I left off at Evan's two weeks old and we meet with his pediatrician. We scheduled a follow up with her colleague for the following Friday, June 2nd. He hit 3 weeks old and was still breathing fast. She repeated the CBC and the metabolic panels just to make sure everything was still normal. I went by myself because Derek was volunteering at field day at Maya's school. They both had a blast. But I had to hold Evan down for the stick alone. It was painful but quick. On my way home they called and said that the blood had clotted so they had to do it again. After Derek came home we went back. That evening Derek took Maya to the end of year girl scout ceremony. As he was walking out the door the doctor called. Evan's carbon dioxide was elevated. She wanted us to go to the intermediate care nursery at the children's hospital for an arterial blood gas and observation. We checked in around 8:30. They took vitals and got the artery poke out of the way quickly. Then they sent him downstairs and watched him over night. Derek and I were fortunately able to sleep on couches in the family area of the nursery. I could hear him cry if I was awake but it didn't always wake me up. The nurse would generally change his diaper and knock on my door. Evan looked extra huge and sounded extra loud compared to the preemies who were surrounding him. Evan's breathing was oddly slower. The nurses joked about a therapeutic hospital visit.
Saturday (6/3) late morning, Derek came home to see the girls and take Maya to a birthday party. Evan and I hung out and waited for doctors. Around lunchtime, he had another chest x-ray. It was clear so the pulmonologist didn't want to see him before discharge and we were free to go. Before we left around 4:30pm and Evan's breathing was fast again.
Monday (6/5), Evan saw the pulmonologist. She took a thorough history, checked him over, counted his respiration rate a number of times, set up a follow-up for the next week then sent us on our way. It was...anticlimactic. She and everyone else is like well he looks healthy other than the breathing thing, shrug, come back next week for a follow-up. (While we were waiting for the pulmonologist Evan looked at me, good and then smiled. He seems young to be socially smiling but it sure looked like it to me and Derek.)
Tuesday night (6/6), I got a call from the pulmonologist. She had consulted several of her colleagues and they THINK that Evan's respiratory drive regulation is immature and he will out grow it by 6 to 12 months.
