June 16 2014

Thank goodness.

I realize that’s an alarming headline so let me tell you a little bit about it.
Since Otto’s been home from Seattle Children’s he’s not totally been himself. He’s had a low grade fever and a runny nose. I’d consider it his second “official” sick.
The first time being when we had to be in the ICU for a week or so.
Otto’s goes big. :) More accurately, Otto is good at scaring the bejesus out of his parents.

When we were discharged they gave us a list of things that should they manifest in Otto, we should reach out to the on-call nurse for evaluation. Lethargy and vomiting were both on that list (among other things).
Otto woke up this morning and something was amiss. He just didn’t really move out of his blankets and just kinda laid there.
About an hour later when he had two massive vomiting episodes- these weren’t spit-ups, they were full-on stomach...

June 13 2014

We may not be out of the woods yet.
We had an appointment with our pediatrician today, when we were discharged from the hospital they set us up with several appointments and this was one of them.

She was alarmed to measure that his head circumference is larger than she’d expected to see. She logged into the Children’s database (she spends some of her time at Children’s) to see if there were any head circumference measurements posted there from our time post-op and there were not. Nick and I don’t remember them taking measurements of his head as Otto was recovering, which in hindsight does seem odd given that Otto’s ventricles are a issue that they are monitoring.

We left our appointment today with a promise from our pediatrician that she’d connect with Neurosurgery and will get back to us by the end of the day. In the time it took me to drive home (15 minutes), she’d...

June 11 2014

I am thrilled to be writing this post from the comfort of my own bed. Otto is in the cot right next to me, Nick is wrapping up the Mariner’s game out in the living room. The only thing missing is Buster who is still at nana and papa’s house.
What a relief.

Nick and I both agreed this trip to the hospital was a walk in the park compared to last time. Hands down.

Otto did great today. Slept through a big chunk of the morning then ate a good amount for the rest of the day. The team felt really comfortable sending him home, especially since we live so close. If anything starts to worry us we can drive back in no time.

Otto immediately started snow plowing when we put him on the floor. Nick and I were cringing but he doesn’t have any restrictions on how he moves his body so if he is willing, he can do it. If you aren’t familiar with snow plowing its a common mode of...

June 11 2014

Otto and mom slept most of the morning away. This was after a big feed Otto had, which was great.
His swollen face and stuffy nose are much better since we propped him up into a sitting position this morning.
The nurse did a big, icky suction and cleared him out and he’s way better, though still congested. Very manageable though.
He woke up about an hour and a half ago. Drank some, got a diaper change. Mom and dad got to cuddle with him. Dad read to him. Mom danced for him. He’s in great, great spirits.
This time yesterday things were all good so we’ll see how the next few hours go.
This morning they said there is still a possibility that they may be able to discharge him later today. We’ll just wait and see.
Thank you Vertafore folks for the flowers, they just arrived! Thank you Anna for the gifts that keep on giving (Reagan magazine for Nick, gardening magazine for...

June 11 2014

Last night wasn’t the most fun though.
The throwing up was scary but once we knew an IV was going in it was more about dealing with discomfort.
Otto got an IV put in at midnight. They had to do it twice, poor guy. I got him comfy and then at around 5 am they woke him up for oral meds and he didn’t like that.
He hadn’t peed, strange since he’d been on fluids. When the nurse left I tried to feed him. Yahtzee! He drank 4 oz of Pedialyte and 5 oz milk. However, he has a green snotty nose (they’ve done suction this morning) and his left side of the face is all swollen due to the combo of the fluids and sleeping on it.

We think yesterday might have been a little too exciting. Today we are taking it real slow and quiet.
I am actually coming down with something. My glands are swollen and I’m just not feeling so hot.
I’m going to try to sleep as much of the day away as...

June 10 2014

Shoot! Just now the nurse wrote him up to do vitals and he threw up again.
He’s getting an IV for fluids and anti nausea meds.
We aren’t sure what’s going on but hopefully it pass quickly. She said it doesn’t necessarily blow his chances of going home tomorrow but we will see.
He’s had quite a long couple days.

June 10 2014

Otto was transferred to the floor today. He spent most of the day pretty darn well, he’s still pretty good but around midday he became very disinterested in eating and drinking. Then he threw up several times. By 9 pm he’d thrown up 4 times (all bile in the end) and hasn’t really consumed anything since 1:30 pm.
The doctors are keeping an eye on him. We expressed our fear of dehydration and the plan is that we will watch him. If he throws up again before 11 p.m. they will iv him and get him fluids.
What is weird is that he’s been in awesome spirits. He barely napped today and was really thrilled to have nana, papa, grandma, auntie Erin and Anna come visit.
We had a visit from a couple of clowns. Otto got his bandage off (disclaimer..I’m going to include the incision photo at the very bottom of this post). He’s rolling a bit, he doesn’t have any mobility restrictions. His...

June 10 2014

This guy is a real amazing kiddo. He’s going real easy on us.
He’s a little out of it from the oxy and they are attempting to transition him off the hard stuff and onto a regimen of Tylenol and ibupro.
This little ninja managed to pull out one of his hand IVs this morning right when the clever sock was temporarily removed. He timed it well, smart cookie. Message was received, I’m over the IVs. A little later they were able to remove the other one so his hands are free.
We’s fussed on and off. He woke up a few times in the night. The bottle warmer situation continues to be obnoxious because unauthorized warmers are not allowed, we don’t have a fridge in our room here which means that we do need their 20-minutes-peepee-warm warmer along with them to get our milk for us. Ugh. Oh well.
Nick got some sleep. Mom did not. Otto got some too and is currently napping.

We are...

June 9 2014

How many of you read the part where we weren’t doing oxy and/or morphine and thought to yourselves uh oh

We learned our lesson- we’ll add that to the list of parenting mistakes we’ve achieved for far. :)
Otto was napping, the nurse was watching him for us while we went down to get food, I had big plans to take a shower. We thought we were smooth sailing for the rest of the night. Hah.

Otto was a owie little guy. It took about 15 minutes for the drugs to take affect. Of course it felt much longer. It didn’t help that he yanked out the IV that had been in his foot artery. It also didn’t help that the hospital bottle warmer is a load of hooey.

Here’s a little tip for all you pump, freeze, defrost, warm and feed moms out there. If you have a trip to the hospital you’d best bring your own bottle warmer. Depending on the nurse you have you’ll either have to hide it (because...