Jew Eat Yet?

Mother's Day

Here is a picture of Kendall touching our baby Charlie. Two nights ago, at three in the morning, we got a call from the NICU that Charlie needed emergency surgery. He had a perforation in his small intestines. It took over an hour just to unhook him from everything and move him downstairs. Although it was major surgery and the problem very serious, I was mostly worried that just the act of moving him and performing ANY kind of surgery would be fatal. But he survived, thank God. They came and told us at 7 am and he was soon back in his incubator. They cut away the part that had a hole but could not reattach the intestines at this time. So the ends of them are currently outside of his body. If all goes well, they will perform another surgery when he’s stronger, in about two months, and put everything back where it belongs.

The surgery adds a host of new risks to his already critical condition. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. On top of all that is the increased concern about his existing brain bleeds and what that would mean if he survives. I don’t even want to go into that right now or dwell on any other scary news because I want him to live more than anything, anything in the world. I love him so much. I’m trying to be very positive but it’s all scary as shit. That said, we had a nice Mother’s Day. This photo of Charlie holding Kendall’s finger was taken earlier tonight. He definitely recognizes her whenever she’s there even though his eyes are now covered up again following the surgery.

In addition to Mother’s Day, today would have been my mother’s 75th birthday, a confluence that occurs every seven years. For the past five years I’ve written a birthday post for her called “The Judy Miller Show” but I’ll have to resume that tradition next year. Not that I wasn’t thinking of her all day because I was, but after almost 12 hours at Cedars-Sinai, I am ready to collapse even before I down the Ambien I’ve been taking all week. I’ve never used a sleep aid before but I need it right now. If I have to book a Room With a View at Betty Ford’s by fall, so be it. Above is a photo of my mother from 1954. She’s a new mom, sitting on the grass at Chicago’s Lincoln Park with her baby, my brother Bruce, and her little brother, my Uncle Paul. My mother was 14 years older than Paul, the same age difference that exists between Leah and her new brothers.

The tears for Oliver started flowing on my way to the hospital this morning, but other events of the day sent them back into hiding. I feel sad and heavy even though the days are not without bright and even humorous moments. The good news is that these events have left me feeling beaten up but very open, able to give and receive love in ways that used to be nearly impossible for me. Whatever happens, I am grateful to be the dad of Leah, Charles, and Oliver Miller, and I send my most loving Mother’s Day wishes to my wife Kendall, to Leah’s mom, Sophie, and to my mother, Judy Miller. 

Praying for a Boring Day

I’m so grateful for all the people who have expressed concern about our family situation so I wanted to check in with a short update. We’ve had a few setbacks over the past week. I am pretty wasted emotionally and physically and need to figure out how to start taking care of myself. Kendall is back in the hospital for the moment. We had a meeting with Charlie’s doctors yesterday and while he is still very critical, there was some positive news about his condition. They thought the hole in his heart (PDA) may have reopened but they did another echocardiogram and it hasn’t, thank God. He finally pooped which is excellent because otherwise he may have needed surgery which could have been bad news in his fragile state. He’s still intubated but his oxygen levels are way better than they were. His eyes, which were fused shut at birth 10 days ago have opened on their own, at about the time they would have done so in utero. That is such a miracle to me. The biggest concern remains the two brain bleeds he had but there’s no way yet to determine what effects those will have on his development. At this point, of course, I just want him to survive, we can deal with any disabilities later. He’s an adorable baby and he moves around a lot which is a good sign. He’s gained a little weight and is back up to 1 lb. 8 oz. He still can’t eat but hopefully that will change soon. His hair is growing and is reddish/strawberry blond. I’ll try to post more pictures soon.

I spent a few hours with Leah last night which was heavenly. She’s just back from Chicago where she attended my nephew Spencer’s and my dad’s joint Bar Mitzvah last weekend. She showed me all of her photos and it was simultaneously fantastic to see them (“Go slower, go slower,” I kept shouting, wanting to examine every face and moment) and surprisingly painful. Seeing all of our family and friends who came from near and far in the photos, it almost felt like I was dead and I was watching my loved ones from the other side. Oy, does that sound too dramatic? Don’t be scared, I’ll be fine. By all accounts Spencer and my dad were spectacular on the bimah and the party looked like it was a blast. Both Oliver and Charles were mentioned on several occasions. I’m already looking forward to my other nephew Sammy’s Bar Mitzvah in three years.

I crave normalcy, or at least a lightening up of major drama. I think of Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissman Klein’s speech at the 1996 Oscars when she won the award for the documentary about her life. In that speech she urged everyone to value the everyday moments of life and the gifts of “a boring evening at home.” Oh, how I long for boring! I don’t think I’ve even begun grieving my son who died, I guess that will come later. Yikes, I really didn’t mean for this post to sound so depressing and, believe me, I can’t wait to be writing about other topics. I tried to start that other blog I mentioned about Charlie but I think I’ll just keep it all here for now. I’m beyond moved by how friends, family, and strangers have been there for us. People I barely know have met me at the hospital and helped me through difficult moments. Bloggers who recently lost their own children and are in the midst of incredible pain have reached out with comfort in amazing ways. There are definitely gifts to be found in the midst of tragedy.

I’ve barely been aware of anything that’s been happening in the world and I hope to inch back to that, along with my work. I know that normally I would have written a post about the wonderful Dom DeLuise who died on Monday, especially since the DeLuises are friends of Kendall’s family. I met Dom many times and he was hysterically funny in real life but we saw his wife, Carol Arthur, much more often. Carol and I must have similar interests because it seems like wherever I go, whatever play, screening, event, there she is. I worship Carol, she is one of the nicest women on the planet. Dom and Carol had an amazing marriage, lasting over 43 years. Carol is an actress in her own right, and I may be one of the only people who have on my iPod the soundtrack from the London company of “On the Town” from many years ago in which Carol played the man-hungry taxi driver Hildy Esterhazy, the part played by Nancy Walker on Broadway and our pal Betty Garrett (who turns 90 this month) in the MGM film version. Carol was brilliant in the part. She lent me the tapes which I digitized for my iPod. I haven't read any of the obituaries about Dom but I will never forget his appearances on TV, movies, and in Kendall's mother's living room. Oliver has an increasingly interesting group of folks to hang out with up there.

Charles Oliver Thomas Miller

I wanted you to see these photos I took today of our son’s beautiful hands. I’m fascinated by all the amazing details you can see in his tiny, tiny appendages. This post won’t be long—we just got home from the hospital for the first time and are ready to collapse as some of the adrenalin of this awful week begins to subside. We are grieving our son Oliver something fierce but through all the horror there have been moments of joy. We are getting to know Charlie and his unique personality which is already so evident despite his being a virtual prisoner of his incubator womb. He cannot cry since he’s intubated, he cannot be touched very much yet, and he can’t even open his eyes since they are still fused.

We now begin to figure out our new life at the Cedars-Sinai Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Charlie will be there for months and we hope to watch him develop into a big fat baby we can take home. Everyone there tells us to expect setbacks but we’ve been blessed with some pretty decent news during his first four days of life. He did have an alarming weight loss two days ago from his birth weight of 1 lb. 10 oz. to 1 lb. 4 oz. but all babies lose weight during their first week and today he gained an ounce so he’s back on the upswing, I hope. A small hole in his heart (PDA) was successfully closed through medication. They initially found some blood in his brain and it’s still there but hasn’t grown over the past few days so we hope it will be reabsorbed. They tell us his eyes will most likely unfuse on their own when they’re ready. Everything they’re doing to him and the dozens of other babies in the NICU is simply miraculous, the level of care and expertise involved is beyond anything I ever could have imagined. Of course a week ago I thought any baby under five pounds was a goner. Who knew? What an education we’ve already gotten after just a few days. Kendall is lying in bed next to me furiously writing away. My wife is a fantastic writer as any of you who’ve read her book know, but for the past few nights she’s been on fire, writing nonstop in the voice of Charlie as some kind of film noir hero. It is funny, amazing, heartbreaking stuff that she is channeling through her tears and it’s allowing her to write about topics that she couldn’t bear to broach any other way, like how Charlie feels about losing his big brother. I think it’s the best writing she’s ever done and I’m stunned at how it’s pouring out of her fully formed in a voice that is nothing like her own.

I am stunned at the outpouring of support we’ve received from so many people including the readers of this blog and I thank you so much for your concern and for your positive thoughts. I am terribly grateful for every single comment and healing vibe sent Charlie’s way and will eventually respond to people individually. I think of how many times I narcissistically moaned about the number of comments I usually receive on my blog posts and how I couldn’t get 100 comments if my life depended on it. And now I’d give anything to not have had a reason to receive over 100 comments on my last post but I’m so moved and appreciative that I did.

I’ll keep writing about Charlie and all the other crazy topics I love on this blog but I’m planning to start a new blog specifically about Charlie’s adventures in the NICU as a way to update family and friends on his condition. I’ll give the URL to that site very soon. Those will be shorter, daily posts and I hope to also include some of Kendall’s film noir tales of our still-cooking son.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. They mean so, so much to us.