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!

[mredskins]

Awesome awesome news! I was just thinking of you yesterday. Having a new born baby is tough on a relationship been there twice (2 Kids). It gets better with time. I still think back to the nights I was up with my kids and at the time it seemed like hell but I realized those were bonding times now.

Stay strong and good luck! You totally made my day with this news.

[Hog1]

Best news I've had today!!
Enjoy......

[jamf]

WOW That is great news.
Can't imagine how hard that must have been for you and the Mrs.

Congratulations!

[over the mountain]

wonderful news mr. skinsguy, mrs. skinsguy and baby Tony!

thank you for sharing with us. awesome news!

[Schneed10]

Outstanding, congrats man! I hear you on life with a newborn, it's a challenge, and you're dealing with much more than what I had. But you'll get through, the rewards make it worth it!

[skinsguy]

Thanks guys! It is definitely great to see him home! Now if we can solve his reflux issue when he's laying down, I think we will be OK!

[ArtMonkDrillz]

This is fantastic to hear! Thank you for sharing with us and best of luck to you and your wife, and especially to little Tony!!!

[Chico23231]

This is great news Skinsguy

[JoeRedskin]

Serious thumbs up, high fives and the rest.

Great, Great news!!

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[punch it in]

This is excellent news. So stoked for you and your family! God Bless and enjoy!
Edit: this really would have been a homerun for my good news thread, but I agree deserves its own!

[MTK]

Great news skinsguy

[skinsguy]

Thanks guys! It's been a challenge since he's been home. The wife and I have been hammering out the feeding and changing schedules. I'm slowly getting used to it. My poor wife, however, she's not had an easy time with it. Tony wakes up around 2am and will not go back to sleep. She chose the 3am shift - so she's pretty much up most of the night. Her saving grace is that she's on maternity leave right now, and her mom comes over to help. So she gets some sleep during the day. I felt like a zombie yesterday at work, but today, I actually feel well rested. I went to bed around 10 last night, got up and feed Tony at midnight, got him back in bed before 1am, and was able to sleep solid until 6am. I feel I was pretty lucky! But once my wife goes back to work, I'm sure that will all change. I just hope our baby starts getting on a bit of a better schedule at that point.

[Ruhskins]

I'm very happy to hear this!

Sorry to hear about the acid reflux. My little one had a bad case of acid reflux as well. Unfortunately you'll need to go through some trial and error to determine what will help them the best. For my baby, we ended up having to give her antacid medicine and give her rice cereal with her formula. The good news is that as she moved on to solid foods it got better.

[BDBohnzie]

Congrats!!

Our middle child fought reflux for a few years, but it took a while to get a diagnosis. Once we started her on the meds, she slept through the night with no more screaming fits.

Good luck!!