11/05-06/10

So, the last couple days were interesting.

Omi has been doing good for the most part. His respiratory issues are still there, but they have changed the way they deliver air to him though the ventilator, and he has improved a bit. His oxygen was in the 60-70% range, now he's down around 40-50%. This makes us happy.

He has been doing well with feedings and they have increased his amount to 3cc. This is a really big deal for him. Baby eats, gets big and strong, goes home.

He has his blood gas tested all the time, and a few of them were bad; lots of CO2, bad ph level. The changes on his vent kind of evened this out, and he's returning to normal in that area. So overall, things are going well right now.

I got off work and went to spend some time with him on Friday night. Heather was already there.

My time amounted to about 20 minutes.

Heather's left foot had been swelling up for about a day. We started to get concerned because Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome can come back within the first eight weeks, and this is one of the early symptoms. Either that, or a blood clot. Great.

Heather called the Doctor that had her as a patient during her stay, and asked if she should see someone. Her Doctor said yes, to go to the ER, and she would call ahead to let them know she was coming.

Heather checks in, and we wait.

She gets an I.V., and swears the nurse tried to write her name in her arm with the needle. They draw labs on her, and send them off to be tested. While that's going on, they take her to get a sonogram on her leg to see if there is a clot. Nope, no clot. So far, so good.

They tell us that her lab work didn't come out, so they have to do it again. Something about the force of the blood coming out damaging the cells (hemolyzed) and not being able to do the type of test correctly. But, her platelets and urine protein look normal, so it looks like we're making progress on ruling things out.

They draw more blood. Same result. They decide to just draw the blood from her other arm without the I.V.

They drew this test in the wrong tube which has a chemical that would make the test invalid. Okay, one more time. My wife = Pincushion.

They decide to do a CAT Scan. Nothing shows up on it. Her blood test results are normal, other than having really high cholesterol, so we have to follow up on that. So the conclusion is that the swelling is a red herring, and nothing to be worried about. Better safe than sorry.

By the time we leave the ER, it's after 4am. So much for Omi time. I have to get up for work in a couple hours, so we stop back by the NICU to say bye to Omi real quick.

We're both tired, cranky and hungry. QT, home, bed. And what did we learn from all this? That my wife apparently shouldn't eat cheeseburgers anymore.