Breathe, Baby, Breathe

Whew! What an eventful afternoon.

The Grandma's brought Alyssa to the hospital for the Halloween Parade. It was rather overwhelming and I think she lasted 10 minutes, but got more loot than had we walked our entire neighborhood! She was a cute little ladybug (thanks for the costume, Katy!) and charmed all around her. We'll work on getting her pic up here, too. She left for Oklahoma yesterday afternoon and will be b/w OK and TX for the next 2 weeks spending time with cousins, aunts, uncles and, of course, getting spoiled by her grandparents.

Drew's had an exciting afternoon, as well. While I was typing away in the library, they started CPAP studies for 30 minutes every 4 hours to see how he would do off the ventilator. This study forces him to breathe, as needed, if he hasn't on his own. He did okay on his first few tries, especially when he was awake, but had frequent apnea spells when he would fall asleep. This morning, the respiratory therapist (RT) changed the settings to lengthen the time b/w forced breaths and he made it a full 30 minutes without an alarm. Our brain is supposed to be set so that we breathe when our CO2 levels require it and the doctor felt the previous settings may have forced breaths before his brain told him breathe. God is truly working miracles on our son.

His next study is at noon today and they are stretching it to an hour, then possibly 2 hours tonight and if all goes well, he may be off the ventilator by tomorrow (I don't know how to spell the real term).

The nurse also successfully placed the feeding tube, so he began getting my breastmilk yesterday at 1 cc per hour. At that rate, it would take him years to eat all I've pumped! Fortunately, they are working on increasing that rate, as well, but we have to remove a few more tubes before it's safe to put him on full feeds. Unfortunately, this means removing his arterial line and sticking him every 12 hours to get blood to monitor his gasses (oxygen and CO2). They will space out all his other labs to every couple of days to prevent further sticking and with the feeding tube in place, we also hope to move to oral meds so that he doesn't have to be on an IV b/c they are so hard on his little veins.

His CT from yesterday looked good. His ventricles are smaller and the amount of hemorrhage is the same, if not smaller, but it will take some time for all that blood to be absorbed. They will only be repeating the CTs every few days now instead of every day.

We're waiting on the Hematologist to read the results from yesterday's bloodwork to check on clotting disorders. We won't know all those results for a few days b/c some of the tests have to be sent off to another facility. We also haven't spoken to the neurosurgeon since Monday, but are keeping with the no news/good news theory there.

We still have a long way to go, but each day seems to bring encouraging news. We won't know all the effects of what he's been through for a long time to come, but we continue to thank God for each of his little baby steps. Please pray that Drew continues to breathe well during the CPAP studies and that his blood work comes back negative of any blood disorders.

Several people have asked about how I am feeling. I'm feeling 10 times better post c/s than I did with Alyssa. In fact, I've stuck with the lower dose of pain meds b/c I don't feel I need the narcotic. Come to think of it, I haven't taken anything today. Dr's. McIntire and Washburne, I'm not sure what you did differently than my previous doctor, but a huge Thank You to you. I've been able to concentrate on getting Drew better and not had to think about each and every move being painful for me.

Finally, I forgot to thank Vanessa Troutman for so willingly watching Alyssa on Monday on very short notice so that both grandmas could be at the hospital and for cleaning my house while they were gone. Also, Thank You Steve Schmitz for arranging and Father Nicolas Fuhrmann for holding Mass in Lindsay, TX yesterday morning in Drew's name.