#10 Noah's Homecoming, Part 2

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Part 2:
milk bank
Our milk bank
July flew by.  Despite our medical backgrounds, it has been a constant learning curve.  Jana is filling up our freezer with breast milk and we now have a huge supply.  There was a special milk bank when we were at the hospital, a place where we could store excess feedings.  Now we have our personal bank at home.  The nasogastric tube (feeding tube) placement can be tricky, especially when you realize it has come out at 4 am. Imagine milk dripping into the crib and the tortuous device has to go back in your baby's nose, down into his belly before the next feed.  

 We are now in the interstage period (time between Noah's first two open heart surgeries).  There are a lot of details and precautions to constantly be aware of.  We send his daily heart rate and oxygen levels to the cardiology team at Nationwide Children's Hospital through a monitoring device.  His weight is recorded nightly, along a short video clip where the medical team can closely observe his clinical status.  All this data gets inputed on a phone app.  On top of frequent doctor appointments, there is a weekly phone call with his interstage nurse to discuss the clinical data and make adjustments. 
Our mini pharmacy 

 Because of his heart, Noah fatigues very easily.  Three ounce feedings take up to an hour and are every three hours.  Because he doesn't yet have the stamina to breast feed directly, we bottle feed him as much as he can tolerate, then tube feed the rest.  There are medications to give at 9am, 3pm, 5pm, 9pm and 1am.  When do we sleep?  Well, I must say my wife has the heart of a champion when it comes to motherhood.  It must be all that practice when she did the twelve hour night shifts as a labor and delivery nurse.  In Post #4 The One You Love, I talked about some of my 80+ hour work weeks when I was a physician in residency training.  For a different reason this time, we are in a season of very little sleep.  Noah keeps us busy but his overall progress keeps us motivated.  

We recently met a family through an online community that sent us a short book in the mail.  It chronicles the journey of their son, Gideon.  He was a little warrior born with a heart like Noah's.  Gideon's life was brief.  The parents tell an inspiring story of how their son's 13 days of life impacted others and positively changed their lives forever.  Noah has already made a dramatic impact in our lives and we hope he can continue to inspire others.  We are also reminded of how precious life is and find ourselves counting blessings more often.  

We are truly grateful.  

 I hope you have found something encouraging or motivating from these blog posts.  Post #11, How Great Thou Art, will be out soon.  This one will share another "God moment" like we experienced in Post #2 Lead me.

 Thanks again for checking out www.crossrunnersheart.com and following the blog a.k.a The Journey.  Please share the website with someone you want to encourage.  

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