We lost our Duncan

Where to begin...

As the past couple blogs have indicated, Duncan had been moving in the right direction. The docs informed us on Thursday that the only thing keeping him from returning home was transitioning from the NG feeding tube to feeding through a bottle. In fact, Thursday was his "graduation" from the intensive care unit to the step down unit. Both Scott and I, at separate times, were able to hold and rock our little guy that day.

Friday morning at 1:30 am we received a phone call from Children's explaining that Duncan had taken a turn for the worst. The Nurse Practioner explained that he "coded," meaning Duncan went into cardiac arrest.

We swooped up Jackson and headed immediately to the hospital to enter a scene with Duncan still very much in danger. He had been transferred back to the ICU at that point, and was using the ventilator to breathe fully for him and medications to make his heart pump correctly. He repeated the cardiac arrest episode at about 7:00am, this time us looking on (Jackson, at this point, had been safely transferred to Lynette).

We called in the troops at that point and spent the day in his hospital room with beloved family and friends in a prayerful state of peace. Part of this peace for Scott and I was getting the opportunity to hold Duncan and sharing stories of his nearly 5 months of life. Duncan was resting comfortably. Scott and I had multiple conversations with Dr. Cua, Dr. Lee, and Dr. G. We were asking the question that could not be answered: Is there a way Duncan can "come out" of this? If not, we felt that we needed to be Duncan's voice and make a hard decision. After several walks and talks, Scott and I decided to allow Duncan to make that decision for us; we would continue what was sustaining him at the time, but not use further intervention if he were to worsen.

He let us know it was time at 9:41pm Friday evening. His heart stopped beating. Dr. Cua waited one minute and then told us he was gone. We asked for Duncan to guide us and he did. For this reason, we feel a sense of peace.

The arrangements for Duncan are as follows:

Monday, October 29th at Powell United Methodist Church (825 East Olentangy Road)
Visitation: 3:00-5:00 pm
Service: 5:30 -6:00 pm

We ask that, in lieu of flowers, gifts be made in the form of donations to Nationwide Children's Hospital's Heart Center in memory of Duncan Rann Arthur.