The Good, the Bad, and the Worse!

After Court and I discussed it, we decided that we would be doing ourselves and our boys a disservice if we didn't document ALL that's been going on ie omitting the tough stuff.

The GOOD:
Alex is daddy's little rockstar!! We get to Kangaroo Care him every day, his feedings are every 3 hrs and he is up to 5ml per feeding. Little Alex is now over his birth weight......yaaaaay!! Court and I are having a little bit of a hard time not feeling guilty spending so much time and effort with Alex...but he has been doing the best and we want to do all the things allowable to help in his development. Anyone with multiples - feel free to comment and let me know if we are crazy for feeling this way.

The BAD:
As mentioned in an earlier post: Cade and Connor just weren't quite breathing well enough on their own so they had to be reintubated. After several days of this and the boys being NPO (no food just fluids) and several issues with O2 sats, an Echo cardiogram was ordered to check their PDA's. The echo showed that, though initially almost closed, both Cade and Connor's had significantly opened and was sharing oxygenated blood with deoxygenated blood - thus keeping the O2 levels low. The only way to correct at this point is through surgery.
PDA ligation is very minimally invasive routine procedure that clips off the vessel that is too immature to close on it's own. Surgery was done in the NICU - quick and at the time thought a success.

The WORSE:
After multiple X-Rays to check location of the clips - it is determined that Connor has a Pneumothorax - which requires the placement of a chest tube. Poor little buddy. The next day a follow up echo is performed to determine the effectiveness of the procedure and to ensure the blood flow of the PDA has ceased. Connor's normal, Cade's NOT NORMAL. Some how there is still a lot of blood flow through the PDA and very little blood flow through the pulmonary artery. When the reading cardiologist sees this he immediately calls the surgeon who then calls Court to tell her that her Baby will be going down to surgery as soon as he can get to the hospital to do a BIG surgery. Nightmares ensue.
Had to bring a team of people to take our little baby away to surgery where he would get an open thoracotomy to revise the initially placed clips and check to see if there is any bleeding. If you are a parent and have or have not experienced anything like this - it is about the worst thing you can imagine doing. After what seemed like one of the longest stretches of time in history, about an hour and a half, the surgeon comes to let us know that everything went great and that the PDA is closed and the pulmonary artery doesn't seem to be injured.

Day #3 since all this mess: Follow up XRAYS show Connor's pneumo is mostly gone and and we can take out his chest tube. Cade's XRAY is clean so his chest tube is removed as well! Also Cade's echo confirmed surgical results, closed PDA, pulmonary artery seems to be unfazed. As of press time - all doing pretty well. Cade has been on morphine most of the day to control any pain so very sleepy, and we think Connor comes off the vent tomorrow and starts feedings on Saturday.

Can't wait to hold them all..........we are very thankful for the prayers!!!

More soon
Justin