Tag: Family

Recuperating from Surgery

I was amazed at how much it seemed like she wasn’t in much pain. One of the nurses told me that the little babies tend to bounce back really quickly. My 2 week old daughter had open heart surgery and all she needed was a little bit of pain medicine few days.

Getting back onto the story of Isabel’s birth. If you missed any of the previous posts you can check them out here:

I was amazed at how much it seemed like she wasn’t in much pain. One of the nurses told me that the little babies tend to bounce back really quickly. My 2 week old daughter had open heart surgery and all she needed was a little bit of pain medicine few days. Crazy…

A few days after the surgery, we were able to start holding Isabel again. Her heart block was still hanging around and the doctors and nurses where having a little trouble figuring out exactly what was going on. By the fifth day after surgery her heart beat was getting back to normal and the sixth day after the surgery they went ahead and removed the chest tubes and the pacemaker wires. It was nice to not have to worry about her possibly having to get an internal pacemaker and it was great to not have as many wires hooked up to her.

The next big milestone for Isabel is to get back to the amount she was eating before the surgery. She went for a few days getting all her nutrition from an IV and it is going to take a little bit of time before she is taking everything by mouth again. We had been working on it but it was going very slowly.

Once we knew that Isabel was in the clear after the surgery Jen and I decide that I should head back to Crested Butte. My parents would be coming into town in a few days and Jen’s mom had been watching Addison for over 2 weeks by herself. I was looking forward to getting back home to spend some time with Addison and have a night or two of sleep in my bed again.

Let’s Go To The Zoo – Pictures

We made it home to Crested Butte safely and now it is time to catch up on some sleep. Hope you enjoy the Zoo pictures. Tomorrow I will be getting back to Isabel’s Birth Series.

One of my favorite movie quotes of all time is in Jerry Maguire when the little boy asks to go to the Zoo. I can’t even talk about the Zoo without thinking about it. Well the good thing is that the Denver Zoo wasn’t closed today.

We made it home to Crested Butte safely and now it is time to catch up on some sleep. Hope you enjoy the Zoo pictures. Tomorrow I will be getting back to Isabel’s Birth Series.

Denver Cath Trip Pictures

Here are some pictures from the dive to Denver and today’s Catheterization. Everything went well, it was just a long and stressful day. Enjoy the pictures!

Here are some pictures from the dive to Denver and today’s Catheterization. There probably will not be another long post until we are back in Crested Butte. Driving home tomorrow after a trip to the Zoo! Everything went well today, it was just a long and stressful day. Enjoy!

Small Town Problems?

Today’s trip to Denver was uneventful which is always the goal. We got out of the house on time and made it to the hospital early enough to each lunch before Isabel’s G-Tube checkup.

Today’s trip to Denver was uneventful which is always the goal. We got out of the house on time and made it to the hospital early enough to each lunch before Isabel’s G-Tube checkup. It went well. Tomorrow is going to be the stressful day of this trip but hopefully there will be good news by the end.

I think I have been living in a small town for too long. We went out to eat at a chain restaurant for dinner and they had UFC or something like that on every TV. Now, don’t get me wrong I think it is fun to watch but my 3 year old daughter doesn’t need to watch that kind of stuff. It would be one thing if we were there late or even sitting in the bar but we sat down to eat at 6:30 at a table in the middle of the restaurant. I never complained to our waitress but looking back I wish I would have.

Am I out of line to think this is a little ridiculous?

Back From Surgery

If you missed any of the previous posts about Isabel’s birth you can check them out here:

I was a great distraction for us to have Addison still in town for Isabel’s surgery. We had lunch downstairs with her and Mamaw PJ before they headed back to Crested Butte. One of the nurses would come out and talk to us or give us a call every 45 minutes or so to let us know how things were going. She told us that the surgeon decided to go with a procedure where he used a cadaver artery as a conduit connecting the right ventricle to an area of the pulmonary artery that had some blood flow already. One of the rules they told us is “If it flows it grows”, so the goal was to provide more blood through her pulmonary artery in helping the artery grow. We received word that the surgery was a success and we would be able to go see Isabel in her room.

Fair Warning

I am going to talk in detail about what Isabel looked like when we got back to her room and include some pictures as well. They are hard to look at and I completely understand if you don’t want to see a week old baby like that. I am including them because it is what we went through and is part of the experience. You will not offend me if you don’t continue reading.

When we got to her room she was on her bassinet and there was a nurse and doctor that were making sure everything was setup exactly right. She had a blanket over her and the nurse told us that we are welcome to move the blanket and sit around her but they didn’t want us to move her. We could touch her head and let her know that we were there but that was about it.

We removed the blanket and she had a 4 inch long bandage over the incision on her chest. She had 2 chest tubes for drainage coming out from below her ribs and 2 wires attached to an external pacemaker coming from just above where the tubes were. She was in 3rd degree heart block. This means that her heart would not beat normally and she was completely reliant on the pacemaker. The doctor told us that they were a concerned about it because they did not cut on the heart in any places where it would have cause the issue she as experiencing. They were going to keep a very close eye on it and normally little kids start to come out of the heart block a few hours or even a few days after. If it did not go back to normal after a week then they might have to replace the external pacemaker with an internal one.

We spent the next few hours making sure Isabel knew that we were there and watching the nurses and doctors. This surgery was the first of what will be many that she ultimately has in her life. I don’t know if I will ever get used to seeing my little girl like this but it is much better than any alternatives.