Marching On...

Our long awaited March for Babies is tomorrow morning in Dallas. We have been looking forward to this walk for months! This week we reached our Team goal of $3,000!!! Way to go Team Drake & Kennedy!!! Two weeks ago we were cleared by our doctor to participate in the walk, and all of our plans were set. Finally, our 1st BIG outing! I should have learned by now that things with Drake and Kennedy never go as I have planned. Drake developed a cough on Wednesday and then started running a fever on Thursday. The pediatrician said we could come in on Thursday or Friday morning, it was my call. I decided we couldn't take any chances, so we drove back to Tyler from McKinney and went straight to the doctor's office.

His temperature was 101.5 at the doctor, and we gave him another dose of fever medicine. She ran a CBC (Complete Blood Count), did a flu test and an RSV test. The CBC results were in before we left and everything was good! Since Drake's absolutely wonderful nurse followed us to Tyler and was staying the night with us, our doctor let us come home rather than admitting him. She gave us strict instructions that if his respirations went over 60x minute for longer than a 1/2 hour, then we would have to admit him. Drake's nurse and I took shifts with him during the night, and he rested peacefully. He slept in his swing in the living room hooked up to his pulse-oximeter. This was the first time he slept in a different room than Kennedy, and she definitely noticed. Once she goes to bed at night, she sleeps until morning...but not last night. She woke up about 1am, and she knew she was alone in her room. When I went in to get her, she had alligator tears and she clung to me like glue. I rocked her until she fell back to sleep. I know waking up crying and wanting to be rocked back to sleep is typical for some babies, but this is not at all like her.

This mornings visit to the doctor brought some much needed good news...both the flu test and RSV test were negative! It is wonderful that he does not have either of those but he does have a virus, and he is very sick. I know, I know, babies get sick...but the way a virus effects a micro-preemie is quite different than a virus on a full term baby. Yes, even an almost 10month old micro-preemie is still plagued by the effects of being born too early. We have added a steroid twice a day to his meds, are continuing with breathing treatments every 3-4hours and alternating Tylenol and Motrin every 3-4hrs as well. We were sent to get chest x-rays because his chest had a crackling sound, but luckily the X-rays looked great and his lungs are clear! This means it is not pneumonia!

We are sad that we will be missing our 1st March for Babies, but we will just anticipate our walk next year together, and it will be even more special! A BIG thank you to everyone who contributed to helping us reach our goal! Also, we are thankful for our family members who will be representing Team Drake & Kennedy tomorrow at the walk in our absence.