So this pic shows how Colby eats right now. Its the dreaded "NG Tube" or Nasogastric tube. If you're really into this, you can watch a how-to video on Nasogastric tube placement via YouTube. Yes Jess and I both learned how to do this and had to do it once before we left the hospital. It wasn't as bad as we thought but still not a pleasant thing to have to do to someone, especially a baby. Currently, Colby is sporting a 30 Day tube so he doesn't have to take it out for 30 days. The only way we will have to replace it is if he pulls it out, hence the band-aids on his face holding it in place. And let me tell ya, Colby is a regular Houdini when it comes to this tube, he did pull it out in the hospital a couple times, he's a sneaky guy. So we have socks on his hands so he can't grab it. When its time for Colby to grub, we take a small irrigation syringe and hook it up to the end of the ng tube. We take about 2CCs of air and push it through the tube via the syringe. Before we push out the air in the syringe we put our ear to his stomach, then we push out the air and listen for a "whoosh". When we hear the "whoosh" we know the tube is in the correct place. Then pull the air back out and we may procede with the feeding. We mix up a batch of his formula, heart defect babies need higher calorie formula. Then we warm it up and poor it into a feeding syringe. Its the large plastic tube hanging on the pole in this pic. Attached to the bottom of the syringe is a tube extension with a little piece that can stop the flow in the tube. We attach it to the pole via a velcro strap. Once its set with the formula and we've tested the tube placement, we hook Colby's NG tube to the plastic extension coming from the feeding syringe. Then we take the pump part of the feeding syringe and use that to get the formula flowing. The rest is done by gravity. If we hang it higher on the pole it moves faster, if we hang it lower, you get slower. Too fast, Colby pukes, too slow, you fall asleep watching it, so were always looking for that balance. Once he's done eating we disconnect the feeding syringe and clean it, then we push through about 2CCs of water through his ng tube to flush it, wait about 2 hrs and repeat. YUUMMMMY!Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Hey Bartender, Colby Needs a Refill!
So this pic shows how Colby eats right now. Its the dreaded "NG Tube" or Nasogastric tube. If you're really into this, you can watch a how-to video on Nasogastric tube placement via YouTube. Yes Jess and I both learned how to do this and had to do it once before we left the hospital. It wasn't as bad as we thought but still not a pleasant thing to have to do to someone, especially a baby. Currently, Colby is sporting a 30 Day tube so he doesn't have to take it out for 30 days. The only way we will have to replace it is if he pulls it out, hence the band-aids on his face holding it in place. And let me tell ya, Colby is a regular Houdini when it comes to this tube, he did pull it out in the hospital a couple times, he's a sneaky guy. So we have socks on his hands so he can't grab it. When its time for Colby to grub, we take a small irrigation syringe and hook it up to the end of the ng tube. We take about 2CCs of air and push it through the tube via the syringe. Before we push out the air in the syringe we put our ear to his stomach, then we push out the air and listen for a "whoosh". When we hear the "whoosh" we know the tube is in the correct place. Then pull the air back out and we may procede with the feeding. We mix up a batch of his formula, heart defect babies need higher calorie formula. Then we warm it up and poor it into a feeding syringe. Its the large plastic tube hanging on the pole in this pic. Attached to the bottom of the syringe is a tube extension with a little piece that can stop the flow in the tube. We attach it to the pole via a velcro strap. Once its set with the formula and we've tested the tube placement, we hook Colby's NG tube to the plastic extension coming from the feeding syringe. Then we take the pump part of the feeding syringe and use that to get the formula flowing. The rest is done by gravity. If we hang it higher on the pole it moves faster, if we hang it lower, you get slower. Too fast, Colby pukes, too slow, you fall asleep watching it, so were always looking for that balance. Once he's done eating we disconnect the feeding syringe and clean it, then we push through about 2CCs of water through his ng tube to flush it, wait about 2 hrs and repeat. YUUMMMMY!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Home Away From Home
Here are some pics from moving day. It was a weird day. We were scared, excited, happy and sad all in one giant shot. Scared to be on our own after all this great care, excited to get home, happy to be leaving with our son on his way to good health and seeing Cooper soon and sad to leave some of the other families behind. Luckily one family was in the pctu waiting area and I was able to give them our email so we can hopefully stay in contact.
In the car and ready to roll!
Big Bird greeted us everyday on our way to the 5th floor, Sorry Big Bird, nothing personal, but I hope I never see you again!
Leaving the 5th floor.
Just leaving our room.
Colby says, ahhh did someone forget me?
In the car and ready to roll! 
Big Bird greeted us everyday on our way to the 5th floor, Sorry Big Bird, nothing personal, but I hope I never see you again!
Leaving the 5th floor.
Just leaving our room.
Colby says, ahhh did someone forget me?Weekend At Colby's
Hey Everyone, Below are some pics of Colby from the past weekend while we we're still at the hospital. He was mugging for the camera in numerous poses.
Here he is during one of his few attempts at the bottle, he has told us he's not ready for that yet as shortly after this photo was taken some of that stuff in the bottle was later seen as some of that stuff on the blanket below the bottle. :)
Colby, shocked as he's told HE has to pay for the Survival Flight helicopter ride.
Colby sleeping next to the new helicopter his ride just paid for.
Night, night buddy
Mommy and me!
Here he is during one of his few attempts at the bottle, he has told us he's not ready for that yet as shortly after this photo was taken some of that stuff in the bottle was later seen as some of that stuff on the blanket below the bottle. :)
Colby, shocked as he's told HE has to pay for the Survival Flight helicopter ride.
Colby sleeping next to the new helicopter his ride just paid for.
Night, night buddy
Mommy and me!Sunday, May 3, 2009
Welcome Home Colby
After 18 days between Providence Park, Survival Flight, Motts Pediatric Cardiovascular Thoraic Unit, open heart surgery and General Care on Motts 5 East, Jessica and I were able to welcome home our son. The ink is drying on the first chapter in Colby's brand new life story and what a crazy, scary, emotional, rollercoaster of a chapter it was. If you put a number of chapters together you get a story. April 15th, as I sat in the special care unit about 15 mins after Colby was born, I wondered how many chapters would be written in this life story and would this story end before it really began. But soon after these thoughts things began to change and within the next 24 hours we would meet some of the most incredible people I've ever been in contact with. Through their information and knowledge, these amazing people began to write the pages that were the "Heart" of this chapter. They overwhelmed us with any and all information, set our minds at ease, performed their jobs, and then cared their butts off! They set the tone for this first chapter and hopefully what will be an entire story. They took what could have been a tragic chapter and a short story and flipped it over into a chapter about Colby's strength, will and fight and a long and healthy life story. Also helping to write this chapter were all of you, our family and friends. Through everything and anything you did for us, all of the well wishes, texts, phone calls, visits, prayers, emails, messages, cards, generous gift cards for food, home cooked meals, dog watching, Coop watching, lawn mowing, house decorating, you helped us through. We wouldn't have been able to get through all of this without your support, THANK YOU SO MUCH!
We know Colby was mentioned in many churches throughout the area in the past couple weeks and we just wanted to say thank you. We also wanted to give a couple special thanks for a couple extra special prayers. To Jessica's cousin Chris, who happened to be on a fabulous trip over seas said a prayer for Colby at the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall as its often called, in Jerusalem. Also to our friends Randy and Cat who lit a candle for Colby at St. Patrick's Cathedral on their trip to New York. I also wanted to say thanks to our friends Brian and Kelly Syska who gave Colby a rosary blessed by Pope John Paul II. We kept that on his bed his entire stay.
Well we hope the next couple chapters of Colby's life story are pretty bland and normal, this one chapter was enough drama for an entire novel. Talk about hearts, I don't know if mine can take another episode like this one. I think everything happens for a reason and I don't know yet why this incident happened but I think someday I will. All I know is that when Colby is old enough to understand we'll look back on all this and make sure he knows how many people were behind him. I just saw a cheesy commercial for some medical tv show and the tagline for the show was "all patients deserve a hero", Colby had quite a few in the past few weeks.
We know Colby was mentioned in many churches throughout the area in the past couple weeks and we just wanted to say thank you. We also wanted to give a couple special thanks for a couple extra special prayers. To Jessica's cousin Chris, who happened to be on a fabulous trip over seas said a prayer for Colby at the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall as its often called, in Jerusalem. Also to our friends Randy and Cat who lit a candle for Colby at St. Patrick's Cathedral on their trip to New York. I also wanted to say thanks to our friends Brian and Kelly Syska who gave Colby a rosary blessed by Pope John Paul II. We kept that on his bed his entire stay.
Well we hope the next couple chapters of Colby's life story are pretty bland and normal, this one chapter was enough drama for an entire novel. Talk about hearts, I don't know if mine can take another episode like this one. I think everything happens for a reason and I don't know yet why this incident happened but I think someday I will. All I know is that when Colby is old enough to understand we'll look back on all this and make sure he knows how many people were behind him. I just saw a cheesy commercial for some medical tv show and the tagline for the show was "all patients deserve a hero", Colby had quite a few in the past few weeks.
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