Thursday, December 24, 2009

Family Christmas Card, written by S

I would like to honor BYU in their bowl win. They have had a good run the last four years although I found myself a bit disappointed in some of the games.They beat Utah and besides putting everyone at work in a bad mood that was great.
I would also like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We didn't get Christmas cards out like we did last year but just so everyone knows we are doing good. I finished my last class to get my masters in electrical engineering and now I only need to pass a comprehensive masters exam which is set for the last week in February. It is strange to admit that just six months ago I was fantasizing what it would be like to be off of academic probation and worry about being expelled at any moment and now I will be graduating at the end of spring semester provided that I pass this exam.
From a facilities management perspective, we finished painting the front room and the kitchen from the original light blue to a brown, yellow, red and buff. The front entrance is a 16 ft high vaulted ceiling which required a lot of innovation on my part.
A is staying busy with Boo, He is now rolling which is a big development for him. He is 19 months old and he is always happy and smiling. He does laugh at anything Ashley does and very few things that I do. One thing funny about him is when we change his shirt, his hands are hidden from view for an interval of time and once either hand re-appears he always performs a full inspection of both hands checking his palm and back of both hands very carefully presumably to make sure all is still well with them. Also A plays a game where she pretends to be "getting Boo" and he curls up in a ball as a way to hide or protect himself from being "gotten." After watching this for a while, I determined that someone needed to stand up for Boo so I picked him up and started saying "Boo's going to get Mom" and A pretended to hide from Boo and he laughed very hard which was fun to see. It must have been nice to have the tables turned after so long. One other item about him is that if he is watching A unload the dishwasher he will laugh each time a cup is successfully placed in the cupboard but not when bowls or plates are placed. (Hence, the video). We hope to be able to learn why some day.
He is still on oxygen and is now on a constant feeding drip for 20 hrs a day. This has slowed A down a lot such that she must be basically only a few feet away from him at all times so that he doesn't roll too many times and disconnect his feeding tubes. We hope to be done with this constant drip after 4-6 months. We are on a basic quarantine again this winter so Boo doesn't leave the house except for doctor's apppointments. We do look forward to being able to entertain more friends and family after the season.
We did have a christmas miracle where we had an ultrasound performed the first week of December as a pre-surgery effort of Boo's heart in preparation for a pulmonary heart valve replacement surgery that we expected in Jan or Feb. At the appointment our cardiologist and A and I were very suprised to learn that Boo's heart was unchanged from September and that his surgery could be postponed. The cardiologist believes that Boo's lung disease is healing faster then his heart is getting worse to leave it unchanged. This is great news because it buys him more time to grow before this inevitable third open heart surgery. We attribute this as an answer to prayer.

Merry Christmas to you all, and enjoy the video in a post to be posted as soon as we can get it to work, taken just a few days ago.

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