The Mud Pit

Last weekend I was coming down to Mom's house to get some art supplies. That's right, I shop at my mom's for stuff like that. Anyway, instead of just backing out of the drive way I decided to pull forward into the back yard and turn the truck around. BAD IDEA!!! I had to put the truck in 4 wheel drive because I was sinking FAST!!! When I went to take it out of 4wheel drive it got stuck in between gears and wouldn't move. I called my dad to come rescue me because Mike was at work. All I could think was Mike was going to kill me, I broke the truck and made a HUGE hole in the back yard. We (my dad and I) turned the truck off and it reset the 4 wheel drive. It's been fine ever since. Then today I sent the kids outside to play because they were driving me nuts. I was just about to go check on them when Jercie cam in the door. "Where's Blaze?" She then told me he was stuck in the mud. I threw on my tennis shoes and went out to see what was going on. This is what I found...
Blaze stuck on the mud. I went back inside to find some boots. The only pair I could find was a pair of Mike's that were HUGE! There I am in my huge boots trudging through the mud to rescue Blaze. Poor little guy was stuck good. He had to take his boots off to get out. I took him over to a trailer while I went and rescued his boots...
I guess this spring we will have to put grass or something out there so this doesn't happen again.

Papaya and Guava

Sounds all tropical and paradisey huh? Well Little Miss Kaia Papaya loves to eat guava. I gave her some the other day and she devoured the whole thing and wanted more. She loves it. She's not so into the green veggies though, so she might be orange before too long. Silly kid. For like the last week or so she has been waking up at night. Only for a second while I find her binky and put it back in her mouth. I am hoping it is just her teeth and not a new habbit that I will have to break her of. Some nights I just put her in bed with me because it's easier. Not smart I know, but I need my sleep.
I thought of one other funny thing Blaze does. There is a commercial for Neerings. Those who live in Utah know the one. Well there is a little boy on there that says, "My dad can fix that." Blaze looks at the T.V. and says, "no he can't loser." It's hilarious. He does it everytime the commercial comes on.
I know it's kind of a boring post but oh well, I just wasted precious moments of your life that you will NEVER get back!! HAHA!!

Blazisms and some random news!

Those of you who have met Blaze know that he's a little crazy. He says and does some pretty off the wall things. He makes me laugh daily. Every day he changes his name. He has been Petie Parker, and Optimus Prime so far in Primary. Today he is Iron Man, yesterday he was Lego Batman. When I dropped him off in Primary on Sunday, he told me he didn't want to go. I told him he needed to. He then proceeded to tell me he quit church. "I quit this place Mom!" were his exact words. He also tells me he is the king of everything and I have to do what he says. There are many more but right now my brain is malfunctioning and I can't remember them.

The following is from the carepages. It's the last two updates.

Posted Jan 19, 2009 3:28pm

Well, this last week has been full of ups and downs. Colby and I both turned a year older and are sure feeling it! COlby and the kids came up to Primary Childrens on Thursday and we were able to go do some fun things in Salt Lake. On the flip side, we had a "Care conference" with Alexanders doctors. It was a pretty tough meeting, even though Colby and I were both very aware of what we were going to hear. As stated in other updates, it is the doctors belief that Alexanders kidneys have little chance of recovery and that being such he has little chance of a good outcome during heart surgery ...and because blood flow is again shut off during surgery, his kidneys will be further damaged. They cannot do dialisis or transplants.
The good news is that over the last 9 days, Alexanders creatinine levels in his blood have dropped from a 3.16 to a 2.26. This is great news in our book and helps us keep hope. They are also going to attempt to take out the ventilator today. This is not really good or bad news medically speaking since he still cannot be held, and really the ventilator has not being doing much. It is just so that he has fewer foreign objects in his body that could allow infection or other problems. I think it is great news since he cannot turn or move his head with a ventilator in and it must be really uncomfortable.
We are greatful for all the prayers and know that God hears and answers prayers. We are very hopeful that Alexander will have a complete recovery. This week I (Marsha) am home in Challis to catch up on house work, but mostly to spend some time with our older kids.

January 21, 2009

Today is a good day for us. They did take out Alexanders ventilator and he is doing okay. He is on oxygen and struggles to breathe a little bit but not enough to put him back on the ventilator. It is mostly due to his heart getting bigger from working so hard, and it causes problems with the lungs. The other good things is that they are taking out his femoral artery line, which means he can now be swaddled and held! Yeah. Its hard for new momma's to go with out holding their babies :-). It has been 3 weeks since we have held him or heard his voice because of the ventilator and artery line, so we are quite excited to go back to Salt Lake and see him. Alexanders liver is struggling to break down the food they give him through his I.V. so they are going to slowly start him on some breast milk and see how he does. The last bit of good news is that his Creatinine level is still decreasing. He is at a 1.9 now which is still quite elevated but he is slowly beating the odds!! Thank you for all of your prayers. We can definately see them at work. The Lord is sure taking care of us thanks to your requests. We cannot thank everyone enough. We will continue to take one day at a time and trust in Heavenly Father.

Also under the good news category, Kaia is a healthy happy baby. She is about 16 lbs. She is also getting her 4th and 5th teeth. Can you believe it? She is growing up way too fast. She can pretty much navigate her way to any toy that is out of her reach. She absolutely LOVES Peek-a-Boo, but only if she gets to pull the blanket off. She loves to talk to us. She says Da-Da all the time. She is pretty serious most of the time, but every once in a while we get a littlelaugh out of her.
Jercie is loving school and learning a lot. I can't believe that she is reading and doing math! WHAT?!? She is 6 going on 16 though. This morning I told her to change her shirt and she told me she wanted to wear her pajama shirt. I said she couldn't because she slept in it. She just sat and gave me the evil eye. I told her that she better be up and changing it by the time I got to 3. She stood up looked me right in the eye and said, "Idon't like you." She was very calm as she said it. I just told her that I love her anyway. She was over it by the time she got on the bus.

New Developments

I called Colby yesterday to wish him a happy birthday. I got permission to post the updates from the carepage on here. If you want to access the carepage go go www.carepages.com, register, and do a search for alexTHEAlexletsgowild. That should take you there. If you have problems let me know. E-mail me at tonia_n_mike@yahoo.com. I will post the updates from the first one, and then just post as I can. Thank you all for your prayers I know they are helping. Please continue, he still has a long road ahead.

Alexander's Story

Alexander was born on December 22, 2008 as a seemingly healthy child. We had the opportunity of enjoying him at home for 10 days. On New Years eve, Alexander started looking very pale. He wouldn't eat and he seemed to be breathing very rapidly. He was sweating, but his temperature was at 94.5 degrees. We called a nurse, who thought we should talk to a doctor. The doctor told us to call the Ambulence, who, on arrival, called life flight out of Challis to Boise. Because of Weather, Life flight was not able to fly, so we were ambulenced to a small hospital in Salmon Idaho. As they are not specialized in infant care, they were not able to do much for Alexander, and for about 6 hours, he hung between life and death. At that point, life flight was able to land and they quickly had Alexander on a ventilator, pain meds, and a paralitic to paralize him. They flew him to Boise, where they immediately found some problems with his bowels. About an hour after being in Boise, they did major surgery on his bowels to untwist them in hopes that they had not already died from lack of oxygen. Miraculously, his bowels were all still viable and the surgery was a success. Soon however, he was showing signs of other problems and they found that he has serious heart defects. He has 2 different holes in his heart, and as a bigger problem, his Aorta is only half there, as well as a possibility that one of his heart valves is too small. We were again life flighted out to Primary Childrens. Upon arrival, they found he had a collapsed lung. He has also not been urinating, so he has been dangerously off on his levels. On Friday night his heart started to go crazy and they had to shock him to get it to slow down. The next day, his heart went into V-tack and he basically flat lined. They again shocked his heart to get it to beat normally. Again Sunday, Jan 4th, He started into V-tack, when they tried to take him off the paralitic and just have him under sedation. immediately they put him back under the paralitic and his heart started to beat normally again. They doctors are saying that at this point he is very very bad off and they are hoping to see some things start to change direction soon. If that happens, then when he is well enough, he will undergo open heart surgery to fix his heart.

Posted Jan 6, 2009 8:19am

Today Alexander had an ultrasound on his kidneys to check for blood flow and damage.There is some obstruction in the blood flow. The doctors were not sure what they were going to do about it when I visited with our nurse.
Alexander is at minimum levels of his pain medication and starting to wake up a little bit. He is still not really awake, but he wiggles some and is trying to breathe on his own.
Because he cannot urrinate he has a drain inserted into his side to help get the "bad stuff" out of his body. The extra fluid causes him to look swollen and decreases blood flow to his body. The drain has helped immensely and he is now recognizable, where before he looked puffy.
We are just playing a waiting game at this point, hoping that he will turn a corner and be ready for surgery.
Thank you for your love, support and prayers.

Posted Jan 8, 2009 6:32pm

Well, first of all, sorry about the long name we chose to put this site under. we had to keep changing it because the computor kept messing things up. (By the way, its from the movie Madagascar and the McDonalds toy of Alex the Lion). We also had the security settings up high so most people could not get on here, but I hope things are resolved now. Today is a "good" day. We are simply waiting for Alexanders kidneys to function properly. We have a a pretty extreme week of mostly downs, but miracles within those downs. We are extremely greatful that our baby is alive and know it is through prayer and priesthood power that he is alive. After some close calls where his heart had to be shocked to function properly again, we have had some pretty calm days.He is urinating so all the excess fluids have come off his body, and his lungs, bladder and bowels seem to be now doing okay. If we can only wake up those kidneys to pull the right stuff out of the blood, then he would hopefully be ready for heart surgery in a couple of weeks. Right now he would not survive the surgery. The doctors at this point cannot predict how long till surgery, what surgery will take place, or what his recovery will look like. It may be a step process on his heart, where he will be in for multiple surgeries, because of his delicate condition...as well as the complexity of his defects. So as of now, we are just waiting! Colby will take the other kids back to CHallis so they can go to school and he can go to work... I ( Marsha) will stay here at Primary Childrens and visit with my baby.

Posted Jan 11, 2009 2:08pm

COlby left with the kids yesterday, and it has been a happy sad thing. I really miss my family, but at the same time...I got to sleep in this morning which hasn't happened in a long time! I just hope COlby is surviving all 4 kids. I went to church at the hospital today,and found myself missing my children..even if they are more like noisy popcorn during church than reverent angels!
Alexander is doing about the same. He was moved to the NICU 2 days ago because the PICU was getting full. He is making some progress in that the BUN tests ( its a blood test for Urea and Nitrogen), those numbers are going down a teeny tiny bit...but they are going down! The Creatinine ( I have no idea how to spell that word) But that is the other blood test for kidney function and those numbers are still going up...but just a little. The lower organs just took a really hard blow when the heart was not getting blood flow to the lower organs. THe incision from his bowel surgery is healing very well, so that is an indicator of how well other things are healing. TOday he had to be upped on his sedation because he gets pretty fired up with the nurses constantly picking on him. Its good because right now his heart is in such a delicate condition that they don't want to put any stress on it. The PICU was hoping to take out the ventilator so that he can be held, but the NICU is not sure. The ventilator is good because it will help his lungs not to work so hard and thus it preserves energy and his heart does not have to work so hard.
We want to thank everyone for all the messages and help they have given and continue to give to our family. We have such great family support, as well as a whole town of support. Thank you, thank you!!!! We hope not to be in such limbo for too long but we know that the Lord is watching over us and we are learning to be patient ( which I definately need lessons on!! )

Posted Jan 12, 2009 2:32pm

Today Alexander seems to be doing pretty good. They are still keeping very close tabs on his agitation level. They sedate him so that he keeps calm, but he opens his eyes and tries to look around some. He cannot be held at all because, number one he has the ventilator, and he has femural artery line...a line that goes directly into a major artery that monitors very accuratly his blood pressure. They cannot risk either of these being messed with. The second thing is that he cannot tolerate being moved or touched too much because of his heart. At least he seems comfortable enough for now. The nurse said that the Creatinine level in his blood ( that has to come down drastically from what it currently is to show that his kidneys are functioning), was the same level today as yesterday. Until today it has been going up so hopefully we have seen its peak and it will start coming down.
We have been able to do some fun things while we have been here. Before the kids left we went to the zoo for a few hours, and we did go to a hockey game for about an hour. Everyone has been really good to us. Once again, thank you for everything! Considering the challenges we are facing, things really are good, and great people are taking care of us, both at the hospital, and home, as well as through messages and phone calls.

Posted Jan 14, 2009 12:17pm

Alexander is doing well. He is as stable as he can be. The nurses just keep a very close eye on him and his meds. Besides being given sedative/pain medication, he is being given an anti-anxiety drug to help him stay relaxed. At this point, the doctors can only wait and hope that he gets full function of his kidneys. It is a possibility that his kidneys have been damaged from birth, or that they have been too damaged to recover completely. If this is the case they cannot perform heart surgery...he would not make it through the surgery. He has to have surgery on his heart to survive, so the implications, if his kidneys do not recover are quite ominous. We are very hopeful that Alexanders kidneys will return to normal function and that they will be able to proceed with his heart surgery. That is why we are waiting and will be as long as possible, meaning that while his body is doing okay on the ventilator and the medications that he is on, they will keep waiting for his body to repair the kidneys. I think they are hoping that he will be able to do okay on everything for a couple more weeks which will give his kidneys as long as possible to get better. Friday we are scheduled to have a conference with all the different medical teams (cardiology, renal, etc.. where we will be able to ask questions and hopefully get everyone on the same page.) On a lighter note, all of the nurses think he is just a beautiful baby. They really seem to like taking care of him. He is such a sweet baby and easy to get attatched to.

Thank you so much everyone for your words of comfort. Everyone has been so good to take care of Colby and I and our kids. We have so many people from Family, the hospital, Challis, Cedar City and places we don't even know...pray for us, send us messages, call us, take care of the kids and feed us. Angels come in all shapes and sizes here on the earth!! We are just so greatful for everything.
Alexander is still hanging in there. His creatinine levels were down from 3.0 yesterday, to 2.9 today. Those levels have to get down to 0.6 before they will consider him well enough to operate on. Slow progress is normal for the kidneys so we are celebrating that his levels are still going down. Everything else looks pretty good. They do x-rays on his lungs quite regularly to make sure there is no fluids buiding up from the ventilator... and thus far his lungs look great. The nurses that have signed on the be his primary care nurses are great! We are told that the drugs that Alexander is on, make him feel uncomfortable and a little jittery....more like he has the flu. There is so much noise in his room...with 3 other babies and all that goes with them in there. In part, this is why he gets upset often and has to be given the sedatives and anti anxiety drugs to keep him calm. We know the Lord comforts and blesses him and we are greatful for the miracles we have already seen!

Posted 1 day ago

Oh, yes... They tested Alexander for DiGeorge syndrome which is a genetic disease where kids often have congenital heart defects. DiGeorge syndrome children may also have some other problems, including mental disorders. Alexanders tests came back negative meaning he does not have DiGeorge syndrome...yeah!

Holiday Tree

My mom has decided to leave her "Christmas" tree up all year round. We are going to decorate it every month. Right now it has snow flakes and icicles on it. For February we will do hearts, March will have shamrocks, etc. I can't help but laugh. She also has holiday lights on the outside of her house. They are there year round too. They are only Christmas lights after Thanksgiving, until then they have different names, like Valentine lights and South Sevier lights, (they are red and white). My dad hasn't said anything about the tree YET. We will see how he reacts when we put the Valentine decorations on. I will post pictures of it every month.

No weddings and a funeral

I went to the funeral of one of the most amazing women I have ever known today. Ila Utley was like a Grandma to me. She and her husband Earl pretty much adopted our family when we moved to Joseph. I was only a baby. She babysat us and took us to church every week. She made the best oatmeal in the world. My brother used to eat breakfast at our house and run over to Earl and Ila's and tell them he hadn't eaten yet. She would of course make him a bowl of oatmeal. They had what they called the doghouse. It was a room that had been added on, you had to go outside to enter. We spent many hours in the doghouse. Earl said it was were he had to sleep when he was in trouble, hence "dighouse". I used to love to help Earl feed the baby sheep. I can't think of my childhood without thinking of Earl and Ila. If anybody deserves to go to heaven it would be those two amazing people. I can only hope to live up to their examlple.

As for Alexander, we are just waiting right now. He is pretty much doing about the same. He is starting to wake up a little bit and wiggle around which is good. Hopefully things keep getting better.

Reminder

Andrea's story about Ryan reminded me of a conversation I had with Jercie a while back. We were sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch. "Mom, I'm NEVER going to have babies." To which I replied, "why's that?" Because I don't want to buy them presents, I don't want to buy them anything, I just want to have a nice relaxing time." I thought maybe that would be the end to that. I was wrong. A couple days ago she told me again that she isn't having any babies. I asked why. She said," Because I don't want to have my belly cut open." ( Side note for those that don't know, I had c-sections with my last 2 babies, she saw the scar from those.) I told her that not all babies are born that way. She then asked how else are they born. I decided to play it straight with her. Some may disagree but I told her the only other way babies are born. I thought she might freak, but she was okay with it. That was better than having her belly cut open I guess. She is still against the idea of babies. Funny kid. I think she is the first little girl I have ever known to not want a baby.

An Alexander update: He flatlined Satuday, but they were able to revive him. He has had quiet nights and days since then though, and quiet is what we want. They have him sedated and paralyzed so that he can keep all of the tubes in. They tried to decrease the paralytic, but when Marsha talked to him he got too excited so they had to up the dose. His kidneys aren't functioning the way they want them to. They had to drain fluid from his abdomen so his other organs can function properly. If they can get and keep him stable they will do the open heart surgery sometime next week. I know that all the prayers are helping so please remember Alexander.

Alexander Update

Here is what we know so far. First of all the surgery he had yesterday morning was because he had a loop in his intestine. The Cardiologist saw him and found that he had two holes in his heart, a valve that is too small and the main artery is too small and may not be connected. They are flying Marsha and Alexander out of Boise to Primary Children's Hospital today at 3:30. Colby is already on his way there as it will take him 5 hours to get there. He has the other 4 kids with him. They will be staying at the Ronald McDonald House. Once the baby has recovered from the intestine surgery they will do open heart surgery to fix the other problems. The cardiologist says that the problems are fixable we just don't know what his limitations will be. We appreciate the prayers, please keep 'em comin'! I will update when I know more. Check back often!

Happy New Year!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. I for one am glad it's over and I can get back to life as I know it. I thought it would be a good idea to let the kids try to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve. I was wrong. They got so hyper that we decided to find the New York countdown and call it a night. We did let them stay up until Robby Madison jumped the Mirage. They were in bed by 10:30 and asleep by 10:45. We had lots of fun while they were up though. We played Crazy 8's and War. We also made some sweet party hats and noise makers. Blaze was entertaining as usual. He kept pulling his pants clear up over his shirt and up to his chest. I have a picture that I will post here. He is quite the showman.


On a more serious note, this sweet little guy is in need of prayers. Colby and Marsha's new baby Alexander is having some health problems and is currently in the NICU in Boise. He had surgery early this morning on his intestine and is awaiting the cardiologist to look at his heart. Hopefully he will be okay, but prayers are needed.