Rough Evening

Today was a fairly uneventful day but then Brodie decided that he would make the evening eventful.  He looked at both LaVona and I and thought that maybe we were sleeping a little too much so he decided to make sure we didn't sleep tonight.  Just before shift change his heart rate dove down to the high 70's and he turned as white as a ghost.  We then started getting visits from respiratory, doctors and a few nurses.   These events just left myself and LaVona both speechless and helpless just watching and wondering what was going on.  They eventually got him turned around and then they came in to do the x-ray and sent him into another tailspin.  They increased his oxygen to 100% and his saturation hovered around 80%.  They increased a setting on the oscillator and stopped a medication that they had just started before this happened.  He then started to slowly go back up until he was back up to an oxygen saturation of 95%.  This made us feel better but was short-lived since they had to change his diaper and now he is back down to a saturation of 80%.  We were planning to leave but I guess we will sit tight and hope he bounces back soon.  LaVona wanted me to share with everyone the question that I asked her so that it would put a perspective on what we are going through.  I asked her if this was just another downturn or if he was slipping away from us.  Although difficult these are things that we are feeling and issues that we must discuss.  We know Brodie has much more fight left in him but we are having to face the reality that we have a very sick boy.  Please don't let this bring you down because it sure doesn't bring us down.  We know we have to stick together whether it is just the two of us in this hospital room or the hundreds of people that cheer him on every day.  Let's continue to pray for his healing and hope that he has an amazing day tomorrow.  We are also excited that the bracelets that we ordered to support Brodie have come in.  Below is a picture of what they look like.  On one side it has Brodie Dick 8-8-11 and the other it says I Support CDH Babies.  We are selling these for $5 and since LaVona and I are paying for them the entire $5 will go to CDH research.  We will also match the $5 for each bracelet purchase up to $2500.  We would like to raise a total of $5000 for CDH research.  Many of you have asked what you could do to help and this is what we would like.  Our prayer is that someday they will know what causes this and what they can do to prevent other babies and families from going through what our family has gone through.  We thank you in advance for your support and I know that we can make this happen.