Home from the hospital

This morning went pretty smoothly with getting things done and getting ready to leave the hospital this morning.  Some people from Peds surgery came by around 6:30a and looked at her surgery site and said it looked great.  We all went back to sleep for a little while.  That was the nice thing too, being able to sleep in her room since that was not at all possible in the NICU due to space constraints and their overall set up.  It was comforting being near her all night!  So...back to what I was saying before...we all went back to sleep and woke up around 7:30a.  I got a bottle ready for Zoey to eat and Dad changed her diaper and watched the nurse do her overall assessment.  We asked there were any expectations for the day that the nurse knew of.  She said just wait to get the ok from the powers that be that we can get out of here.  Around 9:00a, Dr. Ishatani (her surgeon from yesterday) and Jackie (the Peds NP) came in and looked at her surgery site as well.  They were both really pleased with how it looked.  Jackie showed us basic site care and warned us of things to looked for and told us to follow up in a few weeks when we come back down for Zoey's hearing test at the beginning of October unless something came up sooner.  Zoey was all back to her normal self when she woke up this morning and didn't mind it one bit as Jackie pulled the packing out of the site and put more in.  Of course, she wanted to help Jackie by having her hands in the way but we needed to keep her little fingers out of there so she wasn't sticking her fingers into the actual site itself since it's still open some.  Zoey was such a good girl though all of it though! She also hadn't gotten any pain medication since the night before and seemed to be doing well.  She was great while we packed up and slept the whole way home.  Overall, that was about the best trip to the hospital we could have asked for.

Before we actually left the hospital, we swung over into the NICU to see some of our nurses and doctors who worked with Zoey so they could see her progress.  I think we really made their day, but especially one of her Drs, because in true Zoey fashion, she worked the crowd and smiled soooo big at him when he said Hi to her.  Apparently he was having a fairly stressful morning and he said that just completely made his day!  She really seemed to like him and he felt it!  The best part for me...everyone kept telling us how big she is and it's nice to hear that since everyone else in the world loves telling us how cute and little she is.  My response soon will be "No, she's a giant!" since she is compared to how tiny she started life.  It's all a matter of perspective and I realize that so I try to just smile and silently agree with them, but most really have no idea how far she's come so it's nice to be around those that do sometimes!!

Surgery #4

This morning started very early as we needed to leave the house around 5am and my Mom met us down there.  Thankfully we were the first case for the day so they took Zoey to the OR around 9:45am.  The surgery took less than an hour from start to finish and we were back in the recovery room with her around 11:15am.  They were able to extubate her right away unlike the other surgeries.  They said she did very well and apparently there was no shortage of people wanting to hold her.  They said "Her face is so sweet...everyone just wants to hold her!"  That was comforting at least.  The surgeon said he stitched her stomach lining shut after removing the scar tissue and stitched it with a double layer or something to that effect.  He literally said "Then we put that back in her and moved to the abdominal wall."  That was a lovely picture.  He went on to say he only put 2 sutures on the abdominal wall after removing the scar tissue there.  He said this would leave a bigger scar in the long run but it allows any germs and potential infection to get out before it starts healing from the inside out and from the sides inward.  He said she could later have plastic surgery if she really wanted to be an Abercrombie & Fitch model later in life like her Dad (HaHa!) but he said she's had so many surgeries on her belly that she wouldn't likely be a model without some scarring.  I guess time will tell what she chooses to do there.

We only sat in the recovery room for about 15 minutes because she didn't require oxygen, had good color, and was waking up pretty well overall.  We took her back upstairs to her room for the night.  She and Daddy took a snooze for a little while after getting back up there.  Then she woke up and remembered she was practically starving since we hadn't let her eat for about 10 hours.  She took an ounce, then another ounce about 15 minutes later, then another ounce 10 or 15 minutes after that, then another ounce.  Then she laid in my arms comfortably until I moved her and Blllaaahhhhh...she threw most of it back up.  We think the combination of anesthesia and the motrin they had just given her was enough to make her sick.  She fell asleep for a while and we went to lunch.  When we came back we tried to have her eat again and she took 2 ounces and fell back asleep.  She doesn't seem to be in too much pain right now and while we were gone the nurse gave her more motrin since she probably puked up most of the last dose.

We will just hang out in here for the night and hope to go home in the morning.  From the sounds of it that's pretty realistic since she has done very well so far.  Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes!!

I tried to add some photos but it wouldn't let me :-(  I will have Ray try so keep checking back!

NICU clinic follow-up

The past month has gone by so fast since my last update.  My apologies for not getting any pictures up but I will make up for it!  On the 9th of this month Zoey turned 8 months old but also hit the point where we've now had her home as long as we had her in the hospital (exactly 4 months at each place).  That is a great feeling and feel like another milestone somehow.  She's also learned how to roll over, can almost sit up totally with her own strength, has discovered her feet, and loves to stick out her tongue.  We also have heard her giggle a couple times which completely warms the heart!

After LOTS of searching, I was also able to find a nanny for this fall and winter.  This was an exhausting process but it all worked out in the end as I knew it would.  We still keep our first nanny on a few days a month so Zoey remembers who she is.  I had so much anxiety on the new nanny's first day with her, but she seemed to be capable and caring and asked questions when she had them.  I still don't like change it turns out.  But we're adjusting and things are going well with it.

This past Tuesday we went back to Rochester for her big NICU clinic follow-up day.  The NICU does this with all prior NICU families to help monitor and catch if there are any issues that arise and need to be addressed.  They give preemies 2 years to "catch up" both in size and in cognitive development.  We met with a nutritionist, an occupational/physical therapist, a social worker, and a doctor that morning.  It was set up very efficiently because they put you in a room in the morning and all the different providers rotate through the rooms of families.  All went well and they were very pleased with her progress overall.  They said she's right on pace for her gross motor and fine motor skill development and is tracking and watching things the way she should for her adjusted age.  Despite some issues with feeding recently, the nutritionist was also happy with her weight gain since it had been exactly 2 months since her g tube was removed.  She said just to keep feeding her and told us ways to start working her off the overnight feed since we're down to just one now and when we can start the rice cereal.  She now weighs 11lbs, 10.5ozs!  She seems a bit more responsive to hearing things on her right side than her left side so as a precaution we're going to have a hearing test done in the beginning of October just to check since issues with hearing can also be a side effect of prematurity.  The Dr wasn't overly concerned with this since he was pleased with the range of noises she was making but said it doesn't hurt to do one to see where things are at.

The only real issue we had going into the appointments was that her g tube hole is still open especially since it has been exactly 2 months now.  Fortunately they were able to fit us in to see the nurse practitioner in Peds Surgery and it also happened to be the NP that has followed her case the whole way through.  She took one look at it and said "It will never close unless we do something" to which I responded "And that something is...?"  She said there's too much scar tissue built up around that g tube hole and in the stomach lining preventing it from closing and it will need to be cut out.  We then sadly found out that Zoey's surgeon left about a month ago to Iowa and we'd have to pick another one.  Nooooo!  We're hoping everything goes well with it since he's not familiar with her case but it sounds like they were still going to consult her original surgeon prior to surgery since he knows her inside and out...literally.  Apparently they still won't stitch her shut, just remove all the scar tissue.  They want to still let her heal naturally and say that it should once the scar tissue isn't there preventing that from happening.  So this coming Tuesday, she will have surgery #4 under her belt.  Thankfully this should be the least invasive but we still pray all goes well!  We'll give an update after surgery when we can to let you all know how it went.  Prayers are welcome!