Christmas Day

Our Christmas this year was definitely better than last year! I was a little worried about Christmas this year just because it fell on my week to work and we wouldn't have a nurse to watch Caydence at night so that meant that Eric would be staying up with her at night while I was working. Thank goodness Eric's mom had some baking to do Christmas eve night so she was able to keep an eye on Caydence while Eric got a little sleep. I was able to get someone to switch a night with me so I didn't have to work Christmas night too. When I got home Christmas morning I had some wrapping to finish up so I was in the living room doing that and watching Caydence and sure enough at 6am Tanner woke up and was ready to open presents. He never wakes up that early so I guess that meant he was just super excited. We got everyone out of bed and began to open presents. Tanner loved all the gifts that Santa brought him and Caydence had fun playing with some wrapping paper. Eric's mom cooked a good Christmas dinner and my mom came over and we all had a good time. I was so tired from staying up all night and not sleeping during the day that once I was able to get to bed that night I crashed! I can't wait till the day that Caydence doesn't need 24hr supervision. It would be so nice to be able to sleep when she sleeps and have somewhat of a normal life again. We can get so "frustrated" sometimes with all we have to do to just get through a day and we start thinking how much this sucks and how we wish we had a normal life again, but every time I look at Caydence I love her more and more and I can't picture our life being any different. Our life is crazy and we never have time to ourselves but it is what it is and we realize you can't just sit there and feel sorry for yourself. You have to keep going and do what you have to do and just look forward to that one day that things will be "normal". I can't wait to see Caydence grow up and see what kind of person she turns into. Soon enough people will see her and hear the stories we tell about what she has been through in her life and they won't believe us. I can't wait for that day! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Our Christmas last year

As Christmas gets closer I can't help but to think about our Christmas last year. Right before Christmas last year, December 20th to be exact, I went to the doctor for my routine 20 week check up and ultrasound. I went all by myself because Eric was busy working and we figured it would just be a quick visit anyway. It ended up not being just a normal visit and I really wish I would have had Eric there with me. As I was laying on the table and the doctor was doing the ultrasound he kept looking at one area on the baby. He wasn't saying much and I just knew he saw something that wasn't normal. He finally stopped the ultrasound and told me that he thinks that he sees an abdominal wall abnormality and I needed to go as soon as possible to get an ultrasound level 2 to confirm what he sees. So many things were going through my head and it took everything in me to not break down right there. I held everything inside as I waited for the receptionist to make my appointment for the ultrasound 2 which thankfully they got me in the very next day. As soon as I walked out of that office I called Eric and I think that's when I just about lost it. I was so scared to think that something could be wrong with my baby. Eric left work and met met at home where we began to Google abdominal wall abnormalities. The doctor didn't really explain anything to me about it because I really don't think he even knew much about it. We both couldn't sleep that night worrying about what we would find out the next day. We got up an headed to Stockton for the level 2 ultrasound. The ultrasound tech began looking at the baby and as she got to the abdominal area she confirmed what the doctor had seen. She had a large omphalocele that contained her intestines and part of her liver. As she moved along she began to look at the heart, I knew as soon as she stopped talking and was concentrating on the screen that something was wrong.  I remember looking at Eric and saying there's something wrong with her heart. I asked the tech and she said she needed to get the doctor to look at the images. She sent us to the doctor's office to wait for him. He came in and sat down and began to explain what was seen. He said that it looked like something was abnormal with the heart but they couldn't really tell what it was. He then started talking about the omphalocele and what the odds are with that. Most babies with omphaloceles had either heart defects or chromosome abnormalities or in some cases both. He told us all the worse case scenarios and I was scared to death. He recommended that we get an amniocentesis to check for chromosome abnormalities. He kept mentioning that we could always terminate the pregnancy and both of us said that was not an option if she had any chance of surviving. We agreed to the amnio and went into the next room to get it done. I was a complete wreck by that time and I really have no idea how he was actually able to get the huge needle in me and in the right place with me crying hysterically. They said it would be about 2 weeks for results. They also made us an appointment with a cardiologist in Sacramento to see what was wrong with her heart. After leaving that appointment I think both of us were just in shock. We had some answers but not really. All we could think about was what could be wrong and if the baby was even going to make it. The next week was Christmas and we had to put on our happy faces to make it a great Christmas for Tanner, but inside both of us were stressing more than anything. After Christmas we got the call that the amnio results came back and she had no chromosome abnormalities. That was a big relief to us but we still hadn't seen the cardiologist yet so we knew we weren't out of the woods yet. The next week we traveled up to Sacramento and met the cardiologist and he performed a long echo on the baby and finally when he was done he said that he did not see anything wrong with her heart and it was working just fine. We were so relieved and so happy knowing that her heart was good, (so we thought). Our drive home was great, we were just so happy that most of our fears were put to rest. All we had to worry about now was the omphalocele which we could handle. We didn't have to worry that our baby wasn't going to make it. I still had to switch doctor's to a specialist in Sacramento and we had to travel up there a lot for appointments but we were fine with that because every appointment the doctor said she looked great. I won't get into what happened after Caydence was born because I'm sure most of you know all about that by now. I am just so thankful that this Christmas we have all of us home together. We still have tons to stress about but at least we have our baby girl home with us instead of having no baby like we thought could happen at this time last year. Things at home now are crazier than ever, we are down to one nurse again, our day nurse quit on us, so we just have a night shift nurse. I started working night shift and Eric is also back to work working his butt off because it is the most busy time of the year for them. Tanner is out of control, I think all the attention his sister needs is finally starting to get to him. Caydence has been doing great as usual but I'm not going to lie and sugar coat it..She is a lot of work and it can definitely be stressful, especially when neither one of us is getting much sleep right now!! All in all, we are managing and doing ok. We will be going up to the Ronald McDonald house next week to deliver some presents which we are very excited about. We are especially excited about seeing our friends John and Shelley who's baby girl finally received the heart transplant she has been waiting months for. I hope everyone has a great Christmas and I thank all of you for you constant support.

This is our "Wishing Tree" at work for the Ronald McDonald House

So much to be thankful for!

I guess it has been a while since I have posted anything. Things have been pretty busy around here since I am back to work. It's really not too bad being back to work and it should actually get a little better (I hope) once I start working nights next week. We finally got a new night shift nurse just in time. She is doing really well so far and we really like her so hopefully she will work out. Caydence has been doing great as usual. She is getting so strong! She can finally hold her head up all by herself and she popped out 2 teeth in 2 days! Last week was Thanksgiving and it was Caydence's first major holiday being home. We didn't really do anything special, Eric's mom cooked here at the house and my mom came by. Every year Thanksgiving roles around and we never really seem to think about what that day is really for. It's for giving thanks for all that you have, and this year, we have so much to be thankful for! Even though our year has been full of unexpected situations that caused us more stress than we could have ever imagined, it has made us live life differently. We are so thankful for all of our doctor's, nurses, RT's, family, and friends! Without all these people we wouldn't be where we are today...Home. Everyone has been so amazing to us over these last 7 months with Caydence. There are no words to show how thankful we are for all these people. Caydence is alive and doing great, and we are able to care for her at home due to the amazing staff at Lucile Packard. It's kinda nice that we have to go up there almost every month for clinic visits because we love seeing all the people that have helped us so much. I can't believe that Christmas is right around the corner now. This year has gone by so fast! I am just so thankful that we were able to bring Caydence home and she doesn't have to spend her holidays stuck in a hospital room like so many other families that we know. Every year at work we choose a family that is having hard times and we donate gifts and much needed supplies. This year, I decided that we should donate to the Ronald McDonald House and all the families there. We are participating in the Wishing Tree program so we will be donating gifts for families and supplies for the House. We will also be going up there one night and cooking dinner for all the families. While staying at Ronald McDonald we loved it when families came and cooked dinner for us so it means a lot to us to be able to go back and do the same for the families that are there now. It will be a lot of fun going back and being on the other side of things!

I finally got my photo uploader working again so here are some pics...

Caydence sleeping peacefully 

Sticking her fingers in her mouth probably going to make herself throw up

Dr. Tanner making sure sister sounds good

Wild and Crazy hair day

First time figuring out how to hold Caydence like this.

She has come to love cuddle time with daddy!

Sleeping good all sprawled out

Thanksgiving Day

Happy as always!

Big brother being silly!

Brother and sister kickin' back watching some TV

1st clinic visits

We had our first clinic visits back at Stanford on Wednesday. We first went to see the pulmonary doctor who basically just asked how things were going being at home and made sure we didn't have any issues with the ventilator or anything else. She was a little concerned about Caydence's weight gain because she hasn't gained much since we've been out of the hospital, so she had the nutritionist come in and talk to us. We were basically already doing everything that she suggested so all she really told us was to go up a couple more ml's a hour on her feeds. Caydence is still on continuous feeds through her g-tube and one of my questions has been when we can start taking her to bolus feeds, the nutritionist said that she needs to have a more steady weight gain before we take her off continuous feeds. So hopefully she will start gaining a little more weight. While we were there Sarah from pediatric surgery also came by to check on us and see how Caydence's omphalocele was looking. She was very impressed with how it looked, it has gone down so much on it's own and the new skin has grown completely over it. We talked about when we should possibly repair it and there is no hurry. It's not going to hurt to wait a little longer but I'm still on the fence about when I want to go through with it. Since she was there we needed to get Caydence's g-tube changed for the first time so we had her do it and give us a little lesson. Our next appointment was with ENT. The main issue that we are having is that we didn't know how we were going to get Caydence's trachs since Apria is refusing to get them for us. So Dr. Mesner put a scope down her trach to see if she still needed a customized one or if her trachea has grown to put in a normal size trach. But sure enough it hasn't grown that much and she is still 11cm away from using a regular trach. The only way to get the trachs that she needs is to have the clinic order them and who knows if they are even going to get paid for them. At least that is taken care of and is one less thing we need to worry about. Overall everything with ENT went good. They mentioned that she had extremely small ear canals but didn't really go into detail of how that could possibly effect her, we just need to go back in a few months for a hearing test. After our back to back appointments, we walked over to the hospital and visited with our friends in the CVICU. It felt great being back there to just visit with some of the doctors and nurses that we had spent so much time with. I think I was most excited about seeing Julie the NP because she is the one that has taken care of Caydence since her first surgery and she has been the one person that I always trusted to do what's best. Having her see how good Caydence looked and seeing how happy she was to see her meant a lot to me. Caydence was all smiles and showing off which was really exciting. We will be back next month for an appointment with GI, so hopefully we can see some faces that weren't there this time. We were also able to visit with our friend Shelley who is still there with her daughter Chloe waiting for a heart transplant. I don't miss being stuck in the hospital but I sure do miss all the great people we got to know while we were there.  I have some really cute pics I want to share but for some reason I'm having a hard time uploading them, so as soon as I figure it out I will post them..

Back to work, Back to reality

So I survived my first day back to work yesterday. It really wasn't too bad. It was nice to be able to finally catch up with everyone. I work with some really great people who really care about me. It was kinda weird talking to people about Caydence and what she is going through. I can only explain so much before people are just lost. Caydence is so complicated and what she has is definitely not something you see or hear about everyday so it makes it hard to really explain what things are like at home with her. Being back at work almost felt like I haven't been gone for 8 months. Work is still work, there are some new people to get to know, but really nothing much has changed. I do have some pretty crappy news, yesterday when I was getting ready to leave for work, I went to check on Caydence and talk to the nurse about how her night went, and the nurse was passed out in the chair in her room! I couldn't believe that he had fallen asleep on the job, something serious could have happened to Caydence and he wouldn't have even known. I was really mad but I didn't make a big deal about it because I really didn't even know what to say to him. We were already having some issues with this nurse and I had already talked to the company about finding us someone new, so I called them on my lunch break to see how the process was going and if they had anyone in mind. As I was talking to them I had mentioned that the nurse had fallen asleep and they took it seriously and said that was completely unacceptable. They called me back a few hours later saying that it was company policy and they had to suspend him until compliance does an investigation and determines if he can even work again with them. I wasn't expecting that to happen. I was willing to keep him around until we found someone else but I guess that's not how it's going to be. So now I am back to work and have no night shift nurse. Not the ideal situation. I tried to get to bed early last night and get a few hours of sleep and Eric stayed up with Caydence. I got up and sent him to bed for a couple hours before I need to start getting ready for work. Our day shift nurse will be here at 5 so Eric can go back to bed after she gets here. This was just horrible timing for all this to happen. I thought things were looking up and now I am stressing about what we are going to do. I guess it's a good thing that I won't be starting my night shifts for a little while. I just hope they get us someone fast. We need to get them in here soon so we can train them so we can start getting some sleep again. I don't think we are going to be able to do this for long. A night nurse is the most important because we need our sleep!

One Month Home!!

As of yesterday, we have been home for 1 month!! I can't believe it has already been that long. Time really goes by so fast! It is still crazy to me looking back at all we have been through since Caydence has been born. It is just amazing what this little girl has been through in her short life. It is great to have her home and doing well but she still has such a long road ahead of her. We met with a speech therapist a couple days ago to talk about oral feeding. Caydence is still on continuous feeds through her G-tube. The therapist gave us some things to do with her for oral stimulation. She has such a super sensitive gag reflex that basically anything you put in her mouth is going to cause her to spit up. We need to work on that and get her used to things going in her mouth and not having it be a bad thing. That was the downfall of having the breathing tube down her throat for so long. It's still going to be some time, but hopefully if we get her sensitive gag under control, we can have a swallow study done and as long as that goes well, we can start introducing food through her mouth. We already know that she will never eat from a bottle, but hopefully we can get her eating something by mouth. Overall Caydence has been doing really well. We took her to see her pediatrician the other day just for a check up and she was amazed that we didn't have any concerns and that Caydence was doing so well. Our only concerns right now are just with our supply companies and trying to get the supplies that we need. Our DME company, Apria, is refusing to supply us with Caydence's trachs because they are custom made and cost a lot of money, so now we are dealing with trying to find a company that can get them for us otherwise we have to switch to a completely different trach. I feel like I am constantly on the phone with someone trying to get things worked out. I guess this is just the life of having a "medically fragile child". This life is really starting to feel "real" now that it is official that I am going back to work tomorrow. It is going to be weird going back and having to be away from Caydence for so long. Leaving Caydence is totally different than when Tanner was a baby and leaving him. I thought I was bad when I had to go to work when he was 3 months old, but at least I knew he would be OK. With Caydence, I know she will be OK, but I also know how fast she would go downhill if something were to happen. I just have to get through this next month and then I will be starting to work night shift which will be so much better. I will be working 7 days on and 7 days off. It will work out great since we have a night shift nurse. So even when Eric goes back to work next month we won't have to worry about who's going to take care of Caydence. That position came at great timing because I really didn't think that I would be able to work as much with the shift I had before and we weren't sure what we were going to do. Now I can work and still be home with Caydene more often. Everything seems to be falling into place but I know our real test will be when both of us are working. So for us, we really take everything day by day and just hope it all works out.

3 weeks home!

We have now been home just over 3 weeks! Everything has been going great since Caydence had her little hiccup, or whatever you want to call it, last weekend. After we got back from the hospital she started acting like her normal self all over again. She made me feel like a crazy mom for taking her all the way back up to Stanford for nothing. She has been so much better over this last week that it's actually kinda weird because I don't know what got into her to start feeling better. She has been happy as can be and her spitting up has almost gone away completely. She only spits up about once a day and that is when she wakes up in the morning. We have finally been able to go up on the rate of her feeds and she's been tolerating it just fine. So hopefully she will start gaining some weight now. We also weened her adivan a little and it doesn't seem to bug her one bit, I'm sure we can have her off of it completely in no time. We have been working pretty hard with Caydence and her head control to get her caught up, and she is getting so strong! I put her in the bumbo chair for the first time today and she loved it! She was able to sit upright in the chair and hold her head on her own. It was great to see her sitting up and not just laying there. I can't wait until she gets stronger and stronger and gets to be more mobile. She is doing so good and it is the best feeling seeing her improve by the day. Coming home has been so good for her and I am so happy we pushed for this instead of sticking her in a facility. Lately we have been able to get some more sleep because we have gotten more comfortable with our nurses. Our day shift nurse is great, she comes in at 5am when our night shift nurse leaves, and I basically just get up to see how the night went and let her know anything that has changed with Caydence and then I go back to bed. It is nice that we can finally trust them enough to get some sleep of our own. The only bad thing about nurses are that they are still people and they do call in sick, like tonight...so I won't be getting any sleep tonight since our nurse is sick. I just hope that he is really sick and not just someone that is going to call in all the time because I need to go back to work really soon and I can't be staying up all night and trying to work. In a way I am excited to go back to work but then I am just so nervous to leave Caydence for so long. We already think things are crazy having her home from the hospital, now we are throwing going to work into the mix, things are only going to get crazier around here!

1st trip back to the hospital

Caydence spiked a fever on Friday and started acting differently like something was bugging her or hurting her. We just watched her throughout the day Saturday and gave her tylonal thinking that she was probably just teething. By Saturday night she was still just not herself and acting really agitated so we talked to Dr. Zebrack and asked what she thought we should do and she said to go to our local ER and see if they can figure out what is going on with her. So we packed Caydence and all of her equipment up into the car and headed to the ER. We get there, get checked in, go to triage and I give them all of Caydence's history and let them know what's been going on, and they are just looking at everything thinking that this little girl has had so much done to her. They get us back to a room right away and we gave the nurse a rundown on everything as well and she just looked so lost on where to even start. She took some notes and then came back with the doctor and probably 5 other people. The doctor basically told us that we just need to go back to Stanford. It's really funny to me that people look at Caydence and see everything she has had done and everything that she is hooked up to, and they are just so overwhelmed by it all. I guess that I am just used to all this medical stuff surrounding Caydence and I know her so well that it's funny seeing people look at her like "OMG, this is crazy". DMC wanted to transfer Caydence by ambulance to Stanford but we said that we  would rather just drive her ourselves since this wasn't really an emergency. We figured that if we were going back up to Stanford then we would probably be there at least a couple days so we went back home first to pack some clothes and things that we would need for Caydence on the drive up there. Getting Caydence ready and loaded up to go somewhere takes a lot of time!! So basically we had gone to he local hospital around 9:30pm and left there sometime after 1am, then went back home and left again around 2:30, finally getting to Stanford just before 5am. They were waiting for us there so they had a room ready when we got there. Once we got settled in, they tried to start and IV and get some blood drawn. They were able to get enough blood to run the basic tests but weren't able to place an IV. Her blood and urine results came back within normal range and her chest X-Ray looked great. The ER staff had called the cardiology team to come by and talk to us and decide what we were going to do. They tried to get us a room in the CVICU but they were full so they wanted to put us in PICU to just watch her for 24hours and see what she does. By the time all this talk was happening and they were figuring out room spaces, Caydence was actually looking way better than she had been. We finally decided that we didn't want to stay when all they wanted to do was watch her, especially when she would be in a unit that didn't know her. The doctors were trying to get us to stay but we really felt that she was fine. We only took her in to just make sure everything was OK. So when her blood work and everything came back normal we knew that she probably just caught a little bug or something and she just has to pass it. We finally left there sometime after 1pm and made it home around 4pm. Eric and I were so tired from staying up all night. We wanted so bad to go visit everyone since we had made it all the way up there but we just needed to get home and get some sleep. Sorry Rachelle... I feel horrible that we didn't go see you! Since we got home Caydence has been doing great! Her fever is gone and she has been resting nicely with no agitation which was great for Eric and I because we were able to crash on the couch while his mom and sister kept and eye on Caydence. Let's hope she continues to get better and we don't have to make another trip all the way back to the ER at Stanford.

First car ride today

We've been home basically two whole weeks now and things are going really good. We met with a new nurse yesterday and we really liked her and of course she loved Caydence (who couldn't!). She started today and she is going to be working from 5am-1pm Monday through Friday. I think she is really going to work out and it's nice that she was willing to come in at 5 when our night nurse leaves so we can actually sleep in a little once we get comfortable with her. Our night nurse is good and we feel pretty comfortable with him so we now are able to sleep at night without staying up with him. The new day nurse really knows what she's doing so I'm sure we will be comfortable enough with her pretty soon that we won't have to get up when she gets here. We finally got our batteries for the ventilator today so we had our very first outing and went to see our new pediatrician. Caydence did great with her first car ride and during the appointment. It was kinda funny seeing this doctor because we are used to all of our specialist doctors at Stanford and this doctor was just kinda lost in a way because Caydence has just had so much done to her. I like this doctor though because she is really motivated to learn everything about Caydence and the whole office staff was really good too and wanted to get to know Caydence. We will be going in every week for a while just to keep monitoring her and for the doctor to really get to know her. The only issue we are having with Caydence right now is that she spits up all the time which is really getting old. The pharmacist gave us some ideas to try with her meds to see if it helps out so we will try and see what happens. Otherwise everything else is going good. Caydence is such a happy baby and we are so thankful to finally be home. In a way it is weird being home just because for so long we basically lived at that hospital and at the Ronald McDonald house. We really miss all of our nurses and doctors and we especially miss all of the friends that we made while we were there.

Update

We have been home for one week now! Overall everything is going really well. It feels so great to have Caydence home and have all of us here together. Tanner is such a great big brother! He loves his sister so much and really wants to help out with her. He wants to hold her and play with her, and if you ask him to get something for her then he will and feels like he is helping take care of her. Even though it is nice being home, it is really crazy! I never would have imagined that our life would turn into this. We have excepted that this is what it is and there's nothing going to change it so we kinda just do it. It does really suck at times because there is so much to think about while dealing with Caydence. You can't just pick her up when you want to, you have to make sure that everything is in a position where it's not going to pull or anything else. You could pick her up and then she will start coughing and you have to put her back down just to suction her. Every four hours she is getting meds and breathing treatments. Someone always has to be right there with her watching to make sure nothing happens. Eric and I are so tired from taking turns staying up all night and rotating. I completely understand why everyone was so nervous to send us home. I'm not saying that this is too much and we can't handle it, because we can totally handle this, I'm just saying that it is HARD! The work you do with her isn't necessarily hard, it just consumes your every moment of everyday. No matter how hard this is, I don't regret pushing to go home. Being home is so much better than being in the hospital. Having nursing is taking some time to get used to, it is pretty weird having a stranger in your house and you are training them to take care of your kid. Our night shift nurse, Michael, is pretty cool. He actually caught on pretty quickly with everything we have to do with Caydence. We already had to get rid of our day shift nurse because she did not know what she was doing and we just immediately felt uncomfortable with her. We are waiting to meet another nurse to see if she will work out. But as of now we only have a night shift nurse and we handle the days on our own. We do need to find someone that we can trust with Caydence considering that we both need to get back to work before we don't have a job to go back to. 

Home at last!

Caydence was finally discharged from Lucile Packard Children's Hospital today! After 5 1/2 months of being stuck in that hospital and living such a crazy life, it feels great to be home. The whole time Caydence has been in the hospital it has been the thought that we would never get out of there and make it home. Now it feels like leaving came so fast. We knew we would be discharged today and Caydence would have an ambulance ride home, but it didn't really feel real anjd hit us until we were getting ready to walk out the door. This past week we have been saying our goodbyes to the wonderful nurses, doctors, RT's, and everyone in the hospital that we have had the pleasure to get to know. As we said our goodbyes it never felt like we were really leaving, I just kept thinking that something was going to happen and we wouldn't be able to leave. Today rolled around faster than I thought and we were hurrying to pack up Caydence's colorful room and trying to say some more goodbyes. It really hit me when everyone started getting emotional about Caydence leaving. Even though this situation that we have been through has been extremely challenging in all aspects, this has really opened our eyes to so much more. Going through something like this makes you look at life in a different perspective. Today was such an emotional day  for us and for the great friends we have made. It felt so good seeing how much everyone really cares for Caydence and for us. It was so nice hearing everyone say how happy they are for us and that they know we will do a great job at home taking care of Caydence. I knew that everyone loves Caydence and that they are going to miss her, but it showed so much more as we were loading her up in the ambulance today and getting ready to take off for good. We are so thankful to everyone at LPCH that has been a part of our life over these last 5 1/2. We have the best doctors, nurses, and RT's that anyone could ask for and that really means more to us than anything. I have to admit that being home now really isn't what we thought. We definitely understand now why everyone was so scared to send us home. There really is so much that goes into being home with a baby with a trach and vent.  It was crazy from the moment we walked in the door and took Caydence off that gurney. Being at the hospital you had everything at your fingertips, and at home (especially the first day home), you have to figure out where things are and what to do next. Getting used to the new equipment and set up was pretty difficult. Nothing happened that we couldn't handle, it was just being in a different environment and trying to get things organized and meeting home nurses and going through equipment and just everything. It was crazy. This is definitely going to take some getting used to and some good organization to get through this. Even though this is crazy and going to be so much hard work, I don't regret leaving for a minute. It is the best feeling being home with my whole family under one roof. All this is only going to get better as time goes on and we get all the stuff we need and get adjusted to it.

Dr. Ashok (surgical fellow), Dr. Zebrack (primary cardiologist), Dr. Reddy (heart surgeon) 

Daylan (RT)

Jerry (RT)

Mary (RT)

Hans (primary nurse)

Christina (primary nurse)

Christina (primary nurse)

Vicki (RT supervisor), Lupe (case manager)

these two went above and beyond to get us home!

Julie (Primary NP)

been there since day 1-amazing person!

Michelle (primary nurse)

Caydence on gurney getting ready to leave

Goodbye CVICU

elevator ride

Dr. Zebrack talking to "her" baby

NP Julie, RN Christina, Dr Zebrack

Mary, Vicki, and Dr. Zebrack

Caydence in ambulance

Unloading at home!

Caydence finally home at last!