It's been too long

I can't believe my last post was in July!  It's been way too long and my hope is that I will have some time to sit down and write some entries this year.  What an eventful year 2013 turned out to be!  I'll give a recap here and then I'll feel like I can move on :)

We really had a great summer.  We didn't do anything major, just hung out around here.  It's a great plus when you live at the beach.  Garrett still went to school two days a week but we enjoyed our time together.  Garrett and I spent our last "free" weekend with a trip to Charleston with my mom and sister. We had a great time.  We saw the sights, shopped, ate good food, and even rode on a trolley-which he didn't like at the time but now wants to ride again!  Ahh, the life of a two year old :)  We hosted a huge 40th birthday party for my brother in law complete with an inflatable waterslide which all of the kids (and adults) loved.  It was a great summer!

Tommy has had some hiccups if you will with his heart health.  He was out of normal rhythm too many times over the first part of the year which led to 3 cardioversions.  We were basically visiting the hospital every other month.  His doctor here suggested that we go back to Duke to meet with a doctor about the possibility of having another ablation surgery; this is the same surgery he had in 2009.  We met with him in August and he felt like Tommy was a candidate for a repeat ablation.  He said sometimes those areas heal back and start causing the irregular rhythms again and then it could be coming from the condition of his heart.  His schedule was pretty booked so the first slot he had open would be sometime in late September/early October.  They finally scheduled him for October.  He had an appointment with his local doctor on September 17th, he was and had been out of rhythm this whole time, and his doctor suggested going ahead and doing another cardioversion so it wouldn't be so with him being out of rhythm.  Wouldn't you know it, later that afternoon Tommy called me and said Duke called, there's an opening this Friday for the ablation.  We quickly got things together, made sure my parents could keep Garrett for us and made our way to Duke on September 18th.  They ran a bunch of tests on Thursday and then he had the ablation surgery on Friday, September 20th.  The surgery lasted 10 hours but the doctor felt confident that they had gotten most of the areas.  He was afraid Tommy may go back into an irregular rhythm overnight because of the irritation in his heart but he didn't.  He stayed in a normal rhythm for about 2 weeks and then went out again.  He had another cardioversion in October and so far, everything  has been good since then.  Hopefully it was from all of the inflammation on his heart that caused that one.  We've been back for check-ups and they are pleased with everything.  We feel he is with a great team of doctors and feel confident in their decisions.  He's being seen by a heart failure/transplant doctor and an adult congenital doctor at Duke.  They did run a test on him in November and his numbers are pretty low; these are the numbers they look at when considering heart transplant.  But like the doctor there said, we don't know how long his numbers  have looked like that because he's never had this test.  We're just praying everything levels out because we don't want to face a transplant anytime soon (hearts only last about 10 years).

Garrett continues to be the light of our lives and keeps us busy and tired :)  He doesn't forget a thing and I love having conversations with him.  It's so funny the things he comes up with.  We took a trip to the mountains in October and he got to experience his first train ride.  We went with family and it was a great time.  We also stopped by the apple orchard on the way home and he loved that as well.

The holidays were also fun for us this year.  We hosted everyone for Thanksgiving and Garrett loved entertaining everyone.  He loved Christmas this year and he's starting to understand everything behind it.  It's such a neat experience to view it from a child's perspective.  He's totally amped up now for his birthday.  We've been hearing about the "birthday party" for weeks now.

We still haven't pursued anything else on the adoption front.  While we would love for Garrett to have a sibling, we want Tommy's health to be ok first.  Plus, I don't want to add any extra pressure on him about it---that's the last thing he needs right now.  I have moments where I really want to have another child but we truly are enjoying our time with Garrett.  I've talked to some of the parents whose kids I've taught over the years that are only children and they've given me some great advice on how to help him be a well rounded child.

We are excited to see how God is going to use us this year!