On Friday, John and I went back to Kansas City and back to Children's Mercy for the first time since we left on June 1 without our sweet Rowan. Going back to the place that our baby boy died was not easy to do, going back because we were getting his autopsy results made it even harder. We met with the Chaplain and Dr. Sharma in a small conference room. I'm really glad we didn't have to go back up to the NICU. We've now been back to the NICU in Topeka a couple of times, but there's just something about the KC NICU that instantly makes me anxious. I can say with complete honesty that I hope I never have to walk through those NICU doors again.
Anyway, we now have Rowan's autopsy results. When he passed away, they suspected it was from infection. Because everything happened so fast we were encouraged to have an autopsy done to try and find some answers since nobody was really sure what happened. In the autopsy they found that Rowan contracted a pretty yucky pneumonia virus in his lungs. The doctor suspects that he probably had the infection for several days before he passed away, but the antibiotics that they were using to treat the suspected NEC were keeping it at bay. Those antibiotics were also hiding the virus in all of the blood tests that they were doing to check for infection. When Rowan finished that round of antibiotics and they stopped giving them to him (because he wasn't showing ANY signs of infection), the pneumonia reared its ugly head and took over. By the time it was obvious that he had another infection, the pneumonia had gotten so bad that the antibiotics couldn't treat it fast enough and there wasn't anything they could do. The type of bacteria that he had is common with patients who spend a prolonged period in the hospital and he was just too weak from fighting all the other infections to fight this one.
It was hard to hear this information, but we are so glad that we didn't hear the words "we should have caught this" or "we missed this." There was nothing that could have been done differently and honestly John and I are really at peace with what happened. Don't get me wrong, IT SUCKS, but we have no regrets and we don't place blame on anyone. We just miss our little boy.
We spent about an hour at the hospital visiting with Becky and Dr. Sharma and getting some paperwork that we needed to take care of some insurance stuff and then we headed back home to complete another task that we were both dreading.
When we originally came home from the hospital, we put all of Rowan's stuff (blankets, hospital stuff, gifts, books, etc.) in our spare bedroom. Up until Friday, we hadn't yet mustered up the strength to pack it all away. When we scheduled the meeting for the autopsy we also decided that it would be the day that we packed up all of his things so that we could get all the not-so-fun stuff done in one day. So we came home, brought all of his things to the dining room table, sorted through it and packed it away in totes. We now have a tote of books and a tote of blankets/clothes/stuffed animals for our future children, a tote of things that will forever be "just Rowan's" and a fire safe packed full of things that we can't duplicate if something happens to them (footprints, pictures, special things from the hospital). It was incredibly tough to go through it all; lots of tears were shed (and a few beverages of the adult variety were consumed), but I'm glad we got it all done.
We have officially closed this chapter of our lives, but it will forever be one of my favorites because it's the story of our sweet baby boy.
Thank you to everyone who has sent items for Rowan's Wraps. We know that they are getting used and we are working on getting more bags ready so that they don't run out. We also have some other exciting things in our future that we can't wait to share with you guys. I will be changing the name of this blog. All of the posts about Rowan will still be here but it will have a different name and web address. We want to continue to share our story and some updates with everyone, but moving forward things aren't going to fit under the title of "Rowan's Ride" anymore. I'll keep you posted on the changes and I'm hoping I can somehow make it so that it links the old blog address to the new one so that we don't lose any people that have been checking in on us. :-)
I hope everyone has enjoyed their Labor Day weekend... I better get back to grading papers and doing lesson plans!
