All Things Jack

Meet Jackson (Jack, Jack-Jack, etc.). He is a super little guy who has already been through a tremendous journey. Starting out as a little fish baby in Alaska things were not looking so good for Jack's future. Thanks to an emergency relocation to North Carolina, and the team of doctors at Duke University, Jackson's heart was repaired as much as possible. His condition is called Double Outlet Right Ventricle (with characteristics of Tetralogy of Fallot), which is pretty rare and not easy to fix. The result of his complicated surgery at 8 weeks old left him with a damaged electrical conduction system. Thanks to the good folks at Medtronic, Jack has a state-of-the-art "keep me alive box" pacemaker. It will limit the amount of things he can do in the future, but that just means we have to think of other (and more fun) things for him to do! As he grows he will need several additional surgeries to repair valves and replace batteries in his pacemaker, but for now we just focus on the fun stuff.

Jack spends most of his time with our circus of dogs. That fat scruffy guy is Ernie (Nernie, The Nern) who had just received his insulin shot. So naturally, the next logical thing to do is to eat popcorn with Jack. The reclusive grumpy guy in the back is Wrigley (Wriggles, Wriggle Monsters).

This was this morning's post breakfast snack of champions. What's that you say? Oreos and popcorn? Correct. Jackson constantly gets a variety of snacks because he eats very, very little. After his heart surgeries he completely stopped eating and had to undergo an additional surgery to place a G-tube in his stomach. The G-tube was a nightmare, but it kept him alive. After his first year we were able to have it removed and he resumed eating on his own. So anything that I can get him to eat is a major success.

Jack is my miracle baby and because the first year of his life was so hard, our main goal now is to have fun! His favorite  activity includes feeding this guy, Mr.Stumps the Squirrel:

Mr. Stumps is a hungry little dude and at some point has lost his tail. All the more reason to take extra good care of him. Once we discovered that he was sorting out the food we left for him and only wanted sunflower seeds, we decided to make things even easier for Mr. Stumps and leave him only the good stuff from now on. Jack likes to supervise with his chocolate donut.

Another favorite game is peekaboo and he is quite the expert. He can hide behind just about anything, to include his hands or a door.

Several times a day he checks on the birds houses to make sure they have enough to eat.

This little guy has a lot going on, but always has time to smile at strangers! Jack also has a pretty cool family with lots of cousins, aunts, uncles and Grandmas and Grandpa. This is Jack with his best buddy and first cousin Matthew:

 

This is Jack with his daddy on his last day as an Army Physician at Fort Bragg. Always the lady's man, Jack is more interested in (Captain) Dr.Donoway and the nurses who had donuts waiting for him.

Jack especially loves his Aunts, and he has a bunch of great ones! This is his aunt Jeanine (Nean) whom he loves to call on the phone on a daily basis. Sometimes she gets lucky and he leaves her really exciting voicemails.

After all of this excitement, sometimes Jack gets sleepy. Mommy does too.