Setbacks

Monday, August 24. I headed back to work today. Why the hell am I working? Not sure, but I feel like trying to get some sense of a normal life, and things are piling up on the desk at the office.

I tried to get a few things done, but it wasn't easy.

It was a strange feeling talking to folks who knew about the delivery. Word had been sent out via email about Stella and Luna, but no one knew about the preterm delivery and the NICU. I told some folks that the twins were doing fine; I gave other the details.

Sometimes I sat at my desk and lost track of myself. I'd kind of snap out of it and look back at what I was writing. A few times, folks would peek their heads in and say a few words. I liked talking to the people who had no idea the twins had been born. I liked talking about work.

Bob took Jenny to the hospital to visit with the twins. When I got there, around noon, he'd left, and Jenny was in the room with Stella, a wild-eyed look on her face. I had to hold the wall, but I let go when she told me what was happening. Workers had been in the room painting that morning, and when Jenny first showed up, the nurse was changing tubes/wires/etc on Stella while the fellow was in the midst of painting. The fumes were noxious. Jenny was furious, apparently got into a nasty argument with a few folks. I showed up just as the NP rolled in.

I told Jenny not worry about the paint fumes; Stella was getting air out of tank, not out of the room. She was still upset. She insisted to the NP that no painting occur in Luna's room until we had more info about her brain, and the NP agreed.

Stella had been breathing on a canula, which is a step up -- just oxygen in her nostrils -- but they'd put her back on C-Pap, and then back on a ventillator. Luna still on a ventillator. Okay, they're on life support, no other way to put it.

Stella is having trouble going to the bathroom. Fluids are building up in stomach. Her stomach is bloated, stretched, veiny.

Jenny spends time holding the twins minuscule hands, rubbing their arms and legs. I hold them a little bit here and there. At this age, their bodies are covered in lanuga, a fine layer of whitish hair. Their skin feels like felt.

Their heads are wrinkled, squished. I watched a nurse take a crumpled ear and reshape it in her blue latex glove fingers. No kidding, she took this rolled up half inch of skin and ligament and shaped and ear about the size of a dime.

The twins wear little white cotton caps with tassels on the top. Luna wears a yellow tassel, Stella a blue.