Water, water everywhere

Colin, and his long-term roommate Conner, have switched personalities — or at least that’s what the nurses think. Colin has become the content and quiet baby, and Conner has become the crabby one. (Of course, it could have something to do with Conner being a month older and really ready to spend his time somewhere besides his crib.) It’s nice to have Colin being classified as the “easy” baby for a change.

Of course, with Colin, nothing is really easy. He has continued to have problems with desatting, generally with his blood oxygen levels only dropping a little and coming right back up. But yesterday he had a very bad drop — we had to bump up his oxygen to the maximum levels and still needed to bag him to get him back to where he should be. 

His nurse had requested chest x-rays for Colin yesterday morning, because he was sounding more congested. She and I then stalked the doctor to get him to read the x-rays as soon as possible so we could start on whatever course of treatment Colin needed. The doctor confirmed what we could both hear: Colin has too much fluid in his lungs again, and that is making him work too hard to breathe. 

We don’t know what is causing the fluid build-up. It could be moisture from the oxygen being pushed into his lungs. (They add water to the oxygen to maintain the proper humidity levels, but sometimes you can see it pouring from the tube into his nose.) It could be an infection (they sent cultures to the lab again to check). Or it could be that the effects of the steroids are reversing. 

The doctor ordered a three-day course of diuretics to try to clear out the extra fluid. Colin has responded to this well in the past, and if the cause of the fluid build-up is benign it should take care of the problem for him. If that doesn’t work, we’ll move on to the next possibility and so on until we figure it out.

The doctor said he thought the problem likely wasn’t too serious because Colin has gained so much weight so quickly. (He was up to 2 pounds 6 ounces two days ago.) If he were fighting a serious complication, he probably wouldn’t have been able to maintain this level and speed of growth. But, of course, we won’t know for certain until we see what works. 

Veronica continues to adjust to life on the outside. She seems to like the freedom of not being on a pre-set schedule — but still is working on settling into her own rhythm. Right now, she is having a little bit of a day/night reversal and is sleeping longer periods during the day and waking more often (every 2 hours last night) at night. 

We’re hoping we all settle into a routine for our “new normal” soon. And that soon after we get this routine down, we hope we’ll have to change it all again to welcome Colin home. We’ll see.