11:00pm: Today was a day of no progress and a few ups and downs more than we had hoped for. The doctors have ordered for the nurses to pretty much leave Reid alone and to not make any changes. When they did trache care today, he de-satted down to 77 but was able to recover. I think they see how fragile he still is and want to give him some time to recuperate.

His mean pressure was actually down by one to 25 but his oxygen was around 54%. He is satting at 98. His CO2 levels are a little high tonight (73) and they could adjust some of the settings on the oscillator to get it down, but they are just going to let him remain as is for tonight.

We went out to dinner tonight and I had a margarita in hopes that it could calm my nerves, but it didn't. We are still on edge and constantly have the feeling that the bottom could drop out at any minute. We desperately need some more good news - living with this stress is not fun.

Anyway, bed time for me. I was able to get a solid 8 hrs of sleep last night but dont think it was enough to recover from this horrible weekend. Until tomorrow...

12:15pm: Reid had a desat this morning and his sats went down to 85. They decided to do a suction (which is usually ill-advised while on the oscillator) and they were able to get quite a bit of mucus. They ended up going up high on his O2 to help him out, but after the suction, his sats were back in the 90s and the were actively weaning his O2 again. We are still not out of the woods, but is good to know that we do have a little room to move on his settings.

His feedings are going to remain at 26cc per hour as they are afraid that any more than that will add too many fluids and take a toll on his respiratory condition.

Reid's neonatologist stopped by yesterday to visit with us and to talk with Reid's doctors. During rounds today, they had brought up the advice that he had give them - Reid takes a long time to recover and that they needed to move very slowly on the weaning of the machines. I think the new doctors have taken this very seriously and will probably not move very much today - allow him to further stabilize and get another good day under his belt.

11:00am: Kristen and I had some really good sleep last night and while we could probably sleep for days, we have things to do and a baby to visit. Reid had a good night last night. His oxygen was further weaned to 40% and they were able to further wean the mean volume (the volume his lungs are kept at). The mean volume - which I am not really sure how it is measured needs to come down to a number of about 18 or 19 before he can be removed from the oscillator and onto the conventional vent. Yesterday, he was at 32 and today he is at 26. They will only wean by a maximum of 2 per time.

His xray at 4 this morning still showed some haziness in the upper lobes of his lungs which would be a sign that they are still partially collapsed. They noted that there was marginal improvement in the xray - but improvement is improvement - and we will take that.

The ECHO that he had yesterday showed that there was probably no impact of his pulmonory hypertension on his respiratory condition. While I know little to nothing about how these results are measured, I know that there is a number that is assigned to the reading. His baseline in December was 66. His reading yesterday was 22. A normal set of healthy lungs and a healthy heart will produce a number between 10 and 15 so he isn't too far out of 'normal' range. This is probably due to his sildenafil (Viagra) that he is currently on. Yesterday they put him on inhaled nitric oxide (NO) which is compared to as a gaseous form of Viagra. They aren't sure the NO is doing anything for him but was added yesterday when they put him on maximum support. They will need to wean this over the coming days as well.

His feedings are up to 26cc per hour and they will discuss with his dietitian today to see if they can start going up to his full feeds of 42cc per hour. Yesterday, he had two bowel movements, so his belly is still working fine. The larger volume could put pressure on his lungs, so they want to be careful with how much he gets.

We are waiting to see what changes are going to be made during rounds and should know more soon. I will post more as soon as we hear anything. Kristen's mom and sister flew in last night so they will be able to visit with Reid today. They will be a good help for us over the next few days and help Kristen and I get some things done for us that have been put on the back burner.

The outpouring of support and prayer seems to be continuing for Reid. We have received numerous emails from people who we don't even know but are friends of friends/family and have caught word of Reid. It is amazing the number of people who's lives have been impacted by Reid - and it is amazing the number of people who have helped give us the support that we have needed.