Team Travis: Ducks and Toys

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Ducks and Toys

Yesterday Travis and I had a nice day together. His pulse/ox machine was acting up so we had to take it over to Apria to get it repaired. During the drive I received a call from the San Diego Blood Bank saying that I was a potential match for a patient in need of bone marrow. This is the second time I've been called for bone marrow donation. The first time, the patient's condition worsened before I could get the marrow to her :( This time around, the guy was asking all sorts of medical questions and found out I had herrington rods in my back (from my two spinal fushions) and unfortunately, that ruled me out. Made me sad. What a gift it would be to help somebody out like that. Ever since my dad had a organ transplant I have been very pro-donation! If you haven't registered you can here... http://donatelife.com/

Anyway, after that Travis convinced me to take him to Target to "look around". I admit, I am an addict. I can not stop buying things for Travis! Yesterday, we ended up with two new toys, a football piggy bank, and some pajamas that say "Tough Guys Need Sleep Too". How appropriate, right? We had to have it! All the shopping wears Travis out....he quickly fell sound asleep in his stroller.

After Target, it was Travis' lunchtime so I took him over to the duck pond and found a nice bench to feed him on. After his lunch, Travis stared at the ducks and watched them swim back and forth. At one point I looked to my left and saw a menacing looking duck just inches from Travis' toe. He looked quiet hungry so we promptly relocated to a new bench. Travis and I had a long talk about how we were going to tell daddy that the Target purchases were necessities ;)

Travis is inching closer and closer to 11lbs. He tipped the scale at 10lbs 14.5oz the other day. He is so big that I had to finally pack away his newborn clothes. He is now wearing sizes 0-3. It kind of made me sad to pack away those tiny clothes! On the other hand, it is exciting to see him getting bigger and learning to do new things.

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Travis Gary DiCarlo

Travis Gary DiCarlo, first son of Roger and Nicole DiCarlo, was born at San Diego Kaiser Hospital, October 23, 2009 with a Congenital Heart Defect known as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, or HLHS. The short explanation is that Travis was born with only half of a heart. In order for him to live, a series of three operations were planned.

Due to an infection, Travis had to have an additional open heart surgery to insert pulmonary artery bands on October 29, 2009. He had his Norwood Surgery on November 21, 2009. He was sent home on December 14, 2009 from Rady's Children Hospital of San Diego after spending his first 52 nights of life in the hospital.

After being home for several months, Travis was due to for his next surgery in the plan, the Glenn procedure. But the life of a cardiac kid can change in an instant and life doesn't always go as planned. Due to the anatomy of his heart and some rhythm issues, Travis had what the surgeons called Norwood part 2. They replaced his Sano Shunt with a bigger one, enlarged his pulmonary arteries and installed a pacemaker. This surgery was performed on May 3, 2010. Travis went home on May 17th, 2010.

Around Travis' first birthday in October his cardiologist detected some narrowing in his pulmonary artery and ordered a heart cath. The heart cath showed extensive narrowing in his aorta and his pulmonary artery. On February 17, 2011 Travis had his 4th open heart surgery. He was doing well with recovery until he suddenly went into cardiac arrest on Friday (2/18). After two hours of CPR Travis was placed on ECMO (a heart/lung bypass). Although his heart did begin to beat again on its own, his brain was damaged during the whole ordeal and he lost all brain function. We had to say goodbye to our beautiful boy on Saturday, February 19th. We miss our boy terribly.....