The doctor gave me a stern scolding today, and I must admit that I deserved it. After nearly 2 months, dozens of IVs, constant scrubbing, and countless doses of antibiotics, I exposed Jordan to an infectious agent. I should have been more careful before I exposed Jordan to a lawyer friend of the family. The doctor said that she can cure pneumonia, sepsis, and can treat E. Coli and even the flesh eating virus, but that there is nothing she can do if he catches a disease she called ‘attorney’. The disease starts out by eliminating the part of the brain that recognizes morals and ethics. Shortly after it causes the victims to start rhyming in public with Latin words like acquit. After a few years he gets to the level of partner and his heart stops beating and actually falls out of his body. Doctors have spent years trying to cure victims of ‘attorney’, but after billions of dollars of research, the only cure seems to be a bullet to the head. The doctor said with any luck Jordan wasn’t infected and will grow up to do something honorable with his life, like crack whore.
Seriously, the nurses have started to call him a swinger. They try to keep his oxygen saturation between 85 and 95. Above 95 for large periods of time and it can cause ROP. Below 85 and it feels to him as if he is having an asthma attack. They work his saturation by regulating the percent oxygen he breathes in. Room air is about 21% oxygen, they can go up to 100% pure, but Jordan usually breathes around 30%. The thing is if that 30% causes him to saturate above 95, the nurses slightly lower the oxygen he breathes. He then responds by saturating in the 70s or lower. He had 3 nurses working over an hour in the new nursery trying to find the level that keeps him satting in the right range. Eventually, they said screw it and left him satting at 100 for a few hours. Possible ROP is always better than definite oxygen deprivation. His sats have been always in a big range, and the nurses have started calling him a swinger for that reason. Otherwise he is still stable. They raised his feeds to 7.5 mils an hour, and are looking to raise it more by the end of the week. I can honestly start to see in some his limbs where he is getting some baby fat. He’s starting to look more like the way he is supposed to look.
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6 comments:
I love you too Shelly. I warned you I would do this.
Gotta tell you: this shopping for newborns stuff is harder than I thought! Apparently, toys start at 3 mos and up (who knew?), and clothes are out for the time being...kids hate getting clothes anyway. So I'm down to furniture, but as a true shopper, I know that there might be things you'd prefer to get for Jordan yourselves...anything I definitely should or shouldn't avoid? (If you're smart, you recognize this as your opportunity to get that $50 baby bottle that you could never legitimize paying for, but is supposed to be the Bentley of baby bottles...that kinda thing)
I love you too Big Ali.
P.S. - I spit in your chickpeas.
I am new to your blog and I LOVE LOVE LOVE your first blog that you did! That is great that you were able to tell people how it is and not to tell you that it will be okay. I admit that was one of the hardest things for me to hear as well in the NICU days. I think it is more that people don't know what to say. Sometimes nothing is better than something though!
I also admire that you are living day to day and not worrying about the future. That shows just how much you love your son and would do anything for him. I remember those days with my son Ashton and it didn't matter to me about later and what might be wrong. It was then and there that mattered.
Ashton is now 26months old. He was born at 24 weeks and spent 227 days in the NICU before coming home. He has CP, is deaf (wears an implant), wears glasses and feeds through a gj tube 16hours a day. He is an amazing kid and I wouldn't change a thing about him!
Ahhh the swinging. LOL Ashton did this ALL of the time. It continued even when he came home on the monitor and even now if you hook him up he drops enough to drive me nuts.
Good luck and I'll be checking your blog for updates!!
Traci
Who tought you that kids hate getting clothes anyway?
Mama Ali
I thought it was every kid! Maybe I was just traumatized early on- I had to be about 12, 13 and I got a pink sweatsuit that was more suitable for a 5 year old. Honest-to-God, it had pink bunnies on it. And when I was 14, every female in the family got a pair of socks for Christmas. Guess it was just always more fun to pick out my own clothes (but then look at how I dress now :)) But the wisdom that billpaying gives you tells me that Mom probably appreciated the clothes over the once used easy bake oven:)
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