Monday, February 9th

Good morning to all. This is Chance. I don't have much to report but thought I would drop a quick line. Clay is a little under the weather. He played outside a good bit on Saturday and probably had too much cold, damp air. He had his cast removed last Wednesday. They made him promise he would not be wild and the doctor told him he would have to take it easy for a couple of more weeks. He was playing with the neighbors and they were running and playing chase. His mother reminded him about his promise to the doctor. Clay responded, " I know, I know but it is so hard to be careful." He has not let much slow him down. Clay's little bug that canceled his last surgery has finally gone through everyone in the family. I was the last and it hit me last week at the Ft. Worth Stock Show. We all survived, but Deidra was having to do a lot of running to keep everyone where they were supposed to be. I believe that we posted February 19th as his next surgery date. This procedure has been moved to the 26th of this month. Continuing school, therapy, and day to day activities keep us all busy. Deidra will be sending the promised letter out this week. We will call it a Valentine/1 year update as it will have been one year since the accident this Sunday. Hope everyone is doing well, take care.

Friday, January 22

Good morning! We were hoping to be able to give you all an update on how Clay's surgery went this morning; BUT, there was no surgery. Clay was sick to his stomach twice last evening, on our way to Dallas. We called his doctor and he said it would be a wise idea to reschedule his surgery (Mama called the doctor and the doctor said......). Also, the anesthesiologists would not have anesthetized him for surgery because of the vomiting. We turned around and came back home last night. Clay slept soundly throughout the night and says he feels better this morning. I fed him a light breakfast and.....so far so good. :-) We just received a message that Clay's surgery has been rescheduled for Friday, February 19 (at noon).
Chance and Carson are at our county stock show today. Carson will show his pig this afternoon and his steer in the morning. Cody is in school today (next year he will be in 3rd grade and will be old enough to show as well). So, depending on how Clay is feeling, we will head to the show when Cody gets home from school. Clay says that he is feeling better and keeps asking "Can we please go to the stockshow?" (Little turkey-does he really have a stomach bug or did he have a plan up his sleeve to get out of the surgery???) No, seriously, he really did not feel well last night.

Also, I haven't forgotten about the letter we promised. It was mentioned, in a comment, that this letter will now be a Valentine letter. So we will just call it our New Year/Valentine letter. :-)We just never seem to have time to turn on our computer. I have the pictures inserted into a document and saved; but, there has been a problem with saving them in the right form. After 4 trips to Kinko's, I think we have it figured out. Now, we are addressing each envelope when we get a spare moment. We do not want to miss anyone! Although, there have been just a few that have posted on the blog and we can't figure out who you are by just seeing your "blog" name. Please send us your mailing address (cdcccfite@hotmail.com) if you think we are confused about your "blog" name. We are going through our blog list, "thank-you" list, church-meeting list, town list, hospital list, girl list, boy list, etc., etc., and every other list we have to make sure we have covered everyone (making a list and checking it twice).
Thank you so much again for your care (and patience with the letter)! Thinking of all the ones in Haiti and others in "trying" times. Makes us thankful again that ALL this is in our Father's hands and makes us thankful for our privilege of prayer. ("Prayer is a mighty source of power")

Friday, January 15th

Hello to everyone. Clay broke his left arm. He has a new red cast that he is really proud of. He was playing tug of war with his puppy on the snow and ice after Christmas. He slipped and landed on it and broke two bones. He favored it but it did not slow him down. As he continued to protect it we became worried and took him to our local doctor for an x-ray. Definitely broken. He and Deidra went to Dallas to see an orthopedic at Children's. They put the new cast on and told him to wear it for three weeks. It seems that in the scope of things the arm was mild in comparison to what he has been through. He is back home and doing fine. Still on schedule for the surgery on the 22nd. Good days to all.

Wednesday, January 6th

Good Morning to everyone. There has been a large gap in time since the last post and all of the Fites have been very busy. We were able to travel over the holidays. We had the opportunity to put faces with some of the people that have grown so dear to us through this experience. We went North to Omaha, NE and were able to visit/meet some dear friends in Wichita, KS (family and friends of Larisa Hertz who has spent many days in an ICU burn unit). The boys enjoyed the biggest snow in the last twenty years. They played outside everyday and would come inside looking like a Popsicle. Clay was right in the middle of the fun. We had to tape his glove on his left hand. After that problem was solved the snowy world was his to enjoy. They did not really want to come back to boring Texas, but upon arrival, they were amazed to see that we could not pull in our garage because of the snowdrifts. After a brief stay at home we made a quick trip South for the new year. Clay made a special friend at convention this year and we went to Austin for a couple of days so Clay could see Tucker and we could visit his family. All are home now and back in school. Clay had an appointment Monday with the plastic surgeon that is doing most of his procedures. He had not seen his finished product on the neck and was pleased with the results. His goal now is to work on the nose and mouth. If he can offer Clay some relief in these areas, and the ENT Doctors approve, the next milestone for Clay will be the removal of his trach tube. Clay has already informed us that when that thing comes out and heals we need to find him a swimming pool. We have a tentative date for his next procedure set for the 22nd of this month. I used to keep a close count on the number of surgeries he has had, but I seem to have lost count. Deidra is still working on the New Year letter. Please don't give up-it is a major undertaking because we do not have much spare time to work on it . We hope the New Year finds everyone well and are thankful that we can start it out with our entire family at home. Thank you for all of the prayers and encouragement during 2009. We will try to post more frequently or when something newsworthy occurs. Take Care, Chance

Monday, December 21

Hello to all! We just wanted to give a quick update on our doctor visit this past Thursday. The skin grafts that we were worried about looked great and adhered perfectly. We were told that it was normal for the top layer (of skin) to slough off - this was the part that we were so worried about. We are very relieved and are thankful for the great job that Dr. Bidic did. We are also thankful for Kaylee and Savannah (Dr. Bidic's PA's) who have helped so much with Clay. We are still keeping a light dressing over the neck and treating the areas of hypergranulation (overgrowth of granulation tissue) around Clay's trach.
On one of our frequent trips to Dallas, a few weeks ago, we took Clay to Parkland to see the nurses in the Burn ICU. It was great to see them and they were glad to see Clay. We were also able to attend the monthly "burn support group" meeting at Parkland hospital this past Saturday. Two OT therapists that helped Clay, while he was in the burn unit, attended the meeting. We told them "thank you" for being so aggressive with Clay's therapy from the start. We now understand that Clay's therapy is so essential throughout the healing process and beyond. Thank you to all the therapists who have and are working with Clay.
We hope you all have a wonderful week and nice holiday! Thank you again - our hearts are filled with gratitude.

P.S. We will be sending the letters within the next few weeks - thank you for your patience with us! :-)

Wednesday, December 16

Hello to all! I had a minute so I wanted to post an update and apologize for our sporadic postings. As you recall, Clay had his neck release surgery on Nov. 9. He had a wound vac dressing on his neck and carried the pump with him for about a month. During the month of November, we took him to Dallas for four dressing changes. They had to sedate him each time they changed it; therefore, it was basically like a day surgery (OR, anesthesia, recovery room, etc.). On December 3, they took him back to the OR and placed skin grafts over the Integra (neck) and then placed the wound vac over the grafts. We took him back to Dallas on Dec. 9 to have the wound vac removed. He was so relieved to have it off that he was jumping around saying "I'm free, I'm free." The grafts still needed to have a dressing over them for awhile and we were told how to do this dressing change at home. Clay's PT comes to our house on Thursdays; so, she helped us with the first dressing change. She was able to come back to our house on Friday (Dec. 11) to help; and, we ended up calling and sending pictures to Clay's doctor because there were areas of the grafts that were not adhering. We have continued to change it each day and we are not sure if there is enough skin attached to grow and cover the neck area. We go back to Dallas tomorrow (Dec. 17) and the doctors will tell us more. We are not sure, at this point, if they will have to place another skin graft on Clay's neck. There are also some areas where the tissue is hypergranulating (big word I learned this past year).
This is the last week of school before the holidays. Carson & Cody have early release days tomorrow and Friday. Clay's homebound teacher was able to complete his lessons on Monday and Tuesday. Depending on the weather, we may be going to Omaha, NE next week to see Jace & Dana (my twin sister, her husband, and girls). We also would like to stop in Wichita, KS to see the family of Larisa (a friend that was burned in October). We have been following her blog since her accident http://www.larisahertz.blog.com/. We want to thank each one of you for your encouragement this past year.
We are planning on sending a "New Year" letter out with pictures of Clay's progress & pictures of Carson and Cody. I'm sure that you all would like to see the progress that Clay has made since February. Since we do not feel comfortable in posting his pictures online, we will send these letters via "snail mail". :-) Thanks for everything!

Friday, December 4th

Quick update before the day slips away. Clay's surgery went well yesterday. So well that he has been at home with Mom all day today. We had planned to spend last night in the hospital, but the Physician's Assistant came out of the O.R. and told Deidra and I that Dr. Bidic thought Clay would be able to go home after the procedure. They took two strips of skin from his upper right thigh and placed them over the Integra on his neck. We anticipated them being very painful and they were. They placed his wound vac back on his neck to keep the grafts in place. When he awoke in the recovery room he immediately started complaining and crying that his leg hurt. Our recovery nurse was very attentive to his pain and put several doses of pain medication into his IV to get it under control. Clay was disappointed that he was not going to stay in the hospital overnight, because he wanted to watch cartoons and eat popsicles in his hospital room. Mom and I were not disappointed at all. We left the hospital around 6:00 p.m and arrived home a little after 9:00. Clay had one bout with nausea on the trip home but it quickly subsided and some food seemed to solve the problem. He slept well at home and rested all day. He asked this morning if his brothers had school today? When I said yes he told me, "I need someone to play with." We would like to offer a special thanks to all of the Doctors and staff at Children's that have helped Clay. We appreciate the care he has received and the extra efforts that have been made on his behalf. Thanks to everyone keeping up with Clay. We will post more specifics when we can.