Visit From a Virus

Two days after going on hyper-alert about Lucas' weight gain and food aversion, he started throwing up on Thursday. Just perfect. It happened twice, but with no fever, so I wasn't too worried. He woke up on Friday morning happy and taking a bottle, so I thought we were fine. He made it through the day on Friday without getting sick, so I decided to take him to an Advisory Board dinner at Children's that I had plans for (I'll explain what that was later). We get almost all the way there (45 minute drive), and Lucas throws up all over himself in the car. I tried to clean him up, but it was so bad that I just had to cover him up and try to get home as soon as I could. And...it was rush hour, so it took me about an hour to get home, with poor Lucas crying in the back seat most of the way.

The dinner at Children's was for the 2009 Parent Advisory Board, Bran and I were asked to be on the committee. I guess when your bill is $2M+, you get asked to be on the parent board... ha! Actually, the social worker that we worked with in the NICU recommended us. We're excited about this, and honored to be part of it. There are twelve sets of parents on the committee this year, joined to help make Children's NICU more "family centered." We will meet several times this year starting in March. The dinner was to celebrate the 2008 successes and to introduce the new committee. Children were welcome, so I was excited to show off Lucas at the dinner... but I guess it just wasn't meant to be for us that night!

Saturday, I ended up with the virus! It was awful, but mine only lasted 24 hours (and Bran got it a few days later for one day). Lucas was sick again on Sunday. It takes so much longer for him to bounce back from an illness! Not good for a little boy who is supposed to be gaining weight! He feels so skinny, you can see his ribs, and the tubing for his shunt is much more pronounced without some fat around it. Our nanny even mentioned that he felt really little. But we're trying so hard! I really feel that this surgery will get us over the hump. I keep focusing on, short-term loss--long-term gain. I just hope we can catch up after this is all over.