1 Yr Pictures

 

Oh how we love this little 1 yr old!  I can’t find the words to express the love we have for him, but I think these next few pictures can:

DONE!

As the month of March comes to an end, I realize that we are finally DONE with the craziness that came along with this month.  We have had Birthdays, Parties, an Anniversary, a Baby Shower, a Funeral, visits with friends and family, and a TON of doctor appointments.  I like action, but this month was a little overwhelming. 

I am happy that we were able to tie up so many loose ends though and I can finally end this chapter of the blog!  Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere, but my main objective in creating this blog was to document Ryder’s life and print it into a book.  So now that we got the health mysteries solved (we know that his kidneys are healing and we got confirmation that he did have a stroke in utero), plus we got his 1 yr pictures in, I finally feel comfortable ending “Volume 1: The First Year” and getting it ready for print!

As we sat in the waiting room at the Pediatrician’s office yesterday, Ryder told us that he was DONE!  And I couldn’t agree more.  He got his shot, they did his blood work, and now we are DONE.  I talked to his doctor about his platelets being high and she said that if they come back high again, we will just test his blood in another month and keep an eye on it.  The platelets could be high as a pre-cursor to anemia, or because his esophagus is inflamed from having acid reflux…or a few other reasons, nothing too serious, so I’m DONE worrying about that!  And we are DONE with Dr. appointments, nothing on the books for April…yessssssss! 

So, IN RYDER’S VERY OWN WORDS…WE ARE OFFICIALLY:

DONE!

One Word Wednesday

ONE!

It’s Over Already?!

The weekends fly by so fast, and this was a busy one so it seems to have gone even faster than normal!

Our action-packed weekend included a lunch with Grandpa (and a driving lesson):

Lindsay’s Baby Shower, where we had so much fun seeing all the cute things baby Madalynn got, and visiting with friends!   We also learned that Ryder can be quite the aggressive ladies man!

  The little love birds (don’t be jealous Owen)! 

Our next stop was a pajama party with Ryder’s next victim friend while the Daddy’s/Husbands took over our house to watch UFC.

  Notice a common theme here?  These are some smart girls, it didn’t take them long to figure out the way to Ryder’s heart…feeding him :-)

To finish off the weekend activity, I met up with some friends to make a picture board for a good friends funeral we’ll be attending this week :*( {Hey Luke, I was going to come across the street and visit you but your Mommy’s car wasn’t there…one of these days I’ll get to love on you!}

And Ryder got to open some Birthday presents from Diana & Amber (thanks girls, we love all of it!)

And now it’s bed time to get some much needed rest – hopefully this week will fly by too because it’s going to be just as action-packed as the weekend.

ANSWERS!!

You don’t know how good it feels to finally have a post that doesn’t say “we’re waiting on this” or “waiting on that”…the wait is over and we finally have ANSWERS!!

The Neurologist just called and went over the results of Ryder’s MRI and I’m happy to report that Ryder did have a stroke.  Okay wait, I’m not happy that Ryder had a stroke, but I’m happy to finally know that it was a stroke.  This is a good diagnosis because it means that:  1) There is no malformation on his brain, and 2) it was an isolated incident, not something that will continue to cause further damage.  And the information on the stroke gets even better…there was minimal damage done to his Cortex (Grey Matter), which means that the stroke took place in the White Matter, which if you are going to have a stroke is the BEST place to have one.  I’m trying to explain this in Mommy terms and praying that a Doctor doesn’t read it and roll on the floor laughing at my interpretation.  So basically, there is the outer part of the brain, the Grey Matter, that controls all of your functions, and then there is the White Matter underneath that has all these little wires (probably called Neurons or something, ha!) that send signals to your body to do that function.  So since Ryder’s stroke took place in the white matter, it means that he has to work extra hard to get those little wires stimulated so that they will start making new connections and sending signals to his body to function the way his brain is telling it to.  Any time you have a brain injury you are at a higher risk for seizures, but if his stroke had happened in the Grey Matter he would be at a “much, much, MUCH higher risk”.  So it is a huge blessing that the stroke happened in the White Matter and not the Grey Matter for all of those reasons.

Moving forward, the Doctor said that the report justifies keeping up with Occupational Therapy for rehabilitation.  He noted that the area that the stroke took place would suggest that Ryder’s leg would be more affected than it is.  The fact that he has regained a lot of function in his leg is proof to him that his brain is already hard at work re-wiring itself. 

In true Ryder fashion, the Dr. reported that out of all the possible outcomes, these results are “Significantly on the better end of the spectrum”!!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Ryder, even though he keeps having obstacles placed in his path, you can see how much God is at work in his life.  He has a special plan for this little boy…I just know it <3

5:00 pm

Do you think he has had a long day??

MRI = Done!

Shewww, what a weight lifted off our shoulders!  Not that we have the results yet, but anticipating Ryder being put to sleep is never easy for us.  Here he is in the waiting room playing with Daddy (these 2 can find ways to have fun, no matter what the circumstances!): (Oh, hey, look, I finally got a picture of his top two teeth that just came in!)

They took him back and said it would be about an hour…that turned into almost two hours…yikes!  So what do two worried parents do while they anxiously wait?!

 

We checked the beeper every 5 minutes to make sure it was still working (just incase we somehow didn’t feel it vibrate or hear it beep!)

 

Mommy paced back and forth along this brick wall; Daddy sat at the end biting his nails off!  He has spent a lot of time in that very spot, doing that very same thing.

 

 

We reminisced about the fact that one year ago today we were sitting in one of those very rooms (on the 3rd floor) with our baby down the hall in the NICU.

We ran into our two favorite nurses from the NICU and gave them an update on Ryder.  I love how they remember him and still care about his well-being.

And then finally, our beeper buzzzzzed and we ran as fast as we could to recovery!  Ryder was just waking up and was very groggy, but in no time we had him in the car and he was fast asleep for our entire car ride home.

Now that we are home, he has eaten a HUGE meal, must have felt good to finally be able to eat something.  He’s being spoiled rotten by Mommy & Daddy, crawling all around as if he has never missed a beat, and playing with every single toy he has!

Now we just wait for someone to call with some results. 

Updates

Okay, so, I heard back from the Pediatrician’s office this morning and thankfully, Ryder’s iron came back normal, so he is not anemic (yay!).  BUT (seems like there is always a but!) his platelets came back high…so now we have to repeat the blood work in 1 week to see if they have gone back to normal (please say yes) and if not, well, I guess we’ll find out then what that means. 

Ryder is definitely getting his MRI tomorrow, we have to be at the hospital at 7 in the morning.  They will be putting him to sleep, and then taking some pictures of his brain, the procedure should only last about 30-45 minutes.  Specifically, they are looking to see if there has been some damage done to his brain, possibly caused by a stroke or an abnormality that formed, resulting in left side weakness.  This test should bring about a lot of answers as to what happened, the severity, the location, and where to go from here.  We will not have the results tomorrow, it will be a few days before we here from the Neurologist.  Please pray that it’s nothing too serious…and that he’ll handle the anesthesia well. 

And…last update for the night…I got my camera back (woop woop) so please scroll down to the “What a Weekend” post to see pictures from Ryder’s birthday party on Sunday.

That’s all for now :-)

One Word Wednesday

**Kisses**

1yr Dr. Appt

Ryder had his 1 yr appointment yesterday with his Pediatrician.  He was supposed to get shots but we decided to delay them until next week since he’s being put to sleep for an MRI on Thursday and we didn’t want to run the risk of him getting a fever.

Ryder weighed 18 pounds 2 ounces!!  Still only in the 3rd percentile for weight!  And he was 29 inches long which is the 35th percentile for height.  So he’s still small, but he continues to grow, so that’s a good thing!

I’m extremely happy to report that Ryder has finally caught up in every area of development that he was behind in from being a preemie!  I was able to answer YES to all of the questions in the Problem Solving Skills & Fine Motor categories which he has always lagged behind in.  Now the only area that needs work (the answer to all of these questions was NO) is Gross Motor.  He’s working hard in therapy though and will catch up eventually, especially after we get some answers from the MRI results.

The appointment went great, he was cleared for anesthesia on Thursday and everything…but then at the very end they had to do a routine finger prick to check his iron levels and make sure he’s not anemic.  Well, you guessed it, the number came back extremely low.  They ended up doing full blood work on him and sent it out, they were supposed to be calling me back today with the results, but no such luck.  All I have to go off of right now is that they want the level to be atleast 10.5 and Ryder’s was 6.6…my inner hypochondriac could come up with 50 things this could possibly mean, but I think I’ll just pray that they call me in the morning with some good news!

Still no camera…so no pictures of the most handsome 1 yr old I know…sorry to disappoint!  

What a Weekend!

 

Ryder had his last party today at his Me-mew’s house.  It was such a beautiful day, so we enjoyed the weather outside for a while.

  He got some more really nice presents…     And another cake all to himself!  He loved it, of course, and I think he might be super upset tomorrow (and every other day) when he doesn’t get a cake to dig into! 

So, Ryder’s Birthday Week has officially come to an end!  It has finally sank in that my little baby is a whole entire year old…it took an entire weekend of seeing the #1 everywhere for me to really come to terms with it.

I can’t thank everyone enough for all the Happy Birthday wishes, the sweet cards, and the best gifts ever!

Wow, what a weekend…we’re all exhausted!