Saturday the 21st of December has arrived. My mom dropped me off at the NICU and then
headed back to Columbus since Kevin was on his way down. Sue was his nurse today, which was very
comforting to me. I felt comfortable
asking her the ‘rules’ of isolation and if I can sit in there with him. I was allowed too, but if I wanted to touch
him, I had to put on gloves and wear mask while sitting in the room. We had to take these precautions with Nathan
until the blood infection was completely gone.
So I rolled in a high roller
chair and sat inches away from his bed.
Nathan’s oxygen requirements were in the 44%-46% range and
they were still giving him 6 mL of my milk with the fortifier in it to bump it
to 22% calories. The blood infection
that Nathan has can sometimes be found in PICC lines, so Nathan was going to
get his PICC line out later today to just make sure that the bacteria was not
in that. He was going to get it put back
in the next day. For those of you who
don’t know, a PICC line stands for Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter,
which is an IV that is inserted into a peripheral vein and ends in a large vein
near the heart. When I first saw the
PICC line in Nathans head, it seemed like it would be extremely
uncomfortable. They said that it is
usually in the head on babies because the veins in their head are so prominent
that it is easy access. So I bet it felt
good on Nathan to have that heavy IV not hanging from his head any more.
Kevin arrived around 11.
It was so good to see him! I felt
a big weight lifted off my shoulders when he got there. Just to have him there and be a shoulder to
lean on and another set of ears to hear what was happening with Nathan made the
situation we were in a tiny bit easier.
So for the rest of they day, we just sat by our sweet baby until it was
care time. Kevin would read his book
while I wrote in Nathan’s journal.
When we first found out we were having twins, we wanted to
start a journal and write in them for the boys to read later on in life. Kevin’s mom had a journal for him and wrote
in it from when she was pregnant with him, all the way up to college. So we decided to do the same. I, myself, was doing a video diary to them as
well so I had not written in the journals yet.
Kevin had written only 2 entries so far.
I brought them down with me to Cincinnati so I could write about this
journey, not knowing that it was going to end up this way. I remember going back to the hotel after I
got discharged from the hospital and looking through my suitcase that was still
there. I saw the journals and started to
cry. I had completely forgotten that I
brought them and I had never written anything to Colin before he died. He was supposed to read it when he got older
and now he won’t ever get the chance. I couldn’t help but feel like I had
failed him once again. There are so many
emotions that come over you when going through something like this. Some sad, some mad, some ridiculous and some
that no one would ever understand unless put in my position. But Nathan was still here with us and I had
so much to say to him. I literally
started from the beginning with him from the time Kevin and I found out we were
pregnant with him and Colin, to present day.
I wanted him to read this one-day and know what he had gone through to
get to this world and all the obstacles he encountered and overcame as a
baby. I still had so much hope for him
and believed that in 3-5 months, we would be driving him home to Columbus with
us.
Today, Nathan and Colin would have been 26 weeks gestational
age. I would usually take a picture of
my belly at home to show how much I was growing, but now that they are not in
my belly anymore, we decided to take a weekly growth picture. I had Kevin put his hand in next to Nathan so
everyone could see just HOW small Nathan really is. Now Kevin has really big hands to begin with,
but still, he is so tiny.
 |
| Nathan at 26 weeks Gestational age and Kevin's Hand |
I loved these kinds of days because it was very
uneventful. The only big thing with
Nathan was his blood infection and he was getting antibiotics for that. But because they were putting so much extra
fluid in him with the antibiotics and what not, they started to give him a
diuretic to hopefully help him pee the extra fluid out of his system. So with that said, that night when his night
nurse Airelle weighed him, he went down a few ounces from 1 lb 9.4 oz to 1 lb
5.9 oz.
This uneventful day was coming to an end. I am not surprised that nothing happened
because Kevin was back. I think Nathan
just liked to test his mom to see how strong she can actually be while his
Daddy is away. We tucked him in, kissed
him goodbye, and headed back to the RMH.
 |
| Nathan all tucked in for the night. |
Once we got back to the RMH, I started to type an email to
all our family and friends. While in the
NICU, a ton of people would text us all day long to see how Nathan was
doing. And although we appreciated their
interest and devotion to our journey, it just was too complicated and too long
to say in a text…50 times. So I decided
to write a “Nathan’s Nightly Update” email every night to inform everyone of
what happened with Nathan that day. Here
was my first Nathan’s Nightly Update:
Nathan’s Nightly Update 12/21/13
Nathan had a good
day today and I had a better one due to the fact that Kevin came back. I got
very overwhelmed yesterday by myself when I learned about his infection and got
very emotional. It's hard being in the NICU alone because I am never sure if I
am asking the right questions or retaining all the information because it can
be very confusing. But Kevin's back and be a second pair of ears with me, which
helps me out a lot.
Enough about me,
here is what's going on with our precious little boy. The infection that he has
is very rare. Kevin did some research and he found that it is commonly found in
PICC lines (which they had through his head) and/or his tube down his throat.
It is a gram negative bacteria which means it is not very receptive to most
antibiotics. The doctor told us today that when they looked at Nathan's blood
under a microscope and gave it the antibiotic Bactrim, that it did kill the
infection so we are very hopeful, now, that he will fight this.
He did get moved
into his own secluded room because of the bacterial infection he has. That is
fine with us because that keeps other babies germs out as well. We have to wear
a mask in the room and when we want to touch him we have to put a gown and
gloves on.
They did take the PICC
line out of his head today (they do those in babies heads because their veins
are more visible). They took it out to give the antibiotic a chance to work and
will replace it in 24 hours.
They are giving
him a lasix because he has too much fluid and it's a diarrheatic. So he might
be peeing a lot and might loose some weight but that's ok.
His glucose levels
are down to normal. His bilirubin (his coloring) has been real good and hasn't
needed the lights in a few days.
He is at 46%
oxygen right now and he weighed 1lb 9.4 oz as of last night. Right now he
is sleeping like a baby. (View picture) The blue thing over his head is called
a snoodle. I sleep with it and it gets my scent and then I give it to him to
sleep with. It is supposed to be calming for them.
I think I might do
nightly updates like this instead of texting things over and over throughout
the day.
Love you all,
Kelly, Kevin and
Nathan
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