Shock and Awe

Today Jack gave me the biggest scare I think I have ever endured. I was about 40 minutes into his kangaroo time when all of his levels dropped. We tried to stimulate him but he wasn't coming back up. So the nurse called over a few coworkers and called in the doctor. It was a very nerve racking 3 to 4 minutes. They got all his levels back to where they should be, and he seems to be doing just fine now. I think I'm partly still in shock (the shock part of the title) for seeing him go pale and blue around his mouth and fingers. Also in awe (the awe part of the title) at the ability and speed at which the nurses and doctors worked. We are both very thankful for all their hard work. Not only today, but everyday he is in the NICU (even the days when nothing seems to happen). Anyhow, the doctor said what probably happened was that Jack had a little reflux (not heartburn but kind of like it). Some milk came up out of his stomach, up high enough to cause his wind pipe/vocal cords to spasm. Some milk may have made it into his lungs, but that caused him to slow his heart and not breath. We were told that it isn't uncommon for this to happen, but if it starts happening more frequently he made need some medication for it. Tomorrow they will do another chest x-ray (today's was inconclusive) to see if he has any liquid down in there. For now they have cut his feeding back a little and give them over an hour instead of 40 minutes.

They told us that Jack hadn't gained any weight yesterday, he is still at 3 lbs 13 oz. I don't expect any gain toady either, since he missed a feeding and had all this stress going on. Since his incident he has been doing well. They had to bump his oxygen way up, but they are slowly weening it back down to where he was before he dropped his levels. I now really appreciate the days when I said I had nothing to report on but weight gain.