I'm going to try and move all updates to a more manageable medium. For our benefit, as well as everyone else.
It will make things a lot easier this way. It's like a full time job trying to email, text, facebook and call every one to keep everybody in the loop. I have felt my grasp on keeping everybody up to date completely slip away from me over the course of the last two weeks. I'm driving myself crazy trying to keep up. Things have been extremely hectic for the last two weeks, and our schedules and priorities have changed. To anybody who we have offended or that felt slighted by our lack of communication; we sincerely apologize. It was never our intention to keep anyone in the dark about anything. It's just really hard to keep on top of it all.
But, this way, those who want to know what's going on can just read it here whenever they have time. I will update on a consistent basis.
One thing I have been keeping up on, is writing every day since this whole thing began, but I never really could decide on a good place to start. I guess Halloween seems like as good of a time as any.
I started keeping track of everything a day after Omi was born, and have been going back to fill in the time when Heather first went into the Hospital. Eventually, I will post all of it so anyone who's interested can see how the whole thing played out. It's really a pretty interesting story.
I'll start with today, and then it may seem random for a while until I get the two time lines to meet. Essentially, it's going to be like a really bad movie for the first couple posts.
Fair warning; Omi has good days and bad days. Some stuff may seem like a big deal, but is fairly normal, and vice versa. I will try really hard not to throw around a bunch of medical jargon that I'm learning, and break down procedures to the essence. I get a ton of complex information thrown at me every day, and I'm actually starting to understand a lot of it. Which is all good, but doesn't make for good conversation.
And away we go.......
10/31/10
Halloween. Pretty much the only Holiday I truly enjoy.
I got up this morning and called to check on Omi. It's become kind of a ritual; Get up, check on the kid.
So I talk to Omi's nurse and she tells me the night was uneventful. Always good to hear. I talk to one of his Doctors and she tells me the plan for the day. They want to do another x-ray, adjust his ventilator settings and do some labs. Hopefully, we can start feeding in a couple days when he's done with his round (10 days) of antibiotics.
I tell her that I hope he doesn't scare her since it's Halloween. She tells me "You just had to say it out loud didn't you?" We both laugh and I tell her we'll see her in a little while.
During this time, he decides to scare her. His oxygen needs go up. Like, way up. He's taking in a lot of oxygen and not breathing out enough CO2. They keep adjusting his ventilator and it's not working for him. Finally, they decide to put him on a different kind of vent. He starts having drops in heartbeat, which is normal for preemies but this just isn't a good time to do it. They get him stable and he seems to like the new vent more. He levels out. We show up and they tell us what happened. Damn, Omi. I know it's Halloween and all but...
Anyway, they tell us that his last two x-rays have aroused and confirmed suspicion that he has chronic lung disease. It was bound to happen from him being so young and on a ventilator. They had told us a while back to expect it. It still sucks though. Poor little guy. But, they said that humans grow new lung tissue until about age five so there's a pretty good chance that it will have no long-term effects. They are continuing to suction his lungs a few times a day to get all the crap and secretions out of them. He can't cough yet, so he can't get rid of it on his own.
Heather and I decide to go get something to eat after spending some time giggling at Omi and the little faces he makes.
Heather is still a little gimpy from the c-section, so she's been taking pain meds off and on. She took one today, but the downside is that they make her sick.
When we pull up to the place we're eating at, Heather gets a weird look on her face and asks me to hand her a bag from the back seat. I tell her to puke out the door, and she doesn't want to cause there were people eating in surrounding restaurants could see her, and she didn't want to ruin their dinner. I find a bag and hand it to her. The short version of what happened next is that she puked. I have to hand it to her, she did it very discreetly for being in front of a restaurant in broad daylight with people out and about on the street. I don't think anyone noticed.
So we get out of the car, and notice that the bag she had been puking in has a hole in the bottom. It's leaking everywhere. She hands it to me and I throw it in a trash can. Luckily, most of it was in the cup holder. I don't think I'm going to use that for a while. I'll just hold my coffee.
Other than that, dinner was pretty good.
We go back to see Omi after replacing Heather's food and just hang out with him for a while. I got to change his diaper and take his temperature (under the arm thank you) for the first time. His little diapers are so small.
Omi hit the 2 pound mark today. Not bad for just I.V. feedings. I hope he can deal with being able to eat again when we start feedings again this week. As he gets bigger, the problems he has will become more manageable and eventually go away.
