Painting Pictures

We were busy painting this weekend at the house. We had 7 volunteers helping us! We are very greatful for all the help that we had. Also, Thank you to Sherwin Williams and Hallman Lindsay for the paint donation.

Master Bath

Community Room - Play area. I love the color!

Callie's Room (3/4 purple 1/4 pinkish-purple)

Master Bedroom

Upcoming Fundraiser

Mark your calendars! We are having another fund raiser for Build From the Heart. We would love to see you all there. The night is going to be a blast - it will be full of Local Music from Tuscan Road and a Nashville Bank The Dirt Drifters. Thank you to our major sponsors for making this even happen! You can get your tickets in advance from WDEZ, River Valley Bank or us. They are $10 in advance or $15 at the door - Can't wait to see you there.

If you are not able to make it to the Fundraiser but would still like to donate you can do so by going to any River Valley Bank location. If writing a check you will want to make it out to "Noah's Never Ending Rainbow" and in the memo line write Build from the Heart.

Eatting Again!

Callie can eat orally again!! YEAH CALLIE!!  We went to Marshfield today as the pulmonologist from Madison believes Callie is aspirating. We think it is from reflux, but we needed to determine also if Callie is having issues swallowing. She had her swallow study which looked wonderful. She ate food and drank from the sippy and passed with flying colors! She had her first dinner in a month tonight. She has been strictly tube fed since we were in Madison. So what does this mean now? Well we have changed how she gets her tube feeds. They are much slower therefore take an hour and a half for a "meal". She seems to have less reflux. Her oxygen levels have improved. She even has made it a few nights with out any oxygen. A tank that once lasted two weeks is now lasting more than a month. She continues to wear her BiPAP (sleep machine) to help with her apnea. She goes to the clinic on April 8th for an X-ray to see if her lungs are clearing up at all. We believe they are. She typically sleeps 8-10 hours straight now. It is amazing.

As for Zak, well the poor guy is sick again. He has gunk coming out of everywhere. He was at the clinic yesterday and has a nasty ear infection. Every Time he coughs or sneezes snot comes along with it. He ended up coming home from school today and I am guessing he will be home again tomorrow. Poor kido. They were suppose to go on a field trip at school today and celebrate his birthday, he had to miss all of it :( They will celebrate when he returns after spring break.
Last week his therapist called me with wonderful news! He was walking in his gait trainer (walker). He has a drop out seat in it so as you become more skilled it can be removed. For the first time Zak had it removed and did quite well. I was so proud of him. We now have the same style walker at home too. I cannot wait to move and have a better floor for him to roll on. It will be wonderful to see him getting around.

House Progress

It was an exciting week at the house. The dry wall is Done. Here are a few pictures from Monday. Yesterday they did the finish on the wall. I stopped on my way home today and it looked amazing! They did a great job!

Upstairs Community room

Warren.. Look at his "feet" I am so impressed

Community Room. The primer is on!

Pictures - what cute Kids

Two weekends ago we went to see Nicole with Ashley Nicole Photography to get pictures for Zak's 6th birthday and Callie's 2nd. The kids were slightly crabby, soon after we realized that was the start of colds. They did well for the most part. Nicole had so much patience with them.. she is amazing! Wonderful pictures - Thank you Nicole!

Video of the House!

Here is a video of the House. The voice over is a marketing piece that has been playing on some of the radio stations in the area.

They started to mud for the dry wall this week! I needs to get to the house this weekend and take some pictures. It definitely looks like a house now! It is hard to believe painting is not that far away. Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen!

Answers

We finally have some answers and direction for Callie. We met with a Pulmonologist in Madison. She was amazing! We were very grateful to have such a wonderful doctor. She spent so much time with us and really listened to what we had to say. We spent almost 3 hours with her. She went through Callie's whole time line of illness and surgeries. She believes Callie is aspirating from her reflux in her belly, which is why she is on oxygen as the fluids are going into her lungs. She suggested we have a swallow study done before we feed her orally any more. That is scheduled for this month. We also slowed down the amount of food she gets into her belly at one time to hopefully prevent the amount of reflux she will have. We are still waiting to get a final game plan, but hopefully these changes will make a difference.
She has also been doing great with her BiPAP. She slept a full 12 hours on Monday night!! She leaves her mask on most of the time. Once she is sleeping we are fine. It has made a huge difference for her.

Zak had a sleepy week. We are thinking he had some kind of stomach bug. He slept from Sunday Night until Tuesday Morning. He was only up for about an hour. Today was the first day back to school from not feeling well.