October 7, 2008: Day 37 (Really, wireless by Halloween?)

Like happens on many days, Dr Kaempf called this morning and I talked to him on the phone. In the conversation he said something like, Babies like Aidan typically go home around week 36 or 37. Really? Friday is the start of week 34, so in that case, he could have just said, I'm expecting that Aidan will be going home in 17-25 days. This is much sooner than the mid to late November we've been expecting.

OK, before everyone starts getting excited, this is not going to happen. Dr Kaempf's comments are way optimistic.

First, Aidan is not stable with his oxygen levels. Checking his temperature or changing his diaper causes his heart rate to spike up a little, and then his blood oxygen level dives. He needs to grow, have his surfactant production kick in so his lungs improve, and needs to generate more red blood cells so he can hold more oxygen in reserve.

Second, Aidan is still on a feeding tube for 95% of his milk, and the single normal feeding he does have everyday where he gets 6cc of milk, wipes him out for the next 24 hours.

This afternoon we saw Aidan's worst oxygen desaturation that we know of. At 3pm Aidan was sleeping peacefully with a full stomach after getting his 2pm feeding. He was on 27% oxygen, which is pretty good for him (but remember air is 21%) and his saturation levels were slowly starting to hover around the alarm level of 80%. He was sleeping on his right side, and knowing that he does better laying face down, we decided that we would roll him over so he could sleep better, rather than having the nurse increase his oxygen level. Bad idea. Almost immediately, Aidan had a heart spell, followed by the expected oxygen desaturation into the 60s. Then he had a second heart spell, followed by a third. The nurse was there, and we quickly decided that he was too tired for laying face down, and she put Aidan back on his side, and turned the oxygen up. Well, all this was a shock to Aidan's delicate system. His oxygen proceeded to crash, first into the 50s, then the 40s, and then we even saw a 38!! I looked down at him, and he looked blueish. When Aidan's levels had reached the low 50s, the nurse turned his oxygen way up (45%) , and she started moving him around so he would breathe more. Aidan slowly recovered, and 3-5 minutes later, he was back above 80.

We've seen Aidan have spells before, and I don't remember being *really* scared this time that he wouldn't recover, but we'd never seen Aidan's levels below 45 before, so I did feel shaken by this. After this, Denyse and I didn't want to leave, and stayed there for over an hour making sure he remained stable, which he did.

Sorry, Aidan's not exactly ready to become a wireless baby.

Update from the night visit.

First, Aidan gained 44 more grams and is now 1646 grams (3 lbs 10.1 oz).

Aidan seemed to be extra tired in general today, and the same was true during our night visit. He had 2 notable spells with oxygen desaturations into the 40s for nurse Lee.

I'm hoping all of these spells were due to some serious constipation. Aidan hadn't pooped since yesterday morning at 2am. Nurse Kerin gave Aidan a suppository at 2pm, and by 8pm he still hadn't pooped. So Lee gave him a second suppository. Finally, around 9pm, Aidan had the mother of all poops.

Our hope is that most of the spells Aidan had today were from his pooping problem. You can see when Aidan bears down trying to poop. This actually causes his heart to slow way down and which causes the heart rate / oxygen spell sequence, which then causes Aidan to lose energy and then not breathe deeply, which causes the oxygen to crash.

Hopefully, Aidan will sleep well tonight, and have much more energy than he did today. He was doing well on 27.5% oxygen when I left the NICU at 12:20 AM.

PS: Sorry, no pictures today. The only video we took today requires me to do some editing and sound mixing with a clip of Maggie Simpson. You'll see what I mean tomorrow.