more updates

Several updates to report since our last post. First, Julianne is out of the hospital from her 2nd heart surgery and doing great! She got released yesterday and will stay in town near the hospital for the next several days with her parents, just to make sure everything continues to go well for her. If there are no complications, they will be headed home early next week!

Second, Ethan's still doing well with his heart function! We went to the cardiologist this morning and Dr. Robinson said that if Ethan didn't have the scar on his chest to remind us of the surgeries, you wouldn't know anything is wrong with his heart by listening to it! That news made me very excited! Dr. Robinson also told us to stop giving Ethan Lasix because his lungs sound clear, so that means we're medicine-free for the first time!

Third, today is Shelby Glover's first birthday! Shelby is another HLHS baby that was treated at UNC. They live about 2 hours east of us in Wilmington and we're looking forward to going down there to celebrate her birthday party this weekend! Shelby's parents did not know ahead of time about her heart condition so they were in for a real scare a couple of days after Shelby was born and they were getting ready to take her home and she started turning blue. Shelby was rushed to UNC for her HLHS diagnosis and surgery. We have continued to stay in touch with them since we first met last summer right after Ethan was born and recovering from his first surgery. A few weeks later, we met up with them again for Shelby's second surgery. Having a first birthday is a big milestone for all parents, but you never realize how big of a milestone until you've had a child that you weren't sure would even live to see their first birthday. God is so good to this family and ours as well.

Shelby's mom has also been real active in trying to establish a family support group for pediatric cardiology patients at UNC Hospital since it's the only one in the state without a formal support group. In my spare time, I've been trying to help out whenever I can too. The UNC Pediatric Cardiology Dept. has an annual reunion for all it's heart patients so we're hoping to really have our support group in place by the time of the reunion so that we can spread the word to all the families out there.

Shelby's parents are also on the Parent Advisory Panel for the state-wide cardiology nurses conference being held at UNC this May. You may remember me mentioning this back in January when we were first invited to be a part of this 4-family parent panel. We are looking forward to this opportunity to share how God has forever changed our life by giving us our sweet boy and protecting him through his heart surgeries and treatment at UNC!

Fourth, Ethan had his first playdate yesterday! We went over to a friend's house who has a little girl about a month older than Ethan. This was her first playdate with a boy so it was fun to watch them interact while I got to talk with the other mom. Now that we're able to leave our house more, I look forward to taking Ethan out for other playdates and activities for Ethan to interact with other kids.

Well I think that's all the updates for now. As always, thanks for checking in on us and for your continued prayers for Ethan's health. God is so good to us! Have a happy Easter everyone!