Yet another hospital stay...

I wish I updated my blog more often. Our internet at home is so slow and it takes forever to get enough time to get on and write.

Since my last update, I got in a car accident (no injuries, thank the Lord) and I turned 25! That feels old! Josh and I went out to a nice dinner and movie, alone with no kids (Thanks Nana and Papa). We really should do that more often. It was nice to have adult conversation and not having to feed someone else before I ate! With the accident, I was hit from behind which pushed me into the truck in front of me. My truck is in the process of trying to figure out if we want to have it fixed or just to get a different one.

More importantly, Malakai's belly started increasing in size and his bloodwork showed he was anemic and his albumin levels were low. His transplant team requested we come to St Louis one week earlier for clinic, as we were supposed to go out there the last week of January. We were told to expect to stay a few days and that's exactly what we did. He had a narrowing in his hepatic vein which restricted the bloodflow. He developed ascites because of this. We were admited on Wednesday. Two more nights in the hospital to add to our list of admissions. He had a procedure on Friday where they went in through his jugular vein and basically ballooned out his vein. I feared he would be a mess if I had to hand him off to a nurse so I asked if they could give him something to relax him. It helped alot, but then they let me take him straight to the OR table. I was able to stroke his hair and hold his little hand until he was completely out. He cried a little bit because it made him feel so funny, but only about 5 seconds of crying and he was out. It was definatly scary watching him just leave the room, in a sense. I was glad I was able to be there with him, he wasn't scared because I was there. It took him a little while to wake up but once he was awake, he wanted to nurse right away. He took a pretty good nap and we were able to go home that night. I'm hoping this is our last hospital stay on 2010! I know it's only January, but I have to be positive, right?!?!

Malakai is doing amazingly well! He's crawling all over the place and starting to walk with our help. He climbed the stairs at our house all by himself (with daddy close behind) which was quite the task. We have alot of stairs! He loves bubbles and still LOVES to play with any kind of ball. He calls them "ball-ball" trying to say basketball. He is also a little love-bug. He wants to give kisses to anyone wanting one :) He'll pucker out his little lips and expect you to walk across the room to give him a kiss. Then he'll keep kissing you until he's tired :) It's absolutely heartwarming. His favorite 4 words, which he uses correctly, are Ball, DaDa, PaPa and Momma (newly using it as of yesterday....before he would only say Momma when he was crying in his crib) He can use the sign language signs for Nurse (milk), Please, more and recently all done. It's so sweet to see him expressing himself.

Malakai has a new liver buddy, London. She recieved her "Gift of Life" just a few weeks ago and is doing amazing! Check out her blog www.LiverforLuLu.blogspot.com Her momma does an awesome job on updating her site :)