8 wks old and growing

It was 8 weeks ago today that we began this little adventure. Began in the 'here in the flesh' kind of way. Eight weeks ago today we began to get familiar with the NICU and it's beeps and monitors. Eight weeks ago today ...

It seems almost not possible to have been 2 months. It hasn't been that long! Has it been that long?! Crazy how our perception of time is so - I don't know - off, at times. So much has happened in so little time and I am already having trouble remembering some of the details from those 'early days.' I guess when you spend so much energy trying to make it through today you have little energy left for remembering yesterday. But I reckon we ought not forget yesterday and the battles we had to fight then. I reckon the battles of yesterday, the ones we've fought and survived (though battered and bruised and bloodied a little) are of great benefit to us. They remind us of our weaknesses - keep us dependent on others - we can't do life alone. They remind us of our strengths - who really provides the strength and energies needed? So, while it can be difficult to remember details of 8 weeks ago - heck, even 8 hours ago! - I can't allow myself to forget them, or live as if they never happened. I seem to recall Yahweh God telling his covenant people before they entered the promised land, "Don't forget!" Don't forget the past. Good advice. I figure he knows more than I do, better pay attention.

So, I have found that these emails (now blogs) have been helpful to my remembering. My brain doesn't seem to work real well, but I can still read ... and remember. There was a time when Samuel had 30 needle pricks on his little body. There was a time when he weighed 7 lbs and 12 oz. There was a time when he had jaundice pretty well and got to sun bathe for a few days. There was a time when we were making two trips a day to the hospital to see our son. There was a time we couldn't hold him what for all the chords and tubes and monitors. There was a time when he took a trip in a helicopter. There was a time they cut open his chest and fixed the problems with his then plum-sized heart. There was a time we lived in another city. There was a time when other people were with our son 24-7.

My, how times have changed ... and in so little time.

We had 5 Drs appt in the last two days for Samuel. Urologist, Pediatrician, Endocrinologist, Cardiologist and a chest X-ray. Overall, we've moving forward. He's gaining weight (9 lbs 5 oz) but not proportionate to his age - he's dropping in his percentile of weight. We're upping the volume of food every day. We're dropping one medication over the course of the next week and have cut one in half. He's had a whole battery of blood work ordered to see how things are looking from an endocrin/hormone perspective. His heart looks good. His lungs look good - no pneumonia. He has had something of a cough and his breathing sounds kind of junky - which has us a bit worried but we've been reassured it's upper-airway and not in his lungs. We're trying to figure out why he's been spitting up so much. 'So much' meaning both frequency and volume. He's going to have a renal scan done to test his kidney function. That will help us determine a timeframe for fixing his bladder to kidney reflux issue. Hopefully that procedure - which requires sedation - can be done at the same time the folks in Atlanta take the impression for his NAM. The Urologist was happy to try and work that out for us. We're moving to a continuous feed a night in hopes that we can get more volume in him when he's less likely to spit it back out and in hopes that we can get a little more sleep. He'll be getting over half of his daily volume in only 8 hours. We'll see how it goes.

Well, it's late and there are still several things that need to be done before our heads can hit the pillow. But hopefully they won't have to come up off again for 3-4 hours.

Here's to hoping ... and remembering.