Settled back in

It is so nice to be home! Callie is doing ok. We have not been able to get her off the oxygen yet. She still has a nasty cough, but her lungs are clear. No one in the hospital even knew what it was about. We dropped her feeds down 10ml (1/3 of an ounce). She seems do be doing much better. When they did the surgery they used 1/3 of her stomach to wrap around the esophagus yet we are feeding her 1/3 more. Think of overeating for 5 meals a day and being told you need to eat all night. I cannot even imagine the feeling, yet that is basically what we are making our daughter do. We need to get her stomach to stretch out so she can handle the larger volumes and put on some weight. We go to the clinic on Monday for a check up. It will be interesting to see if she has gained some weight yet.

We took Zak out trick-or-treating today. Not Callie, she stayed home with our nurse. Originally she was going to be a caterpillar and Zak a bug catcher. Chris thought of that one. I cannot even take the credit. Needless to say we cannot be taking Callie out and we did not have time to make Zak's costume. Plus the sound of a bug catcher with out any bugs did not sound right. So Grandma bought him an itsy bitsy spider costume. He did not like the gloves or hat, but it was cute! When Callie is feeling better we will put her in the caterpillar costume just to take pictures.

HOME!

Callie is going home today!! She will be on oxygen. We still have a long road ahead of healing and hopefully getting off oxygen. Now she should be able to grow and get some rest when she wants!

Zak is doing good. The swelling has gone down a lot where we can actually see his eyes now. We kept him out of school again on Tuesday and Wednesday to heal and rest. Today and Tomorrow they are off for Fall break.

I cannot wait for the weekend to come to get back to normal as we know it. Not to mention to see my husband longer than the 30 min pass by and report of Callie. One of my close friends is bringing us dinner and a pumpkin pie tonight – YUMMY! Ma has made us some meals throughout the week so we have food to come home too. It is so nice to eat some good home cooked food instead of hospital food and Subway. Thank you both!

When are we going home?

We are ready to go home.. Callie is not sure if she wants to yet. Of course she needs to make sure she has seen all of her favorite nurses before we go home. Monday night she was taken off all oxygen and did fairly well until this afternoon. She was put back on oxygen. Just a small amount, but another small set back. We want her to come home so bad, but her safety is much more important. It is hard running back and forth and not spending much time with Zak and little to none with Chris. Every time I get my hopes up we are going home her stats (oxygen levels) drop the slightest. The doctors talked to us tonight about everything. We now have a feeding plan in place and it has been communicated to our general pediatrician. I had to laugh. The surgeon (who is filling in from another hospital and does not know us at all) thought we might be a bit aggressive on the feeds. The ICU doctor thinks we are fine and since she is monitored in the ICU wants to push her a little. After all the goal is to gain weight! It is possible she is just so full everything is pushing on her tummy and that is why her stats are dropping. All of her tests come back fine which is a really good sign. We finally got oxygen ordered to Have at home.. I am so excited! No, I don't want her to be on oxygen obviously, but to have it as a back up and know we are fully prepared if either one of the kids stats drop.
It has been busy the last 2 days at the hospital. They have been full in the PICU which means the nurses are very busy. We had neurology in to do a follow up and make sure everything is good, ENT stopped for a post surgical visit and our Pastor came to visit! We had a great visit... thanks for stopping by!
Chris and I are both holding up as best as we can. We still are rotating shifts every 24 hours or so. Trying to work, take care of Zak and be at the hospital for Callie. It truly is a juggling act. We all do what is necessary for our family and children though.
Finally off to bed for a few hours anyway.

Long Night

We were hoping Callie would come home today.. unfortunately she is not. We got the ok from surgery, however yesterday she started to have periodic breathing. Kinda like an apnea spell. At first when it started she would recover quickly. As yesterday progressed she was not recovering as quickly.
Chris spent the day at home doing laundry, cleaning and taking care of Zak. He came to the hospital around 6:30 and even picked us up dinner... No hospital food - Yippie! It was nice to see him and have a meal together. The hardest part of all this is just being away from him. I left around 7:30, her stats seemed to be dropping more. As the evening progressed they became more worried and ending up putting her on oxygen. When they took her temp she spiked a fever of 102. The x-ray was clear and nothing obvious showed up in the blood work. Chris hung out in the PCIU with her until 2am when she had been stable for a while. She has been monitored all day, we still have no ideas what is going on. She is still on oxygen and having the periodic breathing episodes. Hopefully she will just get better or we can find our some more tomorrow.

I got to spend the night with Zak last night and all day today. It was so nice to be around him again and not in a hospital. He has to wonder what is going on. Why it is so quiet with out Callie home and why he only gets to see Mom or Dad. He was a little cling on today. Actually it was kinda cute to know he wanted to be by me. He has started to try and follow us around the house. He rolls everywhere he wants to get. He helped me fold laundry by pulling out my bottom dresser drawer and empty it. Then he went to his bedroom and made a mess too. It is fun to see him get into things.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers. We love to hear from you. We hope to be home soon, but know Callie is best in the hospital right now.

Surgery is a Sucess

Zak's surgery went well today. He had a hard time waking up - Just crabby. I went down before the surgery. Chris stayed there during and after the surgery. I went back to be with Callie and Chris brought Zak up when they let him go from recovery. Zak and I got to snuggle for a while until he woke up more.. and then went potty on me :) Chris and Zak went home for the night. We were both commenting today how big he is getting. Granted he is only 28 pounds, however he is getting hard to move him around since he is so strong and really does not know how to hold on and help. No wonder our backs hurt. I must say we make a great team and Chris is a great father. I always hear stories of how the dad is not as involved as the mom would like. I am so thankful he is so involved and does such a great job. We truly are a team. That is the only way we could do it with both of the kids.

Callie is also doing well today. She started her tube feedings today with Pedilite. She has been tolerating it well so we just changed her over to breast milk. She is just on maintenance, the same amount she would get through an IV. Throughout the night we will add more depending on how she feels. Later tonight or tomorrow we will start her on the bottle as well. She is such a strong little girl. We are hopping to have her home Sunday, but we will see how things go.

Don't forget to write a comment or send an e-mail - we love to hear from everyone.

Quick Note

Just a quick note. Callie is doing well today. We have been able to keep her pain under control. The cardiologist stopped by and did an echo on her heart since we were here. We have not got the results yet. Hopefully tomorrow. Neurosurgery also stopped by. He feels everything looks good with the shunt. He does not think her twitching episodes have anything to do with the shunt. Now we just need to wait for the neurologist to evaluate her again. It is nice to get some things taken care of while we sit and recover.

Tomorrow is Zak's surgery. Him and Daddy and spending some time together tonight. I am here with Callie. Chris will bring him down for the surgery tomorrow.

I will try to post again tomorrow after Zak's surgery and when Callie gets to start her feeds!

One down - One to Go

Callie's surgeries went well today. The ENT said she did have a lot of thick fluid in one of her ears. Good thing we got tubes, now it can just drain on its own. The General surgeon said the Nissen fundoplication (wrapping the stomach around the esophagus) went well. As well as he would expect anyways. She was admitted to the PICU where she was still intubated until she stabilized. Once she started to breath on her own and started to move they removed the tube. Her pain got away from her a bit today. The nurse did a good job of staying on top of it and talking with the doctor. It was nice to have a good nurse in the hospital - but we usually do in the PICU. We know the nurse that is on tonight which makes it easier to go to Ron's house to sleep. They told us who was all on tonight and we asked for her. Thankfully we were able to get her. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing when you know so many of the nurses. Good - then you know who you work well with or Bad - means we spent to much time there?? Chris is staying in Marshfield tonight. I came home to be with Zak. We will swap out tomorrow afternoon.
We are hoping neurosurgery and neurology will stop by tomorrow to address Callie's twitching episodes. Other than that it is time to rest and heal so we can come home. The doctors thinks we will start feedings on Friday. Depending on how she is doing we hope to be home Sunday or Monday according to the Dr.

Big Smiles :)

Callie had Huge smiles on Friday! We have been able to get her to smile lots now. Of course you have to bounce on a yoga ball and talk silly! She just loves it. Then we laugh and she smiles more. So exciting. I love these days. They are so special

It was a long weekend again. Callie was having another one of her episodes of twitching. It has been about a month since the last major episode. She has had a few small ones, but nothing over concerning. I just feel so bad for her when she gets them. She will twitch and cry. 36 hours later she snapped out of it and had no voice from screaming so much. It breaks our hearts.
Zak did great. He played by himself staying entertained with all his toys. By Sunday afternoon we could tell he just wanted his turn of all the attention. He is such a good boy. He sure loves to kiss now. He still kisses like the puppy dog. Maggie (Grandma and Bumpa's Dog) loves to kiss him. I still think that is where he learned to kiss from. When we ask for kisses he will give a little one on the chin and when you say thank you he gets all excited and licks your whole cheek. I got a good face wash this weekend. All I could do was smile, Laugh and give him a huge hug!

Thank you everyone for Keeping us in your prayers. This will be a big week at our house. We have to be in Marshfield Wednesday morning at 6:00am. Surgery is scheduled to start at 8am. The doctors have agreed to put Callie in the PICU for recovery with her history. We are expected to stay in the hospital 3-5 days. Hopefully she will recover quickly and we can get home sooner rather than later.

Answered Prayers

I am always saying my prayers that the kids stay healthy and away from all the major illnesses going around. Surgery is next week and they both need to stay healthy. Zak's sitter called on Tuesday saying she had strep so she was not at the house. Wednesday she was suppose to come again and her daughter was sick. Later she called and was diagnosed with H1N1. Thank God she did not come over on Tuesday. The last time she was here was Thursday so we have not been exposed. I pray her daughter recovers quickly and starts feeling better.

Pumpkin Patch

Zak went on a field trip today with school, Daddy and Grandma also went with. They went to a local pumpkin patch and took a hay ride. Then they got to pick out a pumpkin. Chris said they had a good time, although it was darn cold out! We had to get out the winter coat, hat and gloves.
We got our first snow of the season yesterday. It stayed in the trees and on the grass, but not on the road. That is the best kind, I love how the trees looked - so relaxing. I wish I would have taken a picture. Now all we need is a fire place to curl up in front of on those days.

We lost a fishy today. We did not even know it was sick. Chris went to feed them and one was floating. I don't know what my deal is I cannot seem to keep fish alive. Any tips?? There are still 4 left. Hopefully they are not all sick.

Somthing to share I received today:

To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. Concentrate on this sentence.... 'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.'

Who matters,Who never did,Who won't anymore....And who always will.
So, don't worry about people from your past,there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future.

What a great weekend

It was nice to relax this weekend and also get something done around the house!
Friday Chris and his dad went duck hunting again and were in by 7. One of my close friends came over for dinner. The kids were even good so we could relax and sit down to eat. When the boys got in from hunting the girls went to get a pedicure and to a local restaurant for desert and drinks. It was so nice to get out of the house and just catch up. She is one of those friends we can talk about the kids, work and most importantly a lot of nothing, but it is all very important. We decided at dessert we were not going to talk about the kids at all. We had so much to say it was not even hard to think of things to catch up. I just love those types of friends! Thanks for a great night out!

Sat I was able to finally clean the bedrooms. They are the last to always get cleaned. It is so nice to walk down the hall and see a clean rooms! Then Sat night we had a nurse on that got here at 6:30. We went out shopping.. nothing fun just the necessities, TP, soap, paper towels you know how that goes when you are almost out of it all. We took Zak with. It was just like the old days when we shopped as a family. We still don't like to take Callie out, especially with her surgery coming up. We just cannot take the chance of her getting sick. Soon we will be going out as a family of 4.

Callie turend 8mo old on Sunday!

A decision has been Made

We finally made a decision regarding Callie's surgery. After many conversations with the doctors we decided to do the nissin fundoplication (Where they wrap the stomach around the esophagus). It was such a hard decision, but it will be best for Callie. Surgery has been scheduled for October 21. We will be in the hospital for 3-4 days assuming all goes as planned.
Zak will have his eyes fixed on he 23rd. It will be another busy week at the hospital.