Jack Jensen's Blog: First Swim Lesson

Monday, October 5, 2009

First Swim Lesson

Tonight I took Jack to his first swim lesson. His instructor, Erika, is AWESOME. He went right to her without hesitation. He seemed to trust her instinctively - not something he always does. He absolutely loved being in the water and having some individual attention without the baby. The lesson only lasted about 15 minutes because he was getting cold. We may go back again later in the week.

Germs have finally infiltrated our house. James caught something at school. He's totally knocked out but it seems to be a viral head cold and not the flu. Thank God for that. I have a bit of a sore throat but it could be because I was in the car a lot the past 2 days. I am just hoping the kids don't get it. I weighed Jack today and he is 24 pounds 8 ounces. I was shocked because I thought he lost weight but he actually gained a pound. I hope he doesn't get sick because he drops weight so fast and it takes months to regain that lost ground.

I will try to add a video to the post later. It's taking forever to upload, even after I cut it by 1/2.

OK- it's 4:15am and i am checking YouTube. Nope, still didn't upload. I keep getting error messages. Do I get a pat on the back for trying? This is frustrating!

FINALLY...I think this should work.

2 comments:

*super dude and super dog* said...: He looks so proud of himself! Cute video (and worth the wait)
-Kellie; October 6, 2009 at 9:51 PM
amy said...: wonderful video- he's such a water baby! Miss you guys!!!; October 7, 2009 at 8:38 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.