solomon, part 4: your hospital stay

the next nine days were full of ups and downs.

on sunday, the doctors came back and told us that their short term goal was to manage your seizures, to get them under control with medication so that you could be stable enough to get an MRI. a hematologist came to take some of your blood-- they were considering it highly likely that a blood clot had caused the rupture in one of your blood vessels. a neurosurgeon told us that timing was key-- that an MRI had to be done as soon as possible to get a more detailed picture of the brain. he said it was urgent to make sure that the bleed was not continuing to spread and that a clot was not still present to cause more strokes.

we were anxious beyond belief. it all felt like a game of chance. the doctor teams seemed to be at odds with what they felt like was most important. the pediatricians thought it was most important to get your seizures under control so that you didn't code during the hour-long MRI. the neurosurgeon felt like it was too risky to wait days to get your seizures stable when surgery might be needed to stop the bleed or remove a clot.

eventually, the doctors came to an agreement and decided to wait until your seizures were less. monday was a long day. every day before the MRI we'd came in asking-- was it a good night? meaning, did you have any seizures? you spent most of these days asleep-- the seizure medicine made you so drowsy that it was almost impossible to wake you up.

by tuesday morning, you had been seizure free for almost 24hours, so the doctors scheduled your MRI for that afternoon. we quickly let all our friends know and people began praying for you.

to do an MRI, the nurses had to take your EEG monitors off (the head monitors that tracked your seizure activity). this meant that, for the first time since you left our arms at 8:30pm the day you were born, we got to hold you. we were so excited!!!! they took the wires off and handed you to me-- all cords and IVs and oxygen tubes-- but you were in my arms and i was so happy! i had missed your tiny body-- my arms had felt so empty without you.

unfortunately, we didn't get to hold you for long. about an hour later it was time to take  you downstairs to get the MRI. your daddy and i followed the nurses down and watched as they put your little body on the MRI stretcher. they put little earmuffs over your ears. you looked so tiny laying there. we left you with the nurses and walked back upstairs to wait for you to come back.

we had been told that it would be at least two hours before you got back, but you were back in only one hour! the nurse said you did amazingly well-- you didn't move a muscle! just looked and looked around while the whirring MRI took it's pictures.

that night at home was filled with worry and fear. we didn't know what news wednesday would bring-- would the MRI say that the bleed was spreading? would it say there was a clot and that you needed surgery? would the damage be too extensive to do anything? we cried and prayed for you-- our hearts teetered on despair; we really thought that God was about to ask us to hand your life to Him. that that would mean your death. your daddy kept thinking about the story of abraham and isaac-- would we be willing to follow God into this? knowing it might cost us your life?

on wednesday we drove to the hospital, talking in the car. i said that no matter what happened, i didn't want it to make us bitter. i didn't want it to make us hate God. we cried and tried to be brave, tried to have faith that God would somehow bring us to love Him still if the news was the worst. the part of me that was numb and still in shock went over the next steps in my head-- if he died? then we would need a baby coffin. our friend J could build it-- it would be so tiny. they would ask us if we wanted to donate his organs. of course we would. i felt a part of myself becoming mechanical-- while the other part of me clung to any hope.

at the hospital, we waited anxiously for the pediatrician team to come to tell us the results. pastor josh and aunt B were there waiting with us, as well as your grandparents. we waited for what seemed like forever.

the team finally came and gave a round about briefing. your daddy asked about the MRI results. they said that we would have to wait until the neurologists came by later that afternoon to hear. we must have looked disappointed, because one of the doctors on the team told us "from what we saw, the bleed is stable-- and there is no clot present." relief and thankfulness and tears rushed over me. and for the first time since it all started i allowed myself to really fully hope-- to really hope you might come home. we went out into the waiting room to tell all your family and friends! they wept and hugged us and we rejoiced in the first good news we had received!

later, the neurology team came by to show us the images of your little brain. when we saw the picture of how deep your bleed was, our hearts fell. it was so large. such a big part of your head-- there was no way you would ever be a normal little boy. no way you would escape this un-singed. the doctor told us a little bit different information than the pediatrician had earlier. he said that there was a clot present, but that it was in a place where it could dissolve without threat to you further. he said they suspected that it was this clot that caused the rupture and the bleed. we asked about your long-term prognosis. the doctor was very hesitant to say-- he kept saying how it was impossible to tell, that newborn brains are extremely malleable. but eventually he said that from the location of the bleed, he could say that you might have some vision problems in your left eye. vision problems! i almost laughed. you might need glasses. after all this, you might need glasses.

after that, the days were a steady up and down. with the imminent threat of the bleed now gone, it became the priority to help you heal and get back to being a little baby. they put your EEG back on, but this time taped it all up to secure it so we could hold you! they took you off of the IV fluids and we began to get to feed you milk. all this time i had been pumping at the hospital and the nurse had been storing it for you in a freezer. we got to change your diaper! there were some times that seemed like set backs-- when they put your PIIC line in (a tube inserted deeper than an IV because it's more secure and long-term), when they put your feeding tube in, when they told us you had to be able to eat 2oz on your own before you could leave the hospital.

on friday, we were moved into a private room! this was great on two accounts, 1. because it was a private room and i had my own bathroom and breastpump! and 2. because the doctors felt like you were stable enough to move to a different floor without constant supervision by personnel. that same day, and occupational and speech therapists saw you and analyzed your feeding. it was so stressful for me. it was the one thing that tipped me over the edge. i couldn't deal with worrying about you eating 2oz, counting your sucks, listening your your breaths, hearing the monitor beep when you didn't breathe and having the therapist talking to me and watching me. ah. it was horrible.


but the therapists weren't working on saturday and sunday, so we worked hard to learn and teach you to eat 2oz without watching eyes. and it payed off! on monday when the doctors came back, they were astonished to hear that you'd eaten 2oz almost every time! they took your feeding tube out and told us we could feed you as much as you wanted. you at 2.5oz at four of monday's feeding so that by tuesday, the pediatricians surprised us with--

YOU CAN GO HOME.