The Daily Kaleb

Last Friday we pulled up to our weekly community group meeting when Brittany received a call from the CICU. Kaleb's nurse told her that he was ready to move to the step-down unit and they would be taking him in 5-10 minutes! Silence…on our end of phone call, we were in shock, as you can imagine, we weren’t expecting it to happen so soon so quickly!

That day Kaleb was (providentially) assigned a nurse who happened to also work in the ACCU (Acute Cardiac Care Unit, aka "the step-down unit"). All day she worked him towards being ready to transfer, knowing exactly what needed to happen. It was a sudden, welcome change, but it did take a moment to wrap our heads around the fact that we were done with the CICU, a place that has become so familiar to us. The staff there made us feel so welcome, loving on us and our kids, providing excellent care for Kaleb from day 1, literally saving his life. We will be forever indebted to them. Brittany wrote them a letter to communicate our thanks and dropped it off yesterday with some chocolate chip cookies. Praise God for orchestrating the details of our lives to bring us here! 

Since the move, Kaleb and the ACCU team have been working hard to move him towards going home. There are multiple steps and it's a bit of a dance, but we are grateful to have our cardiologist, Dr. Matan Setton overseeing his rehab journey. In the past 5 days Kaleb has made A LOT of progress:

• His pacemaker wires have been removed from his chest (he no longer has anything permanently connected to his chest)

• He is down to 0.06 ml of oxygen!

• He's weaned completely off of all his IV (PICC) meds and his last remaining PICC line has been closed. They're going to assess whether to remove it in the next day or two. 

• He is on a lot of oral meds being administered through his feeding tube, but they are actively seeking to wean him off of some of those as well.

Last week, when the surgeons came to assess Kaleb’s recovery they said they were very impressed by how he has healed. On Monday, Dr. Setton remarked that he is “thrilled with how Kaleb’s heart is looking, given where we started.” We know these are a direct result of God’s gracious answers to your many prayers. Thank you.

An Unexpected Conversation

Mondays have become our date day since our good friend, Lauren, has offered to watch Zion and River every monday morning so we can visit with Kaleb and get some time together. As we were packing up to go home this past Monday, we started chatting with our nurse, Bridgette, regarding our story. When the topic of faith came up she started asking us questions about what our religion was, how we became Christians, etc. This was the first time someone in the hospital was eager to hear the “reason for the hope that is within us.” And we were more than eager to share it!

Both of us got to share the gospel in our testimony and connect how our relationship with a sovereign, gracious God has enabled us to walk through this season with peace and joy. Bridgette was attentive the whole conversation and even remarked at the end how she had just been talking with her best friend in the CICU (Kristina, a fantastic nurse who had been assigned to Kaleb last week and had shared extensive conversation with Brittany) about how they both felt like they might need to look into Christianity to have a way to deal with the intensity of their jobs. We invited Bridgette to our church. Please pray for both Kristina and Bridgett!

Prayer Requests:

• That God would heal his heart arrhythmia and strengthen his lungs

• That Kaleb’s stomach would be able to handle Brittany’s milk (they will move his feeding tube from his small intestine to his stomach in the coming days), and after that, that he would be able and inclined to breastfeed when the time comes.

• For God to save Bridgette and Kristina and would continue to give us opportunities and boldness to share our faith during our remaining time at Boston Children’s

• For continued perseverance, strength, and wisdom as we navigate the remainder of our stay

• Dr. Setton estimates Kaleb will probably be able to go home in the next 2-4 weeks, depending on his rate progress in the areas of oxygen, nutrition, and sedation.

With Love,

The Born Family