2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated James Thomas' birthday 3 weeks early this year at Noah's Ark Pool. I went to book his party in March and crazy enough the entire month of June was already completely booked. That is the beauty of a 2 year old, they have no idea when their birthday really is so May 14th seemed like a perfect day! JT had a blast splashing around and playing with great friends. The day was perfect and so much fun! I can't believe my baby is almost 2 years old! Where has the time gone?

Medically things are kind of iffy right now. James Thomas has been on steroids since late July and they have been working beautifully. Three weeks ago we had our first dip in his hgb. He was still in the normal range so we decided to leave everything alone and check in 2 weeks. Last Friday we went in and his hgb had dropped more, his retic was 0.5% (this is the very low end of the normal range), and for the first time his platelets were below normal. I just had an appointment for labs but Dr. B came out and talked with me in the transfusion area. We decided to raise his steroid dose and have an office visit this Friday. We are really nervous about all of this right now. We really hope his retic will go up by Friday. Even with all this going on James Thomas is still doing great. He hasn't missed a beat and is a very active little boy! We really couldn't ask for more from him. He is a true blessing!!!!

I will update on Friday after our appointment.

23 months

James Thomas is 23 months today! I can't believe next month he will be 2 years old. Where has the time gone?
Everything has been wonderful at our house. James Thomas started swimming lessons on Monday and absolutely loves it. I can't wait for him to get more comfortable in the pool. He is very into animals and trains these days. He knows lots and lots of animal sounds and loves to say "ALL ABOARD" any chance he gets! It is fun to hear him learn new words every day.

Medically he has done fantastic. He has not had a blood transfusion since last August and we have been steadily lowering his steroid dose. This past week we went in for labs and his hgb dropped 2 points and his retic was pretty low. Everything was still in the normal range so we decided to leave all his meds alone and are going back next week to recheck. Praying that he is just leveling out and nothing else. Our doctor didn't seemed concerned but didn't want to wait too long to check again. She knows best so I refuse to worry and just enjoy this time!

We have our house on the market!!!! James and I have been in our current home since we got married and the past 6+ years have been wonderful. We have so many amazing memories in this house but we feel it is a good time to move forward. We actually had a new house under contract but it fell through after inspection. I was a little disappointed but trust that we will end up exactly where God wants us to be. Buying and selling a home is a really exciting / stressful time. Never a dull moment around here.

That is all for now!

Unexpected trip to the hospital

What can I say? We went from a fun night of watching the Super Bowl, to a normal Monday, to finding ourselves in the ER, and being admitted back on the 9th floor. James Thomas came down with an awful virus that his little body just couldn't fight off. The doctor told us today his little body went into shock and that is why we have been up here getting fluids, meds, and being observed. We are scheduled to come home today, pending his cultures still look good at 3:00. We all anticipate no problems.

I have to be honest that I knew James Thomas was more likely to catch colds because he is on steroids but I had NO clue his body is not that capable of fighting them off. Our wonderful hematologist came down to visit. She apologized for not preparing me for these situations and giving me instructions on what to do. They are writing us a protocol that we are to follow for the next time he comes down with fever or vomiting. NEVER A DULL MOMENT!

I have great news to report. His hgb today was 12.4! On Friday it was 13.9, and Monday evening it was 12.2. They warned us it could be even lower because he was so dehydrated. I was anxious to get the results this morning but PRAISE God his body is doing great! When we leave we should be back on our normal doses and good to go!

Elmo is coming to the Pi Phi library today at 2:00 to visit the kids. We are going to see if we can get permission to go. I think James Thomas would LOVE it. Once again we are so impressed with the fantastic doctors, nurses, and all we have come in contact with up here. We are so thankful to live in Houston with such a great hospital.

I'm Back!

My computer has been broken for the past month and I finally got it fixed. It is amazing how life changes when something like your computer is taken from you!!! My computer also has all my pictures saved on it. I was really worried about losing them so lesson here is make sure they are saved on a disk or zip drive too. I will be doing that tonight!

We had a wonderful Christmas. This was the year to spend it in Johnson CIty with my family. Cliff and Ty got married this year, Reid has a serious girlfriend, so there were some new additions to the family. The more the merrier! James Thomas got so many new toys. He was really excited when he climbed down the stairs on Christmas morning. It was really special for James and me.

Health wise James Thomas is doing AMAZING!!! He had his port a cath removed on January 5th. The port was a true blessing this past year. It made transfusions and the many many many blood draws bearable. He is such a trooper. However, with the port anytime you get a fever you have to go to the hospital and get IV antibiotics. James Thomas has not received a transfusion since late August so James and I felt pretty confident that it was time to say goodbye to the port. The surgery went smoothly and James Thomas did great. They wheeled him back to the Operating Room in a wagon. He was so brave! He did have another major reaction to whatever they use to disinfect their body. We told them not to use iodine but he is allergic to it all I guess. Hopefully there are no new surgeries in our future.

This week James Thomas got his first fever for the year. I was nervous about him still responding to steroids when he was sick. We went in for a cbc and his body had NO TROUBLE fighting the infection and making blood. I think his hgb was 13.2 and he was sick!!!! PRAISE GOD for this blessing. We were thrilled and so proud of our little fighter.

COOKBOOKS COOKBOOKS COOKBOOKS! Thank you again for ordering so many cookbooks. I know I told you they would be here in January but it looks like it will be February. I will ship or deliver your cookbooks as soon as I get them. I have seen a picture of the cover and it is super cute. I will try to upload it this afternoon. If you have not ordered one it is not too late. They are still taking orders to raise as much money as possible for the DBA foundation.

Besides being Barney obsessed at my house we are doing wonderful. This is a great season for us.

Camel Ride

Last weekend Nancy came in to town for a visit and to watch James Thomas so James and I could go out. Nancy stumbled across this Christmas festival at Christ the King Church and we decided to take James Thomas up there to explore. We got to ride a camel, pet lots of animals, make arts and crafts, and lots of other fun Christmas activities. It took me 30 years to go for a camel ride but James Thomas can check that one off the list at 1 year old!!! He had a great time and his new favorite word was camel. The rest of the weekend all we heard was camel, camel, camel.

That night our neighborhood put together a fun Christmas evening. Down at the park they had santa, smores, popcorn, and "The Polar Express" was playing on a projector. JT did not want anything to with Santa so we didn't stay long. Maybe next year.........

Some of my favorite things.....

First of all I have to say that I have been the worst blogger ever. James Thomas is a very active 18 month old who keeps me on my toes and really busy. I have just organized our photos and now I am back. I have lots of posts to upload over the next few days.

James Thomas discovered the train at Memorial City Mall last week and he is in love! We have been three times already and are planning to head back again soon. It is so fun to watch him explore and fall in love with new things. This is a very exciting time in his life. I just wish I could put one of those trains in my back yard!!!!

Thanksgiving

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to post because I forgot my camera this Thanksgiving weekend. BUT, we had a wonderful time celebrating this great holiday with family. We drove to Ft. Worth to see the entire Garrett family. It was awesome to meet relatives I had never met and to see all the ones we love dearly. James Thomas was perfect and I don't think things could have gone any better.

James and I had a fun Black Friday. For the first time ever we ventured out with the die hards and tried to get us a cheap TV. We arrived to Target at 3:30 thinking that was plenty of time to get in line for the 4 a.m. opening. UMMMMM, we were wrong. There was probably close to a 1,000 people in front of us. We did meet a great young mom from Minnesota who was standing in the freezing cold in flip flops! We unfortunately did not get the door buster deal but we did walk away with a new TV for our living room. We then made a quick stop to What a Burger and crawled back in bed all by 5:15 a.m.! It was pretty exciting. I can honestly say it was an experience like no other. You probably won't catch up ever doing that again but hey you only live once!!!

We did our second annual Christmas card photo shoot with Summer. She is absolutely amazing and did a beautiful job. I was really nervous before our appointment because James Thomas does not always cooperate and is at a very difficult age. He is also puffy because of the steroids so I thought all of this was going to lead to the biggest disaster ever. Summer was AWESOME! She came with puppets, balloons, you name it she had it. Her work is fantastic and that is all I will say, so you will have to wait until you get our card in the mail.

James Thomas is doing well. We go in for labs on Friday. It will have been two weeks so we are praying for great numbers. He is full of energy so I am expecting nothing less that greatness! I have sold lots of cookbooks! THANK YOU THANK YOU to all of you who are supporting the DBA foundation and ordering one. It is not too late. I think we have two more weeks to take orders.

Our house is decorated and we are enjoying this wonderful time of year! I pray each of you reading this is doing the same.