Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Day 7-A Week-Old Wonder

What a day at the hospital!

There's tons to report, and to be honest, this is about the time when I hit my healing wall, but here's the bullet-pointed version of Rafa's one-week birthday:

The cupcakes were a HUGE hit!

The surgical fellow, Dr. Stotten, is starting to learn what new mommies are all about--when given the option to schedule a chest tube adjustment, he chose to do it when we were at lunch, as opposed to at his bedside. Thanks for taking us into account, Doc!

Rafa's ECMO technician, Ken, taught us all we needed to know about the process by which babies are weaned off of ECMO. Our lovely one is 1/3 to 1/2 of the way there, and we could be undertaking that journey in as soon as a week! Can you believe it? Even if it's not that soon, the power of positive thinking gives us something wonderful to focus on. When I have more energy, I'll explain to you what exactly this means.

Our boy is an "awesome pee-er" (from his nurses' lips to your ears)! What makes this so important is that is kidneys are healthy and moving fluid along, keeping him in balance and allowing his chest drains to be productive. It's all connected...

We've put in a request for our first "family meeting" to check in with Rafa's medical team about how he's progressing and make a game plan for the week to come. Not sure when exactly it's going to happen, but it should be in the next couple of days or so.

And last, but certainly not least, Mommy saw her baby's eyes for the first time today! To say it was magical doesn't even cut it.

Here are some pictures of our quality time at Brigham and Women's before Mommy was discharged. There's no good close-up of Rafa that reflects that he looks like now, but you'll get a sense of the amount of machinery involved in his recovery. Thank God for modern medicine!

7 comments:

  1. Great update, Phoebe. Sending thoughts your way.

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  2. Happy one week birthday!!! I agree, it is amazing the advances in medical technology! Sending loving thoughts and prayers.

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  3. HAPPY 1 WEEK BIRTHDAY!!!!
    Thanks for all the excellent news!!!

    And where can I get a shirt? Seriously!
    -J

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  4. You saw his eyes... what a birthday present for mama. Love you all.

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  5. BEAUTIFUL - all of you! Congratulations, happiness, love, and all other good things!

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  6. His eyes -- how wonderful and magical! I hope to get to see them this week. Can't wait! What great news about his progress on ECMO. Great, great, great,

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  7. We are amazed by Rafa and by all of you. Every step of progress (and glimpse of his eyes!) teaches us more about the beautiful fighter you have brought into the world. So grateful . . . Love, Margaret, Josh, and David

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