Home!

We were able to come home last night. Adam got his PICC line in, and amazingly, all the ducks got in a row for us to get released by dinner time. Thanks for all your prayers! We have three follow-up appointments scheduled and eleven days of IV antibiotics at home.

Update

Adam's bilirubin dropped some today, which is a good sign. He is scheduled to get a PICC line tomorrow afternoon so that we will be able to administer his antibiotics at home. There is a slight chance we could come home late tomorrow, but it will most likely be Thursday. Prayer requests right now are: (1) That he would be able to sleep well tonight. I am trying to get the nurses to cluster their care instead of waking him up every hour or two; (2) That he would get switched from a 6 hour antibiotic to an 8 hour antibiotic so that we don't have to do it so frequently; (3) That he would do well with not being able to eat any food all day tomorrow until his PICC line gets put in. Thanks so much for all your prayers!

October Visit to the Hospital

We are at Doernbecher Children's Hospital again with Adam. He was sick for a week and got a really low white blood cell count from some sort of viral infection. It looked like he was getting better till he had a relapse Saturday with high fevers and jaundiced skin. Looks like cholangitis (liver infection) took the opportunity to strike. We would appreciate your prayers that he would respond to treatment and be able to leave the hospital soon. Right now, we're expecting to have another two-week IV antibiotic regimen at home, so it would also be nice if he didn't have any complications with his PICC line this time.

A Ray of Sunshine

First time in what-feels-like-forever that Adam has woken up with a smile on his face. Praise the Lord for no early morning tantrums today!

Life with Three Littles

Lately, I've been hearing this question a lot: "So, what's it like having three kids now?" Is there really an easy way to answer that?

Here are some pictures to give you a little taste of what it's like. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos--they're ones I took myself instead of getting them from my amazing-with-a-camera sister-in-law Amy.

Adam: "Look at the new toy Mom and Dad brought home from the hospital!"

How do you walk to church with three kids under one-and-a-half?

Climbing on the table is a "No"

Climbing on the piano keys is also a "No"...

...it's just a "No" I never thought I'd have to mention

Oliver plays dress up with the Barnard girls in Christy's sweater (AKA medieval chainmail?)

Oliver "helps" Mom make a batch of granola

Good stuff, huh?

Adam experiences the delight of fruit snacks

I love seeing this boy smile!

Marcus -- all wrapped up and nowhere to go

Oliver loves holding Marcus

We're just not so sure what Marcus thinks about it

The New Addition

Last week my husband David and I welcomed our third son into the world and named him Marcus Jasper Spears. When the twins were born, David wrote a very eloquent post about the reasons behind the names he chose for them. This time I had the privilege of choosing Marcus Jasper's name, and the reason behind it is simply this: I chose it because I liked it.

It did help that I spent all last summer devouring the Marcus Didius Falco novels, by Lindsey Davis. And the fact that Jasper Fforde is one of my favorite authors may have contributed in some minute way. But mostly, it was just a name that appealed to my aesthetic sense. Here are a few pictures of boy number three, all courtesy of Aunt Amy's exceptional photographic skills.

One day old - chubby and sleepy

An attempt at a family picture

Adam - Marcus - Oliver

Did I mention that he weighed 10 pounds at birth?

Welcome to the family, Marcus Jasper!

Thanksgiving

At the beginning of this week, I was intending to do a Thanksgiving Day post about my son Adam, giving thanks that he has had no complications since his surgeries for biliary atresia in January. But on  Monday night, as my husband and I sat bleary-eyed in the emergency room at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, we realized that he was having his first complication.

He had registered a low grade fever off and on for the past five days and been exceptionally fussy. Maybe he's teething, I thought. (Isn't that every mother's rationale for unexplainable baby behavior?) Then, on Monday afternoon, I changed his diaper and discovered that his stool was white--an indication that his bile ducts might no longer be working. His doctors suggested taking him to the lab to get some blood work done. And so, instead of running to the grocery store to get eggnog, and allspice, and Thanksgiving Day hors d'oeuvres, we zipped down to the doctor's office and had Adam's blood drawn. It would take a day or more to get the results. I was worried, but David reminded me that there was nothing to be worried about...yet.

When Adam's fever spiked to above 100 degrees that night, I called the advice nurse. After reviewing his file with the doctor on call at Doernbecher, they instructed me to bring him in to the emergency room. "It could be nothing, or it could be really bad. With his history, we don't want to take any chances." 

The blood work we had done earlier was upgraded to "stat." We arrived at Doernbecher and waited in the emergency room for several hours for the blood work to be completed. When the lab delivered the results, the liver numbers were way higher than normal, giving evidence of a possible liver infection. The next step was an ultrasound to see if there was some sort of blockage in Adam's bile ducts. The ultrasound was inconclusive. Meanwhile, Adam's fever began to go down. While the doctors conferred into the wee hours of the night about whether they should admit Adam or send him home, David tried to get our scared and screaming boy to go to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, another doctor or nurse would come in to poke and prod him into resuming his screams.

I sat in the recliner, too exhausted, too uncomfortable, and too anxious to sleep. Were his bile ducts really blocked? Was the surgery that had seemed so successful no longer working?

The doctors decided to put Adam on antibiotics in case his liver was infected. He would spend the night at the hospital and undergo more imaging in the morning to locate the assumed blockage. I drove home at 3am, hoping that my seven-months-pregnant body could get a few hours of sleep. David stayed at the hospital to deal with more doctors and more disruptions to Adam's sleep.

The Psalmist says that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." And so it happened for us. By the time I got back to the hospital at 9am, Adam's fever had disappeared. The white bowel movement proved to be an anomaly. The head GI doctor told us that if there was some sort of sludge blocking his bile duct, it seemed to have gone away. Whatever had sent his liver numbers up in the lab tests was probably just a minor infection. They released us from the hospital at noon that day and we went home to sleep, sleep, sleep.

At the beginning of this week, I was intending to do a Thanksgiving Day post about my son Adam, giving thanks that he has had no complications since his surgeries for biliary atresia in January. At the end of this week, I can finally make my Thanksgiving Day post, and praise God that Adam's adventure at the hospital was short-lived and far less serious than it could have been.