Saturday Dr. Plunkett was pleased with Kody's progress and decided to start taking him off the echmo machine. He has lost a lot of the fluid and his heart rate had became more stable. So he was in the 700's on the echmo and they had him down to 460 by this morning (Sunday). When we left tonight his blood pressure was up meaning his heart was doing more work and they took the machine down to 300. The goal is to have him down to 200 by 7 a.m. then if all goes well they may close his chest up tomorrow and we'll be on the road to recovery. Hopefully we can be home in ten days after they close his chest. We can't wait to get home and finally be able to hold our baby in our arms.
Please keep us in your prayers that everything will keep going well.
And again we can't express enough how thankfull we are of everyone's thoughts and prayers. It has helped so much to know we have so many praying for us and Kody's recovery.
About Me
- Jamie Jones
- Monticello, KY, United States
- Hi! For those of you that don't know me I'm Jamie Jones and I've been married to Marc for six years. We have a four year old daughter Katie and expecting a son Kody! We are scheduled for delivery June 22, 2009 I've always been a private person and didn't want my personal life posted for everyone to read. But the other night I came across a blog that really made me think different. A few months ago we found out our son is going to be born with a heart defect. So researching trying to find out as much as I can I found a family that is going through the same thing and it has really touched my heart. Their outlook and faith in God was really what I needed that night. I feel like I was lead to their page for a reason. I've thought about them often today and decided to post my own blog. We have a lot of family and friends that are praying for us and this will help keep them posted.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Update
Just thought I would give an up date on Kody.
Kody had surgery on Tuesday and they repaired the Interrupted Aortic Arch and patched the hole in his heart. Hopefully he won't need the second surgery they had thought eariler for the Pulmonary Artery. When they tried to take him off the heart lung machine his left ventricle was working to hard after the repairs. So they put him on the echmo machine which is like the heart lung machine. This machine will do all the work for his heart and lungs so they can rest.
Today they were going to try and slowly take him off the echmo but he still had some fluid on him. The Dr. thought it would be best to get the fluid off before they tried to get him off the Echmo so it looks like it will be Monday before we can try that again. Once we get off the Echmo they will be able to close his chest which had to be left open for the machine to be hooked up. Then we'll be on the road to recovery and be home soon.
Please keep us in your prayers for Kody's recovery. We can't wait to get home and get everything back to normal. We appreciate everyone's thoughts, prayers, emails and comments. It helps knowing that everyone is thinking of us and Kody. Hopefully we'll be able to get home soon.
Kody had surgery on Tuesday and they repaired the Interrupted Aortic Arch and patched the hole in his heart. Hopefully he won't need the second surgery they had thought eariler for the Pulmonary Artery. When they tried to take him off the heart lung machine his left ventricle was working to hard after the repairs. So they put him on the echmo machine which is like the heart lung machine. This machine will do all the work for his heart and lungs so they can rest.
Today they were going to try and slowly take him off the echmo but he still had some fluid on him. The Dr. thought it would be best to get the fluid off before they tried to get him off the Echmo so it looks like it will be Monday before we can try that again. Once we get off the Echmo they will be able to close his chest which had to be left open for the machine to be hooked up. Then we'll be on the road to recovery and be home soon.
Please keep us in your prayers for Kody's recovery. We can't wait to get home and get everything back to normal. We appreciate everyone's thoughts, prayers, emails and comments. It helps knowing that everyone is thinking of us and Kody. Hopefully we'll be able to get home soon.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Kody Stephen Jones
Kody Stephen was born Monday @ 1:40 pm. He suprised us weighing 10 lb 2 oz and was 19.75 inches!! We were expecting a nine pound baby but when we saw him we knew he was a lot bigger than Katie who weighed 9 lb 1 oz. No wonder I was so miserable those last few weeks.
When he was born they did have a room full of nurses and doctors in delivery. I think Marc told me there were about six or seven waiting to check him out. They did let Marc bring him to me for just a second. I got to see his face and then they took him off to the NICU. It was 5:30 before Marc as allowed to go see him. They did several tests to see what his heart looked like. While Marc was gone to see Kody Dr. Cottrill came and spoke with me. She did confirm the Interrupted Aortic Arch and the Pulmonary Artery was twice the size it should be. To correct this they need to do surgery to connect the arch together and band the Pulmonary Artery to restrict blood flow. They have set the surgery for Tuesday June 30th. The surgery will last about three to four hours and if all goes well we can come home 5-14 days after surgery. He'll need another surgery 3-6 months later to correct the Pulmonary Artery and to patch the hole in his heart. I finally got the feeling back in my legs and got to go see Kody at 9 pm Monday night.
When he was born they did have a room full of nurses and doctors in delivery. I think Marc told me there were about six or seven waiting to check him out. They did let Marc bring him to me for just a second. I got to see his face and then they took him off to the NICU. It was 5:30 before Marc as allowed to go see him. They did several tests to see what his heart looked like. While Marc was gone to see Kody Dr. Cottrill came and spoke with me. She did confirm the Interrupted Aortic Arch and the Pulmonary Artery was twice the size it should be. To correct this they need to do surgery to connect the arch together and band the Pulmonary Artery to restrict blood flow. They have set the surgery for Tuesday June 30th. The surgery will last about three to four hours and if all goes well we can come home 5-14 days after surgery. He'll need another surgery 3-6 months later to correct the Pulmonary Artery and to patch the hole in his heart. I finally got the feeling back in my legs and got to go see Kody at 9 pm Monday night.
Katie did get to see Kody when he was in the NICU. The first time he opened his eyes was when he heard her talking. She sung Jesus Loves Me and This Little Light of Mine. She was so excited she wanted to hold and feed him. So far she hasn't asked to many questions. They moved him Wed. evening to PICU and they don't allow children under 12 to visit so she didn't get to come back and see him. Here he has a private room and a nurse who only has one or two patients. We can come back anytime and even stay all night with him.
These are a couple of pictures with his eyes open. He doesn't look like there is any thing wrong with him. His color looks great. The little white tabs with the lines are to monitor his heart. The other lines are coming out of his umbilical cord they are for the IV and to draw blood. This way they don't have to stick him every time they draw blood. We can't pick him up or hold him right now. When we feed him we can only raise his head like the picture above.
The only time that I did get to hold him was on Tuesday in the NICU. The nurse he had that day was really great. She helped me with him and we got to watch his first bath. He doesn't like the bath or getting his diaper changed. Other than that he has been really good. He sleeps most of the time and doesn't fuss much at all. The doctors said from here till Tuesday we are going to keep everything pretty much the same. Right now he's getting to drink 15 cc's of milk. They only let him have 5 cc's at first and gradually worked up to the 15. They don't want him to take to much till after the surgery.
Right now we are going to just hang out and spend as much time with Kody as we can. We've just about kissed his little cheeks off already. He really likes those kisses too most of the time we can get a little smile or that's just Daddy's whiskers tickling him.
This is the sign the nurses made for Kody in NICU. They weigh them in grams and the other babies in the room with him weighed around 770 grams. He weighed 4610 grams and was huge compared to the other babies.
We would like to thank every one for their cards, phone calls, gifts, emails and mostly their prayers. Next week is going to be really tough.
Please keep us in your prayers next week when Kody has surgery and through his recovery.
Marc, Jamie, Katie and Kody Jones