Caden Day

Today is Caden Day. I was getting him ready for daycare in his room. He has a Sponge Bob calendar on the wall and he was staring at it. I looked up and saw the date. I asked him if he knew what today was and he was curious. When I said "Caden Day" he got very excited! (As if he has any clue what all that really means). He's such a sweetie.

3 years ago today, we got to bring Caden home from the hospital. We had been there for almost three months, and gone through MANY things I never thought we would have to experience. Too many to remember, and quite frankly, I don't like to remember most of them. BUT, today is about celebrating Caden's health in the last 3 years, and all of the obstacles he has overcome.

Tomorrow is the Heart Walk in Hutchinson, Caden's big debut. We're gearing up for the BIG walk in Wichita, so this will be a good jumpstart! :)


Today is also the day that some dear friends lost their baby girl 2 years ago. Please visit their blog HERE and let them know you are thinking about them. We are all lighting candles today in honor of sweet baby Ava.

The walk is getting closer!

Thank you to those of you who donated to Caden's team and showed your support! :) We are getting closer and closer to the walk date. If you are planning on coming to the walk, please register. You do not have to donate, and you do not have to set a goal for yourself. You can just set it at zero if you wish. The point of signing up on Caden's team is to show how many people are expected to walk. Plus, for every 5 people that register to walk for his team now through Sunday, we get entered into a $50 gift card to Strouds! Sounds yummy! :)

Go HERE to register (click join), and go HERE to get your Caden Team apparel! If you do not see Caden's items, just search for his name, Caden Konecny. Also, use the discount code located toward the top of the page for a price break on shipping. :) I think we should all wear one of these shirts, and the proceeds go straight to his team's numbers! Wow! :) Thanks to my mom for designing the shirts and other items and for setting all of that up! :)

I hope to see you there. Please get in touch if you have any questions!

Ashlea

Please forward this information to anyone you think may want to join us.

American Heart Association

We are well into our adventure with the American Heart Association for 2010!

We have been to 3 different functions, the last being Wednesday night. Caden is an amazing little helper at the speaking engagements. He pulled out the ballots for the prizes the other night, and it was sweet. :) He did a great job!

At one point, Paul got up to go to the men's room. Caden screamed "Ooooh, I know! Daddy go pee!" Everyone was cracking up! :)

During the event the other night, we made a few phone calls to friends and family to start raising money for Caden's team. We raised $240 in 10 minutes! WOW!! A BIG THANK YOU to everyone that donated. Let's get to our goal of $1,000!!! All of the teams that raise $1,000 get entered into a drawing to go to Disney World. It's a 6 night stay right across the street from the park! WOW!! I think we might be able to reach that $1,000 mark, and how cool would it be to take the boys?!?!

You can go to this link HERE to donate to Caden's team. Just click on his name and donate. Thank you to everyone! If you donate, please leave me a comment here so that I know who you are! :)

Check it out guys!

As I said before, Caden is the "rock star" of the American Heart Association Start! Heart Walk for 2010. That's a mouthful! I have been working with the AHA to get Caden's story out there, and the story was just posted on their website this week! Here's the link: Story

We had our first outing in mid-December, but next Tuesday is our first speaking engagement. Caden and I will be meeting with VP of Product Development and Engineering of Hawker and other executives from the Galichia Medical Group here in Wichita. We will be sharing his story with these very influential people.

I expect to have several more of these engagements throughout the year, so hopefully I'm not too nervous! :)

Check out the link! :)

Friend scheduled for surgery

One of Caden's heart friends will be going in for surgery in January. Please stop by and let them know you are thinking about them. Thanks!

Monique

Good report!!

I don't have a whole lot of time, but I just wanted to post about Caden's most recent trip to the cardiologist. At the beginning of each visit, she sits there with her hand on his heart. I'm not sure what she's feeling for, but she pushes down on his chest and then gets the stethoscope. She goes back forth between the hand and the stethoscope a few times, and then she looks in his ears and his mouth. She did comment on the great shape his teeth are in! :D Thanks to all that brushing. He brushes before nap time and again before bed. :)

When we got into the Echo room, he was a little leery. He had a small melt down in the first exam room, when he realized that he was at the Dr. :( He HATES going to the Dr. I can't say I blame him.

They did the EKG, and everything looked fine, the Dr. came in and started the echo, and Caden did great! :) He always does, but this time, he just watched the videos and every once in a while, he'd look at the Echo screen to see what she was doing. He was even holding her hand for a minute. Awwwwww lol

We (I mostly) always freak out when "it's taking too long". I realize that she's just being thorough, and who wouldn't want that?! It's so hard not to work yourself up though.

Turns out his numbers were slightly better than last time (AGAIN)! He just keeps getting better and better! His pressures are still very low through the conduit, and he seems to be handling his meds very well. She did say that the numbers may be better than last time because he may have been crying during the last echo. I don't remember him doing much crying that time, but it's still nice that his numbers continue to improve! :)

Because Caden is getting older, and he is not having huge growth spurts anymore, she decided that it would be okay for him to start going YEARLY!!! I about fainted. I have been waiting for the yearly visits for a long time now, and I still can't believe he's made it! :)

I really didn't care much for this particular Dr in the beginning, but the more we see her, the more friendly she becomes and the more we both begin to actually like her. She was the one that found the defect in the first place... well she performed his first echo anyway. I guess that makes me a little partial to her.

We are still on the same meds with the same doses. Have been on those doses for about a year and a half now. She said that by not upping the doses we are, in effect, weaning him off of them. Don't know how much longer he'll have to take them, she seemed a little hesitant to give a time frame.

All is well in Konecny land! :)

Cameron is doing well also. He's 10 months in less than a week! WOW that goes so fast. He is a super crawler! He'll get from one end of the house to the other in seconds! :) He's standing up on his own and starting to eat different kinds of foods. He'll be walking by Christmas, probably even Thanksgiving! :D I'll try to post pictures soon.

American Heart Association

Paul and I (and Caden) had a meeting with Teri, the director of the Start! program of the American Heart Association about 6 weeks ago. I have not blogged it yet, don't know why.

Anyway...

Paul and I are the proud parents of the 2010 poster child for the American Heart Association's Start! program! What does this mean, you ask??

Well... Several things. Caden (we) will go around to several (8?) of the large corporations here in the Wichita area (Cessna, Boeing, Hawker...) and give presentations on what it means to have a child affected by CHD. We will be able to show pictures, tell his story and show everyone (mainly execs) how amazing modern medicine is, and why they should donate to heart disease research.

Our family will be featured on the commercials on channel 3 (KSN) for the Start! Heart Walk that takes place next June. Caden will be on the brochures for the AMA, along with a condensed version of his story. He will also be on their website, as the "focus survivor".

Needless to say, we are very excited about this opportunity, as only one child or person gets picked per YEAR. I think he's just the man for the job.

On a side note: A parent on the Online Truncus group did not like the fact that we are participating in an organization that does not fund "much" to congenital heart disease research. Well... I have done some researching of my own, and what she said really bothered me. We have decided that all of the funds raised on Caden's behalf will be specifically donated to such research. I have found that I can designate where our donations go, and thus, I am pushing it all that way.

I hope you all have your DVR's set! :) I'll let you know when to be looking out for our little hero on the telly and the web. :)

Pictures and News

Sooo, it's been a while! :) Things are going well. Caden gets his hearing tested on the 13th, to make sure that's not a contributing factor in his speech (or lack thereof). Cameron goes for his 6 month checkup on the 20th. I'm interested to see how much he weighs, and what percentiles he is in. I'm sure he's right up the middle, as he has been. I'm still pumping away. He still has never had formula.. which I'm obviously proud of. ;) He's started on baby food. He does ok with cereal, but he REALLY likes the apples and sweet potatoes. He likes bananas, but they stop him up a little bit, so we're holding off on those for a while. He also like carrots, squash and green beans. :)

This is me, my sister and brother. I'm the middle child, so that's me on the right. Looks kinda like Caden, huh? ;)

Caden had a blast at the park. We went to High Park in Derby for the fireworks on the 4th... they were AWESOME!!!

Cam-o being his cute little self. This was when we were shooting off firecrackers at my mom's house. He sat in the stroller like such a big boy! How sweet! :) He can sit up very well now, only falls over occasionally. He also likes to stand up next to toys and the ottoman. I'll have to get a picture of that too. :)

I have a picture of Caden laying on this toy at about the same age... ok, not really. Caden was about 8 months old, but still :) I'll find it. Hold on... (as if you were going anywhere... LOL)

Caden's more pale than Cameron, but I think they kinda look alike. Like brothers anyway. :)

Iowa Trip

We went to Iowa last weekend, to surprise my grandma. It was a blast! We drove to KC and stayed the night with some of Paul's friends. We got into Mason early afternoon on Saturday. We went to dinner and were standing y the register at the buffet entrance when Gma walked in. She looked at Cameron first, did a double, triple take, then looked at Paul and said "Well, hi" then she looked at me and said "Well hi!!!" It was hilarious, and she was definitely surprised. She looked so happy having all 4 of her great grandkids there with her.

I got some pics from the trip:

My handsome little devil :)

Cameron was boxing everyone in sight, with the help of Great Uncle Tony. :)

Me, my boys, my cousin Casey and her boys with Grandma Schu :) Looks like Blair is fond of his Cousin Caden :)

The big boys got to hang out together with my Aunt Sandy while we went down the street to the bar. They took a bath, and we had an awesome time! :)

Tuckered out after a long day of driving, playing and family time. That's the first time they ever met! I think they liked each other. :)

No news

Things are pretty quiet on the home front. We've been pretty busy getting ready for our trip to Iowa next weekend. We are going up to surprise my grandma. We are driving to KC on Friday night, stopping by my uncle's house and then getting up early Saturday and going on up to northern Iowa. We are all going to meet at a restaurant and my aunt is going to get my grandma and bring her in. We'll have a lot of fun. She's never met Cameron, and most of my family up there have never met Caden. The last time we went up there, I was pregnant with Caden and we still had no idea about his heart. The only people that have met Caden are those that came up to the hospital to visit us while we were there.

We are staying with my cousin. She has two boys, I think the oldest is about 4 and the youngest is a couple weeks older than Caden. Her oldest was born about 3 months premature, and he was in the NICU for a very long time. I feel that we at least have a little understanding of what it's like to be stuck in he hospital for a long time.

I'll be sure to take lots of pictures! :)