3rd Birthday and Continued Medical Dramas

I swear, between Sam and Luke, our insurance is probably freakin' out over all the medical junk they have had to shell out cash for recently.  Long story short: Sam has his normal cardiac stuff, then heart cath, ENT stuff with a new set of tubes, and new GI issues that are now sending us up to Atlanta. Luke had a fall at daycare that resulted in a skull fracture with subsequent visits to the ER and Atlanta neurology, and just had his 'hypospadias' repair with upcoming follow-up in Atlanta, not to mention he just got his first ear infection.  GUH!  By the end of the year, we will have seen specialists in cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology, urology, audiology, and otolaryngology...all of those in Atlanta.  I'm not complaining about the Atlanta thing though...we would be fools to think anyone in Macon could come close to being as good as those doctors and that facility.

I will return to the medical dramas in a minute.  First, this past Saturday was Sam's THIRD BIRTHDAY!!  What a milestone.  We decided to mark the occasion with a birthday party in our back yard.  We didn't want to drop a ton of cash, so we put together a 'homemade' idea.  We took medium sized boxes and put them together and painted them to look like cars.  Sam and his neighborhood buddies decorated them and had a blast running around the back yard.  We had a blast hanging out with the neighbors.  Poor Sam got super fatigued after running around for an hour or so, and actually ended up taking a nap on our bed (he has ALWAYS refused sleeping in our bed up to this point) mid party.  But he was revived and we turned the birthday party into a SEC championship game watching party.  It was really a great day, and Sam thoroughly enjoyed getting attention and presents! 

The day before the party, Sam had his normal 3 month cardiology follow up.  While his doctor was clearly very pleased with the results of his heart cath, Sam's oxygen levels were lower than normal (around 79-80).  Dr. Cardis feels we may be headed into the Fontan surgery sooner than later.  He wants us to consider April of this upcoming year.  Sam's most recent heart cath would still be 'valid' and we wouldn't have to do another.  Also, it would be after cold and flu season.  I just wanted to go longer.  I had given up hope for the longest prediction we were given, which was age 9.  But I was hoping for Kindergarten or 1st grade age.  Not 3 years old.  But, I don't want to wait too long and get in trouble either.  I definitely do not want to crash land into this surgery the way we crash landed into the last one.  And when Sam ended up begging for a nap mid birthday party, it became very apparent to me that April may have to be the time.  We will see what his oxygen levels look like in March and make a decision then.

Little Luke had his urological repair yesterday.  It was a simple surgery, but a compounding cold (and hard to find veins) kept us in the hospital most of the day.  Poor little guy got brought back to me from surgery with a nasal cannula and on 2L of oxygen.  The doctors were worried because his oxygen saturations were around 93...I had to chuckle a little...Sam has NEVER seen 93...93 sounds like a blessing from God to me!  Luke took a while to recover from the medicines, but has basically acted like nothing happened to him at all.  I have to take the bandage off tomorrow though, which should be fun.  He's so sweet and carefree, I hate to see him in distress at all.  But he (and Sam) is a trooper, and I am amazed at what he has gone thorough in his short life with a smile on his face!

~Kathy