update on Jerrod

Jerrod is doing great! He is reaching the back of his neck, which is something that he has not been able to do for 4 months now. He is staying on the CPM machine as much as possible, even though the dr. said he only has to stay on it 8 hours a day now since it is past 3 days after surgery. He is starting to go stir crazy, thankfully he gets to get out and go to therapy every day. His elbow has a HUGE bruise on it from the surgery, but it looks like it's starting to heal. His range of motion is absolutely amazing, hopefully after all of this he won't be able to tell the difference between his right and left arm ranges. That would be wonderful! He's able to help me some already with Emma and Jacob, which is much different from the last surgery and something I'm very thankful for. Thank you for all of your prayers! Praise Jesus for a wonderful recovery so far.

"A Robot is moving Daddy's Arm!" --Emma

We have lots of praise to give our Lord Jesus Christ tonight. The Dr. was able to get to 120 degrees flection and 20 degrees extension officially, however the physician assistant told Jerrod that he actually got further than that. We got home early this evening and got Jerrod set up in the bed with the CPM (Constant Passive Motion) machine. Right now he already has a range of motion with the machine of 120 degrees flection and 15 degrees extension. Wow! Already! He is planning on uping it more in the wee hours of the morning. Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus! His arm is numb from the nerve block (it's working so far--yay!) He can feel it stretch some and a little pain during the stretches, but it is minimal. Thank you all so much for your prayers! Please continue to pray that Jerrod will be able to keep this range of motion. Also pray for his therapy sessions that they are a huge success. Please also pray for the therapist, as it takes a lot out of her to stretch Jerrod's arm. Also please pray for our financial situation, as all these trips to Indy have taken our toll on our finances. And lastly, please pray for me and the kiddos, as this time is a bit stressful for all of us.

Jerrod's surgery

Jerrod will be having his arm manipulated tomorrow (Wed Sept 24) in Indianapolis. Please pray that the Dr. will be able to tear through lots of scar tissue and Jerrod will have a really good range of motion afterwards. Also please be in prayer for Jerrod's recovery, as it will be quite painful!

More pictures and a video

Here's some cute pictures of Jacob and a fun video. I love that he tries to stick his head in the box!

Some pictures

Emma, my baby girl isn't a baby anymore!

Jacob, he's still my baby boy


Emma and Jacob playing

Emma being a dinasaur at the Children's museum

Emma under a black light at the Children's museum

Emma driving an Indy car

Say cheese!

It was cold at the zoo and I wasn't prepared so Jacob had to wear Emma's sweatshirt!

Mmmm! Yummy!

Emma got a new car. She's a pretty good driver, but she did almost run me over!

Long overdue update

So I decided to opt out of putting away clothes and instead write this. I'll post some pictures later, but I thought it might be good to just write an update. The last month and half has seemed to fly by. Jacob had his six month appointment on 9-11. He has had a tough month. He came down with Hand, Foot, Mouth disease. Which caught us off guard when the Dr. told us what it was. Jerrod called it mad cow disease because it sounds like hoof and mouth disease. It causes very painful sores in the throat and sometimes on the feet and hands. In Jacob's case he had sores in his throat, a couple of sores on his big toes, and a very bad rash all over his body. It affects babies more than older children and adults. I think Emma might have brought it home from school, but all she had was a mystery fever with no symptoms. The Dr. declared him healed from that and he looked nice and healthy. He slimmed down a bit, the Dr. seems to think it was because he was sick. He's now in the 50th percentile in height and weight. He still needs some support while sitting up so he won't fall and hit his head. He's rolling over REALLY well and somehow rolls and pushes himself to get toys that are out of arms reach. He has super grabby hands and I have to make sure nothing is in front of him if he sits on my lap at the dinner table. He's sitting in a highchair now, so he can join us at the table while we eat. I have to make sure he has plenty of toys in front of him when we start. Somehow they all end up on the floor. Jacob has started eating rice cereal. He really likes it and lunges into the spoon, which makes it quite challenging to feed him.

Emma is getting to be such a big girl. Today I was thinking that maybe, just maybe the terrible two attitudes and fits were mostly over. She is so smart and witty and she keeps us laughing. She teases us all the time now, which tells me that she has quite the sense of humor. She's getting really good (3 yr old good) at coloring. She is getting closer at coloring inside the lines. She changed classrooms and teachers in August, which we were a bit worried about because of how shy she is. She didn't have nearly as hard of a time as we thought she would. She loves her new teacher and classroom. At school, she is doing some really cool projects. She did a book of her family, which was way cool. She is so loving toward Jacob and hardly ever shows any kind of jealousy. She loves sharing her toys with him and she also really likes playing with his toys. She has learned that she has to trade him toys if she wants to play with the one that he is playing with. This last weekend we went to Indianapolis for Jerrod's Dr. appointment. We got to stay at the "duckie hotel" (Homewood suites--a duck is their mascot). Their pool was pretty warm and Jacob got to go swimming too. We got to go to the zoo and the Children's Museum. The zoo was a bonus because the Children's Museum is closed on Mondays, which we didn't know until we got there. Major disapointment! She cried and cried. I cried too. So we went to the zoo instead. So on Tuesday morning we had to make a quick trip to the Children's Museum because she was sooo looking forward to it. Jerrod's appointment wasn't until early afternoon, so it worked out great. The zoo was a bit cold, but still fun. And the Children's museum was way cool, lots of hands on stuff for Emma to do. It was really fun!

Jerrod's Dr. appointment did not bring great news. He is not progressing as well as expected. Here's how Jerrod described what the Dr. has to do now:
We met with the Doctor yesterday in Indianapolis and he slated an outpatient surgery for the near future (still awaiting call for date). They will put me to sleep, place a 3 day paralyzing block on my right arm and wrench on it for 30 minutes, breaking up scar tissue to gain almost FULL movement. It has been described as "breaking chicken bones" This is a blessing in that I might get tremendous amounts of motion, but it's going to hurt, really bad, despite pain meds after that block wears off. Immediatly after surgery, I go on a 24/7 machine that keeps my arm in motion with therapy daily. The doc believes that my elbow shows sufficient qualifications for me to have lost less than 10% - 20% range (Thats incredible) when we're done, but nothing is final until after the surgery
So, please join us and pray for Jerrod's elbow that he will regain more range of motion after all of this is over.

As for me, I'm hanging in there. In the last month I've had two bacterial infections that act a bit like strep, but the strep test came back negative. I'm done with my antibiotic and I can still feel it in my lymphnodes. I'm praying that my body will fight it instead of having to take more antibiotics. But if it gets worse again, I will definately get a blood test this time to figure out what it is! I'm really enjoying my family right now and I had a great time with just our immediate family in Indianapolis. It's still weird sometimes to think that I have 2 children and Jerrod and I are responsible for these two little lives!