Good grief...

Well, it's Monday evening, and thanks to some great neighbors, Mary and I came up to visit Isaac and Janel after the kids were in bed. Today turned out to be more challenging than we hoped, though the prognosis for Isaac is still good. We're at that phase in the journey where Isaac is showing strong improvement, but the doctors are still super curious about what is going on. As expected, all tests are coming back negative. Our preference would be to just hold off on the testing for a while. After all, Isaac is really improving.

Well, this afternoon they nearly tested him to the limits. I blogged earlier about taking him off the C-PAP--a very good development, and he's been responding like a champ to the little oxygen he is currently on. Well, the next step, as far as we were concerned, was beginning to feed Isaac again. Janel was just about ready to give him a bottle when a resident doctor came in and said they didn't want her to feed him until they came and drew more blood. Crud. The whole drawing blood routine with a newborn is miserable, and after today we're going to make some noise about the process.

I'm all about teaching the next generation of doctors how to be good doctors, but enough is enough. Looking back on the day, this is what it looks like from here: This is a teaching hospital. New doctors need to learn how to draw blood from newborns. We have (by PICU standards) a relatively healthy baby. "OH GOODY!" shout all the doctors-in-waiting, "let's all practice on the Stucky baby!" Well, forget that. Their goal was to get 4cc's of blood. Three resident doctor practice sessions later, they still did not have enough blood, his IV line had been compromised, and little Isaac was utterly exhausted. Oh yes, and in the midst of all this, the cardio folks showed up and did an echo on his heart. (And this happened to coincide with our nurse taking her lunch break which meant some other nurses were 'covering' for her which resulted in some interesting and mildly stressful drama between the echo technician and the 'covering' [in a medical, not a pious sort of way] nurses.)

Finally, they gave up getting the 4cc's. "We'll wait until morning," they say. "Go ahead and feed him." By this time, of course, Isaac is almost too exhausted to eat. What a crock.

Well, partly as a result of all the sticking, Isaac had to get a new IV put in. Wouldn't you know they called down a nurse from the neo-natal intensive care unit who happened to get it in right the first time. Needless to say, if they are compelled to try for more blood tomorrow, we will be screaming loudly for a nurse from the NICU.

So now they say we should hope to be home by next weekend, even though it could well happen before then. "We have to wait until he starts eating well." SO STOP EXHAUSTING HIM WITH ALL YOUR STINKING TESTS!

Really, we are optimistic. Isaac is resting well, and we're hoping he'll be eating well by morning. Thanks to all who are praying. We feel your prayers, and we're keeping faith as best we can. Hopefully, there will be good news in the morning.