when I started this blog five years ago, I was a pet sitter and the name animal-crackers made sense. now I'm a stay-at-home-dad and freelance writer, but rather than confuse everyone by getting a different blog, it's just easier to keep posting things here.
Monday, August 29, 2005
The rollercoaster
It's been a busy two days. Andrea came home yesterday morning. She's tired and needs to heal.
Then we started the rollercoaster everyone at NICU had warned us about.
I can't remember if it was before or after Andrea was home, but we had learned an ultrasound had detected bleeding in Dylan's brain. And another ultrasound was performed Sunday morning.
Sunday evening when we returned to the hospital the nurse wouldn't tell us the results. She said we needed to talk to the doctor. This seemed unusual since the nurses never had qualms about discussing ultrasounds before. But it didn't set off the alarms in me that it did in Andrea.
So we grabbed the doctor as soon as he came into the unit. He accessed the report on the closest computer. Andrea read over his shoulder and didn't like what she saw.
We needed to leave the NICU as they were preparing to perform surgery on another infant. We sat in the waiting area for about 20 minutes until the doctor invited us into the film viewing room.
First he drew us a diagram of what we were talking about and then he showed us the actual ultrasounds. The short answer -- he was bleeding in two locations. Very small amounts and in an area that controls limb movement and not cognitive ability. He said it wasn't good, but it wasn't as bad as it looked or sounded.
Sure enough, this morning another ultrasound showed the amount of blood had shrunken to a very, very small amount. All seemed okay.
Then just an hour ago, a different doctor called to say one of Dylan's two IV lines had leaked fluid into his neck tissue. His neck is swollen, but the fluid isn't causing any stress and will eventually absorb back into his system.
The real problem is that they had to pull the IV and now need to reinsert it elsewhere.
Still, overall he is okay. He's surviving and will be one week old tonight at 11:24.
Then we started the rollercoaster everyone at NICU had warned us about.
I can't remember if it was before or after Andrea was home, but we had learned an ultrasound had detected bleeding in Dylan's brain. And another ultrasound was performed Sunday morning.
Sunday evening when we returned to the hospital the nurse wouldn't tell us the results. She said we needed to talk to the doctor. This seemed unusual since the nurses never had qualms about discussing ultrasounds before. But it didn't set off the alarms in me that it did in Andrea.
So we grabbed the doctor as soon as he came into the unit. He accessed the report on the closest computer. Andrea read over his shoulder and didn't like what she saw.
We needed to leave the NICU as they were preparing to perform surgery on another infant. We sat in the waiting area for about 20 minutes until the doctor invited us into the film viewing room.
First he drew us a diagram of what we were talking about and then he showed us the actual ultrasounds. The short answer -- he was bleeding in two locations. Very small amounts and in an area that controls limb movement and not cognitive ability. He said it wasn't good, but it wasn't as bad as it looked or sounded.
Sure enough, this morning another ultrasound showed the amount of blood had shrunken to a very, very small amount. All seemed okay.
Then just an hour ago, a different doctor called to say one of Dylan's two IV lines had leaked fluid into his neck tissue. His neck is swollen, but the fluid isn't causing any stress and will eventually absorb back into his system.
The real problem is that they had to pull the IV and now need to reinsert it elsewhere.
Still, overall he is okay. He's surviving and will be one week old tonight at 11:24.
4 Comments:
Thanks for the update, Todd. Hang in there & give our love to everyone. We're thinking very good thoughts about Dylan. Tell Andrea we said to take another nap!! :)
Love,
Amy & Sasha
buy Andrea some peanut butter cup ice cream for me, will ya? Okay, you might as well buy me some too. thank you very much. every day he'll get stronger. thinking of you guys.
Remember he's Todd and Andree's boy - he'll know how to fight - it's in his dna.
Oh that poor little guy. : (
It makes me so sad that the first few months of a preemie's life is so hard. They're so precious and innocent and I wish I could take all the needle pokes and jabs in the place of every one of them.
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