Tag: Kelly

Categories
Art Family Travel

Pacific City, and some cars

It’s been an eventful few weeks since my last post, so here’s the recap.

For anyone who read the last post, I’m recovering nicely from my surgery. And I’m going to have a wicked cool scar. I’m going to tell people I got in a knife fight with a gang of baddies.

I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes (oh joy), so I’ve been working hard to lose some pounds (combination of a low calorie and low carb diet with a bunch of exercise) and taking my meds in the hopes that there’s a chance of reversing it. Time will tell I guess. I’m just falling apart. Stupid frail human bodies. Time to look into transferring my consciousness into a robot body. A strong one with metal claws.

IMG_2049A couple weeks ago Kelly, Max and I spent a weekend in Pacific City for our anniversary and had a fabulous time. We stayed at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda which was very nice (not exactly inexpensive, but worth it). The Inn was excellent for a few reasons; The rooms were very nice, the balcony with it’s ocean view, and most importantly it’s proximity to my favorite beach-front brewpub, Pelican Pub & Brewery, where we spent an good amount of time. Got some time in hiking around the beach and the peninsula, watched the dory boats cruise back onto the beach, spent a bit of time with Max on the beach (as much as he could handle anyway), and generally had a very relaxing weekend. It was hard to come back home.  More photos here.

IMG_2140This past weekend we went to the Portland Art Museum‘s exhibit The Allure of the Automobile where we got to see over a dozen really beautiful old cars. You can see the list of cars at this OregonLive article. My favorites were the 1937 Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza, the 1933 Pierce-Arrow, the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut” Coupe (pictured right), and the 1959 Chevy Corvette Sting Ray. After ogling at the cars for a bit we ran upstairs to look at the collection which, while not huge, is really nice. Anyway, more photos here.

Also, I recently updated my server, so hopefully everything works correctly. Anyone who knows how to get in touch via non-blog fashion, let me know if you have trouble commenting or whatever.

Categories
Beer Family General Work

Max is 6 months old!

It’s been a while since my last post. It’s been since we brought Max home from the hospital a little over 5 months ago. That’s a long time. And yet it’s gone by very quickly. Now be prepared, this is going to be a heavily Max-focused post. Sorry. It’s kind of a big deal.

Max is now (or will be on the 26th) 6 months old. Crazy right? He’s doing really well. It already seems like another life ago that he was in the NICU at Legacy Emanuel. Over the past 5 months he’s grown a lot, is weighing in at about 16 pounds, has some teeth starting to poke through (making him extra cranky), has been rolling over onto his stomach, and is on the verge of crawling. He’s smiling and laughing and is generally a very calm and happy infant. And he’s (if I do say so myself) a very handsome little man (clearly he gets his good looks from his mom).

Best of all has been the transition from the somewhat confusing and stunned period of him first being in our lives to where we are now. It now seems weird and somewhat foreign to think of a time when Max wasn’t here with us. It’s strange how that happens. I’d been told it happens, but it really is amazing the way it does. I know that he wasn’t in the world a year ago. But it just seems weird that he wasn’t.

Other news:

I’ve been at SuperSweetCo (aka Jive Software) for 5 years as of this month, and things continue to grow, change, and challenge me every day. When I started the company had just shy of 30 employees and it’s now pushing 400, with offices in Palo Alto, Boulder, New York, and now overseas. Crazy times. Just Crazy.

Kelly has retired from the Oregon Symphony to do the most important job ever, raising Max, and amazes me every day. She’s a fantastic Mom. Not that anyone would be surprised.

I’ve discovered another favorite spot in town: Prost. It’s a German-focused spot that serves sausages, sauerkraut, big soft pretzels, and one of my favorite German beers (Hofbrau lager).

My kegerator has Stella Artois on tap.

It’s my first Father’s Day today.

I redesigned my blog a bit over the weekend. I’m still such a nerd. Who blogs anymore anyway?

Portland’s crappy weather has continued to be crappy. It’s June. Sheesh!

That’s it for now. Will try to write again before Christmas. We’ll see.

Categories
News

Update 7 – Home at last!

As of 5pm on Tuesday, Max is finally home with Kelly and I. He’s doing really well, and doing what I imagine 3 week old infants should do: keeping Kelly and I up. He’s feeding well, and we have a pediatrician  appointment at 11am today so we’ll get to find out how he’s done since leaving the hospital. Hopefully he’s gained some weight and not lost any.

Anyway, there we have it, after some weeks and some heartache he’s finally home and the three of us are adjusting to our new lives. Thanks again for all your support.

Categories
News

Update 6 – Hospital time nearly at an end

Big news since the last update.

Three days ago Max had another sensor removed (the oxygen sensor) so he’s only got his heart rate and respiration rate sensors left taped to his stomach and chest. Two days ago they gave him a hearing test which he passed with flying colors. And yesterday the nurse removed his feeding tube again. This was for two reasons; over the past week he’s increased what he’s been able to take via bottle (from an average of 30ml to 65ml per feeding), and they’ve begun to supplement his milk with a bit of formula to increase his caloric intake so they could reduce the volume they were previously pumping into his stomach via the tube.

Today he was given one of two immunizations they commonly give to babies who have had the diaphragmatic hernia and/or spent time in the NICU. Tomorrow he gets the second, and on Tuesday morning they’re going to do a car seat test to see how he reacts to an hour sitting in the car seat.

All this is because he’s getting closer and closer to being discharged and allowed to come home! The doctor said (assuming the formula addition results in some weight gain) he might be able to come home as early as Tuesday evening. (!!!)

I had a nasty head & chest cold this past week so I wasn’t allowed into the NICU, but today I finally was well enough to go in and see Max, and he looks awesome. He’s growing quickly (he’s three weeks old already!) and his surgery wounds are healing really well.

At any rate, he’s doing great, and if he continues to improve at the rate he has been for the past week we’ll have him home by mid next week. Here’s hoping the Mighty Max gains the weight the doctors want him to over the next few days!

Categories
News

Update 5 – Still not home

The day after my last update, Max had his feeding tube re-inserted because he wasn’t eating enough. He needs to be able to take down a certain volume per day and was far away from that goal. Bit of a bummer but understandable.

Then he was diagnosed with thrush (warning: icky pics), which may help explain why he hasn’t been eating well. He’s been treated for that and it’s virtually gone now.

A couple days ago they removed the last of his IV’s (which was being used to both administer medication as well as provide nutrients). This was great news since it means that even though he may need to be fed via a tube in his nose, he’s getting all his sustenance through his mom’s milk now.

Yesterday they again removed the feeding tube to try to see if he would eat better. The hope was that rather than constantly filling Max’s tummy with 70 ml of milk every 3 hours on the dot, if they let him get hungry on his own and eat on his own he might eat enough via bottle. He eats a bit, but still not enough and it’s a lot of work (he’d wake up, eagerly feed for a minute or two, swallow some air, get fussy, burp, feed a bit more and then doze off and lose all interest in eating). His nurse called him stubborn. I have no idea where he got that from. Nope. No siree.

So while he’s eating a great deal more than he was (between 20 and 50 ml per feeding) it’s not enough, nor is it consistent between feedings. The result is that he’s lost a little bit of weight with the tube out, so it’s going back in and will be used to offset whatever he doesn’t eat on his own, to make sure he keeps his strength up and doesn’t get dehydrated.

The good news is that he’s recovering very well from his surgery, his respiration rate has dropped to more normal levels, he’s starting to eat like he should, and he looks awesome.

He’s just not home quite yet, and until he eats right, he won’t be. Hoping it’ll all click and he’ll start eating like a hungry baby should any day, but being realistic it could still take another week or more.