BIG NEWS!! HARVEY IS 8 months OLD!! He has 2 bottom teeth AND his 2 top, front teeth are trying REALLY hard to pop through.
Harvey has now had his boots and bar for one month!
The first week home was pretty hard. Harvey’s feet were very tender to touch. We had to do skin checks to look for redness, sores, or blisters. Taking the boots off and then putting them back on was awful. Hearing him scream in pain breaks a mom’s heart, especially when it is mom who is hurting him. About a month later, he is tolerating the boots and bar SO much better.
Harvey has turned 8 months old! Where does the time go?!
Easter- Harvey celebrated his first Easter. We attended our towns Easter egg hunt, where we watched sister participate and collect many eggs.
*Funny little side note*: After Harvey’s last appointment (to receive the boots and bar), we walked into the lobby of the office and were surprised to see they were hosting an Easter egg hunt for all the children. We swiped a couple eggs for Harvey. He passed them along to sister when we got home. She was so excited!
Sitting up- Harvey is trying really hard to sit up. He can hold himself for a couple seconds, unassisted, before starting to fall over or bend in half. He LOVES to see the world from a new perspective.
He can sit up for good amount of time assisted (in a high chair, with help from Mom and Dad, in his “sit and play” seat).
Eating puree baby food- After being able to sit up assisted, Mom thought Harvey was ready to try baby purées. HARVEY. LOVES. FOOD! That’s no surprise as he would watch everyone else very close as they ate their food. He was totally ready to start trying something other than formula.
Karlee visiting- Cousin Karlee, from Minnesota, flew in to surprise Mom for her 30th birthday. It was such a great surprise for everyone. It was so nice for her to finally meet Harvey. She was not scared to help or hold him when needed. That was such a relief for Mom.
Blue spells- we have had a couple “true” blue spells. There have been a few others that he becomes close to not breathing, but never fully does. We are thinking it could be more related to his stomach? We see a GI doctor in June to see if they can come up with anything they think would be causing this issue.
Shriner’s update- we went in for a 3 hour appointment on Mom’s birthday, and came out with a couple fancy sets of AFOs! The prosthetic people fitted him for his AFOs and KAFOs. They molded the braces to fit Harvey just perfectly. Doctor liked how they turned out and how well they fit. Doctor seemed happy with Harvey’s feet.
However, the doctor was not happy to hear that Harvey is still able and continuing to pop his knees in and out of place. He will do it all day, every day. Mom wonders if it’s becoming something that is comforting to him.
Doctor decided that Harvey should wear his KAFOs for 23hours a day. No more boots and bars at this time and no AFOs. The KAFOs have a fancy lever on the side so Mom and Dad are able to lock his knees into place. We are now calling him “Bionic Harvey”.
We will check back in 2 months to see how he is doing with the new braces.
ENT update- A little back story first… Harvey has been showing symptoms of an ear infection. The kicker is that he is teething, and that can cause ear pain. I took Harvey into two different doctors, at two different offices to have him checked for an ear infection. When we took him into the second one, his ear was draining neon green fluid! By now, he is pretty irritable. Both doctors said there is no evidence of an ear infection. Thank goodness we had the ENT appointment on Friday. The ENT docs were surprised that Harvey has been untreated for his ear infection. They said it was pretty nasty. Suctioned and scraped out his ear canals.
1. Double ear infection with left ear ruptured ear drum.
They are getting us 2 antibiotics for him to start. 1 is an oral antibiotic and 1 is ear drops.
2. If Harvey has any more ear infections, we might be looking at putting some ear tubes in. They said the tricky part is that THEY themselves (ENT doctors) want to see the proof of an ear infection and not just be told the kid had one. They want to be the ones to see the fluid before putting tubes in.
3. They were planning to do a swallow study today (due to Harvey having continued blue spells) but after I told them I think his blue spells are related to GI, they decided to try a reflux med first.
4. Follow up in August- talk about ear tubes and do a hearing test. He may have fluid, build up in his ear, all the time, which could be causing the bursting ear drums. If that’s the case, we would do ear tubes.
As always, thank you so much for following along. Thank you for the prayers!
