Happy Day After Mother's Day!

Well, today we had another checkup for Thomas. And what happens at checkups? That's right they do echo's, find fluid around heart, and admit him to the ICU. The day after Mother's Day was no different. He is perfectly happy, you wouldn't know anything thing was wrong, but he has to go in for another surgery since this is the second time this complication has occurred. They opened up his chest, and evacuated the fluid, they said it was under a lot of pressure, and the main reason was to cut a hole and create a window, so the fluid will drain from the space around his heart into the space around his lungs, since the lungs can apparently handle it better, and it's not as dangerous for the fluid to collect there. They put in another chest tube to monitor how much is draining. The only good news is that he was already off the ventilator by the time they brought him up to us. So now he is in the ICU for probably a week or two until the fluid subsides and the hole heals, but who knows. He is stable and seems in good spirits, but it is sure frustrating and scary especially since he showed no signs of distress. Julie practically lives in Phoenix now, and I have started going back and forth and going to work. trying to save some vacation days because we are all going to need one when this is all over. Keep praying for our sweet Thomas.

Happy Mothers Day!

Its finally here! my very first Mothers Day!!
It has definitely been a roller coater ride to get to this point, as many of you know it took us three very long and heart breaking years to get to this point. I definitely have been broken in to the whole motherhood role, I have been thrown up on three times in the last few days, I have been in and out of the ICU, I don't sleep very well through the night because I feel that I have to check on Thomas to make sure he is alright about 10 times a night. In spite of all that has gone wrong for us and for Thomas I am so excited and Blessed That he is in our lives. I have also had a great Mothers Day so far, Paul got me gift cards to my favorite places (Kohl's and Olive Garden) he also gave me an awesome bath pillow and bubble bath, because I love baths and I could stay there all day, especially after being thrown up on so many times. He was also my slave for a day. I also wanted to thank my mom for the gift she gave me I think it was about a pound of fudge (which is almost gone, sadly) she always knows just what to get me when I am having a tough time!

Anything that can go wrong....

So, we took Thomas for his final post-surgical checkup with the cardiologist. Expecting to be the last time we were in Phoenix for a while, we hoped to get the, everything looks good we'll see you in six months, or at the worst, we'll see you in three months.

Well, after they performed an echo (ultrasound) on his heart, the cardiologist comes in and tells us he has a very large amount of fluid around his heart pushing on one side, most likely its inflamation from surgery, but we absolutely need to go in and get it, and keep him overnight. Of course...

So they put Thomas out, back on the breathing tube, back in the ICU, and they perform the procedure to go take it out. They remove about a 1/4 of a cup, oh except its not clear inflamation, its not blood, it doesn't appear to be an infection, well... we don't know what it is exactly. Analyze, wait, culture, wait some more. We think it's fat cells from his diet.....???? Who knows what's going on, but one night just turned into a likely week, as he has drained another 1/2 cup of milky substance out the cathetors they left lying up next to his heart. They are talking about putting him on a low fat diet to try and seal what they think is a breach is some lipid line... that oh yeah... wa probably nicked during surgery. If that doesn't work, did I mention he won't take a bottle, never would, then if the whole is big enough then we're talking more surgery.

I'm just ranting here while I ran home to get supplies, for the unexpected stay, we obviously didn't take anything with us, and just wanted to catch everyone up on our "perfect" lives.

-Paul

Cell phone pictures from this time around... at least he's smiling that makes one of us.