Jack Jensen's Blog: An Awesome Night!!

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

An Awesome Night!!

(above) Nicole & Wyatt

(above) Nicole & Jack

(above) The Whole Gang: Benji, Gina, Wyatt, Nicole, Jack, Vic, James

James, Jack and I just got back from a wonderful dinner and night at Gina & Benji Koger's home. It was a thank-you/good luck/farewell dinner for Wyatt & Jack's surgeon, Nicole Chandler. Those of you who've read Jack's CarePage know that Nicole was a HUGE part in the reason for Jack & Wyatt's success. She's a gifted surgeon but has such compassion for her patients and the families. We were so lucky to have her on our care team. She will be moving on in her career and we wanted to say THANKS for everything and to give Wyatt & Jack a chance to see her again before she leaves. It was such an amazing dinner. To see Jack and Wyatt together was beyond anything I could put into words. They are both miracles. I haven't seen Wyatt in a long while (December) and I was so happy to see that he is growing so big and still has that wonderful happy nature. He's such a sweet boy. We also met his big sister Chloe who is the cutest little girl. We think Jack has a crush on her because he kept watching her all night!

We all shared an amazing meal (thanks Benji & Gina!) and dessert (thanks Nicole). We sat around and reminisced about our experiences and how far the boys have come. I feel so lucky to have such a great family nearby that we can be friends with and relate to.

We had a great time and look forward to many more play dates. Nicole - you'll have to come back and visit us. We're really going to miss you!!

3 comments:

Fer said...: I'm glad you had such a lovely dinner.; June 5, 2008 at 10:02 AM
Anonymous said...: What a great night...the boys look wonderful. Let me know when you visit Hopkins again, I would love to see Jack. Pass along all my best to the Kroger family. Wishing you well, Cheryl; June 5, 2008 at 10:52 PM
Cindy said...: That's awesome that they finally got to "meet" and that their surgeon came to dinner.; June 6, 2008 at 9:53 AM

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Jack's Diagnosis and Recovery

At our 19 week ultrasound Jack was diagnosed with CDH. One week later James and I went to Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. for more extensive analysis. We had a fetal MRI and saw that his hernia was on the left side (the most common) and at that time his liver was 'up' or in his chest. His heart was pushed to the right in his chest and he had a normal sized right lung and a very small left lung (about 1/5 the normal size). Overall his CDH was classified as severe with a Lung to Head (LHR) ratio of 0.8. His echocardiogram showed that his heart was beating strong and there was no underlying congenital heart defect. His amnio was also normal. The prognosis was 20-50% chance of survival at birth. The struggle we faced with this diagnosis was that there is little correlation between prenatal diagnostic test results and outcome at birth. Some babies with mild defects do poorly and some with severe defects pull through and do very well. All we could do was try to be optimistic and hope and pray that Jack would be a strong baby and fight hard. On August 20, 2007 John Verner Jensen "Jack" was born by C-section at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces and was 20 inches long. Within hours of birth he was placed on ECMO (heart-lung bypass). He had a 10 day run on ECMO and went to his hernia repair surgery on this machine. He was missing 90% of his left diaphragm, had his entire stomach, spleen, and parts of his small and large intestines and liver in his chest and he required a gortex patch. Jack came out of surgery off ECMO but with the cannulas still in place until later that night. He had a really hard night after surgery and we nearly lost him. We were later told his blood gases should have been unsurvivable and that it was pure will and not medicine that saved him. After 81 days in hospital we brought Jack home breathing room air and needing only an NG (naso-gastric) feeding tube. After 27 days home he reherniated and we had to go back for emergency surgery at Johns Hopkins. His awesome surgeons literally patched him back up and after another 16 days in hospital he returned home on Dec 21, 2007 - just in time for his first Christmas. Since then Jack has tackled his eating issues and is NG-tube free! He does not require any medication. We are extremely grateful for his incredible medical team and all his friends and family for their support, kind words, thoughts and prayers.

Jack's CarePage chronicles his day-to-day journey from diagnosis to approximately 6 months old (before we started blogging). See the link below.