Journey to Matthew

Journey to Matthew hd from Kelly on Vimeo.

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Another football fan!

The boys in our family are HUGE football fans.  For some reason it is now a consuming passion of our newest family member.  He tagged along with Jeff and Robbie the first night they handed out equipment and to the subsequent practices. When Matthew saw Robbie run out the field, he immediately pointed to his chest and said "Matt football!!" He was not happy that he couldn't play but has enjoyed staying to watch many of the 2 hour practices this past week.  (Thats great because little does he know how football he will get to watch in the next few months!!) Robbie has even taught him the correct stance to hike the ball.  Last night, when I only dropped Robbie off at practice and Matthew and I headed home - the tantrum of the century erupted from my little 30 pound bundle of love (more like lungs!) He so badly wanted to go to football.  His tantrum  rivaled the tantrum from visiting Walmart in China.   I joked with Jeff - how many other mothers of Chinese children around the world are having this same prediciment tonight with their toddlers? I hope many more!!  

I was excited to find that the NFL has exactly 1 Chinese American playing football - Ed Wang for the Philadelphia Eagles.  Thanks for paving the way! 

On the road to recovery

Matthew's drain is out and he is doing much better.  The drain was really crazy - it entered his head behind his ear and went under his skin across his cheek.   They cut the stitches holding it in place and pulled it put like a piece of spaghetti when they removed it.  EEeewwww! Sorry tmi.... His cheek is still a little swollen and bruised, but nothing can stop him for long.  All the doctors and nurses have commented how well he has been taking all the procedures.  At home,  we have now been faced with trying to get all the adhesive off of his body from having various monitors and wounds covered. That he doesn't take well! Two years olds love to sit still while you try to take off adhesive, pull off old gross bandaids and put new ones on, too.   How come bandaids never stay on when you want them too and never come off when you need them, too?

I had once thought (for about 5 seconds)I could have been a nurse.  Heck, isn't audiology sort of in the medical field??? Yeah right! Anyway,  I know for sure now that I could not have done it.  However I will do anything for my son and continue to do so, but drains and incisions are not my thing at all.  His incision is looking better and since we can now tape it back up - it's even a whole lot better for me.  

Looks like we have a tentative surgery scheduled for the big excision of the entire mass the second week in October.  He is scheduled for  a 5 hour spot at this point and we may be adding a laser surgery for the epidermal nevus on his belly to go with it.  I will be very grateful to have my sweet little guy done being poked, cut and prodded.  

Could it really be 6 months?

 




























This precious boy has been a Starkey for half a year!! I am not sure who's life has changed more - his or ours? We have definitely have had some challenging and hard moments but I can't begin to express the pure joy that we have experienced because of Matthew.  Our whole family is just simply blessed by him.  

 

He is starting to put together 2 word

phrases/sentences

The most nimble fingers I have ever seen.

Feeds himself with spoon and fork - loves napkins!

Puts on his on his own shoes and socks.

Mr take charge of everything!

Starting to count - sometimes to 6

Names every color blue!

Loves to be outside

Wants everyone not to wear shoes if he isn't 

Refers to himself as Matt or me

Knows he is from China

And if I wasn't still sleep deprived I could come up with a 1000 more.  Love love love this sweet boy! Thank you for shaking up and turning our world upside down.  You are such a gift to us. 

Giving his momma gray hair

Matthew started to have a lot of swelling in his cheek Thursday.  It just kept getting bigger and bigger to the point his eye was swollen shut and his cheek was rock hard. The surgeon's office told us to come back in.   As we travelled up there he started vomiting.   Thank goodness Shelby tagged along with us to take care of him while I drove.  The doctor immediately said he needed to go back into surgery to reopen his incision and drain it.  Our hearts sank. We were sent back over to the surgery center and he knew right away where he was.  He cried out to "go go go".  I called Jeff and he raced up to the hospital to meet us there.  Poor little guy had to go back to anesthesia without us this time, there wasn't a dry eye among us seeing him wheeled away.  The surgeon later told informed us, after they made it back there, he went and picked him and held him till he settled down.  

The surgery went well and he was glad to see us afterwards. There appears to have been a bleed in the tissue of his cheek.  When it was time to be taken back to his room,  Matthew was not too happy to be wheeled anywhere, since last time he was wheeled away without us.  The attendant was very sweet and offered to let me ride with him on the bed,  he even included car sound effects the whole way there.  The perfect solution to settle his scared little heart.    I ended up spending the night in the hospital with him.  Our stay went better then expected and I became quite talented at keeping a two year old in bed with so many wires and tubes.  The hospital certainly wasn't a place of rest though with all the beeps, whirs, vital checks, crying children and helicopters buzzing in and out though, but overall a good stay and with very caring staff.

They discharged us on late Friday morning, but the drain is going to be left in place through Monday.  Good news though - the tissue they removed came back as being lymphatic and not cancerous! The large birthmark on his belly turned out to be an epidermal nevus - which we need to go back to the dermatologist to see how to handle and possibly  get surgically removed.  This son of mine is really having me expand my comfort zone - travelling to China, spending the night in the hospital, surgery, changing diapers again and now emptying surgical drains -now I am a little worried to see what's next!  Regardless I am blessed that I get to be a part of it all.  

More details filled in

We spent almost 9 hours at the hospital yesterday for Matt's biopsies - loonng day!  He waited so patiently when his surgery got delayed for three hours, playing and never asking for something to eat.  The incision on his cheek seems to be a couple of inches and his cheek is even a lot more swollen looking then usually is. His cheek is taped and will most likely have to be for next several weeks.  He doesn't seem to be in much pain, though.  He is fortunate to have all of this as plastic surgery. 

The results won't be back till next week, but have had more details filled in for us.  There are multiple small cysts involved in the mass that innervates  pretty much everything on that side of his face. The surgeon feels that there is only a 5% chance that it could be cancerous, but the biopsy will let us know for sure what kind of tissue it is.  We can proceed with the next surgery at any time.  The next surgery will be the big one and will take four plus hours.  Most likely the incision will start under the outer corner of his eye, go just along just the bottom of his eye and down the side of his nose and smile line.  Yes there will be scarring, but hopefully most of that will be camouflaged where naturally occurring lines already are.  There is a  risk for facial paralysis on the left side, but the surgeon says that if it does happen, it could be repaired with muscles from his temples when Matthew is older.  He would have to relearn to smile though.

Gulp.... lots to digest, but still  hope.