day 11, still waiting

Thomas is in the slow stage of recovery now, not too much has changed but he continues to make progress. He was really mellow today, even slept through having the dressing changed on the site of his chest tube (by the way we could not believe how teeny the wound is! you can barely see it!). The flow in his cannula was turned down a bit more. His neonatologist, bless her, decided to make it a priority that we could hold him. He is doing really well with his feedings, so she accelerated them to get him up to full feeds as soon as possible, at which time his IV nutrition can stop, and he no longer has to have the umbilical line which is the reason he has to stay in the isolette. At first she thought that would mean we could hold him tonight- but later on our nurse did the math and that process won't be complete until something like 3 am- so almost definitely tomorrow we can hold him. He may even be moved from the isolette to a crib, and allowed to wear clothes!

Here's a summary of what's keeping Thomas in NICU: he needs IV antibiotics through Sunday. His breathing is still tachypneic (too fast), and that needs to resolve. Finally, he needs to be able to nurse or bottle feed and that is kind of dependent on the tachypneia, since right now he is breathing too fast to be able to suck and swallow very well (he's getting all his milk through the ng tube). Once all of these things are resolved, we can finally bring him home and he can meet his big brother and sister.