Jack Jensen's Blog: Renovations

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Renovations

Jack has been with my mom and dad since Memorial weekend. James, our brother-in-law Jeff, and James' dad, Jim, spent this past week totally gutting and renovating our kitchen and downstairs bathroom. I drove up to CT yesterday because I couldn't stand to be away from Jack any longer. I swear that he grew during the past 10 days or so! My dad bought a new tractor that will be delivered to the farm on Saturday and he bought Jack a matching one! It's so cool...the solid metal kind with pedals (that he can't reach yet) and a steering wheel that really works. He loves going for rides on it. It even has a wagon that hitches to the back. I asked my dad where Jack was going to keep this new (huge) tractor...hint hint...not in MD. He said that Jack will park it in the barn next to his. I can't wait to get a photo of the two of them on their matching tractors!

I can't wait to get home and see how the renovations turned out. I guess it'll take a week or 2 until our counters are cut and installed but other then that, it should be done. I'll post some before and after pics. I spoke to James today and he said they were up until 4am laying the tile. Jeff suggested doing a fancy pattern with 3 different sizes of tile, including decorative ones. I'm sure that around midnight they were regretting that suggestion to me! We're so lucky to have such talented guys in our family who can do all this work and who also are willing to drive 9 hrs and take a week off work to help us out!

I think today my mom and I are going to take Jack to the toy store to play with Thomas trains. Should be fun!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this but my friend Kat is planning a baby 'sprinkle' for me! Unlike a shower, this will be a get together without all the big gifts. We have so much from Jack that we can re-use. I'm so excited because I never had a shower before Jack was born - I was too nervous that I'd get all that baby stuff and may not have a baby to bring home. Kat said she's planning all the crazy shower games, cake and fun stuff. I can't believe how excited I am to be able to celebrate the upcoming birth of our baby!

Well, better get going. More pictures to come....

2 comments:

Cindy said...: That tractor is so cute! I can't wait to see pics of Jack and his grandpa on their tractors.

I'm glad you are having a baby shower/sprinkling, and a pink one at that!; June 7, 2009 at 4:37 PM
*super dude and super dog* said...: Brad's grandfather worked for Massey his entire life, so red tractors are preferred over the green ones in our family! I have to know where he found that tractor, because Carter will need one :); June 12, 2009 at 11:22 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.