Thursday

We spent a lot of time over at the NICU today. Delaney was on a pretty good run over the last 24 hours. We try not to get cocky or complacent about her condition because she humbles us in a hurry.

The NICU staff talks a lot about "A's" and "B's". The A refers to apnea of prematurity, which is when she stops breathing. Those bouts are typically more frequent than the B's, which are no fun to watch. The B refers to bradycardia, or "Brady's", which is when her heart rate slows suddenly and significantly. Normally her heart rate is between 140 and 160 beats / minute. When she has a brady her heart rate slows way down, sometimes less than 50 beats / minute. You can see when it happens on her monitor and then time seems to stand still while she (with aid from the nurses sometimes) works to recover. Her color changes from her well oxygenated red/pink to what they call "dusky" (blue/gray). I guarantee you we will never get used to seeing that. I think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time today, so were present during several of the brady spells. Standing back watching your child struggle is like your worst bad dream.

The doctors have kept her on the nasal cannula, and Delaney seems to like it. We worry about her little nose and face with all the strain that it's been through. So many things to worry about.