2009 We laughed, we cried, we CONQUERED!

I can't believe that it is over. It really doesn't seem possible. At this point last year my water had just broken. We were in the hospital and they told us our little girl had a 5% chance. We were in such a different place. I have never been more grateful for this little girl than I am on this aniversary when we thought we had lost her. Words cannot even express the rollercoaster of extreme pain, worry, hope, and joy that we have gone through in the last year. Looking back it feels like someone elses life sometimes. But the past is the past and we have so many wonderful things that have come out of such difficult times. We have a renewed appreciation for each other, wonderful new friends, and comfort in knowing that we are surrounded by so many wonderful people that have done so much to support us over the last year. (You know who you are!)

So this New Year was a much anticiapated one! So much to celebrate and look forward to over the next year. Who better to celebrate the New Year with than some new found friends. We have become good friends with one of Laney's primary nurses. Jen and Heath are great people and Jen was even the one that admitted Laney to the NICU the night she was born. So we went to their house for some fabulous food and lots of fun. There was music, played a little pool, and did a countdown to the ball dropping in Times Square! Here are just a few photos from that night. Happy New Year Everyone!

Rewind to the end of 09'

Lets just start with the holidays and I will update from there....

Lets see...We spent Christmas at home this year. We were fortunate enough to have our family come to us. My mom, dad and grandma came to stay with us for a few days. It was great to have full time babysitters! Although I didn't really see them when we were up at night? I worked on Christmas Eve and was home bright and early Christmas morning to see all the stockings filled by Santa and watch Laney open her first Christmas presents. This special event went much as everone said it would. She received lots of brand new great toys (Grandma and Grandpa rock!) and her favorite you ask? You guessed it some little green plastic brace that held in the first toy she opened. She was not interested in anything else for a couple of days! Everyone said it would happen so we expected it but we will try again next year. As for presents from Mom and Dad well, we got her a new bathtub seat in the anticipation of the cast that is due to come off on January 4th! We used to LOVE bathtub time so hopfully we will love it again. Christmas day brought lots of fun. My aunt and uncle that live here in Boise came for Christmas dinner. We had a delicious prime rib with all the fixin's. We topped it off with some Baily's in the coffee and a couple rounds of pinochle. Christmas just isn't Christmas without some sort of game of cards being played. Laney spent the day playing with her new green plastic brace and chewing on her Great Grandma's oxygen tubing. What can I say, she is teething! All in all it was a wonderful first Christmas. I have to say I am already a little excited for next year.

Hope you had happy holidays,

The Meyers

Time Flies....

Wow! It has been a while... We are all doing fine and enjoying ourselves this holiday season. I need to back clear up to Halloween to update this blog. That is terrible I am a little ashamed. Oh well! I will make it short and sweet.

Laney was a Dragonfly for Halloween this year! It went well with her purple cast. She stayed home and handed out treats to the trick or treaters with her dad. I had to work. Mostly we have just been hanging out at home trying to keep her from getting sick. Knock on wood it has worked for the most part. She was able to get her swine flu shot in mid November and just our luck I ended up coming down with the swine flu one week later. How miserable. But fortunately she had her shot and it really didn't seem to bother her. I missed a few days of work and it meant that we spent Thanksgiving at home. We of course missed seeing family and friends but I have to admit it was nice to just have a quite day at home.

The end of November brought us to the midway point of Laney being in her cast. This meant it was time to go back in and have it taken off and changed. We weren't sure if they were going to have to do an actual surgery to change anything or just change the cast. We got lucky! Things looked great and we ended up just changing her cast. This time we went with RED for Christmas! It was a pretty easy trip in and out of the hospital for once. So now we are scheduled to have her cast taken off on January 4, 2010. All things considered these last 9 weeks of her being in the cast have gone quickly but we are looking forward to getting it off. I can also say with confidence that Laney is excited too! She wiggles and squirms like she knows she is supposed to be able to move but just can't.

Let's see...I don't know if we mentioned that Kevin went hunting this year and brought home an elk and restocked the freezer for us. I have been working at the hospital. I work nights and mostly on weekends so Kevin is able to work during the week and we have been fortunate enough to work that schedule out so we don't have to put Laney in day care. I am sure I am forgetting many things but that is a general update for now. I may have to make a New Year's resolution about keeping up better with this!

Happy Holidays!

The Meyer's

When God hands you a lemon...

You know the rest of the saying. Suffice it to say that we're getting a little tired of lemonade around here. We love our little lemon though, and we're glad her second surgery is over and we're moving forward again. We should have known Laney might be needing two surgeries when the doctor told us this summer, "I've only had one kid where the first surgery didn't relocate the hip properly and we had to go in and do it again." Laney always picks the short side of the odds. If she keeps this up, she'll probably someday win the lottery, be over 6 feet tall, become a Rhodes scholar, make it big as an actor or singer, save the world, and have a dozen children of her own. But she probably wouldn't even be here if she didn't beat the odds all the time, so we're not complaining about that.
This surgery was not nearly as smooth as the last one, and probably gets us started in the Bad Parents of America Club, if we weren't already members. She was out of surgery at about 9am and was in a different position this time, very spread-eagle, almost in the splits with just a slight bending of the legs. She was not happy, and never really stopped screaming. Except when the nurse gave her 0.06mg of demerol, and then almost everything stopped, including her breathing. So we had to sit there for 1 and 1/2 hours regularly stimulating her chest to remind her to breath so her O2 levels would stay up. It brought us full circle back to our months in Neonatal Intensive Care. Ah, such wonderful memories.
Anyway, the demerol finally wore off and the screaming started again. We took her home at about 11am, probably to the delight of the recovery room who didn't have to listen to her screaming anymore. We thought she would calm down at home, and figured she was probably just scared again and maybe a bit more uncomfortable due to the new position she was in with the cast. We kept giving her tylenol every 3 hours, which has a bit of hydrocodone in it, and tried to calm her down and get her to sleep. By 5:30pm, she was still crying. I'm not kidding, she never really stopped crying. Even after the tylenol treatments, she would calm down and almost get to sleep, but after just a few seconds she would jerk herself awake and start screaming again. After a while we started to worry, even wondering whether she was giving herself little seizures due to her hysteria. We finally gave up and called the doctor, who said she was probably having muscle spasms and suggest we combine the tylenol with Motrin (ibuprofen) and see if that worked. By 8pm we had given up and the doctor sent us to the hospital, where they gave her some valium and a comfortable crib, where she finally got some rest. In hindsight, we probably should have called the doctor much earlier and taken her back to the hospital much earlier, which is where the Bad Parents membership comes in. We just thought she would finally calm down, but she just couldn't due to the muscle spasms. We've probably scarred her for life now. We feel scarred ourselves!
Angie spent the night with Laney and we took her home the next afternoon, hoping she hadn't picked up swine flu which is running through the hospital. However, even the little bit of valium she was getting was reducing her drive to breath, so we went home with an O2 and heart rate monitor, and quickly came to the conclusion that 1/4 doses of valium or less was all we could give her. Due to the stress of the whole situation, we decided we would just take the rest of her dose, and that has helped us out a lot. Wink, wink.
So we're now on day 4 post-surgery and she is doing much better, though she still isn't eating like she was before. But she's getting there. We go back on Wednesday for the MRI to check whether the hip is properly placed this time, and if not we'll be back for round 3, which will be a more invasive surgery. And we'll be drinking even more lemonade.

Can't Catch a Break

We just can't seem to catch a break with this kid. As I mentioned in the last post she had the surgery on her hip. Things went well and we brought her home. There was an adjustment period with getting her used to her cast. It took a few days but she resolved to hanging out in her cast for the next 12 weeks. Her surgeon like to be cautious so we took her in yesterday for an MRI on her hip. There is always the possibility that it can come out of socket while she is in her cast. The MRI went great. She did really well. In fact she fell asleep while they were putting in her IV! (I wish my patients would do that) she slept all the time we were waiting to get the MRI. No problem, she did great! We took her home and after a long nap she was her happy self again.
Tody was the follow up with her sugeon. Brought up the MRI on the screen. And...yup, you guessed it! HER HIP IS OUT! "you are kidding!" is the first thing I said. #@*&! @#%&@$ was the second! It isn't out by much it is mostly just positioned to high in the socket. #$&*! $#%!#@ I say again! Calm down, I say to myself. OK, what do we do now? "take the cast off and do the surgery again." he says. I like the "take the cast off" part, not so excited about doing the surgery again. Fine, get the cast off and let the kid have some peace. I will take a few days with out the cast. There really isn't much I can do about the rest.
So his nurse brings in a cast cutting machine and we start cutting off the cast. Other than a little noise it really doesn't seem to bother Laney much. I cover her ears and we keep cutting. All the sudden Laney screams. I am thinking to myself...why is this bothering her now...we are almost done. I calm her down and look at the nurse as she starts to pry the cast apart. Yup you guessed it, the saw to cut off the cast cut Laney's leg. *&#%! #$@!**%## I am saying to myself. Don't scream at the nurse, YET, just keep Laney calm. So being the trooper she is Laney calms down and just does the little gasping cry. The Physicians assistant comes in, mind you I have not said a word and neither has the nurse. The nurse hands over the cutting tool and walks out without saying a word. No apology nothing. I am a nurse. I know things don't always go perfectly. I understand and I have sympathy. But when something like this goes wrong you aplogize and move on. We got nothing. I was so mad. Unfortunately I took it out on the PA a bit and walked out of the office. It is a superficial cut. It's not like Laney was bleeding everywhere but it is about a 2 inch gash in her thigh. I feel so bad for this kid. Some times I think she needs a better mom. I can't believe all that she has to go through. It could be worse, I know, but today it sucks.

The final hurdle...hopefully!

The next phase of of Laney's first year has begun. Last Thursday the 24th of September she had surgery on her hip. Every instinct you have fights you when you have to turn her over to a stranger that you know is going to put her to sleep and mess with her bones. I can't even think about it anymore. Handing her over was the hardest part. Everything turned out just fine though. The surgery took about an hour, which was much faster than we expected. We checked in about 5:30 am. At 6:00 they took us to pre-op. We got her in a little gown and she played around on a crib, rolling and playing with her feet. We talked to the nurse, anasthesiologist, and the doctor. At 7:30 they came and took her away. We also ran into one of the clergy staff, Carla. She came and prayed with us for Laney when she was in the NICU. She came and we said a prayer before her surgery. Then the nurse came. When I handed her over she just looked at me like, "what are you doing?" It was awful. About an hour later Dr.Shea came out to the wating room at 8:39 and told us she was fine and things went well. "Thank God" We went back in to the pediatric recovery room to see her. She was awake but still a little groggy you could tell. She had the most pitiful look on her face. It was beautiful but sad. The nurse picked her up and handed her to me to feed. It seemed like it hurt because she screamed. It took us about 20 minutes to calm her down. Even then the only reason she stopped is because she puked. Poor kid. I put her back in bed and we all just held hand with her and kissed her. It seemed mostly like she was just scared from the whole ordeal. Luckily we brought her purple singing elephant. That seemed to do the trick. Originally we had planned on having to stay the night in the hospital with her. Dr. Shea said it went so well and the hip went in easily so we could take her home. We hung out with her in recovery for a while and finally took her home around 12:30.

"That sounds great" you might say. Well until we got to the car and tried to put her in her car seat. As you can see from the photos she is cast straight up and down which is not conducive to being strapped in a car seat. She was screaming at us so we took our chances and just drove her home. Horrible, I know. Sometimes you do what you have to do.

Since we brought her home she is doing well. I think we have the changing of the diaper figured out. We are only allowed to give her sponge baths for then entire ordeal, but she does love them.

We gave her "the last bath" Wednesday night before we took her in. She was in her tub for about an hour. We had to refill the water 4 times from all the splashing! It was great. After 6 towels and mom's soaked pajamas we called it good and took her out. I miss those splashing legs.

Anyway, she has been pretty cranky. It is hard to tell if it is from pain or frustration. We have decided it is mostly frustration. We have bought her some new toys to accomodate her inability to move. She really likes some of them and is annoyed by others but we do what we can. Mostly she just wants to be held all day. We are hoping she adjusts a little better in the coming weeks. It is all an adventure and we are learning so much from this experience. We are mostly just grateful that she is

a part of our lives.

The Meyer's

Long Overdue Update!

Time gets away from you. I can't believe that it has been a month since we have posted an update. I am hoping you all are thinking that no news is good news. In this case it has been. We are all doing great. There have been a few changes though. Lets see..Laney had a follow up appointment with the pediatric cardiologist. They saw some very minor defects in her heart when she was in the hospital. It often happens to babies born so early. Theirs hearts are just not ready to be out in the world. The good news is, that she is fine. She has a minor defect in the way the blood flows through her heart that apparently is very common in kids. They think it will just resolve on its own and if it doesn't she will never notice because it is so minor. Yeah!! Next we took her to the orthopedic surgeon for her final appointment before surgery. She is doing fine but the hip is still dislocated. So we have surgery scheduled for September 24th. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. The surgery is minor but it makes me nervous for her to go under anasthesia. It is a mom's job to worry right?

The other major change we have made is the fact that I have gone back to work. I started the 21st of August. I have only spent 2 weeks doing actual nursing but I really like it. It is definately challenging and hard work. I have enjoyed my patients and the staff has been great. Being away from Kevin and Laney is a different story. They have been doing great! After much work with an occupational therapist that specializes in cranio-saccral therapy we finally got Laney to eat from the bottle. She even took a pacifier a few times! Now she switches back and forth most of the time without much effort. However, she has regressed a little and is back to waking up 2 times during the night. I have a theory that as she is growing she is using more calories but not really taking enough in with just the milk so this week we are going to try a little bit of real food and see how that goes.

As far as other advances that she has made...she has great head control, she is rolling over both ways (it is more common when she is mad) she is almost sitting up, and she is chewing on everything. It is amazing because she has never beena drooler but about a week ago the drool started flowing and now all she wants to do is chew on my fingers. Poor thing. I don't feel any teeth yet but I know they are there. We'll see how long it takes them to poke out.

Last but not least for our big news update...Kevin turned 40! August 30 was his birthday. We had some friends over and had a BBQ with some games and lots of drinking. (I think alot of them realized it is alot more difficult to recover at 40!) A few people stayed the night. We got up the next day (some of them more slowly than others) and Kevin went rafting and fishing with some of the boys. All in all I think he had a good time.

I think that is about it for now. I hope everyone is well!

The Meyer's