Westfall Web

December has gone by way to fast. We have quite a few stories, pictures, and videos to share. However, not tonight! Tonight I leave you with a simple video from Christmas Eve. Greyson LOVED being around his cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grandma Terry and Great Grandma. He also enjoyed learning to be a bit naughty. Of course we thought it was so funny we let him keep doing it until we could record it. However now that we are home we are finding he is still throwing stuff at random inappropriate times……..hmmmm…….I wonder why. We told him when we were done recording this video that it was not nice and he shouldn’t do it anymore. Were we sending mixed messages by laughing and filming it? Nah!

Walkin like a man.
December 8th, 2010
OK so I think most of you know that Greyson can walk a little on his own. He doesn’t go far but is getting better all the time. Usually we have him walk between Stacy and I when we get home at night a few times in order to give him practice. Well for the last month he has decided he doesn’t really want to. We get him to walk a little, but it is work and he fights us the whole time.
Well Sunday we took Greyson to quizzing with us as I was helping lead the practice. Greyson had a blast playing with the kids. He has also developed a new form of “play” where he gets up on his knees and basically tries to walk. In this position he is on his knees but his rear is off of his feet. We are very excited about this as it really works his balance and muscles he needs to walk. As you can see in the video, his desire to try to walk has returned and his ability to do so is improving as well. Enjoy!

Greyson got a package the other day from his grandma. In it was this cool hat and mittens. As you might be able to see from the video he is pretty happy with mittens! We have a lot to catch up on and hopefully will be able to do that soon. Life has been VERY busy but we are doing well and enjoying our life together.

This is a picture from a couple weeks ago. Our church sent our family to minister and mates retreat. Well actually they sent Stacy and I and we drug Greyson along with us. He thought it was pretty cool since there was only one other child there and he received a fair amount of attention!
The hotel was very nice and provided these robes that Stacy and Greyson had to try out. Greyson’s was a little bit large for him, but he didn’t mind that much.
So on to Greyson’s swallow study, which I haven’t commented on. So he didn’t pass but he didn’t fail….or so I thought. The speech therapist said this really isn’t a pass fail type of study. Greyson did well but did aspirate on a couple swallows. Basically what this means is we are cleared to begin working on feeding again, but have to be careful he doesn’t get too tired and we need to stay away from thin liquids (well any liquid needs to have a thickening agent to it, then he can have it). This is good news as we can begin working on feeding again!!!
On another positive/negative note. Greyson has officially entered the “separation anxiety” phase of development. He cries when I drop him off at the baby sitters, or in the church nursery, or …..??? This is good as it is a developmental stage, but it is not fun to see your child crying his little eyes out (silently none the less!) While he does usually cry for this silently, he is not a silent child any longer! His voice continues to show signs of improvement and we continue to praise God for his miraculous touch!

Today was a pretty big day as Greyson went in and the Dr. looked at his surgery site. We are pleased to report that it looked amazing! Basically it looks like a normal airway, well a normal GOOD airway! We decided to include a couple pictures if you care to look. If not we understand completely. In the first picture you see his airway as it looked today, nice and open like a pipe. In the next picture you can see how it was not nice and open, but rather he only had a small opening to breathe through. This was the problem that is now fixed!
Trach all healed up!
Trach picture showing scar tissue
So tomorrow will be the swallow study which will let us know if he can swallow safely. If he can we will be able to resume feeding him, or in other words working to teach him to eat. If we can’t then we will have to wait till the vocal cord function returns more than they have so far. Today was a great day and we are praying for more good news tomorrow. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!

So I know we haven’t really talked about Greyson’s voice much, so we thought we should give everyone an update. Well that can be a bit difficult to describe. See when Greyson came home from his last surgery, his recurrent laryngeal nerves were traumatized causing his vocal cords to be paralyzed in a medial position. In simple terms, they were stuck mostly open. This has allowed him to breathe pretty well but has kept him silent. For the first month after surgery he was basically silent. He couldn’t make noise, and in turn quit trying to talk. Then he started making some noise when he got excited (much like the end of the video below). This was the only sound he made. Well over the last month or so Greyson’s voice has started to return (Praise God!!). As you can see from the video there are times when he says something short that sound pretty normal. Most of the time though his voice is quiet and hoarse. From all we have heard or read this is pretty normal. The hope is that it will continue to get louder and stronger as the healing process continues. We believe more than ever that God is working on these nerves and that God is going to restore Greyson’s full voice.
This week is going to be a full week for us. On Wednesday we are taking Greyson to Tacoma for the surgeon to go in and take a look. He will be trying to look at his vocal cords while Greyson is only slightly sedated before going further and taking a look at the surgery sight to see how it is healing up. If he has to do any “touching up” to the surgery sight we will probably have to stay in the hospital overnight. Based on how he has been breathing we are not expecting any serious issues.
Then on Thursday Greyson will be having a swallow study so we can see how safe it is to give him food. We are VERY excited about this as hopefully it will show that we can go back to feeding him, something he is VERY interested in these days! We continue to give him very small tastes so that hopefully all the hard work Tina and Stacy (and a little bit me) have put into getting him to eat will not be lost. So pray with us that this week will give us some good answers into how things are progressing, and how to move forward! Anyway enjoy the video. We are so grateful for the voice Greyson has right now. The only thing that is still missing completely now is his laugh. Unfortunately he has no laugh at this stage in the process. God is good though and we are praising Him for His many blessings.

Our Pumpkin Patch Party was a success on two important fronts. The first was that as a part of Bob’s job we always hope everything goes smoothly, there are lots of kids from the neighborhood there, and that there is enough candy to last the night. Success! No big problems, somewhere around 190 kids, and plenty of candy left over. It is temporarily residing in Bob’s office, so stop by for your sugar fix.
The second part involves our own boy and that he had a fun and safe time. Mission accomplished! Greyson really cared more about socializing than getting candy. We practiced trick-or-treating for a week or so before the party so that he would be able to knock on the doors and then accept the candy from the people behind those doors and put it into his trick or treat bag. He did all of that and as we went farther down the trick or treat street he seemed to be having more and more fun. In the Gym there was a carnival with lots of people. He tried some of the games and had lots of smiles to go around. Over all it was a super fun night and we were so thankful for it. Here are some fun pictures from the night.

We finally found a candy that he really likes, Black Licorice. As his mom and a fellow licorice connoisseur, I am so proud. When he is cleared to eat for real, we can use this preferred food to help him learn to chew.

OK very cute story from a couple days ago. So Stacy was laying across the bottom of our bed right up against Greyson’s crib. She had already laid him down and was exhausted from a busy week. She wanted to go to sleep but Greyson was still awake. So she laid down across the bottom of the bed and said “Greyson…..please just go night night.” Well Greyson (who was standing in his crib by this point) reached down and grabbed his glow worm (which he sleeps with) and handed it over the crib to Stacy. Then he immediately pulled it back, pushed its stomach to make it light up and play music, and then dropped it over the other side for her again while whispering “night night”. He is so thoughtful!
So it’s been awhile since I updated, and man a LOT has happened! Greyson is now attending school full time (which for his preschool is 4 days a week for 2 & 1/2 hours a day). Just over a week ago he had to miss a day since his nurse was very sick and couldn’t go with him. Turns out that was a blessing as wouldn’t you know Greyson was getting sick at the same time! We are not positive, but he probably had strep throat as that is what his nurse had and he had all the same symptoms. We saw his surgeon who couldn’t test for that but went ahead and started him on antibiotics since his throat was very red, and he had all the other symptoms.
He also had his g-tube flare up with granulation tissue (this is tissue that forms as a response to a foreign object) so we have gone to Tacoma twice to have it treated. We normally treat it ourselves but for some reason it got way out of hand very quickly. In addition to all this he got a bit constipated so his stomach wasn’t doing well. When it rains it pours I guess!
Well we have worked through all that and Greyson went to school for 5 days this week. You may be asking how that works since his school is only for four days right? I know you are thinking I can’t do math very well. Actually he did sort of go 5 days because on thursday (normally his day off) we went on a field trip!! We went with his class to a local farm and saw animals, went through a corn maze, and even got to take home a pumpkin! It was really fun and Greyson loved it.

Greyson is “talking” a lot more these days which makes us happy. For the first month he wouldn’t even try to talk, but now is talking a lot more. He still doesn’t have his voice, but at times we hear “noises” that definitely give us hope. The surgeon couldn’t tell us anything but said it was a good sign and hopefully it will just get better and better as time goes on. He is going to go in and take a look at the surgery sight early next month and as a part of that will try to see if the vocal cords are moving at all. The next day Greyson will have a swallow study done to see if we can begin feeding him anything by mouth again. We are praying these go well.
Greyson’s walking continues to improve and he is now quite the dare devil with his walker. He now likes to walk around to the back of it (by himself!) and push it like we push him. It’s quite the sight and makes people question whether he needs the thing at all! He still does but is definitely making progress and getting more stable. A few more months and he may not need the walker at all!
Finally we went shopping tonight and bought Greyson his first pair of rain boots. The first pair was a bit large for him and we took this video of him trying to walk in them. As usual the video missed the funniest part but hopefully it will give you an idea of how it looked.

Tonight while Stacy tried to fold clothes Greyson and I entertained ourselves (and mommy) by playing sock puppets. Greyson didn’t like to keep his on for long, but he sure thought it was funny to say “buh bye” to my sock puppet. I think he kept doing that because when I made the sock puppets mouth move, it looked the same as waving bye.
Tomorrow Greyson will be heading back to school. He went two days last week and will go at least two days this week if everything goes as planned.
Today Stacy and I got our flu shots (yippee!) and while we were waiting in Walgreens Greyson started to do new tricks with his walker. See we always let him walk around pretty freely in Walgreens because it is usually not that busy and it is a safe controlled environment. So he’s pretty comfortable there. Anyway today he started “popping wheelies” where he would completely pick the front two wheels of his walker about two feet off the ground. This is fun while we are close, but if he does it on his own and goes to high he is going to learn a painful lesson! That said it is so fun to watch him doing so many new things now that he can walk a little on his own. He continues to improve in that department and then when he goes back to using his walker it is amazing to see how much more confident he is. Of course it’s odd to see him walking literally next to his walker, where only one hand is on it. All good things! Greyson will get his flu shot on Thursday, and we are seeing Dr. Boseley (his ear nose throat surgeon) on Saturday. So keep him in your prayers that God will keep his hand on Greyson. We are hearing “different” sounds especially at night that gives us hope that maybe something is starting to happen with the vocal cords. God knows and we will just keep thanking him for the work he has, is, and will continue to do in Greyson’s body. Thank you Jesus for overcoming vocal cord paralysis! Why not join us in praising God even before we see (or in this case most likely hear) the result we are looking for?