Another roller coaster ride

Just as I thought all we had to do until we go home was just let Emilia grow and develop, Emilia decided to do something funky and throw all of the plans out the window.

Emilia suddenly had a lot of apneic spells yesterday. She always had some apneic episodes and resulting desaturation and spells. But what she did yesterday was totally unsual of her. In NICU, of course, this is treated as a sign of an infection even though she looked normal. Immediately an X-ray was taken, a lot blood work was done, feed was stopped, a urine sample was taken and an IV had to be inserted for dextrose and meds injection. Now, this IV took over 2 hours to get because her veins are too hard to find. She had to be poked by so many different people over the 2 hours, getting at least 2 pokes in each hand and each foot, and once into her arm. Usually they document how many IV attempts were made by which RN and so on, but yesterday it was not even documented. I guess they didn't want to write out all the names of the people and the 7-8 attempts that were made.

Then, what happens? We had to be wheeled back to Level III NICU, Emilia had to be put in an incubator because her body temperature dropped because she was exposed during the IV attempts, and to top it all off, cerebral spinal fluid sample had to be taken by lumbar puncture (LP). LP was done in 3 attempts. Trust me, I knew they wouldn't get it done in 1 attempt. Last time she had LP, it took 2 attempts.

And to throw the whole affair into even more confusion and chaos, we got a call from the lab saying the blood culture was positive for a bacteria, only to be told an hour later that the result was not for Emilia but some other baby with a very similar last name. So, we don't even know if she has an infection, YET.

So, right now, we are still waiting for the results from all the tests we did yesterday. Emilia looks and acts normal now, although she was totally exhausted and hungry. She is also back on the CPAP machine with biphasic settings because of all the bradycardia she was experiencing. The transfer is of course tossed out the window. We are back to the starting point: no feed with CPAP mask in the incubator. I feel we made one small step forward and took five big steps backward. I don't know how long it will take Emilia to get back to where she was but as long as she is not sick and doesn't have to be poked around, I am content.

I even finished writing all the thank-you cards in case we got transferred out yesterday. Now I feel the NICU roller coaster is not going to be over, EVER, even after you go home.

This is a post that updates Emilia's status but also serves as a dummy ear that is listening to me vent about the day, because I really needed that. I admit I was really stressed out and emotionally drained yesterday. From today on, I will be strong, for Emilia. I need to be strong.