Pictures!

 Sage holding Selah in the hospital.  This was after Selah's shunt was externalized at her abdomen but before it was completely removed.  Selah is beginning to look a lot like Sage!

 Sage loves her baby sister!  I think the whole hospital stay was hardest on Sage.

 Selah after her shunt was removed.  You can see where the central line was placed and where her external shunt came out of her skull.  This external shunt drained her CSF, while we waited for her new shunt.

 Selah playing with her toys in her hospital crib.

 Still soo happy even after all she went through!

 Yeah!  We are going to Disney World to celebrate mommy and Sage's birthdays and to celebrate Selah being home from the hospital!

 Sage and her favorite fairy, Tinker Bell.

 Both girls completely crashed at 9PM after a fun but long day at Disney.

 Sisters!

 What beautiful angels!

 Sage's first backpacking trip with daddy!  She even got a new backpack to carry herself.

Good morning! 

 The campsite.

 I think she was soo excited it was hard for her to fall asleep.

I think Sage walked most of the way, but I think daddy ended up carrying her for part of it.

Happy 6 months and 3 years to our beautiful girls!

We have been doing great since coming home from the hospital on January 10th.  Selah has had quite a few follow-up appointments with her doctors, but nothing we aren't used to now.  We also celebrated Sage's 3rd birthday and Selah's 6 month birthday this past week.  They are both growing up so quickly. 

Sage is such a sweet and smart little girl.  She know her numbers from 1-20, knows all of her letters and knows most of their sounds.  She can write her name and Selah's name and can spell many other words.  She is also very good at counting and is starting to learn basic addition.  She amazes us with how fast she learns things.  She also went on her first backpacking trip with daddy.  She even carried her own backpack.  The campsite was about a 1/2 mile from the parking lot, but they had a lot of fun.  I think one of her favorite parts was playing flashlight puppets in the tent.  She is such a great big sister and loves Selah soooo much!  She loves singing her songs and reading her stories, and Selah will just sit and listen and watch her for quite a while.  She also loves to smother her baby sister with kisses and hugs.

Selah is getting sooo big, too.  She is doing great holding her head up while on tummy time and is working hard at learning to roll over.  She can also pass a toy from one hand to the other.  Her first two baby teeth have come in on the bottom.  She loves to play peek-a-boo and will laugh quite a bit when you play it with her.  She is also very vocal, and her therapist is just amazed at how vocal she is and how much she interacts with people and how social she is.  We started her on rice cereal, but so far, she is not that interested.  She takes 2 naps/day and is sleeping through the night (10-12 hours straight most nights).  Being in the hospital for almost three weeks didn't hold her back for long.  Within a week of being home from the hospital, she had already surpassed her milestones that she had acheived before going in the hospital. 

Carey and I are so blessed to be the parents of our 2 beautiful girls.  They remind us daily of God's blessings and His goodness and mercy.

A new favorite verse to add to the list is Psalm 63:1-4

O God, You are my God; I earnestly search for You.  My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for You in this parched and weary land, where there is no water.  I have seen You in Your sanctuary and gazed upon Your power and glory.  Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise You!  I will praise You as long as I live, lifting up my hand to You in prayer.

Just an example of gazing upon the power and glory of God and watching Him work miracles...Selah's blood clot was a good size in her left leg, and the hematologist wanted to treat it with blood thinners and even postpone her shunt surgery.  However, the neurosurgeons said that the shunt needed to be put in ASAP, and so the blood thinner medication would have to wait.  The difficult part, though is that she couldn't have the blood thinners right after brain surgery due to the increased risk of a brain bleed, but if the blood thinners weren't given in a timely manner, then they wouldn't be effective.  Well, we put our trust in Jesus and prayed that He would dissolve that bloodclot without the need for blood thinners.  Sure enough, Selah has gone back for 2 ultrasounds to check the size of the bloodclot and each time, it has gotten incredibly smaller.  The last ultrasound, the tech said she wasn't even sure if she saw the bloodclot or not, and the hematologist has said that she does not need the blood thinner medication anymore!  Lord, I have seen You in Your sanctuary and gazed upon Your power and glory.  Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise You as long as I live, lifting my hand to You in prayer. 

We are continuing to pray for an infection-free and problem-free shunt, and for her brain to continue to heal and expand.  We are also praying for her left hip to continue to ossify in the socket and that she would have the muscle control to keep it in the correct spot, and we are praying for her bladder and kidneys to continue to function well and for no more UTI's.  We know, though, that if God doesn't choose to answer our prayers the way we would want, then He will do exceeding abundantly beyond what we could ever ask for or imagine!

Our Holiday story:

Well, I am sure most of you know by now that we ended up spending Christmas and New Years in All Children's Hospital.  We ended up taking Selah to the ER on 12/23 in the late morning because her fontanelle (soft spot) was bulging and tight, which is the tell-tale sign of a malfunctioning shunt.  They "tapped" her shunt in the ER and the initial results came back as no shunt infection.  They also did an MRI, shunt-series of xrays and ultrasound of her belly, and no signs of shunt malfunction were found.  The neurosurgeons decided to admit Selah and watch her.  She quickly went from not feeling so good to feeling very badly with an extremely tender belly and she could hardly open her eyes over night.  The next day, Christmas eve, the neurosurgeon decided to externalize her shunt from her belly.  So at 7PM on Christmas eve, Selah had her first surgery.  Her shunt continued to function, but there was an infection in her abdomen.  The doctors decided to culture her CSF in her shunt daily to determine if the infection was just in her belly or also in her shunt.  Then, on 12/27, Selah went in for her second surgery to place a central line (CVL).  She was getting lots of antibiotics and kept loosing her peripheral lines.  The interventional radiologist placed the line in her left femural vein.  The entire left leg ended up turning dark purple in the recovery room.  An ultrasound was done to check the blood flow to the leg, and the doctor decided to just watch the leg.  Well, in the meantime, Selah's cultures from her shunt ended up coming back positive for enterobacter, which meant her whole shunt had to be replaced, so we prepared for her third surgery on the 29th.  It was about 2AM on the 29th, when the nurse noticed that Selah's left leg swelled up to almost twice the originial size.  We then took Selah down to radiology to have an ultrasound done, where it was discovered that she had a blood clot from the central line that was placed.  At 3AM, an ICU nurse came and pulled the central line.  That morning, then, Selah went into surgery to have her shunt removed and a new central line placed in her left subclavian vein.  Selah did great through all three of her surgeries, and now we just had to wait for negative cultures in her CSF.  Selah ended up with an external shunt that came directly from her skull and drained her CSF into bag.  She was still receiving IV antibiotics three times a day and her CSF was still tested every morning.  Finally, on 1/9/12, Selah had been on antibiotics for ten days after her first negative culture, so her new shunt could be placed.  Her fourth and final surgery went well.  She has a new shunt still on the left side of her head but it empties into the right side of her abdomen instead of the left.  We were sent home the next day on 1/10/12 after a few more doses of antibiotics.