It is about 10:30pm on a Sunday night and I am trying to wrap up some work that I wanted to have done before my call with India in the morning... so, you would think that I would want to hurry up and get it done so I can go to bed, right? Well, I am trying to think of ten million other things that I would rather be doing (like picking up the mess of papers on the desk in the office that Kristen has been complaining about for a few days now, getting our insurance documents in order, etc). I am king of procrastination, so, here I am, typing up a blog since I have neglected to do one all weekend long. I will try to keep it short as I really do need to wrap up my 500th iteration of a project plan that keeps gaining more scope and more resources (my team is at 6 people now, adding one this week, and hoping to add one more sometime in December). Anyway, I digress...

His CO2 levels seem to be not improving. Friday and Saturday morning, he had levels in the 80s (which we hate to see). Today, they came down to around 75 and he will have another blood test in the morning. We are desperate to pinpoint a reason as to why they aren't improving, but we have been told, it is all a part of his Chronic Lung Disease. :(

Our little monster is just over 5 pounds. :) On Friday night, he weighed in at almost 5 lbs 1oz. Last night, they weighed him and he had "marginal gains", so, I am guessing he is about 5 lbs 2oz today. He is eating like a champ and ate out of a bottle today for the first time. He took his entire feeding at noon today (40cc of 26 calorie fortified milk) by bottle. This is a giant step for him as he was able to suck, swallow and breathe without his oxygen saturation jumping all over the place. Of course, when we went in at 3pm, Kristen tried breastfeeding (which had no success) and then tried feeding with the bottle. He took about 15cc by mouth until he got too tired and passed out on his mom's lap. The remaining 25cc went through his feeding tube.

He is definitely starting to grow though and we see changes every day. He is able to move a little bit more which happens to cause more pain for his nurses. For example, he hasn't had much luck with his IV for his antibiotic over the past 2 days. In three days, he has had 3 new IVs -- the first 2 went bad on their own, and the third one, which was a really good IV, he pulled out himself. :) When the nurse went to find a new vein for the next IV and was in the middle of sticking him, he pulled his CPAP gear off his face. Caught in a bind, the nurse had to pull the "code" alarm to get someone to come in and help her. Everything ended up fine, but he doesn't like making things easy. :)

Speaking of his antibiotic... we haven't seen any changes with this supposed infection he has. His second blood culture and his spinal fluid culture have yet to yield a growth. Only the first blood culture has shown anything and while we would like to think that maybe there was a possible contamination of the first sample, this type of bacteria is not typically known for that. It had to have come from him. Nonetheless, having to have an IV is a pain for him and for us and he has another 10 days to go.

Hmmm... what else (I am trying to procrastinate, remember)? Oh, today was our first time trying to "reduce" his hernia. Can I tell you how much fun that is?!?! Well, it's not. Pushing an intestine back through his abdominal wall and watching him turn beat-red and crying is not fun. The nurse had a hard time reducing his left one, so she was going to have the doctor look at it later. All the while, I am thinking to myself, how are we going to do this when he comes home? Can't they operate on this before he comes home????

And one last thing before I sign off... he has another eye test tomorrow. Please say your prayers for him tonight as we are hoping that the vein growth in his eyes has slowed down or stopped. We are getting close to a decision on his laser surgery...

I have pictures that I want to post, but seeing that it is almost 11 and I need to finish work, I am going to have to get to these tomorrow. Hope everyone had a great weekend!