Another hard day

As the tone of yesterday's post might imply, it was a trying day for us in Woodyville. ROP-- check. Potential heart issue-- check. General listlessness-- check. I was in the hospital yesterday afternoon, and he just didn't seem right to me. He was not responsive and seemed out of it; he didn't flinch when we took his temperature (he hates the thermometer); he didn't seem to mind his diaper changes and cares, and he wasn't really seeming awake at all. But oddly enough, the thing that really made me know something was off was that he wouldn't grab my finger when I was holding his hand, and even when he's asleep, he tends to have a pretty strong grip.

So I told his nurse and the doctor on duty that something was off, and to their credit, they took me seriously and ordered some tests, and some of these preliminaries showed that he had some signs that he was fighting off some kind of infection. As a precaution, he was put on some wide spectrum antibiotics shortly thereafter. By the time we were back visiting him late last night, he seemed a bit more with it, and this morning he seems almost normal. I am beginning to be more confident that he's turning his status around and getting back into the general care plan, which is a relief.

Two things can still affect the short term plans for him. First, his ROP diagnosis shows that he has a fast moving variant of it, so if it hasn't slowed down by next Monday's analysis (I hasten to note that it's still not a severe form of it, it's just quick), we're likely to be having laser surgery by mid-week next. Second, his second echocardiogram is today, and we will know more about what that means by later today or early tomorrow. However, the cardiologist that examined him early this morning said that it's not the most serious possibility, because he has no accompanying heart murmur. Again, we will see!