Just Monkeyin' Around

Well, it's been awhile since our last post and I'm happy to report that nothing exciting has been happening. We've been trying to lay low and avoid the Swine flu and any other nasty bugs floating around. We did take a family adventure to the good ol' Columbia zoo. We all had a blast! It was Jackson's first time here and Darrin and I had not been since elementary school many many moons ago!! We did make a trip to see the cardiologist this week, and got the word that Jackson is officially back to normal! Yippee!! Since the word "GO" he has been a bike-ridin', swing-swingin', bed-jumpin' fool!! (He's got a lot of time to make up for...8 weeks to be exact!!) We did have one more "first" this week. Today we went back to church as a family for the first time since surgery. Jackson was really excited! He has begged us every Sunday (and sometimes ended up in tears) for the past 8 weeks to go back to church. It felt great to be back! Here are some pictures from the zoo. Hope you enjoy...

Jackson, I mean, Monkey at work!

This was Jackson's favorite! (Not even an exhibit...just runnin' wild) He was absolutely fascinated with this squirrel. (Go figure! Guess we could've just stayed in the backyard instead of driving to Columbia!!)

"The BOYD exhibit"

This was probably the "big people" favorite. This is Darrin actually feeding the giraffes! Pretty cool, huh?!?

"WILD Man"

SHHHH!! Don't tell anyone you saw me riding a tiger.

GO COCKS!!

Last but not least... My absolute favorite picture of the day!

"BIRD MAN"

OOOPS!

OOOPS! I guess I forgot to give you a follow up from the previous post. Do you forgive me?!?Jackson is doing well. His incision has finally started to heal and looks much better! He still continues on aspirin, lasix, enalapril, and keflex. He still hates medicine time but hopefully all this will be better once we get rid of all the extras...lasix, enalapril, and keflex. He is still somewhat limited on his activity-feet still can't leave the floor:(,and NO SWIMMING:(! We only have about 2 more weeks!! YYYEEEAAA!!! So, for now we're trying to stay cool and NON-busy (no such luck with this one)! Until next time...

A Trip To The ER!!

As we showed you before, Jackson has a "bad" place on his incision. Well, it has progressively gotten worse!! We saw his cardiologist on Wednesday and he has been making threats to send us back to MUSC if it continues to get worse. Friday morning a new place appeared. I called the MD gave him a description of the new area, he told us to continue to watch it for now but that if ANYTHING changes (fever, pain at the site, the new place starts to blend into the old place, or if my "motherly" instinct kicked in, etc,) that he wanted to know about it. So, of course, we checked his incision every couple of hours as we always do and you would know that another new place had formed. Darrin and I both felt very uneasy about the new place-it looked completely different than the old "new" places did. We called the MD on call (of course it wasn't our own MD), we gave him a description, told him what Jackson's MD had told us that morning, and came up with a plan. We all thought that it would be best for someone to lay eyes on it. So... We loaded up the car and headed to Greenville. We arrived at the children's ER at about 10:30pm. Things went very smoothly (this was our very first visit to the ER-and hopefully LAST!). We were seen by the MD and she called the cardiologist on call (the one who said we should go to the ER). They both agreed that Jackson should be started on another antibiotic by mouth. Keflex was ordered and we were on our way at 12:00am! Who has ever heard of an 1 1/2 hour trip to the ER!?! Over the weekend Jackson has pretty much held steady as far as incision site looks go. They wanted us to be seen by our cardiologist today for a recheck. Of course he's not in the Greenville office today, so we are waiting to hear back from him to decide what we should do. Please pray for healing of Jackson's incision and that we don't have to head back to MUSC for any invasive procedures. I will try to update later. Until then...PRAYING and WAITING!!!

INTRODUCING...

Ethan Cole Greene

7lbs. 10oz. 19 3/4in.

born on

7/28/2009 at 2:28pm

Little Ethan entered this world today by c-section. Kim and the baby are both doing GREAT!! Everyone was extremely excited. You couldn't wipe the smile off of Nick or Emma's face. It's amazing how much Ethan and Emma (as a baby) look alike! Here are just a few of the special moments that we were able to capture. Enjoy!

Emma seeing Ethan for the 1st time.

Can we keep him?!?

I'm a BIG sister!

The PROUD Mama.

My Baby Brother.

Sleepin' Away.

The PROUD Papas.

Family Portrait.

What Have I Got Myself Into?!?

PRICELESS

I couldn't resist sharing this with you. Jackson met me outside this morning wearing this (and only this!)!

Fire truck pajamas. $7. Pack of Elmo underoos. $4. Spider-Man boots. $9.

Jackson Boyd. PRICELESS.

WARNING! This is NOT for the SQUEAMISH!!

We tried to warn you!...This is what we are now dealing with. Jackson is trying to "spit a stitch". (No, we did not make that up!) The technical terminology would be a foreign body reaction. Basically, the body recognizes the stitches as "foreign" and so the body tries to get rid of them. This usually happens over the knot of the stitch which is why his is occuring at the bottom of his incision. As horrible as this looks, they say that it's not infected. We have been communicating with the doc's this week and we actually took him in to be seen yesterday because it has gradually gotten worse (and because it's the weekend). They did go ahead and start him on an antibiotic by mouth just as a precaution (which made me feel better!). They wanted us to continue to watch it like a hawk and use the antibiotic cream. All we are waiting for now is his body to "spit the stitch"(the stitch will actually come through the skin, the doc's will snip it, and it will all be over with-WE HOPE!!). Jackson did spit a stitch after his second surgery but nothing like this. SO... PLEASE pray that this does NOT turn into an infection. As you can imagine, infection would be a very bad thing because it has a path straight to the heart! Otherwise, Jackson is doing extremely well!! WIDE OPEN to be exact!! As I said before, PLEASE pray that God would wrap his arms around Jackson and continue to heal him completely.

LOVE Much, LAUGH Often, and PRAY HARD!!

Made You LOOK!!

Nuttin' New To Tell

Well, it's been a little bit since our last post but it's been a whirlwind around here. Hopefully, things will return to DULL and BORING real soon... we can't wait!! Jackson continues to do really well. We did have 2 doctor appointments last week. His cardiologist said that everything still looked and sounded good, so no changes for now. The place on his chest that we were concerned about is still there-really red and scabbed, so we're still watching it closely and putting antibiotic cream on it. We're still limiting our exposure to crowds and probably still will for a little bit longer. It's been really hard "limiting his activity". I feel like we're constantly saying "NO, you can't do that" or "Get down from there". He's been a pretty good sport about it though. He does seem to need a nap since surgery which we think is related to him lying around for so long, but we have seen a big improvement in his activity tolerance. Before surgery, if he was running for a long distance he might would have to stop and rest halfway there. Tonight we went to Darrin's softball game and Jackson was able to run to and back without resting and he was barely winded. This is a big improvement for him! I don't have any new pics, but we'll try to work on that this week. So for now our plan is to patiently wait on the arrival of our new nephew who will be arriving July 28 (if not before), and do NOTHING!!

Thank you again for all the prayers for Jackson, Papa, and our family throughout the last couple of weeks. It's been a few weeks of HI's and LO's, but we have truly been blessed to have our church, family and friends supporting us all the way.