Today, Zachary attended his first movie ! The movie was CARS by Disney/Pixar. He was joined by Mom,Dad,sister Kiley and her friend Abbey. Little Bro Austin spent some quality time with Gma & Gpa. Zachary was well primed for the film thanks to the movie trailers on Disney channel, toy cars at McDonalds and most of all his new power wheels car; LIGHTING McQUEEN. He did very well until the last half hour. If it wasn’t for the half hour of previews I think he may have made it.

-Wade-

Zachary, underwent surgery again this past Tuesday. The procedure went pretty well. They first attempted to do it laproscopically. The surgeon felt it was not safe, because of all the scar tissue from transplant and following procedures. Zachary was re-opened and I pray this will be it for a very long time! He’s recovery was painful, but is going very well now. His J-feeding tube that bypasses the stomach was removed. ( not necessary anymore) Two meds were removed from his list : Previcid, and Pepcid. He still has G-feeding tube for meds and feeds. We are anxious to see if now he will begin attemping to swallow food. He is also going to be attending a feeding clinic at Childrens Hospital. This procedure is supposed to last 10-15yrs and will also help to prevent cancer of the esophagus. Zachary’s only upcoming procedure is a eye study, which he will need to be put under for. We are looking forward to a super fun summer.

Check out the last uploads for the most current photo’s

-Wade-

I am so sorry that we have not updated this in a while, a lot has been going on. Zachary’s EBV which detects cancer, jumped from 5,100 to 17,500, this is a very big jump. They did a full body CAT scan on him and found enlarged lymphnodes in his neck, which they are concerned with. He has his EBV drawn monthly along with his weekly labs, so they will still keep a close eye on that.

On Tuesday, May 23rd, he had another surgery called an endoscopy. In this procedure they go in with a scope to see what is going on in the esophagus and the stomach. The doctor said that the esophagus looked pretty bad, so we met with another surgeon today to talk about another surgery called a nissenfundalplacation. This is where they would go in and tie the stomach so no acid can come up to eat away at the esophagus.

Besides all of that – Zach is doing great. He is still not eating by mouth and has his G-feeds during the day and J- feeds at night. We hope after the nissen he starts eating more by mouth. His speech is coming along slowly, he can say mom, dad, no, yes, but everything else is babble. It is very frustrating trying to understand a two year old that is trying to tell you something. We have a speech theraphist who comes out weekly to help him with his speech and sign language.

The rest of the family is doing great, Kiley has only 5 more days left of school, so she is pretty excited about summer. Austin is almost 5 months old and is about 19 pounds!! Big happy boy. Wade is working 4-to midnight so he can make all of Zach’s Doctor appointments. I am doing pretty well, just trying to hold it all together for the family.

-Stacey-

New photos added

Zachary has had a chronic cough since October. He has been on many antibiotics but nothing seemed to be working. They sent us to a lung specialist which determined that he has been aspirating into his lungs, which was causing the chronic cough. Zachary had surgery on Feb. 7, to put his J-tube back in so that he would hopefully not aspirate anymore. Two weeks later he had a chest X-ray that showed his lungs are still damaged but look alot better. We meet with a lung specialist again in one month to talk about another possible surgery called a nissenfundoplication. Long word, but what it means is they will wrap the stomach around the esophagus. It’s a major surgery so we are trying hard to avoid it. We think Zachary may also be having problems hearing. He had a hearing test done last week and didn’t do so well on it.

On March 13th, Zachary had another surgery called a Bronchoscopy,Direct Laryngoscopy and a ABR hearing test,which he past on both ears! No hearing problems. The rest of the tests all came back fine so far. However, we will get the final results of the tests back next week.

News about the rest of family! Wade has a Birthday on March 16, Kiley is doing great in school. She also started Gymnastics, and is having lots of fun!! Austin is getting really BIG and Zach is having lots of fun with his brother. And me, I am tired as can be, but enjoying the precious time with my family.

On Wednesday December 28 we were blessed with another baby boy !
His name is Austin Eric Elsenpeter. He weighed in at exactly 7lbs and is 20in long. Everything is going good. Stacey and the baby will be coming home on Saturday. Zachary and Kiley are so excited!!