02/11/2008

Well, today is a huge HUGE day in the life of Emery Tillberg. I'm sure most of you read about the update yesterday about what I had talked about with Dr. A, who I am sad to say will be leaving in February 14 and will not be back until June. He did say he would come in and check on Emery now and again. I know doctors and nurses get attached to patients, but I never thought we'd get attached to a doctor. Anway, after talking with him yesterday I simply resigned to the fact that Emery was going to be on this vent for long, long time. I read in a March of Dimes post about boy who had spent 104 days on the vent, and today is actually day 55 of the NICU, so I figured another 50 days and if he wasn't off then I'd start to worry. I guess part of why I was worried was that he's been on the oscillator, and if for some reason Emery had to have long-term ventilation and a tracheostomy in order to get him home, it was never going to happen with an oscillator. Well, today Erik and I walked in and, the first thing I always do is look at the monitor to see how his sats have been for the past few hours and I ran into Erik because he stopped to look at the room name. He was convinced that the baby in the bed wasn't ours. When I walked in, I walked back out as well to get the nurse. You see, Emery's on the conventional vent, a Servo-I, now, which means if he remains stable and doesn't have a massive steroid rebound, Erik and I will be holding him as early as Tuesday. He is no longer clamped to the bed. This vent is actually teaching him how to breathe on his own. Dr. A decided it was time to challenge Emery. The nurses were all laughing and excited for us today and we don't know what to think. We also learned the true miracle of Emery today. Dr. A said that had Emery been born at another institution, even another level III NICU, he probably wouldn't have made it. We are so very lucky he has a chance to live. The survival rate here is very high compared to the national average. Go Hawks! (hee hee hee) Anyway, Erik had talked about some laughs in the NICU. Let me just tell you about some of our escapades. We have nick-named most of the doctors around here. Erik likes to call my OB/GYN Dr. Viper because he sort of looks like Viper from Top Gun (Tom Skerritt), so any time something breaks or goes wrong, he says "call Dr. Viper. He'll figure it out.) He did save both of our lives. He also likes to call one of the fellows from here in the NICU Dr. Smart Butt because she had the audacity to tell him about how to handle breast milk. Erik has become an authority on breast milk. When I was being loaded with magnesium (gasoline for the veins) he kept hooking me up to the pump and milking me like a cow. I couldn't even talk I was on so many drugs but I got milked and he traveled back and forth to the NICU with my milk, so now he's an expert. This week a new doctor will be coming on to take Dr. A's place.