Aidan 6 months old

On Feb 20th Aidan turned 6 months old :o) He has his 6 month well check up this past Monday. The doctor is very happy with his health. He is doing GREAT :o) Weight = 20 lbs - 75% for weight, Height = 26 inches - 35% for height, and Head Circ = 17 3/4 - 85% for Head Circ. So he is a short chunky baby. At the doctor's visit he had to get 4 shots, one of which was a flu shot. Doc explained to us that there could be a slight chance that Aidan has or could develop asthma. So we need to keep an eye on him and be careful for the rest of the winter. Because all it can take is one more cold, flu, etc and he could end up back in the hospital. So needless to say we are very weary with our play dates and what not. The doc also told us that we have the A OK to start solid foods. After the doc visit, I ran out to get some Gerber veggies for him, and BOY did he love him some Sweet Potatoes. I thought that it was going to be an easy step for him, BUT I was wrong....should have known better with our little high maintenance baby boy :o) That evening I mixed Sweet Potatoes with Cereal and HE LOVED IT....but since then he has refused to eat certain things. He still loves sweet potatoes, but he wants nothing to do with bananas or cereal. And his little tummy seems to be doing a number on him. We think he might be constipated :o( So we are going to have to work on solid foods. Other than that he is A OK.

Yummy Cereal

:o)

BATH TIME

Ace is doing good too. He went along with us to the docs and he was telling me the whole time "Mommy, Ace wants shots". I told him that he doesn't want any shots, and he would just laugh at me. Then when the nurse came in and gave Aidan his shots, Ace turned to me and said "No shots Mommy, NO SHOTS". I laughed sooo hard :o)

CHEESE

Brotherly Love

Boys will be boys

How sweet

Happy to be home

The doctor's finally Aidan the A OK to go home on Friday February 13th. We were so happy to be home with Phil and Ace. It was a nice way to celebrate Valentine's Day too. On Valentine's Day we hung around the house all day, just being a family. Unfortunately, Phil had to do some work on Saturday :o( I clogged up our kitchen sink with Spaghetti....so Phil spent most of the day trying to fix up screw up :o( But he had it fixed in time for dinner :o) I made him a special dinner, and we had our first family dinner in a week. It was real nice. We put the kiddos to bed, and we watched my Valentine's Day present "Fireproof". It was a good movie :o) :o) On Sunday we decided to skip church, and lounge around the house all day in our PJs. On Monday, Phil took off of work and we took Aidan to his follow up appointment. The doctor told us that he sounds good (even though he sounds bad). He will have a cough and some congestion for about another week. He is no longer carrying the RSV virus :o) :o) His body is just trying to re coop. The doctor did advise us to not allow Aidan to be around a lot of kids. So MOPS and Church Nursery are out of the picture for us, for about a week or two. The doctor told us that his immune system is still very weak, and if he were to get just a little cold that we could end up back in the hospital :o( So we are going to be VERY careful. But we are very happy and blessed to be home again.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Lounging around the house

This is Ace's idea of lounging around the house :o)

Happy that Aidan is A OK

Aidan taking a cat nap

Aidan's 2nd Hospital Visit

On Wednesday night, Aidan woke up around 3 am with a fever of 102 and just couldn't get comfortable. So on Thursday morning, I made an appointment with our pediatrician. When we got to the doctor's office, I was expecting her to tell me that Aidan had a cold or maybe even an ear infection. But that was not the case. She told me that he had Bronchiolitis and that we were going to have to stay at the doc's office for an hour or two to give him some breathing treatments. Well, after Aidan's two breathing treatments, the doctor came back in to re-evaluate him again. She was not happy with his breathing and told me that he was breathing 86 times in one minute, which is way too high for a baby. So she wanted us to go to the hospital. So we rushed right over to the hospital. We ended up staying the ER for a couple of hours, until they had cleared a room for us. While in the ER, they started Aidan on Oxygen because his oxygen level in his blood was low. They also started him on breathing treatments every 4 hours to try and bring down his respiratory rate and heart rate. They ordered x-rays which came back good, and they did a RSV swab which at the time came back negative. We finally made it up to our room around 7 pm on Thursday night. Aidan's first night at the hospital was pretty rough. He wasn't comfortable, and it seemed like everytime he would drift off to bed, they would come and check him out :o( Friday morning our pediatrician came to check on Aidan. He told me what Bronchiolitis was and what Aidan's goals were to be able to go home. Friday all day Aidan was good, his heart rate, oxygen, and resp rate were all good. But Friday night was another BAD night. Saturday was another good day, he would have his good hours and then he would have his bad hours. Saturday night Aidan took a turn for the worse. His heart rate jumped up along with his respiratory rate, and they hooked him up to monitor him 24 hours. Aidan didn't sleep at all on Sat night. Early Sunday morning, the nurse came in to take Aidan to get another chest x-ray to give him more breathing treatments. The nurses came back to let me know that they wanted to send him to Fairfax Hospital because they were scared that he was working too hard, that he could stop breathing. So we were med vac ed to Fairfax Hospital (the ONLY good thing about that experience was that I got to ride in a helicopter ride). Once at Fairfax, we were admitted to PICU and he was being monitored all the time. They hooked him up to humidified oxygen, took more xrays, gave him some meds just in case he had some kind of bacterial virus, and just continued to monitor him. Last night, was probably the worse night yet. Aidan was up every 2 hours and he wasn't happy nor comfortable. Early this morning, they decided to put in a feeding tube. He was working so hard to breath, that feeding was making matter worse. And it has been night and day since they haven given him the feeding tube. He is sleeping more, when he is awake he is happy and content, and his heart rate, resp rate, and oxygen levels are ALL good :o) This afternoon we were transferred out of ICU and graduated to IMCU, it is one step down from ICU and once step away from the regular pediatric unit. We are just hanging in there and praying that everything gets better soon.

On a happy note, when they were getting ready to move Aidan to his new room, one of the nurses came in to check him and to suction his nose. Well, Aidan was laying in bed, wide awake watching some TV. As soon as the nurse came in and walked up next to his bed, Aidan closed his eyes. Whenever the nurse would walk away or turn her back to him he would peak his eyes open. It was like he knew what she was up to, so if he could pretend that he was sleeping, that she would leave him alone :o) It was the cutest thing

Ace came to see us today. I met Phil in the lobby and switched roles. Phil went to sit with Aidan and I took Ace to get some lunch. My little love bug wanted his mommy to hold him the whole time. It was tooo cute. When I took Ace from Phil, I started walking to the elevators and Ace said "No Mommy, Aidan that way" ( and pointed towards Aidan's room) he then told me "Ace kiss Aidan's boo boo" I could have melted. Ace really misses his little brother :o( I am soo happy that they are that close already. Since we have moved to IMCU, Ace is able to come and visit, so tomorrow night, Phil is going to bring Ace over so he can see his little brother.