Back To Better Than Normal

We are definitely full throttle again!!  Jude has been more like a "super-charged" Jude.  He's full of energy and smiles and refuses to be separated from Mommy or Daddy under any circumstances.  It is so nice to be at home and back to our normal routine.  Now the Saturday before our little PICU vacation, we took some family pics (taken by Christi Santangelo) that turned out AWESOME!!! So I have to share a few below.  This is just a sample; there were so many good ones.   

Now I need to give credit where credit is due.  This past Sunday was also Mother's Day, and before the "drama" started, Lane had created the sweetest Mother's Day morning ever.  When I woke up that morning, I went straight to Jude's room to check on him (Lane knows this is my routine).  When I reached his room, Jude was holding pink and white roses in the bed with him- don't stress, they hadn't been there long.  There was also a note Lane had written to me from Jude that thanked me for being such a good mommy.  It was beyond sweet!!  Coming back through the kitchen I noticed there were a dozen hot donuts from Krispy Kreme on the counter! YUMMY!  I found out that Lane had snuck out around 5:45 in the morning to get my goodies and have them waiting for me when I got up.  I never knew he was gone.  He really  did a great job on my Mother's Day surprise, and I feel awful that it lost attention to  the events later in the day.  Oh well... It was a great Mother's Day Morning:)

Here are some of those great pictures I was telling y'all about!!

Until next time.. Hugs and kisses,

Lane, Angel, and Jude

AND WE'RE OUTTA HERE...

I just signed the discharge papers!  And we are outta here!!!!  Thanks for all the prayers!  

Waiting....

So it's almost 10:00 am, and we are still waiting to hear what's in store for Jude today.  The nurse just said that she thought that the PICU doctor was waiting to hear from the cardiologist office.  If the cardiologist gives his okay then we get our walking papers!!  But I hate to get to hopeful just yet; the cardiologist's report can land us here for another night or even more.  They have not come by to repeat the EKG yet, which could be a good sign (I hope).


I am also very hopeful that we do get to go home today because it's kind of lonely since Lane has gone back to work.  I know, I know... I'm such a baby, but I get spoiled to having Lane around all the time.  And so does Jude...  Speaking of Jude, I just woke that little rascal up around 9:15am and he is cranky.  He didn't like being woke up, and now he's bored.  The nurse brought him some Legos and a dump truck to play with last night.  He had a blast!!!  This morning, however, he was too mad to even look at them.  This mood will pass as soon as he gets good and awake.


Well, hopefully the next time I write y'all, it will be with discharge papers!!!  Love y'all!

TODAY'S MENU: Good News with A Side of Frustration

Well we got the other good news we had been waiting on.  At eleven o'clock last night, Lane complained to the nurse that we were waiting all day for EKG results and not one doctor had bothered to stop by to update us on anything since about 9:00 am.  The nurse looked through Jude's chart and found that the cardiologist had signed off on the EKG shortly after it was done (also close to 9am).  The cardiologist marked the EKG as "much improved"!! AWESOME NEWS!!!

Now the "side of Frustration" comes in with the fact that no one felt the need to convey this information ALL DAY!  We waited for results for ten hours in anxiety and worry in vain.

Now, in my blogging, I like things to be cheery and upbeat.  I like my writing to display a polite and respectful tone so that anyone reading the blog will not be influenced by my own opinion.  However, I have realized that: "This is MY blog about MY family," and not every experience we share is "polite" or "cheery".  And one experience that has definitely failed to meet that particular criteria has been this hospital stay.  I think it is very odd that not one doctor has stopped by to explain to us any type of plan of action.  And I am beyond frustrated with the night nurse who has been rude and seems clueless!!

THERE!!  I've been "real" in this blog.  However, let me backtrack for a moment.  Despite my current frustration, we have had a good experience with our day nurse and with a couple of doctors.

Now this morning, Jude has already had a chest x-ray, but has gone back to sleep.  I am waiting on results to that.  Lane went back to work this morning since Jude seemed to be doing so much better.  So it's just me and Judey Jude to face the doctors this morning.  Hopefully we will be getting discharged at some point this morning and on our way home.  I'll let y'all know if anything changes or when I hear any news.

Hugs and Kisses,
Angel and Jude

Here it is.. A little "official" good news

Okay..  We finally got some news: Some good news and some not so good news...

Good news first!  The results from the EEG are official:  Jude shows absolutely no signs of seizure activity.  The EEG was so normal that the neurologist did not even feel the need to come to bedside.  They signed off on our release.

Now the not so good news.  The PICU doctor wants Jude to stay a full 24 hours in the PICU for observation just to be sure the episodes don't happen again, which they haven't.  Now the discharge is still pending upon the EKG results which we still don't know yet.  So we aren't quite out of the woods yet.  We are a little down about a two night PICU stay, but we should get to go home first thing in the morning (if the EKG says so)!

Right now, Jude is awake and WILD!!!  You wouldn't know that he was in the hospital if it wasn't for the IV that is in his forehead (that's why we haven't posted any pictures of him) Thanks for the prayers... they are being answered by the minute!!

XOXO,
Lane, Angel, and Judey Jude

What You've Been Missing...

Since I have a good bit of down time on my hands and free WiFi at the hospital, I decided to put up some pictures and updates of what's been going on in our little Watts Family for the past couple of months..  Hope you enjoy!!

In March, we had Aunt Wendy's Surprise Crawfish Boil to celebrate her birthday.

Here is the "Birthday Girl" Aunt Wendy

And the newest "Watts" member, Kenadi

Jude's wagon came in handy more ways than one.

And I took advantage of the nap time to get my share of some AWESOME boiled crawfish

Spring was beautiful at our house.  I'm sad to see it gone!  Everything was beautiful all bloomed out, especially the crabapple tree Uncle Joey and Aunt Casey gave us last year!

Jude is still getting better with his eating.  Finishing whole jars of baby food are getting to be a regular thing around our household!!

And Jude had a blast at Anna's birthday party!!  He played with her baby duck and jumped on the trampoline.  It wore him out!  Such a great day!

Well.. that's it for now.  Don't worry though, I'll have more pics to put up very soon!!!  

"Unofficial" Good News

Well... it's almost 4:30 and guess what?  WE ARE STILL WAITING!  But we did receive some "unofficial" good news earlier.  The technician that performed the EEG (brain wave scan to check for seizures) said that he could not officially read the EEG results, but that he did not see any obvious seizure activity.  He said, like us, he wasn't surprised, that Jude's episodes really didn't sound like a seizure.  This is good news, but, like I said, it's unofficial.  The neurologist has not been down to read the results herself.  We also have not heard the results of the EKG that was done this morning, which makes us VERY NERVOUS.  We also haven't heard any talk of going home today.  So we feel totally in the dark right now, which is only adding to our anxiety.

Today, Jude has had a visit from my aunt and cousin.  He enjoyed the little visit.  Then he had his EEG done and now he's been napping peacefully for awhile.  I hate to let him sleep this late, but he is so bored when he is awake.  I went down to the Playroom and brought him a couple of toys and books to play with, but after about 10-15 minutes with each, he was over it (gotta love the attention span of a two year old).  As for Lane and I, we both could use a good shower, change of clothes, and a toothbrush!!  LOL! We are in the same clothes we wore to church yesterday morning.  So right now we are waiting to find out if discharge papers are in our future so we can just go home.  I'll let y'all know as soon as we do.

The Game Plan

Okay.. I know from the texts and messages today that everyone is anxious to hear any news..  Well, we don't know anything yet, but we do have a game plan for today.  They just repeated the EKG and they will also do an EEG on Jude to make sure that these "spells" aren't seizures.  Once we get the results from those two procedures, we'll go from there.  Jude has not had anymore of those weird spells since yesterday morning.  THAT'S GOOD NEWS!!  We are thinking that the episodes were caused by the low sugar.  However, we are nervous about the EKG (and a little about the EEG) so if y'all could say a prayer for good results, that would be greatly appreciated!  That's it for now.  I will let everyone know as soon as we find out anything ourselves.

Hugs and Kisses,
Lane, Angel, and Jude

A Mother's Day Story

Ok.. so most of our family (biological and GSBC) know that Lane and I left out of Sunday Morning Service today in a rush to get Jude some medical attention.  However, most of you don't know exactly why and I'm writing to fix that, but I need to back track a little first. 

Let's start with Monday: we were in the cardiologist office bright and early for a six month checkup.  Jude's condition had remained relatively the same and the doctor decided to up his heart medications significantly to accommodate his age and weight.  *sigh of relief*  So life continued as normal until Thursday; a day in which Jude started showing symptoms of a little stomach bug.  He stayed sick all Thursday and Friday only tolerating Pedialyte.  Saturday, Jude woke up feeling much better, but we kept him on the Pedialyte until we knew for sure.  That evening (last night) found us last minute Mother's Day shopping at Target.  While we were shopping, Jude got real sleepy and kind of "zoned out" on us (for lack of better description).  We didn't think anything at first; we just thought "It's late and he's tired."  Then he turned very red and starting sweating heavily.  We got a little worried, but not much because again we thought that maybe he just got overheated.  We left Target and Jude seemed better by the time we got home.  So the episode lasted about 25-30 minutes.  We checked on him all night and he seemed fine.  This morning I had Jude in the baby nursery with me while I worked.  (PRAISE THE LORD FOR HIS HAND IN THAT!!!)  He did the same thing: one minute he was playing with a toy, the next minute he was sleepy and laying on it.  So I put him in a crib.  A few minutes later I went to check on him and he was red and sweaty AGAIN!  This time I knew something was wrong.  I found Lane in choir and we rushed our Judey Jude to the ER at the Lake.

Once we had gotten to the Lake, Jude had seemed much better and coherent again.  After waiting in the ER all day and a few x-rays, everything looked better and they were about to discharge us.  However, the cardiologist thought that they should do an EKG just as a precautionary in dealing with Jude's history.  No problem, right?  We just saw the cardiologist Monday.  Well turns out, the EKG had some concerns that worried the cardiologist enough to admit Jude to the Pediatric ICU for observation.

The spells, they believe, could be caused by the increase in heart meds combined with the stomach bug and lack of food.  The heart meds greatly affect Jude's blood sugar levels.  The doctors feel that a drop in his sugar levels could be the cause for Jude's weird spells.   But that doesn't answer the abnormal EKG.  They are wanting to make sure that Jude's heart is not under any new stress or the Jude is having an arrythmia (sp?).

We have already had some answered prayers today.  One being that a nurse was able to start an IV on Jude for the first time in over two years.  SUCH A RELIEF.  I couldn't quit thanking her.  And Jude is sleeping quite peacefully.

As far as Lane and I... we are doing fine.  We already had our little cry when Jude was first admitted, but  this is familiar territory.  We KNOW that our ALMIGHTY FATHER is right here beside us, orchestrating EVERYTHING!!  We are not feeling hopeless or frustrated, but we are praying and claiming good news tomorrow.  Now the rooming situation is quite uncomfortable in the PICU at OLOL, but we'll manage that too ;)

Thanks so much for the prayers and love today!!  We love and appreciate y'all so much!  I'll try to update tomorrow when we get some news.  If I don't answer any phone calls, it is not because I don't want to:  the PICU is a little strict on phone usage.   However, I can text!  Talk to y'all tomorrow.

XOXO
Lane, Angel, and Jude

PS.  Jude is really enjoying his late spring/early summer.  I've been wanting to post some new pictures, but we have been to busy having fun.  I'll try to get on that soon ;-)