6/7/11 Update

Today was the first day I've had to go to the hospital alone.  Mark's boss, Brandon, has been really awesome and allowing him to work from home/car/hospital instead of having to be in the office.  But they really needed to catch up on things today so Mark needed to work.  So I made the trip up there myself today, really long drive alone...it's an hour each way.

When I got there he was sleeping peacefully all wrapped up. He can't be swaddled because of the umbilical lines, if those were to come out he could bleed out quickly so they have to keep those where they can see them.  So they had taken a blanket and almost tied his arms down and another and tied down his legs...sounds bad, tied down haha, but he likes being restrained like that.  He also had a paci, wasn't sucking it when I went in but the nurse said it really calms him down and he likes sucking it...which is a good sign, hopefully he'll be able to suck and eat when the time comes.

His nitric was turned down to 0.7%!  The nurse said she thinks he'll be off that completely before she goes home at 7pm. They are giving 16 breaths per min but he's taking a total of around 70 a min so he's doing a lot more work on his own today. His oxygen was up at 37% but she thinks he'll come down off that quickly when the nitric is gone and he'll be off the vent tomorrow.  He will then go on CPAP or a nasal canula for oxygen and he'll need to prove he can hold his levels on that then be weaned off onto regular room air.  We are hoping no CPAP!  If he's on a nasal canula he can nurse.  She said it could easily be a week though before I'm given the chance to nurse him :(  Hoping he proves them wrong and is nursing in the next couple days.  After getting off all oxygen the only thing he needs to do is prove he can eat.  Once he's off all oxygen he will move to special care and I can stay with him.  He'll start out trying to do 4 feeds a day on the breast or bottle then 6 and if he can do 8 he can go home as soon as he does that. So come on Preston, move fast and come home way sooner than they think!!!  Makes me really sad to think he could easily be there another 2 wks :(  We just want him home

Through church I've met some really awesome moms that we do meet ups with once a month, they found out about the situation with Preston and one of them is bringing us dinner tonight which I think is really sweet, it's nice to not have to worry about that for tonight and the kids will still get a good meal, not just a sandwich or something else we throw together really quickly.  She should be here in about 30min.

I have pics from today but I haven't uploaded them yet, I'll do that in just a bit, only got a couple since he was sleeping so well didn't want to disturb him much.  OH!!  And he hasn't had ANY sedation or pain medication since yesterday!  He is also up to 20cc for his feeds now :)