5:00pm: Reid is still holding fairly steady. He has marginally increased on is O2 to 30%. At one point, he went up a little higher, but it was because he was swimming in his own pee. He does not tolerate a wet diaper and as soon as they changed his diaper and his bedding (leaked out of his diaper), he came right back down. His urine output was 130cc for one diaper and 160cc for another diaper. That is a TON of urine.

He just had a blood gas test and his CO2 was at 39, which is awesome, but for some reason his base was at -8. They like to be -3 to +3, and will tolerate up to -5, so he is a little off. The doctor is scratching his head and wanted to think about it because it was strange. His pH was a little low too, at 7.29 (normal is 7.35 to 7.45).

Lastly, I am going to leave you with a picture of his vent and his "loops". The loops, defined by their height and length, paint a picture of the size of breath that he is actually taking. In weeks past, the loops were about a quarter of the size, even with all of the pressures the vent was expelling. From this picture, I would think that his lungs have a lot less inflammation and are probably a lot more "pliable". "Good loops" as a respiratory therapist might say.

1:00pm: We have some really exciting news to share (and hopefully the trend can continue)!!! Reid had his eye test and there apparently wasn't any change from the past few exams. Looks like he has crossed the age/maturity threshold for ROP and the doctors determined that he will need no further exams. One of the eye nurses mentioned that she would like to do one more exam, but the doctor is fairly confident that this chapter is behind us. So, we will see if he has another one or not (I am guessing not). Long story short: no laser surgery needed!!

The other great news... which is even better news than the eyes.... Reid's O2 is down to 26%. And I would have to look back at my notes, but I don't think that he has been that low since the first couple of days of his life. The next step now is to start weaning on the vent pressures, which they have already started. His Pinsp (PIP) is down to 24. His PEEP is still at 10 and the doctor had told us a week or two ago, that it would need to get down into the 6 or 7 range before he could be switched over to CPAP. Of course, the next hurdle is to wake him up and get him off the nurcuron and morphine (this is probably a huge battle in itself). But, we are taking this one step at a time, and we are going to embrace this HUGE leap that our little rock star did over the past few days. We are so proud of him (but we wont tell him that we are in the event that he has some other things up his sleeve...err... diaper... that he wants to pull out).

9:30am: Reid had a good night last night and his O2 is down to 43%. Doctors have not done their rounds yet, so we are not sure what is in store for him today. I would assume that they may start weaning on the pressures of the vent. He eyes are currently dilated for his eye exam, so that should probably take place in the next hour or two. Curious to see how he is going to react to the exam as this boy does not like being bothered with. Just hoping that with all of the progress we have made in the past 2 days that this eye exam doesn't set him back again. Every day brings something new for him...