Days turn to weeks

It seems that the last 48 hours have been one extremely long day. Tuesday night we went in to visit Lincoln and we questioned if the nurse was paying attention to the IV in his forehead. There was a red mark around it that we thought appeared to be getting worse. He said he was informed about it and they were keeping an eye on it. Another nurse passing by said that the IV had not been compromised and if it had his forehead would have fluid in it. She poked at his forehead and realized that it had indeed leaked out. They pulled out the IV and started the 12 hour process of trying to get in another line. A little later a doctor came in and told our nurse to stop Lincolns feedings in preparation for his surgery. Will told the doctor that he might be confusing us with another baby because Lincoln wasn't scheduled for surgery until Thursday. Indeed he was and would have stopped Lincoln's feedings because he got confused. We spent the next few hours by Lincoln's side because we were afraid of what might happen if we were to leave.

Yesterday morning things were looking pretty good. Lincoln was off the ventilator, off oxygen and he only had 3 fluids going into him. First thing in the morning the surgeon informed me that Lincoln's white blood cell count went up which may be the first sign of an infection. The surgery will have to be put off until he is better. We still had the problem of not having an IV. Through out the day they made several attempts to get another one in and finally got it after about 8 tries. Will stood by his side and did what I was not capable of doing. He held his pacifier in his mouth as they poked him over and over again. Lincoln just stared wide eyed at Will. It broke his heart.

Around 11:00pm the IV started to leak so they decided that it was time for a more invasive central line, which would require giving him a sedative. At 2am they called us and told us that he had not responded well to the sedative and after needing to be resucitated he was back on the ventilator. We are still waiting for the cultures to come back to see what type of infection he might have, and until then he is on a general antibiotic. The doctors think that it may be an infection in his intestines. Another possibility is that he could have a viral infection, putting off the surgery a couple of weeks. The thought of waiting even longer kills me, I just want to know that he will be ok. We both know that everything will work out the way it is supposed to. Lincoln is the strongest baby in the world. Please keep praying for him. (And that I don't lose my sanity) But most importantly Lincoln. He is currently sedated and we are just waiting for him to kick this infection. But here are some pictures from yesturday before all the tubes returned. We got to hold him again!

One bit of good news is that we finally got a room at the Ronald McDonald House today so we no longer have to sleep on the hospital couch and we can unpack our stuff. Thank you all so much for your support and prayers.