“If he gets through today okay, he could be home in a day or two”
The doctors upgrade you from oxygen via nasal cannula to noninvasive ventilation, with air rushing through thick tubes that blow the house down.
It doesn’t take much to see how suffocated you feel. When you cry your hoarse cry, and Tatty grabs your hands off the tubes, I do a 180° turn. Then the doctors decide that even tube-fed mommy-milk is too much for you, and you will need to make do with IV fluids so you can focus exclusively on breathing. You cry from hunger, and I cry with you. Big hot tears slide down my face — outside the room. I can’t be in the same room with you and tease you with my presence.
But you’re still working too hard to breathe. The doctors move us from an RSV ward to a huge room all our own. They want to be prepared in case they need to intubate you. You’re so agitated, I ask to give you just one quick feed. “No,” the nurse practically screams, shoving me as she rushes toward the beeping monitor. “This baby is going down.”
I can’t repeat the words, and they stay stuck in my throat. When a kind-looking doctor comes by, I ask him what the best-case scenario is. “It’s day five today,” he says. “If he gets through today okay, he could be home in a day or two.”
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