We are so blessed!

Well, that's it. Or rather, I hope that's it. Jonah will still go in annually for surgical follow-up, get chest x-rays and make sure that diaphragm of his is behaving. We'll still need to go every few months for NICU followups for his prematurity. And we'll need to watch him carefully if he ever shows signs of malrotated bowels (vomiting bile) or difficulty breathing. We need to protect his lungs as much as possible while the left one grows and matures, shielding him from sickness during this awful flu season and taking him for RSV shots this first winter. We have increased risk for asthma and a few other long term things that we'll deal with in the future. But, by and large, we're done with the really hard part (praying its so, fingers crossed, hoping, knock on wood, anything else I can do)!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to all of the people who have been praying for him! Certainly don't stop, we'll always need your prayers! Thank you to our family and friends for supporting us and loving us and thank you to our church family for helping and supporting us as well!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to the wonderful nurses and doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin! Thank God that we were in the right place at the right time to get the best care for Jonah!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to the people on the CHERUB boards for their support. I wasn't around much as I didn't join until we were already in the hospital and I was obsessed with being with Jonah nearly every possible minute, but when I did have a question, you guys were right there. Fantastic website for information about CDH!

And last but not least, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Giles and Janel, another family who's son was born with CDH just two weeks after Jonah in the same hospital, who we were able to talk with and spend time together, and who showed us what unbelievable faith and peace we should have as Christians. You guys are amazing and we hope Elijiah comes home really soon!

Surgical Follow-Up

Today was Jonah's surgical follow-up. We'll have these once a year to make sure his diaphragm is intact and everything looks good. My mom went with me and I'm glad of it. My husband is still trying to build up vacation time but it was helpful to have another set of hands (and ears).

We arrived and went right to radiology to get a chest x-ray done. It was pretty awful watching them sandbag Jonah to the table, twisting his arms above his head and use masking tape to make sure he held still. He cried! I tried to soothe him from behind the table 4 foot away but the radiologist techs told me to let him scream...it made for a better picture. Cruel! But they were mercifully quick. Not looking forward to when Jonah gets older, how to you convince a 2 year old to stay there?

On to the appointment. We met with Dr. Lal as Dr. Aiken was out of the office. He looked at the x-ray and told us everything appeared good but had no answers for the questions I had. He finally just let me look at the x-ray myself (not that I knew what I was looking at) and said there really wasn't any way to predict how Jonah would do long-term but that the indications looked good. Wait and see...that's all we can do.