The Truth

The truth. That's what I started this blog for. I promised myself I wouldn't sugar coat anything. I was never going to pretend to be stronger than I am. I was never going to lie to myself or anyone else about how "strong" or "put together" or "resilient" we are, or to tell everyone that "everything is fine", when in reality it's not. I think that does more damage than good. The truth is, I think we're all entitled to a break down at some point. We're all entitled to a bad day. We're all allowed to feel despair. I think the challenge is to not let those emotions take command of our plane. The crushing moment happens..... we feel pain.... we feel sad.....we feel angry, but in due time, we let ourselves rise above and allow the hope to creep back in.

It has not been a week full of "hope creeping back in" days.

The days have been full of so much "bad news", "set backs" and "what-ifs", that at one point I found myself sobbing in a bathroom so uncontrollably that I felt my knees buckle beneath me. The only thing to keep me standing upright was my sister-in-law Lisa, wrapping her arms around me and holding me up.

The infection has been a lot harder to kill than we thought and it has caused a lot more problems than I ever thought possible.

All day Wednesday Dalley was having a hard time keeping her oxygen saturations up. Whenever her oxygen levels drop below 85% saturation, an alarm starts going off on her machine. When this happens, the nurse just increases the amount on the ventilator. However... this didn't happen on Wednesday night. I was sitting by her bed and kept watching her oxygen saturation fall. The nurse would get up and increase the settings on the machine. But with every change in the machine, her oxygen still kept falling. Finally the machine was up to 100% and her oxygen was still dropping. Past 70... past 60... past 50.....  past 40. WHAT WAS HAPPENING!?!?

I stared at the monitor and then back at the panicked nurse. I could not just watch this happen. I stood up and paced the room as additional nurses, Neonatal Nurse Practitioners, respiratory therapists, Neonatologist, Fellow's all came rushing to her bed. She started to turn color from a nice healthy pink, to a pale white... almost blue.

I walked into the hall and called Adam. I just cried. He knew immediately that something was wrong and it instantly sparked an emotional response from him as well.

"Is she okay? Is everything okay? Lacey.... is she okay?"

"I don't know. I'm scared. You need to come be with us."

He immediately got in the car and started driving while I just leaned against the wall and slithered to the floor. It felt like I was there forever. I didn't have the courage to go be with her. I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to see what was happening. I was frozen with terror.

It felt like an hour, but in reality it was probably a few minutes before the Neonatologist, Dr Yost came and sat by me on the floor. I asked him if it was bad. He shook his head and said no. I asked him if Adam needed to come to be with us. He said, "we're not there yet."

YET!!!??????  I still felt pending doom. A nurse took me into the consultation room where I waited for news while Adam drove. It wasn't long before a Neonatologist fellow came in the room to tell me that she was stable again.

They had completed an x-ray really quickly and saw that her lungs were almost completely collapsed. The infection had caused an inflammatory response in her and all of the fluid and white blood cells had settled in her lungs. There was hardly any gas exchange going on.

They quickly increased the settings on the ventilator and expanded her lungs again and started her on nitric oxide. It worked. Her numbers became stable again and she started to turn a nice healthy pink. I called Adam and told him the crisis was over. He turned back around and we just cried on the phone the rest of his drive back.

That was Wednesday night and the past two days have been damage control. ......For both Dalley and myself. She is still requiring a lot more from the ventilator and I am realizing that this might be bigger than me right now. I realize that we might need a lot more help to get through this than we thought.

Today has been a better day. I've had some really amazing people stay by my side the past few days to make sure that I would be okay until Adam got here. I asked my sister to take a week off work to be with me next week. She agreed without question. Adam's classmates have been so supportive and kind. They started a meal calendar for people to bring him meals to make sure that he is eating.. even though he initially denied the service. Thank you.

The truth is.... we all need a little extra help every once in a while. Dalley is needing extra help from the ventilators while she kicks this infection. Adam and I may need a little extra help to get through these humps as well. ... and I think that's okay.

"I WILL CONQUER!" - Dalley Raye Garfield

I took this picture of Dalley today. It perfectly sums up our week. We came out victorious..... but not without our battle wounds.