Happy Happy Birthday!

Two years ago... "The day a wonderful little heart melter came to brighten everyone's lives." I couldn't have said it better myself, this was the text message Bran received from his Dad on Friday morning. I can hear Danny saying that, he always says "there's just something about him, he just melts your heart."

Wow, I can't believe it has been two years already! The other night I looked at pictures of him when he was born, its hard for me to even imagine him that small. It doesn't seem like the same little person, he has come so far!

We had his party last weekend, we decided to celebrate a little early this year so we could have it when my Dad & Rose were in town (and it was my Dad's birthday last weekend too). Abby had a great idea that we should have a Lucas-Abby-Don birthday party (her's was March 3). Its ironic, I remember being in the hospital holding on a day at a time trying to keep Lucas from being born, I first started having contractions on March 22 (Dad's birthday). I told him, "don't be offended but I really don't want you and Lucas to share the same birthday," only because I didn't want him to be born yet. Little did I know, we'd be celebrating them together a couple years later!

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We've had a busy few weeks which is why I haven't updated in awhile, we had my Mom & Blain visiting the prior weekend. Having visitors always puts us into a frenzy of getting those unfinished rennovations done, on top of everything else we have going on!

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Lucas is doing well, we had a bit of a scare this past week with a visit to the ER. He'd been acting funny the last couple weeks...sleeping more, very cranky, head drooping to the side, his eye dropping more often, etc. As I've explained in the past, although it wasn't an "emergency", the only way to get a quick CT is to go to the ER. There was something unsettling about his behavior and if it was a shunt malfunction, I didn't want to let it go to the point that Lucas was throwing up from the pain being unbearable. So we spent 6.5 hours in the ER Wednesday night, which turned out to be nothing. It was worth it for peace of mind though, I hate the feeling of analyzing everything he does and worrying about every little thing we see that seems out of the ordinary. They tested him for RSV and ran a full set of blood tests, to make sure there was no sign of meningitis... but that came back normal too. I love being able to walk "out" of the ER, and not be transferred to a room!

We think we figured it out a few days later, we started the process of weaning him off the seizure medication a couple weeks ago. We are weaning him very slowly over a month's time, so it didn't even occur to me that this could be affecting him this way. I did a little research online on withdraw symptoms and read how patients some patients describe the way they felt when weaning off of Keppra (aggitated, very irritable, weak, sleepy)... maybe this explains it all.

So a no-fun evening, but it was worth it to know for sure that the shunt is ok. I swear, I will never relax with it. I guess that is what having three malfunctions in a row and five hospital admissions in a year will do to you. Knowing the shunt is fine also brings comfort to weaning him off the meds right now... I was really nervous about taking him off if he was having another failure that may cause a seizure. I'll be anxious to see how he is in a couple of weeks when totally off the medication (the stories I read about withdraw often ended with feeling great and "free" after being completely off, like a cloud was lifted). He deserves that!

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Here's a few pictures from his birthday party, I'll post the rest of them this week.

Happy Birthday Lucas, Abby & Grandpa Don!

Hi Mom!

Make a wish! Abby is waiting for her "trick" candles to light again

Birthday Boy! How handsome is he in this tie?