Trip 6 to ACH - July 9th

Yes, I have been horrible at keeping this blog updated. I promise to post Trips 4 - Dec and 5-April soon. But for now, I wanted to share with you the GREAT news that we received from our latest trip to ACH.

Zoe traveled great again. She is so easy going when it comes to being stuck in a car for 9-10 hours. It just amazes me. We left on Thursday as usual, spent the night and was at the hospital the next morning at 9 for her surgery at 11:30 on Friday. The procedure was the same as usual they look at her airway and laser her face. Dr. B was very pleased with her progress. The propranolol has been wonderful for Zoe. Dr. B now considers Zoe's hemangioma to be in Stable condition, aka her hemangioma appears to be out of its growing phase and entering its involution phase. It should start fading and going away on its own now. With this determination, it is time to wean her from her medication. We started that process on Saturday after the surgery. Today, July 17th was her last day of propranolol. Yeah!!!!

Now we just monitor her breathing closely to make sure that there is no signs of the hemangioma trying to start the growing phase again. If she starts to show any problems, they will put her back on the propranolol again. Typically, the docs have starting the weaning phase at 12 months, but with Zoe they waited closer to 15 months. We go back to ACH in 3 months for an office visit ONLY... Yeah!! Yeah!! Yeah!! Hopefully, this will be the last of these surgeries for my Zoe. It is possible to need more surgeries in the future, but we will keep praying that this was her LAST.

Thanks to everyone for all their thoughts and prayers for Zoe and our family!! God is truely Awesome!!!

(I will post pictures soon.)

Zachary's 5th Birthday

Zachary celebrated his 5th birthday on Sept 26th. We had a Ultimate Match Fishing party with a fishing pond and casting contest. Check out the banner that his dad made for him. Each kid had their very own fishing nickname with Zachary "BIG FISH" Helton being crowned the Champion of the 5th season.

Notice the weather outside, it poured the rain all day, but it didn't stop the kids from having a ball. The kids had competions to catch the most fish and a casting contest which consisted of hitting a plate or cup out in the drive way.

Check out his cake.. His mamaw always creates him a cool custom cake. This one is complete with a boat, fishing man and of course bass..

The birthday boy is sporting his 'Ranger boats' sweatshirt. He said he was cold, but I think he just wanted to show off.

Zoe had fun too. Next year, she plans to catch more fish than any of the boys....

Johnny Appleseed Day

Trip 3 to ACH - Sept 18th

We just returned from a quick trip to Arkansas. We left on the 17th, Zoe was a great traveler as usual. Zoe's procedure was at 12:35 on Friday the 18th. It only took about 40 minutes from us passing her off to the nurse, Diane and getting to speak with Dr. Buckmiller. They were all impressed with her progress. The medication is working very well. Her airway looked good. They didn't have to use a breathing tube this time. The Dr was so pleased with her progress and how well she done with the procedure that she released us to go home. We left AR about 4:30 and drove home to sleep in our beds. It was nice to be home all day Sat. We are scheduled to go back in December. Our only concern right now is that she is now growing at the rate that they would like. We are going to start with more of the rice cereal and formula supplements. We are to work with our pediatrician to potentially get her some type of supplements to add to her bottles for extra calories.

We thank God for the continuous progress that she is making and for the safe travelling.

I will post some pictures of our trip soon.

First Day of School

Can you believe it Zachary is going to Kindergarten??? My baby is growing up on me. The first two weeks of school were a staggered schedule of only one day per week. Zachary's day was Friday. He loved it! One the first day, the class went on a "Bear Hunt" to familiarize them to the school. Along their journey they found the cafeteria, the gym and the library. They finally ended up in the principal's office where they found the "Bear", the school mascot, Bricky Bear.
He is now in his second full week. He is loving it. He is making some new friends along with getting to play with some old friends on the playground during recess.

Phenomenal

'Phenomenal' was how Dr. Ray described Zoe's progress. Dr. Ray is Zoe's ENT at East TN Childrens Hospital here in Knoxville. Dr. Ray had not seen Zoe since just before our first trip to Arkansas. He said that it was like looking at a different child. He couldn't believe of how good it looked and that it wasn't causing her problems at this point in the hemangioma's growth phase.

The propranolol protocol is proving to work very well for Zoe and we hope that her progress will help other children to get the same treatment early in the growth phase. The side effects are much less than the typical treatment of steroids or vincristine chemotherapy.

See for yourself the improvements:

We thank God daily for the many blessings that he has given us.

July in Review

Celebrating the 4th in KY.

Baseball on the 4th.

July 11th. Sleeping in on the weekend.
July 15th

July 20th. Zoe is 3 mths old.

July 29th

July 30th
Zoe went for her weight check today.
She was 11 lb .2 oz and 21.4 inches long.