8-15-06 Surrounded by friends!

Burke has been doing really well this past week! As you can see, he enjoy's hangin out with his little buddies & sucking on his beloved binky. He's becoming much more interactive now...it's so much fun to watch him experience the world around him. His old roomate and buddy Logan & his mom stopped by to visit. Logan is just 8 months old and has been at Children's for cancer treatment (which is going well). As you can see, Logan really wanted to get into Burke's crib and play....it was sooo cute! Unfortunatley (for Logan) we had to postpone his playdate until Burke gets a bit bigger.

As for Burke's medical progress...he continues to wax & wane with weight gain and is now receiving a high calorie formula (30 K/cals) added to my breast milk to help him along. As of tonight he weighs 5# 12oz which is about where we started last week so he's starting to make up the few ounces he's lost! He is now taking 6ml of breastmilk by mouth during his binky training sessions twice a day and LOVES it! Wow, it's so encouraging to see him actually suck and swallow milk! As soon as he can tolerate 10ml twice a day we plan to try putting him to breast to see how he does...exciting progress :)!

He had his hearing screened today but didn't pass the screening in his right ear. The audiologist thinks the background noise may have interfered with the test so will repeat it next month. She counseled us on the fact that Burke is at higher risk of hearing loss due to his prematurity and the fact that he received certain antibiotics that are ototoxic (cause hearing loss) ...we won't know if this is true until they can re-test him next month. She did reassure us that even though the test wasn't "passed" today it did show that he is able to hear at most frequencies (phew) so can respond to our voices and sounds around him.

Please please continue to pray for Burke's steady weight gain, ability to tolerate taking in milk by mouth directly into his tummy and the subsequent testing (hearing, etc) that are still pending. The battle we fight daily is to not be anxious about the unknown but to just take one day at a time and rejoice in the life and love that we have for that day!