Mills' First Adventure

Hello Friends and Family,

Have you ever heard of the Fun Scale?

I first learned about the concept of the Fun Scale in this piece on Rei.com by Kelly Cordes. And this very helpful illustration by Brendan Leonard on Outside.com:

This is such a helpful way to categorize the various experiences we have in life and provide a shorthand in communication.

Mills’ First Adventure was Type 3 Fun

I was hoping that the first adventure of Mill’s life would be good old fashioned Type 1 Fun, but unfortunately he skipped right to Type 3.

The first night of his little life he was having trouble regulating his temperature and breathing. I’ll spare you the details of our first night but it involved even less sleep than we were told to expect.

What I will say is despite the nurse assuring us that everything was totally normal our parental intuition kicked in almost immediately and we knew something wasn’t quite right.

He spent a couple of hours under the warmer in the NICU that night and was returned to us early the next morning. It was around 9am when he had an episode of Transient Tachypnea followed by turning blue due to choking on something he was trying to spit up.

The nurse stabilized him immediately and within an hour he was in the NICU under a warmer, on oxygen, and with a feeding tube.

Definitely Type 3 Fun.

Type 2 vs. Type 3

There is a clear difference between Type 2 Fun and Type 3 Fun. When you are having Type 2 Fun there is a clearly defined ending to whatever discomfort you are experiencing.

The rainy and cold marathon eventually ends. The last 75 meters of a poorly executed rappel is completed. The night spent in a 40 degree sleeping bag in unexpected 20 degree weather gives way to morning.

You have the promise of an ending and the knowledge of what the end looks like.

Type 3 Fun has all of the discomfort (and then some) with none of the certainty of when it will end.

Mills’ stay in he NICU began Friday, stretched into Saturday, then to Sunday, and again to Monday. Each day we asked for a timeline and each day we heard, “We have to wait and see.”

Type 3 Fun does End

The only positive result of Type 3 fun is that it does eventually end. The stress, trauma, and sometimes physical ramifications may take longer to resolve and sometimes, never resolve.

As far as we know, Mills’ stay in the NICU will resolve with only our own memories and pictures as the lasting result.

Mills is home now, exactly where we want him to be. Hopefully we can stick to Type 1 and Type 2 Fun from now on.

Until our next adventure,

Austin, Courtney, Mills, and Willow

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