Eli Andrew Cameron, newest member of our family...

Enjoy the journey of Drew and Melissa Cameron as they welcome their first son into the world... I know this is kind of long but wanted you to see the amazing work God did in their family, it's just reminds me He's in the details and holding us in His arms even when we question His will for our lives.

Drew is the son of Tracy & Diane Cameron (Tracy is Mary Jo's younger brother, sorry mom couldn't help myself).

This information is from an email from Aunti Diane, affectionately known as Granny Di.

Friday, December 21 at approximately 11:10 pm, we welcomed Eli Andrew Cameron into the world at Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, weighing in at a whopping 5 lbs. 9 ozs., measuring 18 ½” long. Tiny little guy!

After Eli had tried nursing shortly after birth, he was taken to the nursery by Nurse Mary for a much-needed bath. While he was there, his blood sugar count dropped dangerously low (in the 20s when it should have been above 60), resulting in him being immediately hooked up to an IV of sugar water and being bottle-fed formula twice. Throughout the day, Eli remained hooked up to the sugar water IV and was not allowed out of the hospital nursery (he never returned to Melissa’s room).

When Melissa tried nursing him, it was found that Eli was not born with the sucking reflex. The nurses said he was so tiny, he thought he was a preemie, so he had a preemie’s tendencies. He had to be taught to suck, feeding him by a bottle wore him out, and he only had a slight squeak (never crying).

Merry Christmas! Upon our daily visit to the nursery to see Eli, Melissa and I found staph infection (“MSSA” – Methicillin-sensitive staph aureus) around the umbilical cord to be in full swing! It was an area 6” wide by 2 ½” tall with his belly button right in the middle of it. It looked like his skin had been scalded with boiling water, a layer of skin had already begun to peel back and you could see the new raw skin underneath. It was not pretty!

Dr. Mark Puglisi (Eli’s pediatrician) told us he would treat the infection with Vancomyacin – the best drug he could put him on, but that if it wasn’t better in 24 hours, he would ship him to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

On Wednesday, December 26, Melissa arrived at Heartland and was informed that Eli was being transferred to CMH, and a nurse an ambulance from there would be arriving to pick him up in 30 minutes. Eli had “lost” his IV during the night (it had been in each of his boney little ankles at different times, and one of his ankles was also infected), and Dr. Puglisi was not comfortable sticking additional needles into Eli’s ankle. He said it was essential to send Eli to CMH because they had the means to insert a port into Eli’s head that would allow for meds to be administered without the necessity of having to stick him every time.

When we arrived at CMH Eli was already on the 3rd Floor in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). He looked so tiny in his little bassinet, but not nearly as tiny as some of the other babies in the same unit (one was 1 lb. 14 ozs). They had inserted a “port” into the top of Eli’s head. It had a tiny tube (10 cm) that went down his neck, and the end of the tube hung out of the top of his head. This is where they would administer his meds (oxycillen). He was also hooked up to a heart monitor his entire stay. His first ultra-sound of his head was done today.

We spent the night at the Ronald McDonald House (our new favorite charity!). Travis and I would have to second this one. It and Children's Miracle Network.

Friday, 12/28/07 (5 lb 12.4 oz):
Eli had his first spinal tap (“LP”) done to check for spinal staph meningitis, however, they were unable to draw enough spinal fluid. Will try again in a few days.

Saturday, 12/29/07 (5 lb 14.7 oz):
Eli’s condition was improving daily! He had now become a little pig (couldn’t eat fast enough), his blood sugar had stabilized in the 80s, and the staph infection was looking better each day. That evening, he was moved from the isolated NICU to a room of his own on the other side of the unit.

Monday, 12/31/07:
Eli had his second spinal tap today. It was a success this time and we were hoping for a good result.

Tuesday, 01/01/08 (6 lb 2.6 oz):
Happy New Year!! We received the results of Eli’s second spinal tap, and it was negative for spinal staph meningitis. We were told we could take Eli home on Saturday after his last dose of meds.

Friday, 01/04/08:
They did another ultrasound of Eli’s head and it came back fine. That was the last test they were going to run.

Saturday, 01/05/08:
He had his last dose of meds at 3:30 am, but still had the port in his head when we arrived. Eli’s nurse, Eric was working. When we went downstairs to the cafeteria for lunch, I mentioned to Eric that it would be great if the port was removed while we were at lunch, and he said he would see to it. Indeed, it was taken out by the time we got back to Eli’s room and his hair was washed. His heart monitor cords were also gone. Yippee! He was finally FREE! How nice it was, too! We could change his diaper and get him dressed and swaddled in a blanket without any cords going every which way.

We were on our way home by 12:30 pm . . . and we were taking Eli WITH us!! Also a very good feeling!

We would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support for Eli and our family during the last three weeks! Although spending days at CMH has made us realize that Eli’s ordeal was not the most serious of situations (like that of his new cousin, baby Tennyson), it was still a very scary time for us and our little man. I thank God each day for healing him and bringing him home to us.

May God’s countless blessings be also on you and your loved ones!

Please continue to pray for them as they begin this new page in their journey as a family of three...we know God is going to do great and mighty things in this little man.

Thanks for your prayers-
Travis, Lindsay & Tennyson Myers

Thanks, Thanks and More Thanks

All our thanks to Aunt Jenny for spending 10 days with us, loving on us so very much. You are greatly appreciated. See the photos of our time with Aunt Jenny. You'd think we'd have gotten her face in some of these photos. Also be sure to ask her to share her pooping story...lets just say it led to a bath for Tennyson.

Thanks Uncle Tyler for letting us have her.

Also thanks to Aunt Kelsey who will be heading down here Monday night after completing her boards (please pray for these, she just graduated Cosmetology school) to spend the week with us. Gary thanks for letting us borrow her.

Please also be praying for a dear friend of ours, Heidi, that she would feel the arms of our loving Father around her always. Know our hearts are yours.

Travis, Lindsay & Tennyson Myers

Home at last...

It has been a crazy couple of days but I'll try and recap as best I can.

Thursday morning I called the physician's office as Tennyson hadn't been acting like himself and had been running a fever off and on the past few days (also just an FYI you shouldn't give motrin to babies under 6 months of age, it eats their stomachs, someone should tell a girl this or post it on the box...) anyways so we saw Dr. Hamby a partner of Dr. Holmes in his Neosho office. Dr. Hamby looked over Tennyson, who weighed 11lbs. 12 ounces and was 24 inches long and ordered some lab work to be done. We came back into Joplin and headed to Freeman West to have his lab work done.

It was horrible they had to stick his heel and take three tubes of blood, he wasn't overly cooperative because they pull from his thigh down his leg to try and get good blood drops however after one pull he pulls his legs back and fights them. So 45 minutes and both heels being stuck later (the first one clotted), we had enough blood. He had screamed the entire time, I had cried rather hysterically when we had to do the second stick and were so close to being done, so it was pretty bad. The lab is at the far end of the ER and they can only do one at a time so by the time we left there was a line outside and tons of people standing there watching all of this unfold, it was awful. As we were leaving so many people said they were sorry to me.

Since we were at Freeman and no one had seen him in six pounds we stopped by and visited some of the NICU personnel and saw Candy, Karen, Dr. Porte, Tammy, Heather and Jeannie who loved on him a bit which was wonderful. It was so good to see everyone, it's amazing how much we miss them.

From there we headed home to visit with Aunt Jenny and wait for the lab results, he said it should only take an hour. About an hour and a half later, I called the Children's Clinic in Neosho and they took my number to say the nurse would call me right back. She called back a bit later and said Dr. Holmes wanted us to head to his office in Joplin where he was going to give us his papers to have him admitted as it will be cheaper and quicker than heading to the ER. This is not something I was expecting so I called Travis and Jenny and I took Tennyson and headed to Dr. Holmes' office.

We were add on patients so we waited in our room until Dr. Holmes was finished seeing patients and he saw us. He said his test results came back and his CRP (which tests for infection) was an 8 and it should be less than 1 and his white blood cell count was 19,000 and it should be around 12,000. So he obviously had an infection of some kind. So we got our paperwork and headed over to Freeman.

We were admitted and it was right before shift change so the day nurse got us comfortable and the night nurses were left to do the admitting (20 questions). So we waited until after they got us admitted and they were going to get an IV put in so they could get is antibiotic started, take a blood draw for a culture and give him some sugar water with potassium. So they said one family member could go but I was tramatized enough from earlier that day so Travis and I walked over to visit the NICU staff (he got his coffee from Vanessa like we'd never left) while Aunt Jenny held him during the IV.

They tried putting the IV in his little hands twice however were unable to it was in the right side of his scalp and apparently bled quite a bit because his hair was matted with blood and such. But at least he was able to get his antibiotics.

Travis, Jenny, Tennyson and I hung out until late Thursday night and Jenny and Trav headed back to our house so Tennyson and I were left to try and get through the night with the IV. We did alright as he was up every other hour and rather fussy because he wasn't feeling well but we managed. Dr. Holmes came in around 7am on Friday morning and stated the blood culture thus far was negative and if it remains that way and his fever stays under control, he would discharge us Saturday morning as there were three other patients on peds and they all had RSV which is something we definatley do not want. They had taken another heel stick that morning and the CRP came back at 3.9 which was much lower but not as low as he'd like.

So we went through the day getting our antibiotic dosages, our prevacid, our polyvisol and just hanging out. It was good to be able to be with him but during the afternoon he was up and fussing (crying) for around four hours so Jenny and I kept taking turns passing him back and forth. She headed back to Union Star around 4:45 by way of Springfield and Bolivar (sorry) and Travis got there around 5:15 so he and I passed him around in the evening because again he wasn't feeling the best.

Around 8:30 his IV pump alarmed that it was occluded however there were no kinks in the hosing so they said they were going to flush the IV. It wouldn't flush so they were going to have to do some work on the IV so again Travis and I headed over to the NICU to visit. We visited with Dana and Heather for a bit and then headed back. The IV was blown and they thought it had clotted so they tried and tried to pull the clot out however never found it so our room was a bit of a mess as he'd bled all over the bedding and his outfit. The pediatrician on call decided since we were looking at going home in the morning that there was no need to restart the IV and they would just give his antibiotic dosage via injections in his thighs.

So Ted and Connie got here around 9:30 and we were all able to visit a bit before they came in to give his injection. It ended up being such a large dosage they had to give injections in both thighs which we were really excited about so both nurses took a thigh each and gave them simultaneously. Tennyson did so great, he cried for a bit but then was done. So after that we visited and Ted, Connie and Travis headed back to our house in Oronogo and Tennyson and I settled in again.

We did a bit better but it seemed the nurse would come in to weigh him or take vital signs right after I got him to sleep over and over so we had a rough night but we made it through again. Dr. Holmes came in this morning around 8am and stated the urine analysis and blood culture were both negative and since his fever hadn't returned he would fill out the discharge paperwork and we could head home. We will be visiting his Joplin office on Wednesday afternoon for a check up. When he was assessing Tennyson this morning I asked again about his hernias, he said Tennyson would let us know when they were hurting badly by either screaming or spitting up tons when you touched the hernia. When Dr. Holmes touched it during his assessment, Tennyson puked and it was terrible. So Dr. Holmes said Wednesday they will send us on to another physician in town and get his hernia surgery scheduled so we can get that taken care of.

So Tennyson and I packed up our room and headed out to our house in Oronogo, Ted welcomed us around 9:30 this morning and we got settled back in at home and boy are we glad to be here. I ran to the store this morning as Tennyson is having trouble having bowel movements and Dr. Holmes said to give him 2 oz of apple juice each day and that should help. Thus far it hasn't so please keep praying for that.

Basically from my understanding, they determined whatever he has is viral and therefore must run it's own course. He's obviously feeling better and has been sleeping this afternoon so that is great. Thank you all so very much for all your prayers and please continue praying for his health as hopefully he will be 100% back to himself soon.

Also in the pictures notice the pack n' play. Hillyards had a granny shower for Connie and this was one of the gifts, we have already been enjoying it.

Know that we love you all and we're so very thankful for all you do and have done for us. We couldn't make it without you.

Amazed by the Almighty-

Travis, Lindsay & Tennyson Myers

Please Pray

Please pray for Tennyson. After several days of fever, the doctor did a test to determine if there was infection in his little body. The test monitors infection on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest) and Tennyson was an 8. The doctor is admitting Tennyson directly to the hospital. We'll update the site as we learn more.

2008, Aunt Jenny the life saver, a home health visit, an eye checkup and mommy returning to work...

So much has happened I barely know where to start...

Our most pressing prayer need is as good a place as any I guess. We have not found a baby-sitter for Tennyson at this time and as you can tell from the title I returned to work on Wednesday, January 2. Aunt Jenny has been a life saver and spent Wednesday-Friday with Tennyson last week and is here with us this week as well, we don't know what we would do without her. Monday however she's doing her college thing (you'd think she'd give up her last semester to stay here and love on Tennyson wouldn't you) and we're not sure what we're going to do. So if you know anyone in the Oronogo/Joplin area who would love to spend their days, Monday-Friday 7:30-5 with Tennyson at our home, please give us a call or email. Please be praying about this as well as I don't know what we're going to do.

2008 was very eventful for us, we had little smokies and nachos and I had such a migraine that Tennyson and I went to bed around 10:30, we're total party animals. Travis was still up at midnight but he was watching some daredevil jump a motorcycle over a bunch of buses or something. Tennyson was awake at midnight because some in our neighborhood were shooting of fireworks, and we're not just talking little bottle rockets, but hey I guess the first minutes of 2008 are only with us once.

Tennyson has been doing so great, when Lisa visited he and Aunt Jenny on Friday, our last home health visit (we're sure going to miss Lisa) as they've moved him to monthly visits only for his Synagist shot, he weighed in at a whopping 10lbs. 15.5 ounces and was 23.5 inches long. I can't believe it, we're nearly four months old and such a big boy. He's outgrowing or outgrown all of his newborn things. I can't believe it. He also got his vaccine that day however has tolerated those very well. When Lisa called me she mentioned we should consider trying to put rice cereal into his bottle before bed so he will sleep longer (he's doing three hours at a time occassionally so we're doing better). Be praying for this as we started last night and had a few choking bits but I think they were because the hole in the nipple had to be so large for the cereal to get through and he wasn't used to the flow.

She also mentioned she thought he was beginning to teethe. I don't think that is funny and can't believe that he's growing up so fast. They always tell you it's a blink of an eye, and Hollie always said when we looked back on our NICU adventures it would seem like so long ago but I didn't realize it would happen so quickly. She also mentioned that his hernia has spread (if that's possible) and he now has them on both sides, poor little baby. So we're monitoring that closely as well as his ROP (we also think his right eye is a bit lazy) but life wouldn't be such an adventure if we didn't have these minor obstacles would it.

We saw Dr. Jordan on January 3 and though he still is showing the ROP, stage 1, it has stabalized itself which he said is great news. Many times once they stabilize they will begin to heal themselves, so we're praying for that. The best part of the trip however was when we got there guess who was coming out, Willis, Kandi and Jai Potter, our old NICU roommates. They are doing great, and Jai is still the beautiful little princess she always was, though she's pushing 7 lbs now. Also please be praying for Kandi she had to head back to work this week, and for Willis, a stay a home daddy.

Now the huge prayer request for me is that I returned to work as you read previously. I definately wasn't ready, our time had gone too quickly however you have to do what you have to do. I had sure missed the people I worked with but have to say this past week I have sure missed my little one. I am doing better now, but each morning it's hard to leave him, even though I know I couldn't care for him or love him better than Aunt Jenny does (thanks Uncle Tyler for letting us steal your wife for two weeks). Getting back into the swing of things has taken some time but my dept. had a luncheon for me (mexican :)) on Friday which was fun. It was also good to catch up on everyones holidays.

Anyways that's the brief version of our lives the past two weeks, let us know what's happening in your neck of the woods.

Love you all-
Travis, Lindsay & Tennyson Myers