A Small Bump in the Road for William

The boys had been having a great week and I think Alex and I just got comfortable with only hearing good news.  So we were completely caught off guard yesterday when the nurse practitioner called and told us that William was sick.  He had been bradying (sudden heart rate drops) more than normal and his labs came back with high blood platelets and a low white blood cell count and he was just acting like he wasn't feeling well by being really lethargic.  They had sent some of his blood to be checked for bacterial infections, but they also needed our consent to do a spinal tap so they could rule out bacterial meningitis.  Pretty scary.  Every time I hear meningitis I can only think of when my sister Sydney got near-death sick with bacterial meningitis at 10 months old and lost her hearing.  On top of that Alex had a minor sore throat that day so she had to stay away from the NICU.

I hurried down to the hospital and walked in the boy's room just as the nurses were prepping William for the spinal tap.  I pray I never have to have one of those and it was pretty tough to watch your 3 week old premie have to have one.  Luckily for my emotions William didn't cry out at all while they did the procedure, which I guess was more indication that he really isn't feeling very well.  The results from the spinal tap were only going to take a few hours so I stuck around the hospital until they came back.  As a big relief to all of us his spinal fluid was normal so they can rule out meningitis.  We need to wait a few days for his bacterial cultures to come back, so in the mean time they have put him back on an IV and started a 3-day series of antibiotics.  It's also possible that he has just got a viral infection in which case we will just have to wait it out.  To help him breath while he is fighting the bug they have put him back on the high-flow oxygen.

It has been tough seeing him go through his increased brady episodes and desat spells.  Both boys normally do this several times a day, however when healthy they quickly recover on their own and if it weren't for their monitor alarms we probably wouldn't notice.  However since William is sick he just doesn't have the energy to bounce back from the episodes, so the the nurse or us need to help stimulate him to get him back and it is the first time I've visually seen him turn blue.  Kind of a wake up call that as well as Winston and William have been doing they really are still sick and need to be in intensive care.

I'm sure that this will turn out to be just a small bump in their road to them coming home with us.  Despite William being sick they both gained weight last night and Winston passed the 4 pound mark!  William is only two ounces behind him.  This morning William looked visibly better than last night and seemed to have more of his usual energy.  Hopefully he will be doing even better tonight when I stop by to visit them.  And hopefully Alex is feeling better soon so that she can get back to visiting them.

Today marks their 21st day in the NICU.  Only 46 days until their due date!  We can't wait for them to be healthy enough to come home.

William shortly after his spinal tap procedure.  Even when he is sick he his pretty darn cute.