I've got the fourth day blues...

Hi y’all,

Day 4 dawned this morning, full of promise and magic … then 0530 struck. The doctors noticed something wrong with my tummy. It was an odd colour and distended. I didn’t do anything! Promise! Seems something bad happened overnight and I got a perforated stomach. That’s a hole in my stomach lining. I was breathing ok, ( by myself too!! ), but somehow the air that was supposed to go to my lungs was diverted to my tummy and it started to swell. Not sure what happened then, but a small hole appeared and air started leaking into my body.

Mum and Dad came in, signed some papers and then I had an operation. Two penrose drains were placed into my sides that allowed the air to escape and my tummy to go back to its normal size and man, I feel so much better! Thanks Dr Pringle! I was so good and I didn’t even get any lollies. I will have to collect those later on. Of course, this means I’m back on the ventilator and have stopped having any of Mums milk. Don’t worry though, it’s only for ten days and then I will be back on track. You watch.

That’s not it tho. I tell you, when I have a bad day, I go all out.

Not long after the tummy problems, I had a brain scan. You see, it’s pretty common for us really wee ones to get a brain bleed and I have one. It is just a small one, and before you lose it, it may mean nothing. It’s a grade one bleed on a scale of one to four. ( Four is pretty drastic, my doctors would be coming to talk to you. ) Mine is only a grade one, with no guarantees of anything bad at all. Good huh? They will not know if I will have any issues from this for a while, they need to scan my brain again at 36 weeks to see if there is any damage and if so, where it is. They can guess what kind of man I will be by knowing that.

So…

Here I sit, well, lie actually, under the blue light, just chillin’, wondering what the weather is like outside…

Cheers,

• Harlow Eli

PS: I am my father’s son, there are some lovely nurses here >:] (don’t tell Mum!!)