We have not done a great job of keeping the blog updated but I’m going to claim it’s all because of three children under 4 in our home. We are actually doing extremely well and Vivek is growing like a weed. We had written earlier about how Vivek’s bilirubin was elevated when we left the hospital but after two more checks at the doctor his levels came back down quickly. He has been sleeping and eating a lot. Just this past week he started being awake a little more often but still sleeps or eats away most of his hours in a day. Of our three kids, it seems that Vivek has slept more than the other two…perhaps he is trying to catchup on lost sleep since he came about three weeks early!
We’re Home
04
Feb
We finally got home this afternoon three days after going into the hospital for Melissa’s early c-section. Both Melissa and Vivek are doing well. Vivek is a little jaundiced and his bilirubin levels are a little higher than normal and so we’ll need to go in for a repeat bilirubin check with his pediatrician tomorrow but other than that Vivek seems like he is doing extremely well and is adjusting to life at home. Thank you for all your prayers for us during this time. Melissa tells me that this was by far the best recovery she has had after her c-sections. We have both been extremely impressed by the excellent care we received in the L&D department at Parkland and Melissa even says that if she could do it again she would have chosen to have Karuna at Parkland when we were in Dallas before rather than the private hospital we went to before.
Introducing Vivek Joseph Philip…A Little Earlier Than Expected
04
Feb
Our third little guy decided to make an early appearance when Melissa went into labor on Sunday. Melissa woke up Sunday morning not feeling very good and thought she had caught the stomach flu because she felt sick to her stomach. We decided to not go to church that morning because she was feeling so crummy and by later that morning she began to have full strength contractions that started off about 5 minutes apart and then progressed to about three minutes apart.
Baby Names & Year to Date
11
Jan
Greetings! We are enjoying a great weekend of just hanging out together especially after my busy three weeks on internal medicine. I finished my internal medicine rotation last week and started anesthesiology on Monday…what a relief it has been to be on a normal schedule where I get home by early afternoon, am not on call and have my weekends off! Anesthesia has gotten off to a great start and I’ve done almost 20 intubations (for those not in the medical field it is process of putting someone off to sleep when they get to the operating room and then putting a tube into their trachea to help them breathe). The ability to intubate a patient and provide an airway is one of the most important skills that I need to master as an emergency physician because that is often the first thing that must be dealt with in order to help someone that is critically ill.
Wonderful News…
31
Dec
We had our third ultrasound of the pregnancy to find out why Melissa was measuring weeks behind and by the grace of God the ultrasound was completely normal!! By ultrasound our baby is measuring about 31-32 weeks and that is just about where we should be based on dates (32 weeks and 4 days). When you measure Melissa’s belly she still measures several weeks behind but its is wonderful to know that the ultrasound shows that the baby is growing well. Right now our baby is 3 lbs 14 oz! We got to see our baby’s feet, hands and face to give us another preview of who will be joining us on February 19th, 2009. Thank you for all your prayers…we felt them when we got to the appointment because we knew that whatever we found out God was in control and orchestrating everything.
Pictures from White Sands…
26
Dec
We’ve gotten to enjoy our first Christmas as a family with me away at work…not the most fun way to spend Christmas but Melissa and the kids were super flexible to accomidate my schedule. I’m now half way done with my internal medicine rotation and have got about a week and a half left to go. I was post call on Christmas eve but managed to get about three hours of sleep before we all went out to my mom and dad’s house and celebrated Christmas a day early since I was working on Christmas day. Read the rest of this entry »
Christmas Wishes…
21
Dec
Merry Christmas wishes to everyone early since I’m not sure if I’ll get another opportunity to post another message before Christmas because I’m on call the night before. I’ve been busy at work the last few weeks and thus very little time to devote to working on pictures or posting an update. I finished another rotation in the ER (my second month there this year) and have started three weeks of internal medicine. Read the rest of this entry »
Reflections on Labor & Delivery and Starting Peds EM
29
Oct
It has been a busy first week on pediatric emergency medicine for me as I’ve just finished a stretch of 7 overnight shifts in the pediatric ER at Children’s hospital. Thankfully I get a couple of days off before I do my last overnight shift for this block on Friday (Halloween…should be an interesting night) before switching to two weeks of day shifts. I have absolutely loved my time at Children’s so far. It has been a great place to work primarily because the staffing and resources are adequate to meet the needs of the patients that are seen there. While many of the nurses in the Parkland ER are stuck caring for 5-10 patients at a time, the nurses at Children’s are assigned no more than three rooms at a time and thus patients can be cared for a lot more expediently. In fact I’ve found that the number of patients that I can see in a shift has almost doubled with the extra staffing and efficiency of the system at Children’s. Read the rest of this entry »
Lou Malnati’s And Our Appearance on the Travel Channel
18
Oct
In my last post, I had talked some about one of our favorite restaurants in Chicago for deep dish pizza – Lou Malnatis. We first discovered this pizzeria about 4 years ago when we we did a marathon 3500 mile trip that brought us through Chicago on the way to Kalamazoo, MI. Since then we have loved the pizza at Lou Malnatis so much that if were are within an hour of Chicago on a trip we will usually make a detour to stop at Lou Malnatis for some pizza and buy a couple extra to eat later when we crave authentic deep dish Chicago style pizza. Apparently because of our love for Lou Malnatis pizza we also go to make our first TV debut last November on the show Food Paradise on the Travel Channel. Read the rest of this entry »
Back From Michigan…2660 Miles Later
13
Oct
Sorry we have not posted in a while. We were on vacation the first week of October to visit my sister, Chrisly, in Battle Creek, Michigan and since we got back I’ve been working long days in Labor & Delivery at Parkland until today, which was my first day off since I got back to work. We had a wonderful time hanging out with Chrisly and enjoying the beautiful fall weather in Michigan. The leaves had started to change in Battle Creek although they were not at the height of their fall color but the kids still enjoyed getting to play with all the fallen leaves.
