May 11, 2010

Benjamin is two months old today and our little man had to spend a good chunk of the day back in the operating room. He was very agitated last night as his nurse was “doing him up” (taking his temp, changing his lines, etc.) and I went over to try and calm him. As I looked down at his legs, I noticed a lot of blood. We soon realized his PICC line (central line) had broken. This line is about 7 inches long and runs through his leg and up into his chest. He gets his nutrition and fat through this central catheter so we were pretty upset when this happened. The doctor on call thought it was a defective PICC because he said it should never have broken like it did. Go figure! They unsuccessfully attempted to run a new line a few times during the night. This morning the surgical fellow told us the best bet was to insert a line into Benjamin’s neck and out through his chest so that’s what they did.

The surgery took a lot longer than expected and I can’t even tell you how excited I was to see him when they announced over the intercom in the NICU that “the post op was returning to Bay 7.” I knew he had to be paralyzed during the surgery, but I was still shocked when I saw him because his eyes were open, but they didn’t move. It was only a matter of minutes before the paralytic started to wear off and he was wiggling his little toes. He was obviously wiped out because he spent the remainder of the day riding the vent (not taking too many breaths on his own) and in a deep sleep.

We did get some good news today… Benjamin’s platelet count increased a bit which means his body is starting to clear whatever infection he had! He’ll be on the antibiotics for a few more days and then they’ll do another dye study to make sure there isn’t any new scarring in the portion of his intestine above the ostomy. If all goes well, they’ll most likely try and start feeds again this weekend. He’s 34 weeks gestation and at the point where he knows when his tummy is empty and cries when he’s hungry. He’s really taken to the pacifier which is great, but it pulls at my heartstrings to know he wants to eat, but can’t. I have close to 500 bottles of frozen breast milk (I’m not kidding) and I would love to see him get some of it soon!