11:30pm: To continue with the quiet night that he had last night, Reid made some great progress on the vent... down to 46% oxygen. This is awesome news and a step in the right direction.

Our respiratory therapist (and friend), Shelly, from Cobb Hospital came to visit Reid and Kristen today. With me being out of town, it was nice to know that Kristen had someone there to keep her company (and also have much needed "girl time"). She brought Reid a heatable stuffed dog (from the website: "Whenever you need a little pampering, cuddle up to your Lavender pet. So soft and cuddly, you can even microwave it for a minute for a warm, fragrant hug. A removable insert is filled with lavender to soothe, and flaxseed to hold the heat. They are washable, too. Remove insert to wash in cold water. A great gift for young and old! Lovingly hand-stuffed and finished in Sonoma, California."). Cool stuff if you ask me!!!

On a different note, I had a conversation with our new doctor today, Dr. Piazza in regards to the MRSA and other creatures that seem to be having a hay day in my son's lungs. I told him that I was fairly concerned about the MRSA and was afraid of what it meant for our future and asked him if I was being an over-reactive parent. To which he replied "yes". He didn't seem concerned with the MRSA and said that it is just something that Reid will have and usually after a few acute episodes, it usually goes dormant and colonizes and hopefully won't rear its head again. I also asked him the same question what I asked the nurse yesterday as to what caused our setback... E.coli. and Enterobacter (I linked to the wrong Wiki the other day). Again, after a few acute episodes of these, Reid is likely to have a colony of these living in him. So, my next question was that if Reid is susceptible to these organisms, how can we be proactive and treat them when they first appear, rather than waiting for Reid to show us that he is sick? Can we do routine respiratory mucus cultures to see if we can catch them early? Well, the way I understood it... since Reid is colonized, each of these bacterias will eventually grow in a petri dish. Growth doesn't necessarily mean that Reid is sick (since we now know this is a normal bacterial flora in him), so how do you know when to treat the bacteria and when not to? You can't. And we know what over use of antibiotics leads to... antibiotic resistant infections that would be eventually very difficult to treat (case in point: MRSA). So, long story short: Reid needs to get off the vent and get his IVs and central lines removed ASAP. Each of these items (especially the vent) are hard and fast ways of infection. I rambled there for a minute, so I hope you followed me.

On a different topic, Kristen was surprised today when she got into the NICU when she found Reid dressed in some clothes that looked somewhat less than manly. The point wasn't that he looked a little silly, more so that the nurse took the time to dig through the clothes they had at the hospital and put Reid in an outfit (a little since of normalcy, right?).

Reid also had his second round of physical therapy today... this time he slept through the whole thing. In addition, he was sat'ing in the upper-90s (like 97 and 98). Guess we know what Reid likes, huh? Now, if his mother could only learn to fall asleep when I give her massages... instead, I get stuck doing them for longer than I really want to. :)

OK.. I think that is all that I can regurgitate right now. It is hard to remember all of these things when I hear them second-hand. I wish my wife would learn how to blog (hint, hint).










5:25am: Remind me again why I am up already? Oh yeah... work. Ugh. Reid had a very quiet night. Not much to report other than the fact that they were able to go down to 55% oxygen! Woo Hoo!