Change her name

Lisa was reading to Gabe this morning and I heard,

"That is SO weird, she never even rides a bike! And they call her Little Red RIDING Hood."

I tried to explain that it probably had something to do with riding horses and the cape she wore was a riding cape so that was the base reference to riding hood--blah, blah, blah. We're so used to the name we don't think about it, kids do.

What would you call her so it would make sense to kids? Anything I'm coming up with just falls flat.

One Down One to Go

Gabe is playing ball and reading books with Lisa, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I'm still amazed.

Chet is taking off for Wausau in thirty minutes. Ellen is acting as his designated driver. We don't know what to expect in terms of the length of surgery. He's only been warned that he will be "out of it" from the anesthesia for awhile and in quite a bit of pain.

Please pray with us that this surgery is successful and will alleviate many of the issues Chet has struggled with for the past few years. We're thankful that God led us to someone who was finally able to diagnose the problem.

I will update you this evening. Until then, I'm going to hang out with Gabe and sew bridesmaids' dresses....

Day Three

Here, finally, are the pictures I promised. Gabe is doing unbelievably, remarkably, asontishingly (insert your favorite adverb) well. If there had room on the ultrasound schedule this morning we would probably be heading home right now! Follow the picture story and I'll give you the run down.

In the hotel room before surgery and after his bath. Gabe loved sitting propped in bed with the pillows by Daddy.



Just an hour before surgery on Thursday an unsuspecting Gabe thoroughly enjoyed the playroom.




Here he is in his room at 2 PM following the open heart surgery. His connections include: a catheter, a chest drainage tube, two pace leads (in case his heart needed pacemaker/type help--it didn't), an IV line in each ankle, an arterial line in one wrist, two IV lines in the other wrist, three lines in his neck, a brain oxygen sensor, a kidney oxygen sensor, an overall blood oxygen sensor, and I think that's all. The functions of the lines included administering fluids, antibiotics, pain medications and detecting pulse, temperature, arterial blood pressure, venous blood pressure, and respiratory rate.





Believe it or not, these pictures were taken just 28 hours later, on Friday evening. The only attachments remaining here are the two pace leads and an IV lead in his left ankle!! Gabe spent Friday evening playing in the playroom, reading books and playing toys and cars in our room, and watching the Disney and Nick channels. He especially enjoyed Dora the Explorer, Diego, and High School Musical. In between times he was up in the bed, down on the floor, over on the couch, up in the bed, down on the floor, playing with the foot controlled sink, up in the bed, down on the floor, up on the couch....get the picture?





Hanging out with Papa and Grandma--his activity level made Grandma VERY nervous!



Gabers finally conked out at about 9:15 during one of his many trips to the couch to chill with Keith. We gave him about ten minutes to make sure he was out and transferred him to the bed. Afraid he would wake up and make an escape, I slept with him. He woke up once at about 12 and I did, indeed, prevent him from climbing over the edge (they're bringing in a crib today for our overactive guy). Other than that, Gabe slept soundly and didn't even wake up for his blood draw at 4 (really? they're in the rooms drawing blood at 4 am?!! wow.). Because his lines were out they had to poke him for the blood and all he did was wince for a few seconds. At 5 he was up for good and watched the Disney cartoons while I slept a little longer.

So far this morning Gabe's played in the playroom, has forcefully let everyone know he does NOT appreciate their presence or interference in his life, had a sponge bath, and ate a big breakfast. I left him on Keith's lap watching golf. That should put him to sleep.

The final bit of news is that he is scheduled tomorrow for an early morning sedated echo to recheck his heart. At that time they'll remove those chest wires and after he wakes up and eats breakfast we'll be discharged. The only "complication" we're looking at is a small amount of congestion in one lung. When the doctors did their rounds one was concerned about the fluid and pushed for doing the echo tomorrow (another plan was to do it this afternoon and send us home today) to give them time to recheck the lungs. Our surgeon told Keith that under normal conditions no one would be kept for the insignificant amount of fluid they were seeing. However, being less than 48 hours out of open heart surgery and showing every sign of being ready to go home is not considered "normal conditions".

Our next hurdle will be keeping Mr. Gabe from harming himself and keeping everyone from picking him up under his arms. He technically has a "broken" sternum and, well, all of the sensitivities that come with opening your chest cavity, stopping your heart, cutting it open, and sewing a patch into it! I plan to buy four or five t-shirts and fabric paint "Don't pick me up" on the front and back to remind us all that we do need to be careful with him.

We are thanking God for His goodness that is packed down and overflowing in ways greater than we could have imagined. We also thank all of you who have prayed for Gabe with us these past few days and weeks and for including us in the prayer lists of your family and church groups. We know that God's people have played a large part in this remarkable outcome for Gabe.

Day Two

I brought the camera down to the computer room this morning to try to get the pictures on here, but I forgot the cords in the room. I'll try again next time.

Gabe had a rough night, so did I. The good news is that overall he's doing great. He's healthy and should have a lot of lines and some tubes removed today. He started drinking water and can move on to juice and his beloved rice milk any time. The drainage tube will probably remain in his chest for another day as there's been a fair amount of fluid draining. That brings us to our rough night.

I learned very quickly what the protocol is when Gabe's morphine wears off! The overal anesthetic wore of at about 11 last night and that's when he really needed the pain relief. But, the morphine level he'd been on was slowing his breathing too much (could it have been because of the combined effect of the residual anesthesia?) so it was decreased and my 11 to 7 nurse seemed to think it was best to try to avoid the morphine altgether. That meant that every 2 hours and 15 minutes to 30 minutes Gabe would start to get restless, sit straight up in bed (not good), thrash around, and cry. His heart rate would increase, his blood pressure would soar, and I could hear the fluid swooshing out the chest tube. The only thing that consoled him was an IV injection of morphine. His "I'm in pain cry" was always accompanied by the repetition of a word or phrase that had nothing to do with how he felt. Some of his cries were, "Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye, Bye-Bye", "Brycie, Brycie, Brycie", "I want, I want, I want", "Eesa, Eesa, Eesa", "Book, Book, Book", and "Wake up, Wake up, Wake up". Those phrases represent a lot of helpless episodes.

Finally, this morning I got the full attention of my morning nurse and the PA and Gabe has been put on an IV pain reliever that will last for six hours and the morphine will be supplemental. Hopefully, this will take the edge off. When he's awake and not in pain he's a calm, contented little guy. He watched an hour of Diego and Dora the Explorer this morning while I finally got some sleep. I get to sleep (OK, not much sleeping) in his bed with him and that has been a huge comfort to Mr. Gabe.

I'm heading back to be with Gabe and Keith and will try to get the photos of little mister up here later.

Successful Surgery

Gabe was taken from us this morning at 8:05 AM and the surgeon came to us with the "all done" report at 1:20 PM. The repair was a success and things went as smoothly and well as they could have gone. We should get to see Mr. Gabe any minute and will be able to go to his room in the ICU in an hour or so.

I have more updates, information, and photos that I will try to put up here during the free hours over the next 4-7 days (the expected length of Gabe's hospital stay).

Thank you for your many prayers. We are thanking and praising God for this goodness.

PS We just saw Gabe as he was being wheeled to the ICU. He looked so good! They said he woke right up and was too energetic and had to be sedated. That's our Gabe!

Surgery Dates

Gabe's open heart surgery has been scheduled for 8 AM Thursday, July 16. Keith and I will go down on the 15th for his preoperative visits. I'll post then from Milwaukee.

The title says 'Surgery Dates', plural. Chet is having surgery the following week, details are in the next post.

Please pray for Chet

Poor Chet has been sick, sick, sick. He started running a fever with headache and dizziness 17 days ago.
On day 4 he got a red, sore throat and later developed sores in his throat (still had a fever).
On day 5 he was the best man in a friend's wedding, surviving the few hours on ibuprofen.
On day 7 he went to the doctor and was given an antibiotic (tests ruled out mono and CBC was normal).
On day 9 (no change, still running 103 degree fever) he switched antibiotics and again blood tests were normal. Tests were run for strep and CMV (both normal).
On day 11 he had his first fever free day.
On day 12 he headed back up to school for summer classes and a job.
He called that night with a high temp again and Keith and Ellen drove up to get him.
On day 15, after three days of rest and no fever, he went back up again.
On day 16 he dropped the class--too weak and sore to try to get through it. He tried taking DayQuil to cope with the sore throat and devoloped a full body case of hives!
It's day 17 and he is one sore throat, itchy, coughing, nasal draining, night sweats miserable guy.

The only thing we know for sure is that there IS a sinus infection in there. He is scheduled for surgery on July 20 to reconstruct his nasal cavity and open the passage from the nose to the sinus (deformities that we FINALLY got diagnosed properly....we hope).