A Bish Tale: Here We Go Again- Week 15 & 16

Our two weeks at home have been busy with adjustments (hince no blog update). I told Trey that first night back there would two things I would never take for granted, the softness of our bed and our tv. We all settled in quite nicely. Though I had been getting up to feed Brody in the hospital, for some reason I was way more tired doing it all at home. Brody adjusted quite nicely. He took off with his feeding and was a real rock star. Within one week we were able to take out the feeding tube and let him do his thing. We slowly were taking him out a little bit, but not too much. We still didn't want to expose him to too many people for the risk of getting sick. Still it was nice to start to live a normal life outside of the hospital.

We had been going to multiple appointments a week trying to let everyone take a look at him and monitor him. That first week we saw the pediatrician and hematology( blood clot people). These were my first trips out in public with him and I was doing it on my own. Lots of work trying to hold him because he doesn't want to be put down and get bottles together and push a stroller. The second week we had another pediatrician appointment and a cardiology appointment. The cardioogist appointment was a little overwhelming. Our cardiologist is the same dr who did my echos when I was pregnant, so she knew our background. She said the night before our appointment she spent quite a bit of time reading his file from his hospital stay since she had been gone most of the summer. She told me that his echo was conerning particularly that leaky aortic valve. She said that if someone came in off the street with a heart looking like that she would be admitting them to the hospital. Not the most comforting thing to hear. We talked for quite a bit and she said she would be getting with our surgeon to discuss his outlook and plan for Brody so she would know how best to monitor us. She said she would be monitoring him very closely which meant we would be seeing a lot of each other as she wasn't comfortable going more than 3-4 weeks without seeing him. I could live with that and would actually feel better knowing he was being so closely monitored.

Well, over the weekend Brody started slacking on his feeds. There isn't a whole lot of wiggle room since we are trying so hard to get him to catch up on his growth. By Monday, it had gotten to the point where he was finishing less than half a bottle (and we now didn't have a feeding tube to give him the rest). The cardiologist had said she wanted us to call with the slightest sign of funny business, so we decided to give her a call. They wanted us to go ahead and bring him in to be checked out and deep down I knew what that meant.

We have now been admitted to the hospital again. For now, they will be putting the feeding tube back in and monitoring him, but the surgeon and the rest of the cardiologist team will be developing and implamenting a plan for that aortic valve. Trey and I feel comfortable with him being here because he just didn't seem right this last weekend, but are very nervous and scared for the road ahead. I am not ready to send my baby off for his second open heart surgery. I really was hoping we would have more time in between, but it doesn't seem like that will be the case. I am trying to stay calm and not panic, but it's very scary. So, here we go again. So many people have been praying for us along the way and we desparately need the prayers to continue. I don't know exactly what will be going on and how quickly things will happen, but I will try and update as soon as I have more information. Thanks in advance for the love and support.