And the latest...

God is good again and again.

Monday we zoomed over to Fresno for Joshua's CT scan. I was so nervous because he couldn't eat after 11:30. The scan wasn't until 3:30 (if they were running on time.) The boy normally eats every 2 hours, so a 4 hour stretch was going to be a doozy. I prayed and prayed that God would give him comfort while he was fasting. Well, that he did. The boy slept soundly on my chest right up to the point I had to lay him on the CT bed so he could get prepped for anesthesia. It is definitely hard to leave your baby with a bunch of docs, but I knew he was in good hands. While we waited for him to get done, Mike went down the hall to the oncology office to see if the doctor could rush the results so we could organize the surgeon in case of a biopsy. I stayed in the imaging dept so I could nurse Joshua the minute they called us. It took him an hour to wake up, which was normal. He nursed right away and they let us take him home. The preliminary results showed the spots were hemangiomas. In english, the strawberry type of birthmarks kids get??? Yeah, those, only on his liver. Of course, I go home and google it. Not a good idea.

Tuesday, I called the oncology office and talked with the doctor. This was the report: they are 99% sure they are hemangiomas. The other option would be vascular malformations. An MRI will be needed to show the flow of the blood and confirm which it is. If they are hemangiomas, he will be followed every 2-3 months with an ultrasound and blood work. At this time they are not life threatening, but sometimes they can cause the make-up of the blood to be bad (something with platelets) and can impair the liver function. It is not doing either of those things in Joshua's case. Usually they "receed" with age. If they are vascular malformations, they will be there forever, but will not affect liver function. In a nutshell: MRI in 3 weeks (more anesthesia =(), ultrasound and blood work every 2-3 months to follow. NO OTHER "lesions" found anywhere else in the body. Oh, and they ordered an echo of his heart as sometimes these can cause cardiac failure, so they were looking for "shunting" (no idea what that is).

Wednesday was the big surgery day. Another starvation day for the poor baby. This time he could have breastmilk until 2 am and sugar water until 3:30 am. He woke at 3:45 I gave him the sugar water, which he drank surprisingly, but it didn't satisfy him so he just wanted to hang. His dad rocked him and we just hung with him until he drifted back to sleep. We had to be at the hospital at 6 am. Again, the little man just slept quietly until it was time for me to hand him over. He has such amazing angels =) We waited in the waiting room while he had his procedure done and the echo of his heart. As we were sitting there, I looked out the window and saw.... MY DAD!... walk by. He was on his way to my brothers and stopped to check on us. It was perfect timing b/c they called us back just then. Joshua was just sitting there wide awake hanging out! We were back at the house (my mother-in-law's) by 11. We had lunch and visited with my dad while J slept. He pretty much slept the whole day, waking to eat here and there. Today (Thursday) he was in the best mood he's been in his whole life during breakfast, just cooing and wiggling. Now we wonder if his hernia actually caused him pain. He was a little more irritable the rest of the day, but we drove back to Atascadero (me with the kids and dogs, Mike went back to Salinas to work), went to gymnastics and Back-to-School-Night, so the poor guy didn't really get a nap in.

He is doing great and we are thankful to be home! Thank you for your continued prayers and support. We are so blessed. We just love our little man and are so proud of how brave he is. We know we couldn't get through any of this without God and are amazed each day at his faithfulness. On a side note, I'm going to have to start coloring my hair to cover up the greys this kid is giving me!!!

I'll post as soon as I know the results of the echo... nothing yet.