Out of surgery

Dylon is out of surgery, doing good. We haven't go to see him yet, but we just spoke to the surgeon who said everything did great. Dylon does have some narrowing in his trachea, but it shouldn't pose as a problem. He also said that Dylons tonsils were abnormally big but not to worry he took care of those. Thank you for the prayers!
Love
Shelli

Dylon before we left for the "big buildings"

Well,

we are here waiting on Dylon to be called back. We were told that they had two more kiddos before him and then it is his turn! Im not sure how long the surgery will be...but I do know that we will be staying the night in the hospital.

The picture above is Dylon and Dr.Dog this dog has been a life saver with all his medical trips and surgeries. Dr.Dog was with him during his heart operation too. I will update as soon as I know something else!

Please pray for a seccessful surgery and speedy recovery!

Love y'all!

Shelli

We have arrived in Houston...again!

Well we drove the long 9 hours today with Dylon. My mom decided not to come so she is staying home with Laeton Reid and Houston. We decided not to bring them for sake of keeping them healthy. The swine flu has been spreading like crazy, so I don't want to chance it! But all in all we had a safe trip, Matt drove the whole way. Dylons surgery is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. we will arrive at 8:45..I will do my best to post updates on his surgery.
We are tired so I am off to bed!
Good Night
Love y'all!
Shelli

Rain, Rain finally went Away!!

The rain has finally gone away, and the mud is here and the boys are loving it. As you can see in the picture above, it has rained, and rained. We had a tropical storm that came and brought us a couple of inches and then we've had Cool front that also brought a few inches too. The picture above is our front yard and No! we don't usually have a pond in our front yard, but we had a storm that brought like 3 inches in 3o minutes so this is what we were left with. Even though all those rainy days were so long and boring, this cool front is so nice. We have been out in it all day yesterday and today.

This is a mud puddle that the boys played in yesterday at Vick Vick and Papa Johns. It was so nice to get out and get some sun on our faces. While the boys played I studied, studied and studied some more. My classes are very challenging, but I am enjoying them. The first night was very discouraging, but it seems to be getting better with time. The boys will be playing outside (weather permits) most of the week to try and burn some of that energy off before we ALL head back to Texas Children's. Dylon's surgery is still sceduled for this Friday, I have to call sometime this week to work out all the details. Im pretty sure that we will be leaving Thursday, surgery will be Friday Morning, he will stay the night at TCH and hopefully be released the next day. We will come back to Alabama sometime Sunday. I am not prepared for this surgery, as a matter of fact I don't think i've completely recovered from his last surgery. I realize that this surgery isn't as complicated as the last, but it is still surgery and I am still nervous about it. We plan on bringing the whole clan to TCH along with my mom. This is the plan right now, but it can always change. Just please pray for our family as we travel to TCH and for Dylon's surgery.

We also found some tadpoles yesterday and put them in a jar so the boys can watch them grow! Ya know this is what us rednecks like to do for fun;)

Cooler weather brings football, and we LOVE some SEC football. WAR EAGLE! We are gearing up for that. This picture is of Houston, he too is an Auburn fan. Actually my whole family is except Dylon. It broke our hearts this week when we were buying new jerseys for this year and Dylon proclaimed that he "is for Alabama" and "war eagle...stinks"! In the state of Alabama you are one or the other...Auburn University or University of Alabama. We have no idea why he has turned on us, who knows maybe during his 9 hr operation one of the nurses was giving him subliminal messages...one of his nurses during that was a graduate of the University of Alabama. ;) So this year will be a different football season for us, not everyone will be saying War Eagle..there will also be some (gritting my teeth when I say this) Roll Tide.

God Bless! and War Eagle!

Shelli

Tuesday night on the River

Tuesday was a long day for us, so coming home to a home cooked meal was fantastic. My mom lives on the "river", but its actually a lake. Crazy I know, but we have called it "going to the river" my whole life. My boys love going up there, because there is so much that they can do! Before dinner Tuesday Dylon caught a fish! I tried to convince him that it was a nice size fish and he replied "it's a baby fish"! Oh well!

While Dylon was fishing, Houston helped my mom and I cook. Maybe he did more tasting than cooking, but he loves to help in the kitchen.

Here is the fried chicken, it was so good! Thanks Mom!

This is a sweet picture of my baby, even though he is not so baby anymore, he will always be my baby!

Post Op follow up!

It was a busy Sunday, Monday week for us. Me, Matt, Dylon and Houston drove 9 hours Sunday to our hotel in Houston,TX! The drive was very long, but those boys love to travel, so that made it easier. Dylon was so excited to have his bestfriend/bubba to come along for his check up. We arrived in Houston around 2:30 and waited for our room to get cleaned and then we all got ready for supper. We took the hotel bus to Pappadeaux and had a fantastic dinner, complete with Alligator and all things spicy. It was a great dinner. We had a great nights rest and headed to TCH for Dylons appointments. He had an echo first which by the way went 100 times better than the last attempt in Pensecola(sacred heart). Houston and "DaDa" waited out in the waiting room while Dylon and I did the echo. Dylon even got a surprise at the end since he cooperated.

After the echo, All four of us went to the next appt to hear the results of the echo. Dr.S (Dyon's cardiologist) gave us the great news that what Sacred heart thought was coarctation was actually the repair that was made on his aorta. I was so relieved to hear this. All in All Dylons heart looks great!

(Dr.S and Dylon, Dr.S and his staff is one of the MANY reasons TCH cardiology is ranked #3 in the nation)

After that appnt we had an Ear, nose and throat appointment to try and pinpoint where the gagging and coughing is coming from. This time Matt took Dylon back and Houston and I waited in the waiting room to see what the ENT had to say. The ENT looked at Dylon throat and tonsils and decided that Dylon will need his tonsils and abnoids taken out. He also said that they would also get a better look at his esophagus and trachea by doing a scope(he gave me the name but I forgot what it is called). The ENT wants to get a better look at where the vascular ring was. Dylon's surgery is scheduled for Aug 28th at TCH. We will go up on a Thursday he will have surgery on Friday, stay the night in the hospital and hopefully go home that weekend. I know that it is such a long ride for a not so big surgery, but it is what we believe to be best for Dylon. I'm not ready for another surgery, but I know that God will carry us through this just like he always has.

(The TRAINS)

(Looking at the trains again, Houston loved them too!)

D

(Dylon and Houston at our lunch break at TCH!)

We are exhausted from the ride, we drove half way late yesterday, stayed in a hotel last night and drove the rest of the way today. We got in to Home Sweet Andalusia around 2:00 this afternoon. We went to my moms to get Laeton Reid. She had cooked us, and my brothers family some southern fried chicken, peas, cornbread and all sorts of good stuff. I will try and post some pics tomorrow! Gotta go to bed, Thank you for praying us there and back!

Love y'all!

Shelli

Heading to Houston in Two days!

Just to do a little update on everyone. We are still planning our trip TCH. I have already made the hotel reservations and we plan on driving there all day Sunday, we will wake up Monday and have an Echo done at 9:00 to make sure that there is no coarctation and then we will meet with Dr.S around 11:00. We will then get lunch and then go see an E.N.T @ 3:00 who will determine what is going on with Dylons gagging, coughing and drooling. Depending on how we are feeling, we will either leave right after that or we might stay the night and leave in the morning. We are taking Houston with us to Houston,TX..he calls it "his" Texas! He wants to see the BIG buildings and a few other things that Dylon has told him about. We are driving, so please pray us there and back! It will be a 9 hour drive and we don't have a DVD player in our car right now, so it will be a loooooong 9 hour drive.

Laeton Reid will be staying with some familywhile we are away. He has inflamation in his left hip and we have spent 4 days this week at the doctors office. Every morning he wakes up and he can't walk on his left leg, we are treating it with Motrin. Usually 45 min after he has his Motrin he is able to walk on it again. It is so sad to see him like this every morning, he gets really aggravated about it. He will have another appointment on Monday and it is suppose to be better by then. Of course we will be in Houston at that time, so my mom will be taking him. Please be praying that this will go away!

I am really anxious and emotional about going back to TCH. I have been doing some scrapbooking lately and it just puts a knot in my stomache looking at photos and thinking about what all my little man has been through, and what WE have all been through with his surgery.

Oh I start school next monday on the 17th! I can't wait!

I hope everyone has a blessed school year!

Love y'all!

Shelli

B & P photography!

B & P photography is a local couple who takes incredible photos! They are very special to me and my family. The photography is owned by Billy and Pam Dolster. They have been such an encouragement to me and my family through this whole ordeal. Before Dylon's surgery they wanted to do a special session with just him. Back in May We met them at the park one sunny, HOT afternoon and they took some of the most precious pictures of Dylon. Mr.Billy climbed up on the slide, just whatever he needed to do to get that special picture. After they did this for Dylon they decided to start a "special friends" photo session. This session is complementary of B & P, they will do any child in our local area who has a life threatening disease or sickness. Thank You B & P We Love you guys and Pray that God blesses you one hundred fold!

A couple of weeks ago, my sister in law and I decided to get B & P to do some photos of our precious boys, They also met with my family again to do some shots of my boys, some of me and Matt and some of just me. Let me tell you it was so hard to be the one infront of the camera, usually i'm the one either taking the photo, or the one who is jumping up an down, or whatever behind the cameraman to get a smile from everyone. The pictures turned out better than we could possibly imagine. We got all 5 boys to smile, I can't believe it. It wasn't because I was doing jumping jacks behind the cameraman, I promise ;)

Aren't they awesome, if you want to see the photo's in a larger version, I think you can just click on the photo!

While we were at the second photo shoot, I wanted my boys to take there shirts off and get some pictures on the Antique Ford tractors, which by the way Ford Tractors is what my Dad and Brother sale! We love some blue tractors!! Except in these photo's there red, which is what color Ford was back then. But back to the photo, I got an option put in front of me on Dylon's scar...Do I want to keep the scar or take it off the photo? As I appreciated the option, I couldn't dare to take that life changing, beautiful scar off of my miracle boy! His scar looks amazing I can't believe it is as small as it is, I mean considering surgery wasn't but 7 weeks ago! Im so proud of Dylon and how strong he is! Thank You God for this miracle boy, I can assure you he will bring much glory to your name!

Oh, we are still planning on a 9 hour drive to TCH this weekend(8th or 9th). I was told that they would confirm all appts, I still havent heard anything..but no news is good news. So we are gonna make hotel reservations and start preparing ourselves to go. Im sure that it will be a emotional return for us, im just so thankful that TCH is where we went for Dylon's surgery, we couldn't be happier with the staff, nurses, Doctors, and of course the surgeon!

God Bless,

Shelli

ps: if you read the blog prior to this one, you will see that Dylon has been gagging and burping some which could be a result of his softened esophagus from the vascular ring. He has only gagged twice since last Thursday, thanks for the prayers!