Chapter 4: Max Starts Recovery

First of all, I want to say that my son is a freaking stud. No joke. Our little guy had surgery yesterday and it is like it didn't even affect him! Claire and I called twice during the night last night to see how things were going, and how he was doing. The nurses just said "He is doing excellent!" His CO2 was down, his O2 was up, his PH was in a good place, his saturation numbers we as high as they could go, and he was peeing 11 CCs an hour.

This is just a bit of the stuff that we have been watching to monitor how things are going. Dr. Kays said that they probably wouldn't touch any of his ventilator settings for 48 hours after the surgery because it would probably mess him up. Well, Max wasn't having any of that. His numbers were doing so well that Dr. Kays actually was able to ween him off some of the support over the night, and he was stable enough to move rooms today. Here he is with Mom in his new diggs:


We are still in NICU 3 but we got moved over a bay so we are not isolated any more. We seriously have the greatest nurses ever. Sandy has been helping us the past few days and even let Claire and I bring in a new sheet for his bed. Our friend made it for him and we decided that we want to win the love and affection of the NICU staff through bribery. Since we are on the University of Florida campus, we are officially Gators fans, and Max is too. Our friend also made the blanket that is sitting next to him as well.


We really are so blessed to be here. We have made some great friends and been treated with such kindness through this whole ordeal. So a big "Thank You" is in order to all of our Westside Baptist family that we have met these past few weeks! You all rock!

Frankly, there isn't much to update about except that Max is a superstar mutant super healing baby! His numbers are incredible and we are looking great! At this point we are just taking it day by day and doing what we can.

Claire and I are finally taking a little more time to ourselves and getting some well needed rest. In the past five days we have had a baby, Claire had major surgery, our newborn son has had major surgery, Claire's mom has come and gone, and we are 2,016 miles from home. It has been pretty stressful, but we are doing it!

We are very much looking forward to coming back to Arizona (where it doesn't rain every 5 minutes), and seeing all of our family again very soon! We miss you all and think about you guys all the time! Much love!

Here is one last picture of Max before we go. He is PASSED OUT from the sedation medication that he is on. They are weening him off of that too! Goooo Max!