Another great night and day for little baby bear. Last night both Daddy and Baby slept through the night with minimal crying from either of them. Baby Judah woke up only when nurses would come in to change his diaper or take blood. his heart rate and breathing stayed very good all night, which led the doctors to continue reducing his medications. Continue reading →

We are now at 18 days in the ICU, can you believe it? Judah is approaching his 3 week birthday on Monday.

Last night and today continued yesterday’s trend of excellent heart rates, smooth and easy breathing, and a happy, awake, and aware Judahbear. Last night he and Daddy got to sleep through the entire night with minimal wakeups. Continue reading →

Today was a good day. While spending all night with mommy, little JudahBear had very few problem last night. His heart rate came down to a much better place and stabilized, and this morning the doctors were very hopeful that this would be a good day to remove the breathing tube. Continue reading →

Today brought a day of ups and downs, mainly in Judah’s heart rate. He has been having a lot of arrhythmias lately, which are basically spikes in high or low heart rates. It’s been a day of irregular heart beats, and doctors trying new things. They even hooked his little heart up to a pacer today to try to keep the rhythms in check. Continue reading →

We prayed for strength this morning, for Judah, for ourselves, and for all of you. May this new year on the Jewish calendar bring everyone that which they’ve waited for. For us, we’ve been waiting to bring our beautiful son home. Every day brings us closer to that goal.

After temple this morning we had a nice and calm day at the hospital. Little Jude’s heart rate has come down a lot from the elevated rates he was having yesterday, today he was in the perfect and normal zone, which made mommy and daddy and all the nurses and doctors happy. Continue reading →

Every road to recovery has a bump or two along the way. Last night Judah hit a bit of a snag in his recovery, when in the middle of the night his heart rate spiked unexpectedly and wouldn’t go down and he began having difficulty breathing, even through the CPAP mask. It continued for a while and the doctors did everything they could to try to make him a little more comfortable, but were forced to remove the mask and put the breathing tube back in, so that he could breathe properly and hopefully slow his heart rate down. Continue reading →

Our recovery slowed down a little bit today. Judah is still being strong and doing well, but he’s been having a little bit of a difficulty breathing as deeply as he should, so the doctors decided to keep him on a CPAP mask for the day, instead of the high flow tube under his nose. This is a minor speedbump on his road to recovery, but the extra monitoring may have set him back a day in getting out of the ICU. Continue reading →

Big things happening in the CICU today. When mommy and daddy came to visit our little WonderBear today, he was awake for the first time. This afternoon the nurses removed his ventilator tube, and said he was doing very well. his recovery is really starting to take shape, as every day he looks far better than the day before. Continue reading →

Another day of checking in on Judah and following his recovery. Today he moved forward yet again, and was able to come off of several of his IV drips. He is still on the ventilator today, but the nurses told us that they’ve been lowering the amount of air going in as his body takes over. They want to keep him on the ventilator just one more night to keep an eye on him and make sure they don’t take him off too early. Continue reading →

Updates have slowed down a little bit for now as there is not too much happening on the surface, however every day is another big step in the road to recovery.

This morning they closed up Judah’s chest. It was kept open to help the body cope with swelling which normally happens after an open heart surgery. Generally the doctors expect this to last 24-48 hours, and for him it was on the lower end. The doctors and nurses are telling us that he is recovering very well, he’s beating the average expectations for the steps he has to take. Continue reading →

It’s smooth sailing so far in the return to CICU for recovery. Judah finished up a major step in the healing process today – a lot sooner than Mommy and Daddy expected! After heart surgery the doctors generally will leave the chest open for a period of time, but today they decided he was recovering so well that they closed his chest back up early. They will continue to monitor him over the next 24-48 hours before removing the remaining IVs and ventilators and allow his heart and lungs to regain full strength. The nurses made a special note about how strong little Judah is. We should be able to hold him again by early next week, and hopefully he continues to heal up faster and faster so we can all be happy and healthy at home. Continue reading →

We spent the morning after Judah went in to surgery just hanging out in the room, collecting our thoughts, keeping ourselves busy.