From Puerto Rico to Africa: Catching Up

Its hard to believe that Kai has been home with us for ten months now!!! Wow. Time has flown by sooo fast and we have gone through so many changes in the past ten months. From learning about sickle cell disease, numerous hospital stays, first spleen crisis at a hospital in Puerto Rico, to moving from Puerto Rico back to the states, staying with family in Michigan for a few months to find a house...while Scott was living/working in New Jersey finding us a house. It was just a crazy crazy time.
Kai had a second serious spleenic sequestration on my birthday (March 10th). He was admitted to the ICU with an enlarged spleen, severe fatigue/anemia and heart failure. Thankfully this time we were at a hospital who took immediate action. Kai was immediately given new blood. We were at the hospital for blood work three times a week at Memorial Children's Hospital in South Bend, IN. He was then put on a three week blood transfusion schedule by our hemotologists.
On May 7th he had an operation which removed his spleen. Which was causing a lot of the life threatening symptoms he was having. After a full month recovery we noticed significant changes in Kai. This was the fist time since he came home that he started to gain weight. He no longer had a yellow tint to his skin which was a symptom of severe anemia. His skin started to glow and his cheeks started to fill in. His personality changed from a grumpy most of the time, fatigued boy, to bouncing of the walls, chasing his brothers, getting in on the fun boy.
Since he came home he's gained a significant amount of weight. 12lbs. in ten months, grown two shoes sizes and went from a 12-18months to a 3t. He's now at 48% for height and weight for a three year old. Right on track! Below are some pictures just to see the physical changes in the last ten months. And of course the birthday pictures!! We couldn't imagine life without our little man.

Kai on the second day he was home. That night he was admitted into the ICU in Puerto Rico with a hemoglobin number of 3.2. By the time he had his blood transfusion 18 hours later it dropped to 2.8. An average person has a hemoglobin number of 12grams.

Kai after his second blood transfusion in ICU at Centro Medico. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Starting to feel better. He was released from this hospital four days later. It was horrible. Makes me thankful for our hemotologist in Indiana and New Jersey.