Silas had an action-packed spring. He went to San Diego to visit family, had a fun Easter egg hunt here in Atascadero, and even went to his first cousins camp.Silas has now completed two of his three big appointments in San Francisco. He still needs to pass one final sleep study before his doctors will approve his decannulation (taking his trach out). He passed his swallow study in June and awaits approval from his pediatric pulmonary doctors before his trach can be removed, and all of that is coming up soon.
Here's our belated spring update:
Easter 2011
For Easter, grandma and grandpa, uncle Dave and auntie Michelle and the cousins came for a big Easter brunch and an Easter egg hunt.
There were some tricky hiding places.
Silas did some hunting for Easter eggs in the Kidwalk.
An Easter egg full of Cheerios!
A special guest appearance from Ruby (Silas's cousins' new puppy).
Mom working on breakfast and grandpa reading Frog and Toad.
Cousins Camp 2011
Later this Spring, Silas went to his first Cousins Camp at his grandma and grandpa's in San Diego. Cousins Caleb, Nathan and Rayne came out from Colorado, and the whole gang went to Legoland, the beach, the park, downtown. It was a super fun time for all of the cousins.
The cousins with Chewy. Aaaaaah!
Riding on an airplane with Aunt Rachel. Zoom!
Deleo Visits
Later in the Spring, Silas had a visit from Deleo--all the way from Uganda. Silas's middle name was given in honor of Deleo, and Silas finally had a chance to meet him in person. It was such an honor to have Deleo here as our guest. He is such an encouragement and inspiration. And Silas loves him.
Farm Trip
Spring would not be complete without our annual trip to the Cal Poly farm to see the lambs. A couple of years ago we adopted one of the little lambs. This year, Silas had a chance to see them for himself.
Medical Appointments
In June Silas had two big appointments. After passing his bronchoscopy last March, he just needed to pass two tests in order to get his trach out. Both tests were scheduled for June. Grandma came up from San Diego and accompanied mom and Silas to the first, a swallow study at UCSF in early June. Silas passed with flying colors. The sleep study scheduled for the same trip had to be cancelled at the last minute on account of overcrowding at the Children's Hospital because of a viral pneumonia outbreak. It was rescheduled for the following week. Both mom and dad make the return trip to San Francisco the next week for baby's big "final" study.
Unfortunately, the sleep study was a total flop. Silas was supposed to be monitored overnight to look for any signs of central or obstructive apnea, but he could hardly get any sleep with all of the wires connected to him and all of the noisy distractions in the room. Overcrowding in the Children's Hospital meant we had to be placed in a shared room for the study, which was far from ideal. He hardly slept a wink.
The test was a "capped trach" study, meaning for the first time Silas had his trach capped, and he got his oxygen through a nasal cannula. He's never experienced either of those things before, and he did not tolerate either of them very well. The end results did not look good--evidence of both central and obstructive apnea and lots of interrupted sleep--but it's not entirely clear how much of this was due to the unusual circumstances that night. We're now planning to retry the sleep study in late July or early August. Until then, our job is to desensitize Silas to having his trach capped and getting his oxygen at night through his nose. We're starting with having him sleep a few hours each night with a valve on his trach, and very soon we'll start adding the nasal cannula. We hope when he goes in for his next study he'll be more prepared.
The Break-In
Just in time for our first anniversary of moving into our new house and the night after we got back from Silas's sleep study at UCSF we arrived home from a meeting to find that someone had burglarized our house. All the doors and windows were locked, but someone managed to pry open the tiny window above the shower in the guest bathroom and climb in. They relieved us of most of our portable electronics (like Dad's school laptop) as well as some keepsakes (Mom's foreign coin collection), jewelry, keys, and cash (even the change jar). We spent much of the night with a police detective searching for clues and much of the following day calling banks and credit bureaus flagging our accounts.
Our burglar left only his shoe print and a spilled Red Bull. He must have been pretty tall and thin, since the window he came in was 7-feet up. (If you look closely you can see the pattern of his size-11 shoe print.) Insurance will cover much of our loss, but the creepy feeling of knowing someone was in our house going through things is the worst part of the experience. We've now had an alarm system installed and have surrounded the house in motion lights, so hopefully this will be our first and only robbery. We're just thankful no one was here when it happened and no one got hurt. It could have been a lot worse. In fact, some good is coming of all this. We've met all of our neighbors now and will be spearheading our new Neighborhood Watch program.
Sprinklers!
Silas's new favorite warm-weather activity is splashing in the sprinklers. With the summer weather finally here, he's bound to do a lot of slashing this summer.As spring turns to summer, we'll have lots more to report--the Spina Bifida Association annual meeting, the annual family trip to Mt. Hermon, and much more!
