Walker Colt Pruett: July 31st, Walker's Due Date

This has been quite a week, we guess Walker wanted to make sure we were on our toes. On Friday night, after a great week, about 1am he started to scream and cry. He was completely inconsolable and we have never heard him cry like this before, after a couple of minutes of crying he went limp and pale. We immediately rushed him to the emergency room in Rocky Mount, and they sent us by ambulance on to the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) in Roanoke. We arrived around 4am on Saturday morning and we stayed until Monday afternoon. While we were there the doctors drew blood and did labs and cultures to try to figure out what was going on with the little guy.

All of Walker's blood work and cultures came back normal, and they finally came to the conclusion that it could have possibly been his large inguinal hernia causing him pain. We met with the chief of pediatric surgery there and they scheduled Walker for surgery on Wednesday and then discharged us until Wednesday morning.

At home Monday night Walker did well and Mommy and Daddy got a little rest, but were nervous about the little guy's behavior. Tuesday, Mommy needed to get some work done, so her and Granny headed to school for a few hours. Walker enjoyed getting to see Mommy's room and did a good job behaving while he was there. Tuesday night was quiet, and the little guy got some much needed rest to get ready for Wednesday.

We had to stop feeding him at 5:45 on Wednesday to get him ready for surgery and they finally took the starving little boy back at 2:00. Handing him to the nurse was the hardest thing that Mommy has ever had to do, and waiting on the surgeon to come out and tell us how he was was also completely nerve wrecking! Walker had a lot of people in the waiting room with Mommy and Daddy which was great. Granny and Papa, Pastor Peyton, Mimi, Nannie and Poppie Terry, and the biggest surprise for Mommy, one of our favorite NICU nurses from Forsyth, Lisa came to check on the little guy. What a loved little boy, we also received countless calls and messages and that was very comforting to us while we were waiting. After about an hour the surgeon came out and said everything had gone well and Walker had handled it like a champ! We stayed overnight for observation, which made Mommy and Daddy feel better.

Over night Walker did well, he was eating pretty good and acting like he was in a little bit of pain. We were able to give him some Tylenol to help ease his pain and he did well all night. The surgeon came by Thursday morning to check on the little guy, and said his incision looked great, and we were able to go home. Around 11:00am they discharged us and we headed home with the little guy. When we got home we started checking Walker's temperature and it was heading up. Starting at 98.9 then up to 99.5 then up to 100.0, so we called the doctor and he told us to go ahead and give Walker Tylenol and not to get too worried unless his temperature was above 100 on the medicine. Not worrying is easier said than done for Mommy and we proceeded to check his temperature religiously for the rest of the night. We couldn't put Walker in a cool tub because of his incision so we had to use cool rags to help keep him cool.

We were able to keep his temperature controlled over night with the Tylenol, and Walker got some pretty good rest and ate good as well. On Friday morning Daddy had to go back to work, so Mommy and Granny promised to keep a close eye on the little guy! Mommy spoke with the surgeon's nurse who suggested that maybe Walker was coming down with a cold, which is why he has the low grade fever. We tried to keep Walker as isolated as possible when we were in the PICU, but with all those other children we think he could have possibly picked up some germs there. After being in the NICU which was so protected for 80 days, his little system just isn't use to it. This morning around 12:00, 6 hours since the last time he took Tylenol, his temperature was still down, so we are hoping his fever broke! Please pray that Walker will be able to continue to recover well from his surgery, and soon be back to his old self!

We have also been getting messages and posts from tons of people sharing articles that feature Capturing Hopes and Walker. It is truly AMAZING to us how far Walker's story has reached, literally all over the Globe, and we know that God has some BIG plans for this "little big guy"!