This is Spinal Tap

This is Spinal Tap! This is the point where I think of some clever way to work in the best quote from Spinal Tap:

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

This morning we got word from the doctor that Will was going to be getting a spinal tap. His platelet levels continued to dip over the evening. He’s not to the point where he needs a transfusion, but it is a concern for the doctors. In case your medical knowledge pales in comparison to the walking Grey’s Anatomy that I’ve become, a drop in his platelet level is an indication that there is infection of some sort somewhere in his little body (clear as mud, right?). That’s about all we knew. Now, when I hear spinal tap I think invasive procedure. So I went down and talked with the doctor to determine just how necessary this was going to be. Turns out it was necessary. So Will got his spinal tap. The full results will take a few days but what we know right now is the somehow Will has contracted meningitis (Wow, I spelled that right on the first try). The question remains as to what kind of meningitis he has. The doctor doesn’t believe it is bacterial, but he’s on antibiotics until we know for sure. If it is a bacterial infection then Will will need 14 days of antibiotics. That’s a much longer NICU stay than we’re hoping. Who are we kidding? We’ve already had a much longer NICU stay than we were hoping. If it is a viral infection, the question is what kind of virus. Most likely it is the same thing that has been giving Kim a fit all week. The doctor calls it an enterovirus. If it isn’t that, then we’re dealing something possibly more serious. So, for those of you praying for us, we’re praying for enterovirus. The good news is that we’re starting to get a handle of what has been slowing Will’s development. He did look better today. He’s also slowly learning how to feed from a bottle better. He still has a way to go before he can get a full feeding from a bottle, much less from nursing with Kim. That’s our major benchmark.

On another note, Kim and I are back home. We’ve decided that while Will isn’t nursing Kim can heal and rest better in her own bed. When Will starts nursing we’ll look at going back to boarding. It’s also good to be with Hunter and Millie. We’re working on trying to get to as close to whatever our “new normal” is going to be even before we bring Will home.

I’m sorry I don’t have any new pictures today. I’ll work on getting some up tomorrow. He really doesn’t look all the different. They did switch his feeding tube to his other nostril, so you could take an old picture and do an mirror image and it’d be like a new picture. I’ll leave that one to you.