Good News! No Surgery for C4

Thank goodness for second opinions!  When the team downtown reviewed the X-rays, they determined the angle of the break was not as severe as previously thought.  There is enough bone left that remodeling should occur without requiring surgical alignment of the bones!  C4 has avoided surgery! We'll still be in a cast for 4 weeks and we've added another specialist to his roster temporarily, but at least we avoided surgery!

C4 is VERY happy about his Bedtime Math book!  Thanks for that KD!  C4 is NOT HAPPY with the cast or the sling.  Hopefully he'll get used to it and we won't spend the entire 4 weeks constantly asking for its removal.

It Never Rains, But It Pours...

It has been a hell of a few weeks and it hasn't slowed down yet.

Three weeks ago I was diagnosed with a genetic condition called Hereditary Angioedema, I also suffered through an intestinal attack of the above condition. Three days later I was laid off from work, six days after that we received C4's official Autism diagnosis with a Developmental Coordination Disorder chaser. Three days after that Baby Girl came home (Yay!) and C4 got his 2nd or 3rd cold virus in a row (boo). Six days after that, The Husband had a stomach bug and I shifted from sleeping in my living room, to sleeping in my mother's living room. Three days after that, we had Christmas.  One day after that at about 9 in the evening, C4 broke his elbow.  Tomorrow, he'll have surgery to reduce the fracture as it must be absolutely perfect if he is to have full use of his elbow in the future.  As always, surgery with a cardiac kid is slightly more complicated and slightly more risky.

Here's how it happened: The Husband brought C4 up the stairs crying and I noticed his elbow was very swollen and just looked "off" to me.  I told The Husband I thought we'd have to take C4 to the ER for evaluation.  C4 said "This is just so uncivilized"  (we laughed, it was funny...) C4 was very upset and very much did not want to go see a doctor.  He's had X-Rays and they have a game plan.  They're going to admit him to the big hospital and will get a cardiac consult first thing tomorrow morning with surgery later in the day.

I'm home with Baby Girl.  This will be the first time C4 is inpatient and I cannot be with him.  We absolutely cannot risk Baby Girl picking up something at the hospital.  She's still very fragile and will be for quite some time.  C4 is also very prone to viruses, so that's something to look out for while he's there.  

I'm so torn, I desperately want to be there, but I know I cannot.  I need to hold my son and I cannot be there, I don't know how to find balance.  I really need things to stop spinning so quickly, it is impossible to regain equilibrium.

Baby Girl is doing a great job of gaining weight.  After a slow start her first few days home she jumped to gaining 73 grams a day on average.  Then, I ran low on Human Milk Fortifier and we had to go down to 2 fortified bottles a day, she only gained 34 grams a day, but that is still more than her goal of 20-30 grams per day.  So that's awesome.  She is just shy of 6 lbs 14 oz at this point.

I hate Cold/Flu Season

I'm in the living room, where I currently live.  Husband is upstairs with a belly ache that I can only hope is food poisoning or a really disagreeable lunch choice. C4 has had a resurgence of viral symptoms.  He's complaining of sore throat, but because he's already on a fairly powerful antibiotic for his impetigo, I am pretty safe in assuming it isn't strep throat.  His fever is low grade, which also trends viral.  He started showing symptoms about 2 days before Baby Girl came home, they came back on Thursday and tonight he briefly spiked that low grade fever.  The sore throat keeps him from eating, which is just peachy because his next weigh in is on Jan 14 and I'm running out of time to catch that up.

Speaking of weigh ins, we had a weight check for Baby Girl and she only gained 13 grams (slightly less than half an ounce) since Monday.  She'd gained a bunch in the couple of days since we'd been out of the hospital, then nothing for the last few days.  She'd been awake a LOT the last few days, so I'm hoping that is the cause and we'll be able to get her settled back down.  I just started using a new type of bottle for her fortified feeds, so hopefully that helps as well.  If it ends up being as awesome as it seems, I may even post a review :)

Baby Girl also had a follow up eye exam today.  Still absolutely horrifying, still refusing to watch the exam.  The good news is that she's now Stage 0, Zone 3, which is close to having the completed growth of those vessels.  Hopefully we'll only have to have one more eye exam 3 weeks from now when she reaches term (40 weeks gestation).

Since I'm soloing infant care, I should head off to sleep.

Baby Girl is 6 lbs 2 oz, which seems huge.  She's supposed to gain an ounce a day, but we didn't get there this time.  Hopefully next weigh in on Tuesday will show better results.