Happy Birthday Mommy

Today is Tracey's birthday. To my best friend, a wonderful wife and an excellent mother. You have been part of my life for 11 years now and day after day, I fall further in love with you. Colby and Evan are lucky to have you as their mother, a mentor and friend. I hope as you look in the mirror today you see what we see every day.....a strong, beautiful, loving woman.

Colby, Evan and I wish you a very Happy Birthday!

Love Sunday Mornings

("so, mommy, you think you're going to try to feed me yogurt today?")


("um....nope...I'm not feelin' it. No yogurt for me today!")

("ha-ha, I didn't eat the yogurt!")

("ow man, so you cleaned me up and threw a pile of...um....crumbled "stuff" on my plate. Can I have the yogurt back?").

(How can you get mad at this little guy?)

Knock on wood, his incision seems to be healing without any complications. He was a very happy camper yesterday. All smiles. I think yesterday he was feeling best he has in a couple weeks.

He's still not eating like he used to. I think it's just a phase, not related to anything with his shunt or surgery. He's just picky as anything now. If you find something he's in the mood for, he'll eat it like a champ. But if it's not to his liking, you can't even get him to open his mouth!

Tracey has been working 3rd shift Friday and Saturday nights, 10pm to 6am. It just changed this week to Saturday and Sunday nights. I'm really not thrilled that my wife has to work third shifts. But both of our attitudes are that we will do whatever we need to and simply get through it all. We talk about how once Colby's able to go to a daycare or preschool, it will be so much better. Right now, someone has to be home with Colby. He can't go to daycare because of his lungs. We wouldn't want to put him in daycare all week, but it would allow Tracey and I to have a more "normal" work schedule. We juggle who's working days and evenings to ensure someone is able to watch Colby. My mom has been a HUGE help watching Colby Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings which allows Tracey and I to both work that day. I'm sure many parents out there have similar stories.

Anyway, so Tracey gets home a little after 6am on Sunday mornings and goes right to bed. That puts me on Colby duty. He and I have a regular routine we follow. Once I hear him stirring, I get up, start warming his bottle and brewing my coffee. Once both are about ready, I go get him from his crib and we make our way into the living room, with a stop in the kitchen to get our beverages. I plug him with a bottle and start enjoying my coffee. He'll often look over at me. We'll "talk" to each other. I'll say something to him. He'll give me a smile showing off his two bottom teeth. Or he'll babble something back to me. I'm sure he knows exactly what he's telling me. But for now, it's pure babble to me. Then we hang out together. Sometimes we play, sometimes we both do our own thing. It's just a nice, quiet start to the day.

Colby's funny when he sees either pictures of himself or of other babies. He looks at them very intently and often smiles or laughs. There's a picture of a baby on the yo-baby yogurt he eats. So he smiles when he sees that. I'll show him pictures or movies of himself and he's captivated. I'll try to get some videos of him reacting and post them.

...and a couple more things...

I forgot to mention a couple things about Colby's recent "adventure". I finally asked the doctor about his PVL. For those who don't remember, PVL is essentially dead spots in the brain. A severe brain bleed can cause areas of the brain to die. At first we were told that we should feel lucky because Colby didn't have any PVL. Then months later, when talking with the neurosurgeon, I made the comment that he made it through his brain bleed without any PVL. The neurosurgeon corrected me and stated that he did if fact have some PVL. I was so in shock that I didn't think to ask how severe it was. It can be little spots the size of sand or huge areas of the brain. So, I figured as long as I had the neurosurgeon's in the room, I'd ask. He said it was very minor. That's all I needed to hear. I don't care where in the brain it is, exactly how much...etc. That simply put my fears to rest.
Secondly, some of you may recall that before Colby had his shunt placed this past February, they first tried a third ventricalostomy when they when through the top of his head, down through his brain, through the ventricle to the bottom and cut a small hole in the bottom to allow the cerebral fluid to drain. At first it seemed like it was working. Then we noticed his head was starting to get larger again and the CAT scan showed that it failed. Well apparently the success rate for a third ventricalostomy is rather low for children under 2 years of age. But the success rate increased dramatically as the individual gets older. So in the event that Colby's shunt malfunctions in the future, they may try another third ventricalostomy to avoid having to deal with a shunt.
So that's it. Just a couple other rather important details that I forgot to mention.
Colby continues to do well. Birth to three came this morning and said he is lacking in upper body strength. Tracey or I could have told them that. He have never liked pushing himself up. So we need to work on that.
He isn't eating too much since he came home from the hospital. And even prior to that he's been a very picky eater. That's not like him. So the doctor today told us to start keeping track of how much he's eating and what he's eating. It's funny how you never know how things may change. We were counting our blessings that he was a good eater...now he's apparently changed his mind. We'll just have to do what we can to tackle that and get him back on track!

Colby's home and doing well

We were discharged from the hospital yesterday morning. The doctors said everything was looking good and that we just need to watch for signs of infection or that the shunt isn't working properly. We have a follow up appt with the doctor for December 23rd.

Colby was a bit groggy and a little cranky yesterday. But that's to be expected. He's back to his normal self today, playing and babbling away.

They put quite a bit of tape on his poor little head (see pictures above). That's not going to be fun for him when we take it off.

So we're back to life as "normal". Thank all of you for your comments and e-mail. I've said it before...it honestly means a lot to be able to vent via the blog and to have the support of so many.

Update from Colby's hospital room

(Colby out cold recovering from his shunt replacement)

Well, Tracey called the neurosurgeon this morning because Colby wasn't getting any better. They asked that she bring him into the hospital around 8:30 where they did a CAT scan and discovered that he had outgrown his shunt and it was malfunctioning, thus putting pressure on his brain again.

Colby went into surgery around 2pm this afternoon to have a longer tube put into his ventricle.

He's doing well tonight. Very tired and pretty groggy. But he took his bottle and even ate some Cheerios. They've got him hooked up to a bunch of monitors. It's been a while since we had to juggle the wires and probes when holding him. Boy does it bring back memories!

The plan is that I'll stay with him through the night. The doctors will take a look at him and if all looks well, he'll come home tomorrow. Amazing that someone can have surgery that puts something through their brain one day and then they're sent home the next!!!

Both Tracey and I are exhausted. We've been taking shifts over the past couple nights to watch over him at home. She's been taking care of him the past two days while I worked. We've both been worried about his condition, wondering if it was his shunt. Now that we have our answers and his surgery is done, we're relieved and tired.

So that's the latest. I'll post more tomorrow after the doctors come in.

Sick little guy

The last couple days have been long ones. Colby has been pretty sick since Sunday evening. He started throwing up around 8pm Sunday and hasn't stopped since. He just happened to have a doctor's appt yesterday so the doctor looked at him and thought it was just a stomach bug. All his symptoms mirror that of a stomach bug...vomiting, irritability, being more tired. But when a baby has hydrocephalus and a shunt in their head, you have to question if this means his shunt is malfunctioning. Signs of a shunt malfunction include vomiting, irritability, being more tired than usual. Hmm, sounds familiar. Other signs of a shunt malfunction include loss of fine motor skills, impaired use of parts of the body, enlarging head and "sunsetting" of the eyes meaning the eyes will look straight down and the person won't be bring their eyes up. Thus far, we haven't seen any signs of these. But Colby is totally not himself. To be safe, if he doesn't show some signs of improvement today we're going to bring him to the hospital. They can either do a CAT scan or put a needle into his shunt to test the pressure to see if it's working properly. We don't want to be paranoid, but we can't be complacent either.
Colby's sleeping on the couch, all wrapped in blankets next to me. Tracey stayed up with him most of Sunday night. Last night, she took the first half of the night, I took "second shift". He took about 5 ounces of Pedialyte for me around 4 this morning and thus far has thrown up twice since then, but not much is coming up. So at least he's able to keep some in his belly.
The doctor also said yesterday that Colby had lost weight. He was down to about 17 pounds. Although this could have been because he was sick, he had only been throwing up for less than 24 hours at that time. So they may end up sending us to a specialist to see if he's able to absorb all he is supposed to.
So that's the latest. As always, life is full of it's ups and downs. Colby's sleeping on the couch, all wrapped in blankets next to me. With a little luck, today will bring some better news for him.

Just some pics

There's our boy!!!

(Colby wearing his new polar bear hat as we went to get our X-mas tree today)

(Colby and mommy at Colby's first X-mas party)

(I love Colby's expression here)

(Colby and the best big brother in the world!)