Nice weekend

In many ways, it was a really nice weekend. We got in some good family time, beautiful weather...etc If you live around here and didn't make it outside, you really missed out! Kaci and Big Justin came down for a visit and we had a really nice time visiting - and playing phase 10. I have to know, has anyone actually made it all the way through that game? We did have a lot of players - it actually kind of felt like Thanksgiving or something b/c all three Wittmer kids and their spouses were present, plus all the grandkids. Yes, to date we are the only grandchild contributors, hopefully that will change soonish....? Ok, I'm not the one who's supposed to be applying that sort of pressure, so I'll leave that to the grandparents.

That was our Saturday. Sunday the FOP hosted a family day out at the camp. We all enjoyed it, especially Justin and Kendrick. After we got there, we halfway wished we had brought Gabe, since it was a beautiful day and not too crowded, but it is probably better that we resisted temptation. He looks so good and is doing so well by appearances that it makes it hard to remember sometimes we still need to be cautious. While we were there, we were talking about Gabe's first birthday. We are tentatively thinking this occasion would make a great "coming out" opportunity. Blog allows the option to "poll" your viewers, but we never had anything we particularly cared to poll everybody on. Gabe's birthday falls on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and we know this would be a good weekend for some and a bad one for others. If I can figure it out, I am going to poll everybody on what weekend would work out better for them. We are thinking this will be an open invitation event - if you want to come, then come - even if we have never met face-to-face, even if you are not local, if you can manage it and want to celebrate with us, come celebrate with us. Ofcourse, we don't know what Josh's schedule will be and won't until January, so that may trump the poll decisions!!

Ok, I don't have time to figure out the polling thing just now, but watch for it!! We really want to stress that EVERYONE is invited - family, friends, health care folks - EVERYONE!!

Sorry for the delay in update - we made it to Indy and back in one day. We left around 7 yesterday morning and got home around 5PM, so it wasn't too bad. We made up to the outpatient center in good time and didn't have to wait too long. We saw the nurse that specializes in Gtubes and she took out the tube from surgery and tried to put in the button, but it wouldn't go in, and the site started bleeding. She decided it wasn't healed enough and put in a different tube with a disc next to the skin to hold it - so he didn't get any stitches. As you can imagine, he was pretty irate over all of the probing into his belly, but calmed down pretty quickly after she was done. Since there was some difficulty getting everything squared away, she wanted us to get a study done in fluorscopy, to make sure the tube was going into the stomach. Sure, no problem! OK, after we got downstairs there was one problem, they don't do fluorscopy until 1:30, so we had an hour to kill. The line for the wraps was pretty long, so most of our wait was used up getting lunch! The test itself took a matter of minutes, and we were on our way home!

Quick trip to Indy tomorrow

Welllll...while getting Gabe changed earlier, I caught a glimpse at the site where his tube goes into his tummy under the nipple protecting it and something didn't look right. When I moved the nipple up I noticed the stitches were around the tube and no longer in Gabe. Ok....don't panic...call Indy. Fortunately Dr. Rouse was the attending surgeon, so I didn't have to explain anything - just told him what happened. We had just seen him yesterday here in Evansville, so this was a surprise to both of us. He talked us through taping the tube so it wouldn't (hopefully) come out and asked us to get to Indy first thing in the morning. He didn't really know who to refer us to down here, especially given Gabe's anatomy inside and the fact that the tube has only been in two weeks. We would feel better having someone who knows Gabe take care of it anyway, so we'll deal with the drive. So it looks like he'll be getting his "button" about two weeks early.

Speaking of "excitement", word is getting around that somebody was trying to get into our house last night. Everybody is fine, and he didn't get in. The man had been released from St Mary's Hospital for drug use and somehow wound up banging on our front door in a panic. Josh quickly got on the phone and, as I am sure you can imagine, we had plenty of help in a matter of minutes. Fortunately Justin and Kendrick slept through the whole incident. We really do live in a good neighborhood, this was just a freak thing. Talk about adrenaline!

Gabe's laugh

Ok, for some reason the picture is less than stellar, but if you listen, you can hear his little giggles. They aren't big belly laughs just yet, but they are precious just the same. Justin was the one who got it out of him tonight. Anyway, enjoy - and sorry the picture isn't clearer.

There's a few pictures of Gabe eating if you scroll down!

I've had multiple people asking about the prayer blog. The address is http://chainofprayers.blogspot.com and instructions for prayer request posts are listed under the profile section there. We all know the power of prayer, so don't hesitate to let me know if there is anything you want posted there.

It's been a busy week, so there hasn't been a lot of time to update. There hasn't really been much new to report anyway - just continuing to figure out what is normal. Josh worked quite a bit down at the Fall Festival, and then again this morning at the YMCA half marathon. He ran it the first year they had it, and when I saw him immediately after he crossed the finish line he emphatically gasped out "...Never again!". He may change his mind and run it again, but for now I think he is content to direct traffic and cheer on the runners!

What's new for Gabe? Well, when we first started the cereal and purees, he seemed to object at first and then reconsider - His face said "ok, this is not too bad, I'm open to it". Now he seems to be enjoying "eating" a little better. He likes to "help" get the cereal in his mouth by sticking his fist in his mouth after he gets a bite. I am not sure just how much is actually making it into his tummy, but at least eating is becoming something positive for him. We are still really "practising", but hopefully this will get him ready for when he is old enough to truly get his nutrition orally. He is also starting to laugh a little bit, which has us willing to do just about anything to hear it! We heard his first little giggle in the preop area, just before he got the Gtube - we figured it would be a little while before we heard it again, but last Sunday I was in the checkout line at the grocery store when my phone rang. Josh and Justin had elicited quite a chuckle from Gabe by placing a "vibrating monkey" toy on his belly. I got to hear it over the phone - a couple times, probably to the irritation of the checkout clerk. She didn't seem too aggravated at me and fortunately there wasn't anybody else in line behind me. Kendrick and I threw the groceries in the car and raced home to hopefully catch a live performance (amazingly, the eggs were all still intact).

Yesterday I was at the store again and ran into a Riley Dad. His son, Colin, was in module 2 for approximately 3 weeks in June. He told me that one of their neighbors from those days passed away this week. Apparently the baby was about 5 months old and had been through 4 or 5 pacemakers. I vaguely remembered the family - I talked to Colin's family quite a bit because they are from Evansville and actually live just a couple of miles away, and we have the same pediatrician. We stood in the parking lot and just talked for about 15 minutes. Standing there reminded me of those days in the NICU, after we knew Gabe would be ok even if he still had quite a bit of work left to do but we were still reminded that others did not yet have that certainty of their own babies. Even more poignant were the times you walked down the hall to the module and began to realize someone had lost their battle. It was difficult to reconcile the myriad of emotions that hit. My heart broke a little for them - we'd had a glimpse of what that kind of pain could be like that, but were fortunate enough to get only a glimpse. At the same time there was pain and compassion for them, there was relief, and then a little guilt. Why some are blessed with life and some are not, I can't answer and know I am not meant to. If you have a minute, say prayer for this family and the others going through unbearable grief. If you have kids, maybe hug them a little tighter or just a minute longer today - I did last night.

Josh and I were talking a bit about timing today and I realized that tomorrow we will have officially been home longer than we have been at Riley. Gabe was 4 months old Monday the 24, which was also exactly 2 months from the day we left Riley with him, but we spent 5 days up there last week, so tomorrow we will have made up those days. So, Thursday will actually be the day we will have been home longer. The day we got on the elevator with Gabriel, walked through the halls of the hospital, throuh the ROC and to the car was almost surreal. We had been there long enough that it was a huge change in routine, in what had become normal, to have Gabe with us as we went through that door. It was the same doors we went in and out of every day, sometimes multiple times per day, for two months. Now we look back from today to that day and the routine we have established at home and it seems like it has been ages since we lived any other life than the one here at home. But on Monday (last week), when we walked through those same doors, two months vanished in a blink - didn't we just leave with him? We knew the sights and sounds, knew if the patio was open or closed, and had some idea who might be working in the NICU that day and later that night. Our first night in the hospital last week, the nurse handed me the menu for nursing mothers, and even though I studied it and contemplated what to order, I didn't need to, I knew what was listed for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Isn't it amazing how our views of time bend and change. Time is constant but our perception of it is not.