Parker's Roller Coaster

July 5 7:30 pm

There was once a time that I would pay really good money to attend a theme park and ride roller coasters all day long. I would endure standing in line in scorching heat for up to two hours for that 2-3 minute thrill ride. The twists and turns would be completely unexpected. Your stomach would do flip flops leaving you to wonder if you were going up or down. Well in the past few years age has caught up to me and I've found those same rides extremely unappealing. They now give me a headache that lasts for hours so I now find myself avoiding them at all costs.

Not only have I found Parker's roller coaster even more unappealing, but it also lasts much longer than a few minutes. As you know Parker's oxygen levels the past few days have really been unstable. The docs and nurses have been constantly adjusting things trying to bring about some degree of consistancy to no avail. Yesterday, right about this time, things came to a head. After seeing his oxygen input peak at 80% during the early afternoon, we called in to the NICU nurse around 7:45 to see if things had settled down. Not only had they not settled down, but she informed us that they were seriously considering the surgery to go in and close the PDA. Close the PDA??? That was our response as well!! The last we had heard of the PDA was that the three doses of medicine had worked well and had closed that lil' sucker. Well the thought was that all of his instability in blood gasses was being caused by the PDA reopening. They were going to be taking another blood gas and the docs were coming back around in an hour or so to do rounds, but that all signs and all docs input were pointing to the ligation surgery. Our night nurse asked us if we could call back around 11 pm for more info. We chose to go down there instead. At 11 we called to let them know we were on our way down to the hospital. We arrived there expecting them to have scheduled the echo cariogram to verify the PDA was open, to sign a surgical consent form and to be speaking to the neo natal cardiologist about the surgery in detail. Instead we arrived to find very good news. Parker had completely done a 180. In three short hours he had gone from the brink of surgery to having completely stabalized. Without getting into all of the gorey details, they made a few more adjustments to the vent and gave him another somewhat minor medication. The combination saw his blood gasses stabalize and his blood pressure come back into acceptable limits. The belief was that the PDA had responded to the medication and closed back up. They would re-evaluate him in the morning and take an echo then to see what was happening. Heather and I spent a long time talking with the nurse (who was, as all of them have been, really great about talking us through everything) and gathering more info than we should ever know :) You know us, the couple with a thousand questions. We go in today to find Tyler fat and happy (trying to be a good roll model for his little brother) and eager to find out what the echo had shown. Well, Parker had had such a good night and morning that they didn't see the need to do an echo!!! What?!?!?!?! 14 hours ago surgery was imminent, now he was cruisin' in the chill lane!! Such is life in the NICU :) He had stabalized so much that the docs were convinced the PDA had re-closed. Open-Closed-Open-Closed......this is the Parker Thompson roller coaster. I think he's doing it on purpose. He's just gigglin' like crazy. He's bored being in that little incubator all the time and needs to entertain himself. "Watch this......I can get mommy and daddy down here at midnight.....I'll just open up this lil' PDA thingy, the nurse will crank up my oxygen to 100% for a few hours.....everyone will freak out and run around.....and Presto.....HERE'S MOMMY AND DADDY!!!! He He He He He He!!!!! Man this is fun!!!" And then just for fun, while we are there today, he decides to let his monitors show a really sharp dip in his numbers......not for long mind you.....just briefly enough to cause us to have a heart attack before they shoot back up and stabalize again. Just so we all know he's still in controll. For most of our visit his numbers were great. they would dip a bit, only to rebound right back up immediately. So for now all we hear is the "tick tick tick tick tick tick tick....".....that's the ominous sound the roller coaster makes as it it climbing up, ever so slowly before you go down the first big dip.......Of course I'm hoping it's the sound of Parker's roller coaster simply coming back up to ground level where it will stay!!!!!

Heather's two minute blood pressure check up appointment yesterday turned into a three hour extravaganza!! Her pressure presented high (surprise surprise) which prompted the docs to "evaluate" her for a few hours......definition of "evaluate": sit there and have her pressure monitored until it goes down as well as take blood to run some tests. In an eery (I have no idea how spell that word...oh well....as if this has been a shining example of grammatical excellence all along:):) ) twist of deja vue, her pressure came down and all of her blood work came back fine, which is exactly what kept happening pre C-section. The docs have decided that more time is needed and sent her on her happy little way with a return visit scheduled for next week. So goes our happy little existance.