Bumps in the Road, Part One

Well, no sooner than we tell you that Douglas is doing great, he hits his first real speedbumps ... nothing unusual (for extreemie preemies at least) but scary and stressful nonetheless. Basically with babies this young, all the wiring isn't quite solid for their brains to remind their bodies to breathe, or keep a regular heartbeat, etc. Doug had almost no problem with this during his first 2 weeks, but the last couple of days he's had more than a few episodes.

When this happens, his little alarms go off, and the nurses come over, first just to watch him and see if he recovers on his own (nine times out of ten), and then if his blood oxygen which is monitored constantly goes too low for too long they start to prod him a bit... usually a little stimulus is all it takes... but if that doesn't work they turn up his O2 levels and put a tiny bag over his mouth to give him some breaths if needed.

Now this was going on ALL the time with all the other babies around our little miracle child, but he had been completely solid on the breathing and nearly alarm free, save for the times he'd squirm out of his sensors. But apparently this is also common... they call it the 'honeymoon period' that sometimes happens. And now they say he is starting to 'show his age' a bit more.

The good news is that he's still very much within 'we're not worried' limits and he's surrounded by great docs and nurses all the time. He had just gotten us spoiled with his flawless performance during the Really Scary Time. It's as if he knew maybe we wouldn't be able to handle any additional drama then, but maybe we can deal with it now since we're NICU veterans.

Unfortunately my brother Clint is still on a respirator as well, with a blood clot in his lung in addition to apparent pneumonia, which is of course, in addition to chronic asthma and the flu he had when he came in. He is heavily sedated (thankfully, I'm sure) to avoid fighting the ventilator while they try to resolve the clot and the rest, but when awake is still responsive to nurses' questions by blinking. My poor saint of a mother sends me updates nearly every day, and I'm hoping for a better one tomorrow.

Thanks once again to our amazing friends and family for pouring on the love and support during this difficult time. Its been a blessing that I, nor all the amazing girls and women in my clan going through this with me, will not forget.

Lastly, sorry to all of you who were permanently scarred by that completely unauthorized, inappropriate, and probably dangerous posting of the "strangely red baby on disgustingly white and hairy beer belly" photo yesterday. I hope the shot above is more to your liking and good health. Its of Duggie doing his usual stretches after being turned back over from belly to back.

Dad