New Blood!

Will King Oliver become The Thanksgiving Turkey? It looks like it is going to come right down to the wire...

The results of his second sleep test were decidedly mixed -- better than the first, but still not good enough to signal a prompt discharge. However, the Brooklyn Kid will be given one more chance to avoid Thanksgiving in the NICU. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

The course of action has been adjusted somewhat. In particular, Oliver was given a blood transfusion yesterday to correct his low hematocrit levels. He will be switched to his home monitor kit today and will be closely watched for the next two days. If he does OK and his levels look good, it is going to come down to how his cool-as-a-cucumber parents deal with having him on the home monitor. If we can avoid, oh I don't know, totally freaking out whenever an alarm goes off, then we just might be able to slip the boy out late on Wednesday.

Let me just say right now that my mind is completely blown by the concept of having your blood replaced. I was not in a good place yesterday, not by a long shot. When I saw the Little Bloke just after having his IV removed, I went to jelly again. Oh Little Bloke, you're killing the Big Bloke!

...

In 1925, Carolina's head cheerleader, Vic Huggins, penned the words (and presumably the music) to "Here comes Carolina", a song that most people assume is the Carolina fight song. The words (which have almost nothing to do with premature babies, fathers who would tear their heart out of their chest for their son, or the NICU) are:

Here comes Car'lina lina
Here comes Car'lina lina
We hail from NCU (Go Tarheels!)

We've got the team to win it,
We've got the spirit in it,
We wear the colors white and blue.

So it's fight, fight, fight for old Carolina
As Davie did in days of old;
As we rally round the Well,
Cheer that Tar Heel team like hell,
For the glory of NCU.

I can't really explain the psychology behind it, but whenever I sing it to the Little Bloke, which is often, I break down in tears... usually somewhere between "Cheer" and "hell." It's weird, really weird, and I don't know why I'm telling the whole world about it. Most people sing, you know, something sweet like "Rockabye Baby" to their children... I sing a college fight song that isn't even the real fight song! (Nevermind the fact that "Rockabye Baby" is not exactly sweet, with all the talk of babies falling out of trees...)

Oh yea, I forgot one important point: sometimes I change the lyrics. It's mostly the same, but the next to last line is "Cheer for Oliver like hell", which maybe explains a few things.