, laughing at our dumb jokes, and also non-stop Minecraft. 

His mouth is still somewhat uncomfortable and he REALLY misses chewing food, but for the most part, he is doing amazing!  We see the surgeon again on Monday and follow up with Orthocarolina on Friday.  It will be a busy week, but we are praying all of the bones are healing fast!

Valentine's Day

Well, this year Valentine's Day is quite different . . . there is no Cheesecake Factory cheesecake (nope, not waiting 2 hours to get cheesecake slices to go), there aren't boxes of chocolates or candies since Preston can't eat them, no special dinner or extravagant gifts, but as we celebrate in our own little way, my cup overflows to be loved so well by so many.  I bought some balloons for the kids and had little gifts for them because to THEM that is important.  I got iced doughnuts for Dave and Savannah and a box of the specially requested yogurt sticks for Preston.  Dave brought me a bundt cake from church and had flowers as well.

For me, it's a day to be grateful for my village.  I feel so loved, so overwhelmed with gratitude, and so thankful for this family God blessed me with.  My love language is not gifts and I always prefer handmade cards . . . my three blew it out of the park with their cards today!
 

Happy Valentine's Day!  My heart is full!

Savannah's Post

 

She deserves a post of her own.  This girl is such a blessing!  She has prayed, loved, encouraged, and supported us all through the past few weeks so well.  I just recently found out that while I was in the hospital with Preston she tried to find things on my to-do list to help with.  When I need help with Preston she is always willing to see what he needs or help me interpret what the heck he is trying to say.  There also haven't been any complaints from her about the lack of yummy dinners.  She continues to push onward doing her best with everything.  So thankful to see her back in the swing of things with the little guy, waiting for him to watch their special shows and hearing the old familiar "do do" name-calling.  It does this mama's heart good!

Recovering . . .

We moved his bed into our room for the time being to make sure I could get him his pain medicine at night if needed.  However, after two days we were down to just Motrin and Tylenol!  PTL!  It wasn't long (like day two of being home) that the gifts started rolling in.  Aunt Susan and Corey sent some cool sketch pads, pencils, and straws.  He was thrilled to open his own Amazon box!

Pawpaw bought him a new Switch game. 

Thankfully, by Wednesday he was feeling well enough to log back into zoom for school.  He LOVED being able to do school from his bed!

The gifts kept coming . . . color-changing stress balls from a former soccer teammate.

Balloons and a gift bag of toys from the TD teacher at school, two other teachers including his all-time favorite, Ms. Langlois, sent him sweet gifts in the mail too.

This balloon seemed pretty appropriate!

A slushie maker cup from the Marions, a blender from Dave's work, and so much more.  One precious boy down the street even gave him $5 of his allowance money.  I'm telling you this kid is LOVED!!!

And finally, we tried a chick fil a milkshake on Thursday!  It went down just fine and is now his all-time favorite thing to drink!  He is recovering just nicely and with each passing day, he is more like his normal self.  He is able to talk A LOT although it is sometimes hard to understand him.  The device in his mouth is now just an inconvenience instead of being "extremely badly uncomfortable".  He misses eating normal food, but we have promised him that we will not have pizza until he can enjoy it with us again. :)  I'm so thankful for the prayers that are still being said and for the resilience this child shows. He takes each day in stride and never complains. 
 

The Bicycle Accident

I was at Harris Teeter on Saturday when I got the call "Mom, Preston is hurt.  Dad wants to know if we should go to urgent care." I had no idea what to expect as I was racing home but just assumed that since Preston was riding bikes with Dave it was just a minor injury and he needed a little TLC from mom.  However, in a matter of minutes, I quickly realized this was quite a bit more serious.  His face hurt really bad, his chin was gashed open and his arm was in considerable pain as well.  Dave took my car to deliver the groceries and Preston and I raced to the local pediatric urgent care.  About three minutes after arrival, we were being seen by the doctor, who was talking to Dave on speakerphone, while I was answering a million questions from the nurses in the room.  The doctor was very calm and just said this was beyond his scope of care.  He had the nurse hand me the address to Levine Children's Hospital uptown and said to go. . . he would take care of sending our paperwork.

3:30pm after arriving at the hospital uptown

We arrived uptown around 3:30 and were quickly checked into the children's ER.  The new few hours were very long and scary.  We went to radiology three times for different scans and then there was LOTS of waiting as different residents and doctors came in.  The most difficult news came around 8pm when we found out from the plastics trauma surgeon on call that he would indeed need surgery because the jaw was broken on both sides.

11:36 pm waiting for a room to be ready on the children's trauma floor

The decision was made to admit Preston and schedule the surgery for early Sunday morning.  Dr. Morgan would perform the jaw surgery and then the ortho surgeon would scrub in to cast his arm, which was also fractured.  It was a LONG wait to finally be admitted to the children's floor, but we were finally "settled" about 1:15am.

Dave came Sunday morning after dropping Savannah at the Marion's house for the day.  This little guy was SO anxious and worried about the surgery, his biggest fear being that he would wake up while they were operating.  

We got a call right before it was time to wheel down to the OR that we had a gift at the reception area.  Dave went down and to find a soccer teammate brought these ballons and a precious card for Preston.  They truly made his day and made the worry about surgery subside for a bit.

Before we knew it, we were waiting in preop for surgery to begin.  The orthopedic specialist came and after consulting several doctors, they determined a cast would not be needed since the ulna was just bent, not completely broken.  As long as we could ensure Preston would be super careful, they were fine with him continuing to wear just the splint that is removable for showering.  Hallelujah!  The nurses in preop were amazing.  They could sense Preston was getting more and more anxious so they started the silly medicine and it wasn't long after that he was off . . . which was tremendously hard to let him go, but the Lord was faithful and returned him to us safely in a matter of hours.  The surgeon came out and said everything went well and that he ended up being able to use super strong elastics instead of wire, which was another blessing.  Preston was back with us by 3 and as promised we were there as he was waking up.  We all agreed staying another night in the hospital was best to make sure he was okay being wired all shut and to get the pain under control.

We were loved so well . . . not only by our friends and family who called, texted, and most importantly prayed for Preston., but also by the amazing team of nurses and doctors at LCH.  Thankfully Preston was discharged around 2pm on Monday and we headed home to get him settled.

 Finally, home sweet home!