More Improvement

Today, Caden continued to improve. I think I forgot to mention that they started feeding him Pedialyte through his g-tube yesterday to see how he would tolerate feeds again. He remained on that overnight and handled them very well. So this morning during rounds, the doctors decided to start him on breast milk again which made me very happy. They started him at 3 mls/hour and as the day went on, he was handling that just fine. So, his nurse talked to the doctors and asked if she could go up on his feeds and if they would authorize a set schedule based on his tolerance. So, the doctors approved his feeds to go up to 6 mls/hour and every three hours he would go up three more if he was tolerating them. That way they can get him up to full feeds quickly. Once he is at full feeds, they will transition him from continuous feeds to bolus feeds. That will be a key element in getting him ready for us to take home!

And, the doctors decided today that all the antibiotics would be stopped on Thursday night at midnight because his skin infection is pretty much gone and they aren't worried about it anymore at all. In addition, he has had a line into his chest since his original surgery on January 24. They have been hesitant to pull it out based on all he has been through and they needed it to administer certain medications. However, it has been there over a month now and we keep asking them when they will remove it. This is really dependent on the surgeons and what they want to do. So, they talked to Dr. Reddy this morning to see what he would like to do about it and he agreed that the line could come out on Friday. This is a huge step in the right direction for us and we are really happy about it. Also, if everything goes well with the removal of that line, they will likely remove the arterial line later that day as well. So Friday could be anther big day for us.

Now that his feeds are established and so far he is doing really well with them, one of the next big steps is to transition his IV medications to oral medications so they can be administered through his g-tube. They will need to get him balanced out on all the medications before we can go home and he needs to be on the oral meds for us to do that. So the sooner he can get switched over to oral meds, the sooner they can get the dosages worked out so he is stable on them and the sooner we can go home. Caden's primary nurse was going to push toward that for tomorrow which would be great!

I can't even tell you how great Caden looks. He looks like a whole new baby. You can tell he feels better and is hungry, so it's good his feeds are going up. Also, his little voice is really trying to come back. It's still very quiet, but I can tell he is crying even if I'm not looking at him. Before, if he was crying, you would have no idea unless you were looking at him. But today when he cried, there was enough of a noise that would cause you to look at him even if it was quiet. This is so great because this will alleviate much of my anxiety over taking him home without a voice. I was so worried about how I would know if something was wrong during the night. But if he even has a little voice, I think I will be able to hear him if he is sleeping in our room. So I feel so relieved about that!

We are pushing the doctors to be a little more aggressive with Caden now. But they are a little nervous about it given his history. I understand where they are coming from, but Caden is completely different now and is handling everything much better. Today, his nurse turned his oxygen off completely to see how he would handle it. He had only been on ¼ liter. In the past when they tried to wean him off completely his oxygen saturation would drop immediately and stay down. But today when she turned it off, it did go down, but it didn't go below 91% and it didn't stay down, it bounced around anywhere from 99 to 91 and anything in between. Because he didn't remain above 95%, which is where the doctors want him, she ended up turning it back on. But this is still better than he ever handled it before. So I think there is a good chance we will be able to get him off the oxygen before going home. What great news that would be! Overall, another very good day. We truly feel the end is in sight.