Double Jordan, Double Jeopardy

As of Wednesday night, Jordan was officially double his birth weight. He was up to 2 pound 9 ounces - 1167 grams! He is starting to get little pockets of baby fat on parts of his body. I would post pictures of him from then if I had them. He has also started to suck on his thumb. Another one of those things that you think you will never do when you become a parent - try to help your kid to start sucking his thumb. It calms him down and he seems to prefer it over a pacifier at the moment. I will regret it a year from now, but right now I’ll do whatever necessary to help him get a good night of sleep.
The doctor called me on Thursday afternoon. The doctor is a lot like your kids principal - they never call you to tell you how2 well things are going. My father never called a parent to tell them that their kid just passed the history final and had great attendance. My kid’s doctor has never called to say how good he was doing today. On Thursday Jordan had a brain scan, a heart scan, and his eye exam. He wasn’t originally scheduled for all of these, but due to labor day scheduling problems, they all happened yesterday. Needless to say that each of these exams by themselves are a stimulus to a baby 2 months before his due date. Put all 3 together and he gets exhausted. When you and I get exhausted we go take a nap, maybe spend the day at home. When movie stars get exhausted, they check into rehab for a week or so. When Jordan gets exhausted, he stops breathing. He didn’t slow down, he just laid in bed and stopped breathing. They had to put him back on the ventilator. We rushed up there last night and literally saw him just lying there. Minimal movement of his muscles, no real attempt at breathing. The vent was programmed to give 35 breaths per minute, and the sensor picked up 35 breaths per minute. They even stopped feeding him so that he didn’t burn energy trying to digest food.
When we spoke to the doctor in person, she seemed positive that it was exhaustion from the 3 exams. I look forward to the next person that has the balls to tell the mama Ali that Jordan is going to have more than one exam in a day until he is discharged. The doctor did a blood culture which showed no infections of any kind. We are still waiting on the results of the lung culture, but are confident that it will show nothing as well. Just to be on the safe side, he is being given antibiotics. That means he has an IV for antibiotics and sugar water. The doctor said that even if she had room on the other side of the NICU, she wouldn’t send him back because she feels that he’ll be fine in a couple of days. Of course, this isn’t her kid going back on the vent with an IV in his head, so it’s ONLY a couple of days.
Since this went down Thursday, progress was made on Friday. He was started on half feeds, and assuming he tolerates it, should be on full feeds by the end of the weekend. Also, he was set at 35 bpm, but has been doing so well that they turned him down to 27. Remember the problem he was having with the mucous? Well with the vent tube going down his throat, there are no boogers blocking the airway and he is satting at 90 while breathing room air - no supplemental oxygen. If we are lucky, the time off will allow the irritation in his nose to heal. Also, the vent tube proportionally speaking would be as if we had a hot dog extending down our throats. This is so uncomfortable for him that he is actually trying to physically remove it. The nurses have his arms restrained so he won’t succeed, but the fighting is starting to make him breathe more. The doctor thinks he should come off of the vent by the end of the weekend. Also, Jordan has level 2 ROP, not good news, but not unexpected. He has level 2 out of 5, so it could be a lot worse. They will check him every Thursday to make sure it doesn’t get worse - or they will have to treat. The mama Ali has made it clear that from now on Thursdays are for eye exams - and ONLY eye exams. He should be back to sipping on his happy juice and getting fat within a few days, at which point I’ll be able to sleep again.