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Update 3 – Surgery completed

As of 1pm today, Max has successfully come out of his surgery and is now in a more intensive recovery area of the NICU. His surgery to repair the hernia did involve a mesh prosthetic, but that was placed in only after the surgeon realized that simply pulling together and stitching the empty spot of his diaphragm wasn’t going to work (pulled too tight, risk of splitting open again). The mesh that was placed in will (providing a good recovery) be surrounded by tissue over time and become a part of him that he’ll never have to worry about again.

Right now he’s on a paralytic to keep him still and morphine for the pain. He also has no less than 7 tubes or needles stuck into him, including one for the breathing machine. He’ll be gradually weaned from the morphine and the respirator over the next few days, and will (with any luck) be mostly recovered from the surgery by Saturday or Sunday.

Then the 2nd phase of recovery begins: getting his innards to work like they should. When you have surgery, your intestines are one of the organs that your body shuts down to conserve strength for critical functions (brain, lungs, heart). This can take some time to get back to working order, so hopefully starting next Monday he’ll be in a place where he’ll be ready to start putting mom’s food into his poor empty tummy, and then they watch carefully to make sure everything is working as it should. This process can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. So, we’re not sure when he’ll be coming home with us yet, at least the worst part of this ordeal is over.

The updates will likely slow down a bit from this point. I’ll let you all know when he’s mostly recovered from his surgery, and again when we know more about his ETA for home.

Thanks everyone for your support. It’s been extremely helpful through the last few days.

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News

Update 2 – surgery tomorrow

Today has been one giant roller-coaster.

Yesterday there were some ultrasounds taken of both the chest and heart which seemed to indicate a diaphragmatic hernia and that he would indeed need surgery by the end of this week. However, the radiologist wanted to do another set of scans to be sure, which he did this morning. The results of these second scans led the doctors to think that there was a good chance that surgery may not be needed (that it might be an eventration rather than a hernia of the diaphragm), however the surgeon would need to make the final diagnosis.

Naturally we were both elated. And then we got a visit from the surgeon.

Apparently whether an eventration or a hernia, it causes the same problems: intestines pushing against Max’s left lung and causing breathing difficulties. Not only did we find out that we will be having surgery, and were told all the possible risks and complications (which terrified me quite a bit), but that he goes into surgery tomorrow morning at 7:30am.

The surgery will last between 3 and 4 hours. Providing all goes well and he recovers from it normally (around 4 or so days), the long haul starts: getting him to eat normally. Once they determine that Max is eating (and pooping) normally we get to bring him home. However that could be weeks away. I’m hoping he has a typical Vanderzanden appetite and won’t have any problems eating, so he can come home soon.

Thanks to everyone for your support, all your calls, emails, etc are all helping both Kelly and I cope with all this.

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News

An update on Max

It figures that within an hour of sending the writing last night that we’d get some bummer news, here’s an update. As I mentioned in the previous post, Mighty Max was having some minor breathing troubles since he was born, and the precautionary x-ray that was taken turned up what’s called a diaphragmatic hernia. Basically some of his intestines have formed/squeezed through the diaphragm (which separates your lungs and heart from your stomach and intestines) and are interfering with his left lung. This news surprised everyone since his vitals are so strong and he’s otherwise perfectly healthy.

This resulted in us all being transferred to Legacy Emanuel last night around 8pm and Max is in the Neonatal Infant Care Unit (NICU). He’s doing fine (hooked up to tubes and wires), but he will likely go into surgery within a few days (there are some ultrasounds scheduled for later today). Afterward he’ll end up staying here at the hospital for 3 – 4 weeks before he can come home with us. This will depend on how well he does after surgery and how well he eats/process food afterward.

This shit sucks (especially after the already unplanned c-section), however he’s in the right place (this hospital performs many of these surgeries, and newborns have even been flown down from Alaska for the surgery here), and while it means a delay before he can come home with us, his chances of a full recovery are good.

We’ll be in the hospital through Thursday and then Kelly will be released. After that we’ll be here visiting every day until we can take the little man home with us.

Thanks for all your thoughts and support.  I’ll keep you updated.

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News

Baby Max is here!

This morning, December 26th at 8:12am, Kelly and I welcomed our son

Max!

to the world. The stats for those who like that stuff: 21.5″ long, and weighed in at 7 lbs 10 oz. Both Kelly and the baby are doing well despite an unplanned (but entirely warranted) cesarean after 9 hours of rough labor. Kelly is resting comfortably, and the little man is chilling out (when he’s not being prodded and poked by the hospital staff over a concern of a chest infection or something).

Full story:

After getting up early Saturday for Christmas, going out to my folks, and then visiting some of Kelly’s family who are staying in Oregon City, we got home around 9pm last night. Around 10pm Kelly started feeling some early labor pains, by midnight had suddenly and intensely progressed, and by 2am we were in the hospital room and Kelly was in some seriously intense active labor.

Within two hours she had progressed from 3cm to 7cm dilated, all w/o any pain meds (Kelly is made of steel and lava and diamonds). Then the progress stopped, and for another couple hours of incredibly rough and painful labor w/o any progression Kelly decided to get an epidural (which was a relief for me to see her agony vanish). The doctor did some checking and realized that the reason the progression halted was that the little man was coming out a bit cockeyed (chin wasn’t to chest and was going through slightly turned) and Kelly’s pelvis was likely not going to be large enough anyway. Combined with some distress on the child (reduced heartbeat) when Kelly was going through a contraction and it was decided the best (and probably only) choice for the boy was to go under the knife.

I’d never been put in scrubs and walked into an operating room with my wife on the table before (and I really hope I don’t have to again) but the procedure was quick, and before we knew it there was a new little person in the world.

For the next couple hours we waited in the recovery room, and then around 11:30 were moved back to our birthing suite. Max has had some blood drawn and an x-ray of his chest taken (not sure the results yet) but his breathing has improved so it seems he’ll be fine (fingers crossed). I guess some respiratory issues are common in cesarean births, but the staff here at Good Sam aren’t taking any chances (and I really appreciate it).

After being up for 31 hours I finally dozed off for a nap on the sofa for a couple hours, and now Max is dozing happily on Kelly’s chest while we watch Trading Places on cable.

Anyway, I’m sure there will be more posts, but I’m going to try and avoid smothering my blog with stuff about my boy (for the same reason I’ll not be posting his every move on Facebook). I hope to give him a sense of privacy as he grows older. He’ll probably be considered ‘off the grid’ by the time he’s a teen if his every moment isn’t published publicly on the interwebs. Good. 🙂

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News Television Work

The sudden ‘KABOOM’

While at the office today, I think I found Marvin the Martian’s KABOOM.

There I was, sitting at my desk working away in peace and quiet, when suddenly came a very loud and earth shaking explosion somewhere nearby. The east-facing windows were instantly lined with coworkers, watching a tall stream of black smoke that was steadily rising a couple blocks away. About a minute later, white vapor and then nothing.

Then I recalled what some coworkers had said earlier in the day; there was some kind of filming going on at the corner of Burnside and Broadway. A-ha! (and whew)

I later learned that the hubbub was apparently for the TNT show Leverage, which recently moved it’s production to Portland. It’s a pretty decent show actually, and now I’m kind of excited to watch some episodes filmed in and around my hometown. Including the one with the KABOOM.