My Son Is Finally Home!

[skinsguy]

Had to have this as its own thread. My wife and I were able to take my son, Tony, home from the hospital over the weekend. Since he was born last October, he has spent everyday in a hospital. The last two weeks, our boy was transferred to Duke University Hospital in Durham, NC, where he had open-heart surgery to repair a VSD and an ASD. We had the best surgeon in the entire country performing the surgery, and after the surgery was completely, Dr. Jake came out and said that surgery could not have went any better. The heart was as strong as anybody's heart, and all operations were normal.

One day removed from surgery, they were able to take out Tony's heart tube and central lines. He didn't even need a breathing tube post-op! It still amazed the medical staff how quickly that infant bounced back from major open-heart surgery. We stayed with our son in his tiny hospital room all of last week. I slept on a recliner, gave my wife the bed. I was never more excited to get home than I was on Saturday. Tony has done absolutely fantastic since his procedure.

He had his first pediatric doctor's appointment today, in which I'm waiting to hear back from my wife on. He will continue to see his cardiologist - probably more so than his pediatric doctor - for the first several months. Hopefully Tony will continue to heal up nicely, and we can finally be past this whole cardiac deal. The only issue we're dealing with now is that the little fellow suffers from really bad reflux, and we need to elevate his bed. He has woken up around 2 am the last two nights screaming and crying - and doesn't usually go back to sleep until the next morning when we put him in his rocker. Needless to say, mommy and daddy are exhausted and have absolutely not sleep. I don't know how I'm functioning at work right now, but I'm somewhat coherent.

I would say that I can't wait to get home so that I can relax, but that won't happen. I'll come home, exercise, feed Tony, change his diapers, feed him again at midnight, and maybe, maybe get some rest after that. Needless to say, I am REALLY going to be living for the weekends right now! Although it is nice being away at work and giving myself a bit of a break from the family. The wife, much like me, has been cranky, tired, and paranoid about our son's health being at home. We've snapped at each other, and will probably continue being ill with each other until we get used to everything. I just hope we're able to get ourselves back on track with loving life together again - with an addition of course. The last several months have been quite difficult!