When Derek called early this morning to get the update from Nolan's night last night, the nurse seemed to leave a few details out of the conversation...important details. She said initially that he had a great night and at the time was in his carseat. She left out that he had two spells throughout the night and that they were a bit concerned with his breathing rate when he is having these spells. Spells can be a number of things including low heart rate, apnea spells, to a variety of other things. For Nolan, a spell is where his oxygen saturation drops below 85% for 30 seconds or longer and needs to be repositioned for it to raise back up. His heart rate has always been great and his apnea spells subsided after about one week in the NICU. When he has these spells where his saturation drops, his breathing patterns become very uneven. He has to stay in the NICU for at least five days after a spell happens. That puts us at Tuesday as the earliest that he'll be coming home. Derek and I were in snuggling with him tonight and his saturation wasn't low enough to alarm his monitor but it was staying pretty low. It's so hard to sit there listening to the alarm and watching his numbers go up and down. His nurse reassured us that everything will be just fine but he just needs a bit more time. That darn waiting game again...time, time, time...just a bit more time. When he does come home he will be coming home on a monitor. We have to take a class next week to learn all about it. There is a possibility that he will also be coming home on a small amount of oxygen which I hope is not the case (of course if this is what we have to do to get him home, we'll do it!!!). I'll be much more comfortable if he is as close to 100% as possible before coming home. I thought I learned last time that I can't get too excited thinking about him coming home because we know how quickly that can change. But this morning when we called and they said everything was great and he was having his carseat test done, I couldn't help but think that they thought he'd be coming home soon. They teased us...big time!
We hope for a very healthy weekend for Nolan!
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Jamie Barclay's grandbaby came home with the same type of monitor. I know they had it for a short time and then he did not need it anymore. It just took time. I think you two are doing great and you will be rewarded. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Jane Fazio
Hi again. Oh gosh, I so know how frustrating the last days at the NICU are. I think some of the absolute hardest days for us were right at the end... you are just sooooooooo ready for it to be over and to be able to hold your baby for as many hours as you want without anybody disturbing you. When we got home I almost immediately took a nap with him... the best!
ReplyDeleteJane is right (hi Jane!), our baby Gus came home on an apnea monitor. It's portable and I'll be honest, annoying at times but if it's what gets the little kiddo out of the hospital, something that's worth putting up with. But maybe Nolan won't need it in the end! Oxygen was something they said Gus might need but in the end didn't. You just never know until the last moment.
I know the anticipation can seem almost unbearable. I did the same thing you did, paced and fretted about whether to call, hoping the night had gone well. We had about three "false starts" so when we finally got the report that we should come get him I was pretty much beside myself with joy and tears(!) We RACED there to get him before anything changed!
Anyway, hang in there!
You and your family are in our thoughts...
Erin Curran (Jamie Barclay's daughter)
erinbeee@yahoo.com
PS - Our son failed the "car seat challenge" twice (!) and had to come home in a car bed, (which looks like an Easter basket!) We were so exasperated by the end, and sometimes wondered if we'd ever get out, but we did! We are hoping that your day comes soon too!!