The Story of Landon Coming Home

Sorry the updates have been sparse the past few days, Hillary and I have been at the hospital almost all day every day since Reagan came back from CHLA to SJRMC.  And today we were kinda busy as well.  Today Landon came home.

I'm going to tell the whole Landon coming home story, but first I want to spend some time talking about Reagan.

Since Reagan came back from CHLA, it has been the babiest of baby steps.  As of right now, he is still on the baby viagra for his pulmonary hypertension, and is slowly being weaned off of the morphine, which they used to replace the heavier narcotics he was on at CHLA.  He had all of his IV tubes removed, but he still has the nose cannula for oxygen and he's pulled his mouth feeding tube out twice now (I guess he doesn't like it).  We are waiting for the results of the latest echo cardiogram test for the next step. 

If the doctors like what they see, they can stop the baby viagra.  When they stop the baby viagra, they can get rid of the nose cannula, and when they get rid of the nose cannula they can replace the mouth tube with a nose feeding tube.  When the mouth tube is replaced with the nose tube, they can start working on the suck/swallow/breathe by getting him on the bottle.  Once he is on the bottle, and gets all of his food from either the bottle or the boob, he can come home.  It's going to be a bit, I think optimistically at least a week or so before we start to think about getting him ready to go home.  He's a fighter though, we never thought he would get as far as he is this fast.

There are a few other things too.  Remember a while back I was talking about his right arm and the fact that it seemed like it wouldn't fully extend?  Well they are looking at that too.  They did a head ultrasound to see if he had anything unusual going on up there that might be related, we'll know the results a little bit later.

From the way it looks now, and talking with the doctors, even after he comes home, he will need some extra special care and treatment for all that he has been through so far in his short little life.

Here's a couple of pictures of Reagan just hanging out.....

And then Reagan got upset that his brother Landon was leaving so he pulled out his mouth tube.  Here's a couple of pictures of him without, and a picture of him in his mommy's arms...

And now for the Landon coming home story; it was so nice to bring him home, Hillary and I were so excited, but at the same time it is a little bittersweet, that the boys are once again separated.

The process started Sunday night, with Hillary and the nurse giving Landon a bath.....

We also had to watch the CPR video, fill out some paperwork and go over all the little things with the nurse and doctor.  Hillary and I kissed the boys goodbye at the hospital and went to grab a bite to eat.  We got up early today, eager to get to the hospital and get the process started.  We spent some time with Reagan, and finished all the paperwork to get Landon home.  We decided not to lease him, so now we are the proud out-right owners of a new baby boy (with that new baby boy smell and everything).

We got him all dressed up in his going home duds.....

Got his car seat ready.....

Took a few family photos.....

Loaded him up in his car seat.....

Hopped into the get-away vehicle.....

And came home (check out Rudy greeting him on his arrival).....

And here is what made the day the best day so far.....

Amanda finally got to hold one of her brothers.  One down, one to go.

So here we are, it's about 8:45 on a Monday evening; Landon and Amanda, Hillary and I are sitting here watching TV, getting ready to head upstairs and go to bed.  As soon as Reagan gets home we'll outnumber the girls and it should be smooth sailing from then on out.

I'm taking Amanda to school in the morning then heading to the hospital to spend some time with Reagan while Hillary and Landon chill out here at home.  Then I'm going to go home and swap out with Hillary and hang out with Landon (we're going to watch ESPN all day) while she goes to spend some time with Reagan.

More updates tomorrow.

Phil