SuperNolan!
Before the chatty stuff, the quick news is that the surgery was successful and Nolan came through it great. Hooray!
Today was Nolan’s four week birthday — happy birthday, Nolan! One of his main squeeze nurses, Trish, brought in birthday cupcakes for the trooper. Okay, not actually for him to have — I think it’s against NICU policy to blend up cupcakes and mix them with the breast milk at feeding time. Something about too much sugar?… The cupcakes were superman cupcakes, because Nolan is such a tough little superhero in battling all these problems. How sweet is that?
The superman emblem is actually a ring on top of the cupcake. While we were waiting for news from the surgery, we had pizza and cupcakes in the NICU waiting room and thought superpower birthday thoughts for Nolan. We put on the superman rings and actually laughed a bit and had some fun mixed in with the anxiety of waiting. Apparently it worked, because soon after, Nolan’s surgeon appeared with good news. Nolan was out of surgery already, and they had indeed found a necrotic area in his intestines.Now, we’d rather he didn’t have a necrotic area at all, but given that he had an infection, it was good that they were able to find a clear problem and deal with it. They don’t know if the necrotic tissue is the chicken or the egg with the infection, but removing it should help him get over the infection at this point. If it had not been removed, he would have died, so I guess it’s an understatement to say it will help him. The surgeon removed about 8cm of small intestine and 2cm of large intestine, which Dad pointed out means Nolan will never get appendicitis. So, hey, he’s ahead of the other kids in that department… The surgeon also said that the other parts of his gastrointestinal system that he saw looked great, and that there was very healthy intestine on either side of the clearly dead intestine, which is not always the case. It means it’s quite likely that they got everything they needed to get and no more, and they shouldn’t have to repeat surgery as they might if it was less clear which tissue needed to go and which didn’t.
We were warned that the next three days or so will be very rough on Nolan. He will take on a lot of fluid (he already had, but it won’t get better right away) and that will impact his lung function. So, though he’s out of surgery with no immediate complications, we expect a fair amount of nail biting over the weekend, and there’s the possibility that it will just be too much for his lungs. They hope that Nolan will begin improving lung function on Sunday (back towards the pre-infection baseline, which wasn’t great but was a lot better than the recent crises).
With all that dire stuff said, I’m pleased to report that his stats when we saw him just after surgery were great. He was saturating at 97% on just 40% oxygen, and he was steady as could be in all the things they monitor on those screens. On the monitor, he looked like a different baby to me. I’m glad to be forewarned that things will likely go downhill for a few days, because it would be easy to think he was out of the woods with this one. Of course, it is wonderful to see him so stable, even if it is short-lived.
Kara and Ronan are spending the night at the hospital in a “parent sleep room” that the NICU has for this sort of time, when parents want to stay close to their baby but also need to sleep. Imagine that.
I’m including a picture of Nolan from tonight. As you can see, he’s very swollen with fluid, but that’s just his four-week-old phase and with luck, he’ll be out of that phase soon.
Sweet dreams to all.
Love,
Maria
Friday, October 13, 2006 at 9:40 am
We are praying and cheering Nolan on to recovery and growth! Olive and Doug keep us updated, but now we have this wonderful website! Let us know what you need; we’re closeby!
Friday, October 13, 2006 at 9:51 am
Wow!!! All of our love and prayers are with you tonight, tommorrow and always through all of this. We are rooting for you little Nolan! Best to the three of you and your families and the extended clan that are urging the little guy on through all of this. Thanks Maria for keeping all of us up to date, it means a lot to everyone. Bless you all.
Friday, October 13, 2006 at 12:23 pm
YIPPEEEEEEEeeeeeee!! & Happy Birthday love hazel
Friday, October 13, 2006 at 2:14 pm
With wolverine for a granpappy and spiderham for a dad, I think it very fitting that Nolan’s party has a superhero theme. And anyone who knows his parents, knows that superheroism runs in the family. I, of course, was hoping that he’d take the water route and be more like Aquaman, but I’m just glad he’s claiming his brithright so soon.
Peter