More Progress

Today, there continues to be more progress for our little man. He is up to 15 mls of milk per hour and this afternoon they were going to switch him from continuous feeds to bolus feeds. So, he will be getting 45 mls every three hours. This will help him get into a better eat-wake-sleep cycle. Right now he is pretty random at how he sleeps or is awake.

This is also the last day of his antibiotics so that is great news. And, they were stopping the Zantac and Reglan because those were to help with reflux and digestion. But with the nissen, he doesn't need anything for reflux and he seems to be digesting his feeds just fine which means he doesn't need meds to help him with that. They have also switched all his other medication to be administered through his g-tube instead of through the IV's. He will be receiving a blood pressure med, another med to help with pulmonary hypertension, and Lasix to keep the fluid level down in his body. The Lasix will probably be the trickiest to get balanced out as it is more potent via IV, so they might need to tweak the dosage through the g-tube in order to get it to where it suits him best.

The surgeons are still planning on removing the last line into his chest tomorrow. Once that is out, they will remove the arterial line as well. That will only leave one peripheral IV in his left foot for now. We have tried a couple more times to remove his nasal cannula with the last little bit of oxygen he is receiving through that. He is handling it pretty well, but isn't quite ready to give it up completely. So, we continue to “sprint” him on that to help get him ready. Hopefully he'll be able to be off of it before we go home. If not, it isn't something that would keep us at the hospital, he could go home on oxygen.

His voice continues to get stronger each and every day. You can even hear him if you're in the hall outside his room, so there is definitely marked improvement there. We are so happy because it will be less stressful for when we go home. We asked the doctors what that would mean in terms of being able to take food by mouth. They said it would definitely take some time and some work with OT & PT in order to get him to the point where they would feel comfortable removing his g-tube. So once he is taking food by mouth and showing he can gain weight, it would probably be a few weeks doing feedings by mouth and through the g-tube. As of today, he weighs 7 lb, 3 oz. That is up from his birth weight of 6 lb, 7 oz so we are very happy. Of course, most babies at almost 7 weeks old have gained much more weight than that. But we are happy that he has gained anything considering he hasn't been allowed to eat for most of his little life.

There is a chance they will move him out of the CVICU to the third floor tomorrow, but if not then, probably on Saturday for sure. We are so excited because this means we are definitely almost home! It's hard to believe we are within such close range now. On third floor, they will be educating us on how to feed him through the g-tube and how to administer his medications. It is mostly an educational process to help us get ready to take him home. We are more than ready and feel our time there will go quickly.