Growing up I was taught to begin my prayers by giving thanks to God for the things that He has done, is doing, and will do. While this isn't a prayer, I have no better way to start this, so I will start by giving thanks. I am thankful that people from all over the country, all over the world rather, have been praying for my family. I am thankful that I have seen first hand the support you get when being a part of a Christian community. I am thankful that for a short time I had a beautiful niece and a warrior of a nephew. I am thankful for the doctors and nurses that fought for our sweet Adelaide and Wyatt. I am thankful for my family, who have shown the greatest faith and love I have ever known.
As bittersweet as this is, I would not be able to tell you the things that I am thankful for if the opposite did not exist. Tonight we mourn the loss of our Wyatt. There are many details to be explained at a later date, but for now please take comfort in knowing that Wyatt did not suffer. Wyatt had many things going against him that the doctors simply could not fix. Rachel, with Justin by her side, was able to hold Wyatt as he took his last breath.
For now I will conclude with a request and thanks. As for the request, I ask that you continue to pray for my family, mostly Justin and Rachel, as the rebuild their lives from their losses. Now for the thanks, I thank you, we all do. Thank you for your love, support and prayers. We love you right back.
-Megan (Justin's sister)
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Bad Lungs
At the hospital today. Wyatt is currently downstairs getting a ct scan of his lungs and brain. He is having trouble getting rid of co2 because his lungs are still very sick. His right lung is completely collapsed again and his left lung has a very large pnuematocele (air filled cyst) that keeps getting bigger. The pnuematocele is so large that it is compressing his right lung and his heart. The ct scan will help the doctor get a better picture of what is going on inside his lungs so that she can determine a corse of action. Her plan is to take the ct scan images to her practice meeting today in order to get ideas from her colleagues. I am so thankful that there happens to be a practice meeting on a day like today because Wyatt needs a think tank. He continues to baffle the doctors and nurses with his lungs and I pray that they will be able to come up with a solution that will help Wyatt's lungs get better. Please pray for guidance for the doctors today.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Kangaroo Care
Great News: Wyatt has gone over 24 hours without a chest tube which means I get to hold him for the first time today! I called Justin and he is going to be able to leave work to come to the hospital and participate in this milestone! Starting today Wyatt is also going to get fortified breastmilk to help him grow and gain weight.
Things to pray for: Wyatt has a cyst (pneumatocele) that is half the size of his left lung. If this were to rupture it could be very traumatic for Wyatt and would most likely take two chest tubes to resolve. Please pray that this pnuematocele will heal on it's own. The doctor is worried that Wyatt's fragile body might not recover from a pneomo this large.
Also continue to pray for Wyatt's brain bleeds. At this point they have not gotten worse and the doctor feels that Wyatt is stable enough to have a ct scan this week. The ct scan will give the neurologist a better idea of what is going on inside Wyatt's ventricles and help them determine if he needs to be transported downtown for closer monitoring.
Thank you so much for your support and prayers.
Things to pray for: Wyatt has a cyst (pneumatocele) that is half the size of his left lung. If this were to rupture it could be very traumatic for Wyatt and would most likely take two chest tubes to resolve. Please pray that this pnuematocele will heal on it's own. The doctor is worried that Wyatt's fragile body might not recover from a pneomo this large.
Also continue to pray for Wyatt's brain bleeds. At this point they have not gotten worse and the doctor feels that Wyatt is stable enough to have a ct scan this week. The ct scan will give the neurologist a better idea of what is going on inside Wyatt's ventricles and help them determine if he needs to be transported downtown for closer monitoring.
Thank you so much for your support and prayers.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Blessings of Boredom
Boredom. That's what I really hoped for my life. Many people want adventure and drama and unprecedented excitement around every turn, but not me, I like the calm uneventful bliss of predictability. I've always said that I love my family, I've loved that my parents are still together and my grandparents are still together and my aunt and uncle are still together. We've been fortunate as a family, we've had challenges; my mom has an autoimmune disorder that makes her life very uncomfortable and even miserable sometimes and my Dad has had to bury two brothers and a father but in my life, in my little bubble, it's been pretty calm. These are the events that I'm talking about, I didn't want to be too interesting, to be honest I wish I didn't have this blog, because in order to be this interesting, in order to need this much support something significant had to happen. Sure, sometimes people win the lottery or invent something grand, but often the drama is a result of something sad or cruel or some other descriptor of the utterly miserable.
I would love just to be married to my beautiful wife and be raising a soccer team full of crazy, healthy kids in my nice middle class neighborhood with my uneventful middle management job, with my great, loving family. My concerns would be limited to what I'm gonna wear to church, how I'm gonna pay for all the kids extracurriculars and how in the heck I'm gonna squeeze in some time for me to get fit. Unfortunately, this isn't the path for my life, but fortunately yesterday and today have been absolutely mundane. Wyatt is stable, his bleed hasn't progressed and his chest x-rays have actually been better than at any other time in his short little life. We still don't know what tomorrow will bring or even what 15 minutes from now could hold, but we're thankful for these moments of boredom. We thank God and we thank all of you for your prayers. Wyatt has a long way to go, and as you know, it is likely he's going to have some kind of delays, we can just hope that they're insignificant. Remember to thank God for answered and unanswered prayers, you never know what it would mean to have an "exciting" life.
We love you all, and pray for you daily.
I would love just to be married to my beautiful wife and be raising a soccer team full of crazy, healthy kids in my nice middle class neighborhood with my uneventful middle management job, with my great, loving family. My concerns would be limited to what I'm gonna wear to church, how I'm gonna pay for all the kids extracurriculars and how in the heck I'm gonna squeeze in some time for me to get fit. Unfortunately, this isn't the path for my life, but fortunately yesterday and today have been absolutely mundane. Wyatt is stable, his bleed hasn't progressed and his chest x-rays have actually been better than at any other time in his short little life. We still don't know what tomorrow will bring or even what 15 minutes from now could hold, but we're thankful for these moments of boredom. We thank God and we thank all of you for your prayers. Wyatt has a long way to go, and as you know, it is likely he's going to have some kind of delays, we can just hope that they're insignificant. Remember to thank God for answered and unanswered prayers, you never know what it would mean to have an "exciting" life.
We love you all, and pray for you daily.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Bell Curve
In life we're given all kinds of statistics on the likelihood of good and/or bad things happening and with each variable change the percentages change accordingly. I don't remember much from my stats class or what the percentages each standard deviation from the middle indicated but I know, for whatever, reason we've been on the wrong end. There's a reason they tell you there is "a one percent chance" or "less than a 1 percent chance" that this or that will happen based on a given situation, but they don't say "there is a "zero" percent chance. That reason being, for some unfortunate souls, things do happen on that end of the bell curve that balance everything out.
It started with our pregnancy, no doctor seemed to be able to figure out why we couldn't get pregnant. But after surgeries, fertility drugs and artificial inseminations without success we had to turn to IVF. We were fortunate, it worked and we were blessed with both transferred embryos taking hold. Rachel's physician told her she was an "A+ pregnancy" that this was going to be a walk in the park because she was the perfect candidate. She had already carried a baby to term and was young and healthy so the likelihood of anything going wrong was far away on distant point of some statistical bell curve that we wouldn't have to worry about because odds were so minuscule that it would be relevant to our case.
Then on September 5th Rachel's water broke unexpectedly in the Kroger checkout line like something out of a Lifetime movie. Two days later at 2:09 and 2:12 AM Rachel gave birth to Adelaide and Wyatt. Adelaide lived just 3 days and tore my heart in to pieces as I listened to her little heart beat just once in her chest and held my baby girl just one time before she had to be buried. Wyatt has been a fighter and has lived and is living today, but today was is another day that our family found out we're filling the wrong side of the bell curve once again.
After the first week of life the likelihood of a brain bleed in an infant drops off, after the second week the percentages drop even more as we were told >95% of all head bleeds occur by week two. Here we sit at 21 days of life and we've just found out that Wyatt has a grade III and grade IV bleed. Now we're left with decisions, the doctors tell us that most likely Wyatt, if he survives, will have some sort of cognitive and/or physical deficits that well significantly affect his quality of life. The plan, for now, is to observe the bleeds and make sure they don't get any bigger, if they do they're really may not be a choice to make. At this juncture we're torn, we hear "most likely" just as we've heard so many times already only to find out that we function in the most "unlikely". Are we to believe that Wyatt will have deficits if he survives because it's "most likely" or are we to believe that he's going to give those statistical projections the finger just like he's given all of them so far? We ask for your prayers for the physicians, the nurses, Wyatt and us as we try to determine what's best for him and our family.
Then on September 5th Rachel's water broke unexpectedly in the Kroger checkout line like something out of a Lifetime movie. Two days later at 2:09 and 2:12 AM Rachel gave birth to Adelaide and Wyatt. Adelaide lived just 3 days and tore my heart in to pieces as I listened to her little heart beat just once in her chest and held my baby girl just one time before she had to be buried. Wyatt has been a fighter and has lived and is living today, but today was is another day that our family found out we're filling the wrong side of the bell curve once again.
After the first week of life the likelihood of a brain bleed in an infant drops off, after the second week the percentages drop even more as we were told >95% of all head bleeds occur by week two. Here we sit at 21 days of life and we've just found out that Wyatt has a grade III and grade IV bleed. Now we're left with decisions, the doctors tell us that most likely Wyatt, if he survives, will have some sort of cognitive and/or physical deficits that well significantly affect his quality of life. The plan, for now, is to observe the bleeds and make sure they don't get any bigger, if they do they're really may not be a choice to make. At this juncture we're torn, we hear "most likely" just as we've heard so many times already only to find out that we function in the most "unlikely". Are we to believe that Wyatt will have deficits if he survives because it's "most likely" or are we to believe that he's going to give those statistical projections the finger just like he's given all of them so far? We ask for your prayers for the physicians, the nurses, Wyatt and us as we try to determine what's best for him and our family.
Monday, September 26, 2011
19 days old
I am at the hospital today with Wyatt and he is having a good day. He had an eventful evening last night. He wiggled out his chest tube on the right so they had to replace it and then his pneumothorax came back on the left so they had to reposition that chest tube too in order to get the air out. I talked to the doctor this morning and he seemed pleased with Wyatt's progress since last week and he was more optimistic about Wyatt coming home one day. All of his organs, except his lungs, are doing well. The doctor is hearing bowel sounds and Wyatt is still having bowel movements, which means he is tolerating his feedings. He heard a heart murmur this morning which most likely means his PDA is open again. Justin can explain this much better than I can but basically a place in his heart has opened back up. This is common in premies and right now the goal is to get his lungs healed and then worry about the PDA.
I think our little Wyatt has proved that he is a fighter. I truly believe in the power of prayer and cannot thank you enough for lifting up our son and asking for him to be healed. I am sure that everyone reading this blog has their own prayer requests so I thank you again for adding Wyatt to your list!
Rachel
I think our little Wyatt has proved that he is a fighter. I truly believe in the power of prayer and cannot thank you enough for lifting up our son and asking for him to be healed. I am sure that everyone reading this blog has their own prayer requests so I thank you again for adding Wyatt to your list!
Rachel
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