June 2006

Kaden was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia on Friday before leaving for Jo’burg and was given some meds to take along with a nebulizer machine. We picked up Gordon and Teri on Sunday morning and Monday had my baby dr. appt. We headed back to Swaziland and Tuesday took Kaden back in for a follow up. I was shocked when she told us he wasn’t doing better and we needed to head to Nelspruit, South Africa to have him looked at by a specialist pediatrician and most likely admitted. She told us to be prepared to stay at least three nights. We were not able to get into a specialist til Thursday though. So, Thursday we headed up to Nelspruit (2.5 hr. drive) and left Kylea and Grandpa and Grammi behind, not knowing if we were coming right back that night or staying. The dr. checked him out, sent us for x-rays and told us he wanted to admit him. I began to cry, I was so sure that he was getting better. Doug headed downstairs to fill out the paper work while they took me to the children’s ward and began giving him inhalations and an IV, and taking blood. My little baby was screaming and crying and I was trying so hard to be strong and not to do the same, but I gave in. Kaden looked over at me and asked “mommy, why are you so sad?” in between his sobbing. He had an IV hooked to his hand, physiotherapy twice a day, inhalations three times a day and meds. We had some amazing friends who drove from Swaziland just to see us and Kaden, what a blessing being so far away from home.

Sunday came and we were told we would be able to go home, but the dr. wanted more x-rays first. After he looked at the pics he was not completely happy with what he saw. Needless to say he told us we would have to stay at least until Tuesday. I was once again devastated and we began texting some of our friends to see if anyone was coming up so we could get Kylea and grandpa and grammi up with us, which we did. Tuesday came rolling around and we were discharged and headed home.

We had a blast with Doug’s parents going on dates and playing around. Every weekend had been filled with some sort of children’s ministry too. Doug has been busy doing Children’s teacher training for Sunday schools and kids clubs and we had a two man team come in for a set up trip in that time too.
We had planned a trip to the Drakensburg Mountains in South Africa for the 19-23 of the month. Well both kids this time were sick. We decided to postpone our trip and see the dr. once again and she said kaden had a pretty bad ear infection and bronchitis again and Kylea had the same but not so bad. So we cancelled our trip and stayed warm (as it is winter here) and hung low for a few days. We found a couple of new places we had not yet been, we went to the cultural village and hiked back into the water fall area, it was nice to get out.
The 27th we headed back to Jo’burg to take back Gordon and Teri, but first had my first scan (ultrasound). She informed us I was 16 weeks instead of 15, which is always good news and that moved my due date from the 21st of December to the 15th, which was good too, farther away from Christmas. We brought the whole family in for the viewing of the baby and boy was the baby active!! She took a pic and stopped for a view to ask us if we wanted to know what it was, we all agreed and she informed us that she was pretty sure it was a boy. Well Kylea did not like that. She began to question the dr. and ask how she knew, if she was sure, and that it could still be a girl, the dr. could be wrong. But we all confirmed we saw some parts of him that definitely made him a boy. Kylea began to fight back the tears as she backed out of the room silently, we turned around to see her half way out the door still looking at the screen with big tears in her eyes. Doug went over there and took her out and talked with her about how God knows exactly what our family needs. She is doing much better with it, but still argues it could be a girl!