Monday, June 21, 2010

A New Way of Life

We spent last Saturday at the hospital and did our “room in” with Carson to show everyone that we are capable of taking care of him. We got to the hospital at 10:30 am and stayed until 7:00 pm. We were put in a private family room and given some times for when we needed to do our “cares” for Carson. We found that he needs to be suctioned often when he is awake, but not much when he is sleeping. He also let us know that he doesn’t like to have his diaper changed. Everything went really well and Heather and I feel capable of taking care of Carson by ourselves. We’ll just see how things go when we get him home. It will be a big adjustment for us, but it will be very good for Carson to be at home.

We’re gearing up for bring Carson home sometime this week. We’ve run into a few snags with paperwork getting from the hospital to our insurance so it’s delayed his departure. We were thinking Wednesday or Thursday, but our insurance told us that even though they can approve the night nursing by Wednesday, that it will take some time for the nursing company to get that info and get nurses lined up for Carson. So we’re not totally sure what day that will be now; hopefully still this week or this weekend.

Carson’s room is starting more and more to look like a hospital. On Saturday the home care company brought us his oxygen saturation and heart monitor, his feeding pump, and his suction machine. We’ve also got an IV stand and will be getting a humidifier machine and oxygen tanks. UPS delivered three large boxes of medical supplies full of stuff to take care of Carson’s trach. We’ll also be getting supplies for his g-tube and other odds and ends that we requested from the home care company. It’s all a little overwhelming, but we’re hanging in there.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

We're Still Here

I do apologize for not posting any blogs in the last two weeks. It has been a little crazy around here with me getting sick and Jorrey taking a trip home last weekend. On the bright side, everything that I have to report is good news; so here it is!

Carson is doing very well and has been healed of the pneumonia. He is getting his last dose of antibiotics tomorrow. He is also back on breast milk and continues to have his feeding times decrease. Having a G-tube, he gets fed over a time period. It started at 3 hours and has been decreased down to 2 hours. They are trying to have him be fed just as quickly as gravity allows, meaning that he would get his food into his stomach within 10 minutes. Once he gets to this point, he will be ready to go home. They have said this could be within a week.

As for his Brady spells; the doctors haven’t expressed a lot of concern about those lately. They think that they are caused by stimulation of the vagal nerve. This is common with babies that are premature and that have a lot going on medically. Coughing, getting suctioned, or needing to be suctioned are things that seem to bother Carson the most. But, his spells haven’t lasted very long if Carson gets suctioned quickly. So it looks like we don’t have to wait one week after every time that happens for Carson to be able to go home.

We’re trying to not get too excited since things are ever changing here, but we’re excited! The last two things that need to be done for Carson to come home are taking the G-tube class, which we are doing Tuesday and doing a room-in, staying 24 hours at the hospital with Carson to prove that we can take care of him. Well, we’re ready so bring it on. Even though this will be difficult, God will carry us though.