T.J., Tesha, and Madeline

Here are some pictures of me and Madeline playing in the pool.  Madeline likes her rubber duckies!

About two months ago, little miss Madeline turned a whole one year old!  It’s been a pretty crazy year but through it all Madeline has been wonderful and Tesha and I are very thankful to have such a sweet little girl.

We had her birthday party and invited over some of her friends.  She seemed to enjoy her time in the spotlight and playing with her buddies.  She was a little unsure of the cupcake at first but after a little coaxing she got it figured out.

Enjoy the photos of her party.

We recently went back to Usery Mountain Park, but this time Mom, Dad, Rhonda, Jordan, and Mason came too. Tesha, unfortunately, couldn’t join us since she was working. It was a little chilly (by Phoenix standards anyway) so we had to bundle up.

As you can see, I’m a couple of holiday’s behind, but what can you do?  Life get’s busy.

For Halloween, Madeline was originally supposed to be a Chili Pepper and she looked cute as can be in her costume.  Problem was, it was a little tight, especially down by her feet.  After a little while, she let us know she’d had enough of the Chili Pepper.

So, we had to go to the backup plan. Our friends, Mike and Alison, had given Madeline a little froggy robe and slippers so we put that on Madeline and she seemed to like that better.

The doctors decided that it would be best to do a bronchoscopy to see what the mass on Madeline’s lung is before taking action.  We have an appt early tomorrow morning to get this done on an outpatient basis at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.  They will be inserting a camera in both of her lungs to get a better look, will conduct a saline rinse to check for aspiration and any bacteria growth, and will be taking a tissue sample from the mass.  The doctor will be meeting with us to show the images of the scope and discuss his preliminary findings.  It will take a few weeks to get the results of the biospy and to have a final determination about what is going on.  Today, the nurse told me that this procedure is pretty rountine with limited risks.  T.J. and I are dreading having to put Madeline through more tests, but it is important to know what is going on so we can get it properly addressed.

Here’s a short video we put together of Madeline being cute as can be.

Midway through Tesha’s pregnancy, Madeline was diagnosed with CCAM (Congenital Cystic Adenomatoid Malformation) which is basically malformed lung tissue that will never function as normal lung tissue. All the doctors that we talked to stated that the lobe containing the malformed tissue would need to be surgically removed.

After Madeline was born, the doctors performed three chest x-rays, a CT-Scan, and an MRI. To our surprise, they said that the lungs were fine and there was nothing to worry about. While that was good news, we were skeptical.

Since Madeline had an MRI of her chest in preparation of the Schlerotherapy, we asked the Phoenix Children’s Hospital doctors to take a look at the lung to see if they saw anything. Sure enough, the radiologist saw something in the right lung so she recommended another CT-Scan. So Madeline got that CT-Scan early last week.

The results of the CT-Scan were sent to our pediatrician but he didn’t understand it enough to make any sort of recommendation so he referred us to a pulmonologist. We went to see the pulmonologist today and he told us that there was some strange tissue in the middle lobe of the right lung. If that tissue is CCAM, then he says it needs to be surgically removed. If not, then he wants to do a broncoscopy which consists of inserting a small camera into the lung via the mouth to take a closer look. The real question is whether or not the tissue in the middle lobe of the right lung is CCAM or not. To find that out, the pulmonologist is going to ask the radiologist to take another look at the CT-Scan results then they’ll make a recommendation.

So, it’s looking like Madeline may have to have lung surgery. That doesn’t sound like fun, but the doctors tell us that the other lobes of her lung will expand to fill the void of the removed lobe(s) resulting in normal lung function. We’ll just have to wait and hear what the doctors have to say and go from there.