Home Again!!

After a long, exhausting 30 day hospital stay, Noah is finally home! The last month has just been one hurdle after another and what we thought would be an overnight stay turned into an entire month! After the fundoplication surgery, Noah spent one night in PICU. The ventilator was removed after 24hrs and Noah did great. So he was transferred to CH5 where he continued to recover. No food was allowed for 3 days to give his tummy time to rest. Then feeds were started very slowly. With Noah it was 2 steps forward and 1 step back as we worked to get him back up to his full feeds. He continued to have difficulty with his respirations as well as alot of retching and gagging, so it took a week and a half to get him back to full feeds.
Early Tuesday morning, the day he was to go home, Noah's g-tube came out. We still don't know what happened, but it had come out sometime during the night. The stoma closes so quickly that by the time we noticed what had happened, it had almost completely closed. There was no way the g-tube was going back in, but they managed to get a smaller foley catheter in the hole. It will have to be slowly stretched back out so we can get the g-tube put back in. So we will see the surgeon in 2 weeks to have a slightly bigger catheter put in, and then when Noah has his lip surgery on March 13th, the surgeon will put in a button.
So it was decided to keep Noah until Wednesday to make sure all was ok with his tube and his feeds. Noah was miserable all throughout the night and that morning. The surgical nurse was all ready to pull out his central line so we could leave, when Noah spiked a fever. What a huge disappointment! This meant at least another 48hrs of antibiotics. His g-tube site was infected from all the manipulating that had happened the day before.
Today, once the blood cultures came back negative, Noah's central line was pulled out and we were finally able to take him home! We are feeding him at home with the pump, which he will be hooked up to for 18hrs each day. He is still on Neocate formula and we will start to reintroduce breast milk on Monday, mixed with the Neocate to boost his calories. He is doing well and we are hoping to see some weight gain now that we are home and the vomiting has completely stopped. He will start seeing occupational therapy and physiotherapy each month to help him as he develops. We continue to be amazed at God's goodness and faithfulness. Noah continues to amaze us all and remind us over and over of the precious gift of life. He is so responsive and freely gives out smiles that melts our heart. We thank God for bringing us through this past month and that we can finally be a family again.