Benjamin's update

Benjamin has been home a little over a week now and I am very happy to say that he is doing well. He saw his pediatrician today to follow up and his lungs are sounding very clear. We are so thankful for that. He is still on the 2 medications from the drug withdrawl that he had. We are slowly weaning him from those and he will complete the treatment in a week. So far so good.

I went to get the mail yesterday afternoon and this picture was in the box.




We took it for our church directory on Sept. 23 - less then an hour before I got the call from Benjamin's pediatrician telling us we needed to take him to Riley's ER. It was weird looking at the picture and remembering that day. Benjamin wasn't quite himself. It is obvious to me of that as I look at this picture. We had no idea what we were about to face with him.

It seems like months ago when all of this happened. In fact, I have to actually remind myself that it really did happen. Sometimes I think it was just a very bad dream. Especially now when I see him getting back to himself more and more. Each day more of the old Benjamin reappears and we are so thankful. It will still take some time for his immune system to get back to where it was, so we are still being more cautious with him. I am a bit of a germaphobe. I think that comes from being in health care. But now I have a good excuse to ask people to wash their hands and be healthy before coming for a visit with him:)

We will head back to Riley next month to follow up with his pulmonologist and also with the neurologist to see if they want to repeat the EEG. I hope they don't think it's necessary since he didn't like it too much and it really does a number on his soft hair! :) He'll also have to repeat some lab work to see if they can find an underlying cause to the bad pneumonia that he's had twice now. He has taken a step backwards physically, which was to be expected. He had physical therapy yesterday and did very well.

This experience has caused me to take a step back and focus on what is really important. To take more time in my most important role as wife and mother to my 2 boys and to keep God first. I am enjoying the little things more and hope that I am teaching that to my kids too. David and I are really trying to take more time for our family as much as we can and to really enjoy our kids everyday. This weekend we went to the Shrine of Christ's Passion in St. John, Indiana. It is a half mile walk outside with life size portrayals of the stations of the cross. It was absolutely wonderful and I would highly recommend it. I will try to put a blog up about it sometime soon. We have talked about doing this for sometime now, and the weekend after Benjamin came home was the perfect time for it.

Here are a few pictures we took since Benjamin came home:


Watching daddy working in the yard

My parents came to help with Andrew and we were SO thankful! They were so great helping with anything that we needed, from taking Andrew to preschool, to doing yard and housework, shopping, winterizing our home, etc. We were very thankful that they could be there to help. Andrew loved having "papa" and "nona" T. there to spoil him. :)


My happy guy...:)

Thanks again for reading. I will try to update my blog as I have time. Again, we truly appreciate all of your good thoughts and prayers. Prayer is a very powerful thing and I have seen it work first hand in my life on several occasions. This experience with Benjamin was definitely the hardest thing that I (and David agreed) have ever gone through. (A month ago I wouldn't have believed that anything could top his birth story.) And I know that we couldn't have survived it without your prayers. Please continue to pray for Benjamin's complete healing. He is a strong little boy and we are so very proud of both of our boys.


Rebecca