20/20

Last Friday, Cayden had his one year follow-up visit with the opthamologist.  Preemies have something like a 20% chance that there will be some sort of early, profound vision problems, but this seems to be another bullet we have dodged.  He shows no signs of impaired vision or misalignment issues like lazy eye or cross eyes and Dr. Enzenauer says we are good to go for another year before we have to follow up with him.  Once again, we are so thankful.

For those that haven't heard, we've had some crazy, warm, dry, windy weather here in Denver.  March is usually our snowiest month and we haven't had a single flake all month.  Temperatures have been in the 70's most of the month and are supposed to climb into the mid-80s this weekend.  The wind has been absolutely insane many days this month as well, but we've been trying to get out every day to go for a walk and enjoy the sunshine.  That was our routine, at least, until a major forest fire broke out this past Monday afternoon in the foothills west of town.  Although we live on the far southeastern side of town, the smoke and ash from the fire has been a problem.  The first couple of days it was so bad, you couldn't walk to the mailbox and back without coming home smelling like you'd been sitting next to a campfire for hours.  There was an advisory posted warning people to stay indoors through Tuesday of this week, but I think that has been dropped.  They are still advising some people to not go outside: the very young, the very old, and anyone with cardiac or respiratory issues.

Because Cayden has chronic lung disease (albeit a mild case from what we were last told), I've been avoiding taking him outside since the fire started on Monday.  Today was such a beautiful day, and you couldn't see or smell any smoke in our neighborhood, so I was just dying to go out for a walk.  Just to be safe, I called Dr. Rosenberg's office to get their advice on the matter.  No joy - they said because of his issues, and especially because he had a bit of croup a couple weeks ago, he should not go outside until the fire is out. 

I really want to whine and cry and stomp my feet in cabin fever frustration, but when I think about what other people have lost because of this fire (EVERYTHING, their homes, their lives...), I get over myself.  It sucks to be cooped up inside when it's so nice out, but at least we still have our home to be cooped up in.

Marching for Babies

Later next month, I will be participating in the March of Dimes March for Babies, a three mile walk and fundraiser.  I wanted to do it last year, but we had just brought Cayden home from the hospital a few weeks earlier and life was totally chaotic, so I promised myself that I would do it this year.

The March of Dimes has funded research that without a doubt saved Cayden's life and I feel like it's the least I can do to try to help raise money for their efforts.

Jason will still be out of town, so I'll be bringing both boys with me, pushing the double BOB stroller, and walking with several friends on our team, Cayden Ferguson.

I haven't done any fundraising in a long time - probably since I hocked Girl Scout cookies thirty-some years ago - and things have changed a lot since then.  It's all online and electronic which makes it easy in a lot of ways, but also somewhat impersonal.

Alas, that is the point of this whole March, so if you follow the blog and could find it in your heart to make a donation, I, Cayden, and millions of other babies would be most grateful!  You can use the link below...
Donate to the March of Dimes in honor of Cayden

Thank you!

Homecoming anniversary

It was one year ago today that we brought Cayden home for the first time after 111 days in the NICU.  It seems so long ago and I can't even digest all that's happened in this past year.  All I know is I never imagined we'd get here in such good shape!

I think Cayden wanted to celebrate by forcing me to take him to see Dr. Rosenberg, his current pediatrician and one of the attending neonatologists while at the NICU.  It all started last night when Cayden got pretty fussy at dinner.  He didn't eat much then just started crying.  Jason took him upstairs and checked his temperature - 99.5 - so he gave him a dose of Tylenol.  Since he's cutting two molars, we figured his teeth were hurting.  He was still very fussy for the next hour or so until we could get him to bed, but amazingly, he slept through until 5:30.  He usually doesn't wake up until around 8, but I wasn't surprised he was up that early.  Since he didn't eat much for dinner, I thought hunger woke him.  His temperature was up to 100.5 and although he drank a whole bottle of milk and ate a bit for breakfast, he was still pretty fussy.  More Tylenol didn't seem to help.

Today was the day Jason left for two months in Cairo.  I had to take him to the airport, so after breakfast, all four of us loaded up in the car for the ride.  I thought Cayden would sleep in the car, but he didn't.  We dropped Daddy off, said our tearful goodbyes, then the three of us headed home.  Once we got in the house, the non-stop crying began.  He would not eat, he wouldn't sleep, he was absolutely inconsolable.  The only way I could settle him down was to hold him, and then sometimes even that didn't help.

The home health nurse was scheduled to come to the house to give him his last dose of Synagis (the RSV vaccine) this afternoon, but since he wasn't feeling well, I wasn't sure if we should still do it or not.  I called and spoke to a nurse at the Special Care Clinic and she advised us not to give him the vaccine and that it sounded serious enough that I should bring him in to be seen.  She said it sounded like maybe he had an ear infection and since it was Friday, she didn't think it was wise to wait it out over the weekend.  Apparently Dr. Rosenberg wasn't seeing patients today, but the nurse paged him to ask his advice and he said he'd come down from his office and see Cayden at 2:45.  I really appreciated that.

So after a few more hours of inconsolable crying, the three of us (I had to bring Jamison along since I'm now a pseudo-single mom as of 10:00 this morning) loaded back up into the truck and headed to Children's Hospital.  Dr. Rosenberg examined him and diagnosed him as having a viral infection (most likely para influenza) with a touch of croup.  I was panicked at the mention of him having croup again after our experience being hospitalized for it last fall.  Hopefully, now that he's five months older and stronger, it won't be as severe.  The really strange thing is that aside from a slight fever, being fussy, and not eating well, he's really not showing any signs of being sick (no runny nose, no cough, no sneezing.  The "croupy" noise comes when he inhales while crying, and I never even noticed it.)

Anyway, he got a dose of steroids at the office and we were told to keep him hydrated, control any pain with Ibuprofen, and to run a cool mist humidifier in his room at night.  They sent us home with a prescription for another dose of steroids if he gets worse but said one dose usually does the trick.  He napped briefly in the late afternoon, ate a decent dinner and drank a good bit of milk before falling asleep around 9 tonight - I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll sleep through the night and kick this bug soon.  It's going to be a looooong 60 days without Daddy if there are many more like today.