Water Bug

When we first brought Kaleb home he HATED his bath! He would scream when you gave him one so we tried putting him in the bathtub with one of us and everything changed. He now absolutely lovessss being in water! We put him in his new swimming pool and he had a ball! He didn't want to get out of it but eventually we had to pry him out of it. lol

Wild Child

My little wild child is into everything now! He is crawling everywhere and standing on his own. He found his nana's purse and thought he'd see if anything interesting was in there lol

He'll get between your legs and untie your shoes!

Here he is trying to wake nana up! lol

Kaleb's Recliner

Fun in New Orleans and CF appointment

Below is Kaleb and Dr. Hopkins. Kaleb got a great report! They are very happy with how much weight he gained and his chubby cheeks he's got going on! lol He is back on tobi breathing treatments and cipro oral antibiotics. Hopefully we can get rid of this bacteria in his lungs this time around! All in all it was a great appointment!

We have been very busy because my mom and her husband just moved here from Wisconsin. So I haven't been blogging much lately. Kaleb had a CF appointment with his care team on Wednesday in New Orleans. We decided to take them and show them a good time in New Orleans!

We left on Tuesday and got a hotel room right on Canal Street close to all the wonderful tourist attractions. We checked in and then decided to just walk down Canal to Bourbon Street before it got dark.

Kaleb thought this mime painted silver was wild looking! He didn't what to think about him, his face just looks like he's going "What the heck are you??" lol

Kaleb LOVED this jazz band we found at the end of Bourbon Street.

After Kaleb's appointment we took a steamboat ride on the Steamboat Natchez! It was really awesome, we all enjoyed it so much!

Before we headed back home the next day, we went to the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas.

Kaleb LOVED the aquarium SO much!! I had the best time just watching him get so excited over the fish!

After the aquarium we headed to the French Market where I got this really cute hat for Kaleb!

Then we headed home where Kaleb totally zonked out! He was exhausted from all the fun, but it was a really great trip we all enjoyed very much!

Wild Boy

I keep saying it'll lay down when it gets a little longer but it's not happening! lol My poor baby has "chicken hair" as we affectionately call his spikey hairdo. lol My husband always tries to slick it down but I think its adorable sticking up like that!

He is now jabbering saying ma ma ma ma! Of course I looooove this! He has no idea what he's saying, just copying me because I say ma ma ma to him ALL the time lol BUT! He's saying it! He's growing so fast and learning so much....he's just amazing and wonderful all wrapped into this wild, adorable lil boy! :D

Walker Mania

Kaleb definetly has walker mania! lol he lovessss being in his walker so much. He has only mastered going backwards in it so far but it is his new favorite thing!

well, his favorite besides watching me do Wii Fitness lol My wonderful husband bought me the Wii Fitness mat and game today! I absolutely love it! It's so much fun you forget your working out. I think it's an awesome invention for moms! We can work out right here in our home while we watch our babies. It is really awesome how it tells you your weight, BMI and lets you set goals of how much weight you want to lose in a certain period of time. Then you can track your progress. I love how it stimulates you going for a run. It looks and sounds like your outside as you run in place. Kaleb sits in his walker and just stares at me like I'm crazy. lol which....well....he's probably right! And no, there are definetly no pictures of me doing this.....lol

Snuggle Bug

I gave Kaleb a bath earlier today and then wrapped him up in this big fluffy towel. He loves being all swaddled up like this. He didn't want me to take the towel off to get dressed lol I unwrapped him long enough to put a diaper and onesie on him. Then I swaddled him back up in the towel and he fell right to sleep. He's such a little snuggly bug and just looked so precious I had to snap a picture!

He is feeling alot better today. We took him to the doctor yesterday for a diaper rash and white stuff on his lips/mouth. We figured he had thrush and we were right. He's only had two doses of the medicine she prescribed and is already so much better. He slept from 8 pm to 10 am this morning!! He woke up all smiley and not near as fussy as yesterday. So glad he is feeling better and back to his old happy self!

Our Little Road Trip

Wednesday and Thursday we took a small road trip that started out just to see my brother Ben but we decided to take a detour to Galveston to ride the ferry. It was so enjoyable and beautiful. We saw a dolphin on our way across which was really neat. I'm glad we did this because Kaleb absolutely loved it! He was just so engrossed in everything going on around him!

After the wonderful ferry ride we were back on the road again. We hooked this DVD player up for Kaleb so he can watch his Baby Einstein videos on road trips to New Orleans for his monthly CF appointments. It really comes in handy to keep him occupied and he seems to really enjoy it! He loves his Baby Einstein DVDs!

Next we stopped to visit with Kaleb's Great Aunt Joann. It was a wonderful visit and very special for my husband :) Kaleb had a little mishap though when daddy decided to give him ice cream! He threw up everywhere and freaked mommy out! Always scares me when Kaleb throws up because that is what he did when he had his blockage. He was laughing and wanting to play soon after though and so my heart palpitations ceased! lol

We were all pretty tuckered out from a long day so we checked into a nearby hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night.

The next day we visited with Uncle Ben and Uncle Mark. We had a delicious lunch at a nearby cafe that they recommended. Mmmmm for chicken fried steak! Kaleb was a little fussy and tired so he zonked out in his car seat on the way to BabiesRus/ToysRus. We all of course spent a fortune at the toy store. lol Kaleb got a walker and a bumbo seat that I had been wanting to get him for a long time.

We had an awesome time seeing family and enjoyed a great trip with Kaleb. Can't wait for the next one!

Breathing Treatments

We give Kaleb his tobi breathing treatments two times a day. One in the morning and one at night before he goes to bed. This is the second time around he's had to do them. At first he would throw a fit and not want the mask on his face at all. He has gotten so much better at it now and will sit and do it most of the time. He is after all just a baby so sometimes he is fussy and fights us on it. I just stop the machine and pull ourselves together for a few minutes before we try again. What we find works best for Kaleb is to sit him in his bouncy chair while we do it. It seems like when we hold him while we do it he squirms and fusses more frequently. When he sits in his bouncy chair he watches us talking to him and I sing songs to him. We also bring some of his toys like his rattles and stuffed animals to occupy him if he gets upset. I think the biggest thing is to keep him entertained while he has to sit there, he gets bored. Another trick that works for Kaleb is to give him his pacifer, let him suck on it and then put the mask over his face. Usually he will fall asleep when we do the night time treatment while sucking on his "binky" as I rock his bouncy chair up and down lightly. Not every treatment is absolutely perfect but neither is Kaleb...or me for that matter lol I stopped worrying myself so much over doing it absolutely perfect and him getting every single little puff the machine blows out. He is just a baby and except for the times he falls asleep that just isn't possible for him. I think he does really great for his age, he is only 9 months old and sits there like a champ most of the time!

Kaleb is sitting up!

Kaleb sat up all by himself with no help for the first time last night!! We are so excited and proud of him! I know it seems kind of late for him to just now be doing this but he spent a good chunk of his life so far in a hospital bed. We have been working every day with him to help him try and sit up, crawl, roll over and talk. He has been rolling all over the place and now sitting up so we are definetly making progress!! I'm so stinkin' proud of the lil boo bear! :D

I hope everyone has a happy 4th of july!

:)

Our Life Presently

This is a current picture of Kaleb :D

Amazing to look at him now and compare it to pictures of him at birth! He looks like a totally different baby!

He is doing so great at the moment! He's gaining weight and eating up a storm! His CF care team are so impressed and happy with how he is doing. He takes his enzymes mixed in apple sauce before every bottle or baby food he eats. The enzymes help him to be able to digest his food. He also has liquid vitamins his nutritionist gave him, who is awesome and part of his care team. The vitamins are essential to give him enough of the vitamins he doesn't absorb properly on his own. The vitamins are mixed with salt and rice cereal into his formula. The salt i'm sure your wondering about is also to give him what he needs to make up for all the salt he sweats out. Kiss a cfer and see how salty they taste. He takes zantac for acid reflux two times a day. He has a bottle every four hours and he eats baby food in between his bottle feedings. He lovessss sweet potatoes and will eat anything mixed with them lol He also loves any fruit but really really hates peas!! At the moment he has a bacteria in his lungs (Pseudomonas) that his CF doc found by the throat swab he has Kaleb do every appointment. So, we are currently doing a round of "tobi", his breathing treatment, two times a day. He will be on this as well as liquid antibiotics for 28 days and then another throat swab will be done to see if he is rid of it. We also do what I call "patting" ,(Airway Clearance Technique), two times a day, once in the morning and once at night after his breathing treatments. I call it patting because what you do is pat him with a cupped hand on each side of his upper back and his chest to vibrate his lungs. Vibrating the lungs makes them "sluff off" the dead cells, since he can't do this on his own, and hopefully helps to rid the bacteria.

Sometimes things are pretty hectic. Last week we had a doctors appointment or home health visit every day except saturday and sunday lol It can be crazy but I will do anything to make sure he is getting everything he needs and the best care he can have.

Phew! I think thats it lol All of that has pretty much become normal around here and just a part of life. His CF care team is awesome and I think they are detrimental to how well he is doing. I hope he keeps continuing to thrive!

First Peek!

Kaleb in Lafayette ICU 5 days old

Our whole world changed when I found out I was pregnant with our sweet boy! Kaleb was born September 24th 2008 by an emergency c-section.

We went in for a regular appointment and I had not been feeling right the day before. I told the doctor I had been hurting and that I wasn't feeling the baby move near as much as I usually do. She decided she needed to check me and found I was dilated to a two. They sent me straight over to Labor & Delivery to put me on an IV drip and told me I would probably stay over night. They told me hopefully the drip they were putting me on would stop me from going further into labor. They didn't seem worried so I remained calm and told my husband he should go and get something to eat. It was an afternoon appointment and we were planning to eat after we left the doctors office so we were starving! While he was gone they did an ultra sound just to check on the baby. I started panicking when the nurse doing it said she would be right back and came back with another nurse. I just kept asking if everything was okay....They kept assuring me it was fine and that they were just going to have the nurse practitioner look. The next thing I know the doctor and nurse practitioner came in to give me the news.

His little tummy was literally blowing up like a balloon inside of me. That is why I had been hurting and why he was ready to come out! He had a perforated intestine and was just filling himself up with fluids. They told me to prepare myself that I would be having this baby now by an emergency c-section. I was freaking out and called my husband on the phone to let him know. He made it back to me as they were rolling me into the operating room. I was scared to death, shaking all over and I just wanted to burst into tears.

Our sweet boy made it to us but was on a ventilator and numerous other machines. He was rushed to bigger hospital in Lake Charles where they did surgery to release the fluid. The surgeon there took one look, release the fluid and sewed him up. He pretty much didn't know what to do, he said Kaleb's intestines were all matted together. They got Kaleb stable and kept him there over night in ICU. The next day they sent him to another hospital in Lafayette where Dr. Falterman, an amazing surgeon took on Kaleb.

Of course I was still in Sulphur, they told me the quicker I got up and walked the sooner they would let me go. So, I was up that morning first thing to shower and I walked the halls. They let me go the next night....the two hour ride to Lafayette was very painful for me and all I wanted was to see Kaleb. I had only seen him once right after I woke up from surgery. They had him in an incubator and they rolled him in for me to see. I was so droggy I barely remember it so I was ready to see him.

I will never forget when I saw him. He was hooked up to so many machines and he was so small. He was so vulnerable and it absolutely tore my heart up to see him like he was. I remember I kissed his foot because it was the only part of him I could reach that didn't have a needle stuck in it or something wrapped around it. I just stared at him, talked to him, prayed for him and cried. I didn't know what was going to happen, how long Kaleb would be on this earth or what I could do to help. I felt helpless and terrified.

I have no idea how on earth we made it past these days. They were long, sad and heart wrenching. I cried every night I left him to go to the hotel to sleep. I cried every time I saw another parent with their baby or when I would see a mom holding her baby in a wheelchair through the hospital halls, smiling because they were going home. It absolutely broke my heart into pieces.

He was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. I had no idea what this disease was and it terrified me! I burst into tears when they told us. I kissed Kaleb over and over, we left for the hotel to look it up on our laptop. It is a genetic disease that will affect his digestion and lungs. Most babies who have a perforated intestine or 'illeus' at birth usually have cystic fibrosis is what we were told. We soaked up any information on the net we could find on it, pulled ourselves together and got ready to do whatever we had to do to have Kaleb.

Dr. Falterman gave Kaleb an ostomy bag and repaired his intestines. After 65 days of exhaustion, worry, horrible days where he went back to the critical section after doing great for a little while we were able to take him home. I smiled the HUGEST smile and had tears in my eyes as I finally sat in the wheelchair and was wheeled through the halls to go home.

Recently Kaleb was back in the hospital again because he had a blockage. Dr. Falterman had us bring him to Pediatric ICU back in Lafayette and he reversed Kaleb's ostomy. He did not take the easy way out, after surgery, he had yet another blockage. So back to surgery again this lil man went. I can not even begin to explain how incredibly awesome the nursing and doctor staff at Women's and Children in Lafayette Pediatric ICU are. I tear up thinking about how much care they put into everything they did for Kaleb. There was a sweet Russian nurse who loved to rock Kaleb and she spoke Russian to him all the time. I would joke with her and say he would know Russian by the time we got home. They were always concerned about me as well as Kaleb and they just touched my heart. The second surgery worked and Kaleb healed correctly with no blockages! You have never seen a mommy so happy and excited for their baby to have a bowel movement lol

Kaleb is currently doing very well! No more signs of blockages, he is gaining lots of weight, very happy and just a wonderful joy!! I thank God every day for Dr. Falterman and all the nurses/doctors that have put a hand in Kaleb being here today. I will be forever grateful for all of their help, concern, prayers, hugs and the most excellent care they gave Kaleb. Dr. Falterman saved my sons life with his careful surgeon hands and was calm, confident and always explained everything to us. Thank God for him!

I look at Kaleb every day and my eyes fill with tears because I know how close I was to losing him. He is a miracle and I thank God every day for him....he enhances my life tremendously and I cannot imagine it without him.