Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Kisses and candy and hospitals....

So over the last two weeks, we have had some excitement. Imagine that right? We made TWO trips to the E.R. this past week and had multiple doctors appointments. First I will explain the E.R. visits. The first visit was for Joey. I noticed when I was changing his diaper that he had this huge bulge to the right of his belly button. So naturally I freaked out and called the pediatrician and they told us to go straight to the E.R. at CHOP. Well good news it wasn't anything super serious. Its an abdominal hernia. Bad news is it's ONE more surgery that he has to have at some point. :( While I am very sad it's another surgery, I am very thankful it wasn't anything serious. Now the next trip was for my husband, Matt. He woke up Saturday morning in horrible pain in his side and said that he wanted to go to the hospital. Well for my strong brave man to say he wants to go means something is very wrong. So we load up and head to the E.R. closer to our house. After waiting around the doctors came in and said it sounded like he had a kidney stone. They told him they wanted to give him an IV for the pain meds. He immediately said no. I would like for you to think, "OH my what a strong tough man, sticking through that pain!" When in reality he doesn't like needles and would have rather dealt with the horrible kidney pain than a needle in his arm. (Men... I will never ever understand) Good news is he passed it and is now back to normal.

Now we had our first BIG doctors appointment at CHOP this past week. And it went well. He saw his pediatrician at the Spina Bifida clinic. I must tell you that this doctor has been the same doctor that was there when the clinic first opened some 50 years ago so he totally knew his stuff. He was happy with the progress Joey is making. We also found out that he is almost 8 lbs now! Then we met with the orthopedic doctor, who decided that Joey needed to go ahead and be placed in his casts. He decided to put both legs in casts to help stretch his muscles so when it does come time for Joey to start walking he would be able to with assistance. We have decided to tell him that when he gets older and sees pictures he was driving his motorcycle too fast!  Just like his scar on his back is from him fighting a shark. Its just a fun way to help him cope with his scars that he will have.  Here is an adorable picture of the occasion:



Then we met with his neurosurgeon.This is also the doctor that did his back closure. Dr. S measured his head and decided that it was time to place the shunt. So tomorrow, Wednesday the 15th, Joey will go back in the hospital to have the shunt placed. Its an "easy" surgery for them and everyone seems very comfortable with it. Joey will only be in the PICU for a night as long as everything goes fine. Matt and I are very happy that they have decided to do the surgery because we have noticed a HUGE increase in the size of his head and we knew he was going to have one so we are glad to have it done. The shunt is placed either at the side of his head above his ear or in the back of his head. It will redirect or drain all the spinal fluid into the opening in his stomach. I know the aftermath of the surgery won't be pretty but he will have another pretty cool scar to tell all of his friends about when he gets older. 

The last doctors appointment we had was with general surgery for his hernia. The doctor has decided to see us back in 8 weeks and then decided what to do with it. If he has his surgery now there is a possibility that it could just come back since babies stomachs are so thin. So we will wait and see what they decide.

Well that sums up our first BIG appointment and I couldn't be happier with the results of the day. We got a lot of answers for our questions and made some important decisions for our little guy.  I will update everyone after Wednesday to let everyone know how his shunt surgery went. I also wanted to show everyone what one of our months look like with all of the doctors appointments we have to remember.



We also celebrated Joey's One Month Birthday yesterday! He's such a miracle baby!



 I hope everyone has a fantastic Valentine's Day!

Lots of Love from the Moores!

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