Friday the Thirteenth

No superstition here....another good day. Andrew's on his back again after two days on his tummy, and still responding well to both the treatments (handling, moving, suctioning) and his various medications. They've weaned the hi-fi vent down to very low levels....the amplitude is at 20 and the pressure is at 12, down from 30 and 16 on Tuesday. His oxygen percentage is a little high, but it's keeping his saturations high as well. They've started to wean the nitric oxide slowly....it's down to 10 from 20.

The feedings have continued, with only a tiny bit of residuals. They have been on breast milk since last night, and have increased the volume a bit. It's still not enough to give him any sort of sustenance....he's dependent on his IV fluids and fat for that...but every feeding that stays down is a good one.

They put him back on another round of steroids, which will hopefully help his lungs develop more quickly. The breathing treatments require that he be taken off the hi-fi vent and hand-bagged while the medicine is added to the oxygen stream. I watched the respiratory therapist go through the whole process yesterday, and I was amazed how well he tolerated it. They always turn up the oxygen temporarily to make sure he's well-saturated, but it was definitely successful, and they were able to turn it right back down.

A couple things on a non-scientific note. On Thursday while I was there, Andrew got a case of the hiccups. I've actually seen him with the hiccups a few times, but this was a long bout...perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes straight. He was pretty well-sedated, but I could still tell that he was confused and a bit annoyed by it. It was far more heartbreaking than I thought it would be, to sit there unable to help....hiccups are hard enough to stop as a healthy adult. I couldn't tell him to hold his breath, I certainly couldn't scare him, and drinking water upside-down would be an acrobatic feat worthy of a SuperBaby. It was a good lesson in being patient with Andrew's quirks; it's something I'll have to work on before he comes home.

On the positive side, I was holding his hand for a while today....he's had a hand free of lines for about a week, and it feels like more of a connection when you can slip your finger into his. Today, I literally had to pry his fingers open to get my finger in his hand. Once there, he squeezed it so tightly that I was shocked. I kept telling him that he was hurting me, but he didn't listen. It made me really confident that his strength and will are still there, even through sedation and paralytics.