7/9/06 Holding Strong

Today Burke was holding his own. Blood pressure, heart rate, respirations, etc are looking good. He is getting ready for a big day tomorrow when they will check his esophagus to see if it healed properly and is not leaking. If there is no leak, the doctors will take out his chest tube and remove the ventilator!! (that will be wonderful). He is showing us signs that he can breathe well on his own without support...he is now "chomping" down on his ventilator tube and we can almost hear him say "get this thing out of my mouth!" He is opening his eyes more now and responding to our voices and gentle touch. Yesterday afternoon our eyes locked in a gaze and it was one of the most special moments I've had with my boy! He is soooo sweet and definitely knows when his mommy & daddy are there with him. We've had to move back to Seattle until Tuesday so it's hard to be so far away. We're commuting to Tacoma every day to spend time with him. My mom is here until "further notice"...she's been a huge support! So, tomorrow is a big day and hopefully full of answers (good ones). Please pray for us and we'll keep you all posted. Love to you all.

Comments

D-Lo said…
It's great to hear that little Burke is meeting so many big milestones; you've got our prayers that he continues to do so!
11:05 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9-26-06 We're Going HOME!

YES, it's official!...we're GOIN HOME! OH MY! In exactly three months Burke has managed three major surgeries, two major procedures,3 nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections, two rounds in the NICU, a million x-rays and florostudies, rounds and rounds of expert opinions and even more trials of ways to feed and gain weight. As of today, Burke has doubled his weight to 8 lbs and is taking in the appropriate amount of milk by a bottle (binky trainer good bye!)! His esophagus and stomach are slowly but surely starting to coordinate themselves appropriately and Burke is now HUNGRY when his tummy is empty and HAPPY when his tummy is full of mommy's milk! We've managed to convince Children's Hospital Surgical Team, Dieticians, Residents and Feeding therapists that premies with surgical complicaton CAN grow and gain weight on breastmilk alone through a process called Lactoengineering...I've even been asked to publish an article for the Journal of Human Lactation a...
Read more

7-15-06 I'm so cute

Image
It was another good day today. Burke rested peacefully and continues to breathe well...so well that they discontinued the oxygen that was being given through his nasal canula (yay..one more tube gone). He's also in the process of being weaned from the morphine...it's a slow process but the doctors have reassured us this is very common and the babies do just fine without any long term side effects! We are super proud of his progress. Monday he will be transfered to Children's Hospital...we are very excited to be closer to home. Please continue to pray that the transfer goes well and that he responds well to being weaned off the morphine. Thanks...we appreciate you all so much!
Read more

8-20-06 Surviving the Hospital

Image
Well...we're still hanging in here at Children's and trucking along in the right direction (homeward bound). We're still just "talking" about going home so there are no official plans yet but we hope it will be sometime later this week. Burke's official due date is Aug 24th so we hope to be going home around then! In order to get there, Burke must gain weight steadily and have stable breathing. His weight gain has been slow but is on the rise and he weighs 6lbs as of yesterday! He continues to have 1 to 2 episodes of oxygen desaturations during the early morning hours which has been somewhat concerning as the doctors can't quite figure out why they're occuring. Burke hasn't been negatively affected by these episodes and doesn't require extra breathing support/oxygen which means his body is strong enough to recover nicely on his own. An expert plans to visit us tomorrow to help uncover the meaning behind these episodes and we pray she'll b...
Read more