Colby's First Year - Finally!!!

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A Sad Day

Today is a very sad day for me. My good friend Art has passed away. I'm not sure if it was yesterday or Saturday as I was notified second hand from a mutual friend. Art was a great guy who I met while working at a local Farm Market. I met Art when I was 16 and we proceeded to work together over the next 10 yrs. He was about 20 yrs older than me and we had this uncle/nephew type relationship. Throughout this time we became good friends, who would laugh, argue, fight etc., it was more of a brotherly relastionship really. Art lived in Redford and when Jessica and I met we moved to Redford, Art and I lived only a couple blocks away from each other. Because of this I was able to visit Art quite often. Anyone who knows Art understands he went through some tough times in his life. I'm proud to say I was there for Art whenever I could be to help in anyway. We had connections on many levels, but most of all our love of UofM, the Tigers and working produce definitely kept us connected. As I got married and had kids Art and I didn't see each other that much and the phone calls became much less frequent. If you attended our wedding ceremony Art did one of the readings at the church. I last spoke to art, gosh, a number of months ago. Art left me a message over the holidays and I had planned on calling him back, just hadn't got to it yet. I thought of him often but took for granted the fact that I had all this time. I'm sitting here unable to believe that he's gone. I'm embarrassed to say that my good friend was never even able to meet Cooper and Colby in person. This devastates me as I would have loved my kids to know such a great guy. I always thought oh, I gotta take the kids over to see Art, but just always had a reason not to get over there. Its a huge cliche but you just don't know what you have until its gone. I'm mad at Art for leaving us. Really mad. I know he's in a better place now. Rest in peace buddy, I will miss you, Go Blue, I'll always look up and point to you when I sing "Hail to the Victors".

Picassocooper

We got some artwork to show off from our little Pablo Picassocooper. He's been doing some really cool stuff at daycare and here at home and our basement door has become our own Institute of Arts! Coop did all the work here including his life-size Christmas Cookie Gingerbreadman, of course at 2 and 1/2 he still gets some help but he's been doing really well at getting the hang of making his own art projects and having fun at it too.

PS: Colby has his own little project, its the brown house in the upper left with his handprints on the top of the roof!

Cooper's Winter Olympic Gymnastic Preview

Colby's Cruising Part Deux

Colby's Cruising

Well its been so long since I filled you all in on how Colby is doing. He is doing awesome. We're thrilled at his progress. In mid Dec Colby finally finished up being cycled off Phenobarbital, the pink nightmare as we like to call it. Imagine giving your 6 month old a vial of strawberry syrup, twice a day, NOT FUN! Try keeping that off your clothes, his clothes, the furniture, etc while your little guy fights you as he takes down each drop. Ugh, we were so glad to see that stuff go, not to mention what it did to the Big Cheese. About a week after he was fully off the Pheno, Colby was a totally different baby. He was smiling more, interacting more and started to eat! He just would not eat solid foods while on the Pheno. But now he chows down, just like he was before the accident. He's been progressing in many other things too. He now crawls like a champ, just cruising allover as fast as Usain Bolt. One second he's in the living room, next second he's across the kitchen. Colby started clapping the other day too. Colby continues to love his daycare and has some good friends there that he crawls and hangs with all day. The little guy also continues his weekly visits with the early-on crew who continue to evaluate and work with Colby on his overall development. Team Colby is going strong!

Blog to ya later!

Scott

So much to say!

Wow! Its been over two months since my last post and boy do I have alot to write about. I'll be filling you in throughout the week about a crawling Colby, a singing Cooper, a busy Jessica, my busted knee (yes I couldn't make it out of 2009 without my own trip to the hospital), kiddie- sniffles, coughs, pink eye and throw up, a new year, new hope, and lots more. I'll be posting as much as I can throughout this next week and hopefully getting back on the blogging wagon.

For the time being here's a few photos of the Big Cheese and Super Dooper from the holidays, more pics to come too.

Blog to ya later!

Scott

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor and Doctor!

Hey All,

Well we now have a little break from all these appointments so its a perfect time to catch you up on what's going on. Friday we went to our first appointment at the neurologist. It was good. We went over with the doc about all of Colby's minor seizures that we logged, talked about his progress and asked any questions we had. He said that Colby is doing really well. They checked out his vision and he seemed to do well with that. The test just involved the neurologist moving some objects all around Colby's head and watching to see if Colby was moving his eyes to see them or not. We also were able to see Colby's MRI. First they showed us his original MRI from right after the accident. Just a ton of different images of the brain, I could barely tell what was going on, but they did come to an image that had some bright white spots near the back of the brain. Those bright spots represented the damage done to Colby's brain. Then we saw the second MRI taken from to Thursday's ago. When we got to the same image in the 2nd MRI that damage had dulled on the MRI, meaning that his brain is starting to heal. It was great to see. He still has a way to go but it was very promising. We also have begun to take Colby off of his Phenobarbital. It'll be a month long process where we ween him off dropping it down a ml per week, until he's off of it completely. He will continue to take his Keppra for up to a year, but we are very happy to get him off the Phenobarb as it tastes very nasty and Colby hates it, he has become a master at coming up with ways to push it out of his mouth. We will go back to the neurologist in a few months for another follow-up and no more MRIs in the near future as long as Colby continues to progress. So all in all a good appointment, progress is being made and we are so happy and thankful that Colby continues to improve everyday and fights for what we hope to be a normal development.

From the neurologist we moved onto the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation doc earlier today. It was a much quicker appointment then the neurologist. The doc just checked over Colby, looking at his muscle tone and checking his joints. She did notice that his left ankle was much more loose than his right. His left leg is where he had a number of his minor seizures. So we will be keeping an eye on that over the next few months and it may result in Colby having to wear some sort of brace on his leg as he develops. We also continue to watch this weird arching of his back that Colby does. He is constantly doing it and no one is sure if its just him trying to get another view or his way of moving around right now before he crawls. Everyone is kind of perplexed about this specific thing, we'll all keep watching to see if it goes away. We will also probably be meeting with a speech therapist to help with Colby's eating. We aren't there yet but if he doesn't start taking solids within the next 3 weeks we're going to get some help. Once we get the eating thing down hopefully sleeping through the night will fall back into place. We will also be meeting with an opthamologist to make sure Colby's vision is on track. The damage done to his brain was in the area that affects vision so its something we will constantly be watching. But all in all another good appointment, the doc said this stuff is all minor right now and we'll be keeping a close eye on the Big Cheese!

Blog to ya later!

Scott

A Quickie

Hey All,

Sorry for the short post, it was a busy weekend. But Colby is doing really well! The trip to the Neurologist went really well and we go to the rehab doc this afternoon. I'll write this evening about everything.

Blog to ya tonight!

Scott

Colby's doing well!

Colby laughing it up!

Colby has been keeping us up lately! Actually these are my replica Playdoh eyes.

Cooper copying daddy, I forgot its probably not good to show a two-year old how to shove playdoh in your eye! :)

Our smiley guy is back!!

Coop hanging with Pops while I rake my life away.

Hey All,

Well our little guys are doing well, still getting over the coughs etc but fevers seemed to have disappeared. Colby had his "6 month" checkup today. He did great. He's doing really well. The doc said that he is doing everything a 6 month old should be doing. So that was nice to hear. Growing like he should, he's up to a little over 15 pounds. Our main concerns at the appointment were talking to the doc about Colby not really eating solids yet and his not sleeping through the night, both things which he did before the accident. The doc said to just keep trying to get him to eat, trying to feed him once a day and get him used to putting things in his mouth. We think part of it may have to do with all the meds he's had to take and how he hates taking them. We'll also be able to get some more info from the Physical Medicine and Rehab doc, Dr Green, on what to do. We think he's really made some strides this past week as he is babbling up a storm saying mamamama, bbababab, dadadadadd and he's sitting up really well too. Very exciting. Still one of the worst things is giving him the darn meds. He locks his lips and has learned to push it out with his tongue, he's one smart little cookie. So we keep plugging away.

I haven't really mentioned it but we LOVE our new daycare. Its awesome. Everyone there is great and the kids have been doing awesome. Coop has been doing cool art projects and we can tell he has really picked up alot of stuff already. He's counting great and came home the other day saying Turkey, Gobble, Gobble.

Friday is our big Neurology appointment w/ Dr. Mott. Hopefully some questions will be answered and we'll get the results of last weeks MRI. Keep your fingers crossed. I'm hoping that this appointment just confirms what we think is going on.

We went and fed the ducks up at Hines Park today, Coop and I brought out a bag of bread and we started to walk over to the ducks and I thought we were literally going to get trampled by ducks. It was Night of the Living Ducks. They were chasing us down and staring at both of us like were bags of bread ourselves. Anyways we got to a fence that worked as a nice barrier and we're able to feed a loaf of bread to about 20 ducks.

"Hey This is Colby, I didn't know it was HIM!"

Well, guess what, we went back. Yup that's right we had to go BACK to Mott again yesterday. Everything is fine but yesterday Colby spiked a fever of about 102 and we called our pediatrician to let them know as he was kind of lethargic and really warm. In the meantime we gave him tylenol and he started to cool down and get his normal demeanor back. Well the doc called back and said being that he was intubated for his MRI he could have aspirated and could be getting pneumonia and we needed to get him checked out. He also had spit up some green stuff earlier in the day, just a bit but we did notice it. Had the pediatrician been open we just would have gone in to the office. But of course they were closed. SOOOO off to UofM we went at about 5pm. We just went to the ER and ended up being there for about 4 hours. When we got there he of course had no temp, but at one point it did shoot up to 103. They checked him over, irrigated his waxy little ears so they could actually look in them, checked his urine for any infections via a catheter (poor guy) and then gave him a chest x-ray which ended up being clean. We questioned the x-ray thru the resident, onto the fellow and then to the attending, as he's had so much radiation in his little life already but finally agreed to do it as the attending said we really should. All of that and really nothing came about. They said he has some flu-like symptoms but nothing they can really do. He is a candidate for TamaFlu but for babies it just ends up giving them worse symptoms so they like to hold off giving that to them if they can. His demeanor throughout this whole episode was pretty much his normal self so that was good. He was talking and smiling etc. We got recognized twice by the registration person and the attending on our visit and that is just not good! I mean come on ... this is getting borderline ridiculous! :)

So we'll just be keeping an eye on him all day and we just have to call the pediatrician if his demeanor changes at all today, just more stuff to watch out for!

Blog to ya later!

Scott

Finally, Back Home

Hey All,

Colby is back home and doing great, we got to go back to recovery about 30 minutes after the last post. He was groggy but awake and in his phase 2 of recovery. Jess fed him seeing he hadn't eaten in like 9 hours, he was just a tad bit hungry! :) So he snoozed a bit, we watched some Cash Cab and then rolled out. Come to find out our recovery nurse thinks she was on call when Colby first came to Mott from his initial Survival Flight back in April. She was calming him after he arrived and came off the helicopter. Anyways, all is well, as usual the Mott staff was awesome! Our little MRI excursion turned into a 6 hour trip to Mott, which we thought would be an hour or two, what were we thinking. Hopefully Colby will use all the craziness of today to sleep through the night, lets hope so! :)

Blog to ya later!

Scott

He's In...

Hey All,

Colby is being MRI'd as I write, he went in about 45 mins ago, should be done any time now. Then he goes to Phase 1 recovery and then Phase 2 so I imagine we're looking at a couple more hours here. Hopefully he'll be out soon. We have a pager like you get at Applebees so when he's done they'll page us.

Scott

Waiting and waiting and ....

Here's Big Bro giving Little Bro a big smooch before leaving for his MRI!

Hey All,

Well we're at Mott in the pre-op room just waiting and waiting for Colby to get anesthesia and get this moving. They're backed up like crazy and were probably an hour away from getting in. Looks like a long day. Colby is a stud he hasn't eaten since 9am and he's doing well. The nurse has him right now and is keeping him away from Jess so he doesn't start crying at the site of Mommy. Colby is only half the worry as Mommy and Daddy may start crying soon if we don't get something to eat!

Scott

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Hey All,

Here is my first foray into the world of iMovie. There are some kinks to work out but hey its my first shot. Definitely not as good as Jessica's, "Cooper's First Year" video (which is still on the blog located in 2008, July) but it'll do. But this is all from Halloween day. As we move into the the retail xmas holiday (November) and the real xmas holiday (December) not being far behind we all realize there are enough songs you could play a new one back to back for the entire month of Nov and Dec. But as I created my Halloween short I noticed there are very few Halloween songs. Sure, you've got your psycho theme, the Halloween Movies theme, The Shining and The Exorcist. You've got Monster Mash and some song from the Nightmare Before Christmas. But that's it. Some other random stuff but nothing. Is Werewolves of London a Halloween song? I don't think so, but iTunes says it is and if Apple says it is then it is, but I'm not buying it! Anyways I hope you like my choice, you been slimed! :)

Blog to ya later

Scott

Big Brother is Watching!

No, I don't mean Coop, I mean all of us! Yup, we finally found a counter gadget so we can see how many people have visited the blog! Whohoo!

Now it also logs my clicks, but hey beggers can't be choosers. Its located right above our 2nd family blog portrait.

MRI day

Big Day Tomorrow!

Its Colby's MRI day. I feel bad for the little guy as he has to go under for this so he doesn't squirm. More pokes. But we all know he's one tough dude so it's nothing for him. He can't eat after 10 a.m. tomorrow so come MRI time he may be a bit feisty! I'll do my best to update his progress via the blog.

While in Ann Arbor tomorrow I plan on swinging by Rich Rod's office at Schembechler Hall to see if he'd like to give a scholarship to Colby to start in the secondary this weekend. I figure a 6 month old baby will do just fine back there! :)

Check back soon for some photos from Cooper and Colby's Halloween hi-jinks!

Big Week!

Hey All,

Big week ahead, its MRI time! We will be taking Colby to the 2nd official MRI. Hopefully we will be shutting doors on what it is that is actually going on with him and not opening new ones. We won't know the results until the following week. One nice note is that we haven't seen/noticed any minor seizures over the past few days. That's been great. Once the MRI is done we have a number of appointments coming up over the next couple weeks: Neurologist, Pediatrician, Physical Rehab and Early On.

Seinfeld-esque!

Colby still has his minor seizures (when I say seizure think muscle twitch, we've all had them and that's what Colby's look like) pretty much everyday, just minor and only a couple a day, mainly concentrated in his left leg. But he did have a very funny one just the other day. I must say it is very weird and surreal to talk about a "funny" seizure your kid had the other day. Three weeks ago I would never have used the word "funny" and "seizure" in the same sentence. But I guess this is our reality and the little things that become normal can eventually bring out different emotions from, say, the first time you experience it. This seizure instantly brought to mind a Seinfeld-esque moment. You all know what I'm talking about. Numerous life events that we all experience, good, bad, funny, crazy, aside from absolute tragedy, can be related back to a Seinfeld episode. And if your specific incident didn't happen to come up in a Seinfeld episode you often can certainly see it being a focal point of one. To give an example of what I'm talking about (I have a ton, trust me) I think back to my days as a studly student on the campus of UofM. I was hanging out with this girl and we were just getting to know each other. Hanging out, talking. While we were conversing, I passed some gas, farted, tooted, what ever you want to call it. This incident was completely unexpected. I had no time to prepare. I was mortified, but this girl never acknowledged it, didn't crack a smile, give me a weird look, nothing!, Needless to say, I told all my buddys in the dorm what had happened and after incredible ridicule, people began to think maybe she didn't hear it. I couldn't imagine, there was just no way. I was absolutely embarrassed and eventually told my friend who had introduced me to this girl, what had happened. After expecting my friend to kick me for attempting to ruin her perfect streak of matchmaking by dropping bombs, she proceeds to tell me... "Oh, didn't I tell you she's deaf in one ear." WHOA! STOP THE CAR! WHAT!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Wait.... a..... minute....., so there's a chance that this girl didn't even hear that. My first thought was I'm living my own Seinfeld episode. So this unbelievable exclamation started numerous discussions on our floor regarding the matter. Did she even hear it? Maybe she didn't hear it cause SHE'S DEAF! I was in my own personal controversy. A main point of contention was whether her deaf side was her right or left side, this mattered greatly to whether or not I was totally in the clear! Give me a grassy knoll, a second tooter and we have our own personal government conspiracy! To wrap this lovely tale up, my matchmaking friend was able to find out she DID hear the lovely noise and was okay with it, BUT we only saw each other a couple more times. If you can believe it, this story is the number two Seinfeld moment of my life. Yes, that's right, I have one moment that tops that, its close between the two as to which story should be number 1, but I think I've selected wisely. I'll reveal number 1 in a future post. Back to the dude I'm supposed to be talking about, Colby. Colby's little Seinfeld-esque moment occured Saturday or Sunday, can't remember now. We put him in his car seat and picked him up to leave, as I picked up the car seat he started moving his eyebrows up and down. "Hey, look at Colby, he's giving us the eyebrows!" You know the move when someone's trying to be cute, like the kid from Home Alone, they raise and lower their eyebrows. We instantly thought how cute and then started to think wait, he's a little young to be doing that, then thought wait is that an eyebrow seizure??? You can see how this progressed thru a whole gamut of emotions. It lasted only about ten seconds and I instantly thought this incident has Seinfeld episode written all over it. Obviously the baby would have to be replaced by a woman and she would have to be doing the flirty eyebrow thing to George, then George would go over introduce himself, say I noticed you flirting with me, she'd be eating dinner with her boyfriend he'd get mad at George and the girl for flirting yada, yada, yada... :)

Blog to ya later

Scott