#20 Riehm, family of 5

I've had another long pause between blog posts.  A lot has happened since the last time.  I would like to get back to writing more posts that people can connect with and be inspired.  My hope is I can encourage others to run boldly towards the Cross.   This is what I felt called to do when I first started www.CrossRunnersHeart.com.  I've realized all of this has helped me in my path forward as well, and writing has been cathartically rewarding.  This post is mostly going to be a family update.   

Trip to Niagara Falls

We have a new addition to the family and now are a proud family of five!  Last month, we brought our son, Mateo, home.  It was a long wait but well worth it.  Jana and I started a long process of international adoption two years ago.  I have to give Jana a ton of credit.  She was the paperwork wizard, completing piles of paper that needed notarized and mailed.  With Jana's Colombian heritage, we chose to work with the Colombian government.  There were two trips to the embassy in Chicago. Trip one, to obtain all of her documents, and the other was bonus trip just to re-do a picture they took because they couldn't see her ears in the original picture...Lol.  It was quite a journey and we finally got "the call" from Casa De Madre in early May.  We spent the next month in Colombia, bonding with Mateo and finalizing all of his documents.  

Coming home in June was a whirlwind.  Mateo experienced a lot of firsts, including hitting developmental milestones, sitting on the open green grass, and a trip to Niagara Falls (Now that he is American, we needed him to patriotically experience the powerful waterfalls!).  It was heartwarming to see our three children interact.  We got to celebrate Noah's 3rd birthday and had a blast seeing him go up and down a slip and slide over and over with such innocent joy.  

Noah's exercise tolerance had noticeably declined in the past several months.  Since his last surgery in 2020, we have dreaded the 3rd surgery which we knew was inevitable.  Seeing him have trouble keeping up with his older sister and wanting to play, but not having the physical reserve to do, led us to know we had the right plan in motion for the 3rd surgery. 

I'm writing this blog post from the University of Michigan Children's hospital and he is beside me as our heart warrior and fighter.  Just a few days ago he went into the ring again for the Fontan procedure (3rd of the staged palliative surgeries for HLHS).  He is our Noah "Rocky Balboa", coming out like a champ.  He also came out of anesthesia fighting like one would expect for a three year old boy.  Things calmed down once the medications kicked in and we are on a road to recovery.  So glad to be over this hurdle!  This was the final reconstruction of his heart to make a single ventricle circulatory pathway.  We pray this may be his last major heart surgery, forever! 

We were very much looking forward to being a family of five for a few weeks before having to travel to Michigan.  However, sometimes we just don't understand God's timing and why events happen.  Just as we were enjoying some time at home together before a family medical leave, unexpectedly, Jana developed her own medical problem.  She had some pain around her shoulder blade in 2020 that we chalked up to lifting our 10 pound newborn at the time.  That mostly resolved and she only very occasionally had some discomfort.  Things changed quickly last week.

Just before we were set to travel for Noah's care, she developed severe pain in her shoulder which then progressed down the arm with numbness and triceps weakness.  Luckily, we were able to plug her in with our friend and my colleague, Dr. Dave Fitch who recognized her presentation of symptoms astutely.  An MRI revealed two very large disc bulges in her neck.  We don't know why this happened.  My wife is young, and no significant predisposing history or specific events.  

Jana was directly admitted after a neurosurgeon reviewed her MRI and discussed her symptoms.  Her surgeon explained that if left untreated, the pinched nerves would lead to permanent loss of function in her right arm.  She had a severe cervical radiculopathy.  I remember explaining this term, "radiculopathy" to patient once.  Upon me telling the patient he had a "radicular nerve problem", he put it in his own words... "that's right, I have a ridiculous nerve problem".  It can be ridiculously uncomfortable!  

Jana underwent an ACDF (Anterior Cervical Disectomy and Fusion) procedure.  She is one week into the mandatory six weeks of using hard cervical collar 24/7.  No driving, no bending, no lifting.  No lifting our kiddos.  She had been anticipating helping a lot with Noah on his surgical recovery.  Sometimes Noah likes to do some alligator rolls, but lucky, we only experienced a little bit of this behavior soon after surgery and I've been able to manage him with the nursing staff.  

Jana had been frustrated with the sequence of medical events until recent.  She has been able to reconcile with prayer and reflection.  She definitely was not expecting to have major surgery before Noah's operation.  In fact, in the past few months she has had some tonsil problems and an ENT surgeon wanted to take her tonsils out this summer.  An adult tonsillectomy is a painful recovery.  With Jana knowing Noah's surgery was coming up, she elected to defer her tonsil procedure until the fall.  That will be a hurdle for another day!  

There has been a lot of prayer and encouragement from family and friends.  I had her put the following in her own words: "I realize all this is God's way of telling me who is in control.  I can't move my neck or do many of the things I anticipated doing, especially at this time in my life.  But I've been able to focus on the things I can do and have gained a valuable perspective."  A friend recently shared Galatians 2:20 with us.  "I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

We have definitely been blessed by the the prayer and support of family and friends.  We know that God is in control and can reflect on what Christ did while on this earth.  We seem to have a few more obstacles before we round out 2023 but we can celebrate many blessings.  The ages of our children at Christmas this year will be 6, 3 and 1.  

If you have prayed with us, thank you!  It's made all the difference.  

Siblings: Mateo, Noah, Juliana