Cam is out of the hospital!!!!!

We finally have some good news to post! Cam was discharged from the hospital today at 4. He is pretty much over the stomach bug and his surgery was successful. Until this morning, we were concerned that the surgery had some complications, but Dr. G. reassured us today that all is well. Tonight was one of the most special nights we have had. The Children's House invited all of the families to ride in a limo, eat dinner out at a restaurant and have a visit from Santa! Cam loved all of the lights inside the limo. It was a big Excursion limo. He fell asleep when we got to the restaurant so Chad, Nana and I actually got to eat together! Then Santa arrived and brought all of the kids several gifts. At the very end, he brought bikes to all of the older kids and gave Camden a very cool ride on truck. We can't express how much joy this brought us to see the kids so happy under such difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, Cam slept through Santa's visit, but we did put him on Santa's lap and got a picture. Tonight helped to erase some of the bad moments we have had up here. Our plan was to fly home tomorrow, but we need to stay in Baltimore for one extra day. We are flying home on Wednesday night, just in time for Christmas Eve at my sister's house (where I hear we might have another Santa sighting!). Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers throughout this trying time. We have felt the prayers from far away. We can't wait to get back to the Florida sunshine. Merry Christmas to all!
Love,
Julie, Chad, Camden and Nana (Jimmy says hello from Orlando!)

Update from Nana

Julie and Chad are both well now and busy taking care of Camden. Camden had to be readmitted to the hospital Friday afternoon. He was dehydrated and needed a couple of stitches to keep his stent in place. He definitely does not like the hospital or anyone there. I stayed with him Friday night and Sat morning I fell victim to the awful stomach bug that Julie and Chad had. Everyone said I would get it. Luckily it didn't hit me as bad and by Sunday I was ok but banned from the hospital room. Julie and Chad have been taking turns staying with him trying to keep him calm while he is there. I became the housekeeper and gopher for now. We should know more Monday when Dr. G comes to see Camden. We need to pray for Cam to be able to keep his fluids down and for good healing of his surgery. Julie and Chad are taking such good care of Camden and God is giving them the strength that they need to see him through this rough time. Camden is such a trooper and is still watching his favorite DVDs and clapping his hands even though one is covered up because of his IV. Julie and Chad had a visit from their friend Leslie Jack's mother and that meant so much to them today. Thanks for all your prayers and support.
Nana

From Bad to Worse

Hey all,

Well, just when we thought things were bad enough, Chad and I ended up in the hospital. As Cam was being discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, his pediatrician was wheeling me down to the ER. Chad took Cam back to the Children's House and he started to feel ill too. Our favorite nurse, Shonda, came to the rescue. I don't know what we would have done with her. She came over and watched Cam so Chad could also go to the ER. It took me 4 hours to get in since there were 75 people in the waiting room. By the time I got in, Chad had arrived and they rushed him back. After being pumped full of fluids, Chad was released around 4 am. I still wasn't doing much better so they sent me up to an observation floor. Poor Shonda had to work the next morning, but she stayed with Cam the entire night. Talk about your own private nurse! I was discharged from the hospital Thursday evening. One of our friends Maria came over to watch Cam during the day so Chad could rest a little. Thursday night we became concerned that Cam was becoming dehydrated so we took him back to the ER. They told us it was going to be a 2-4 hour wait, but we must have looked so bad that they took him within 15 minutes. Ealier in the day, my mom hoped on a plane and flew up to Baltimore to help us out. Chad and I have never been so happy to see her! Maria's husband, Phil, picked her up from the airport. So now we are all resting at the Children's House. This has been such a traumatic experience. I think we all might need therapy! We are praying for a restful weekend. It is supposed to become very cold this weekend. Cam has a doctor's appt. on Monday and then we fly home on Tuesday. We can't wait to get home and put this awful two weeks behind us. Hope to report better news later. Thanks for your prayers. Keep em coming...we need em!
Love,
Julie, Chad, Cam and Nana

Oh what a few days...

I just realized in all of our craziness that I had not posted to the blog. Let's see...where do I begin about the past fews days..We are still in the hospital. Cam's surgery site is healing nicely and all of that is on course. However, he caught a stomach bug and has been miserable! Since he had the bug, he was put in solidary confinement! I'm not kidding. He had to stay in his room and all of the nurses and doctors had to put on gowns and gloves just to walk in his room. After the epideral came out on Monday, we were hoping to take wagon rides, but we couldn't. He was pretty dehydrated so they started the 4th (yes 4~!) IV last night and pumped him full of fluids. He had a MRI on Monday morning so he couldn't eat anything after midnight on Sunday. Once he came out of the anesthesia, he refused to drink anything for about 36 hours. He did eat pizza though. He had been receiving all of his medication through an IV, but in order to get out of here, he has to take them all by mouth. That has been fun...He has thrown up every medicine we put in him. I was the target for many of those! So we are waiting to see the surgeon and will hopefully be discharged this afternoon. We hope when we get out of the hospital, he will calm down and start drinking and eating better. Chad and I slept about 3 hours since Friday. Did I mention that our laptop broke again! We are borrowing one from the hospital. This week seems so much worse than the entire 6 and a half weeks we spent here earlier this year. Well, we are hopefully on the upswing and this will all be behind us.
I'll post when we get out of the hospital.
Julie, Chad and poor Cam Man

This is a quick video from before surgery. He was having so much fun! Cam is resting comfortably now after a rough start this morning. Cam has a medicinal patch that helps to control bladder spasms. It is supposed to be changed every three days. His seems to always wear off about 12 hours before it is supposed to be changed. The nurses were very quick to get him a new one, so his spasms didn't last very long. Tomorrow they are going to turn off the epidural. If his pain level is not to high they will remove it tomorrow night or early Monday morning. He has been taking lots of formula and we think once we get him up and moving he will begin to eat food again. The weather hasn't been too bad. The temperature has been around 40 during the day. We are hoping for one day of snow once Cam is out of here. Hope all is well back home. Thanks for all the comments! We love staying in touch!

Chad, Jul, and Cam

Hanging in there...

Hey,

Sorry we didn't post yesterday. Cam was having a great day of just sleeping until we noticed around 6 pm that his IV had come out. You know Cam, he can't stand to have all of these wires and tubes in him! So it was a pretty traumatic night getting it restarted. Two great nurses from the NICU came up to restart it. When he has surgery, they start off using a mask to sedate him and then they put all of the lines in so he doesn't feel them. Anyway, it is back in. Chad spent the night with him and neither one of them slept very much. They are both sleeping now! We hope to have a calm day. The doctors are still happy with his progress.
Cam's friend, Luke, had surgery yesterday and he is moving to the floor today. Yesterday, a pastor in the Baltimore area came by to visit Cam. He is a friend of one of my cousins. He came to visit several times when were up here this summer. He reminds us of Dan Myers, our friend and one of the pastors at our church back home. My school's Christmas Play is tonight. I haven't missed one in almost 10 years. It is always such a joy to see the students present the true meaning of Christmas. Cam would have loved all of the music.
On a sad note, a former student of mine was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident on Monday. Please keep his family in your prayers. His memorial service is tomorrow and I wish I could be there.
Wishing we were home,
Julie, Chad, and Cam XOXO

Surgery was a success!

Hi everyone,

Cam came through surgery with flying colors! He began the day playing in the Pre-Op waiting room. He had everyone in the room laughing at his sounds and how hard he was playing. Then, it was time to go back to the OR. The hospital allows 1 parent to scrub up and walk back into the OR with their child. Chad always lets me do this, which I couldn't imagine not doing, but at the same time, it is the hardest thing I ever do as a mom. He had an awesome team of doctors and nurses taking care of him. Dr. Gearhart felt the surgery was a great success. His bladder measured on the larger side as far as exstrophy goes. We were thankful for that. He is a true fighter because when it was time to take the breathing tube out, he did it himself! He was awake when he wheeled by us on the way to Recovery. After about 1 hour, we were on our way back to the 6th floor. Cam is a bit of a celebrity here at Hopkins. Our room has been flooded with visitors since we came in. Even when Cam was in surgery, Chad was walking down the hallway and a medical student yelled, "Hey, you're Camden's dad!" Cam's roomates dad asked if Cam was singing autographs! It's nice to feel like you know people when you are so far away from home. Cam is resting peacefully right now. He has an epidural and is on quite a bit of pain medicine. We are relieved that Cam has had 2 major surgeries while he is so young and hopefully won't remember them. Thanks for all of your prayers and well wishes today. We felt our support team with us. It has been a long day...we'll write more tomorrow.

Love,

Camden, Chad and Julie

Cam's all packed and ready to go!

Hi everyone,

We are up here in Baltimore. It is a little chilly! We had a great flight. Cam slept for the majority of the way here. Cam has surgery tomorrow morning. The surgery will last about 5 hours. He had an appt. with his surgeon this afternoon and he was so pleased with how everything has healed since the first big surgery.

We saw many people we met when we were up here before. Everyone is shocked at how big Cam is! Tonight he has become Mr. Independent. He was walking with this push walker and I was helping him steer. He took his hand off of the walker, pushed my hand away and then started walking again!! It was the funniest thing!

We saw the Therapy Dogs again. He saw the same dogs the night before his big surgery. We will update you all tomorrow. Please keep Cam in your prayers. He is such a strong guy!

Love from Baltimore,

Julie, Chad, Cam and Jim