Two Forward, One Back

I have three theories:

1. Either Finnegan was disappointed by the readership drop of this blog and wanted the numbers to come back up by capturing peoples' attention, or

2. Finnegan thought it had been long enough since dad wrote a post and knew that a sure fire way was to be naughty because mom doesn't like to write about that, or

3. Finnegan doesn't want to leave the comfort and attention of the NICU for the scary unknown ICC.

And so we advance to Valentine's Day with one step back. Fortunately that had been preceded by the requisite two steps forward.

As we were driving into the parking ramp at Childrens Hospital at about 4:45 this afternoon, I received a call from his doctor. Generally early morning calls and late afternoon to evening calls from the doctors aren't good. This was no different.

We were told that Finn is having some digestive issues and that his feedings will be stopped for the next 48 hours. His stomach and intestines are filled with air and he is having problems processing it. The situation can be quite serious because it can be caused by an infection eating away lining of the intestines or irritation can cause an infection leading to the same result.

Because he won't be getting any milk for the next 48 hours they had to place a new IV in order to feed him intravenously as well as give him antibiotics and other medicine. They also placed a tube from his mouth into his stomach to suck out any air which was stored in there. Unfortunately anything that has made it past the stomach will have to come out the natural way which is what he's having problems with. So much for the continued reduction of tubes hooked up to the little guy.

We've gotten so used to only worrying about his oxygen saturation, growing, breathing and heart beat that it's easy to forget about all of the other things happening to him that have to work also. And maybe this isn't as scary as his heart surgery but it can be just as serious if not caught and treated. Stacy has thought for the past three days that he has seemed lethargic and not his normal self. She told the nurse that today (who listened) and now we know why. Thankfully they found out what it was.

On the plus side, they took an x-ray and didn't see any air leaking from his intestines and didn't see any between the intestine linings which are all good things. They will be taking another x-ray this evening or early tomorrow morning and hopefully we'll know more from that and the labs that were drawn. The other thing is that he had been doing so well for quite some time now up to this point that we have to remember that he truly did take two steps forward before taking one step back. It's still frustrating though.

By the time we left this evening, they had given him a suppository which made him fill up two diapers. After that he did seem much more active and more like himself. He was wide awake and moving around like we had become more accustomed to seeing when he knew we were there.

His little gut is still developing and hopefully he'll continue to be as strong as he has been and this will be just another bump in the road. Sadly I think he's already had to endure too many bumps and I was wishing they'd be over. The reality is we're still on the rollercoaster.