More family photos!

Here are some more family photos that Michelle took! They turned out so cute! It's crazy how time flies. We can't believe this year is already over. Although it's been a rough year, it has also been a humbling one. Our trials definately make us stronger people. I was sitting in sacrament a couple of weeks ago and a lady sang the song "Lullaby". I realized how lucky I really was to be holding Korver and the miracle it is that he's ok and doing so well.

As We've reflected over this past year and especially these past 2 weeks, we've realized how blessed we are to have such a wonderful support group of family and friends. There are so many that have helped us out in so many various ways. We feel so blessed that we have people who love and care about our family so much. Your sacrifice doesn't go unnoticed and we love and appreciate you so much! Thank You for your kindness and love.

Wealso wanted to update that we took Korver in the day after Christmas for his RSV shot and he weighs 11 lbs 10 oz! YEAH! He's gaining weight like a normal baby. He's still got to play catch up but at least he's gaining.

We love you all and hope you had a wonderful Christmas. We also want to wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Family Pictures

These pictures were taken by Wade's Cousin Michelle. She did an awesome job. Thanks Michelle

Check out her site.

http://www.photographybymichelleh.blogspot.com/

Best Buds

Well its been almost three months since Korver's Surgery and he is doing Great!!

He has continued gain weight and at his last appointment they said the tissue in his heart has completely grown over the device. Yeah....No more Hole!!!! He is so much happier now and just loves to hang out with his brothers. They are all Best Buds!

Thanks again to everyone for all the thoughts and prayers on our families behalf. We are truly blessed to have such great family and friends. We Love you all!!!

Korver Update

Well it has been almost 4 weeks since Korver had his surgery and he has been doing very well.

The first picture is Korver the day before his surgery and the second is today.....

He looks much better and his scar is healing great. As of last Wed. he had gained 1 full pound which is great and his heart tissue has started to grow around the device.

They took him off one of his medicines and said that he should come off another around the first week of November.

He is much happier since the surgery and has a ton more energy.

Thanks again to everyone for all your prayers and help for our family.

That Dang Global Warming!

Here are a few more photo's from our snow storm yesterday.

Taylor and Mater Cleaning off the trampoline.



After it was all said and done we had 12 1/2 inches on top of my truck. Notice the net on the basketball hoop.

October snow!!!!

New Kittens

This year for Dad's birthday the boys got two new kittens. Say Hello to Max (Orange) and Ruby (Black and White)

We're Home!

Sorry it tooks us so long to update. It's been crazy trying to get back into normal life! Korver got to come home Friday afternoon! It's so great to have things somewhat back to normal. The boys were so excited to sleep in their own beds (I was too)! The only thing tricky is that we have to give him 7 medications a day at different times, we're still figuring out that one!
Thanks to everyone for their love, prayers, & faith that helped us get through this difficult time. Korver will have an appt next week to make sure things are still good but the Doctors think everything will be fine and he won't have to have anymore surgeries!

Korver's update

Yes we are still here. Korver's heart rate keeps going down especially when he's sleeping. He's also been having arithmic heart beats. The doctors are going back & forth on what to do. Our cardiologist says this is normal after the procedure but the theresic cardiologist is more concerned that this is being caused from the device they put in him. He was even saying that worst case scenario is we have to take the device out & do the normal bypass open heart surgery.
Please pray for the Doctors to know what to do & pray especially for Korver so that he doesn't have to go through this again.
Thanks so much to all of you who are praying & offering your help. We especially thank our amazing parents who have had our boys for over a week now. It's definately not an easy task to keep up with them!

Still Here....

We were all set to go home on Monday morning when they came in and told us that Korver's heart rate was dropping to very low levels when he slept. They thought this was being caused by his blood pressure medicine so they took him off of it.

Monday afternoon his blood pressure was very high and there had been no change in his heart rate so they put him on a new Blood pressure medicine.

His heart rate continued to fluctuate overnight so they decided to put him on another machine that will monitor his heart rate a little closer for a 24 hour period. Then they will take the information,analyze it, and then decide what to do from there.

It looks like the soonest he will be released will be Thursday.

He is still very happy most of the time but I think he is really looking forward to going home.

Day 4

Yesterday was a good day for Korver!

They took out the chest drain tube and pacemaker wires.



They took out the rest of his IV's late last night and he can now have all his meds by mouth.

We bought him a little bear in the gift shop an he wont let go of it.



If all continue to go well they are telling us that we should be able to leave Monday around noon.

Taylor at Soccer

Taylor had his third soccer game yesterday and did AWESOME!

He scored the first goal of the game off this assist.

He really hussles and always gives it his all.

This was the shot that he scored his second goal on.

Day 3

Korver had a little of a rough night and needed more pain medicine in order to stay asleep.

They took the IV out of his neck and wrist this morning which was a little painful for him but they gave him a little morphine and he was good to go.

About 1:30 today they moved him out of the ICU and up to the general care floor and he seems to like it!!!!!

The nurses said that if he continues to progress as well as he has been, that he may be able to go home on Monday. But we are not getting our hopes up until we here it from the Docs.

Day 2

Korver did really well last night. They only had to give him Morphine but did not have to sedate him to keep him asleep.

This morning they were able to take out the breathing tube and he is much happier now.

They came in this morning and did another EchoCardiogram and said the there is very little blood flowing through the device and that should stop in the next day or so. They had to pull back the bandage when they did it so I snapped a quick picture of the incision.

Later on in the day he was able to have some milk from a bottle and he couldn't have been happier.

I think he was trying to hide from the nurse so she would be nice to him

After his tummy was full he was very happy to see mom and dad.

This is a copy of his chest x-ray that shows the Amplatzer Device as well as the chest tube and some wires that are in place should they have a need to place him on a pace maker. They will probably stay on until he goes home.

Happy Anniversary

Today is the day of Korver's surgery and also happens to be our 9th anniversary.


We were scheduled to start the surgery at 2:30 but received a call from the hospital at 6:00 am that said they were no longer going to do their morning procedure and they could put him in as soon as we could get here.

We arrived at the hospital at about 9:30 and got him checked in. He was very happy this morning.




At about 10:00 am they were ready to take him back and by this time he was hungry and not too happy about it.



At 11:30 we received word that he had been prepped and they were just starting the surgery, and they would give us an update at 12:30

We went to get some food and at 12:20 they paged us over the hospital PA and asked us to return to the parent waiting room. Once we got back, the doctors told us that they had finished the placement of the device and they were closing his chest. They told us the procedure went perfectly and that it could not have gone any better.

We finally got to see him at 2:15 and he looked better than we had prepared for ....



He will be on the ventilator overnight and will be on Morphine to help him stay asleep until tomorrow. Then they will slowly take him off the Morphine until they can be sure he is breathing on his own and then remove the ventilator.

He is also hooked up to a lot of other monitors. to make sure he is doing good.



We want to tell everyone thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers and any help you have given us.


Here is a link to a small video of the device that they used to close the hole. It shows an illustration of the placement of the device.

http://www.amplatzer.com/USProducts/VSDDevice/MuscularVSDOccluderPlacement/tabid/226/Default.aspx

Typically this device would be placed by going through an artery in the leg but since he is only 8 lbs 5 oz, his arteries would be too small to go through. So...they decided to do what they call a hybrid VSD closure where they still open his chest, only with a smaller incision than if they were going to place him on bypass, and place the device through the side of the heart. This allows them to evaluate the placement of the device and if it should not have worked as they thought it should have, they could open the chest more and place him on bypass open the heart and sew in a patch.

This is the first time that they have preformed this procedure here at Primary Children's Medical Center. Our Surgeon told us that he is convinced that with the successful placement in Korver, that it will open new possibilities for better treatments for other kids in the future here at PCMC.

Korver Update

Well we were supposed to go in Tomorrow for Korver's surgery but a baby was born on Thursday that has some major heart problems and needs to have surgery on Monday to save his life so we have been bumped to Wed. Sept 17th.

Mater

The boys wanted me to put a picture of Mater on here. He is a Yellow Lab and is 18 months old.

The boys picked his name from there favorite Cartoon "Cars"

Skyler

Don't let that cute little smile fool you.....he is as mischievous as he is cute!!!


But we still love him!!!!

Bridger Lake

We went to Bridger Lake in the Uintas this weekend for Labor Day.

Skyler in his natural pose....a big ol grin on his face.

Skyler fell asleep on a 4-wheeler ride with Nate.

Cater getting ready for his ride.

Taylor caught the biggest fish of the weekend.

A moose that was just outside of camp.

The weather was nice until Sunday night when it rained and snowed. It was a little much for the canopy



We left just in time. It started to snow again as we were leaving.