2014 Surgeries & Hospital Stays.....

We had quite the busy last couple months of 2014 with kids and their various medical needs.  It was a little stressful and hard to watch them go through all they had to go through, but we were very blessed and everyone turned out okay....well at least as good or better than they were before ;)

We started with Linli who needed a few procedures after coming home from China to get a baseline of where she was and check internal organs, etc.   She had one here at Logan Regional and one done at Primary Children's.  She did fantastic and everything turned out to be great news.   She will be good and free of surgeries for quite a few years....maybe in her tweens or teens.   so YAY that was amazing news!   She handled everything like a champ!

Next up we had little Meili with a very big surgery.   It was time for her bone graft....something we had been dreading for years and knew would be a long and hard recovery.  They took a small piece of bone from her hip and grafted it into her mouth.   She truly amazes me.   She has been through more than any little girl should ever have to endure.   She tries so hard to be so brave but it is so hard because she knows exactly what she is getting into every single time.   It breaks my heart to see her go through the anticipation as well as the surgery and recovery.   She did amazingly well though and the surgery went just as planned.   After we got home and she saw how much her face was swollen she was so sad because she said she would be ugly now.   I told her it would be okay and that she was so beautiful no matter what but that her swelling would go down and she would look like her old self in no time.   In just a few weeks she went back to her doctor for a checkup and as you can see she was as beautiful as ever!

Next up we had JD giving us some grief (no surprise there right? ;).   As you know from previous entries he has had a problem with a racing heart.   The first time or two it happened it seemed like it was a bad reaction to strep.   This last time it was bad and didn't go away.   We called Primary Children's and they had us do several things to try to get him out of the tachycardia.   Nothing worked and just made him feel awful.   They told us to go straight to the ER.   Again they tried everything to convert him to a sinus rhythm.  We had sent the EKG strip down to Primary's to see if they could figure out what was going on.   They were just about to put the shock machine on him to see if they could stop his heart and restart it in a normal sinus rhythm.   This would have been a horrible experience for him and I was so worried.   Just as they were seconds away from doing that, Primary's called and said we know what it is.   They said he was in ventricular tachycardia and would send life flight for him.   The doctor came in and told JD he was lucky and was going to go for a little helicopter ride.   Well, JD didn't feel very lucky and burst into tears.   At that very moment, he converted to a sinus rhythm by himself.  We were so grateful and felt so blessed.   We still had to meet with the cardiac surgeon and he explained that JD has an extra loop of ventricles or something (i'm sure if Russel was explaining it would much more technically but no one would probably understand it anyway).   Apparently, his blood would get caught in the same circuit just going round and round causing the heart to beat so fast.  For the surgery they would just basically go in and cauterize that area so the blood flow wouldn't get trapped in that little circuit.   It was a long surgery and seriously scared me to death.   Something about someone messing with my little boy's heart was just about enough to put me over the edge.   But once again, everything went perfect and he did great.  

In the recovery room, he was hilarious.  He kept talking about Russel being Mickey Mouse and every time Russel would say anything to him, he would use his fingers (with the red tip) and act like he was shooting a gun at him.   He wouldn't say a word to Russel, just pretended to shoot him every time Russel said anything at all.   Entertainment at its finest :)

We are so very grateful to wonderful doctors who took such good care of our children. What an amazing blessing it is to live in a world with such advanced medical technology.  We are also grateful for brave strong children and for a loving Heavenly Father who blessed them with everything they needed to make a full recovery.