Moving Day

Hi everyone,

Sorry I've been AWOL, but the flu bug that got me was particularly nasty and I just now feel like I'm coming out of the haze. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day I will get to return to the NICU to see a little boy that now weighs just shy of 2 pounds. Under the new formula and measured delivery approach that the doctors have incorporated, Thomas has been slowly inching upwards. Which is the way it will be if all goes well, around an ounce a day is good growth.

So, anyway, upon my return the NICU, there should be a couple of changes a foot. First, Thomas and his roommates are getting moved to a different room. There's construction going on at the hospital and its been getting a little too noisy where they are. Second, the tentative plan right now is to extubate Thomas. That's a big fancy word, but basically means they will remove the breathing tube that runs down Thomas' throat to his lungs. That's all well and good, as long as there's a plan. And there is! They will move him to a Si-Pap (spelling is total guess work, so don't bother googling it). A Si Pap is a little mask that will go over Thomas' nose and its held there with a head gear. And basically, hopefully, Thomas will start breathing on his own. The nice thing about this is if he forgets to breathe, the machine will help him along.

So that's great progress. There's always a chance that Thomas isn't ready to tackle this breathing thing on his own, but hopefully that will outdo and overachieve. We will post some sort of video evidence of this soon.

Accomplishments this week also included an eye exam to make sure that structuraly, the eyes are developing. There's a risk of damage to the eyees when a baby is on a ventilator. Everything looks good so far. They didn't test his vision per se, that's later on, but, as you can probably tell from the videos, he tracks pretty good (follows objects like giant hands reaching into his isolet). He also had another neural scan and again there was no hemmoraging. Unless something comes up, he probably will not get another neural scan until just before he is released.

So Thomas is sliding into 6 weeks on an up beat.