Merry Christmas to all!

Very busy, sweet boy

I'm so happy to be able to share these videos with you. After everything Cash has been through of course it's such a joy to see him laugh and kick and play. We are still having our challenges with gas pain on a daily basis. He saw a speech pathologist yesterday and she thinks that he is still having pain and associates that with taking a bottle. Cash does struggle everyday when it is time for a bottle. It's hard to hear him cry and not really be able to make him feel better. I know all parents feel that way. Between the GI doc and the speech pathologist we are going to figure out a plan to help him really improve.

It's such a blessing to be able to take care of him each day. This has been such a time of adjustment as well - living in a new city, a new job for Mitch (he starts as the manager at his new store on Dec 14). And for me, not working is a big adjustment. We are still getting our bearings.

It's hard to believe Christmas is just around the corner. I hope you are enjoying a wonderful, peaceful season. Love, Kari

When Cash laughs it makes us laugh too. He is a joy.

Finally - a video!

Cash and some of his adoring fans...

Lots to be thankful for...

We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! Cash is really doing well. He still struggles with tummy troubles on a daily basis but he is improving each day. After a busy week of doctors appointments, we are looking forward to a calm Thanksgiving. The doctors are very determined to make sure Cash is healing and growing big and strong. I think you can tell from these photos that he has his very happy times and feels good. We will continue with some close follow up with the GI specialist to figure out why Cash still has discomfort and to ensure that we aren't missing anything that might be going on with him. All in all, we feel like Cash is much improved and we are so grateful for answered prayer for his healing.

In other news, Mitch has been offered a position as a Manager at a Starbucks at a mall in Raleigh. We are so excited about this answered prayer. What an amazing blessing for us. The formal offer should come this week and Mitch could be running the store in the next couple of weeks (just in time for the crazy holiday season!).

We wish you and your family a wonderful Thanksgiving. Love, Kari, Mitch & Cash

We made it to NC - safe and sound! Cash did great on his first plane ride and Mitch and Jeremy drove straight through to NC. Mitch got here before we did and picked us up from the airport!

We are just getting settled in. It's a little chaotic and crazy right now, but it's nice to be surrounded by family. Mitch and I are just starting to de-stress after the events of the past 4 months. It's going to take some time to relax...It's beautiful in North Carolina right now. It's like we get to have Fall twice - once in Colorado and now here. The leaves are beautiful and the weather is so mild.

Cash seems to be feeling better every day. He is over 13 lbs now and smiles more and more. I think he would eat his hands if he could - he's just so fascinated by them. He doesn't seem to mind at all when the dogs come right up into his face and lick him. Here are some pretty cute pics of him from the last few days. Love, Kari

Cash is doing great!

Casher: Home and doing well!

Hello everyone, just a quick update: Casher came home this last Saturday, he is doing better than ever! He is eating this terrible tasting specialized formula, taking some meds, and getting vitamins. He is eating more and more each day, soon he will eat us out of house and home I'm sure. Kari and I are having an open house this Sunday at our good friends Abby and Travis' house down in highlands ranch. First chance for most people to meet the kiddo, and maybe the last chance to say "bu-bye" to us before we move. If anyone is interested its this Sunday, the 8Th from 3-6pm. 5460 fox meadow ave. highlands ranch, co 80130
Kari, Casher and I will all be leaving Denver and making the trip to N.C. next week. I am driving out with my brother-in-law Jeremy and the dogs next Wednesday, Kari and Casher are flying with grandma Swann next Thursday.
Thanks as usual for being amazing. Mitch

Cash doing his cutie thing

In case you were wondering - he's still cute. We think these photos are proof positive of that... So, the good news is if Cash continues to do well on his feeds and does not lose weight, he will be home this weekend. A very tired mommy and daddy are beyond ready for that. We are tired of the hospital, but so grateful for his amazing doctors. It's true to say that Cash really connects with people already. They seem to gravitate towards him and want to look out for him. It could be those blue eyes and that knowing look he gives...Lord, we give YOU all of the glory for Casher's healing (and his gorgeous blue eyes, too!). Much love, Kari & Mitch

Casher is doing much better!

Since that chest tube has been pulled Casher seems to be feeling like a new little person! He is much more content and is smiling up a storm. He started eating from a bottle yesterday and is doing very well with it. We are just taking his feeds nice and slow to give his tummy a chance to adjust (after not eating for 10 days!!) It looks like he will most likely be out of the hospital on Tuesday! We are excited to get him home (home is currently Cheryl and Don's house in Lone Tree).

Our plan is to watch him closely and have some follow up doctors appointments in Denver. Then my mom (now known as "grandma"!!) will fly out from NC and fly back with me and Cash around the 11th of November. Of course, we want to make sure Cash is very stable before we travel with him. Mitch will drive the car and dogs with our brother in law Jeremy to NC around the same time. He has a job transfer with Starbucks and needs to start work on Nov. 16th. I have to say we are ready for some normalcy! For us that means a healthy little boy and being settled in NC. I myself am looking forward to a peaceful fall in NC with quiet holidays at home with our cutie pie. Thank you for your continued prayers. I am feeling so much more at peace. It really takes its toll having a little one that is so sick. Now that Cash is feeling better I can tell just how bad he was really doing and how hard that was on me as his mom. I am so grateful for his improvement and all of the love and support we have been getting from all of you. We will continue to keep you updated and post more photos. Love, Kari

Chest tube has been "yanked" literally

Good morning friends and family-Papa Mitch here with the Thursday morning update. Last night the g-tube button came out of his tummy, i knew it was broken and so did the doctors and nurses for about the last 4 days, but they said as long as it was taped down it would be fine. WRONG! It popped out in a crying fit last night. After the nurses got approval they stuck a new one in, blew it up, gave his some Tylenol and went on their way. More traumatic on Kari and I than Casher. About an hour ago the head surgeon came in the room like a hurricane-looked at Casher's output from his chest tube and quickly decided to take his chest tube out. Within minutes Casher was on his side, Kari was holding his hands and Dr. Rothenberg literally YANKED this tube out of Casher's Chest. Neither Nan nor I could believe how well Cash handled having a 3" section of tube ripped out of him like a loose tooth, a grownup would still be whining. He is resting now, getting a very small amount of food slowly throughout the day-The docs will increase that amount slowly day by day until he is eating enough to come home. We hope that will be less than a week from now. As always we thank you all for your support, love, and prayers-we couldn't do this without all of you. We are so blessed to have such a strong committed group of people surrounding us. More to come...

Pics from the pediatric floor - 3 months old

update

Well it's been eight days since Casher has been back in the hospital. It's been tough to update the blog without a laptop (thank you Cheryl and Don for letting us borrow yours!)...Casher is doing as well as he possibly could given the circumstances - he isn't allowed to eat and he is confined to this little room. The plan is that they may start him on food as early as this weekend (that seems like a loooong time from now for this tired mom). The reason to wait so long is so that the tear/hole that allowed fluid in the lung will heal on its own. After he begins to eat we should know pretty quickly if the tear has healed or not. (What caused the tear? We just don't know...) If it does not heal on its own, surgery will be the next step. Nobody wants that. We are praying he will heal with no further surgery needed.

Please pray also for me and Mitch. I particularily have been fighting off discouragement and emotional exhaustion. We have a small (and mighty!!) team that is allowed to visit Casher in the hospital. The number of visitors is so limited due to the H1N1 flu - we are only allowed 4 visitors (in addition to me and Mitch) total - those people cannot change for the length of his stay in the hospital. Really the very best thing you can do for us is to continue to pray. It lifts us up. Just thinking about you reading this right now gives me a great deal of hope.

It amazes me how much Casher has the ability to smile through all of this. His smile is more precious each time I see it. He's growing and looking so much older. I have to keep reminding myself he is just three months old. He's been through a lot in his little life. More soon...love, Kari

Back in the Hospital.

Hey all its papa Mitch with the long awaited update. Since Casher has been home we have had less and less time to update the blog-imagine that! Well, up until Sunday Casher was doing really well, typical baby day to day life with a few extra things here and there of course. However on Sunday while we were visiting my family in Pueblo Casher had to go to the E.R. because he was having trouble breathing, after an ambulance ride and a bunch of tests the discovered his left lung was collapsed and full of fluid. They were amazing in Pueblo, took great care of us, got him stable and on an air transport back to Pres. St. Luke's Hospital in Denver. He was then admitted to the PICU where they continued to keep him comfortable, and continued draining his lung.

He now has his own great big beautiful room in the Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children and Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital. Room 4304.

Casher is doing OK. No one knows why this fluid is in his lung, but the suspicion is he has a small puncture in his lung and they are hoping it will slowly heal itself. Kari and I are pretty tired yet remain at peace knowing God will carry us through this.

This looks to be the toughest challenge yet since he has his own room and though the nursing staff is great they can only give him limited attention. We are trying to have someone with Casher at the hospital at all times. Kari can only do so much and I am still working a ton. Please be praying for our family, its a daunting task trying to make sure someone is always with our little man.

As usual thank you in advance for your prayer, consideration and positive energy. We love you all and can't wait for you to meet little Cash man. Love Mitch Kari and Casher

Casher is home with us...It's Official!!!!!

Well we did it. We finally got our baby boy home today on his 11 week birthday! We got his chest tube out this morning, we got all his extra tubes, bottles, wipes, syringes, pumps, hoses, and muffler bearings gathered up and then hit the road around 2 p.m. We clapped and celebrated the first time he got to go outside today, clumsily strapped him into his car seat for the first time and headed for the suburbs. Now were at home with mama Cheryl, she's oohing and awing at how adorable he is. Kari and I are struggling to remember which medication is which, when to give it to him, how much...It's so much fun having him home, playing with him away from monitors, screaming babies, overly perky and overly tired nurses, and reveling in how much room there is here to spread out.
Thank all of you so much for praying us through this stage, we are so blessed to have such positive, loving and faithful friends and family. Can't wait for all of you to meet him asap!
Love, Papa Mitch

Coming home soon!

Cash is doing great and might be coming home as early as Thursday. We need to pray he will continue to gain weight as that is the key to getting him home right now. But so far the plan is to bring him home on Thursday. We just can't wait!

yep, still cute.

Casher is doing better every day. He is eating a lot and starting to act like he is recovering from his surgery. He is smiling and goofing around again. Everyone thinks he should be coming home pretty soon. We went for a ride around the NICU in the wagon this afternoon. He likes the stimulation and seeing some different sights than just his little crib. We are in the process of packing up the house. We move out at the end of September. We are going to stay with our dear friends Don and Cheryl Kelley in Lone Tree (just south of Denver) through October. The plan is at the end of October to head to North Carolina. We are excited and ready for some down time with our son.

We are still thanking God for the good news on Casher's liver function and successful surgery. We are a little weary after all of this but so thankful and continuing to draw our strength from the lord. love, kari & mitch

p.s. we need help loading our moving truck on sunday, sept 27! just putting that out there :D

9 weeks old today!

Yes, Cash is 9 weeks old today. It's hard to believe. He seems much improved this morning. He is just about off of the narcotics and is getting tylenol for pain. He has a terrible cough and lots of junk in his chest but they are working that out with antibiotics and respiratory therapy.

Casher is awake and letting everyone know that he found his voice again! I held him this morning and slowly he started opening his eyes and looking around at the world again. He gave his nurse the eye brow furrowed "suspicious" look and even managed the one eye brow "I'm checking you out" look. No smiles for mom yet, but I'm sure he will be back to that soon. He is out of the warmer and back in his old crib. He sure loves looking at his mobile. The surgeon said he looks great and he can start eating again this afternoon. Woo hoo! Praying he is truly on the road to recovery this time...love, Kari

afternoon update...

Cash is off of the breathing tube! He is still groggy but seems to be comfortable. He did get a blood transfusion this afternoon as his levels were low. They don't like to do it, but it was necessary. So 24 hours post-op, he is doing quite well. I bet in another 24 hours he will be much improved and probably letting us all know how hungry he is. I'm ready for him to start looking like and feeling up to his old self. His face and eyes are very puffy and he has more tubes than normal. I will post another update tomorrow and let you know how he is doing. LOVE, Kari

Casher is doing much better this morning. Yesterday post-op was tough. Maybe more so on mom and dad than on baby. After a "cocktail" of morphine, fentanyl, and a sedative, Cash was finally out. For a while there, I thought I was going to need a morphine drip!! Watching him suffer was super hard. But he had a good night and today is a new day. He should be off the morhpine soon and on tylenol. Hopefully, the breathing tube will be pulled this morning and he will be able to breathe on his own. He does not like having that tube down his throat! The first thing the nurse said to me after last night was "He is a fighter!" and I couldn't agree more. More soon...love, Kari

Out of Surgery!!!! -let the healing begin

He's out of surgery-we spoke with doctor rothenberg just a miunte ago. He reconfirmed that Casher does NOT have biliary atresia and went on to state he believed casher 's liver problem may have been a result of scar tissue from his previous surgery blocking his bowel activity and his biliary ducts. He said that might be why he appeared to have biliary atresia. So...his hernia should be permanently fixed, his g-tube (button) is installed, the adhesions from the scar tissue have been initially addressed and hopefully completely repaired. We're about to go see him in the nicu, will update again later today. Thank you all so much for caring so much about us. We are sustained by your love support and prayer. -Papa Mitch

Surgery update...

Casher is still in surgery, its 1:50 p.m. he should be done by 3. The nurse in the room just called us to tell us Casher does NOT have biliary atresia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The doc did a liver biopsy, we will need to wait a week or so to see what the results are. The nissen procedure is complete to repair his hiatal hernia. They are now installing his "button." This g-tube will enable the doctors to push food directly into his stomach if they need, it will also release pressure from his tummy if he has trouble burping. Keep those prayers coming for a speedy and complete recovery. Another update coming soon as he is out of surgery and we've met with his surgeon. -Papa Mitch

Surgery scheduled for Tuesday

Casher's surgery will be on Tuesday at 10 am. The head of the pediatric surgery team, Dr. Rothenberg, will be doing the surgery. We have heard that he is excellent. He will repair the hiatal hernia with a nissen wrap and the hope is that will end all this spitting and throwing up so that Cash can get up to normal feeds. The surgeon will also look at his liver and bioducts to see if they are working correctly and to rule out Biliary Atresia. If the bioducts are not working, he will perform the Kasai procedure and attach the liver directly to the intestines to excrete the bile. He will do a liver biopsy as well.

We ask you to pray with us that the surgeon will be creative with the procedures and that the nissen wrap will be successful and minimally invasive. We are praying that Cash does not have biliary atresia and that his liver function is normal. We also pray for no complications and for Cash to have a great recovery.

Mitch and I will be at the hospital on Tuesday with his parents. I will update the blog as we get news. Thank you for your love and support!!

smiles for mommy

A tough update to share...

If you are reading this right now you are either recently joining our story because of a prayer request or you have been with us on this journey for the past eight weeks. Yes - Cash turned two months old yesterday. It's hard to believe. This week we have received some tough news. The scans that have been done on Casher's liver over the past three days suggest that he has a rare condition called Biliary Atresia. This is a blockage (or absence) in the tube (ducts) that carry bile from the liver to the gallbladder. From what I have read, the condition is congenital, meaning it has been present since birth. Cash's doctor told us that the scan is only suggestive that he has this condition. The only way to know for sure is for the surgeon to perform a liver biopsy. The plan as we know at this moment is for the surgeon to perform the liver biopsy, repair the hiatal hernia, and put in a g tube (so that he can get feedings directly into his stomach for the next little while). He has had an infection (due to the central IV line which is very common) so he is being treated for that with antibiotics. If the infection is under control, the surgery will most likely happen next week.

So, if the surgeon gets in there and does the liver biopsy and he DOES have Biliary Atresia, then she will do a procedure called a Kasai to connect the liver to the small intestine, going around the abnormal ducts. The doctor has told us that this is just a temporary fix and that ultimately he would need a liver transplant. If this is not what he has, then the biopsy should indicate what is going on.

We have a meeting later today with the surgeon so we should have a better idea of how this will all go. We hate to share this news especially when it is so uncertain but we really need your prayers. We ask for Casher's complete healing. We ask for the doctors' wisdom as they proceed. We ask for faith and trust for us and our families and friends as we navigate this uncertain time. It's so scary and emotional for us all at the moment. It's so hard to see our beautiful little boy going through this. I love Deb Whorley's comment: "When you can't see God's hand, trust his heart."

New Pics and an update

Greetings friends and family, sorry its been so long since we've given an update on the little man. We are in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment unfortunately. For the next couple of days the doctors are giving Casher some special meds for a test they will perform on tuesday to evaluate his liver function. They need to know how his liver is performing because he will be having surgery to repair a hiatal hernia in the near future because everything he eats right now comes back up. Our surgeon Dr. Shipman is ready to repair that hernia but is waiting until she knows whether or not she will need to repair his liver as well...I will go with Cash on tuesday for this test and hopefully we will be able to schedule his surgery immediately thereafter. We will certainly keep everyone in the loop. Prayer Request: Since surgery is inevitible for his hernia, please pray that his liver doesn't need repaired, pray for a speedy and full recovery, pray for steady hands and minds for all doctors/nurses involved, and please pray for Kari and I through this season of our lives.

Here are a few new pics of the boy, beautiful just like his mama.

Love you all, Mitch

Prayer request...

Please pray with us for wisdom for the doctors and decisions for Cash's care. We need him to continue to keep the breast milk that he is fed by bottle down. We also need prayer that he will tolerate some testing that will be done in the next couple of days and that the results will be conclusive.

Please also join us in prayer that Cash will not need another surgery. We ask for his complete recovery.

We will post updates soon. Love, Kari & Mitch

Yes, still in the NICU...

Casher is hanging in there. The answer is yes, he is still in the hospital! People seem to be asking that a lot lately. It has been 6 weeks today that he was born. We were hopeful he would be home by now but his progress is slow. Once again the answer seems to be that it just takes time for the gut to work. He is still spitting up a great deal. He looses weight and then gains weight. They increase his feedings and then they hold because he doesn't seem to tolerate it. Before he can come home he has to eat well and gain weight. He seems to go from feeling pretty good to being very uncomfortable and therefore very unhappy. We continue to shower him with love. It's tough finding the balance with work and life and visiting the NICU...We are so happy to have Aunt Kristen here for a visit! Hospital policy is that only parents and grandparents are allowed to visit Cash. So, you'll just have to wait to meet him. It will be worth the wait! Thanks for the continued prayers of healing and patience and peace.