Working hard

Jensen ended up spending almost 12 hours off oxygen yesterday! He ended up having to go back on (up to 2 liters at one point) but I think it was a good start for him. Last night was a weird night, he just wasn't being himself. His sats dropped for a while and finally leveled off once he was turned up to 2 liters, he was gagging and spitting up quite a bit, sounded very congested, and was pretty fussy. Our nurse was great and called his resident and fellow multiple times without me asking. They did a chest x-ray to check for aspiration, fluid around his lungs, and to make sure his NG tube was still placed correctly. Everything looked pretty normal, they couldn't really determine what was going on.

His team ended up giving his feeds over 2 hours instead of one (for the reflux), suctioning his nose (for the congestion), and giving an extra dose of Lasix (for possible fluid). At about 1:30 this morning his sats leveled off, his gagging stopped and he slept straight through the night! Dr. Fuller checked on him this morning and he still looked great, hopefully last night was just a minor setback.

Today his oxygen was weaned back down to 0.25 liters. He was put on fortified breast milk because he is still losing weight despite several days of being fed hindmilk alone. He also took a bottle for the first time since surgery and did pretty well! It will definitely be a slow process to get him to bottle-feed but he is getting there! He has also been doing lots of physical therapy and stretching AND we have him practice tracking and fixation with a sensory stimulation app =) This boy is working hard to get discharged!

My parents left today after being with Jensen for a month! They and Jeremy's parents were such a big help while they were here, especially when he was critical. They reminded us to eat, brought us food, faxed our insurance documents...basically all the little things I could not possibly have dealt with while Jensen was so sick. Mom and Dad also transported my ridiculous oversupply of breast milk to our house today! Jensen is very lucky to have two sets of fantastic grandparents!

Holy Cow! That's a lot of milk!

Taking his first bottle post-surgery!