If there's one thing that invades my dreams more than anything else these days, it's the constant beeping and dinging sounds of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
There are always alarms going off somewhere for some baby. Most of the alarms are minor notices indicating O2 levels are too high or too low, and those alarms usually ebb and flow without much excitement on the part of the nurses and doctors; it's just the everyday harmony they've grown to expect in the NICU. For me, on the other hand, each bleep, ding or buzz is cause to swallow my heart back down my throat.
I'll admit I've gotten more used to the alarms, and I'm starting to discern which are common and which are less so, but they all leave me slightly stricken because they are, after all, alarms, and alarms by and large have been a source of concern throughout my life.
I've become so attuned to some NICU alarms, I can actually tell which are emanating from Zoey's room, even when I'm down a hallway some 50 feet away; the automatic doors to the NICU swing open and right away I can hear the chorus of beeps and dings and my ears know just which are trumpeting forth from Zoey's room. It's almost uncanny.
I imagine, if Finn were still alive in the room next to his sister's, I would also have developed an ear for his unique rhythm. As it is, I only have the memory of his nearly constant orchestra of foreboding alarms. The theme for "Jaws" had nothing on the sound of Finn's vital alarms going off almost in perpetuity. By comparison, Zoey's vital alarm score could be the theme to "Brian's Song."
It's surprising just how those beeps and dings have worked their way into my subconscious. I can fall asleep in front of the TV, and a certain note in a certain song or background noise will wake me bolt upright.
I'm like Pavlov's dog, without the eventual treat.
Today was a good day. No drama either way. So, I think I'll just take a break tonight.
Lest you start thinking my life is a constant din of grim resolution and sadness, I must point out there are little glimmers of happiness, such as today when Aiden donned a toy stethoscope and crawled into his toy box, for no apparent reason beyond the fact it seemed like a fun thing to do.
We received a call from the NICU at 5 a.m., which by itself is enough to make my brain go into over-imaginative hyper-drive. I've grown to dread NICU calls, but calls coming in at 5 a.m. are almost guaranteed bad news. Somehow, I just don't think a 5 a.m. call will be to inform us our daughter has developed the capability to poop solid gold nuggets, thus drastically helping pay for her medical bills.
No, this morning's call was to inform us Zoey had to be placed back on the respirator, since her sleep apnea spells were occurring too often and the little girl was, frankly, becoming exhausted.
This kind of news always seems to come with the proviso that steps back like this shouldn't be seen purely as a negative. Nurses and doctors routinely remind us each preemie baby situation is different, and no one care template works for any two babies. It's all just a great, grand balancing act with expected steps forward and back.
But it's all annoying and frustrating, regardless. I could reassure myself 100 times each day that Zoey going back on the respirator isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it just underscores how insanely precarious her situation is day-to-day, or even hour-to-hour.
We sat down with a social worker today who started us down the additional seemingly impossible path of paying for all this medical miracle work. At the end of the meeting she asked how we were coping, and then she suggested we try to work out a schedule to help us better sleep and recuperate.
It's good advice, at least as far as the words go, but putting together such a schedule seems laughable on its face. In the first place, my wife can't drive until her c-section incision heals and, speaking as the guy who dresses that gaping wound every morning and evening, I don't think she'll be driving any time within the next month. Therefore, getting to the hospital is basically an impromptu family affair, unless we manage to secure a babysitter, which is itself a rather murky undertaking. Each day has so far been a remarkable exercise in improvisational logistics.
Sheer exhaustion is another major player in all this. I managed, at most, about 45 minutes of sleep last night, and what sleep there was was haunted by incubator dreams and Finn's passing, to say nothing of the financial calculations ringing in my head in a seemingly endless stream. Focusing on actual freelance writing work when I can steal away even for an hour is almost an exercise in futility.
We have to remind ourselves daily that the last couple weeks and the upcoming three or four weeks have been and will be the hardest of this whole ordeal. Gradually, things simply have to get better. When I think back to the first three days, it's almost downright shocking we managed to pull ourselves through that inky blackness. I'd likely remember it all only as a blur of activity and emotion if I hadn't written it all down while it was still fresh in my mind.
Hopefully, tomorrow will begin with good news. If not, it's not like we haven't had a lot of practice dealing with the alternative lately.
I managed to take a nap for about an hour today. I should have been writing a freelance article, but in exhaustion-heavy days such as those of the past couple weeks, you take sleep whenever your body allows or demands.
I had a very, very vivid dream. It was so vivid, in fact, I was somewhat surprised to wake up and realize it actually was a dream.
In the dream, I was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) hospital wing, and every room, corner, desk and doorway was exactly where they actually are, but there was no equipment of any kind, anywhere. Every hallway, room and open space was completely empty. Only the walls, windows and doors remained. And there were no people to be found, either.
I just roamed from empty room to empty room, vaguely curious where they moved my daughter, but mostly I was sort of enjoying the open, uncluttered quietness of it all, with only my footsteps echoing in the caverness spaces.
As with most dreams I can actually remember, I've spent time on and off today trying to make sense of the dream, but mostly I think it was just my subconscious trying to strip away all the NICU noise and activity and exist in that place in open solitude, if only for a short while. It must have been some sort of mental coping mechanism, because I did feel a bit less stressed following the dream.
It's one of those things: I know I dress my wife's C-section incision better, more thorough and with more care, but my wife still prefers having a strange woman with a drawl come in and do it for $$ because she's considered a nurse and who says reassuring things. For some reason, saying "of course it hurts, it's a wound like Goldie Hawn's in "Death Becomes Her" doesn't reassure her. Women.
Today, while playing with my 15-month-old boy, Aiden, Finn's hospital birth bracelet tore and fell off my wrist.
It's one of those things some people would ascribe great meaning or symbolism to, but I'm not necessarily one of those people. Of COURSE the bracelet tore; it's been on my wrist for 11 days for crying out loud, including showers and clothes changes. If anything, it's surprising it lasted as long as it did.
That said, seeing it off my wrist for the first time brought a lot of the pain and sadness back, if only very briefly, because I had come to rely on the bracelet almost as a sort of talisman when visiting Finn's sister, Zoey, in the NICU following Finn's death.
The last several days have been the most emotional, difficult and unexpected of my entire life, so I tend to cling to things that represent some sort of familiarity and order, as well as items that tether me to things lost. Finn's bracelet provided all of that, so going into the NICU wearing it almost gave me the feeling I was somehow still visiting Finn, too.
And yet, I was able to visit Zoey this evening and still imagine Finn being there as well, so some crutches really aren't necessary forever, even if they help get me through some of the toughest times.
Today marked a milestone for my daughter, Zoey, as she made the transition off the standard respirator, and she seems to be responding well. This could change within the hour, of course, since all progress should be acknowledged with the understanding things can occur requiring a rollback. Just as Zoey had to briefly be put back on an oscillating respirator earlier this week so, too, can she again require the regular ventilator.
For now, at least, there's a brief window of time to sit back, sigh, and just enjoy this bit of good fortune floating in the sea of bad luck sewage that has been the hallmark of the last week and-a-half. The way things have gone, I wouldn't be surprised to learn her NICU room is constructed entirely of asbestos, thus increasing her risk of mesothelioma or something.
Unfortunately, the tragic turn of events that greeted us at the end of December, as well as the gaping hole left in our lives by Finn's passing, has numbed my wife and me considerably when it comes to the sheer medical miracle that Zoey is still with us and fighting strong. We've been so mired in grief and sorrow, the everyday fact of Zoey's continued existence almost seems like it's the least fate could give us. Nay, owes us.
But, she is alive. And, it is rather miraculous.
She was delivered via C-section at a paltry 1 lb. 4.5 oz. I like to use the analogy of her being the size of a TV remote control, but that doesn't really convey the reality. Her tiny size didn't register for me until I saw her footprints alongside the footprints of my first son, Aiden, when he was born at 8 lb. 15 oz. The difference is truly staggering, like Andre the Giant next to Vern Troyer. And I remember thinking, 15 months ago, how the hell we were going to keep AIDEN ALIVE.
The delicate balance of drugs, medications, fluids, oxygen and general environment required to keep a 24-week old preemie alive is ridiculously complex. Each time I visit Zoey, I have to practically squint past the banks of machines and monitors to see the little wriggling putty of flesh that is my daughter.
The first five or six times I visited the twins in their incubators, I wept uncontrollably, because it honestly didn't seem possible anything could keep them clinging to life for the next four days, to say nothing of the next four months. This pessimism was not helped in the least when Finn died within two days. If anything, Finn put an exclamation point on the seeming impossibility of it all.
And yet Zoey is now breathing on her own, and I can't help but root for the little spitfire. I mean, she was obviously frazzled by the transition, but in a completely inadvertent flail of her arms today, it almost looked as if she was flipping something off. Possibly the odds.
Preemie babies are obviously dealt a supremely shitty hand, and the earlier they arrive, you're practically praying they're holding onto at least a pair of twos.
And yet, something remarkable happens. The lungs, which are about the most undeveloped organs in their whole bodies, can somehow be persuaded to kick things into developmental gear. It's not an exact science, but the organs that are normally one of the last ones asked to perform can be coaxed from the bench and perform a game-saving series of plays that can make even the most die-hard pessimist hope, optimistically, for a victory. Preemie lungs are the Detroit Lions or the Cincinnati Bengals, or an expansion team.
Today was a good day. A much-needed good day. For all of us.
Tomorrow? Who the fuck knows?
But, you know what? I'm hopeful, and that's huge. At least until I'm informed about the NICU asbestos and mesothelioma thing. I kid, I kid.
Ugh.
If I may switch gears just for a bit here. May I? Please? Oh thank you so very much.
I've only just recently become aware of the latest government attempt to push a dollar coin on an American public that has steadfastly refused such coercion since, roughly, 1928.
The Susan B. Anthony dollars of 1979 were a mistake, admittedly. They looked too much like a quarter and, even one experience paying $1 for something that only costs 25 cents is one time too many.
So, the government borrowed an idea from our neighbors to the North--Canada, for the slow kids on this blog--and released gold-colored Sacajawea dollars, which were largely used as a creative way to make a $5 graduation donation seem somehow flashy.
As low as the government set the dollar coin bar, you'd think they would have made at least some attempt to surpass their previous failures but, no, the current dollar coin iteration makes one pause and consider the artistic mastery of Monopoly money by comparison.
How serious am I? Several months ago, my wife and I stopped by a automobile sales event that proclaimed they were giving out "GOLD COINS," so we thought we'd see what the scam was. The dealership gave us both two "GOLD COINS," and I honestly thought they were some sort of cheesy fake promotion, so I just tossed them in a drawer when I got home and thought nothing else of them. I mean, jeezum crow, I've seen arcade tokens with better design.
Then, last week, I received three similar dollar coins in vending machine change and I thought "Huh. Maybe these things are legit," so I looked at them a little closer, and the closer I looked the more annoyed I got.
Understand, I used to collect coins, so there are certain things I look for any time an unusual coin lands in my hand. One of the first things you look for is the year it was minted, followed by locating the mint mark indicating the city in which it was struck. I searched my first new dollar coin for these telltale clues and simply could not find them, and it wasn't until I inspected the next dollar coin that I understood why.
Apparently, the geniuses behind the new coin design decided to put the year, mint mark and the phrase "e pluribus unum" on the EDGE of the coin, in impossibly thin and shallow lettering. The reason I couldn't find the year and mint mark on the first coin was because. . . they had been worn off!!! That's right, two of the most important coin designations--at least for coin collectors--are located on the part of the coin that undergoes the most wear. This is like putting a license plate on the wheel of a car.
I also noticed the word "LIBERTY" was nowhere to be found, which is a staple on any coin you normally carry in your pocket. I learned, after a little research, the world LIBERTY was deemed unnecessary because the Statue of Liberty appears prominently on the coin, so the LIBERTY is "understood." This struck me as a strange bit of logic, considering "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" is splashed quite visibly as a banner over Lady Liberty. I mean, using the previous logic, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA should just be understood, because there's a previous American president on the front and the Statue of Liberty on the back. It's all just so OBVIOUS.
Anyway, I find the new dollar coins annoying for these obvious reasons, but also at a more asthetic level. Consider:
Seriously, which one would you be more proud to carry in your pocket?
