Deep thoughts from a surprise party and apprehension...

Now there's a strange title!! This has been a really, really nice week and fantastic weekend. It was the first week in MONTHS that we did not have any doctor appointments for either boy...more on that part later. And, I was planning a surprise party for my hubby's birthday.  For some reason, although this was not a milestone birthday, I had the urge to plan a fun, surprise game night/birthday party with our friends. It was fun to plan an adult birthday party after 5 years of basically only doing kids parties. I enjoyed picking foods and drinks I knew he would like and gathering some of his best friends to surprise him. It was really, really hard to keep the secret from him, though. Yesterday alone, I nearly spilled the beans at least four or five times.  During naptime, before the party, I was pondering why it had been so hard for me to keep this surprise from him and my thoughts quickly turned to deep, heart matters. We have been blessed with the ability and desire to chat about the mundane things of our days, where we went, what we did, even the random, insignificant things.  When we're in the car and drive past certain places, often times a memory will be jogged that I tell him about. So many times over the past few weeks that has happened and it happened over and over again yesterday.  I didn't like having to guard my thoughts and impede the freedom of sharing those thoughts with my hubby.  What this led me to realize was that I am so thankful to be in a marriage where we have nothing to hide from each other.  I honestly can't fathom what harboring secrets must do to someone's heart and soul. So, although throwing a surprise birthday party is nothing like hiding a bad secret, it was somewhat of a relief to be able to identify why it was so hard to keep the secret!!!  It was well worth it, though, because he was totally shocked....honestly had NO CLUE and we both had a ton of fun!

Now to the apprehension part.  Most of our friends and family know now that Noah is in the process of being diagnosed with an immune system disorder.  Right now, all we know is that he is IgG deficient. IgG is one of the immunoglobulins (a kind of cell) our body needs to fight off infections.  When you don't have enough of it, your body gets a couple different types of infections over and over again. For him it has been chronic ear infections, mouth sores, strep throat and a fungal infection in his intestines. As you can imagine, this is a painful, miserable cycle for anyone to endure, let alone a baby! The really crazy thing is that these kiddos manage to continue to grow and thrive and basically are the picture of health between infections. In the past 6 months, Noah has not been more than 13 days without being sick. It's taken a toll not only on him but on us as his parents, and his big brother.  It's not easy having a brother who gets so much attention for being sick and requires so much time and energy to be spent on him.  This coming Thursday, we are going to our follow up appointment with the immunologist where we will hopefully find out how severe this deficiency is and what, if anything, we are going to do with it.  There are a couple of outcomes we are aware of at this point, and quite honestly, they both stink. After that appointment, we also have a several hour long appointment with an allergist who is hopefully going to help connect a few more of the dots.  This whole process with Noah has been such a puzzle with so many random pieces many of which do not appear to be related whatsoever at a first look. We are praying that we can get all the pieces put together and formulate a strategy for healing our little boy. Needless to say, I am apprehensive about the outcome of our appointments this week. I'm apprehensive about how much more my comfortable little world will be rocked. But, I refuse to be fearful. I know that our Savior has a plan for my little boy and his will will be done.  I'll update later this week or on the weekend when we get more answers.  Please pray with us for our little guy!