Spell Watch 2012

I bet you have just been wondering what the Weishaars have been up to for the last week! Well, let me tell you, it has been another week of ups and downs in the NICU... Last week Thursday I was told that Easton would have an MRI on Monday, we would room in on Saturday, and head home on Monday. That very night he had a brady spell that restarted the 5-7 day spell watch and shattered all hopes of our Monday homecoming. On Saturday morning Kasey and I headed to the hospital early so I could nurse him. It went terribly. He bradyed. Twice and both times required stimulation to bring his heart rate back up. We also learner that his hematocrit level had droppednfrom 27 to 23 in two weeks. The low end of a normal level is 30. That helped explain why he was having more frequent and more severe bradycardias. His nurse said that she would talk to the doctor about a possible transfusion. Although we didn't want him to have to go through a transfusion, we knew that it would help give him the needed energy to keep taking all feeds by mouth, grow, maintain body temperature, as well as keep his heart rate up. We decided to let him rest for the remainder of the day without visitors. I went home and slept in hopes of warding off all of the disappointed mommy tears that were building behind my eyes. We got a call later that day informing us that Easton would not be transfused because his retic (makes new red blood cells) was high and we needed to give his body the opportunity to fix itself. We understood the doctor's decision but were worried about how hard our buddy's body would have to work over the next several days. For three days Easton continued having multiple spells a day and mommy was a wreck. Sunday things started looking brighter. We had a nurse that thought we needed to do much more breast feeding and take him from his every four hour feedings back to every three hours. She thought that maybe he was over wafting and having bradys because of reflux issues. I spent most of the day at the hospital nursing him he had a great day without any spells. On Monday I came in to find him sitting in his car seat! He had passed his car seat test for up to 90 minutes! That night I stayed at the hospital to breast feed. He had another great day. Tuesday the doctors started talking about scheduling his MRI and circumcision for later this week. These are the last items to cross off of our going home check list. Easton is having another good day today and I am hoping that our Brady days are behind us. Fingers crossed for a couple more spell-free days! (Update from this evening: circ and MRI will be done tomorrow! Hopefully these procedures don't stress the little dude out too badly.)