The Arrival of Tyson

No burying the lead here: Tyson came into this world strong and incident free.

I must admit I was a little surprised to see eight people standing patiently at the bassinet awaiting his arrival into the world. This was a clear indication that they were expecting complications. But he was near perfect. 

I say "near" because his heart issues did not miraculously disappear. But at least we avoided that first surgery point. And everything else about him is great! He is a strapping 7 pounds 3 ounces, has all his fingers and toes and scored well on his Apgar test.

And he has the distinct cleft chin that tells me he is mine. It is a Gregg trait that unfortunately has ensnared my children. The sunken chin gives the appearance of a scowl or dour mood. His may be more distinct than mine or Sydney's.  But I was glad to see it, because, prior to the birth, when my wife was filling out paperwork and the hospital employee asked if the baby would be the same race as her, I sensed a little hesitation in her voice when she said yes. I was sweating bullets for awhile. 

The day started out with a few complications. Emergencies pushed us back a couple of hours and forced us to switch delivery doctors. I was not happy with this. As evidenced by the eight people standing bedside for our birth,WE WERE AN EMERGENCY! I wanted the doc my wife was comfortable with. 

Also, that forced Brooke to wait a few hours on a really uncomfortable stretcher. I used to work for Hill-Rom, the largest hospital bed company in the world. It was my job to help sell our products. I know a little about these things. We were on a competitor's product and it was a piece of crap. Right across the aisle was a Hill-Rom maternity stretcher. I so wanted to pull a switcheroo. 

I expressed my displeasure about the stretcher on Facebook. Shortly after we delivered, I got a call from Good Sam's corporate offices wanting "to hear about my recent dissatisfaction with a stay my wife had at the hospital." Now I don't know if that call was prompted by the Facebook post or a comment I made to the nurse about not being happy with the doctor switch, but that was impressive. We were barely out of the delivery room when that call came! I politely told the guy I wasn't looking to get anyone in trouble and backed out of the call. 

They just saved my kid's life; I wasn't going to ruin someone's annual evaluation. 

The delivery went well. No bloody noses for me. My wife was an absolute trooper. I tried to tell her a few jokes to keep her mind off the fact they were carving up her belly like a side of beef at a slaughterhouse, but she seemed in a good mood anyway. 

In an attempt to get a picture of Tyson, I did make the mistake of looking on the other side of the curtain, if only for a brief second. My advice to prospective fathers: NEVER, EVER do this. 

After birth, the little guy was taken to neonatal intensive care, where they hooked up the lines for his medicine. I went with, while Brooke went to recovery. When I got there, they told me to take off all my scrubs. About five minutes after that, they told me what they were doing required a sterile environment and I would have to leave. Well why the hell did you tell me to take off my scrubs?

After they hooked him up, they brought him to see his parents and grandparents. Sadly, we only got about ten minutes with him. The whole time, he was in this specially designed transport vehicle that looked like a souped-up incubator. It was actually kind of cool. He also had his own four-person transport team for the trip, which was only a couple of miles. 

Once he got to Children's Hospital, it took them a few hours to get him situated. They kept me out during this time, which worried me, but once I got in, they advised me he was doing good and everything was fine. 

Then the big news: the echocardiogram. It revealed exactly what we expected. He's got a narrowing on the aorta -- a coarctation -- and the Double Outlet Right Ventricle. He will need surgery next week on the coarctation and they will decide Tuesday whether they open him up and do the while kit and kaboodle. I think things depend on where these deformities are located, which also determines severity. We are eagerly awaiting the big Tuesday pow wow so we know our plan. 

Until then, I will stay with him here at the hospital. His mom is trying to get a pass from the other hospital to come over. I pity the fool doctor who stands in her way. We are even going to bring wild woman Sydney to see her little brother today. That should be an adventure. 

So here is what I can tell you: despite the chin, my boy looks to be a handsome young fellow. He is healthy outside of the heart and even looks a little strapping, like he might some day be an offensive tackle. He may need that weight, because he doesn't get to eat for awhile. 

He is much loved by his parents, grandparents, extended family and community -- all of you. If prayers and good thoughts count, he will get through this. 

Let's roll!

Tomorrow’s the big day.

I’m nervous.

I’ve been through this before, but if you remember, during my first experience, my blood pressure soared so high my nose spurted blood all over the operating room.

I’m not exactly Mr. Calm in this situation.

Add in the concern over my son’s heart and I’m probably going to be a mess. And when they place that child in the specially-designed neonatal ambulance to transport him to Children’s Hospital, I’ll probably be a blubbery mess.

Actually, it will happen before that when they let my wife hold him for a few minutes and then whisk him away. My heart will hurt along with hers.

Even tough guys cry, right?

We’ve done what we can to prepare for this. My mom is here for a month if we need her. My mother-in-law comes for more than a week.

Yes, my head is going to explode.

No seriously, I’m glad to have them. They will be a HUGE help. Big thanks to my brother, Rich, who not only funded my mother’s stay, but purchased her a decent ride to make the trip.  

My father-in-law is going to be here for a few days, too.  Maybe I can get him to mow the grass.

Guys are helpless in these situations, so we do what we do. If you are local and have any household projects, let me know. I can send him your way.  

Plenty of friends have volunteered to help with Sydney and the dogs, if needed. Thanks to EVERYONE for the offers of help and well wishes. We are truly blessed with great friends and family.

As a brave man said on 9-11, “Let’s roll!”

I’m anxious to know what we are facing. I want to get down to the battle.

Doctors are fairly certain he’ll be fine coming out of the womb. They’ll make an assessment right away to see if he needs surgery. If not, they’ll put him on medicine that will keep him alive until Tuesday, when all the big-wig doctors will meet at Children’s Hospital and make a decision on how to proceed. He’ll either have surgery that week, or they will wait several months until he is stronger. It will depend on the severity of his deformities and where they are located.

If you’re keeping track, there are three potential points for surgery: out of the womb, within the first week or so, and six to eight months in. One thing for sure: he will have to have at least one open-heart surgery at some point.

Regardless of the decision, we have no idea how long his first stay in the hospital will be. He will be monitored for some time before he can come home. So it is difficult to plan right now.

We just want to whip this thing and get life back to normal as soon as possible.

I’ll keep you all updated via this blog and Facebook with posts and pictures.

By now, you know writing is therapeutic for me. Here’s what I have come up with for tomorrow:

Tyson

He has his father’s blood
A fighter’s blood
Blood so furious it rejuvenates the fallen

He has his mother’s dreams
A believer’s dreams
Dreams so vivid they wake the dead

He has his sister’s smile
An innocent’s smile
A smile so brilliant it lights the dark

He has his family’s love
An everlasting love
Love so strong it touches the soul

He has his community’s hope
An overwhelming hope
Hope so absolute it overcomes all doubt

He has his inner strength
A warrior’s strength
Strength so powerful it heals the broken

The Household of Sisterly Love

We have tried to get Sydney ready for Tyson's arrival. Do they have anger management classes for 2 year olds?

My sweet, pleasant little girl gets all the attention in our house. Having to share might put her on an anger bender similar to the late-night ravings of Amanda Bynes. Instead of Jenny McCarthey, it will be little Tyson taking the brunt of that anger.

I've told you before of her anger issues. And here. And probably a half dozen other posts. She is easily frustrated and quick to blow a fuse. Sound familiar? Yes, you got it….just like Brooke.

It is nothing for her to get mad at something -- say she wants to play with an object and I say no -- and grab it and squeeze it as hard as she can. She literally gets a look on her face like she is an Olympic weightlifter straining to set the deadlift record. I alternate between laughing and trying to explain how this is not acceptable behavior.

Just this week, she was enjoying the fan blowing air on her when she decided to touch it. I forcefully told her she was not to touch the fan. Her response was to grab the sides of the fan and squeeze it as hard as she could. Not sure what she felt like she was accomplishing, but she gritted her teeth, grimaced and blew off some steam.

Her middle name is intensity.

I don’t think she does this with other kids. I’m fairly certain her child care provider, the unflappable Miss Amber, would have 1) told us about it and 2) booted her from day care if she did it with any regularity. In fact, the only time I have seen her with other children for a great deal of time (outside of day care) she was downright passive when the others were aggressive towards her. (That led to her dad giving her boxing lessons.)

But she does it plenty with inanimate objects such as the fan, her food for some unknown reason – you should see her squeeze the hell out of a blueberry – and, occasionally, her dogs, if they knock her down or don’t get out of her way fast enough. Lucky for them, her squeezes are only strong enough to harm a, well, blueberry.

I’m fairly convinced she has a career in the roller derby awaiting her. I’m signing her up for karate classes as soon as she can walk for 15 minutes straight without falling.

So, I am worried about her demeanor when it comes to sharing her parents with another child. The other night, when Brooke and she visited with friends, some of whom had babies, she was NOT happy when Brooke took a little one into her arms. She immediately ran over, pulled at her mom and said “Help me!” which is her universal appeal for our attention.

J-E-A-L-O-U-S.

This is what little Tyson is facing. Hell hath no fury like a 20-month-old ignored.

We’ve tried to do what we did with the dogs when Sydney was coming. We have a baby doll we call Tyson and we ask her to hold it and feed it and even kiss it.

She throws it.

I have one book we bought about the arrival of a new baby and I read it to her, substituting Tyson for the name of the baby.

She pushes it away and grabs for the nearest Sesame Street book.

(By the way, did you know there is a character named Murray on Sesame Street? And Abby Gadabi (spelling?) I just learned about Elmo a couple of years ago and now I find out about these two and some orange female character with a name I do not know.  Progress, I guess. But the Street still looks exactly like it did on my grainy black and white when I was drinking from a sippy cup. Where’s the updated set?)

She’s not exactly warming to the Tyson factor. If anyone has any tips, I will take them.

We really won’t know until he gets here what her real reaction will be. She might suddenly develop a nurturing gene overnight.

I’m not counting on it. I remember the fights I used to have with my younger brother and sister. Until she was a teenager, I am pretty sure I had my sister convinced we found her in a garbage can and adopted her. As for my brother, I can remember my mom locking us in a room one day and telling us to SETTLE it. I am not sure what “it” was, but whatever it was, it cost my brother a bloody nose.

I’m fairly certain Brooke and her brother, Blair, had similar battles.

But of the few people on this earth I’d battle for, maybe even die for, my brother and sister are at the top of the list. We don’t always get along, but we are blood. That means everything.

If I can get that kind of commitment out of my two kids, I’ll put up with a few Olympic-like squeezes here and there.  

And the name is....

Quick post.

We are a week away. This time next Friday, we will be the proud parents of a young boy.

And that boy’s name will be….

Tyson George Gregg.

Tyson won out over other finalists such as Tate, Kellen, Max and Braeden. I think it was a compromise. My favorite was Tate. Brooke won’t acknowledge a favorite, but I think her's was Kellen.

Once we learned of our son’s heart condition and the battle he was going to wage, we decided to pick a name that signified “fighter.” Believe me, this boy is going to be a ferocious fighter.

But none of the names that mean “fighter,” “brave” or “strong” resonated with us. So, we went back to our original list and we agreed on Tyson.

He isn’t why we picked the name, but one of the most ferocious fighters I have ever witnessed in the ring was Mike Tyson. His knockouts are legendary. His quick demolition of Michael Spinks was a thing of beauty.

I am talking about Mike Tyson in his prime, before he became the sad, tattooed, Karyoke singer who got famous in those Hangover movies.

A young Mike Tyson rose from the mean streets of Brooklyn to battle the toughest boxers in the world and he beat them down with a fury. If my kid can tackle heart defects in the same fashion, he’ll be a winner.

But that’s a bonus. We really just picked Tyson because we like the name. And, I like the shortened version, Ty, too. I always try to consider what people might call him other than his given name and Ty is acceptable to me.

George is a family name. It is my middle name and my maternal grandfather’s name. It is also my wife’s maternal grandfather’s name. Her maternal grandmother’s name was Georgie. I don’t normally like to burden a kid with the legacy of a family name, but I think this will work out because it is only a middle name.

I’ll try to post one more time before the birth, then I will keep everyone updated on a fairly regular basis as we sort out the little one’s medical issues.

Thanks again for the support!  

Late-stage Pregnancy and the Terrible Twos in the Same House

                                                  Sydney: Terrible Twos
                                                           
My wife is in the stage of pregnancy where she just can’t seem to get comfortable. We are less than a month away and she has a giant medicine ball attached to her, so I’m not surprised.

“It is too hot in here” is often followed by, 15 minutes later, “It is too cold in here.” “This bed is too hard” quickly becomes ‘This bed is too soft.” When it comes to me, “Your very existence is pissing me off” can rapidly become “Where is the butcher knife so I can stab you in your heart?”

I really can’t blame her. She has spent nine months not eating carbs because of her gestational diabetes. That alone would make me breathe fire and spit nails. Now, with only three weeks to go, she could really use a pizza.

The other night she said to me, “I don’t ever remember being this uncomfortable with Sydney.”

To which I started to reply, “Well, you were. You just don’t remember. I lived through it and I can tell  you…”

I stopped my sentence midstream after noticing she was giving me a stare that could peel the paint off a bassinette.

Don’t mess with a pregnant woman. Just agree with everything she says.

It has gotten so bad, she is giving her dog away. I kid you not.

I’ve clued you all in on Murphy in a previous post. There is no doubt in my mind he would be in a special ed class if he walked upright. If I ever pen the book Murphy and Me, his exploits would put Marley to shame.

We have a small house. Sydney has an 8-yard by 3-yard play area that she shares with two dogs whom weigh nearly 100 pounds each. This is not a good recipe for fun when the dogs get excited, unless your version of fun is seeing your daughter used as a ping pong ball between two Chinese table tennis stars.

And Murphy is ALWAYS excited. If you go outside to get the mail, when you open that door after being gone for oh, 15 seconds, it is as if you went to Bora Bora for three months.

Add an angry pregnant woman into this volatile mix and you’ll find life can be a little tense. Brooke has vowed that the arrival of Baby Gregg #2  (name to be announced soon in a quick blog post) will necessitate a “break” from her beloved Murphy. He’s going to spend summer camp at his grandma and grandpa’s house, where there is a lot of green pasture for him to get excited about.

I have a feeling her mind will change after she delivers and can actually get a good night’s sleep for a change. Lack of sleep can cause edginess, I hear.

Or homicidal tendencies.

Brooke is not the only angry one in our house. My 19-month-old daughter seems to be hitting the Terrible Twos a bit early. More than once in the past month or so, I have asked myself where my sweet, beautiful child has gone.

She’s started screaming and crying when she doesn’t get her way. She doesn’t like to hear the word no, which may be the very word she hears the most since she is always getting into something she should not be getting into. The cupboards. The DVD player. Liquid Drano. The open bottle of wine her father intends to guzzle to get away from it all. You name it, she wants it.

When she gets angry and you try to pick her up and comfort her,  she’ll throw her head back, I guess in an attempt to get away. She’s come very close to knocking my teeth out a couple of times.

She seems to never be satisfied. Give her a room full of toys and she has to play with the Ipod in your hand.

I hate to say this, but my relationship with her lately has been similar to my relationship with a lot of my past girlfriends. Let me explain:

I had a girlfriend of several months about a decade ago and we went out on a Friday night. I spent the night, and that Saturday we went to an event that lasted most of the day. We then went out to dinner and back to her place, where I spent the night. On Sunday, we went to a town known for its antiquing (don’t ask) and spent the day there.

When we arrived back at her house, I told her I was headed home. She was angry that I did not want to come inside. I told her I had just spent the whole weekend with her and was ready for some down time.

This reasoning did not go over well.

“God, how much do I have to give?” I thought. “I spent all weekend with this chick, and she still isn’t happy. I give a little and she wants a lot. I can’t ever give enough.”

So I broke up with her.

Now, let me give you an example of how Sydney seems to fall into the same category. The other day, she was playing inside and wanted to go outside. So I took her out on the porch to play. That wasn’t good enough. So I took her to the yard/driveway. She played awhile there, but that wasn’t good enough.

She then wanted to go back behind our garage and into a gap between the garage and fence that was about two feet wide. Had she gotten in there, I am not sure my offensive tackle-like physique could have followed.

So, I pulled my best Anthony Munoz and blocked her.

This sent the tears gushing like Niagara Falls and the venom spewing like Mount Vesuvius. She spent the next fifteen minutes using all of her 30 inches and 24 pounds trying to knock me over so she could reach her intended goal. All the while, screaming and crying to the point I felt the neighbors might call 241-KIDS.

You give and you give and you give and it is never enough. They always want more and if they don’t get it, YOU are the bad guy.

She is well on her way to womanhood.

So, feel sorry for me. I have a pregnant wife and Terrible Two year old. I am living on the edge.

At least the wife gives birth on May 10. Sydney’s got more than a year to go, and I hear age 3 can be just as bad.

Forget feeling sorry for me. Pray for me.  

We are in Good Hands at Cincinnati Children's Hospital

I guess the best way to put this is that we now know a lot more about what we might face in the months ahead, but we still don’t know exactly what we will face.

In other words, we still don’t have definitive answers as to what our boy’s situation will be, but we have walked through the many possible scenarios with doctors so we can be prepared.

The biggest news to come out of our echocardiogram and meeting with Children’s Hospital cardiologists is that the muscle growing abnormally under my son’s heart is the most serious of his ailments.

Not the Double Outlet Right Ventricle (DORV). Not the Coarctation of the Aorta. Not the hole in the heart.

This is a fourth problem.

So, something I didn’t even mention in my previous post is now the scariest thing we face. For those who want to go back to the first post on this subject, you will see that I mentioned a problem Brooke and I seemed to hear different verdicts on, in terms of whether it could be fixed or not.

That was this muscle.

The good news is it can be fixed. Like I said before, I am glad to lose this argument to Brooke.

The best thing we heard from the docs was that all of these things can be fixed and our son could ultimately live a normal life. I specifically asked about sports, exercise and other physical activities, and the doctors said all of that is possible.

But it seems like a series of little miracles are going to have to take place for that to happen. And, he will still be monitored by a cardiologist all his life who ultimately could pull the plug on his budding athletic career at any point if he or she sees signs of trouble.

The worst thing we heard is that even if all goes well with the heart, he could still have other problems – brain development issues or genetic disorders – that keep him from being normal. Two of the more common genetic disorders would be DiGeorge Syndrome, which results in a poor immune system, cleft palate and blood and behavior disorders; and heterotaxy, which, as near as I can tell, is a serious problem where the internal organs don’t function properly.

But the chances of these are small. Right now, I am concentrating on the problem at hand, which is the heart. That is a life or death deal, my friends. If his fragile body can survive the operations and surgeons can work their magic, we will take on whatever else is thrown our way with renewed enthusiasm.

Here are some of the scenarios we face on the heart front:

·         He is born, taken to Children’s Hospital, given an echocardiogram, monitored for a few days and it is determined the coarctation has healed and the does not need an immediate operation. Also, the abnormal muscle does not need to be addressed right away. In that case, he is sent home for a few months and comes back for one open-heart surgery, where the muscle, hole and DORV are fixed.

·         He is born, taken to Children’s Hospital, given an echocardiogram, monitored for a few days and it is determined he needs to have the coartation addressed, but they can go in through his side, as opposed to open-heart surgery. In that case, they would fix the coarctation, send him home and bring him back in a few months for open-heart surgery, where the muscle, hole and DORV are fixed.

·         He is born, taken to Children’s Hospital, given an echocardiogram, monitored for a few days and it is determined the coarctation or muscle under the aorta must be addressed immediately with open-heart surgery. In this case, they will likely also fix everything (coarctation, muscle, DORV, hole) at the same time, with one surgery.

While this actually sounds like the best thing, it is not. One, they don’t like to crack open the baby’s chest that early and two, open-heart surgery at that early age has been known to cause brain development problems. Not always, but the risk is higher. They only do open-heart surgery in the first 30 days if it is totally necessary.

Why can’t they tell us what scenario we will face? The echo just couldn’t give enough detail. And as the baby grows, it actually becomes harder to see what they need to see. No further echocardiograms are planned.

So we really won’t know until the May 10 C-section what we are facing. I’ll plan on riding in the ambulance with the baby to Children’s Hospital Medical Center and relaying information to Brooke as she recovers.

Still, meeting with the doctors was very helpful. It is easy to see why this is the third-rated Children’s Hospital in the world – something they are not settling for, mind you. They have a plan in place to jump over Philadelphia and Boston.

They took all the time we needed and explained everything very thoroughly, answering all our questions. We spent more than three hours with them.

Our surgeon – who was recruited out of Texas and is considered one of the best in the country --  was unable to attend due to emergency surgery. This was a complete bummer to me, but, as my wife explained, if it were our baby in need of that emergency surgery, we’d want other parents to understand.  

They did take us to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and show us around, displaying what our room would look like and detailing what our life will be like. You can sleep there, shower there, eat family dinners there…pretty amazing and very nice for families who have to travel much further than the 20 minutes it takes us.

If he has that immediate major surgery, he is expected to be in the CICU for up to three weeks. If they go in through the side, he should recover more quickly. I’m not sure how long he will be in if/when we go back for the other surgery.

I did learn that our child has a form of DORV that is defined by aortic obstruction. This is the rarest form, so I would assume it is the worst form to have. The doctor said they see about 20 cases of DORV a year in the three-state area (Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana), but he has only seen about six in his four-year career that are the same type as our son’s.

The coarctation isn’t quite as rare, but it still is not a common thing. He said they see about 15 a year where there is no other type of defect. We, of course, have another type of defect, so I would assume the rates of those are a little more common.  

Not sure how rare the muscle problem is, but since it is the most serious, I have to believe they don’t see a lot of those, either.

 While they did tell us everything is fixable and he can ultimately lead a normal life, they also cautioned that even if some of these things are fixed, they could ultimately become problems again that require follow-up surgeries. The muscle could grow back. Re-coarctations do occur. The patch used on the ventricles might need replaced.  

“We’ll be watching him like a hawk,” one doctor said.

Me too, my friend.

Talking Specifics About My Boy's Heart

Many people have asked what specifically is wrong with our son. I’ve avoided the medical mumbo jumbo until now, but I’ll give a quick rundown for reference. You probably have to be related to us to really care about the specifics, but for those who are, here’s the scoop:

In addition to the hole in the heart, he has two known problems: a Double Outlet Right Ventricle and a Coarctation of the Aorta. Here are some links as to what that means:

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/childrens-hospital/health-info/diseases-conditions/heart/hic-double-outlet-right-ventricle.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coarctation_of_the_aorta

In layman’s terms, I believe (yeah, I am not sure even I fully understand) he has two arteries that are coming from the same place and performing the same function (DORV). And, he has a narrowing of the aorta (Coarctation). Both of these things, along with the hole, will require surgery. There may be some other narrowings, too. There is also the possibility of other chromosomal defects.

The good thing is everything is fixable. The bad thing is he will have heart/blood pressure/infection/virus issues all his life. Not only do we have to worry about him surviving the surgeries, but then we’ll worry all his life about something else happening to him. He’ll be monitored by a cardiologist all his life.

One percent of babies are born with heart defects. If I understand correctly, one to three percent of those babies have DORV. It is really rare. Six to eight percent of children born with heart defects have coarctation of the aorta.

Brooke and I are hoping they can fix everything with one surgery. That may be wishful thinking, but it is obviously the best thing. The coarctation surgery is likely needed on the day he is born. But he may not be big or strong enough at that point for the DORV surgery, so that may have to wait for a couple of months.  

We should learn more during our March 26 meeting with the team of doctors from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

We are learning what to expect. A friend of a friend’s baby went through heart surgery this week after birth and we have been following her blog to learn what to expect. The baby has a different problem, but it will be a similar circumstance. Check out the pictures of the scar and all the tubes and such. Heartbreaking.  

http://journeyofjackson.blogspot.com/

We’ve been buoyed by all the success stories people are sending us. And we have been getting support from around the globe. If prayers and good thoughts mean anything, our boy is going to be just fine.