Today was a better day for Weston. His oxygen and pressure settings on the oscillator remained pretty stable, with his oxygen down around 50%. He is heavily sedated, so he is mostly oblivious to everything going on, which is good because they are sticking him pretty often for blood gas tests and, tonight, two unsuccessful arterial line attempts. He will likely remain sedated until he is off the oscillator. I'm glad it's working so well, but I miss my little boy! I want to see him open his eyes again.
They are still watching Weston's abdomen very closely. It was discolored again today (although I couldn't tell) and slightly distended. As of tonight, it looks about the same. Although they are concerned about NEC, this evening's x-ray looked good. He is on antibiotics as a precaution.
Last night, Weston had gained 90 grams, which put him at 790 grams, or 1 lb 12 oz. That is actually too much weight gain. They start worrying about fluid retention (and probably other scary stuff that I don't know about) when babies gain that much weight in one day. But today, he did not look puffy at all, and tonight's weight was back down to 748 grams, or 1 lb 10 oz. That's a pretty good number and still consistent with an overall upward trend. His urine output was good as well, so he's not retaining too much fluid.
Our prayers are that he remains stable, that his abdominal symptoms go away, always that he does not contact infections, and that he can start eating breast milk again soon.
In other news, I had my follow-up appointment today and was cleared to drive, 2.5 weeks post-section. I still haven't driven anywhere, but I have big plans tomorrow!
I received a book about the NICU written by a neonatologist today. It's more of a personal memoir than a how-to book for preemie parents, and I'm enjoying it so far. What I do not enjoy is this tidbit: white males tend to get the worst lung disease. There is obviously nothing we can do about that!
This evening, I had an interesting conversation with Weston's night nurse, D. We really like him and had asked him to be Weston's primary nurse on weekend nights, which is usually when he works. He mentioned that he would be back on Friday and Saturday, but he didn't know if he would be assigned to Weston. When I expressed confusion over that (primary nurses always work with their primary patient), he said that he had requested primary status on the schedule after we had talked to him, but someone else had requested primary status with Weston the night before. It was C, whom I had met and also liked.
Well, crap. As parents, we have the ultimate control over who Weston's primaries are, so now I have to fire someone. D wisely said he was not going to get in the middle of it and encouraged me to do what I need to do, because "mothers have a lot of power." When I mentioned that having nurses fighting over who gets to take care of your kid is a very good problem to have, D said that Weston has captured everybody's heart. See why I like him? He is also a VERY good nurse. We will most likely stick with him. Maybe C can have him on Sundays.
So, today was relatively boring, except for the waiting game with the abdominal x-ray. Boring is good. I always end my nightly conversations with the nurse with, "Have a boring night." Please pray for more boring days. I would like nothing more than to blog about my inner journey instead of Weston's medical journey!
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