Best Phone Call Ever!!!

This week's puppy photo. Aaron's appearance is rather shocking at the moment. I am afraid that if our kids were to see him right now it would scare them and possibly give them nightmares. This is the bank of pumps giving Aaron all the medications he needed to get through this weekend. Two of the pumps are off at the moment and one had already been taken away. At one point he had 11 pumps running at the same time and 6 lines going into him. This picture has already given me nightmares!

First day of school 2011. Can you see how excited Joseph is to start school again!

This is a photo of Aaron last week before he was re-intubated. You can see his face had already begun to swell at this point. His face and body are about 4 times the size he is in this picture.

I headed up to check on Aaron this morning to find 8 different people in his room. I turned around and realized 4 more had filed in behind me. Its hard not to get nervous when that many people are in your son's room at the hospital. 2 of the people were in readjusting one of Aaron's pic lines. One was his nurse for the day, one was the Attending, another the pharmacist, respiratory therapist, fellow, and nurse practitioner. The 4 who followed me in were cardiologists from Primary's. Yes 4 of them! (I wondered if they were all here, who was left over at the other hospital???) Even with Aaron being the only baby in the room it was a bit crowded! They were right in the middle of rounds when I arrived so the n.p. quickly caught me up.

Aaron had an echo early this morning, they discontinued the dopamine, had plans to wean him down on two more of his heart and lung meds depending on good echo results, give a transfusion, and give more lasiks to try to flush more of his fluid out.

After rounds were over most of the people left and Aaron's n.p., nurse, me, and the cardio team remained. The Cardio Attending came right over introduced himself, shook my hand, and expressed his sympathy over Aaron's illness. I about fell over in shock! This guy was great! He spoke to me directly, asked me questions, gave me his recommendations and said he would continue to follow up through out the day as the echo results came in. Two of the fellows he brought with him also examined Aaron and asked me a few questions. When they excused themselves I looked over at Aaron's nurse and he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, you don't see that every day!"

After things settled down I read to Aaron. I have been reading him Treasure Island these last few weeks. Today we finished the book. At one point I looked up to see Dr. Yost the Attending who was on over the weekend. He had come in to check on how things were going and see what the plans for today were. I said hello and he asked how we were doing. When he left Aaron's nurse said he was amazed at the attention Aaron was getting. I asked him what he meant by that. He said Dr. Yost had actually been in 3 times that morning to see how things were going, Dr. Yoder the head of the department had been in, every n.p. who was on came to see him, every o.t., and every nurse who had ever had him that was on today had come to see him as well. He also said there were several nurses requesting to have his assignment. I laughed (laughing is better than crying!) and said his rock star status may just go to his head. He said "rock star" was absolutely the right term for him and that anyone who has been near him has been touched by his little spirit. He also said that if Aaron continues to improve he would most likely get a neighbor tomorrow. I told him we were happy not to be "critical" anymore and that "stable" was a great place to be today!

This afternoon a phone call came in from the U. I couldn't help but cringe and take a deep breath. Aaron's n.p. was calling with his echo results. His echo showed that his pulmonary hypertension was no longer present, his PDA was down graded to moderate, he had only left to right flow, his VSD was diminishing, and the function on both sides of his heart looked normal. I was shocked and said she could not have called with better news! The plan to wean him off two of his meds had already started and so far he was tolerating them really well. His FIO2 was down to 25! Unbelievable!