April 11

Will had his scope today and it went well. It was exactly what they expected. The weak area in his trachea is right where the vascular ring was, other than that, he's perfect. Unfortunately, just as they thought, the only real solution is the tracheotomy. They used to use stints to keep airways open, but that led to major long-term problems with scar tissue in the airway. They can sometimes remove the weak part of the trachea and join the ends together, but Will is not a good candidate for that because the weak area is so low in his airway. Plus, he's so small that the surgery would be really dangerous. They think he will outgrow this problem in a year or two, which seems like forever right now, but is really not a lot of time in the scheme of things. And if this had to happen, at least he's getting it out of the way while he's a baby. He won't know anything different, and by the time he becomes aware of it, it will be time to take it out. It's hard to tell the doctors, "okay, do what you need to do," but we have to put our trust in them and believe that they are making the best choices for our baby. They will most likely do the procedure early next week, but we won't really have a definite time until Monday. It sucks, but it has to suck less than everything he's endured so far. We want to get it over with so our sweet baby can finally start living a normal life. Speaking of normal, we finally got to dress him today, and he looks awfully cute in clothes! And we got to see his face with no tape on it while they were changing the tape, and let me tell you, that is one cute baby!! That's one good thing about getting the trach put in, we'll finally get to see his whole beautiful face without a bunch of stuff in the way.
Hays was doing good tonight. He got to meet his Uncle Jonathan for the first time, and I'm sure he was very impressed by his very tall uncle! He was wide awake and drank most of his bottle. He liked hearing his bedtime story and hanging out with his mommy and daddy. We finally had to put him to bed because he was fighting going to sleep, even though he was really tired. Rage, rage against the dying of the light! As soon as we put him down, he conked out. I guess that little boy just wants to party all the time!