Blessings Continued!

Hello Friends, Cutter continues to do very well! This week he has already had physical therapy twice and occupational therapy once. Not to mention the therapy he had on Monday in the hospital before we left. He is tired today, but for good reason. He is walking more on his own now, and is talking up a storm. Overall, he seems very happy. We have not seen any "s's." We are so thankful!!! God has provided us with more blessings than we can keep up with! He never fails! Thank you all for the many prayers and kind words. Our support system is wonderful, and we are very grateful to you all. Cutter has done much better than we could have ever anticipated. It is great seeing him and Maverick play together again. They are so cute together, and we are so thankful for them both. Such wonderful little boys, and they bring so much joy to our lives. We will update as often as possible. With both boys back with us they sure do keep things hopping around here! Thank you for your support!!!

Monday Morning

This morning has been very busy. We have talked to therapists and doctors and nurses. We may get to go home today, but we are not sure yet. It may be tomorrow morning before everything can get coordinated. We saw the physical therapist today. We will see the occupational therapist and speech therapist today. After that we should have a plan for home therapy! Cutter is doing great. He got to go to the play room this morning, which is always fun! Thank you for your prayers!

Weekend Update

Boy, we sure do wish we were at church today. We are missing it badly! We can't wait to get back. We all had a good night last night. We got more rest than we have been getting. So we are thankful for that. Cutter was so sweet last night. He was talking more and being really funny. He said that he wants to ride the tractor with Daddy. I said, "what do you want to do with Mommy?" He said, "I bite you Mommy!" Thanks, buddy. Mommy appreciates that. Lol. For those of you that do not know, "I bite you" is one of his favorite expressions. So, it was great to hear him say that, actually! Cutter started physical therapy yesterday. He did very well! He is weak, of course, but that is to be expected after a surgery like his and as long as he has been in bed. He was able to sit up some without support and walk a little around the floor. He got up two more times after therapy was over and walked around, too. By the end of the night he was able to walk one lap! It wore him out pretty quickly, but it will come! We just have to work hard! We may or may not have physical therapy today. If not, we will definitely have it tomorrow. In the meantime, if I can get him out of bed, we are going to work, work, work! Gotta strengthen those muscles! For now, him and Pappy are sleeping. Guess I should just let them. :) We hope you all have a blessed day!

Friday

Hello friends, We had a good night last night. Everyone got some sleep! He has been complaining a little bit about hurting, but he will get medicine for that. They are taking his drain out right now. They had to put him to sleep again for this procedure. This makes five times in in the last nine days. Bless his heart. Today should be a good day, though. We are going to give him a bath, bathe him (bedside) and let him go to the play area. He will really enjoy that! Praise God for another blessed day!

The Day After

Hello Friends, Cutter has had a pretty good day. He has not talked as much today and has been very tired. However, he has eaten solid food and was moved to a regular room. The drain is supposed to come out tomorrow. He will be sedated beforehand. Praying for a restful night! Thank you for your continued prayers!

Surgery update

Praise God!!! He did wonderful. We get to see him in about an hour. Dr. said it was very routine, very straightforward, no surprises. Update after we see him!

Tuesday update

We have decided to go through with the surgery. It will be tomorrow morning at 8:30. We know God will take care of him during surgery and afterwards. We have no guarantees about the outcomes, but we know that God will provide what Cutter needs. The good news is that the surgery will not be as extensive as we previously thought. We talked to the surgeon this morning, and he does not want to mess with anything other thank the frontal lobe. This being said, there may be another region that is showing abnormal activity, but there is no solid proof. That area is in a very risky spot, so the surgeon will not go there. He feels that the area he is going to focus on is going to give Cutter the best chance of seizure reduction or even seizure freedom. The surgery will last about four hours. Please keep us in your prayers! Love you all!

Monday Update

Cutter update: Well, we didn't know we were going to get an update so soon. Dr. Elkay came and talked to us after her meeting with dr. Hadar. They have decided that they would like to do a frontal lobectomy on Cutter. We were a little shocked by this. They want to take out more than originally thought because of how the Dysplasia is spread out. This area of the brain controls your emotions, personality, behavior, cognitive thinking skills, inhibitions, etc. The good news is that because of Cutter's age the left frontal lobe will eventually take over the parts that removed on the opposite side. There isn't guarantee that Cutter will be seizure free. However, there is a good chance of seizure reduction. This is a very big decision. One we need to pray for guidance about, we know that all of you have been praying, and we are extremely appreciative. God has a plan and a purpose, and He will get the glory! The prayers of the church were answered in a matter of hours just the other day. We once more are asking the church to call upon our God on Cutters behalf. So here are some words of encouragement from us to you. We are promised that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven. Also, Joshua spoke to The Lord and said, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the Sun stood still. This is the same God that we serve today!

Sunday Update

Cutter has been able to rest some today, thank goodness! They came in and changed his head dressing today. We saw his head and incision for the first time. They said his incision looks good. No signs of infection. The whole process was quite an ordeal, but our little man was very brave! Tomorrow they will run some more tests and figure out a plan for Wednesday's surgery. Praying for a good night!

Friday update

Our God is so much bigger than this! We praise Him yet again as we received good news! Dr. Elkay came by and said that she is much happier today than she was yesterday! I was mistaken about the test performed today. I thought it would show the functions of the areas involved but instead it shows where the areas are located. Turns out the spots are very close together, so they can potentially be taken out without harm. Also, the spots are NOWHERE near the motor strip!!! Still not sure if the spots will be able to be removed completely. They need to do more monitoring and some more tests on Monday. Also, Dr. Elkay will need to confer with Dr. Hadar about the tissue to be removed before they can come to a full conclusion. Thank you, thank you for the prayers! They are working! Things are good. Cutter has not been awake a whole lot today because of the anesthesia from earlier. He has, however, eaten a little bit of baby food (only bananas) and drank a little bit of Pepsi. Chris got to hold him for the first time since surgery. He is not extremely mobile because of all his wires. Chris held him while I changed his sheets. They weren't really dirty or anything. We just thought it would make him feel better. They have brought us some bubbles for him to blow to work on his breathing. Hopefully,he will feel like doing that soon! Looks like another night in the PICU for us. No rooms available yet. Maybe tomorrow! Thank you for your support! I will update again soon!

Cutter Update...March 14 Evening

Cutter Update: Cutter is still in the PICU. He will be there until at least tomorrow. There are no rooms available in the EMU right now, and they are going to have to run some tests anyway on Cutter tomorrow. So...one more night in the PICU for us! Hopefully, it will be a much better night. Dr. Elkay did come by and see us today. (She is Cutter's neurologist.) She told us that the seizures are not all coming from one spot like we had been hoping for. For the past three years this has always been the case, but now that they have done more in-depth monitoring we find out that this is not exactly the case. However, they do all seem to be starting right there where the cortical dysplasia is located. What this means for now is that they are unsure of the next step. They do not know if they are going to be able to take out all of the tissue, or if they are going to have to take more than expected. At this point, they do not know how deep the cortical dysplasia runs or how far back towards his motor strip it extends. They are going to do some extensive testing tomorrow to see what functions are being affected by those areas. Please, please pray that we get answers tomorrow, and that there is something they can do to fix this. We know the power of prayer, and God has certainly taken care of our little boy. We know that He can fix this! We just ask for everyone to please continue praying, especially for the doctors and the decisions that need to be made. We love you all!

Surgery update

Hello friends! Surgery was a success! The neurosurgeon felt good about how the surgery went. Now, they will monitor him for a week. The second surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday. Below is an update that I placed on his Facebook page For the Love of Cutter... Good Morning! Whew, what a night. First of all, around 9 his right eye turned black and swelled shut. The doctor told us to expect this. So glad that Dr. Chris Rowland told us this first to prepare us! Secondly, only one parent could stay in the PICU, so Chris left to go to the waiting room to try and rest. He graciously let me stay with Cutter. Very thankful. Then, around ten thirty they gave him an in and out catheter to try to get him to wet is diaper. He had not had one since before two. That was miserable, and it didn't work! Around midnight they decided to give him a real catheter. Boy, I prayed hard. I saw how miserable it was the first time for him. Then right before they came back he peed! Praise The Lord! He was really nauseous last night and got sick several times. We had to change his clothes three times. He cried a lot and was up every hour. Since Cutter cannot tell us he is in pain they gave him some morphine to help him get comfortable. It did not help that much. We finally got some sleep around four. Then the doctors started coming by around 8. He asked for food, and the pediatrician said we could feed him. He ate two bites of a biscuit then fell asleep. He has had many seizures, so this is good news! Now, we wait. Hope to get to the children's floor sometime today. Thank you for the prayers! We will update again soon!

Cutter Update

Hello friends, Yesterday was a doozie. That is for sure! It was a long day. But we made it through! Today has went well. Cutter did not do terrible with the intra-nasal sedation. At least it was not an i.v. He will get an I.V. after he is completely under anesthesia. We suspect that surgery started around 9:30. He had a CT scan before surgery and will have one afterwards. I am guessing we will get to see him around 3:00. Chris thinks 4:00. So, we will see! Thanks for all of the prayers! We feel them! Praise God for the calmness we feel!

Here We Go (again)!

Hello Friends! We are back in Chapel Hill preparing for surgery yet again! Surgery is scheduled for Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. Tomorrow Cutter will have a CT scan without sedation (wish us luck and pray he does well), an appt. with the neurosurgeon, and pre-op. It will be a very busy day! He is supposed to be sleepy for the scan so we are going to get up bright and early! Whoo-Hoo! Mommy is not a morning person. We are feeling pretty optimistic and good right now. We certainly feel God's presence and the prayers of our loved ones! Please keep them coming. We can't help but wonder if it will really happen this time. For some reason God has just not seen fit for it to happen before now. It has been hard being patient, but we know it will be worth it! We will update as much as possible and as quickly as possible! We thank you again for all of the support!