Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Caleb is five weeks old today. I am glad we didn't know that we would be here for over five weeks when we started, because it would have overwhelmed us. When you take it day by day, it is definitely manageable. Time here is like taffy. It stretches and twists, snaps and pops. It seems like Caleb was born a long time ago, but it seems like we have only had a baby for a short time. The 23 days in the PCTU seem like forever ago and seem like they flew by. We have been in Moderate Care for nearly two weeks now, but when we were told we might be here for three weeks, it didn't seem possible.

Caleb had another good day. His last dose of diuretic was switched yesterday, but the effects didn't show up until today - hence my confusion yesterday. He seems to have tolerated it very well. His lungs were looking much better this morning. They reduced his air flow volume to 1 liter this morning and he seems to be doing fine. His blood pressure medication dose has been reduced and they seem to be happy with that. He is being slowly weaned off the methadone and is requiring very little pain medication. In the twelve hours I was at the hospital, he had one dose of regular Tylenol.

The nurse practioner is still very happy with his progress. Depending on how things go tonight, they might try to go to 0.5 liters on his air or go off completely. I am not sure if we go to low flow air at that point or if we are OFF. We will see.

Once we are set on the air, we will move to feeding changes. They are thinking we may start around Thursday if things go well. When we go to tweaking just feeding, Caleb may get moved out of Moderate Care.

The nurse practioner said that when we are to that point, we could do his discharge echocardiogram. I was excited to hear the "d" word. While we don't have an idea how long it will be - it sounds as if the next few days may be very exciting.