Day 5

Today (March 22) was a great day in the unit. The day started with a call to the NICU where our weekend nurse helped give us the update for Patrick.

As I was sitting with him yesterday, Patrick decided to have a couple of apnea spells which are easy to describe, but very difficult to sit through when you see the monitor show your child cease to breath, and all the lines go flat. As the nurses come over to help I can't help but become a sweaty mess that is worried as hell. They continue to reassure me that this is all okay, and it happens to everyone. Again, it's an easy thing to rationalize, but difficult to deal with.

Apnea is a very common thing in the NICU as is bradycardia (slowing of the heart rate). All of the nurses see this every day. After this occurred with me sitting there I had a moment when one of the nurses came over and gave me a hug telling me "Dad, it'll be okay we see this with every child. Even though it's very terrifying, we'll be fine."

It is the moments like these that these nurses really earn the title of "Care-giver." At the time there was nothing more that could be said. She was an angel in the room not only taking care of my child, but also keeping me from having a heart-attack at well.

As it happened once more to Patrick after we left, the doctors decided to give him some caffeine. This isn't the Starbucks-triple-shot-soy-latte kind of caffeine, but rather a slow drip of continuous caffeine that will keep him breathing and hopefully avoid those (very parental scary) episodes. So far we have been in good shape (about 24 hours) and will continue on this path.