While on vacation at my mom’s house Greyson tried out the paper. Rather than read it he decided it would be best to throw it around. He’s quite the active little guy these days.
After we got back from our trip we had a family BBQ with our children’s ministry families out at scenic beach. Greyson had a great time going around in his walker and even went up and down a grassy hill quite a few times! By the end of the day he was EXHAUSTED!!
OK so you probably know that Greyson is having surgery on the 23 of June. What you may not know is that I set a goal for Greyson of being able to get into his walker by himself before he goes in for surgery. So this video is us practicing for the big day when he is able to get up into the walker himself. Enjoy, I know I did!
While we were on vacation Greyson worked on eating and as you can see really enjoyed chocolate pudding. We are working to let him feed himself bites and as you can see, he still needs a little work! That’s OK though because we are just so proud of the work he is doing.
Well it took almost three years, but we finally got a picture of Greyson with his Uncle Shad. As a bonus we also got his cousin Morgan in the picture! Of course we still haven’t got one with Aunt Katie, but we will keep working at it!
We just got home late last night from a road trip vacation. We went to Nampa, Bend, Klamath Falls, and back to Bremerton in less than a week! While it was A LOT of driving we sure did enjoy seeing so many of our family members. I will try to get some more pictures and video up soon, but in the meantime check out Greyson being the older cousin!!
Well as you can see, Greyson’s skills continue to improve, not to mention his vocabulary. This video was so cute I had to get it up right away. He has really been taking off the last week with both his speech as well as his ability to get into trouble. Tonight he crawled from my lap up onto a table at church and found and spilt three drinks we had left too close to the floor.
Check out this great video!!
“My mom and dad are so boring sometimes. It’s not even that late and they put me in my crib and expect me to go to sleep. Ahhh….some parents! Well I’ll make my own fun and try to grab this circuit while no one is watching (yes dad I see you there with the camera, play along silly!)” A Greyson short story…
Greyson continues to bring a smile to our faces. His walking (with help) is getting a lot better and he is now fairly consistently pulling himself up to stand at the couch. Well I don’t know if you can call it pulling himself, he smashes his face into the couch and then springs to his feet. Hard to describe but he gets it done. I need to shoot some more video to show off some of his other tricks like talking. He is learning new words which is so exciting to hear him say. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this but he can say “Daddy” clear as a bell. So much for haggis being his first word, but honestly I don’t mind at all!
Unfortunately for Stacy he’s a bit of a stinker when it comes to saying mommy. He even went so far as to change the words of her song from “mommy loves you mommy loves you yes I do” to “Daddy duves do daddy duves do” the worst part was he had a devious smile on his face when he did it! Ahh how I love this kid!!
Ok so I know I haven’t been posting like I should, but life is pretty crazy in the Westfall house. For the last three Tuesdays in a row we have been in Tacoma at the hospital. Three Tuesdays ago we had to go to the ER because Greyson wasn’t able to breath well through his trach tube. Two Tuesdays ago Greyson had a urachal cyst removed from above his bladder. Then this last Tuesday Greyson had a rigid bronchoscopy to see what the next step should be to get his trach tube removed.
Well we have decided to go ahead and have surgery next month to remove Greyson’s trach tube. The date will be June 23. This is both great and nerve wracking news. We so want to get the trach tube out, but the surgery is …..well it’s probably the scariest surgery he has had to date. Basically the theory behind the surgery couldn’t be more simple. They will go in and cut out a section of his trachea removing all the scar tissue and other “bad” spots. After they remove the bad section they will then sew the two ends back together. Then he just has to heal up (two weeks) and we should be able to move on with life trach free.
Somehow when the theory meets up with it being Greysons airway we are talking about it gets a bit more scary sounding. So once again we find ourselves heading into a new chapter with the same basic message. God’s grace is still sufficient. Interesting word sufficient. Webster defines it as “enough to meet the needs of a situation or a proposed end”. So it doesn’t mean it is what we want or what we hope for. Doesn’t mean everything is going to “just be fine”, it just means that the God who loves us more than we can comprehend will be beside us regardless of what happens, and that is enough. We are confident that the God who has brought us through everything so far will continue to be enough for this new situation. The stress, finances, timing, and whatever else we may want to put here, will not destroy us because God is with us. So in the great words of the Old Testament (and New as well) we will FEAR NOT!
In between now and June 23 our life will be filled with appts with Urology, cardiology, gastroenterology, audiology, and his therapies in general. Not to mention simply enjoying one crazy, active, happy little boy that couldn’t bring more joy to our lives! The great thing is after getting all these appts done we should have a pretty free summer once the surgery is over.
We had a great day today as Greyson went to this special event. He got a cool t-shirt, a cowboy hat, and a bandana to prepare him for a visit to the farm. He rode a real horse, pet a goat, and also went on a hay ride. He seemed to really have a great time even if there were a few tears over trying new things.
Monday I took Greyson to church to work out on the stairs. I was very impressed! This is the best I’ve ever seen him do! He is getting stronger every day there is no doubt about it.
OK so here is our “big” story from yesterday. So we LOVE our Dr’s, they are the best. However, we do not live in a perfect world and there are times when the medical system can be a bit frustrating. Greyson has been having a minor……we will say “issue” for about a week. It’s not a big deal but is something that could become a big deal. So please don’t be alarmed. Anyway the “issue” is that he has not been able to always breath well through his trach tube. We attributed this to secretions and have been dealing with it for the past week. The problem is it has been getting a little worse. So yesterday morning we decided it was time to take things to the next level and change out his trach for a new one, which should make things all better. Well we did the trach change and things did not get better, in fact for a short while he wasn’t breathing through his trach tube at all (don’t worry, he can breath through his nose/mouth it just becomes very hard for him and he can’t get the oxygen he needs for long periods this way). We got him breathing through the tube after some work, but knew it was still the way it had been. So we called the Dr. to find out what we should do. Well after waiting all day to hear from the Dr. it was decided that someone should look at him to make sure he was safe. Unfortunately by this time the only people who could see him were the emergency room in Tacoma. So off we went to the brand new emergency room in Tacoma. It’s very very nice by the way, if you have to go to an emergency room I recommend it, but don’t wear metal cause you have to go through a medal detector as you enter. Anyway we saw the ER Dr., who was a lady, and she was getting all the information from us. Meanwhile Greyson, who was sitting on my lap, was making these romantic blinking faces at her. Can’t believe he is two and a half and was totally flirting with the DR!! So after the primary ER dr. came in to deal with us he basically told us he didn’t know what to do and was going to call Greyson’s Dr. Yes the one we had called who told us to go to the ER. We understand the reasons for all this but it was slightly frustrating to go there, get charged a $75 copay, basically to have the ER Dr. ask us if we felt comfortable taking him home. We did which means we left without anything being done. A couple of Greyson’s DR’s will talk this week and decided if and when something will need to be done to determine what is happening. This all comes one week before Greyson is having minor surgery on a cyst, and two weeks before his bronchoscopy to determine what the plan will be to get his trach out. OK so while we did have to pay $75, we feel we almost got our money worth because the ER doctor (the primary one) who is very tall and skinny, squatted down and grabbed Greyson’s walker and “walked” all around the room before we were discharged. It was really funny. I think if I would have got it on video it would have totally been worth the ER visit.
Anyway a couple new funny hospital stories to add to our rather extended collection.
Well here are a couple pictures from the March for babies walk. Greyson insisted on walking across the finish line, so he did. Then as you can see he had to go over and have a chat with Ms. Pouslbo. He is really getting to be quite the ladies man. I don’t know, she seems a bit old for him!
Thank you to everyone who donated to Greyson’s team, we actually exceeded our goal for this year by raising $617!!! We haven’t forgot all you who donated more than $25, please be patient. We are working hard on your DVD’s and we will get them done and to you, we promise!
So what else is special about today? Anyone? Well today we celebrate the two year aniversary of bringing Greyson home from the hospital.
It is amazing to look back and see the way God has been at work in Greyson (and our!) lives over these last two years. A promise God reminded us of way back when we first went into the hospital (and were told that we would most likely lose Greyson before the morning came) was that God would never leave our side. He never assured us everything would be OK. He never assured us that Greyson would make it or that he would not have a host of medical problems. But over and over again he let us know that He loves us, and that He was walking right beside us. As we look to this summer and see more surgeries in Greyson’s future (He will be having a cyst removed on May 4, then on May 11 he will have a bronchoscopy to determine when and if he will have his next trachea surgery) I have been overwhelmed with the fact that God is not only walking through this process with us, but He is walking close to Greyson each and every day as well. There are times when everything that is happenign to Greyson gets to be too much for me, and it is only when I am reminded that God is always with Greyson providing the comfort that only He can in the midst of all the bad stuff, that I can feel at peace.
So celebrate with us the work that God has done over the last two years and we will continue to trust God to be with Him in the days ahead. There is no doubt that God is a good God who loves us!