Original Blog Post: December 28, 2008- Home At Last

Hallelujah!  Caedmon was finally released from the hospital yesterday at noon.  We could hardly believe our ears!  In fact, the doctor was toying with the idea of keeping us one more day but said, after seeing how alert and active Caedmon was on the doctor's arrival for a check up, that he had changed his mind and we were going home!!!!

We did learn that Caedmon has a mild form of sleep apnea.  The treatment, ironically enough, is caffeine.  Apparently it reminds the brain to breathe and affects babies differently then it does adults.  We also learned that our insurance does not cover this particular prescription and after the doctor told us it runs $1500 a month we were ready to cry.  However, this hospital mixes its own caffeine formula and it only runs $27 a month.  Can I hear another hallelujah?  Often babies can grow out of apnea and we are praying this is one treatment that will only last a short while.

The swelling in the back is going down little by little.  Every morning is very exciting to change his diaper and see how much it has changed.  He actually rolled over nearly on his back in his sleep last night and seemed comfortable.  It was so nice to see him laying like a baby normally does.  It's weird how you celebrate the little things when you don't have them at first.

Here's a view of our tuckered out little boy and a little view of the shunt under his skin and the edge of the incision area.  They shaved half his head in the back, as you can see.  It stands out so well because he had so much hair at birth.  In a way, I wished he was bald so it wouldn't be such a change but we're happy to have the shunt placed and doing its job to protect his wonderful brain!