A little scare...

Charlie was not being himself yesterday and some of his blood test numbers were a little low. The doctors ordered a blood transfusion in the morning, but by the time Shannon got to the hospital at noon for cares, he was looking pretty pale and listless. At that point the nurse practitioner jumped into action and gave Charlie a complete infection work-up along with a chest X-ray. So far, the tests are all showing negative for any sort of infection, but the x-ray revealed some stomach problems. After a 2nd X-ray last night, Dr. Martin feels pretty confident that it is a severe case of constipation that was probably caused by the calorie fortifier that they have been mixing with the breast milk. Severe constipation can be pretty serious in preemies, but Dr. Martin seemed confident that they would be a able to treat it and it would soon pass (no pun intended).

We're happy that this is probably only a temporary scare and that it wasn't something worse. The sad part is that Charlie had to go off feedings and get IVs again. So, he is obviously very uncomfortable due to both those things and it's really hard to see him so upset. Also, Shannon and I were kind of nervous about the calorie fortifier to begin with because we really wanted to avoid Charlie being given artificial food. It's hard because we're not doctors, but we still have intuitions and beliefs about what is good for Charlie and it's difficult to know how much to disagree with the doctors.

Regardless, we just want Charlie to get over this little road bump as soon as possible.

Ambushed by the nurses...

The nurses ambushed me today and made me hold Charlie. I wanted to hold him of course, it's just a little overwhelming and still kind of anxiety-provoking for me. I'd been meaning to get around to it, but I haven't been able to spend the 2-3 hours at a time that Shannon does when she does the Kangaroo Cares. Now Charlie can be held for shorter amounts of time and the developmental specialist said it's important for him to have lots of human contact since he's healthy enough to be picked up a lot now. They also put clothes on him for the first time because he no longer has any IVs or a PICC line. You can't see the clothes in the pictures because he's all swaddled.

More Photos of Charlie

Charlie's 1st encounter with wildlife
Charlie's 2nd encounter with wildlifeRelaxing on a break from C-PAP

"Please don't velcro that thing back on my head"
No more C-PAP, just Nasal Cannula
"Dear God, thank you for getting rid of my C-PAP""I hear you guys talking about me back there"

"I'll take it"

"Thank you!"

Charlie is doing great!!!

So sorry for the lack of updates. Charlie is continuing to do very well and just today was taken off of the C-PAP and put onto the nasal cannula oxygen. He may have to go back on the C-PAP, but he was doing so well, the doctors wanted to try moving forward. His feeds have increased to every 3 hours and he is gaining weight (up to 3lbs 4oz at the moment). Shannon has been able to do the kangaroo care with Charlie (basically holding him in a reclined position) almost every day lately for as long as 3 hours at a time. We have tons of pictures and more info, which I will post shortly. Again, so sorry for the lack of updates. I will attempt to post more frequently, but please know that no news is good news if I fail to post again for a while. That said, I should have time tomorrow night to post all the pictures from Charlie's first bath and other exciting events!

Some grainy digital camera video...

I'm going to bring my actual video camera at some point, but for now:

Pictures from yesterday and today...

A big step...

Today was a very big day for Charlie. The doctors decided that he was ready to go off of the positive pressure ventilator and graduate to the C-PAP. The C-PAP still helps puts air into Charlie's lungs, but it pushes air into Charlie through his nose instead of a breathing tube down his throat and he has to take breaths on his own. Although the doctors were confident that it was time to give the C-PAP a try, they were not equally confident that Charlie would take to it. However, he's been on it now since 2pm today (Friday) and so far he's had smooth sailing.
Ideally, Charlie would have been switched to CPAP just a few days after birth, but as we all know Charlie likes to do things the hard way.

In preparation for extubation and switching to the C-PAP, Charlie got loaded up with some caffeine (no joke). He is also slowly being weened off of his pain medications and sedation, because without the ventilator Charlie has to remember to breath on his own and the less knocked out he is, the better. Even before he received the caffeine this morning, he was very active and making all sorts of funny faces during his cares. He hates it when the nurses have to clean his feet and he makes a crying face, but otherwise, most of the faces are just him being excited and trying to look around. Every couple minutes he yawns too and the yawns get bigger and bigger as he flails around during cares.

We are completely ecstatic with the progress of the last few days. If things continue to go well with Charlie over the next day or so and he is able to stay on the CPAP, we will finally be able to hold him. There are still worries and many things that could go wrong, but for the moment Charlie is getting back on track after 5 weeks of going the wrong direction. They are still trying to make sure that Charlie completely clears his body of infection, in fact he had his PICC line removed today because it was still showing positive for bacteria. Also, his head has been a little swollen, which could also be from the infection, but nonetheless, it's something the doctors are keeping an eye on.

I'll post again tomorrow with an update of Charlie's C-PAP progress and some pictures.