Cole's first meal takes a back seat.

Tonight Laura and I had the chance to visit Cole and feed him his first meal. More on that in a second. What is really on our hearts tonight is a conversation we had with a young lady at the CVICU. The story is long but worth it in my opinion.

THE LADY
Wednesday night around 10:30 pm, Laura and I were snooping around the Levine Children's Hospital trying to find the waiting room where we would be the next morning. The only person is the waiting room that night was an unforgettable lady. She was VERY friendly and looked up from her laptop with a big smile and said "hello" as we were trying to slip out unnoticed. We chatted for a bit and she informed us that Dr. Watts and Dr. Baird were operating on her 2 month old little girl at that moment and had been for over 10 hours. She was about 5 feet tall and probably would not weigh 90 pounds soaking wet after Thanksgiving dinner. How she had a baby only 2 months earlier is beyond me. She was very sweet and upbeat....very encouraging....the type of person that makes others feel good about themselves. I remember thinking that night that I wish everyone had the same demeanor as this young lady. Anyways, I must confess that I thought to myself and actually mentioned to Laura something that I am ashamed to admit now.

My selfish, scientific mind took over and I said "Wow, that is not good. If Dr. Watts and Dr. Baird are STILL here at 11 pm tonight that means that even if they finish up the surgery before midnight, by the time they scrub up and get home, they will not get to sleep before 1-2 am. They are supposed to be here at 7 am to begin surgery on our little boy. That means they would probably be arriving at the hospital around 6:30 am to scrub up (Pre-Ops), which puts them leaving their houses at 6 am and getting up around 5 am. So, if they get to bed at 2 am and have to get up at 5 am, that is only 3 hours of sleep. I do not want someone operating on our little boy on 3 hours of sleep. This is not a college exam, this is a life and death situation. Surely, they will delay Cole's surgery, right?"

Well, they did not delay Cole's surgery and everything went picture perfect. Come to think of it, after Laura and I saw Cole first thing after his surgery, we saw another baby girl in the room next to him that looked like her chest had been ripped open and she had been bleeding all over the table. Laura and I both saw the mom slumped over the bed and we looked away quickly before we could determine if this was the same girl or not. We both agreed later that it was. Later on we found out that the baby girl had been placed on the Heart/Jung machine.

Now that I have laid the groundwork for this story, fast forward with me to tonight. Laura and I were making our way into the CVICU as we talked about how well our son has been doing when we ran into this same girl. I asked her how her baby was doing and she just shook her head slowly. I am not sure why, but I felt compelled to ask her more so I turned and faced her and said "so, what is up, what is going on?" Her answer made we wish I did not ask. She said "my baby girl is fighting, she is just in there looking around at us....she is on the "ECMO" machine (a type of life support machine) and the doctors have told me that if her muscles do not get stronger, that there is nothing more they can do." I felt like someone had mule kicked me in the stomach. What do you say to a stranger whose 2 month old bundle of joy is about to die? Laura broke down and started to cry while this lady hugged her and encouraged her. "It's ok, don't cry....it's ok, don't cry." That is all she kept saying. That trumped anything that happened tonight and it makes me realize how fragile life can be. A baby can be doing well, and then one thing goes wrong, and bang.....they are gone.


COLE
After we composed ourselves, we went in to see Cole and he is doing so well that it makes us feel a little guilty. No matter what stage of this we have been in, we always see someone worse off. His oxygen levels have been between 95 and 80 (out of a possible 100) and were around 85 when we arrived. Anything north of 70 is good for him considering that he is less than 24 hours removed from heart surgery. He is totally off of the breathing machine and has been breathing on his own since 8:30 Friday morning. At least 3 nurses have said things to us like "he is doing so well" and "I cannot believe how well he is doing and how quickly he is recovering." Laura was able to feed him his first meal out of a bottle. He drank just over 1 ounce of Pedialyte and drank so fervently that his breathing slowed down. It was not a big deal because once we pulled the bottle away, his oxygen levels returned. One other cool thing was that she leaned over and put her head right up against his and sang him a song under her breath. Her voice was heavenly. I know she thinks she cannot sing, but I love to hear her sing and to watch her sing to our little boy hit me like Hiroshima. Anyways, he is doing GREAT.

Please continue to pray for Cole, but also life up the NICU warriors and especially this little girl that might die tonight. As we were leaving the hospital, we saw about a dozen of this girl's family showing up. Family arriving at 10:30 pm on a Friday night with heavy hearts....you do the math.

Anways, that is about all my fingers can handle tonight. Thanks for listening.


SATURDAY NIGHT UPDATE on "the lady"
Her name is Brianna and her little lady's name is Deanna. The doctor's gave her baby another 24 hours to be on the heart/lung machine and the baby's heart rate seems to be improving. She still needs to either get stronger but any improvement is great news. Please keep praying for her, and please put her above us on your prayer list. I know that sounds weird because you guys do not know her, and I know we all have requests, but her situations seems to be dire. Thanks.