Ethan had a good night, got lots of sleep, despite having to be back on oxygen all night (started at .5L and went down to .3L around 4am). He woke up full of energy and ready to play at 6am, which is early for him. I, on the other hand, tossed and turned all night and never really got any real sleep. We played and watched Disney channel and ate breakfast together then he went down for a nap at 8:30 (usually the time he'd just be getting up) and I'm just going to let him sleep as long as he can since his schedule's so off right now.
Morning rounds happened aroung 9am and by 10 his doc came to talk to me and said he's comfortable sending us home today as long as I feel comfortable taking him home. They don't want us to feel like they're rushing us out, which is nice, but we've been waiting since Tuesday to go home so we're more than ready to go!
Discharge papers have been ordered and there's no definite time they'll be done but we've been told best estimate of late afternoon. Dan's working half a day then coming to hang out with us until it's time to go.
Thank you for all your prayers and support. We praise God that we erred on the side of caution and brought him in when we did, otherwise things could've been a lot worse and we could've had a much longer stay than this.
We're still on schedule for our next regular cardiology checkup on Feb. 15th and we'll hopefully get word then on the time frame they're thinking for his third (and hopefully final) heart surgery. We've known all along that there's no way around it that the 3rd surgery has to happen and that each one gets harder on us since he's older and more aware of his surroundings. This was a good "trial run" of what's still to come. What a difference 2 years makes from when we were here last! He was a few weeks shy of 6 months old at that time, not talking or really very mobile and we had a lot more flexibility in terms of leaving his room. Now he wants us around the clock and sneaking away for meals has been tricky. Since he hasn't had much of an appetite and is being picky about what meals are brought to him (who serves a 2 yr. old Total Raisin Bran for b'fast and things like bbq chicken thigh for dinner?), I've been able to work it out to eat with him most of the time. Maybe if we get out by dinner time tonight, we can head to our fav locale here - Mama Dips - for dinner since I certainly will have no energy to cook tonight!
Once we get home and get settled, I plan to post some more "catch up" posts from the past 5 months and I know we're long overdue for new pictures as well!
Showing posts with label sick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sick. Show all posts
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Friday, February 1, 2008
Feeling Better!
Lots of updates today...
First, thanks for your prayers for our family this week as we get through our first family sickness together. I think we're finally all over the worst of our stomach bug! Ethan's even gotten back to a more "normal" eating schedule - meaning that he's not taking all 4 oz. of his bottle like he was pre-surgery, but at least he's eating 2.5-3 oz. every 3 hours. Since surgery, he would even skip feedings all together, and being sick this week, it's not surprising that he wasn't much into eating at all. I'm just glad that he's at least taking most of his bottle each time and not skipping any more feedings.
Second, Ethan does continue to wake up several times each night, although it's starting to get spaced out to every 3-4 hours, which is better than getting woken up every hour! As the stay-at-home parent, I am the one who gets up to check on Ethan every time he cries so my sleep has been quite interrupted this week, which I think has contributed to me being the slowest to recover from this stomach bug!
Third, Ethan got his chest tube sutures removed this week and his nurse at the pediatrician said he was still healing great with no sign of infection! He was such a brave boy and didn't squirm or even make the slightest sign of discomfort while the sutures came out!
Finally, thanks for your prayers for baby girl Annabelle Butcher! Her surgery went well today, but she definitely still needs prayers as the next 24-48 hours are very critical, as it's the time when the most swelling occurs. Again, you can follow her journey at their blog site: http://www.babygirlbutcher.blogspot.com/. We know just what they're going through - it's hard to believe we were in their shoes almost 6 months ago - boy does time fly by!
First, thanks for your prayers for our family this week as we get through our first family sickness together. I think we're finally all over the worst of our stomach bug! Ethan's even gotten back to a more "normal" eating schedule - meaning that he's not taking all 4 oz. of his bottle like he was pre-surgery, but at least he's eating 2.5-3 oz. every 3 hours. Since surgery, he would even skip feedings all together, and being sick this week, it's not surprising that he wasn't much into eating at all. I'm just glad that he's at least taking most of his bottle each time and not skipping any more feedings.
Second, Ethan does continue to wake up several times each night, although it's starting to get spaced out to every 3-4 hours, which is better than getting woken up every hour! As the stay-at-home parent, I am the one who gets up to check on Ethan every time he cries so my sleep has been quite interrupted this week, which I think has contributed to me being the slowest to recover from this stomach bug!
Third, Ethan got his chest tube sutures removed this week and his nurse at the pediatrician said he was still healing great with no sign of infection! He was such a brave boy and didn't squirm or even make the slightest sign of discomfort while the sutures came out!
Finally, thanks for your prayers for baby girl Annabelle Butcher! Her surgery went well today, but she definitely still needs prayers as the next 24-48 hours are very critical, as it's the time when the most swelling occurs. Again, you can follow her journey at their blog site: http://www.babygirlbutcher.blogspot.com/. We know just what they're going through - it's hard to believe we were in their shoes almost 6 months ago - boy does time fly by!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Now we're all sick
Well it seems that it is indeed a stomach bug that Ethan caught and now he's passed it on to me and Dan as well. :-( Good news is that Ethan seems to be feeling better today, and so do I so hopefully it was just a 24 hour thing for me. Dan's still asleep so I don't know how he's feeling, but he had a rough night last night. Please pray that this passes quickly from our family so we can get back to trying to get Ethan back on schedule after surgery. Our discharge papers and other friends with HLHS babies have all said it often takes a few weeks to get back on schedule with feeding, sleeping and playing after this 2nd surgery.
Tomorrow morning Ethan goes back to the pediatrician to get his chest tube sutures removed, so we're excited about that! One more step towards his healing from the surgery! And next week we go for a checkup with Ethan's cardiologist to have an echo to make sure his heart is still functioning well from the surgery.
Tomorrow is also the day for baby girl Annabelle Butcher (http://www.babygirlbutcher.blogspot.com/) to have her first heart surgery for HLHS, so please be keeping her and her family and medical team in your prayers. Thanks!
Tomorrow morning Ethan goes back to the pediatrician to get his chest tube sutures removed, so we're excited about that! One more step towards his healing from the surgery! And next week we go for a checkup with Ethan's cardiologist to have an echo to make sure his heart is still functioning well from the surgery.
Tomorrow is also the day for baby girl Annabelle Butcher (http://www.babygirlbutcher.blogspot.com/) to have her first heart surgery for HLHS, so please be keeping her and her family and medical team in your prayers. Thanks!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Better night
We made it over 24 hours without Ethan throwing up! As mentioned in my last post, Ethan was on Pedialyte most of the day yesterday and he managed to keep it all down! So at his normal 7pm feeding time, I tried giving him 2oz. of formula and he seemed to do fine and want more, so I gave him 2 more. He did fine with that too so I fed him another 4 oz. bottle at 10pm and put him to bed. He managed to keep that down all night and I fed him again around 6:50am and he kept that down too! But at his 10am feeding, he took 3 oz. then threw it all up. :-(
Also, I think he had some bad dreams and/or may have been in a little pain last night because he woke up every single hour from 1:30am-8am. You could seriously set a clock to it! Every time I'd go check on him, he looked like he was asleep but he'd just be screaming. So I would give him his pacifier, rub his tummy and side, tell him everything was ok and that he's home now and he'd fall right back asleep and repeat the screaming an hour later. At 3:30am, I gave him some tylenol in case he was in any pain. But I don't think that was the problem because he seemed fine all day yesterday.
The nurses warned us in our discharge papers that it's not uncommon for peds cardiology patients to have frequent nightmares once we're home, but I don't remember him having them last time we came home - maybe it's just because he's older and a little more aware of things now. Hopefully tonight we'll all sleep better! Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers!
Also, I think he had some bad dreams and/or may have been in a little pain last night because he woke up every single hour from 1:30am-8am. You could seriously set a clock to it! Every time I'd go check on him, he looked like he was asleep but he'd just be screaming. So I would give him his pacifier, rub his tummy and side, tell him everything was ok and that he's home now and he'd fall right back asleep and repeat the screaming an hour later. At 3:30am, I gave him some tylenol in case he was in any pain. But I don't think that was the problem because he seemed fine all day yesterday.
The nurses warned us in our discharge papers that it's not uncommon for peds cardiology patients to have frequent nightmares once we're home, but I don't remember him having them last time we came home - maybe it's just because he's older and a little more aware of things now. Hopefully tonight we'll all sleep better! Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Rough Night
Poor little guy, he slept great our first night home, but last night wasn't so good. He got back to his normal eating schedule yesterday and seemed to be doing well, but he woke up crying at 3:30am (he usually sleeps from 10pm-6:30am). I went in to check on him and then he threw up. He continued throwing up every 15-20 minutes for the next 2 hours. I finally decided to call UNC's CICC unit (the floor we were on right before we went home) and asked them what to do. They suggested trying Pedialyte but we don't have any plus I didn't know how to thicken it. So they suggested feeding him one ounce/hour so he wasn't running on a totally empty stomach and so he wouldn't get dehydrated.
Ethan took the first ounce fine and seemed hungry for more so I let him have another half ounce and gave him a good burp but about 10 minutes later he threw up again. He finally fell asleep around 6:30am and slept till I woke him at 8:30am to go for his pediatrician appointment (just a routine follow up that the hospital scheduled for us). He seemed hungry so I tried feeding him 2 ounces and he gobbled it all up, but as I was burping him, he threw it all up again - a total of 8 episodes since 3:30 this morning. By that time, we were both exhausted but it was time to leave for the doctor.
His doctor said he looks great, his oxygen sat was in the mid-80's and he weighed almost 15 1/2 pounds, which is what he weighed before surgery. The doctor gave us a sample of Pedialyte and told us not to worry about thickening it, to just start him out very slow - about 2 teaspoons every 15 minutes for 2 times, then gradually increase the dosage and spread out the amount of time between feedings until we're up to 2oz. every 2 hours, then I can try mixing it with formula. His doctor thinks he may have caught a little bug since we came home on Saturday.
So please pray that Ethan can keep his Pedialyte down and eventually get back to taking a bottle by the end of the day. If it's not a stomach bug, I told the doc I think it could just be that he's adjusting to getting back to eating his normal eating schedule since he wasn't eating very much at the hospital. He fell asleep on the car ride home from the doctor so I'm just letting him sleep for a bit before I start the Pedialyte.
Ethan took the first ounce fine and seemed hungry for more so I let him have another half ounce and gave him a good burp but about 10 minutes later he threw up again. He finally fell asleep around 6:30am and slept till I woke him at 8:30am to go for his pediatrician appointment (just a routine follow up that the hospital scheduled for us). He seemed hungry so I tried feeding him 2 ounces and he gobbled it all up, but as I was burping him, he threw it all up again - a total of 8 episodes since 3:30 this morning. By that time, we were both exhausted but it was time to leave for the doctor.
His doctor said he looks great, his oxygen sat was in the mid-80's and he weighed almost 15 1/2 pounds, which is what he weighed before surgery. The doctor gave us a sample of Pedialyte and told us not to worry about thickening it, to just start him out very slow - about 2 teaspoons every 15 minutes for 2 times, then gradually increase the dosage and spread out the amount of time between feedings until we're up to 2oz. every 2 hours, then I can try mixing it with formula. His doctor thinks he may have caught a little bug since we came home on Saturday.
So please pray that Ethan can keep his Pedialyte down and eventually get back to taking a bottle by the end of the day. If it's not a stomach bug, I told the doc I think it could just be that he's adjusting to getting back to eating his normal eating schedule since he wasn't eating very much at the hospital. He fell asleep on the car ride home from the doctor so I'm just letting him sleep for a bit before I start the Pedialyte.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
We're sick :-(
Yes, it's true. Despite all our efforts to try to stay home and away from germs, somehow Ethan and I (Julie) are sick. Ethan's got a stuffy nose andI've got a bad cough. Last night Dan started to feel like he was getting a sore throat (something I never had with my cough) so we're praying he's taken enough Vitamin C to fight it off. Ethan and I have been sick since Thursday and with his surgery a little over 2 weeks away, we're at the critical point of trying to determine whether to hope he gets better and go ahead with surgery, or to postpone it a little bit longer. When we were at the hospital last month for his heart cath, Ethan's cardiologist said he needed to be healthy for at least 2 weeks - not even as much as a stuffy nose - prior to surgery so that the nasal congestion wouldn't complicate his breathing while on the ventilator for surgery. I really don't want to have to put off the surgery any longer, since I'm not looking forward to it in the first place, but we need to do what's best for Ethan.
So PLEASE pray for us to get well soon so we can go ahead and get this surgery over, if that's God's will for us at this time. Praise God that we have this flexibility to schedule it whenever we're not sick, instead of being in a critical state with his heart condition!
So PLEASE pray for us to get well soon so we can go ahead and get this surgery over, if that's God's will for us at this time. Praise God that we have this flexibility to schedule it whenever we're not sick, instead of being in a critical state with his heart condition!
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