The Call

July 18 9:30 pm

No news is good news. This is the philosophy that we have adopted with regard to the boys and the hospital calling us. We have always figured that if something goes wrong (out of the ordinary typical things that the boys go through each day) that the hospital would call us and let us know. The other night the phone rang a little after ten and my heart rate immediately went up. Nobody calls past ten. It must be the hospital with bad news. My heart sank. It was a &^^%##$ telemarketer. Bullet dodged......until tonight. I was out running an errand, so poor Heather had to take the call. It was Tyler's doctor who wanted to aprise us of a situation. During a routine flipping (when the spin the baby 180 degrees so the head is now where the feet were and vis-a-versa) something happened and Tyler's breathing tube came out......he desatted down....way down.....they had to bag him, start chest compressions and call for immediate assistance from the doctor......help came.....he was re intubated (new breathing tube inserted) and the vent reattatched.....they are going to take an x-ray to confirm good placement of the tube, but those results won't be available for awhile. I came home right after the phone call and Heather filled me in. Needless to say when the doctor calls and uses the words chest compressions your heart rate goes up a bit.....okay, a hell of a lot! A short pause here: I don't know if I've relayed this next piece of info yet, but it's critical to the rest of the story. About two weeks ago, while we were in the NICU, a nurse approached us and asked if we lived in Roseville? Yes. Do you live on Maple Creek?.......uhhhhh....ya.....long story short, we come to find out this nurse, Mary, lives six houses down from us!!!! We have seen her out in the neighborhood several times and have become friends. She had said on multiple occassions, that if we ever had any questions or needed anything don't hesitate to ask. This was that time. I felt so fortunate that this outstanding, compassionate neighbor was open enough to make this offer not once, but multiple times. Even though it was after 9 pm we knocked on her door. Bless her little heart, she instantly saw the concern in our eyes and didn't hesitate to ask what was wrong. She was exactly what we needed. Nothing was going to make this all better......nothing was going to take away the fact that Tyler had just had to have chest compressions......nothing was going to bring back the sense of somewhat calm that we had been experiencing, but.....Mary helped to put it into enough perspective that we felt better about the whole thing. She was awesome. She let us know that, while this is not an ordinary occurance, it is not completely unheard of. The tube placement is so precise that even a movement of a centimeter can cause it to stop functioning.....it will still appear to be completely intact, but it has moved enough to stop working. The chest compressions.....it's NICU protocol to begin compressions if the heart rate goes below 60......yes going below 60 is still bad, but at least it didn't mean his heart had stopped. These situations sometimes happen, but when they do, protocols are in place and resolutions happen very very quickly. After they intubated him, they said his O2 levels came back very quickly......how much damage was done, hopefully none given the quick response.....let's hope there was none. I guess it just wasn't Tyler's day. We didn't get to hold him today either. He was desatting more than usual and the nurse said it would be better to wait until tomorrow. It just wasn't a good day for our little guy.

On a positive note (I really need to end on one) Parker had another pretty good day today. His feedings are up to 18mls, he's gaining weight and still seems to have some pretty good consistency in his vent controll. His CO2 levels are in really good shape, sitting right at 50. He has now had four pretty good to good days in a row!!!! My boys are battling.....their being little warriors......with some luck they'll continue the trend.......we're hoping so.