This weekend was really hard for Griffin.  And in turn, very hard for us.  We had gotten used to him being “stable” – mistake #1.  It turns out that his issues were normal for the staff and while they were concerned and attentive, Griffin’s issues were nothing they hadn’t dealt with before for babies his size.  As I write this, he is back to stable (for now) with some adjustments in medications and ventilators. 

Beginning on Friday afternoon, only hours after discussing whether or not to take him off the ventilator because he was doing so well, he started having spells where his heart rate and oxygen levels would drop dramatically.  The nurse or doctor would have to attach a bag to his ventilator to physically get his numbers back to safe levels.  A spell usually resulted in a team of staff around Griffin to check his status and rebound time.  This repeatedly happened on Friday and it is an understatement when I say it is very difficult to watch.  They conducted head ultrasounds, echo cardiograms and xrays to rule out serious issues like seizures, brain bleeds, heart defects…  all of these tests came back clear and yet he continued to have spells.  He was taken off the respiratory study because of all his issues and then somewhere in the midst of all of this his stomach stopped working and so they stopped his feeds.  Just the day before the Dr. had said, “the good thing is that we are giving him nutrition.” The next day – no nutrition.    On our way to a rugby game on Saturday, Tim and I prepared to spend a relaxing day together while my dad had the girls, we called the hospital for an update.  Not liking what we heard we bypassed the game to visit the boys.   40 minutes into our visit we had counted three major spells from Griffin.  What a reminder of how helpless Tim and I are, and how great the NICU staff is at doing their jobs!  That was Saturday afternoon and by the night the spells had subsided significantly.  Thank God!  Since then he has only had a couple more spells.   

During all of this Carter’s saturation levels (levels of oxygen in his blood) were dropping and rising, as they have been all week.  Both he and Griffin have sprouted infections in their respiratory system and have some signs of lung damage and so now both are on the jet machine.  This machine inflates the lungs gently and keeps them inflated.  Their lungs are described to me to be like rubber bands; the more they stretch and shrink the weaker they become.   So a jet machine can be helpful in reducing some of the damage that their lungs have from struggling to breath. 

Suffice it to say, we learned these past few days what it felt like to be on top of the rollercoaster, on the brink of the peak and then come racing down.  Like a rollercoaster our hearts were in our throats, and our hands in the air – truly letting go of any control we thought we had to let God and those equipped to do so take care of our boys. 

Today we slowly climbed back up the hill to the next peak…praying for a plateau at the top – I’d like to skip the hurling to the bottom if we can, I don’t mind just coasting slowly at the top for a while!