Sorry For The Delay...Been Busy

I am going to try to keep this short, sloppy, and, as a result, it will be short on both feelings and details. But, it will be mostly good news. :)

So, after we got our good news on Cade, I went home to let out the dogs and ended up crashing for a few hours. Then I went back to the hospital just in time to find Jill getting prepped for her picc line. Long story short, they ended up putting Jill through a bunch of pain, and poked two extra holes in her upper arm and still failed to get the line in. Jill said she had enough and would live with an IV at home.

That night I slept at home so I wouldn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to let the dogs out. I ended up sleeping in due to my phone being dead.

By the time that I got back to the hospital, Jill had her wound vac in place and was getting ready to be discharged. We ended up getting out of there at about 3:00 p.m. From there, drove to Children's to go see Cade. Me, being the monster that I am, didn't bother asking Jill if she needed a wheelchair to get to the room. The relatively short walk really tuckered her out.

When we got to see Cade, his little isolette was covered. That means that his biliruben levels were low enough to take away his bililight which is good news. That also means that he didn't need his cool goggles anymore which allowed his head skin to look more normal. He was especially cute and I didn't have the camera. *sigh*

Marie, was taking care of him as usual. She told us even more good news. Cade was off of blood pressure regulator, dopamine. Then, she asked us if we wanted to hold him. Jill and I looked at each other with the "I don't think that I am qualified to hold such a frail little thing" look. But, we were assured that all was going to be OK by Marie.

Jill held him first, and seeing them together brought a tear to my eye. After a bit, I got to hold him. I could have sat there for a very long time. Eventually, Jill had to use the bathroom and that was Marie's queue to put Cade away and for us to exit stage left.

I found Jill a chair, got her to the bathroom, and got her home safely. Once there, Jill got a temp of 102. We called the Dr. on the downside of the spike. She said, if it happens again, we need to come back in. That did not make Jill happy. Thankfully, she did not spike another temp. We went to bed early and slept well. It was really nice to be able to be close to my wife again. I missed the closeness.

We woke up today, had some breakfast, and spent most of our time with the home health care nurse. Jill and I are now able administer IV medication to an existing peripheral IV (it isn't rocket surgery). Also, Jill's negative pressure wound dressings have been changed.

Now, were are on to putting crap away, opening mail, and coming up with a list of bureaucratic BS that has to be done as a result of this fiasco.

Really Good News

Cade's clots are smaller and so are his ventricles. Happy days!

A bit more good news...

Jill may get to go home some time in the not so distant future. There was talk of putting in a picc line and having a home heath care nurse administer the antibiotics at home for a week or two. Add to that the fact that her open wound is looking good and should heal even faster with the addition of negative pressure therapy. Finally, I think that I can tell that Jill is getting better because she has enough energy to get ticked at me when I don't call her to tell her that I am spending the night in the NICU in hopes of getting Cade's ultrasound results early. Sadly, it is taking someone for freakin' ever to get the results to me. I will update once the results are in.

To: Bill, Mae, Shawn, Molly, Chad, Korine, and Kirk

Thank you so much for the cute toys and gift certificates. You spent too much. But, thank you nevertheless.

A Pretty Good Day

Today was a pretty good day for Jill and I. I slept a lot since I was at Children's with Cade until about 4 a.m. Jill was a real go-getter this morning. She got up, ordered and ate some breakfast, took a shower, shaved her legs, plucked her brows, and basically, just took some personal care of herself. To me, those are good signs that she is feeling better.

In the afternoon, Marcy came for a visit and we all went to go see Cade. We met with his Dr. for the week. Although Cade was ping ponging like last night, they, I believe, were able to lean out some of his settings (I don't remember which ones though.). I like all of the detailed technical information that they provide when I show up. Jill, on the other hand, gets freaked out about all of it because she just wants to sit and visit with him. So, I am just going to have to remember to keep my need for information supressed until Jill gets used to life at the NICU.

Tonight, like this afternoon and last night, Cade is ping ponging in terms of his parameters. They now have him on morphine 24/7 to keep him from fidgeting. They also figured out that he does much better on his stomach in terms of his comfort level. So, they have specified that he be on his stomach 50% of the time

As of this moment, the are in the process of returning some blood that was destined Cade due to the fact that it didn't have an expiration date on it. I am glad that they do their job around here.

The reason that he is getting the blood is that his bone marrow just isn't kicking out enough for his needs.

I just hope that the morning brings further recovery for Jill and reduced ventricle size and reduced blood clot size for Cade.