Jack Jensen's Blog: Jack's new tractor

Monday, June 8, 2009

Jack's new tractor

This weekend Jack and I traveled from CT to NY. James was able to get a lift and meet us there on Friday night. HIs dad and our brother-in-law Jeff were traveling back to NH after the extreme kitchen makeover week and dropped James off. I am holding off on posting photos of the kitchen renovation because James has some finish work and the counters won't be installed until next Tuesday (incidently, I would strongly discourage anyone from going through Home Depot for counters!!). The work that James, Jeff and Jim did in the kitchen is beyond amazing. Jeff put together the most amazing design on our tile floors. I get excited every time I walk on them!

The weekend in NY was pretty relaxing. Unlike other weekends when everyone has been busting their butts getting things plowed, planted, etc we had a pretty mellow time. My dad got his new tractor delivered late afternoon on Saturday and then spent most of Sunday finding things to move around in the bucket. Jack was really excited to watch him ride around on it. We even got pics of them on their matching tractors. When James had Jack on the tractor he immediately figured out how to turn the hazard lights on (who knew tractors had those?!) and had 1 hand on the throttle and 1 on the wheel! I also love the photo of James and Jack dancing and being silly by the pond.

Below are some photos from our weekend. Also, I want to thank Carter's mom, Kellie, for thinking of us. She remembered that Jack has food allergies and she came across a Jack-friendly cupcake recipe that I can't wait to try out (as soon as the kitchen is in 1 piece). On another food note, Jack has started to eat like a champ with solids and when he gets (or even sees) something he likes he says, "Mmmmmm!". I laugh every time he does that because I so clearly remember his NICU days when we were excited if he took 20 ml by bottle. People told us it gets easier but I never believed it. It makes me so happy to see him actually ENJOY eating!

~Vic

1 comment:

Aep said...: beautiful pictures!! Jack is too adorable and having a blast in each picture. Marco would be in heaven with that tractor! The city boy here loves anything farm related!! :)
Hugs to all!!!; June 10, 2009 at 7:26 PM

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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.