News Flash!!!!!

Landon is coming home tomorrow!!!!!

We are super excited.

More details later.

Phil

Sent from my iPhone

The Story of Saturday January 30th

Just taking a little break from the NICU, Hillary and I have been here since 10am, it's 4pm now.  Just a quick little update, then more tomorrow.

The Story of Friday January 29th

Hillary and I spent all day at the hospital with Reagan and Landon (sounds nice, doesn't it?  Reagan and Landon!)

The Story of the Band Getting Back Together, Man!

Reagan is back at SJRMC with his brother Landon who is slowly working on drinking out of the bottle.  All we need now is Amanda on the keyboards, and we are ready to start making music.

News Flash - Part 2

Reagan just arrived at SJRMC, I'm here with him right now. Good to
have the boys in the same place again. "The band's getting back
together, man!"

Full updates with pictures and video tomorrow.

Phil

Sent from my iPhone

News Flash

Reagan coming back to St. Johns tomorrow. More later. Can't type,
tears of joy all over my iPhone.

Sent from my iPhone

The Story of Tuesday January 26th - Briefly

Just a real quick post, more details later, but another day of really good news.....

The Story of Monday January 25th

Another good day; I went down to CHLA to see Reagan, then stopped by SJRMC on my way home to see Landon, while Hillary spent the day with Landon.

The Story of a Really Good Day

Today was a really good day, Landon is really progressing well, and we got some great news about Reagan.

The Story of the Blog - Part V

Just a formatting note, I made it so that only the first paragraph of each post appears on the main page, that way more posts appear on each page.  To read the whole post, just click the "Read More" link after the first paragraph.

The Story of Saturday January 23rd - Our Visit with Reagan

I wish I could tell you that our visit with Reagan was filled with just as much good news as our visit with Landon.  I had mentioned the other day that for every two steps forward with Reagan, we take one step back.  Well lately it has been one step forward and one step back.  He is healthier than when he first arrived at CHLA a week ago today, but he is nowhere near healthy enough to begin taking him off any machines.

The Story of Saturday January 23rd - Our Visit with Landon

Hillary and I started off our day with a visit to SJRMC to spend some time with Landon.  He's doing really, really well, so well in fact that we are progressing to the point where we are doing the steps necessary to get him ready to come home.  Not the steps to bring him home, but the steps to get him ready to come home.

The Story of Friday January 22nd - Part II

So I finally got to go in and spend some time with Reagan, and got a chance to talk to the doctor.  I made a mistake in the earlier post, they are going to take him off the high frequency ventilator and put him on a normal vent, then, slowly wean him off the nitric oxide.  Hillary and I are headed down there later today after we drop by SJRMC to see Landon.

The Story of holding Landon by Hillary

What a wonderful day it was....after a pretty good night of sleep I woke-up and the sun was shinning after days of rain and we were off to hold our 2nd born son Landon.  The only thing that could have made this day better was having Reagan there and my step-daughter Amanda there. 

The Story of Friday January 22nd - Part I

I'm at CHLA waiting to go in and see Reagan after Hillary and I got to hold Landon this morning (more on that in a bit).

The Story of the Blog - Part IV

Tons of new pictures up on my Picassa page here of the past few days, including the pictures from today of Hillary and me holding Landon.

All of the videos I've taken so far are up on my YouTube page here, including the videos of us holding Landon, and some videos that I haven't posted to the blog. If you have a YouTube account, you can hit the "Subscribe" button and get updates whenever new videos are posted.

Feel free to leave comments to the posts, I know that a lot of people feel like it's an imposition to email and call all the time, you're comments are how we know that you are getting the updates and following along with Reagan and Landon's progress.

Your thoughts and prayers are much appreciated, keep 'em coming.

The Story of Thursday January 21st

Another short post today about Landon, will update later when I get the whole debrief from Hillary about Reagan.  Hillary and Liza went down to CHLA to spend the day with Reagan and then stopped by SJRMC to visit Landon.  I went and spent the day with Landon and even got to go into work for a bit.

The Story of Wednesday January 20th

This is going to be a short post, I was sick most of yesterday evening (food poisoning - don't go to the Del Taco on Rice and Gonzales).

The Story of my first visit to see Reagan at CHLA by Hillary

Yesterday, January 19 was a pretty good day, not only was I feeling a little better from the c section but I was going to see my first born, Reagan.  I got up, had a shower and put on some make-up for the first time in over a week, I felt somewhat normal minus the healing from my surgery.  My mother drove me to CHLA (I cannot drive for 2 weeks) and I was just amazed with this hospital from the second we got there.  What an amazing atmosphere it was. 

The Story of a Good Day (Tuesday the 19th)

Sorry for the delay in updating, I ran around so much yesterday that I just didn't feel like typing.

Tuesday was a good day for Reagan and Landon.  Hillary and her mom went down to CHLA to see Reagan and had several really good conversations with his nurses and his doctors.  Reagan is getting a little bit better with each day.  Between the high frequency oscillating ventilator, the nitric oxide machine, and the four doses of surfactant they've given him, his O2-CO2 numbers are improving, which means that he is getting better.  There is no more talk at all about ECMO, or even talk of giving him more surfactant.  More on that later.

The Story of Monday January 18th - Part III

Well I'm home with my wife, which makes me happy, I just wish that the boys were here with us, and Amanda was here too.

The Story of Monday January 18th - Part II

I spent some more time in the NICC with Reagan.  (Here at CHLA they call it a NICC, not a NICU - Center vice Unit).  He is really responding well to the treatments.  He's not out of the woods yet, but he is definetely getting better.  They are going to do another blood draw at 4pm, so I'll go back in at 4:30 and check on him and spend a little more time with him.  If he's still improving, I'm headed back home, with a stop at St. Johns to see Landon.  It feels like forever since I've seen Landon, I can't wait.  Hillary says he's doing much better as well.

The Story of Reagan and Landon's Big Sister Amanda

I've been meaning to talk about my sweet baboo Amanda for a while now, just haven't had the chance until now.

Reagan and Landon are very lucky to have a big sister like Amanda.  All during the pregnancy she was always excited to hear the results of all the tests, going with us to some of the ultrasound appointments, and excitedly preparing to be a big sister (free babysitting for us!!!!!!)

The Story of Monday January 18th

I'm sitting in McDonalds on the first floor of CHLA, just spent a little bit of time with Reagan and going to go back and see him again in about an hour.

The Story of the Blog - Part III

Appearantly I had messed up one of the settings and this blog wasn't accepting comments for the individual posts.  I think I fixed it, so if you would like to add a comment to anything we have posted, please feel free.

Thanks,
Phil

The Story of Some Good News for Reagan

Your prayers are working, keep them coming.

The good folks in the NICU here at CHLA just did a procedure on Reagan and it has given us some positive results so far.

The Story of Reagan's Ups and Downs.....

.....Or more accurately his downs and ups.

The Story of Sunday the 17th

I'm all settled in at CHLA, my mom and dad are here with me right now, Michelle is with Hillary at St. John's in Oxnard, Brian is on his way to Burbank Airport to pick up Liza, and Amanda is with her soccer team in Camarillo getting ready for their next tournament game.  Reagan is here with me in the NICU at CHLA, I just spent some time with him, he is sedated and still under the effects of the paralytic they gave him for the helicoptor ride from Oxnard.  Landon is still at St. John's, he's sedated because of the whole pulling of the ventilator tube out of the mouth trick he pulled this morning.

The Story of the Start of a Really Bad Day

I'm in Hollywood right now at Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) waiting for Reagan to get here. At about 3am-ish I went down to the NICU to see the boys and there was a bunch of activity going on.  Reagan had taken a turn for the worse. His lungs just aren't strong enough to keep him breathing. Preparations were underway to helicoptor him to CHLA so he can get the treatment he needs.

The Story of Landon's Troubles (Cliff's Notes Version)

Another sad day.  Landon had to go back on the ventilator tubes :-(  I guess he just didn't want his brother to be the only one.

The Story of the Blog - Part II

Just a real quick note.....

Updates have been kind of tough, the wireless in Hillary's room is spotty at best.  Another quick post following this, and then back to longer updates tomorrow.

The Story of my first blog

Well, today has been a whirlwind of emotions. The day started off
great with a shower given by my husband, bless him for taking such
great care of me.

The Story of Reagan's Troubles

So, the on-call pediatrician just came by and said that Reagan had to be placed back on the ventilator :-(

Towards the end of the pregnancy, the neonatal-cardiologist was one of the many doctors looking at the boys fairly regularly.  They were concerned about something with Reagan's heart, but they just couldn't get a good look at it because Landon was lying right across him. And again, they were also concerned because the amniotic fluid in Reagan's sac was getting kind of low.

The Story of my first post from my iPhone.

Let's see how this works. I'm typing this on my iPhone and it's supposed to update right to the blog.
Here goes!

Sent from my iPhone

The Story in Pictures

OK, here are all the Pictures I have taken so far.  Click on the picture below and it will take you to the web album.  I'm still working on a better presentation, will update when I get there.

The Story of the Blog

OK, here's a few quick things to point out about this blog, then I'm off to work on the pictures, promise.

The Story of Friday the 15th

A quick update while I work on getting all of the pictures on-line.....

We had a good day today.

The Story - So Far

A little back-story to set the mood. When you are expecting twins you go to the doctor’s office a lot. We had two appointments on Tuesday the 12th, one for our OB/GYN and one for our peri-neonatologist.