April 1, 2011 - 28 Days Old

The past couple of days have been crazy. I had started March 29th's post, but hadn't finished it, so I just took what I had written and posted it a few minutes ago. I'll try to fill in the blanks a little bit in this post.

This week has been a tough one. Aiden has been struggling. It seems like whenever he takes one step forward, he takes two steps back. He is still on the same equipment he was on before. The jet ventilator seems to be helping, although it's really too early to say for sure. Today, his lungs are looking much better. There is a significant improvement on his x-rays even since yesterday. We're hoping the lung issue is hitting a plateau and has turned a corner. The bowel issue is another issue entirely, though. The doctors don't know what's causing the excess air in his bowel. All of his labs are coming back negative for infection and inflammation. They have tested him for all the viruses they can test for, and those labs are coming back negative as well. The neonatologist told me today that his labs aren't coming back good; they're not coming back great; they're coming back "perfect". He said that he doesn't use the word "perfect" with parents, but Aiden's test are coming back "perfect". That's great news, but it makes diagnosing his problem very difficult. His blood count has been low, so they have had to give him two blood transfusions, the last of which was done yesterday. They are still giving him antibiotics with the thought that there may be some underlying infection there that just isn't showing up in the tests. The doctors are frustrated that they can't give us a definitive diagnosis. We're frustrated too, but all we can do is watch and wait. He's still a very sick little boy.

On Wednesday, Amaraa had to go down to the hospital for a blood test. After the test, we went to visit Aiden. She hadn't been to visit him for a few days because she has had a cold. When we got there, they had him all draped up and two nurses with masks and gowns on were working on him. The nurse practitioner said that his pick line site had become irritated, so they were putting another one in. It was really hard for Amaraa to see that. We left and decided to come back later. Amaraa cried the whole way home. This has been incredibly difficult for both of us and she had finally reached her limit.

Jazzy and Sky have suffered through all of this as well. It seems like I am always either at school or work or the hospital. Amaraa hasn't been able to be very involved with the kids because she has been mostly confined to bed. The kids have both been sick and it has been hard on them. I took them to the doctor on Monday and they both had ear infections. I took Skylar and my parents to a Jazz game on Monday night. The game was horrible, but we had a good time. It was nice to be able to spend some time with Skylar. He needed it and so did I.